“Now they’ll try to scare you to soften you up,” the captain explained as if he were chatting about how mild the night was. “To make you believe they’re powerful and untouchable. And pow! That’s where they’ll make their first mistake. Then we’ll begin to track them down. Patience, Señor Yanaqué. Though you may not believe it, things are going well.”
“That’s easy to say when you’re watching from the audience,” the trucker philosophized. “Not when you’re receiving threats that upset your life and turn it upside down. You want me to be patient while these outlaws plan something bad against me or my family to soften me up?”
“Bring Señor Yanaqué a glass of water, Lituma,” Captain Silva ordered the sergeant with his usual sarcasm. “I don’t want you to have a fainting fit, because then we’ll be accused of violating the human rights of a respectable Piuran businessman.”
This cop wasn’t joking, thought Felícito. Yes, he could have a heart attack and drop dead right here on this filthy floor covered with cigarette butts. A sad death in a police station, sick with frustration because some faceless, nameless sons of bitches were toying with him, drawing spiders. He recalled his father and was moved as he evoked his hard face: the lines like knife wounds, always serious, very dark, the bristly hair and toothless mouth of his progenitor. “What should I do, Father. I know, not let them walk all over me, not give them a cent of what I’ve earned honestly. But what other advice would you give if you were alive? Spend my time waiting for the next anonymous letter? This is making me a nervous wreck, Father.” Why had he always called him Father and never Papa? Not even in these secret dialogues with him did he dare to use the informal tú. Like his sons with him. Tiburcio and Miguel had never used tú with him. But they both did with their mother.
“Do you feel better, Señor Yanaqué?”
“Yes, thank you.” He took another sip from the glass of water the sergeant had brought him and stood up.
“Let us know about any new developments right away,” the captain urged him as a way of saying goodbye. “Trust us. Your case is ours now, Señor Yanaqué.”
The officer’s words sounded sarcastic to him. He left the station profoundly depressed. For the entire walk along Calle Arequipa to his house he moved slowly, close to the buildings. He had the disagreeable sensation that someone was following him, someone who liked to think he was demolishing Felícito bit by bit, plunging him into insecurity and uncertainty, a real cocksucker so sure that sooner or later he’d defeat him. “You’re wrong, motherfucker,” he murmured.
At the house, Gertrudis was surprised he’d come home so early. She asked whether the Truckers’ Association of Piura board of directors, of which Felícito was a member, had canceled their Friday-night dinner at Club Grau. Did Gertrudis know about Mabel? How could she not know? But in these eight years she’d never given the slightest hint that she did: not one complaint, not one scene, not one innuendo, not one insinuation. How could she not have heard rumors or gossip that he had a girlfriend? Wasn’t Piura a pretty small world? Everybody knew everybody’s business, especially what they did in bed. Maybe she knew and preferred to hide it to avoid trouble and just get along. But sometimes Felícito told himself no: Given the quiet life his wife led—no relatives, only leaving the house to go to Mass or novenas or rosaries in the cathedral—it really was possible she didn’t know a thing.
“I came home early because I don’t feel very well. I think I’m getting a cold.”
“Then you didn’t eat. Do you want me to fix you something? I’ll do it, Saturnina’s gone home.”
“No, I’m not hungry. I’ll watch television for a little while and go to bed. Anything new?”
“I had a letter from my sister Armida, in Lima. It seems she’s getting married.”
“Ah, that’s nice, we’ll have to send her a present.” Felícito didn’t even know Gertrudis had a sister in the capital. First he’d heard about it. He tried to remember. Could she be that little barefoot girl, very young, who ran around El Algarrobo boardinghouse where he met his wife? No, that kid was the daughter of a truck driver named Argimiro Trelles who’d lost his wife.
Gertrudis agreed and went off to her room. Ever since Miguel and Tiburcio had left to live on their own, Felícito and his wife had separate rooms. He saw her shapeless bulk disappearing in the small dark courtyard, around which the bedrooms, dining room, living room, and kitchen were located. He’d never loved her the way you love a woman, but he felt affection for her mixed with some pity, because even though she didn’t complain, Gertrudis must be very frustrated with a husband who was so cold and unloving. It couldn’t be otherwise in a marriage that wasn’t the result of falling in love but of a drunken spree and a fuck in the dark. Or, who knows. It was a subject that, in spite of doing everything he could to forget it, came to Felícito’s mind from time to time and ruined his day. Gertrudis was the daughter of the owner of El Algarrobo, a cheap boardinghouse on Calle Ramón Castilla in the area that back then was the poorest in El Chipe, where a good number of truck drivers would stay. Felícito had gone to bed with her a couple of times, almost without realizing it, on two nights of carousing and cane liquor. He did it because he could, because she was there and was a woman, not because he wanted the girl. Nobody wanted her. Who’d want a broad who was half cross-eyed, slovenly, and always smelled of garlic and onion? As a result of one of those two fucks without love and almost without desire, Gertrudis became pregnant. That, at least, is what she and her mother told Felícito. The owner of the boardinghouse, Doña Luzmila, whom the drivers called the Boss Lady, filed a complaint against him with the police. He had to go and make a statement and acknowledge before the police chief that he’d gone to bed with a minor. He agreed to marry her because it bothered his conscience that a child of his might be born without a father and because he believed the story. Afterward, when Miguelito was born, the doubts began. Was he really his son? He never got anything out of Gertrudis, of course, and he didn’t talk about it with Adelaida or anybody else. But for all these years he’d lived with the suspicion that he wasn’t. Because he wasn’t the only one who went to bed with the Boss Lady’s daughter during those little parties they had on Saturday nights at El Algarrobo. Miguel didn’t look anything like him; the boy had white skin and light eyes. Why did Gertrudis and her mother make him the one responsible? Maybe because he was single, a decent guy, hardworking, and because the Boss Lady wanted to marry off her daughter any way she could. Maybe Miguel’s real father was some white guy who was married or had a bad reputation. From time to time the question returned and ruined his mood. He never let anyone know about it, beginning with Miguel himself. He always treated him as if he were as much his son as Tiburcio. If he sent him into the army, it was to do him a favor, because the boy was leading a dissipated life. He’d never shown any preference for the younger son who was his spitting image: a Chulucano cholo from head to foot, with not a trace of white in his face or body.
Gertrudis had been hardworking and self-sacrificing during the difficult years. And afterward too, when Felícito had opened Narihualá Transport and things got better. Even though they had a nice house, a servant, and dependable income, she still lived with the austerity of the years when they were poor. She never asked for money for anything personal, only food and other daily expenses. From time to time he had to insist that she buy herself shoes or a new dress. But even though she did, she always wore flip-flops and a robe that looked like a cassock. When had she become so religious? She wasn’t like that in the beginning. It seemed to him that over the years Gertrudis had turned into a piece of furniture, that she’d stopped being a living person. They spent entire days not exchanging a word except for good morning and good night. His wife had no women friends, she didn’t pay visits or receive them, she didn’t even go to see her children when they let days go by without coming to see her. Tiburcio and Miguel dropped by the house occasionally, always for birthdays and Christmas, and whenever they did she was affectionate wi
th them, but except for these occasions, she didn’t seem to have much interest in her sons either. Once in a while Felícito suggested going to the movies, taking a walk along the seawall, or listening to the Sunday band concert on the Plaza de Armas after noon Mass. She agreed docilely, but these were excursions during which they barely said a word, and Gertrudis seemed impatient to get back to the house, to sit in her rocking chair at the edge of the small courtyard, beside the radio or the television, inevitably tuning in to religious programs. As far as Felícito could recall, he’d never had an argument or a disagreement with this woman who always yielded to his will with total submission.
He stayed in the living room for a while, listening to the news. Crimes, muggings, kidnappings, the usual. One of the news items made his hair stand on end. The announcer said that a new method for stealing cars was becoming popular with thieves in Lima. They took advantage of a red light to throw a live rat inside a car driven by a woman. Overcome by fear and revulsion, she’d let go of the wheel and bolt out of the vehicle, screaming. Then the thieves would take it, very calmly. A live rat on their skirts, how indecent! Television poisoned people with so much blood and filth. Usually, instead of the news, he’d put on a Cecilia Barraza record. But now he anxiously followed the commentary of this newscaster on 24 Horas, who stated that crime was on the rise all over the country. “You’re telling me,” he thought.
He went to bed at about eleven, and even though he fell asleep immediately, no doubt because of the intense emotions of the day, he woke at two in the morning. He could barely close his eyes again. He was assaulted by fears, a sensation of catastrophe, and, most of all, the bitterness of feeling useless and impotent in the face of what was happening to him. When he did doze off, his head seethed with images of diseases, accidents, and misfortunes. He had a nightmare about spiders.
He got up at six. Next to his bed, watching himself in the mirror, he did qigong exercises, thinking, as usual, about his teacher, the storekeeper Lau. The posture of the tree that sways forward and back, from left to right and around, moved by the wind. With his feet planted firmly on the floor, trying to empty his mind, he swayed, looking for his center. Looking for his center. Not losing his center. Raising his arms and lowering them very slowly, a very light drizzle that fell from the sky, refreshing his body and his soul, calming his nerves and his muscles. Keeping the sky and the earth in their place and not allowing them to join, with his arms—one raised, stopping the sky, the other lowered, holding down the earth—and then, massaging his arms, his face, his kidneys, his legs to get rid of the tensions stagnating everywhere in his body. Parting the waters with his hands and bringing them together again. Warming the lumbar region with gentle, slow massage. Opening his arms the way a butterfly spreads its wings. At first the extraordinary slowness of the movements, the slow-motion breathing that was meant to keep the air passing to every corner of the organism, made him impatient, but over the years he’d grown accustomed to it. Now he understood that in this slowness lay the benefit brought to his body and spirit by the delicate, deep inhalation and exhalation, the movements with which, by raising one hand and extending the other against the ground, his knees slightly bent, he kept the stars in place in the firmament and averted the apocalypse. When, at the end, he closed his eyes and remained motionless for a few minutes, his hands clasped as if in prayer, half an hour had gone by. Now the clear, white light of a Piuran dawn was coming through the windows.
Some loud knocks at the street door interrupted his qigong. He went to open it, thinking that this morning Saturnina was early, because she never came before seven. But when he opened the door, the person he found on the threshold was Lucindo.
“Run, run, Don Felícito.” The blind man from the corner was very agitated. “A gentleman told me your office on Avenida Sánchez Cerro is on fire and you should call the fire department and get over there fast.”
IV
The wedding of Ismael and Armida was the shortest, most sparsely attended that Rigoberto and Lucrecia could remember, even though it provided them with quite a few surprises. It took place very early in the morning, in the town hall of Chorrillos, when the streets were still filled with pupils in uniform heading for school and office workers from Barranco, Miraflores, and Chorrillos hurrying to work in jitneys, cars, and buses. Ismael, who’d taken the expected precautions to keep his sons from finding out ahead of time, let Rigoberto know only the night before that at nine sharp he should appear at the office of the mayor of Chorrillos, accompanied by his wife if he so desired, and be sure to bring his identity documents. When they reached the town hall, the bride and groom were there with Narciso, who had on a dark suit, white shirt, and blue tie with little gold stars for the occasion.
Ismael was dressed in gray, with his usual elegance, and Armida wore a tailored suit, new shoes, and was visibly constrained and confused. She called Doña Lucrecia “señora” even after Lucrecia had embraced the bride and asked her to use informal address. “Now you and I are going to be good friends, Armida.” But for the ex-maid it was difficult, if not impossible, to comply.
The ceremony was very quick; the mayor stumbled through the obligations and duties of the contracting parties, and as soon as he finished reading, the witnesses signed the register. There were the obligatory embraces and handshakes. But it all seemed cold, thought Rigoberto, false and artificial. The surprise came when Ismael turned to Rigoberto and Lucrecia with a sly little smile as they were leaving the office: “And now, my friends, if you’re free, I’ll invite you to the religious ceremony.” They were going to be married in a church as well! “This is more serious than it seems,” Lucrecia remarked as they went to the old Church of Nuestra Señora del Carmen de la Legua on the outskirts of Callao, where the Catholic wedding took place.
“The only explanation is that your friend Ismael is moonstruck and has really fallen in love,” Lucrecia added. “Do you think he’s senile? He really doesn’t look it. My God, who can make heads or tails of all this? I certainly can’t.”
Everything was prepared in the church where, in colonial times, they say travelers from Callao to Lima always stopped to pray to the Blessed Virgin del Carmen for protection from the gangs of thieves who swarmed over the open countryside, which in those days separated the port from the capital of the viceroyalty. The priest took no more than twenty minutes to marry the couple and give his blessing to the newlyweds. There was no celebration at all, not even a toast, except, once more, congratulations and hugs from Narciso, Rigoberto, and Lucrecia. Only at that moment did Ismael reveal that he and Armida were leaving for the airport to begin their honeymoon. Their luggage was already in the trunk of the car. “But don’t ask me where we’re going, because I won’t tell you. Ah, and before I forget. Be sure to read the society page in tomorrow’s El Comercio. You’ll see the notice informing Limeñan society of our wedding.” He guffawed and gave a mischievous wink. He and Armida left immediately, driven by Narciso, who’d gone from being a witness to resuming his position as Don Ismael Carrera’s driver.
“I still don’t believe all this is happening,” Lucrecia repeated, as she and Rigoberto were returning home to Barranco along the Costanera. “Doesn’t it seem like a game, a play, a masquerade? Well, I don’t know what, but not something that actually happens in real life.”
“Yes, yes, you’re right,” her husband agreed. “This morning’s show seemed unreal to me. Well, now Ismael and Armida are leaving to have a good time. And be free of what’s coming, what’s going to happen to those of us who stay here, I mean. The best thing would be if we left soon for Europe. Why not move up our trip, Lucrecia?”
“No, we can’t, not while we have this problem with Fonchito,” said Lucrecia. “Wouldn’t you feel bad about going away now, leaving him alone, when his mind’s so confused?”
“Of course I would,” Don Rigoberto corrected himself. “If it weren’t for those damn appearances, I’d have bought our tickets by now. You don’t know how I’m looking forwa
rd to this trip, Lucrecia. I’ve studied the itinerary with a magnifying glass down to the smallest detail. You’re going to love it, you’ll see.”
“The twins won’t find out until tomorrow, when they see the notice,” Lucrecia calculated. “When they learn the lovebirds have flown, the first person they’ll ask for an explanation is you, I’m positive.”
“Of course they’ll ask me,” Rigoberto agreed. “But since that won’t happen until tomorrow, let’s have a day of total peace and tranquility today. Let’s not talk about the hyenas again, please.”
They tried. They didn’t mention Ismael Carrera’s sons at all at lunch, or that afternoon, or at dinner. When Fonchito came home from school, they told him about the wedding. The boy, who since his encounters with Edilberto Torres always seemed distracted, absorbed in his own thoughts, didn’t seem to think the news was so important. He listened to them, smiled to be polite, and went to his room because, he said, he had a lot of homework to do. But even though Rigoberto and Lucrecia didn’t mention the twins for the rest of the day, they both knew that no matter what they did, or what they talked about, that uneasiness at the back of their minds remained: How would the twins react when they found out about their father’s wedding? It wouldn’t be a civilized, rational reaction, of course, because the brothers weren’t civilized or rational; there was a reason they were called hyenas, a perfect nickname given to them in their neighborhood when they were still in short pants.
After dinner, Rigoberto went to his study and prepared, once again, to make one of the comparisons he loved so much because they absorbed his attention and made him forget everything else. This time he listened to two recordings of one of his favorite pieces of music, the Brahms Concerto No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra, op. 83, played by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted in the first instance by Claudio Abbado, with Maurizio Pollini as soloist, and in the second with Sir Simon Rattle as conductor and Yefim Bronfman at the piano. Both versions were superb. He’d never been able to decide unequivocally for one or the other; each time he’d find that both, being different, were equally excellent. But tonight something happened to him with Bronfman’s interpretation at the beginning of the second movement—Allegro appassionato—that settled it: He felt his eyes fill with tears. He’d rarely wept listening to a concerto: Was it Brahms, or the pianist, or the emotion caused in him by the day’s events?