The Discreet Hero

  “Well, everything’s following its predictable course,” stated Captain Silva when he finished reading. He seemed very satisfied at having foreseen everything that had happened. “They won’t give in, which was to be expected. That perseverance will be their ruin, I’ve already told you that.”

  “Then should I be very happy?” Felícito asked sarcastically. “Not satisfied with burning my office, they keep sending me anonymous letters, and now they’re giving me a two-week ultimatum, threatening me with something worse than the fire. I come here and you say that everything’s following its predictable course. The truth is you haven’t made a millimeter’s progress in your investigation, while these motherfuckers do whatever they damn well feel like doing to me.”

  “Who says we haven’t made any progress?” Captain Silva protested, gesturing and raising his voice. “We’ve made good progress. For the present we’ve determined that they’re not from any of the three known gangs in Piura that extort money from businessmen. Further, Sergeant Lituma has found something that might be a good clue.”

  He said this in a way that made Felícito believe him in spite of his skepticism.

  “It’s still too soon to tell you about it. But something is something. You’ll know as soon as we have anything concrete. Believe me, Señor Yanaqué. We’re dedicated to your case, body and soul. We spend more time on it than on all the rest. You’re our first priority.”

  Felícito told them his sons were worried and suggested that he hire a bodyguard, and he’d refused. They also suggested he buy a revolver. What did they think?

  “I don’t advise it,” Captain Silva answered immediately. “You should carry a pistol only when you’re prepared to use it, and you don’t look to me like someone capable of killing anybody. You’d put yourself in danger for no reason, Señor Yanaqué. Well, you’ll decide. If, in spite of my advice, you want a gun permit, we’ll expedite the application. You should know it takes time. You’ll have to pass a psychological test. Well, sleep on it.”

  Felícito reached home when it was already dark and in the garden crickets were singing and frogs croaking. He had supper right away: chicken broth, a salad, and some gelatin served to him by Saturnina. As he was going to the living room to watch the news on television, he noticed Gertrudis’s silent, bovine form approaching him. She held a newspaper in her hand.

  “The whole city’s talking about the notice you published in El Tiempo,” said his wife as she sat down in the easy chair next to the one he was in. “Even the priest mentioned it in his sermon at Mass this morning. All of Piura has read it. Except me.”

  “I didn’t want to worry you, that’s why I didn’t say anything to you,” Felícito apologized. “But if you have it there, why haven’t you read it?”

  He noticed her shifting in the chair, uncomfortable and averting her gaze.

  “I’ve forgotten how,” he heard her mumble. “Since I never read because of my eyes, I almost don’t understand what I read now. The letters dance around.”

  “You have to go to the optometrist then and have your eyes tested,” he admonished her. “How can you possibly have forgotten how to read? I don’t think that happens to anybody, Gertrudis.”

  “Well it’s happening to me,” she said. “Yes, I’ll go have my eyes tested one of these days. Why don’t you read me what you published in El Tiempo? I asked Saturnina, but she doesn’t know how to read either.”

  Gertrudis handed him the paper, and after he put on his glasses, Felícito read:

  Dear Spider Extortionists:

  Although you’ve burned the offices of Narihualá Transport, a business I created with the honest effort of a lifetime, I’m publicly informing you that I will never pay the amount you demand to give me protection. I’d rather you kill me. You won’t receive one cent from me, because I believe that honest, hardworking, decent people shouldn’t be afraid of crooks and thieves like you but should face you with determination until you’re sent to prison, which is where you belong.

  Signed,

  Felícito Yanaqué (I don’t have a maternal surname)

  The female shape was motionless a long while, ruminating on what she’d just heard. Finally, she murmured, “Then what the priest said in his sermon is true. You’re a brave man, Felícito. May the Captive Lord have mercy on us. If we get out of this, I’ll go to Ayabaca to pray to Him on His feast day, the Twelfth of October.”

  VI

  “There won’t be any story tonight, Rigoberto,” said Lucrecia when they lay down and turned off the light. His wife’s voice was tinged with anxiety.

  “I’m not in the mood tonight for fantasies either, my love.”

  “Did you finally hear from them?”

  Rigoberto said he had. Seven days had gone by since Ismael and Armida’s marriage, and he and Lucrecia had been worried the entire week, waiting for the hyenas’ reaction to what had occurred. But each day passed and brought nothing. Until two days ago, when Ismael’s lawyer, Dr. Claudio Arnillas, called Rigoberto to warn him. The twins had learned that the civil ceremony had taken place in the Chorrillos town hall and consequently knew he was one of the witnesses. He should be prepared, they’d be calling him any time now.

  They did, after a few hours.

  “Miki and Escobita asked to see me and I had to agree, what else could I do,” he added. “It’ll be tomorrow. I didn’t tell you right away so as not to ruin your day, Lucrecia. The problem finally caught up with us. I hope to get out of this with no broken bones, at least.”

  “Do you know something, Rigoberto? I don’t care that much about them, we already knew this was going to happen. We were expecting it, weren’t we? We’ll just have to swallow the unpleasantness, there’s nothing else to do.” His wife changed the subject. “For the moment, I don’t give a damn about Ismael’s marriage and the tantrums of a couple of parasites. What worries me more, what keeps me awake, is Fonchito.”

  “That little brat again?” Rigoberto said in alarm. “Have the appearances returned?”

  “They never went away, baby,” Lucrecia reminded him, her voice breaking. “I think what’s happening is that the boy doesn’t trust us and doesn’t talk to us anymore. That’s what upsets me most. Don’t you see how the poor kid is? Sad, absentminded, withdrawn. He used to tell us everything, but now I’m afraid he keeps things to himself. And maybe that’s why misery is eating him alive. Haven’t you noticed it? You’ve been so focused on the hyenas, you haven’t even seen how your own son has changed these past few months. If we don’t do something soon, anything could happen to him and we’d regret it for the rest of our lives. Can’t you see that?”

  “I see that very well.” Rigoberto turned over beneath the sheets. “It’s just that I don’t know what else we can do. If you know, tell me and we’ll do it. I don’t know what’s left. We’ve taken him to the best psychologist in Lima, I’ve spoken to his teachers, every day I try to talk to him and win back his trust. Tell me what else you want me to do and I’ll do it. I’m as worried about Fonchito as you are, Lucrecia. Do you think I don’t care about my son?”

  “I know, I know,” she agreed. “It’s occurred to me that maybe, well, I don’t know, don’t laugh, I’m so confused by what’s happening to him that, well, you know, it’s an idea, just a foolish idea.”

  “Tell me what you’re thinking and we’ll do it, Lucrecia. Whatever it is I’ll do it, I swear.”

  “Why don’t you talk to your friend Father O’Donovan? Well, don’t laugh, I don’t know.”

  “You want me to go and talk to a priest about this?” Rigoberto was surprised. He gave a little laugh. “Why? So he can exorcise Fonchito? Have you taken the joke about the devil seriously?”

  It had all started several months earlier, perhaps a year ago, in the most trivial way. At lunch one weekend, Fonchito, in an offhand manner, as if it weren’t at all important, suddenly told his father and stepmother about his first encounter with that individual.

  “I know what your name is,” t
he man said, smiling at him affably from the next table. “Your name is Luzbel.”

  The boy sat looking at him in surprise, not knowing what to say. He was drinking an Inca Kola from the bottle, his school knapsack on his lap, and only now had he noticed the man’s presence in the secluded little café in Barranco Park, not far from his house. The man had silvery temples, smiling eyes, and was extremely thin, dressed modestly but very properly. He wore a purple and white argyle pullover under his gray jacket. He was sipping a small cup of coffee.

  “I’ve absolutely forbidden you to talk to strangers, Fonchito,” Don Rigoberto reminded him. “Have you forgotten already?”

  “My name’s Alfonso, not Luzbel,” he replied. “My friends call me Foncho.”

  “Your papa’s saying this for your own good, honey,” his stepmother intervened. “You never know who could be one of those men who meddle with boys at the school gates.”

  “They’re drug dealers, or kidnappers, or pedophiles. So you just be careful.”

  “Well you ought to be named Luzbel.” The gentleman smiled. His slow, educated voice pronounced each word as precisely as a grammar teacher. His long, bony face looked recently shaved. He had long fingers with trimmed nails.

  “I swear he seemed like a very proper person, Papa.”

  “Do you know what ‘Luzbel’ means?”

  Fonchito shook his head.

  “‘Luzbel,’ that’s what he said to you?” Don Rigoberto became concerned. “Did you say ‘Luzbel’?”

  “The one who carries the light, the bearer of light,” the man explained calmly.

  “He talked like he was moving in slow motion, Papa.”

  “It’s a way of saying you’re a very handsome young man. When you grow up, all the girls in Lima will be crazy about you. Didn’t they teach you who Luzbel was in school?”

  “I can see it coming, I can imagine very well what he wanted,” Rigoberto murmured, giving him his full attention now.

  Fonchito shook his head again.

  “I knew I had to leave right away. I remember very clearly how often you told me I should never talk to strangers like that man who wanted to teach me what that name meant, Papa,” he explained, gesturing. “But … but, I tell you, there was something in him, his manners, the way he spoke, that made me think he wasn’t a bad man. Besides, he made me curious. At Markham I don’t remember them ever telling us about Luzbel.”

  “He was the most beautiful of the archangels, the favorite of God on high.” He wasn’t joking, he spoke very seriously, the hint of a benevolent smile on his carefully shaved face; he pointed a finger at the sky. “But Luzbel, since he knew he was so beautiful, became vain and committed the sin of pride. He even felt equal to God. Imagine. Then God punished him, and from being the angel of light, he became the prince of darkness. That’s how it all began. History, the appearance of time and evil, human life.”

  “He didn’t seem like a priest, Papa, or one of those Evangelical missionaries who give away religious magazines door to door. I asked him: ‘Are you a priest, señor?’ ‘No, no, me a priest, Fonchito, whatever gave you that idea?’ And he started to laugh.”

  “It was irresponsible of you to talk to him, he probably followed you here,” Doña Lucrecia scolded him, caressing his forehead. “Never again, never again. Promise me, honey.”

  “I have to go, señor,” said Fonchito, standing up. “They’re expecting me at home.”

  The gentleman did not attempt to keep him. As a kind of farewell, he smiled at him more openly, nodded slightly, and barely gestured goodbye with his hand.

  “You know very well who he was, don’t you?” Rigoberto repeated. “You’re fifteen now and know about these things, don’t you? A pervert. A pedophile. I suppose you understand what that means, I don’t need to explain it to you. He was looking you over. Lucrecia’s right. It was a mistake to answer him. You should have stopped everything and left as soon as he spoke to you.”

  “He didn’t look like a fag, Papa,” Fonchito reassured him. “I swear. I recognize queers on the prowl for boys right away because of how they look at me. Even before they open their mouths, honestly. And because they’re always trying to touch me. This man was just the opposite—very educated, very refined. He didn’t seem to have evil intentions, really.”

  “They’re the worst kind, Fonchito,” Doña Lucrecia declared, frankly alarmed. “Hypocrites, who don’t seem to be but are.”

  “Tell me, Papa,” Fonchito said, changing the subject. “What he told me about the archangel Luzbel, is it true?”

  “Well, it’s what the Bible says.” Don Rigoberto vacillated. “It’s true for believers, at any rate. It’s incredible that at the Markham Academy they don’t have you read the Bible, at least for your general education. But let’s not get distracted. I’ll tell you again, son: It’s absolutely forbidden for you to accept anything from strangers. No invitations, no conversations, no nothing. You understand, don’t you? Or do you want me to forbid you to go out at all?”

  “I’m too old for that now, Papa. Please, I’m fifteen.”

  “Yes, as old as Methuselah.” Doña Lucrecia laughed. But Rigoberto immediately heard her sighing in the dark. “If we’d only known how far this would go. My God, what a nightmare. I think it’s gone on for a year.”

  “A year or even a little more, love.”

  Rigoberto forgot about the stranger who talked to Fonchito about Luzbel in the café in Barranco Park almost immediately. But he was reminded and became uneasy a week later when, according to his son, as he was coming back from playing soccer at San Agustín Academy, the same gentleman showed up again.

  “I had just taken a shower in the San Agustín lockers and was going to meet up with Chato Pezzuolo so we could ride the jitney together to Barranco. And you won’t believe it but there he was, Papa. Him, the same man.”

  “Hello, Luzbel.” The gentleman greeted him with the same affectionate smile. “Remember me?”

  He was sitting in the hall that separated the soccer field from the exit door of San Agustín Academy. Behind him was the dense serpent of cars, trucks, and buses moving along Avenida Javier Prado. Some vehicles had their headlights on.

  “Yes, yes, I remember,” said Fonchito, sitting up straight. And, in an unequivocal tone, he confronted him. “Excuse me, but my papa has forbidden me to talk to strangers.”

  “Rigoberto is absolutely right,” the man said, nodding. He was wearing the same gray suit as last time, but the purple sweater was different, without the white diamond pattern. “Lima is filled with bad people. There are perverts and degenerates everywhere. And good-looking boys like you are their favorite targets.”

  Don Rigoberto opened his eyes very wide.

  “He mentioned me by name? Did he say he knew me?”

  “Do you know my papa, señor?”

  “And I knew Eloísa, your mama, too,” the gentleman replied, becoming very serious. “And I also know Lucrecia, your stepmother. I can’t say we’re friends, because we hardly see one another. But I like both of them very much; since the first time I saw them, they seemed a magnificent couple. I’m glad to know they take good care of you and look out for you. A boy as handsome as you is not at all safe in the Sodom and Gomorrah that Lima is.”

  “Could you tell me what this Sodom and Gomorrah is, Papa?” Fonchito asked, and Rigoberto noticed a sly gleam in his eyes.

  “Two ancient cities, very corrupt, and because they were, God destroyed them,” he replied cautiously. “It’s what believers believe, at least. You have to read the Bible a little, son. For your general education. At least the New Testament. The world we live in is filled with biblical references, and if you don’t understand them, you’ll live in total confusion and ignorance. For example, you won’t understand anything of classical art or ancient history. Are you sure he said he knew Lucrecia and me?”

  “And my mama too,” Fonchito specified. “He even said her name: Eloísa. He said it in a way that made it impossible not to
believe he was telling the truth, Papa.”

  “Did he tell you his name?”

  “Well, not that,” Fonchito said, disconcerted. “I didn’t ask him and I didn’t even give him time to tell me. Since you ordered me not even to say a word to him, I ran away. But I’m sure he knows you, knows both of you. If not, he wouldn’t have told me your name, he wouldn’t have known my mother’s name, or that my stepmother is named Lucrecia.”

  “If by any chance you run into him again, be sure to ask what his name is,” said Rigoberto, scrutinizing the boy with suspicion. Could what he was telling them be true, or was it another of his inventions? “But don’t talk to him, let alone accept a Coca-Cola or anything else. I’m more and more convinced he’s one of those depraved people who wander loose through Lima looking for young boys. What else would he be doing at the San Agustín Academy?”

  “Do you want me to tell you something, Rigoberto?” said Doña Lucrecia, pressing her body against his in the dark as if reading his mind. “Sometimes I think he’s making all of it up. Typical of Fonchito and his fantasies. He’s played that trick on us before, hasn’t he? And I tell myself there’s nothing to worry about, that this gentleman doesn’t exist and can’t exist, that Fonchito invented everything to make himself interesting and to make us uneasy and dependent on him. But the problem is that Fonchito is an expert trickster. Because when he tells us about their encounters, it seems impossible that what he’s saying isn’t true. He speaks so honestly, so innocently, so persuasively—well, I don’t know. Don’t you react the same way?”

  “Of course I do, just like you,” Rigoberto confessed, embracing his wife, warming himself with her body and warming her. “A great trickster, of course. I only hope he’s invented this whole story, Lucrecia. I hope, I hope. At first I didn’t think too much about it, but now these appearances are beginning to obsess me. I start to read and the little brat distracts me, I listen to music and there he is, I look at my prints and what I see is his face, which isn’t a face but a question mark.”