Crisanto Maravillas had resigned himself to not marrying his beloved carnally, to merely communicating with her in this subliminal fashion in the chapel. But he never resigned himself to the thought—cruel for a man whose only beauty was his art—that Sister Fátima was not able to hear his music, those songs that she unwittingly inspired. He suspected (a certainty for anyone who cast one glance at the thick fortified walls of the convent) that the serenades which, risking pneumonia, he had been offering her each morning at dawn for twenty years never reached the ears of his beloved. One day Crisanto Maravillas began to incorporate religious and mystical themes in his repertory: the miracles of Saint Rose of Lima, the (zoological?) feats of Saint Martin of Porres, stories of the martyrs, and maledictions of Pontius Pilate followed songs celebrating humble folkways. His success among the masses was in no way diminished thereby, and at the same time he attracted a new legion of fanatical admirers: priests and monks, nuns, Acción Católica. Peruvian music, ennobled, perfumed with incense, enriched by sacred themes, began to leap over the walls that had imprisoned it in drawing rooms and clubs and be heard in places where it would previously have been inconceivable: churches, processions, retreat houses, seminaries.
This clever plan took him ten years to carry out, but in the end it was successful. The convent of Las Descalzas could not refuse the offer it received one day: the bard beloved by all the parish, the poet of church gatherings, the musician of the Stations of the Cross offered to give in its chapel and cloisters a song recital to raise money for African missionaries. The archbishop of Lima (wisdom clad in purple, and ear of a connoisseur) sent word that he authorized the performance and that, for a few hours, he would suspend the rules governing the order in order to enable the strictly cloistered Carmelites to enjoy the music. He himself planned to attend the recital with his retinue of dignitaries.
The event, a red-letter day in the history of the City of the Viceroys, took place on the day that Crisanto reached the prime of life: his fiftieth birthday? He was a man with a penetrating forehead, a broad nose, an aquiline gaze, the very soul of rectitude and goodness, and possessed of a graceful physical bearing that mirrored the beauty of his spirit.
Even though (precautions on the part of the individual whom society tramples to bits) personal invitations had been sent out and fair warning had been given that no one without one would be admitted to the recital, reality weighed more heavily in the balance: the police lines, under the command of the celebrated Sergeant Lituma and his right-hand man Corporal Jaime Concha, gave way like tissue paper before the multitudes. They had been gathered there since the evening before, and now they (reverently) invaded the cloisters, the galleries, the stairways, the vestibules. The invited guests were obliged to enter through a secret door leading directly to the balconies above, where, crowded together behind ancient railings, they settled down to enjoy the performance.
When, at 6 p.m., the bard (conquistador’s smile, navy-blue suit, lithe step of a gymnast, flowing golden locks) entered, escorted by his orchestra and chorus, an ovation that echoed from the rafters resounded in the chapel of Las Descalzas. As Gumercindo Maravillas knelt there, reciting an Our Father and an Ave Maria in his baritone voice, his eyes (as melting as honey?) identified, among the heads, a host of friends.
Sitting in the first row was a celebrated astrologer, Professor (Ezequiel?) Delfín Acémila, who, scrutinizing the heavens, measuring the tides, and making Cabalistic passes, had foretold the fate of the city’s millionairesses, and (simplicity of heart of the savant who plays games of marbles) had a weakness for Peruvian music. Also present, dressed to the nines, with a red carnation in his buttonhole and a brand-new straw hat, was the most popular black in Lima, the one who, having crossed the ocean as a stowaway in the hold of—an airplane?—had made a new life for himself here (devoted to the civic pastime of killing rodents through the use of poisons typical of his tribe, thereby earning a fortune?). And (coincidences that are the work of the Devil or sheer chance) among those present, attracted by their common admiration for the musician, were the Jehovah’s Witness Lucho Abril Marroquín, who by virtue of the epic deed he had performed (guillotining the index finger of his right hand with a keen-edged paper knife?) had earned himself the nickname of Maimie, and Sarita Huanca Salaverría, the charming, capricious Victorian belle who had demanded such a great sacrifice of him as a token of his love. And how could the bard of Lima have failed to see, deathly pale and anemic amid the multitude of devotees of Peruvian music, Richard Quinteros, the young man from Miraflores? Taking advantage of the fact that, for the one and only time in his life, the doors of the convent of the Carmelites had been opened, he had slipped into the cloister in the midst of the crowd to see, if only from a distance, that sister of his (Sister Fátima? Sister Lituma? Sister Lucía?), sequestered within its walls by her parents in order to rid her of her incestuous love. And even the Berguas, deaf-mutes who never left the Pensión Colonial where they lived, devoting their lives to the altruistic occupation of teaching poor deaf-and-dumb children to communicate with each other by means of gestures and grimaces, had come, infected by the universal curiosity, to see (since they were unable to hear) the idol of Lima.
The apocalypse that was to plunge the city into mourning was unleashed after Father Gumercindo Tello had begun his recital. As the hundreds of people gathered in the doorways and the patios, on the stairways, the rooftop terraces listened, hypnotized, the singer, accompanied by the organ, was interpreting the last notes of the exquisite apostrophe: “My Religion Is Not for Sale.” The first wave of applause that greeted Father Gumercindo (good and evil that mingle like coffee and milk) was the undoing of the audience. For, too absorbed in the song, too eager to join in the plaudits, the bravos, the cheers, they confused the first symptoms of the cataclysm with the tumultuous emotion aroused in them by the Canary of the Lord. They did not react in the few seconds during which it was still possible to run, to leave the building, to seek safety. When (volcanic roar that shatters the eardrums) they discovered that it was not themselves but the earth that was trembling, it was too late. For the only three doorways of the convent of the Carmelites (happenstance, will of God, blunder of the architect?) had been blocked by the first cave-ins, and the great stone angel now obstructing the main portal had crushed beneath it Sergeant Crisanto Maravillas, who, aided by Corporal Jaime Concha and Private Lituma, had been trying to evacuate the convent as the first tremors were felt. The valiant citizen and his two aides were the first victims of the subterranean conflagration. There, thus, met their end (cockroaches squashed by a shoe sole), buried beneath an impassive granite statue, in the holy portals of the convent of the Carmelites (to await the Last Judgment?), the three musketeers of the Peruvian Corps of Firemen.
Meanwhile, inside the convent, the faithful brought together there by music and religion died like flies. The applause had been followed by a chorus of lamentations, screams, shrieks of terror. The noble stones, the ancient bricks were unable to withstand the—convulsive, interminable—quaking of the depths. One by one the walls cracked apart and collapsed, crushing to death those who were trying to scale them to reach the street. Several celebrated exterminators of mice and rats thus met their death: the Berguas? Seconds later (din of Hell, dust clouds of a tornado) the second-floor galleries caved in, sending those who had sought places higher up to better hear Mother Gumercinda hurtling down (living projectiles, human meteors) on the multitude crowded together in the courtyard below. There, thus, met his death, his skull smashed in on the flagstones, the Lima psychologist Lucho Abril Marroquín, who had rid half the citizens of that capital of their neuroses thanks to a treatment he had invented (consisting of playing a noisy game of ninepins?). But it was the collapse of the roof of the Carmelite convent that produced the greatest number of fatalities in the shortest time. There, thus, met her death, among others, Mother Lucía Acémila, who had gained such world renown after deserting her former sect, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, by writing a b
ook praised by the Pope: “Deriding the Tree Trunk in the Name of the Cross.”
The death of Sister Fátima and Richard (irresistible rush of passion that neither blood nor the veil can stay) was even more tragic. During the centuries that the fire lasted, the two of them remained unharmed, locked in each other’s arms, while round about them people were perishing, asphyxiated, trampled to death, burned to cinders. The fire was now over, and amid ashes and thick clouds of smoke, the two lovers still embraced, surrounded by corpses. The time to make their way out into the street had come. Grasping Mother Fátima by the waist, Richard had dragged her over to one of the breaches opened in the walls by the raging fire. But the lovers had taken only a few steps when (infamy of the carnivorous earth? the justice of Heaven?) the earth yawned open beneath their feet. The fire had consumed the trap door concealing the colonial crypt in which the Carmelite sisters preserved the bones of their dead; it was through this opening that the (Luciferian?) brother and sister fell, their bodies shattering to bits against the ossuary below.
Was it the Devil who carried them off? Was Hell the epilogue of their love? Or was it God, taking pity on their terrible suffering, who bore them up to Heaven? Had this story of blood, song, mysticism, and fire ended, or would it have an extraterrestrial sequel?
Nineteen.
Javier phoned us from Lima at seven o’clock in the morning. It was a very bad connection, but even all the crackling and buzzing on the line could not conceal the alarm in his voice.
“Bad news,” he told me straight out. “Lots of bad news.”
About fifty kilometers outside Lima, the jitney in which he and Pascual had been returning to the city the night before had gone off the road and rolled over in the sand. Neither of them had been hurt, but the driver and another passenger had suffered serious contusions; it had been a nightmare trying to get a car to stop in the middle of the night and lend them a hand. Javier was dead tired by the time he got back to his pensión. And on his arrival there he’d had an even worse scare. My father had been waiting for him at the door. Livid with rage, he had approached Javier, brandishing a revolver and threatening to shoot him if he didn’t reveal instantly where Aunt Julia and I were. Utterly panic-stricken (“Till that moment, the only time I’d ever seen revolvers was in the movies, old pal”), Javier had sworn to him, taking his mother and all the saints as his witnesses, that he had no idea, that he hadn’t seen me for a week. My father had finally calmed down a little and left Javier a letter that he was to deliver to me personally. In a daze after what had just happened, Javier (“I had quite a night of it, Varguitas, believe me”) had decided, once my father had left, to go have a word with my Uncle Lucho straightway to find out whether my mother’s side of the family had also worked itself up into such an insane rage. My uncle had received him in his bathrobe. They had talked for nearly an hour. Uncle Lucho, it turned out, wasn’t furious, just sad, worried, troubled. Javier confirmed the fact that Aunt Julia and I had complied with all the formalities and were legally married, and also assured my uncle that he, too, had done his best to dissuade me, to no avail. Uncle Lucho suggested that Aunt Julia and I return to Lima at once to take the bull by the horns and try to settle things.
“The big problem is your father,” Javier said, winding up his report. “The rest of the family will eventually accept the situation. But your dad’s foaming at the mouth. You can’t imagine what he says in that letter he left for you!”
I scolded him for reading other people’s letters, and told him that we were coming back to Lima immediately, that I would come by to see him at the office where he worked or would phone him. As she was getting dressed, I told Aunt Julia everything he’d said, not hiding anything from her, but at the same time trying to make everything that had happened sound less violent.
“What I don’t like at all is the business with the revolver,” she commented. “I presume that the person he really wants to put a bullet through is me, right? Listen, Varguitas, I do hope my father-in-law won’t shoot me right in the middle of my honeymoon. And isn’t it awful about that jitney accident? Poor Javier! Poor Pascual! Our madness has really gotten them into a heap of trouble.”
She wasn’t the least bit frightened or upset by the prospects that lay in store for us; she seemed very happy and determined to face up to any and every disaster that might await us. And that was how I felt, too. We paid the hotel bill, walked over to the Plaza de Armas to have our morning coffee, and half an hour later were on our way back to Lima, in an ancient jitney. During almost the entire trip we kept kissing on the mouth, on the cheeks, on the hands, whispering into each other’s ear that we loved each other, and paying no attention to the uneasy looks of the other passengers and the driver, who kept sneaking glances at us in the rearview mirror.
We arrived in Lima around 10 a.m. It was a gray day, the fog turned all the people and all the buildings into ghostly apparitions, and the air was so damp we felt as though we were breathing water. The jitney dropped us off at Aunt Olga’s and Uncle Lucho’s. Before knocking on the door, we squeezed each other’s hand hard to screw up our courage. Aunt Julia had turned very serious all of a sudden and I could feel my heart pounding.
It was Uncle Lucho himself who came to the door to let us in. He gave us a smile that seemed terribly forced, kissed Aunt Julia on the cheek, and kissed me, too.
“Your sister’s still in bed, but she’s awake,” he said to Aunt Julia, pointing toward the bedroom. “Go on in.”
He and I went and sat down in the living room, from which one could see the Jesuit seminary, the breakwater, and the sea when there was no fog. The only things visible at that moment were the blurred outlines of the wall and the red-brick rooftop terrace of the seminary.
“I’m not going to pull your ears, because you’re too big for that now,” Uncle Lucho murmured. He looked really dejected, and his face showed that he’d spent a sleepless night. “Do you have any idea, though, what a mess you’ve gotten yourself into?”
“It was the only way to keep them from separating us,” I said, a reply I’d already rehearsed in my mind. “Julia and I love each other,” I went on. “We haven’t done anything on the spur of the moment. We’ve thought everything through and we know what we’re doing. I promise you we’re going to make out all right.”
“You’re still just a kid, you don’t have a profession or even a roof over your head, you’ll have to give up your studies and work like a slave to support your wife,” Uncle Lucho muttered, lighting a cigarette and shaking his head. “You’ve cooked your own goose. Nobody’s happy about the situation, because everybody in the family was hoping you’d amount to something. We’re heartsick at seeing you dive headfirst into mediocrity because of a mere passing fancy.”
“I’m not going to give up my studies, I’m going to get my degree, I’m going to do exactly what I would have done if I hadn’t gotten married,” I assured him heatedly. “You have to believe me and make the family believe me. Julia’s going to help me, I’ll study now, I’ll feel more like working.”
“For the moment, the first order of business is to pacify your father, who’s fit to be tied,” Uncle Lucho said, in a less stern tone of voice all of a sudden. He’d done his duty and pulled my ears, and now he seemed ready to help me. “He won’t listen to reason, and is threatening to turn Julia in to the police and I don’t know what-all.”
I said I’d talk to him and try to get him to accept the facts. Uncle Lucho looked me up and down: it was shameful for a brand-new bridegroom to be going around in a dirty shirt. I should go back to my grandparents’ house, take a bath, change my clothes, and then reassure them, because they were very worried about me. We talked a while more, and even had coffee together, but Julia still hadn’t come out of Aunt Olga’s bedroom. I strained my ears trying to make out whether they were weeping, shouting, arguing with each other inside. But not a sound came through the closed door. Aunt Julia finally came out, by herself. Her face was bright red, as though she’d b
een out in the sun too long, but she was smiling.
“Well, you’re alive at least and all in one piece,” Uncle Lucho said to her. “I thought your sister was going to snatch you bald-headed.”
“She very nearly slapped my face when she first saw me,” Aunt Julia confessed, sitting down beside me. “She said awful things to me, naturally. But I take it that, despite everything, I can stay here with you till things blow over.”
I rose to my feet and said I had to go to Panamericana: it would be tragic if I lost my job at this point. Uncle Lucho saw me to the door, told me to come back for lunch, and when I kissed Aunt Julia goodbye as I left, I saw him smile.
I rushed to the corner grocery store to call my cousin Nancy, and luckily for me she was the one who answered the phone. When she recognized my voice, she was struck speechless for a moment. We agreed to meet in ten minutes in the Parque Salazar. When I arrived at the park, she was already there, dying of curiosity. Before she’d tell me anything, I had to recount the whole Chincha adventure and answer the endless questions she asked me about the most unexpected details: what dress, for instance, Aunt Julia had worn for the wedding ceremony. What delighted her and made her burst into peals of laughter (though she didn’t believe me) was my slightly distorted version of events wherein the mayor who had married us was a black, half-naked, barefoot fisherman. After that, I finally got her to tell me how the family had greeted the news. It had all been quite predictable: goings and comings from one house to another, animated family councils, innumerable telephone calls back and forth, copious tears, and apparently my mother had been extended everyone’s sympathies, visited, and kept company as though she’d lost her only son. As for Nancy, convinced that she was our ally, they had besieged her with questions and threats, trying to get her to tell them where we were. But she had held her ground, vehemently denying everything, and had even shed a few great crocodile tears that allayed their suspicions somewhat.