Many people had already taken up positions and were waiting for it to get dark. Don Teotonio Calle Frías was setting up his projector. He had only one, which worked thanks to a wire he himself had run to the power line on the corner. After each reel, there was an interruption while the next was loaded. The movies, accordingly, were strung out in pieces and were extremely long. Even so, the improvised theater was always full, especially in summer. “Ever since the kid’s murder, I haven’t been to the movies once,” thought Lituma. What was on tonight? A Mexican movie likely as not. Yes, Hidden River, starring Dolores del Rio and Columba Dominguez.
“I met him at Lala Mercado’s birthday party over in Piura.” She’d taken so long to answer that Lituma forgot which question she was answering. “He’d been hired to sing at the party. All the girls were saying how beautifully he sang, what a pretty voice, how good-looking he is, he doesn’t look like a cholo. It’s true he didn’t.”
“These damned whites.” Lituma was indignant.
“And did he dedicate any songs to you, miss?” The lieutenant oozed respect for her. Periodically, Lituma realized, his boss revealed yet another interrogation tactic; this one combined infinite respect with extraordinary politeness.
“Three. ‘The Last Night We Spent Together,’ ‘Moonbeam,’ and ‘Pretty Baby.’”
“She’s not normal; she’s off her rocker,” Lituma decided. Alicia Mindreau’s bicycle, which the lieutenant was pulling with his left hand, had begun to screech intermittently. The recurring, piercing sound put Lituma’s nerves on edge.
“We danced together, too. Just once. He danced with all the girls once. But twice with Lala Mercado—because it was her party, not because he liked her more. Nobody thought it was wrong for him to dance with us. In fact, we all wanted to dance with him. He behaved just like one of us. And he was a terrific dancer.”
Just like one of us, thought Lituma, carefully stepping over a dried-out starfish covered with ants. “Would Alicia Mindreau think of Lieutenant Silva as ‘one of us’? Not me, of course. I’m a purebred cholo,” be thought. “From La Mangachería, and proud of it.” He had his eyes half closed and he wasn’t seeing how Talara’s afternoon was quickly giving way to night. He was seeing the party and the garden, all the well-dressed young couples over in that whites-only part of town near the sand flats by La Chunga’s place on Buenos Aires Street. Lala Mercado’s house. He was seeing a couple dancing in a corner, staring into each other’s eyes, speaking only with their eyes: Alicia Mindreau and Palomino. No, it was impossible. And yet she was the one telling the story:
“When we started dancing, he told me that the moment he saw me he’d fallen in love with me.” Not even now was there a note of sadness in her voice. She was speaking quickly, without emotion, as if dictating a message. “He told me he’d always believed in love at first sight and that now he knew it was real. Because he’d fallen in love with me right then and there. He said I could laugh at him if I wanted, but that it was the truth. He’d never love another woman in his life. He said that even if I told him to get lost, even if I spit on him and treated him like a dog, that he’d go on loving me until the day he died.”
“He kept his word, too,” thought Lituma. Was she crying? Not a chance. Lituma couldn’t see her face—he was still one step behind the lieutenant and the girl—but her voice was dry, unwavering, severe in the extreme. At the same time, it was as if she were talking about someone else and not herself, as if what she was saying had nothing to do with her, as if there were no blood and murder in her tale.
“He said he’d come over and serenade me. That if he sang to me every night, he’d make me fall in love with him,” she went on after a short pause. The rhythmic screech of the bicycle made Lituma feel an inexplicable anguish; he waited for it to come, and when it did, a chill ran through his entire body. He listened to the lieutenant chirping away like a little bird perched on Alicia Mindreau’s shoulder:
“Did it really happen like that? Was that the way it was? Did he keep his word? Did he really come over to the Piura Air Force Base and serenade you at your house? And did you end up falling in love with him?”
“I don’t know.”
“She doesn’t know? How can she not know that?” Lituma searched his own memory for the time when he’d been most deeply in love. Was it with Meche, Josefino’s girl, a statuesque blonde for whom he’d never dared to make a play? Sure, he’d been in love that time. How can you not know if you’re in love? How dumb can you get? Which means she’s nuts. Or was she just playing dumb to screw them up? Could the colonel have taught her how to act like that? He couldn’t decide.
“But Palomino Molero did serenade you over at the Air Force base in Piura, didn’t he? Did he do it often?”
“Every day. Starting the night after Lala Mercado’s party. He never missed once, until Daddy was transferred over here.”
“And what did your dad say about those serenades?” chirped the lieutenant. “Did he ever catch him at it?”
“My father knew he was serenading me, what do you think he is, deaf?” It seemed to Lituma that Alicia Mindreau was vacillating, as if she had been about to say something and then was sorry she’d thought of it. “What did he say about it?”
“That for Palomino I had to be something special, the Queen of England,” stated the girl in her dead-serious voice. “When I told Palito about it, he told me Daddy was wrong, that I was much more than the Queen of England for him, that I was more like the Virgin Mary.”
For the third time, Lituma was sure he’d heard Lieutenant Silva’s mocking little laugh. “Palito? Was that her pet name for him? Which meant that Palito was an okay name, but Palomino or Temistocles were cholo names. Damn but these whites are complicated people.”
They’d reached the Guardia Civil station. The man on duty, Ramiro Matelo, from Chiclayo, had abandoned his post, shutting the office door behind him. Lieutenant Silva used the bicycle as a doorstop to keep it open.
“Come on in and rest awhile,” invited the lieutenant making a half bow. “We can offer you a soda or a cup of coffee. Please come in.”
Night had fallen. As Lituma and Lieutenant Silva lit the paraffin lamps, they bumped into each other and into the office furniture. The girl waited calmly by the door. No, her eyes had no tears in them. Lituma saw her slim shadow appear against the bulletin board where they pinned up reports and the orders of the day, and thought about Palomino Molero. He was afraid, panicky. “I can’t believe this is happening to me.” Did that immobile little thing over there really tell them all that stuff about Palomino Molero? He was seeing her, but at the same time it was as if the girl were not there and had said nothing, as if it was all a figment of his imagination.
“I hope our little hike didn’t tire you out.” The lieutenant was lighting the camp stove, on which there was always a full kettle of water. “Get the young lady a chair, Lituma.”
Alicia Mindreau sat on the edge of the chair, with her back to the door and the lamp closest to it. Her face was half in shadow and her silhouette was surrounded by a yellow haze. She looked even more like a child. Could she still be in high school? In one of the neighboring houses they were frying something. In the distance, a drunken voice was singing about the city of Paita.
“What are you waiting for, Lituma? Get the young lady a soda.”
Lituma rushed to get a Pasteurina out of the pail of water that kept their soda supply cool. He opened it and offered it to her, excusing himself: “I’m sorry but we don’t have any straws or glasses. I’m afraid you’ll have to drink straight from the bottle.”
She took the Pasteurina and raised it to her mouth as if she were a robot. Was she nuts? Or was she suffering inside and couldn’t show it? Did she seem so strange because she was trying to cover up? Lituma thought she looked hypnotized. It was as if she didn’t realize she was there with them, as if she had no idea what she’d told them. Lituma was embarrassed, uncomfortable seeing her so serious, so fixed and unmoving. He was f
rightened. Suppose the colonel turned up right now with a patrol to get even for this little chat with his daughter?
“Here, have a cup of coffee, too,” said the lieutenant. He handed her the tin cup of instant coffee. “Sugar? One or two?”
“What’s going to happen to my father?” she asked suddenly. There was no fear in her voice, just a trace of anger. “Will they throw him in jail? Will they shoot him?”
She’d put down the cup, and the lieutenant picked it up and took a long drink. Then Lituma watched him sit on the edge of his desk. Outside, the drunk was still babbling about the same subject, the stingrays in Paita bay. He said he’d been stung in the foot and was looking for a compassionate woman who’d suck out the poison.
“Nothing’s going to happen to your father,” said Lieutenant Silva. “Why should anything happen to him? They won’t touch him. Don’t worry about it, Miss Alicia. Sure you won’t have some coffee? It looks lilce I’ve drunk this cup, but I can make another in a second.”
“He knows every trick in the book. He could make a mute talk.” Lituma had discreetly retreated to the wall. From there he could see the girl’s oblique, thin profile, her solemn, judgmental little nose. Suddenly he understood Palomino: she certainly wasn’t a beauty, but there was something in that cold face that was fascinating, mysterious, something that could drive a man crazy. He felt contradictory emotions. He wanted the lieutenant to get his way and make Alicia Mindreau tell everything she knew, but at the same time, without understanding why, he was sorry this child was going to reveal all her secrets. It was as if Alicia Mindreau were falling into a trap. He wanted to save her. Could she really be crazy?
“The one who might have a little trouble is the jealous lover.” The lieutenant seemed almost sorry to have to mention it. “I mean Ricardo Dufó. Richard. Of course, jealousy is something that any judge who understands the human heart will call a mitigating circumstance. I mean, I always think of jealousy as a mitigating circumstance. If a guy-really loves a woman, he gets jealous. I know it, miss, because f know what love is and I’m a jealous man. Jealousy upsets your thinking, keeps you from thinking straight. It’s like drinking. If your boyfriend can prove that what he did to Palomino Molero happened because he was crazy—that’s the important idea, miss, he’s got to say he was crazy, remember that—it may be they’ll say he wasn’t responsible for his acts. With a little luck and a good lawyer, it may work out that way. So you needn’t worry about your jealous lover either, Miss Mindreau.”
He raised the cup to his lips and noisily drank the rest of the coffee. His forehead still had the mark of his cap, and Lituma could not see his eyes, hidden behind dark glasses. All he could see were the thin mustache, the mouth, and the chin. Once Lituma had asked him, “Why don’t you ever take off your glasses, even when it’s dark, Lieutenant?” He’d answered, mockingly, “So I can screw people up.”
“I’m not worried about him. I hate him. I only wish the worst things in the world would happen to him. I say it to his face all the time. Once he went and got his revolver. He said to me, ‘Just pull the trigger like this. Now take it. If you really hate me so much, I deserve to die. Do it, kill me.’”
There was a long silence, punctuated by the hiss of the frying pan in the house next door and the drunk’s confused monologue. The drunk finally gave up and went off, saying that since nobody loved him around here he’d go see a witch he knew over in Ayabaca who’d cure his hurt foot.
“But I know in my heart that you’re a good person who’d never kill anyone.”
“Don’t pretend to be dumber than you really are.” Alicia Mindreau’s chin was trembling, and her nostrils were flared. “Don’t fool yourself into thinking I’m as dumb as you are. Please. I’m a grownup, after all.”
“Please forgive me. I just didn’t know what to say. What you said just caught me off-guard, really.”
“So you actually don’t know if you were in love with Palomino Molero or not,” Lituma heard himself mutter. “Didn’t you come to love him, even a little bit?”
“Much more than a little bit,” the girl quickly replied again without turning in the direction of the enlisted man. Her head was still, and her rage seemed to have evaporated just as quickly as it had come. She stared into space. “I loved Palito a lot. If we had found the priest in Amotape, I would have married him. But what you call falling in love is disgusting, and what we had was beautiful. Are you playing dumb, too?”
“What kind of question is that to ask, Lituma?” Lituma understood that the lieutenant wasn’t really reproaching him, that it was all part of his plan to keep the girl talking. “Do you think that if the young lady didn’t love him she would have eloped with him? Or do you think he kidnapped her?”
Alicia Mindreau said nothing. More and more insects buzzed around the paraffin lamps. Now they could hear the tide as it came in. The fishermen were probably setting up their nets. Don Matías Querecotillo and his two helpers were probably pushing The Lion of Talara into the surf, or they might already be rowing beyond the floating piers. He wished he were there with them instead of here listening to these things. And, nevertheless, he heard himself whisper: “And what about your other boyfriend, miss?” As he spoke, he felt he was balancing on a high wire.
“You must mean Miss Mindreau’s official boyfriend,” said the lieutenant, correcting Lituma. He sweetened his tone as he spoke to her: “Because since you came to love Palomino Molero, I would imagine that Lieutenant Dufó could only be a kind of screen to keep up appearances in front of your father. That’s how it was, right?”
“That’s right.”
“So your dad wouldn’t catch on about your love for Palomino Molero. Naturally, it wouldn’t exactly make your father happy to find out his daughter was in love with an ordinary airman.”
Lituma’s nerves were put on edge now by the buzzing insects smashing against the lamps, in the same way they’d been put on edge before by the screeching bicycle.
“He enlisted just so he could be near you?” Lituma realized that this time he was no longer faking: his voice was saturated with the immense pity he felt for the kid. What had he seen in this half-crazy girl? That she was from a good family, that she was white? Or did her rapidly changing moods fascinate him, those incredible passions that in a few seconds made her pass from fury to indifference?
“The poor jealous guy couldn’t understand a bit of this,” the lieutenant was thinking out loud as he lit a cigarette. “But when he did figure a few things out, he went nuts. That’s it: he lost control of himself. He did what he felt he had to do, and then, half crazy with fear, sorry for what had happened, he came to you. Crying his eyes out, he must have said, Alicita, I’m a murderer. I tortured and killed the airman you ran away with. You confessed that you never loved him, that you hated him. And then he brought you his revolver and said, Kill me. But you didn’t do it. First you cheated on him, then he took it on the neck. Poor Richard Dufó. On top of that, the colonel forbade him to see you ever again. Because naturally a son-in-law who’s a murderer is just as socially unacceptable as a little cholo from Castilla—a common airman at that. Poor jealous Richard! Well, that seems to be the whole story. Was I wrong about anything, miss?”
“Ha-ha! You were wrong about every single thing!”
“I know. I said it that way on purpose. Tell me how it really was.”
Did she really laugh? Yes, a short little laugh, ferociously mocking. Now she was serious again, sitting stiffly on the edge of her chair with her knees together. Her little arms were so thin that Lituma could have wrapped his fingers around both of them at the same time. Sitting there half in the shadow, her body so tall and slender, she could have been taken for a boy. And yet she was a young woman. No longer a virgin. He tried to imagine her naked, trembling in Palomino Molero’s arms, lying on a cot in Amotape, or maybe on a straw mat in the sand. Wrapping her little arms around Palomino’s neck, opening her mouth, spreading her legs, moaning. No, impossible. He couldn’t see h
er. In the interminable pause that followed, the buzz of insects became deafening.
“The one who brought me the revolver and told me to kill him was Daddy. What will you do to him?”
“Nothing,” stuttered Lieutenant Silva, as if he were choking. “Nobody’s going to lay a hand on your dad.”
“There’s no justice. He should be thrown in jail, killed. But no one would dare to. Of course, who’d dare to do it?”
Lituma had stiffened. He could feel that the lieutenant was also tense, panting, as if they were hearing the rumble that comes from the bowels of the earth just before a tremor.
“I want to drink something hot, that coffee if there’s nothing else,” said the girl, once again changing her tone. Now she was talking without dramatics, as if chatting with her friends. “I think I’m cold!”
“That’s because it is cold,” blurted out the lieutenant. He repeated himself twice, nodding his head and making other superfluous gestures. “It is cold, it certainly is.”
He hesitated awhile, finally stood up and walked to the stove, Lituma noticed how awkward and slow he was; he moved as if he were drunk. Now it was he who was taken by surprise, jolted by what he’d just heard. Lituma pulled himself together and began to think again about what had bothered him most: what was all this about love being disgusting and then she’d fallen in love with Palomino Molero? What kind of nutty idea was that? Falling in love was disgusting but loving someone wasn’t? Lituma, too, felt cold. How great it would be to have a nice hot cup of coffee, like the one the lieutenant was making for the girl. Through the cone of greenish light that fell from the lamp, Lituma could see how slowly the lieutenant was pouring out the water, how slowly he stirred in the instant coffee and the sugar. It was as if he weren’t sure that his fingers would do his bidding. In silence he walked toward the girl, holding the cup with two hands, and then handed it to her. Alicia Mindreau instantly raised it to her lips and drank, turning her face upward. Lituma saw her eyes in the fragile, shimmering light: dry, black, hard, and adult, set in the delicate face of a child.