Conversation in the Cathedral (19 page)

“Your uncle knows that the survival of the government depends on security,” Bermúdez said. “Everybody’s all applause right now, but pretty soon the tug of war and the battle of interests will start, and because of that everything will depend on what security has done to neutralize ambitious and resentful people.”

“I don’t plan on staying, I’m just passing through,” Trifulcio said. “I’m going to work for a rich fellow from Ica named Arévalo. That’s the truth, Tomasa.”

“I know that quite well,” Captain Paredes said. “When there aren’t any Apristas left, the President will have enemies in the government itself.”

“Are you a Communist, are you an Aprista? I’m not an Aprista, I’m not a Communist,” Ludovico said. “You’re a sissy, friend, we haven’t touched you and you’re lying already. Like that for hours, whole nights like that, Ambrosio. And that gets Hipólito excited, can you see what kind of a guy he is?”

“That’s why we have to take the long view,” Bermúdez said. “The most dangerous element today is the civilian sector, tomorrow it’ll be the military. Can you see why there’s so much secrecy about the files?”

“You didn’t even ask where Perpetuo is buried or whether Ambrosio is still alive,” Tomasa said. “Have you forgotten that you had children?”

“She was a happy woman who loved life, sir,” Ambrosio said. “The poor woman, hitching up with a guy capable of doing that to his own son. But naturally, if the old woman hadn’t fallen in love with him, I wouldn’t be here today. So it was good for me.”

“You have to get a house, Cayo, you can’t keep staying at the hotel,” Colonel Espina said. “Besides, it’s absurd for you not to use the car that goes with your being Director of Public Order.”

“I don’t care about the dead,” Trifulcio said. “But I would like to see Ambrosio. Does he live with you?”

“The fact is, I’ve never owned a car and, besides, taxis are convenient,” Bermúdez said. “But you’re right, Uplander, I’ll use it. It must be rusting away.”

“Ambrosio is leaving to look for work in Lima tomorrow,” Tomasa said. “What do you want to see him for?”

“I didn’t believe that about Hipólito, but it’s true, Ambrosio,” Ludovico said. “I saw it, nobody told me.”

“You shouldn’t be so modest, make use of your prerogatives,” Colonel Espina said. “You’re shut up in here fifteen hours a day and work isn’t everything in life either. Let your hair down once in a while, Cayo.”

“Just out of curiosity to see what he’s like,” Trifulcio said. “I’ll see Ambrosio and I promise to leave, Tomasa.”

“For the first time they gave a guy from Vitarte to the two of us alone,” Ludovico said. “Nobody on the list there to bawl us out, there weren’t enough people. And that’s when I saw it, Ambrosio.”

“Of course I will, Uplander, but first I’ve got to get a lot of work cleared up,” Bermúdez said. “And I’ll get a house and set myself up in more comfort.”

“Ambrosio was working here as a long-distance driver,” Tomasa said. “But it’s going to be better for him in Lima and that’s why I’ve pushed him to go.”

“The President is very pleased with you, Cayo,” Colonel Espina said. “He thanks me more for having recommended you than for all the help I gave him in the revolution, imagine that.”

“He was hitting him and he began to sweat, hitting him more and sweating more and he hit him so much that the guy began to say crazy things,” Ludovico said. “And all of a sudden I saw his fly puffed up like a balloon. I swear, Ambrosio.”

“The one coming this way, that big fellow,” Trifulcio said. “Is that Ambrosio?”

“‘What are you hitting for, you’ve left him half loony, you’ve already sent him off to dreamland,’” Ludovico said. “He wasn’t even listening, Ambrosio. All excited, just like a balloon. Just the way I’m telling you, I swear. You’ll meet him soon enough, I’ll introduce you to him.”

“Our hopes are with you people now so we can get out of this danger,” Don Fermín said.

“I recognized you right away,” Trifulcio said. “Come here, Ambrosio, give me a hug, let me take a little look at you.”

“The government in danger?” Colonel Espina asked. “Are you joking, Don Fermín? If the revolution isn’t sailing along with a good tail wind, how can anybody …?”

“I would have gone to wait for you,” Ambrosio said. “But I didn’t even know you were getting out.”

“Fermín is right, Colonel,” Emilio Arévalo said. “Nothing will sail along with a good wind if elections aren’t held and General Odría isn’t returned to power anointed and consecrated by the votes of all
Peruvians
.”

“At least you’re not throwing me out like Tomasa,” Trifulcio said. “I thought you were a boy and you’re almost as old as this black father of yours.”

“Elections are a formality, if you want, Colonel,” Don Fermín said. “But a necessary formality.”

“You’ve seen him, now be on your way,” Tomasa said. “Ambrosio’s going away tomorrow, he has to pack his things.”

“And in order to have elections the country has to be pacified, that is, the Apristas all cleaned up,” Dr. Ferro said. “If not, the elections could blow up in our faces like a bomb.”

“Let’s go have a drink somewhere, Ambrosio,” Trifulcio said. “We’ll talk a little and you can come back and pack your bags.”

“You haven’t said a word, Mr. Bermúdez,” Emilio Arévalo said. “It would seem that politics bore you.”

“Do you want to give your son a bad reputation?” Tomasa asked. “Is that why you want people to see him with you on the street?”

“Not seems, the fact is I am bored by them,” Bermúdez said. “Besides, I don’t understand anything about politics. Don’t laugh, it’s true. That’s why I’d rather just listen.”

They went along in the dark, through streets that wavered and made sudden turns, among reed huts and a brick house here and there, looking through windows and seeing by the light of candles and lamps hazy silhouettes that chatted as they ate. There was a smell of earth,
excrement
and grapes.

“Well, for someone who knows nothing about politics, you’re doing quite well as Director of Security,” Don Fermín said. “Another drink, Don Cayo?”

They came across a donkey lying in the street, invisible dogs barked at them. They were almost the same height, they went along in silence, the sky had cleared, it was hot, no breeze was blowing. The man resting in his rocking chair got up when he saw them come into the deserted bar, served them beer and sat down again. They clinked glasses in the
half-light
, still without having spoken to each other.

“Fundamentally, two things,” Dr. Ferro said. “First, maintaining the team that has taken power. Second, continuing the cleanup with a strong hand. University, unions, administration. Then elections and working for the good of the country.”

“What would I have liked to have been in life, son?” Ambrosio asks. “A rich guy, naturally.”

“So you’re going to Lima tomorrow,” Trifulcio said. “What are you going to do there?”

“For you it’s being happy, son?” Ambrosio asks. “Me too, naturally, but for me being rich and being happy is the same thing.”

“It’s all a matter of loans and credit,” Don Fermín said. “The United States is ready to help a government that maintains order, that’s why they backed the revolution. Now they want elections and we have to give them what they want.”

“To look for work there,” Ambrosio said. “You can make more money in the capital.”

“The gringos believe in formalities, we have to understand them,” Emilio Arévalo said. “They’re happy with the General and all they ask is that democratic forms be preserved. With Odría as an elected
president
, they’ll open their arms to us and give us all the credit we need.”

“And how long have you been working as a driver?” Trifulcio asked.

“But above all we have to bring forward the National Patriotic Front or the Restoration Movement or whatever it’s to be called,” Dr. Ferro said. “That’s why the program is basic and that’s why I insist on it so much.”

“Two years as a professional,” Ambrosio said. “I started out as a helper, filling in with the driving. Then I was a regular truckdriver and up till now I’ve been driving buses around here, from one district to another.”

“A patriotic and nationalist program that would bring together all sound forces,” Emilio Arévalo said. “Industry, commerce, workers, farmers. Based on simple but efficient ideas.”

“So you’re a serious man, a hard worker,” Trifulcio said. “Tomasa was right in not wanting people to see you with me. Do you think you’ll find work in Lima?”

“We need something that will remind people of Marshal Benavides’ excellent formula,” Dr. Ferro said. “Order, Peace and Work. I’ve thought of Health, Education, Work. What do you gentlemen think of it?”

“Do you remember Túmula the milk woman, the daughter she had?” Ambrosio asked. “She married the Vulture’s son. Do you remember the Vulture? I helped his son run away with her.”

“Of course, the General’s candidacy has to be launched at the highest level,” Emilio Arévalo said. “All sectors would have to proclaim it in a spontaneous way.”

“The Vulture, the loan shark, the one who was mayor?” Trifulcio asked. “Yes, I remember him.”

“It’ll be proclaimed, Don Emilio,” Colonel Espina said. “The
General
’s getting more popular every day. In just a few months people will have seen the tranquillity we have now as opposed to the chaos the country was in with Apristas and Communists loose on the streets.”

“The Vulture’s son is in the government, he’s important now,”
Ambrosio
said. “Maybe he’ll help me find work in Lima.”

“Why don’t just the two of us go have a drink, Don Cayo?” Don Fermín asked. “Haven’t you got a headache from friend Ferro’s speeches? He always leaves me seasick.”

“If he’s important, he probably won’t want to have anything to do with you,” Trifulcio said. “He’ll look right past you.”

“With great pleasure, Mr. Zavala,” Bermúdez said. “Yes, Dr. Ferro does talk a lot. But you can see that he’s had experience.”

“In order to win him over, take him a little present,” Trifulcio said. “Something that’ll remind him of his home town and touch his heart.”

“Enormous experience, he’s been in every government over the past twenty years,” Don Fermín said. “This way, my car’s over here.”

“I’m going to bring him a couple of bottles of wine,” Ambrosio said. “And what are you going to do now? Are you going back to the house?”

“Whatever you’re having,” Bermúdez said. “Yes, Mr. Zavala, whiskey, fine.”

“I don’t think so, you saw how your mother received me,” Trifulcio said. “But that doesn’t mean that Tomasa’s a bad woman.”

“I’ve never liked politics because I’ve never understood what it was all about,” Bermúdez said. “Circumstances got me involved in politics in my old age.”

“She says you abandoned her a whole lot of times,” Ambrosio said. “That you only came back home to get the money she made working like a mule.”

“I hate politics too, but what can we do,” Don Fermín said. “When hard-working people stay out and leave politics to the politicians, the country goes to the devil.”

“Women exaggerate and, after all, Tomasa is a woman,” Trifulcio said. “I’m going to work in Ica, but I’ll come back and see her now and then.”

“Is it true that you’ve never been here?” Don Fermín asked. “Espina’s been exploiting you, Don Cayo. The show is pretty good, you’ll see. Don’t think I’m a big night-lifer. Very rarely.”

“And how are things here?” Trifulcio asked. “You should know, you should know a lot at your age. Women, whorehouses. How are the whorehouses here?”

She was wearing a skin-tight white evening gown that had a slight sparkle about it and outlined the lines of her body so neatly and vividly that she seemed to be naked. A dress, the same color as her skin, which touched the floor and made her take short little steps, cricket hops.

“There are two of them, one expensive and one cheap,” Ambrosio said. “By expensive I mean twenty soles, at the cheap one you can go as low as three. But they’re terrible.”

Her shoulders were white, round, soft, and the whiteness of her
complexion
contrasted with the darkness of her hair, which flowed down her back. She tightened her mouth with slow avidity, as if she were going to bite the small, silver-plated microphone, and her large eyes gleamed and kept looking over the tables.

“A pretty-looking Muse, eh?” Don Fermín said. “At least compared to the skeletons that came out to dance before. But her voice doesn’t help her very much.”

“I don’t want to take you or for you to go with me, and besides, I know it’s best if you’re not seen with me,” Trifulcio said. “But I’d like to take a walk over there, just to see. Where’s the cheap one?”

“Very pretty, yes, a beautiful body, beautiful face,” Bermúdez said. “And I don’t think her voice is so bad.”

“Close by here,” Ambrosio said. “But the police are always hanging around because they’re always having fights.”

“Let me tell you that that woman who’s so much of a woman there isn’t really that at all,” Don Fermín said. “She likes other women.”

“That’s the least of my worries, because I’m used to cops and fights.” Trifulcio laughed. “Come on, pay for the beers and let’s go.”

“Is that so?” Bermúdez said. “A woman as pretty as that. Is that so?”

“I’d go with you but the bus to Lima leaves at six o’clock,” Ambrosio said. “And my things are still all scattered around.”

“So you don’t have any children, Don Cayo,” Don Fermín said. “Well, you’ve saved yourself a lot of problems. I’ve got three and right now they’re beginning to give Zoila and me headaches.”

“You can leave me at the door and take off,” Trifulcio said. “Take me along a way where nobody will see us, if you want.”

“Two young gentlemen and a little lady?” Bermúdez asked. “Already grown up?”

They went out onto the street again and the night was brighter. The moon showed them the potholes, the ruts, the stones. They went through deserted alleys, Trifulcio turning his head from right to left, observing everything, taking an interest in everything; Ambrosio with his hands in his pockets, kicking stones.

“What future could the navy hold for a boy?” Don Fermín asked. “None. But Sparky insisted and I used my influence to get him in. And now you see, they threw him out. Lazy in his studies, undisciplined. He’s going to end up without a career, that’s the worst of it. Of course, I could make some moves and get him reinstated. But no, I don’t want a son who’s in the navy. I’d rather put him to work for me.”