Conversation in the Cathedral (39 page)

He got into the car, ordered the Ministry, hurry. Ambrosio drove around the Plaza San Martín, went toward the Parque Universitario, down Abancay. He was looking through the envelope Don Fermín had given him, and sometimes his eyes would turn away and fasten on the back of Ambrosio’s neck: the cocksucker didn’t want his son to mix with half-breeds, he probably didn’t want him to be infected with bad
manners
. That’s probably why he invited people like Arévalo or Landa to his house, even the gringos he called boors, everybody but him. He laughed, took a pill out of his pocket and filled his mouth with saliva: he probably didn’t want his wife and children infected with bad manners.

*

“You’ve been asking me questions all night and now it’s my turn,” Uncle Clodomiro said. “How are things going for you at
La
Crónica?
”

“I’m learning to measure my stories now,” Santiago said. “At first they were either too long or too short. I’m already used to working at night and sleeping by day too.”

“That’s something else that terrifies Fermín,” Uncle Clodomiro said. “He thinks you’re going to get sick with a schedule like that. And that you won’t go to the university. Are you really attending classes?”

“No, that’s a lie,” Santiago said. “Since I left home I haven’t been back to the university. Don’t tell papa, uncle.”

Uncle Clodomiro stopped rocking, his small hands moved around in alarm, his eyes were startled.

“Don’t ask me why, I couldn’t explain that either,” Santiago said. “Sometimes I think it’s because I don’t want to run into the fellows that were left behind at Police Headquarters when papa got me out. Other times I realize that it’s not that. I don’t like the law, it all seems stupid to me, I don’t believe in it, uncle. Why should I get a degree?”

“Fermín is right, I’ve done you a great disservice,” Uncle Clodomiro said, downcast. “Now that you’ve got some money in your pockets you don’t want to study.”

“Didn’t your friend Vallejo ever tell you what we get paid?” Santiago laughed. “No, uncle, I’ve got practically no money in my pockets. I’ve got the time, I could attend classes. But it’s stronger than me, just the thought of walking into the university makes me sick to my stomach.”

“Don’t you realize that you can spend the rest of your life as just another little wage earner?” Uncle Clodomiro said, concerned. “A boy like you, Skinny, so bright, such a good student.”

“I’m not bright and I’m not a good student, don’t repeat what papa says, uncle,” Santiago said. “The truth is that I’m mixed up. I know what I don’t want to be, but not what I’d like to be. And I don’t want to be a lawyer or rich or important, uncle. At the age of fifty I don’t want to be what papa is, what papa’s friends are. Can’t you see that, uncle?”

“What I can see is that you’ve got a screw loose,” Uncle Clodomiro said, with his desolate face. “I’m sorry I ever called Vallejo, Skinny. I feel responsible for the whole thing.”

“If I hadn’t gone to work at
La
Crónica
I would have got some other job,” Santiago said. “It would have come out all the same.”

Would it have, Zavalita? No, it probably would have been different, probably poor Uncle Clodomiro was partly responsible. It was ten o’clock, he had to go. He got up.

“Wait, I’ve got to ask you something that Zoilita keeps asking me,” Uncle Clodomiro said. “Every time she sees me she puts me through a terrible grilling. Who washes your clothes, who sews your buttons on?”

“The lady at the boardinghouse takes very good care of me,” Santiago said. “She shouldn’t worry.”

“What about your days off?” Uncle Clodomiro asked. “Who do you see, where do you go? Do you go out with girls? That’s something else that Zoilita loses sleep over. Whether or not you’re having an affair with one of those girls, things like that.”

“I’m not having an affair with anyone, get her to calm down.”
Santiago
laughed. “Tell her I’m fine, I’m behaving myself. I’ll go see them soon, I really will.”

They went into the kitchen and found Inocencia asleep in her rocker. Uncle Clodomiro scolded her and the two of them helped her to her room as she nodded sleepily. At the street door Uncle Clodomiro gave Santiago an embrace. Would he come to dinner next Monday? Yes, uncle. He took a taxi on the Avenida Arequipa and on the Plaza San Martín he looked for Norwin among the tables of the Zela Bar. He still hadn’t arrived and after waiting for a moment he went to meet him on the Jirón de la Unión. He was at the door of
La
Prensa
talking to another editor from
Última
Hora.

“What happened?” Santiago asked. “Didn’t we have a date for ten o’clock at the Zela?”

“This is the most bastardly profession there is, make your mind up about that, Zavalita,” Norwin said. “They took away all my writers and I had to fill the page myself. There’s a revolution, some kind of dumb business. Let me introduce you to Castelano, a colleague.”

“A revolution?” Santiago asked. “Here?”

“An abortive coup, something like that,” Castelano said. “It seems that Espina was at the head of it, that general who was Minister of Public Order.”

“There isn’t any official communiqué and those bastards took my people away so they could go out and dig up some details,” Norwin said. “Well, let’s forget about it, let’s go have a few drinks.”

“Wait, I want to know,” Santiago said. “Walk me to
La
Crónica
.”

“They’ll put you to work and you’ll lose your night off,” Norwin said. “Let’s go have a drink and we’ll stop by there around two o’clock and pick up Carlitos.”

“But how did it happen?” Santiago asked. “What’s the news?”

“There’s no news, only rumors,” Castelano said. “They started
arresting
people this afternoon. They say it was in Cuzco and Tumbes. The cabinet’s meeting at the Palace.”

“All reporters have been called in just for the fun of fucking them up,” Norwin said. “They won’t be able to publish anything in any case except the official communiqué and they know it.”

“Instead of going to the Zela why don’t we go to old Ivonne’s?” Castelano asked.

“Who said that General Espina was mixed up in it?” Santiago asked.

“O.K., Ivonne’s, and we can call Carlitos from there to join us,” Norwin said. “There at the cathouse you’ll find out more details of the plot than at
La
Crónica,
Zavalita. And what the hell difference does it make to you? Do you give a damn about politics?”

“I was just curious,” Santiago said. “Besides, I’ve only got about forty soles, Ivonne’s is too expensive.”

“That should be the least of your worries, working for
La
Crónica.
”
Castelano laughed. “As a colleague of Becerrita’s, your credit there is unlimited.”

A
MBROSIO DIDN’T SHOW UP
in San Miguel during the week that
followed
, but a week later Amalia found him waiting for her at the
Chinaman’s
shop on the corner. He had sneaked away, for just a little while, to see you, Amalia. They didn’t fight, they had a nice talk. They made a date for Sunday. My, you’ve changed, he told her as he was leaving, how nice you’ve become.

Could she really have got that much better? Carlota told her you’ve got everything a man should like, the mistress teased her along those lines too, the policemen on the block were all smiles, the master’s
chauffeurs
all looks, even the gardener, the clerk at the food store, and the snotnose of a newsboy kept flirting with her: maybe it was true. In the house she went to look at herself in the mistress’s mirrors with a roguish glow in her eyes: yes, it was true. She’d put on weight, she dressed better and that she owed to the mistress, so good she was. She gave her
everything
she didn’t wear anymore, but not as if saying take this off my hands, but with affection. This dress doesn’t fit me anymore, try it on, and the mistress would come, it has to be raised here, taken in a little here, these fringes don’t look good on you. She was always telling her to clean your fingernails, comb your hair, wash your apron, a woman who doesn’t take care of herself has had it. Not the way you’d talk to a servant, Amalia thought, she gives me advice as if I was her equal. The mistress had her get her hair cut in a boy’s bob, once, when she had pimples, she put on one of her creams herself and in a week her face all nice and clean, another time she had a toothache and she took her to a dentist in Magdalena herself, had her fixed up, and didn’t take it out of her pay. When had Señora Zoila ever treated her like that, worried about her like that? There wasn’t anybody like Señora Hortensia. What was most important for her was for everything to be clean, for women to be pretty, and for men to be good-looking. It was the first thing she wanted to know about someone, was so-and-so pretty, what was he like? And one thing for sure, she never forgave anyone for being ugly. The way she made fun of Miss Maclovia because of her rabbit teeth, of Mr. Gumucio because of his belly, of the one they called Paqueta because of her artificial eyelashes and fingernails and breasts, and of Señora Ivonne because she was old. How she and Miss Queta made fun of Señora Ivonne! Dyeing her hair so much that she was going bald, how her false teeth fell out at lunch once, how the shots she took were making her more wrinkled instead of younger. They talked so much about her that Amalia was curious and one day Carlota told her there she is, she’s the one who came with Miss Queta. She went out to get a look at her. They were having drinks in the living room. Señora Ivonne wasn’t that old or that ugly, it wasn’t fair. And such elegance, such jewels, everything sparkling all over her. When she left, the mistress came into the kitchen: forget that the old woman had been here. She threatened them with her finger, laughing: if Cayo finds out that she was here, I’ll kill all three of you.

*

From the doorway he saw Dr. Arbeláez’ small, shrunken face, his bony, rosy cheeks, his glasses low on his nose.

“I’m sorry I’m late, doctor.” Your desk is too big for you, you poor devil. “I had a business lunch, please excuse me.”

“You’re right on time, Don Cayo.” Dr. Arbeláez smiled at him
without
feeling. “Please sit down.”

“I got your memo yesterday, but I couldn’t come any sooner.” He dragged over a chair, put his briefcase on his knees. “The President’s trip to Cajamarca has been taking up all my time for the past few days.”

Behind the glasses the myopic and hostile eyes of Dr. Arbeláez agreed.

“That’s another matter I’d like us to talk about, Don Cayo.” He tightened his mouth, didn’t conceal his annoyance. “The day before yesterday I asked Lozano for information on the preparations and he told me that you had given instructions that it wasn’t to be given to anybody.”

“Poor Lozano,” he said pityingly. “You probably gave him a lecture, I imagine.”

“No, no lecture,” Dr. Arbeláez said. “I was so surprised that it didn’t even cross my mind.”

“Poor Lozano is useful but not very bright.” He smiled. “The security preparations are still being studied, doctor, it isn’t worth taking up your time with them. I’ll let you know about everything as soon as we’ve completed the details.”

He lighted a cigarette. Dr. Arbeláez handed him an ashtray. He was looking at him seriously, his arms folded, between a desk calendar and the photograph of a gray-haired woman and three smiling younger
people
.

“Did you have time to take a look at the memo, Don Cayo?”

“Of course, doctor. I read it very carefully.”

“Then you probably agree with me,” Dr. Arbeláez said dryly.

“I’m sorry to say I don’t,” he said. He coughed, excused himself and took another drag. “The security funds are sacred. I can’t allow all those millions to be taken away from me. Believe me, I’m terribly sorry.”

Dr. Arbeláez stood up quickly. He took a few steps in front of the desk, his glasses dancing in his hands.

“I expected that, of course.” His voice was neither impatient nor furious, but he had grown noticeably pale. “However, the memo is clear, Don Cayo. We have to replace all those patrol cars that are falling apart from old age, we have to start work on the police stations in Tacna and Moquegua because they’re going to collapse any day now. A thousand things are held up and prefects and subprefects are driving me crazy with their phone calls and telegrams. Where do you want me to get the millions I need? I’m not a magician, Don Cayo, I can’t work miracles.”

He nodded, very serious. Dr. Arbeláez was passing his glasses back and forth from one hand to the other, standing in front of him.

“Isn’t there any way of using other parts of the budget?” he said. “The Minister of the Treasury …”

“He refuses to give us one penny more, and you know that quite well.” Dr. Arbeláez raised his voice. “At every cabinet meeting he says that the expenses of the Ministry of Public Order are exorbitant, and that you were monopolizing half of our outlay for …”

“I’m not monopolizing anything, doctor.” He smiled. “Security
demands
money, what else do you want. I can’t do my job if they cut my security funds by a single penny. I’m terribly sorry, doctor.”

*

There were other kinds of little jobs too, sir, but they did them, not Ambrosio. That night we went out, Mr. Lozano said, tell Hipólito, and Ludovico in the official car, sir? No, in the old Ford. They told him afterward, sir, and that’s how Ambrosio found out: follow guys, make a note of who goes into a house, get arrested Apristas to confess what they knew, that’s where Hipólito got the way Ambrosio had told him about, sir, or maybe Ludovico invented it all. When it got dark Ludovico went to Mr. Lozano’s house, got the Ford, picked up Hipólito, they went to a crime movie at the Rialto, and at nine-thirty they were waiting for Mr. Lozano on the Avenida España. And on the first Monday of every month they went with Mr. Lozano to collect the monthly payoff, sir, they say that’s what he said. Naturally, he came out wearing dark glasses and he huddled down in the back seat. He gave them cigarettes, cracked jokes with them, what a good mood he gets into when he works for him, Hipólito commented later, and Ludovico you’ll say so when he has us working for him. The monthly payment, the dough he got out of all the whorehouses and shack-up joints in Lima, pretty slick, right, sir? They started on the Chosica road, the little house hidden behind the restaurant where chickens were for sale. You get out, Mr. Lozano said to Ludovico, if not, Pereda will hold me up for an hour with his tales, and to Hipólito let’s take a little drive in the meantime. He was doing it on the sly, sir, he probably thought that Don Cayo didn’t know anything, later on when Ludovico went to work with Ambrosio he told Don Cayo in order to get in good with him and it turned out that Don Cayo knew all about it. The Ford started up, Ludovico waited for it to disappear and pushed open the gate. There were a lot of cars lined up, all of them with only their parking lights on, and, bumping into fenders and bumpers trying to see the faces of the couples, he got to the door where the sign was. Because what was there that Don Cayo didn’t know about, sir? A waiter came out and recognized him, wait a minute, and Pereda came right away, what’s this, where’s Mr. Lozano? He’s outside, but he’s in a big hurry, Ludovico said, that’s why he didn’t come in. I’ve got to talk to him, Pereda said, it’s very important. By going along with Mr. Lozano to collect the monthly payments, Ludovico and Hipólito got to know
night-walking
Lima, here we’re kings of whoredom they said, you can imagine how they took advantage of it, sir. They walked to the gate, waited for the Ford, Ludovico got behind the wheel again and Pereda got in back: get going, Mr. Lozano said, we can’t stay here. But the real wild one had been Hipólito, sir, Ludovico was mainly ambitious: he wanted to move up, that is have them put him on the regular list someday. Ludovico drove down the highway and at times would look at Hipólito and
Hipólito
would look back at him as if to say Pereda’s such an ass-kisser, the stories he was telling him. Hurry up, I haven’t got much time, Mr. Lozano said, what’s so important. Why did they let him put the squeeze on them, sir? So-and-so who came by here this week, sir, what’s-
his-name
, he brought a certain lady, and Mr. Lozano I know quite well that you know everybody in Peru, what’s so important? Because couldn’t he see that shack-up joints and whorehouses got permission at
Headquarters
, sir? Pereda changed the tone of his voice and Ludovico and Hipólito looked at each other, now the wailing would start. The engineer had been loaded down with expenses, Mr. Lozano, payments, bills, they didn’t have any cash this month. So either they got it up or he’d take away their permission or fine them: they didn’t have any other way out, sir. Mr. Lozano grunted and Pereda was like jelly: but the engineer hadn’t
forgotten
his promise, Mr. Lozano, he’d left this postdated check, that didn’t matter, did it, Mr. Lozano? And Ludovico and Hipólito as if saying here comes the bawling out. It matters to me, because I don’t take checks, Mr. Lozano said, the engineer’s got twenty-four hours to settle up because he’s going to be closed down; we’re going to drop Pereda off, Ludovico. And Ludovico and Hipólito said that he even got his cut from the renewal of whores’ ID cards, sir. All the way back Pereda was
explaining
, making excuses, and Mr. Lozano not a word. Twenty-four hours, Pereda, not a minute more, he said when they got back. And afterwards: a tightwad like that gets my balls all swollen. And Ludovico and Hipólito as if saying to each other Pereda’s killed our night, he got him all worked up on us. That’s why Don Cayo would say that if Lozano ever leaves the police force he’ll become a pimp, sir: that’s his real vocation.