They went back through the basketball courts and the players were no longer there. The mist had dissipated and they could see the cliffs, distant and gray, and the roofs of the houses along the Malecón. They stopped a few feet away from the car, Ambrosio got out to open the door.
“I don’t understand you, Skinny.” Without looking at you, Zavalita, head down, as if talking to the damp ground or the mossy stones. “I thought you’d left home because of your ideas, because you were a Communist and wanted to live like a poor man, to fight for the poor. But for this, Skinny? To have a mediocre little job, a mediocre future?”
“Please, papa. Let’s not argue about it, I beg you, papa.”
“I’m talking to you like this because I love you, Skinny.” His eyes wide, he thinks, his voice breaking. “You can go a long way, you can get to be somebody, do great things. Why are you throwing your life away like this, Santiago?”
“I live close by here, papa.” Santiago kissed him, moved away from him. “I’ll see you Sunday, I’ll come by around noontime.”
He went off toward the small beach with long strides, turned on the court toward the Malecón, when he began to go up the hill he heard the car start: he saw it going off toward Agua Dulce, bouncing on the potholes, disappearing in the dust. He’d never adjusted, Zavalita. He thinks: if you were alive, you’d still be inventing reasons to get me to come home, papa.
“You see, you’ve read the paper, not a word about that Queta,” Carlitos said. “And besides that, you made up with your father and you’re going to make up with your mother. What a reception you’re going to get on Sunday, Zavalita.”
With laughter, jokes and weeping, he thinks. It hadn’t been so hard, the ice had broken a moment after the door opened and he heard Teté’s shout there he is now, mami! They’d just watered the garden, he thinks, the grass was damp, the basin dry. Ingrate, my son, my love, your mother’s arms around you there, Zavalita. She was hugging you,
sobbing
, kissing you, the old man and Sparky and Teté were smiling, the maids were fluttering about, how long is this craziness going to last, son, aren’t you ashamed for putting your mother through this torture, son? But he wasn’t there: they hadn’t been lies, papa.
“I could see how uncomfortable Becerrita felt when you came into the editorial room,” Carlitos said. “He saw you and almost swallowed his butt. Incredible.”
“There’s nothing new, except for the stupid things that whore said, we’d better forget about them,” Becerrita grunted, shuffling through some papers in desperation. “Write a page of filler, Zavalita. The
investigation
goes on, new clues being followed. Anything, one page.”
“He’s human, that’s the wild thing about all this, Zavalita,” Carlitos said. “To have discovered Becerrita’s heart.”
You’re thin, you’ve got dark rings under your eyes, they’d gone into the living room, who does your laundry, he’d sat down between Señora Zoila and Teté, was the food at the boardinghouse good? yes mama, and in the old man’s eyes nothing uncomfortable, were you attending classes? no complicity or upset in his voice. He was smiling, joking, hopeful and happy, he was probably thinking he’s going to come back, everything’s going to work out, and Teté tell us the truth, tricker, I can’t believe you haven’t got a girl friend. It was the truth, Teté.
“Did you know that Ambrosio left?” Sparky asked. “He took off all of a sudden just like that.”
“Periquito avoids you, Arispe sucks his teeth when he talks to you, Hernández looks mockingly at you?” Carlitos asked. “That’s probably what you wanted, you masochist. They’ve got too many problems of their own to waste their time feeling sorry for you. And besides, feeling sorry for you for what? For what, God damn it?”
“He went back to his hometown, he says he wants to buy a car and be a taxi driver.” Don Fermín smiled. “Poor nigger. I hope it works out for him.”
“That’s just what you’d like.” Carlitos laughed. “To have the whole paper talking about you, gossiping about you, giving you a hard time. But either they don’t know or they were so surprised that they haven’t opened their mouths. They screwed you, Zavalita.”
“Now papa’s started to do his own driving, he doesn’t want to hire another chauffeur.” Teté laughed. “If you could see him driving you’d collapse. Ten miles an hour and stopping at every corner.”
“All of them so cordial with you, all of them making you feel bad with their smiles and friendliness?” Carlitos asked. “That must be what you wanted. Actually, they don’t know anything at all or they don’t give a shit, Zavalita.”
“That’s not true, I can get to the office from here faster than Sparky.” Don Fermín laughed. “Besides, I’m saving money and I’ve discovered that I like to drive. My second childhood. My, that stew looks good.”
Delicious, mama, of course he wanted some more, should she peel the shrimps for you? yes, mama. An actor, Zavalita, a Machiavelli, a cynic? Yes he would bring his clothes for the girls to wash, mama. One who could turn into so many different people that it was impossible to know which one was really he? Yes he would come for lunch every Sunday, mama. Another victim or victim-maker fighting tooth and nail to devour and not be devoured, another Peruvian bourgeois? Yes he would phone every day to tell how he was and if he needed anything, mama. Good at home with his children, immoral in business, an opportunist in
politics
, just like all the others? Yes he would get his law degree, mama. Impotent with his wife, insatiable with his mistresses, dropping his pants in front of his chauffeur? No he wouldn’t stay up late at night, yes he would dress warmly, no he wouldn’t smoke, yes he would take care of himself, mama. Putting vaseline on himself, panting and drooling like a woman in labor underneath him?
“Yes, I taught Master Sparky how to drive,” Ambrosio says. “Behind your father’s back, of course.”
“I never heard Becerrita or Periquito say a word to the others,” Carlitos said. “Maybe when I wasn’t there, they know that we’re friends. Maybe they talked about it for a few days, a few weeks. Then they all got used to it, forgot about it. Wasn’t that how it was with the Muse, isn’t that how it is with everything in this country, Zavalita?”
Years that get mixed up, Zavalita, mediocrity by day and monotony by night, beer, brothels. Stories, articles: enough paper to wipe yourself with for the rest of your life, he thinks. Conversations in the
Negro-Negro
, Sundays with shrimp stew, IOUs at the canteen at
La
Crónica,
a handful of books to remember. Drunken sprees without conviction, Zavalita, screwing without conviction, journalism without conviction. Debts at the end of the month, a purgation, slow, inexorable immersion in the invisible filth. She’d been the only thing different, he thinks. She made you suffer, Zavalita, lose sleep, cry. He thinks: your worms shook me up a little, Muse, they made me live a little. Carlitos moved the back of his hand, raised only his thumb and sucked in; his head thrown back there, half his face lighted by the reflector, half his face sunken in something secret and profound.
“China’s going to bed with a musician from the Embassy Club.” His wandering glassy eyes there. “I have a right to have my problems too, Zavalita.”
“All right, I can see that we’ll be here until dawn,” Santiago said. “I’ll have to put you to bed.”
“You’re good and a failure like me, you’ve got what you have to have,” Carlitos said syllable by syllable. “But you’re lacking something. Don’t you say that you want to live? Fall in love with a whore and you’ll see.”
He’d leaned his head over a little and with a thick, uncertain and slow voice, had begun to recite. He would repeat a single line of poetry, be silent, go back to it, sometimes laughing almost noiselessly. It was
already
close to three o’clock when Norwin and Rojas came into the Negro-Negro and Carlitos had been rambling on for some time.
“The championship race is over, we withdraw,” Norwin said. “We’re leaving the field free to you and Becerrita, Zavalita.”
“Not another single word about the newspaper or I’m leaving,” Rojas said. “It’s three o’clock in the morning, Norwin. Forget about
Última
Hora,
forget about the Muse, or I’m leaving.”
“Shitty sensationalist,” Carlitos said. “You look like a newspaperman, Norwin.”
“I’m not on the police beat anymore,” Santiago said. “This week I’m going back to local news.”
“We’ve buried the Muse, we leave the field open for Becerrita,”
Norwin
said. “It’s all over, there’s nothing left in it. Make up your mind to that, Zavalita, they’re not going to find anything out. It’s not news anymore.”
“Instead of exploiting the baser instincts of the Peruvian people, buy me a beer,” Carlitos said. “Shitty sensationalist.”
“I know that Becerrita is going to keep on beating it to death,” Norwin said. “Not us anymore. There’s nothing left in it, make up your mind to that. You’ve got to recognize that up to here we’ve been in a tie getting the scoop, Zavalita.”
“He’s a mulatto with straightened hair and muscles like this,” Carlitos said. “He plays the bongo drums.”
“The detectives have already buried the whole thing, I’ll pass the information on to you,” Norwin said. “Pantoja confessed it to me this afternoon. We’re digging around in the same place, we have to wait for something to turn up. They’re getting bored already, they’re not going to discover anything more. Tell that to Becerrita.”
Couldn’t they discover anything more or didn’t they want to? he thinks. He thinks: didn’t they know or did they kill you twice, Muse? Had there been conversations in low voices, posh salons, coming and going, mysterious doors that opened and closed, Zavalita? Had there been visits, whispering, confidences, orders?
“I went to see him tonight at the Embassy Club,” Carlitos said. “Are you looking for a fight? No, buddy, I came to have a talk. You tell me how China acts with you, then I’ll tell you my side, and we can compare notes. We got to be friends.”
Had it been the sloppiness, Lima and its moping ways, the stupidity of the detectives, Zavalita? He thinks: that no one demanded anything, insisted, that no one made a move on your behalf. Forget about it or did they really forget you, he thinks, bury the matter, or did they really bury it on their own? Did the same people kill you again, Muse, or did all Peru kill you this second time?
“Ah, I see why you’re acting that way,” Norwin said. “You had another fight with China, Carlitos.”
They went to the Negro-Negro two or three times a week while the newspaper was still at the old location on the Calle Pando. When
La
Crónica
moved into its new building on the Avenida Tacna they would meet in little cafés and bars on Colmena. The Jaialai, he thinks, the Hawaii, the América. The first days of the month Norwin, Rojas, Milton would appear in those dank caves and they would go to brothels.
Sometimes
they would find Becerrita, surrounded by two or three reporters, drinking and talking all buddy-buddy with the pimps and fairies and he always picked up the check. Getting up at noon, having lunch at the boardinghouse, an interview, a piece of information, sitting down at his desk and writing, going down to the canteen, back to the typewriter, leaving, going back to the boardinghouse at dawn, getting undressed watching the day grow over the ocean. And the Sunday lunches were getting confused, the little meals at the Rinconcito Cajamarquino
celebrating
Carlitos’ birthday, Norwin’s, or Hernández’, and the weekly get-togethers with his father, mother, Sparky and Teté.
2
“M
ORE COFFEE
, Cayo?” Major Paredes asked. “You too, General?”
“You got an O.K. out of me, but you still haven’t convinced me. I still think it’s stupid talking to him.” General Llerena threw the telegrams onto the desk. “Why not send him a message ordering him to Lima? Or if not, what Paredes proposed yesterday. Bring him out of Tumbes by land, put him on a plane in Talara and bring him here.”
“Chamorro may be a traitor, but he’s not an imbecile, General,” he said. “If you send him a telegram, he’ll make it across the border. If the police show up at his house, he’ll greet them with bullets. And we don’t know what the reaction of his officers will be.”
“I can answer for the officers in Tumbes,” General Llerena said, raising his voice. “Colonel Quijano has kept us posted from the beginning and he can assume command. You don’t negotiate with plotters, least of all when the plot has been crushed. This is all nonsense, Bermúdez.”
“Chamorro is very popular with the officer corps, General,” Major Paredes said. “I suggested that the four leaders all be arrested at the same time. But since three of them have already started to back down, I think Cayo’s idea is the best.”
“He owes everything to the President, he owes everything to me.” General Llerena pounded on the arm of his chair. “I might have expected a thing like this from somebody else, but not from him. Chamorro has got to pay me for this.”
“It’s not a question of you, General,” he admonished him in a friendly way. “The President wants this settled without any trouble. Let me do it my way, I assure you it’s the best way.”
“Chiclayo on the phone, General,” a head with a military cap said from the door. “Yes, all three phones are connected, General.”
“Major Paredes?” shouted a voice muffled by buzzing and acoustical vibrations. “Camino speaking, Major. I haven’t been able to get in touch with Mr. Bermúdez to let him know. We’ve already picked up Senator Landa here. Yes, on his ranch. Protesting, yes. He wants to call the Palace. We’ve followed the instructions to the letter, Major.”
“Very good, Camino,” he said. “Yes, it’s me. Is the senator there? Put him on, I want to speak to him.”
“He’s in the next room, Don Cayo.” The buzzing grew louder, the voice seemed to disappear and come to life again. “Incommunicado, as you indicated. I’ll have him brought right away, Don Cayo.”
“Hello, hello?” He recognized Landa’s voice, tried to picture his face and couldn’t. “Hello, hello?”