The Neighborhood

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  He indicated a table with cups, plates, pitchers of juice, and coffeepots.

  “Some fruit juice, coffee, toast and marmalade?” he added drily. “This is my breakfast. But if you prefer something else, boiled eggs, for example, they’ll prepare it right now. You are my guest and this is your home, Shorty.”

  She didn’t say anything; she had calmed down a little and now waited in fear for the famous Doctor to tell her why he had brought her here. But he continued to drink his coffee and chew on his toast and marmalade as if she weren’t there. This was his famous refuge, the bunker he had built on one of the southern beaches. Rumor had it that great orgies were held here.

  What did she know about him? Not much more than other Peruvians, aside from this. That he had been a cadet and an obscure army officer until the military coup of October 3, 1968, by General Velasco Alvarado, when he became an aide to General Mercado Jarrín, in charge of foreign affairs for the de facto government. He held that position when the army discovered he was spying for and passing secrets to the CIA. The Velasco regime, which claimed to be socialist, had established a closer relationship with the USSR, which during those years had become the major supplier of weapons to Peru. Then an artillery captain, he was arrested, tried, found guilty, discharged from the army, and sent to a military prison. While serving his sentence, he studied law and became an attorney. This was when people gave him the nickname “the Doctor.” When he was pardoned and released from prison, he achieved some notoriety as a lawyer for drug dealers, getting them out of prison or reducing their sentences by corrupting or intimidating judges and prosecutors. It was said that he had been Pablo Escobar’s man in Peru. Apparently he came to know the judicial underworld like the palm of his hand and used the disorder and corruption in the courts for his own benefit—and the benefit of his clients.

  But his real fortune, according to the legend that surrounded his figure, came in the elections of 1990, won by Engineer Alberto Fujimori. Between the first and second stages of that election, the navy discovered that Fujimori wasn’t Peruvian but Japanese. He had come to Peru with his immigrant family, and they, to assure his future, like many Asian families who wanted to provide security to their descendants, had falsified (or bought) a birth certificate for him, indicating that he was born on July 28, the date of the National Holiday. They had also arranged a baptism for him that apparently confirmed his Peruvian nationality. When it began to appear in the press, between the two elections, that the navy would soon make its discovery public, Fujimori became terrified. His being Japanese automatically nullified his candidacy; the constitution was unequivocal in that regard. At that moment, it seems, contact between the aforementioned Doctor and the cornered candidate emerged. The Doctor was fast and clever. In a few days, all indications of the falsification had disappeared, and the naval officers who discovered it had been bribed or intimidated to be silent and destroy the evidence, which never came to light. The baptismal certificate was mysteriously torn out of the parish registry and disappeared forever. From that time on, the Doctor had been Fujimori’s right arm and, as head of the Intelligence Service, the presumed author of the worst villainies—trafficking, robberies, and political crimes—committed in Peru for the past ten years. It was said that the fortune he and Fujimori had overseas was dizzying. What could this devil want with a poor show-business journalist, a reporter for a minor publication that, to top it all off, had just tragically lost its director?

  “Juice and coffee are fine, Doctor,” Shorty articulated, almost without a voice. No longer frightened, she was stupefied. Why had he brought her here? Why was she standing before the most powerful and mysterious man in Peru? Why was the head of the Intelligence Service treating her with so much familiarity and talking about Rolando Garro as if the two of them had been the best of friends? Her boss had never even mentioned that he knew this personage, though he sometimes spoke of him with undisguised admiration: “Fujimori may be the president, but the man who gives the orders, the one who makes and breaks, is the Doctor.” It turns out they knew each other. Why hadn’t Rolando ever told her?

  “I haven’t gone to bed yet, Shorty,” he said, yawning, and she understood that the Doctor’s sunken, reddened eyes were due to lack of sleep. “Too much work. Only at night can I concentrate on what matters without being interrupted by all kinds of foolishness.”

  He stopped speaking and looked her over slowly, from head to foot, delving into her again as if wanting to verify the most secret things she kept in her memory and in her heart.

  “Do you know why I’m looking at you this way, Shorty?” the Doctor said, guessing what she was thinking. He spoke with an accent that occasionally revealed the singsong of Arequipa. Now he smiled at her amiably, to reassure her. “Because I can’t believe a woman as small as you can have such big balls. Such big ovaries, I mean, excuse me. And please excuse my frankness, too.”

  He celebrated his witticism with a little laugh that wrinkled his face, but she didn’t laugh. She had fastened her large, unmoving eyes on that powerful person and she didn’t thank him for the unexpected praise she had just received. She recalled what Rolando Garro had once said to her: “He must be the richest man in Peru by now, and besides, he gives the order to kill people without a tremor in his voice or hand.”

  “Accusing the engineer Enrique Cárdenas of murder!” he exclaimed, slowly savoring what he was saying, in a tone that tried to show respect and admiration for her. “You know he’s one of the most powerful men in Peru, don’t you, Shorty? Because of the harm you’ve done to him, he could disappear you in the blink of an eye?”

  “I did it so he wouldn’t have me killed too, the way he had Rolando Garro killed,” she said, speaking slowly, with no tremor in her voice. “After my accusation, he couldn’t do anything to me; it would look as if he’d signed off on my death.”

  “I see, I see,” he said, taking another swallow of coffee and handing her the cup in which he had just poured American coffee with a splash of cream. “You know what you’re doing and have plenty of courage and brains, Shorty. This time you were wrong, but it doesn’t matter. Shall I tell you something that will surprise you? I’ve been keeping track of you for some time, and you’re just as I imagined. Even better. Do you know why I sent for you?”

  “So that I’ll withdraw my accusation against Engineer Cárdenas,” she responded immediately, with absolute certainty.

  She saw that after a moment of confusion, the Doctor began to laugh with a free, open laugh that reassured her again. She felt she was no longer in danger, in spite of being here with a man like him. She recalled that Rolando Garro had also told her once: “They say he’s cruel, but generous to those who help him kill and steal: he makes them rich too.”

  “The truth is I like you, Shorty,” the Doctor said, becoming serious, and scrutinizing her with the yellowish look, inquisitive but without light, of tired eyes. “I suspected it because of what Rolando had told me about you, but now I’m sure: we’re made to understand each other. And that’s the truth, my dear Julieta Leguizamón.”

  “That isn’t why you sent for me, is it?” she asked.

  “No,” he replied immediately, shaking his head. “But the truth is, by the way, that it would be to the benefit of both of us if you withdrew that accusation right away. Let that poor millionaire enjoy his mines and his millions in peace. There won’t be any problem. It’s a simple procedure. You’ll tell the judge that you felt confused after the death of your boss and great friend, the editor of your magazine. That you weren’t in your right mind when you made that absurd accusation. Don’t worry, the engineer won’t do anything to you. I’ll get you a good lawyer who’ll help you through all the steps. Of course, it won’t cost you a cent. I’ll take care of that, too. It would be better for us if you withdraw it, Shorty. Yes, just what I said: better for you and for me. Besides, in this way we’ll have begun to work together. But, in any case, that isn’t why you’re here.”

  Then he was sile
nt, observing her while he took small sips of a second cup of coffee. Shorty heard the sound of the ocean; it seemed to come closer, it seemed as if it would burst into the room, and then it withdrew and grew faint.

  “If that wasn’t the reason, to what do I owe the honor of being here with you, Doctor, in nothing less than your secret beach refuge that people talk about so much?”

  He nodded, serious now, hiding another yawn with his hand. Shorty noticed that a little yellow light was shining in his eyes and that his voice was different: he was giving orders and there wasn’t a trace of amiability in his words.

  “As you can imagine, I can’t waste time listening to you tell lies, Shorty. So, I beg of you, talk to me with complete frankness, limiting yourself to concrete facts. Understood?”

  Shorty nodded. When she heard the Doctor’s intonation changing, she became alarmed again. But deep in her heart, something was telling her she wasn’t in danger; that, on the contrary, this visit was mysteriously opening for her opportunities that she shouldn’t squander. Her life could change for the better if she took advantage of the opportunity.

  “That story about the photos that Garro published in Exposed,” said the Doctor. “The ones of Engineer Cárdenas, naked and enjoying himself with prostitutes in Chosica. Tell me about that story.”

  “I can only tell you what I know, Doctor,” she said, taking her time.

  “Plenty of details, with no digressions,” he specified, very seriously. “I repeat: concrete facts and no conjectures.”

  Shorty knew immediately that she had no alternative. And then, with all kinds of details, she told him the absolute truth. Ever since, a couple of months ago, Ceferino Argüello, the photographer for Exposed, with an air of great mystery had approached her desk in the editorial office of the magazine. He wanted to talk to her alone: it was a confidential matter, nobody else on the weekly could know. She never imagined that poor little Ceferino Argüello, so insignificant, so respectful, so timid, so long-suffering that not only the editor but any reporter on the magazine could treat him like dirt, yell at him, quarrel with him about anything, would ever have anything so explosive in his hands.

  At about five in the afternoon, Shorty and Ceferino went to have lunch at Señora Mendieta’s Peruvian Delight, on the corner of Calle Irribarren, not far from the Surquillo police station. They ordered two cafés con leche and two crisp pork rind sandwiches with onion and chili peppers. Shorty, amused, saw that before he spoke, the photographer wrung his hands, grew pale, opened and closed his mouth without the courage to say a word.

  “If you have so many doubts, it’s better you don’t tell me anything, Ceferino,” she murmured. “We’ll have lunch, we’ll forget about the matter, and we’ll still be the friends we always were.”

  “I want you to take a look at these photographs, Shorty,” Ceferino stammered, looking around suspiciously. He handed her a portfolio, closed with two yellow bands. “Careful, nobody else can see them.”

  “Were they the photos Garro published in Exposed?” the Doctor interrupted her.

  Shorty nodded.

  “And how did this Ceferino get hold of them?” he asked. He was very focused, and now his glance seemed to go right through her.

  “He’s the one who took them,” said Shorty. “The guy who organized that orgy hired him. A foreigner, apparently.”

  “Señor Kosut,” murmured Ceferino Argüello, so quietly that Julieta had to move a little closer to hear what he was saying. Her face was still burning from the impression those photos had made on her. “I had already done some other dirty little jobs for him. He liked to be photographed in bed with women. And he wanted a lot of pictures of this one without the guy being aware of it. A gent, important, with some money, he said. He took me to the house in Chosica to get everything ready. That is, the hiding places for taking photographs. We even saw the best way to light the place. I spent I don’t know how much on rolls of film. We had agreed that he’d pay for all the materials and five hundred dollars for my work. But he stiffed me. He was living at the Hotel Sheraton. And suddenly he disappeared. Vanished into thin air, yes. He left the hotel and was gone. Never heard anything more about him. Until now.”

  “How long ago?” the Doctor asked.

  “Two years now, Shorty,” said Ceferino. “Two years, imagine. I’m really short of cash. I thought Señor Kosut would come back, but he never showed up again. Maybe he died, who knows what could have happened to him. I have a wife and three children, Julieta. Do you think something could be done with these photographs? For me to earn a few bucks, I mean. And at least get back what I invested.”

  “This is really a very ugly business, Ceferino,” said an uneasy Shorty, lowering her voice. “Don’t you know who the man was that you photographed doing those dirty things?”

  “I know very well, Shorty,” said Ceferino, in an almost inaudible whisper. “That’s why I’m asking you. A guy that important, couldn’t he maybe pay me a lot to get the photographs that make him look so bad?”

  “You want to blackmail that fat cat?” Shorty laughed, astonished. “You, Ceferino? Would you really dare to do it? Do you know the risk you run, blackmailing somebody so influential with something like this?”

  “I’d dare to do it if you helped me, Shorty,” Ceferino stammered. “I don’t have much character, it’s true. But you do, you have more than enough. Between the two of us maybe we could earn a few bucks. Wouldn’t you like that?”

  “Thanks very much, Ceferino, but the answer is no,” said Shorty in a definitive way. “I’m a reporter, not a blackmailer. Besides, I know my limits. I know who you can get mixed up with and who you can’t. I’m temperamental, that’s true, but I’m not a masochist or suicidal.”

  She held one of the photos of the orgy in her hand and looked at it with displeasure and, at the same time, with a strange sensation. Could what she was feeling be envy? She was sure she’d never be with a man doing the things that whore was doing, that she’d never take part in an encounter like that where different men would fuck her in all different places. Was she sorry? No: it made her sick, made her feel like vomiting.

  “In any case, Ceferino, if you want some advice, the best thing would be for you to consult the boss. Talk to him, tell him the story of this Kosut. He knows more about these things than you or I do. Maybe he’ll help you earn those soles you need.”

  “And then you and Ceferino went to take Rolando Garro the photos and tell him the story of Chosica,” the Doctor continued, very certain of what he was saying. “And Garro got the idea of blackmailing Engineer Enrique Cárdenas without asking my permission or telling me about the matter. Do you know how much he asked for?”

  Shorty swallowed saliva before she answered. Why did Rolando Garro have to ask permission of the head of the Intelligence Service to do what he had done? Was Rolando working for this individual? What she had always thought a rumor spread by her boss’s enemies, was it true then? That one worked for the other, that he was one of his journalistic hunting dogs?

  “In fact, it wasn’t blackmail, Doctor,” Shorty suggested, choosing her words carefully, thinking that saying something she shouldn’t could place her in a difficult situation. “He took him the photos to encourage him to invest in the magazine. It was Rolando’s dream, if you knew him you must know that. To transform Exposed into a great weekly, better known and better selling than Oiga or Caretas. Rolando thought that if Engineer Cárdenas became an investor, or even better, president of the board of directors of Exposed, all the publicity companies would begin to take out ads with us because the magazine’s image would become prestigious.”

  “It doesn’t cost anything to dream,” the Doctor murmured between his teeth. “Which shows that Rolando Garro was much less intelligent than people thought. But you haven’t answered my question. How much did he ask him for?”

  “One hundred thousand dollars to begin with,” said Shorty. “Like a first investment. Then, when the engineer saw that things were going
well, he’d ask him to put in more. He told him, so he could see that the game was clean, that he could name his own manager or auditor to watch over how this new infusion of capital was spent.”

  “It was Garro’s stupidity,” said the Doctor, filled with sorrow. “Not to want to blackmail him but to ask for that ridiculous sum. If instead of a hundred thousand he’d asked for half a million, maybe he’d be alive. The smallness of his ambitions was his downfall. And then the miner, instead of going along with him, threw him out of his office?”

  “He treated him very badly,” Shorty agreed; she didn’t really understand the background of what the Doctor was saying, but she was sure now that between her boss and this man there’d been a complicity greater than she had ever suspected. And not only journalistic, but something dirtier, too. “He insulted him, he said he’d never put a cent into that disgusting rag. He threw him out of his office, threatening to kick him if he didn’t get out as fast as a polka.”

  “Chagrined and humiliated, the imbecile published the photographs of the orgy,” the Doctor concluded, yawning again with a bored expression. “He let anger get the better of him and did the stupidest thing of his life. And paid dearly for it, as you saw. And to think that I warned him about that.”

  He looked at Shorty for a long time in silence; she didn’t blink or close her eyes. Why was the Doctor saying these things to her? What was it exactly that he wanted her to know? What kind of threat or warning was he aiming at her with what he said and the secrets he revealed? She had started to tremble again. Hearing what she was hearing brought her back to the danger of her situation.

  “I don’t know what you mean, Doctor,” she murmured. “I don’t want to know anything else, I beg you. I’m only a journalist who would like to live and work in peace. Don’t tell me anything that will put my life in danger, please.”