“What did I do?” Alberto asked.
“You asked her twenty times.”
“Just three,” Alberto said. “What are you exaggerating for?”
“I think he’s right,” Babe said. “If he likes her, he should keep after her until she agrees. He can take it out on her afterward.”
“But haven’t you got any pride?” Emilio asked. “When a girl turns me down I go for another one right away.”
“She’s going to listen to you this time,” Babe said to Alberto. “The other day we were talking at Laura’s house and Helena asked about you. You should’ve seen her blush when Tico asked her, ‘Do you miss him?’”
“Honest?” Alberto asked.
“Head over heels in love,” Emilio said. “Look at the way his eyes shine.”
“What’s probably the matter is you’re not asking her the right way,” Babe said. “You’ve got to make an impression on her. Do you know what you’re going to say?”
“More or less,” Alberto said. “At least I’ve got an idea.”
“That’s important,” Babe said. “The best thing is to have your whole speech ready in advance.”
“It all depends,” Pluto said. “I’d rather make it up as I go along. When I first meet a girl I feel nervous but as soon as I start talking I get a million ideas. The sound of my voice inspires me.”
“No,” Emilio said, “Babe’s right. I get everything ready too. If you do that, all you have to worry about is how you’re going to say it, how you’re going to look at her, when you’re going to take her hand.”
“You’ve got to have it all in your head,” Babe said. “If you get a chance, try it out in front of your mirror.”
“Yes,” Alberto said. He hesitated for a moment. “What do you say?”
“It’s not always the same,” Babe said. “It depends on the girl.” Emilio nodded in agreement. “You can’t ask Helena straight out if she’ll be your girl friend. First you’ve got to soften her up.”
“Maybe that’s why she turned me down,” Alberto said. “The last time, I just asked her all of a sudden if she’d like to be my sweetheart.”
“You were an idiot,” Emilio said. “And besides, you asked her in the morning. And out in the street. You must’ve been crazy.”
“I asked a girl during Mass once,” Pluto said, “and it worked out fine.”
“No,” Emilio said. He turned to Alberto. “Look, get her to dance with you tomorrow. Wait till they play a bolero. Don’t ask her during a mambo. It’s got to be more romantic.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Babe said. “When you’re all ready, give me a signal and I’ll put on Leo Marini’s ‘I Love You.’”
“That’s my bolero!” Pluto cried. “Every time I’ve asked a girl while we were dancing to ‘I Love You,’ she’s told me yes. It never fails.”
“All right,” Alberto said, “I’ll give you a signal.”
“Get her to dance with you and don’t let her get away,” Emilio said. “Steer her to a corner without her noticing it. That’s so the other couples won’t hear you. Then whisper in her ear, ‘Helenita, you’re driving me crazy.’”
“You imbecile!” Pluto shouted. “Do you want her to turn him down all over again?”
“Why?” Emilio said. “I always start out that way.”
“No,” Babe said, “that’s too crude, too clumsy. First you have to look very serious and tell her, ‘Helena, I’ve got something very important to say to you. I like you a lot. In fact, I’m in love with you. Do you want to go around with me?’”
“And if she doesn’t say anything,” Pluto added, “ask her, ‘Helenita, don’t you care for me at all?’”
“And then you squeeze her hand,” Babe said. “Slowly, with lots of tenderness.”
“Don’t look so pale, man,” Emilio said, giving Alberto a pat on the back. “Don’t worry, this time she’ll say yes.”
“That’s right,” Babe said. “You’ll see.”
“And after you ask her,” Pluto said, “we’ll gather around and sing ‘Here Are Two Sweethearts.’ I’ll see to that, I give you my word.”
Alberto smiled.
“But right now you’ve got to learn the mambo,” Babe said. “Go on, your partner’s waiting for you.”
Pluto was holding his arms out theatrically.
Cava said he was going to be a soldier, but not in the infantry, in the artillery. He hasn’t talked about it lately but he must’ve been thinking about it. Those peasants are stubborn, when they get an idea in their head it stays there. Almost all the soldiers are peasants. I don’t think anybody from the coast would think of being a soldier. Cava’s got the face of a peasant and a soldier, and now they’ve screwed him out of everything, the Academy, his army career, that’s what must hurt the most. The peasants have bad luck, something’s always happening to them. Just on account of some dirty squealer that we’ll probably never find, they’re going to rip off his insignia in front of everybody, I can see it, how it’s going to be, and it gives me the shivers to think that if my number’d come up I’d be the one in the guardhouse. But I wouldn’t’ve broken the glass, you have to be stupid to do that. The peasants are kind of stupid. It must’ve been because he was scared, though that peasant Cava isn’t any coward. But this once he got scared, it’s the only way to explain it. Besides his bad luck. All the peasants have bad luck, the worst things are always happening to them. It’s good luck not to be born a peasant. And the hard part is, he wasn’t expecting it, nobody was, he was feeling fine, he kept baiting that fairy Fontana, you always have a good time in French class, he’s a real character, that Fontana. The peasant said, Fontana’s all sort of: he’s sort of short, sort of blond, and sort of like a man. His eyes are bluer than the Jaguar’s, but they’ve got a different look in them, half serious, half mocking. They say he isn’t a Frenchman, he’s a Peruvian trying to pass as a Frenchman, and that means he’s a son of a bitch. I don’t know anything worse than betraying your country. But it’s probably a lie, because where do they get all these things they tell about Fontana? Every day there’s something new. Maybe he isn’t even queer, but where did he get that high voice, and those gestures that make you want to pinch his cheeks? If it’s true he’s trying to pass as a Frenchman, I’m glad I’ve given him a bad time. I’m glad they all give him a bad time. And I’ll keep it up until the last day of classes. Señor Fontana, how do you say “pile of shit” in French? Sometimes you have to feel sorry for him, he isn’t a bad guy, just kind of odd. He started crying one day, I think on account of the razor blades. Everybody brought a razor blade to class and stuck it in a crack in his desk and the Jaguar said you make them play by just plucking them with your finger. Fontana kept opening and closing his mouth but all you could hear was zoom, zoom, zoom. We didn’t laugh, so as not to lose the rhythm, and the fairy went on opening and closing his mouth, zoom, zoom, zoom, louder and louder, everybody together, let’s see who gets tired first. We kept it up for three quarters of an hour, maybe more. Who’s going to win, who’s going to be the first to give up? Fontana pretended nothing was happening, he opened and closed his mouth like a deaf and dumb person, and the concert got prettier all the time. Finally he closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he was crying. He’s a fairy. But he still kept trying to talk, he didn’t give up. Zoom, zoom, zoom. Then he left the classroom and everybody said, “He’s gone to call the lieutenant, we’re going to get screwed for sure,” but the good thing about it was he just went away. They bait him every day and he never calls the officers. He must be afraid they’ll hit him, the best thing is not to look like a coward. Sometimes it almost seems as if he likes to have them bait him. Fairies are sure odd. But he’s a good guy, he never flunks anyone in the exams. It’s his own fault they bait him. What’s he doing in a school for he-men with that voice of his and those fairy gestures? The peasant makes it rough for him all the time, he really despises him. He starts in on him the minute he comes in the classroom. How do you say
“fairy” in French, teacher? Do you like to polish the knob? You must be very artistic, teacher, why don’t you sing us something in French in that lovely voice of yours? Teacher, your eyes are exactly like Rita Hayworth’s. And the fairy always replied, he always answered, but in French. Look, teacher, don’t be a wise guy, don’t insult us, I challenge you to a boxing match, Jaguar don’t be discourteous. The thing is, they’ve got him screwed, we’ve got him under our thumb. One day we spit all over him while he was writing on the blackboard, he was all covered with slime, Cava said “How repulsive, he ought to take a bath before he comes to class.” But that time he did call the lieutenant, that was the only time, what a fool he made of himself, that’s why he never called the officers again, Gamboa’s really something, we all found out what he’s made of. He looked him up and down, what suspense, nobody even breathed. And what would you like me to do, Señor? You’re in charge here in the classroom. It’s very easy to make them respect you. Watch. Then he looked at us for a moment and said Attention! Goddamn, in less than a second we were on our feet. Kneel down! Goddamn, in less than a second we were on the floor. Duck-walk in your places! and we all began duck-walking. It lasted more than ten minutes, I think. I felt as if somebody’d pounded my knees with a crowbar, one, two, one, two, very serious, like ducks, till Gamboa said Halt! Does anybody want to have it out with me, man to man? Not even the flies moved. Fontana looked at him and couldn’t believe it. You’ll have to make them respect you yourself, Señor, they don’t appreciate good manners, you have to get tough with them. After he left, we started saying “You little queer” without moving our lips. That’s what Cava was doing this afternoon, he’s sort of a ventriloquist, he doesn’t move his lips at all but his voice comes out good and clear, even if you’re watching him you can’t believe it. While Cava was doing that, the Jaguar said, “They’re coming to get Cava, they’ve found out all about it.” He started laughing and Cava looked all around, so did Curly and I, what’s the matter. Just then Huarina appeared in the doorway and said, “Cava, come with us. Excuse me, Señor Fontana, but it’s an important matter.” The peasant’s a good guy, he got up and went out without looking at us and the Jaguar said, “They don’t know who they’re messing with,” and he began to curse Cava, that shitty peasant, he got screwed because he’s so stupid, it was all about the peasant, as if it was his fault they were going to expel him.
He had forgotten the tiny, identical acts that made up his life in the days following his discovery that he could not trust his mother either; but he had not forgotten the discouragement, the bitterness, the resentment and the fear with which his heart was filled. The worst thing was to have to pretend. Earlier, he waited for his father to leave the house before getting out of bed. But one morning someone pulled the sheets off him while he was still asleep. He felt cold, and opened his eyes to the clear light of the dawn. Then his heart stood still: his father was looking down at him with the same fire in his eyes as on that night. He heard him say, “How old are you?”
“Ten.”
“Are you a man? Answer me.”
“Yes,” he stammered.
“Get out of that bed, then,” the voice said. “Women are the only ones who spend the day in bed, they’re lazy but they’ve got a right to be because they’re women. They’ve brought you up like a little girl. But I’m going to make a man out of you.”
He got out of bed and began to dress, but in his terrified haste he tried to put on the wrong shoe, he buttoned his shirt up wrong, he could not find his belt, his hands trembled so much that he could not tie his shoelaces.
“From now on, when I come down to breakfast I want to see you at the table waiting for me. With your hands and face washed and your hair combed. Do you hear me?”
He ate breakfast with him after that, changing his tactics to suit whatever mood his father was in. If he saw that he was smiling, with calm eyes and a smooth forehead, he asked him questions that would flatter him, listened to him with the profoundest attention, nodded his head, opened his eyes wide, asked him if he would like him to wash the car. On the other hand, if he saw that his father’s expression was stern, if his greeting went unanswered, he kept silent and listened to his threats with bowed head, as if repentant. There was less tension at lunch because his mother ate with them and diverted his father’s attention. His parents talked to each other and he could get through the meal unnoticed. The torment ended in the evening. His father came home late, and he was able to eat before he arrived. From seven o’clock on, he would tag after his mother, complaining that he was tired, he felt sleepy, he had a headache. Then he would gobble his food and run up to his room. Sometimes he was still undressing when he heard his father parking the car. He would turn out the light and hide under the covers. An hour later he would get up, finish undressing in the dark, put on his pajamas and get into bed again.
Now and then he went out for a walk in the morning. Salaverry Avenue was deserted at ten o’clock, but occasionally a half-filled streetcar went rumbling by. He walked down to Brazil Avenue and stopped at the corner. He never crossed over, because his mother had told him not to. He watched the cars disappearing in the distance, in the direction of the center of town, and he thought of the Bolognesi Plaza at the end of the avenue, remembering it from the day his parents took him out for a drive: the noisy swarm of cars and buses, the crowded walks, the mirror-like tops of the automobiles reflecting the brilliant lines and letters of the electric signs. Lima frightened him, it was too big, you could lose yourself in it and never find your way home; the people on the street were total strangers. In Chiclayo he had gone out for walks alone: the people he met patted his head and called him by his name, and he smiled at them. He had seen them many times, in his house, in the main plaza, at Mass on Sundays, on the beach at Eten.
Then he walked down to the end of Brazil Avenue and sat on one of the benches in that little semicircular park on the edge of the cliffs, above the ash-gray sea. The parks in Chiclayo—there were only a few of them, he knew them all by memory—were also old like this one, but the benches did not have this rust, this moss, this sadness that made you feel so lonely under the gray sky as you listened to the melancholy mumble of the ocean. Sometimes, while he was sitting with his back to the sea, looking down Brazil Avenue and remembering the highway from the north that had brought him to Lima, he wanted to cry, to cry out. He recalled his Aunt Adelina coming back from the store and asking him with a smile in her eyes, “Can’t you guess what I found?” and taking out a package of caramels or a piece of chocolate, which he grabbed from her hand. He recalled the sun, the white light that bathed the streets all year long, keeping them warm and pleasant; he recalled the excitement of Sundays, the trips to Eten, the hot yellow sand, the clear blue sky. He looked up: gray clouds everywhere, without a single break in them. He went back to his house, walking slowly, dragging his feet like an old man. He thought: When I grow up I’ll go back to Chiclayo. And I’ll never come to Lima again.
8
Lt. Gamboa opened his eyes. The only light that came in through the window of his room was the dim glow of the far-off lights of the parade ground; the sky was black. A few seconds later his alarm clock went off. He got up, rubbed his eyes, and collected his towel, soap, razor, and toothbrush. The hallway and the washroom were in darkness, and there was no sound from the nearby room: as usual, he was the first one up. Fifteen minutes later, back in his room, he heard the other alarm clocks go off. The dawn was beginning now: far away, behind the yellow glow of the lights, a dim blue light grew steadily stronger. He put on his field uniform without hurrying, and then left his room. Instead of crossing by the barracks of the cadets, he went to the guardhouse through the open field. It was rather cold and he had not put on his jacket. The soldiers on guard saluted him and he returned their salute. The lieutenant on duty, Pedro Pitaluga, was dozing hunched over in a chair, his head in his hands.
“Attention!” Gamboa barked.
Pitaluga jumped up, his eyes
still closed. Gamboa laughed.
“Don’t horse around, man,” Pitaluga said as he sat down again. He scratched his head. “I thought it was the Piranha. I’m dead tired. What time is it?”
“Almost five. You’ve still got forty minutes to go. That’s not so long. Why do you try to sleep? It’s the worst thing you can do.”
“I know,” Pitaluga said, yawning. “I’ve violated the regulations.”
“Yes,” Gamboa said with a grin. “But that isn’t why I said it. If you try to sleep sitting up, you feel terrible afterward. The best thing is to do something. That way, the time goes by without your even noticing it.”
“Do what? Talk with the soldiers? Yes, Lieutenant, no, Lieutenant. Brilliant conversation. And the next thing you know, they’re asking you for a furlough.”
“I always study when I’m Officer of the Guard. It’s the best time. I can’t study during the day.”
“Sure,” Pitaluga said, “you’re the model officer. By the way, what got you up so early?”
“Today’s Saturday. Don’t you remember?”
“Field exercises,” Pitaluga said. He offered a cigarette to Gamboa but he refused it. “One thing about this duty, I get out of the exercises.”
Gamboa remembered their years at the Military School. Pitaluga was in the same section with him. He was a poor student but an excellent marksman. Once, during the annual maneuvers, he waded into the swollen river, dragging his horse behind him. The water came up to his shoulders, and the horse neighed with terror. The others begged him to come back, but Pitaluga managed to overcome the current and reach the other side, soaking wet and happy. Their captain congratulated him in front of everybody, telling him, “You’re a real man.” But now Pitaluga was always complaining about his duties, especially the field exercises. He was like the soldiers and cadets, all he thought about was getting a pass. The others had a good excuse: they were only in the army for the time being. Most of the soldiers had been dragged out of their mountain villages by force and put into the ranks; as for the cadets, most of them were in the Academy because their families wanted to get rid of them for a while. But Pitaluga had chosen his career. And he was not the only one: every two weeks Huarina invented some new illness for his wife in order to get a pass; Martínez drank in secret while he was Officer of the Guard, and everyone knew his thermos of “coffee” was full of pisco. Why not ask for a discharge? Pitaluga was getting fat, he never studied, he was always dead drunk when he came back from a pass. He’ll be a lieutenant for years and years, Gamboa said to himself. But then he thought: Unless he’s got political connections. Gamboa loved the military life for exactly the same reasons that the others hated it: discipline, rank, field exercises.
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