The Time of the Hero

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  “That’s fine,” the captain said. “Just wipe the dust off your shoes, then go to the colonel’s office right away.”

  He climbed the stairs with a foreboding of disaster. The civilian asked him his name, then hastened to open the door for him. The colonel was sitting at his desk. Once again, Alberto was impressed by the glossiness of the floor, the walls, the furniture. Even the colonel’s skin and hair seemed to have been waxed.

  “Come in, come in, Cadet,” the colonel said.

  Alberto was still uneasy. What was hidden behind that benevolent tone, that friendly look? The colonel congratulated him on his grades. “You see?” he told him. “A little extra effort pays big dividends. Your academic record is very good.” Alberto listened to these praises in a motionless silence: he was waiting. “In the army,” the colonel said, “justice always triumphs sooner or later. It’s something inherent in the military system, as you’ve had opportunity to observe for yourself. Just consider, Cadet Fernández: you were on the verge of ruining your life, of soiling an honorable name, an illustrious family tradition. But the army gave you a last opportunity to mend your ways. I don’t regret having placed so much confidence in you. Let me shake your hand, Cadet,” The colonel’s hand was as soft and flabby as a sponge. “You’ve turned over a new leaf,” the colonel went on. “A new leaf. That’s why I sent for you. Tell me, what are your plans for the future?” Alberto told him he was going to become an engineer. “Good,” the colonel said. “That’s very good. Our country has a great need for technicians. You’re taking the right path, it’s a most useful profession. I wish you the best of luck.” Alberto smiled timidly and said, “I don’t know how to thank you, Sir. I’m very grateful to you.” “You can leave now,” the colonel said. “Ah, but don’t forget to join the Alumni Association. It’s important for the cadets to maintain their ties with the Academy. We’re all one great big family.” The colonel stood up and accompanied him to the door, but then he remembered something else. “I forgot,” he said, waving his hand in the air. “There’s one more small detail.” Alberto stiffened to attention.

  “Do you recall certain pages you wrote? You know what I’m referring to. A very unpleasant business.”

  Alberto lowered his eyes and mumbled, “Yes, Sir.”

  “I’ve kept my word,” the colonel said. “I always keep my word. There isn’t a single blot on your record. I destroyed those documents.”

  Alberto thanked him effusively, saluted again, and left, while the colonel smiled at him from the doorway of his office.)

  “A ghost,” Pluto kept saying. “Alive and kicking.”

  “That’s enough,” Babe said. “We’re all glad that Alberto’s here. But give us a chance to talk.”

  “Yes,” Molly said. “We’ve got to make plans for the outing.”

  “Correct,” Emilio said. “Right now.”

  “An outing with a ghost,” Pluto said. “That’s really something!”

  Alberto walked home, absorbed, perturbed. The dying winter was saying farewell to Miraflores with a sudden fog that reached the tops of the trees along Larco Avenue, weakening the glow of the street lights. It spread everywhere, enfolding and dissolving objects, persons, memories: the faces of Arana and the Jaguar, the barracks, the confinements, all lost actuality, and instead a forgotten group of boys and girls returned in his memory, he talked with those dream images on the little square of grass at the corner of Diego Ferré, and nothing seemed to have changed, their words and gestures were familiar, life seemed pleasant and harmonious, time passed smoothly and evenly, and was as sweet and exciting as the dark eyes of that unknown girl who joked with him so cordially, a small, gentle girl with black hair and a soft voice. No one was surprised to see him there again, a grown-up now. They were all grown-ups now, living in a larger world, but the atmosphere had not changed and Alberto recognized the topics and concerns of those earlier days: sports, parties, the movies, the beaches, love affairs, well-bred humor, refined malice. His room was in darkness, and as he lay on the bed, he dreamed with his eyes open. It had only taken a few seconds for the world he had abandoned to open its doors and receive him again without question, as if the place he once occupied among them had been jealously guarded for him during those three years. He had regained his future.

  “And you didn’t feel ashamed?” Marcela asked.

  “Of what?”

  “Of being seen with her in public?”

  He could feel the blood rushing to his face. How could he explain that he had never felt ashamed, that on the contrary he had felt proud to be seen with Teresa? How could he explain that actually the one thing he felt ashamed of during that period was not to be from Lince like Teresa, that at the Leoncio Prado it was a humiliating disadvantage to be from Miraflores?

  “No,” he said, “I didn’t feel ashamed.”

  “Then you must have been in love with her,” Marcela said. “I hate you.”

  He squeezed her with his hand; the girl’s hip touched his, and at that brief contact Alberto felt a sudden rush of desire. He stopped walking.

  “No,” she said. “Not here, Alberto.”

  But she yielded to him and he was able to give her a long kiss on the mouth. When they parted, Marcela’s face was rapturous and her eyes were shining.

  “What about your parents?” she asked.

  “My parents?”

  “What did they think of her?”

  “They didn’t know about her.”

  They were in the Ricardo Palma Park. They walked through the middle of it, in the mottled shadows that the tall trees cast on the walks. There were a few other people strolling in the park, and a flower seller under an awning. Alberto took his arm from Marcela’s shoulder and clasped her hand. In the distance, a long line of cars was entering Larco Avenue. They’re going to the beach, Alberto thought.

  “Do they know about me?” Marcela asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “And they’re very happy about it. My father says you’re beautiful.”

  “And your mother?”

  “The same.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course. Do you know what my father told me the other day? He told me that before I leave I should invite you to spend a Sunday with us at one of the good beaches in the south. Just my parents and you and me.”

  “There you go,” she said. “Talking about it again.”

  “Yes, but I’ll be back for vacations. Three whole months every year. And besides, it’s not going to take very long. It isn’t like here in the United States. Everything’s quicker there, more efficient, more businesslike.”

  “You promised not to talk about it, Alberto,” she protested. “I hate you.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking. Did you know my parents are getting along very well these days?”

  “Yes, you told me. And does your father stay home now? He’s to blame for everything. I don’t know how your mother puts up with it.”

  “She’s a lot calmer now,” Alberto said. “They’re looking for another house, a more comfortable one. But sometimes my father goes out and doesn’t come back till the next day. He’s incurable.”

  “You aren’t like him, right?”

  “No,” Alberto said. “I’m very serious.”

  She looked at him tenderly. Alberto thought, I’ll study hard and be a good engineer. When I come back, I’ll work with my father, and I’ll have a convertible and a big house with a swimming pool. I’ll marry Marcela and be a Don Juan. I’ll go to the Grill Bolívar every Saturday for the dancing, and I’ll do a lot of traveling. After a few years I won’t even remember I was in the Leoncio Prado.

  “What’s the matter?” Marcela asked. “What are you thinking about?”

  They were at the corner of Larco Avenue. There were people around them: the women were wearing bright-colored skirts and blouses, white shoes, straw hats, sunglasses. In the passing convertibles they could see men and women in bathing suits, talking and laughing.

&n
bsp; “Nothing,” Alberto said. “I don’t like to remember the Military Academy.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was always getting punished. It wasn’t exactly good fun.”

  “The other day,” she said, “my father asked me why they sent you to that Academy.”

  “To make me behave,” Alberto said. “My father told me I could cut up with the priests but not with the military.”

  “Your father must be a heretic.”

  They went up Arequipa Avenue. As they got to 2nd of May, someone shouted to them from a flashy red car: “Hi, there, Alberto, Marcela!” They could see a young man waving his hand to them, and they waved back.

  “Did you hear the news?” Marcela said. “He’s broken off with Ursula.”

  “Oh? I didn’t know about it.”

  Marcela told him the details. He only half listened, because he had begun to think, against his will, about Lt. Gamboa. He’ll have to stay up there in the mountains. He treated me fair and square and that’s why they sent him away from Lima. All because I didn’t have enough guts. Maybe he’ll lose his chance at promotion and stay a lieutenant for years. Just for having believed in me.

  “Are you listening to me or not?” Marcela asked.

  “Of course,” Alberto said. “Then what?”

  “He called her on the telephone dozens of times, but the moment she recognized his voice she hung up. She did right, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Exactly right.”

  “Would you treat me the way he treated Ursula?”

  “No,” Alberto said. “Never.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Marcela said. “You men are all bandits.”

  They were back on Primavera Avenue. In the distance they could see Pluto’s car. Pluto was standing near it, shaking his fist at them. He was wearing a bright blue shirt, khaki trousers rolled up above his ankles, moccasins and cream-colored socks.

  “You’re a pair of stinkers!” he shouted. “Stinkers!”

  “Isn’t he gorgeous?” Marcela said. “I adore him.”

  She ran up to him and Pluto pretended theatrically to behead her. Marcela laughed, and her laugh seemed like a fountain cooling the hot morning. Alberto smiled at Pluto, who punched him affectionately on the shoulder.

  “I thought you’d run off with her, man,” Pluto said.

  “Wait just a second,” Marcela said. “I’ve got to go in and get my bathing suit.”

  “Hurry up or we’ll leave you behind,” Pluto said.

  “That’s right,” Alberto said. “Hurry up or we’ll leave you behind.”

  “And what did she say to you?” Skinny Higueras asked.

  She was motionless, stunned. He forgot his agitation for a moment, thinking: She still remembers. In the gray light that drifted down like a thin, gentle rain on that street in Lince, everything seemed made of ashes: the afternoon, the old houses, the pedestrians who slowly came and went, the identical lampposts, the uneven sidewalks, the dust hanging in the air.

  “Nothing. She just stood looking at me with wide-open eyes, as if she was afraid of me.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Skinny Higueras said. “That I don’t believe. She had to say something to you. Hello, at least, or how’ve you been, or how are you. Anyway, something.”

  But no, she had not said anything until he spoke to her again. His first words when he came across her were sudden and imperious: “Hello, Teresa. Do you remember me? How are you?” The Jaguar smiled, to show her that there was nothing unusual about this meeting, that it was a flat and banal episode with no mystery about it. But that smile cost him a tremendous effort, and he was aware of a sick feeling that had suddenly grown in his stomach like those white mushrooms with yellow caps that spring up on damp wood. Then the sickness attacked his legs: they wanted to take a step backward, forward, to one side or the other. And his hands wanted to plunge into his pockets or touch his face. Also, strangely, his heart was filled with a brute terror, as if any one of those impulses, if carried out, would unleash a catastrophe.

  “What did you do?” Skinny Higueras asked.

  “I repeated, ‘Hello, Teresa. Don’t you remember me?’”

  And then she said, “Of course. I didn’t recognize you at first.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief. Teresa smiled and reached out to shake his hand. The contact was very short, his fingers scarcely grazed hers, but his whole body grew calm, the fear and sickness and nervousness all vanished at once.

  “What suspense!” Skinny Higueras said.

  He was standing on a corner, looking distractedly about him while the ice-cream vendor served him a double cone of chocolate and vanilla. A few steps away, the Lima-Chorillos streetcar stopped with a brief squeal next to the wooden shelter, and the people waiting on the cement platform surged forward and blocked the door, so that the passengers getting out had to push their way through them. Teresa appeared on the top step of the streetcar, behind two women loaded down with bundles. In the midst of that jostling crowd she looked as if she were in danger. The vendor held out the cone, and as he took it, one of the scoops of ice cream fell off and landed on his shoe. “Damn!” the vendor said. “But it’s your own fault. I’m not going to give you another one.” He gave a kick and the scoop of ice cream sailed a few yards through the air. He turned and entered a side street, but seconds later he stopped and looked back. The streetcar was disappearing around the corner. He ran back and saw Teresa in the distance, walking alone. He followed her, hiding behind the pedestrians, thinking: Now she’ll go in one of the houses and I’ll never see her again. He made a decision: I’ll take a turn around the block, and if I see her when I get to the corner, I’ll go up to her. He started running, slowly at first, then like a madman. As he turned a corner he knocked down a pedestrian, who cursed his mother from the sidewalk. When he stopped, he was gasping and sweating. He wiped his brow with his hand, and between his fingers he could see Teresa coming toward him.

  “What next?” Skinny Higueras asked.

  “We talked,” the Jaguar said. “We had a talk.”

  “A long one?” Skinny Higueras asked. “How long?”

  “I don’t know,” the Jaguar said. “Just a short while, I guess. I walked her home.”

  She walked on the inner side of the sidewalk, he on the outer. Teresa walked slowly, sometimes turning to look at him, and he discovered that her eyes were steadier and surer than before, sometimes even bold, and that her glance was more sparkling.

  “It’s been five years, hasn’t it?” Teresa said. “Or maybe more.”

  “Six,” the Jaguar said. He lowered his voice a little. “And three months.”

  “How the time flies!” Teresa said. “Pretty soon we’ll be old.”

  She laughed, and the Jaguar thought, She’s a woman now. “And your mother?” she asked.

  “Didn’t you know? She died.”

  “That was a good chance,” Skinny Higueras said. “What did she do?”

  “She stopped,” the Jaguar said. He was smoking a cigarette, and he watched the dense cone of smoke that emerged from his mouth; one of his hands was drumming on the grimy table. “She said, ‘I’m very sorry. The poor thing.’”

  “You should’ve kissed her right then, and told her something,” Skinny Higueras said. “It was the right moment.”

  “Yes,” the Jaguar said. “The poor thing.”

  They walked for a little while in silence. He had his hands in his pockets and was glancing at her furtively. Suddenly he said, “I wanted to talk to you. I mean, a long time ago. But I didn’t know where you were.”

  “Ah!” Skinny Higueras said. “You finally got up the courage!”

  “Yes,” the Jaguar said, staring at the smoke ferociously. “Yes.”

  “Yes,” Teresa said. “I haven’t gone back to Bellavista since we moved. I don’t know how long it’s been.”

  “I wanted to beg your pardon,” the Jaguar said. “I mean for what happened on the beach that time.”<
br />
  She remained silent, but gave him an astonished look. He avoided her eyes and mumbled, “That is, to pardon me for insulting you.”

  “I’d already forgotten about it long ago,” Teresa said. “It was just kid stuff. Better not to remember it. Besides, I felt awful after the cop took you away. Yes, honestly I did.” Her eyes met his, but the Jaguar could tell that she was actually looking at the past, that it was opening out in her memory like a fan. “I went to your house that afternoon and told your mother everything that happened. She went to the police station to look for you and they told her they let you go. She was at my house all night, crying and crying. What happened? Why didn’t you come back?”

  “That was a good moment too,” Skinny Higueras said. He had just finished drinking a shot of pisco, and still had the shotglass near his lips, holding it with two fingers. “A real sentimental moment, I’d think.”

  “I told her everything,” the Jaguar said.

  “What’s everything?” Skinny Higueras asked. “That you came looking for me with a face like a whipped dog? That you turned into a thief and a whoremonger?”

  “Yes,” the Jaguar said. “I told her about all the robberies, at least the ones I remembered. I told her about everything except the presents, but she guessed right off.”

  “It was you,” Teresa said. “All those packages. You sent them to me.”

  “Ah!” Skinny Higueras said. “You spent half your earnings in the whorehouse and the other half sending her presents. What a character!”

  “No,” the Jaguar said. “I didn’t spend hardly anything in the whorehouse. The women didn’t charge me.”

  “Why did you do that?” Teresa asked.

  The Jaguar did not answer. He took his hands out of his pockets and began twiddling his fingers.

  “Were you in love with me?” she asked. He looked at her. She was not blushing, her expression was tranquil and gently questioning.