Conversation in the Cathedral

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  “Since you’re going to do what they want, there’s no problem,” Bermúdez said. “Right?”

  “El Comercio calls Odría the Savior of the Nation just because it hates APRA,” Colonel Espina said. “They only want us to keep the Apristas in the clink.”

  “That’s an accomplished fact,” Bermúdez said. “There’s no problem there either, right?”

  “And International, Cerro and the other companies only want a strong government that will keep the unions quiet for them,” Espina went on without listening to him. “Each one pulling in his own direction, see?”

  “The exporters, the anti-Apristas, the gringos and the army too,” Bermúdez said. “Money and power. I don’t see that Odría has any reason to complain. What more could he ask for?”

  “The President knows the mentality of those sons of bitches,” Colonel Espina said. “Today they support you, tomorrow they stick a knife in your back.”

  “The way you people stuck it in Bustamante’s back.” Bermúdez smiled, but the Colonel didn’t laugh. “Well, as long as you keep them happy, they’ll support the regime. Then they’ll get another general and throw you people out. Hasn’t it always been that way in Peru?”

  “This time it’s not going to be that way,” Colonel Espina said. “We’re going to keep our backs covered.”

  “That sounds fine to me,” Bermúdez said, stifling a yawn, “but what the hell have I got to do with all this?”

  “I talked to the President about you.” Colonel Espina studied the effect of his words, but Bermúdez hadn’t changed his expression; his elbow on the arm of the chair, his face resting on his open palm, he listened motionless. “We were going over names for Director of Security and yours came to mind and I let it out. Did I do something stupid?”

  He was silent, a look of annoyance or fatigue or doubt or regret, he twisted his mouth and narrowed his eyes. He remained for a few seconds with an absent look and then he sought Bermúdez’ face: there it was, just as before, absolutely quiet, waiting.

  “An obscure position but important for the security of the regime,” the Colonel added. “Did I do something stupid? You need someone there who’s like your other self, they warned me, your right arm. And your name came to mind and I let it out. Without thinking. You can see, I’m talking frankly to you. Did I do something stupid?”

  Bermúdez had taken out another cigarette, lighted it. He took a drag, tightening his mouth a little, biting the lower lip. He looked at the end of it, the smoke, the window, the piles of garbage on the Lima rooftops.

  “I know that if you want it, you’re my man,” Colonel Espina said.

  “I can see that you have confidence in your old classmate,” Bermúdez finally said, in such a low voice that the Colonel leaned forward. “Having chosen this frustrated and inexperienced hick to be your right arm, it’s a great honor, Uplander.”

  “Cut your sarcasm.” Espina rapped on the desk. “Tell me whether you accept or not.”

  “Something like that can’t be decided so fast,” Bermúdez said. “Give me a few days to mull it over.”

  “I won’t even give you a half hour, you’re going to answer me right now,” Espina said. “The President expects me at the Palace at six. If you accept you’re coming with me so I can introduce you. If not, you can go back to Chincha.”

  “The functions of Director of Security I can imagine,” Bermúdez said. “On the other hand, I have no idea what it pays.”

  “A base salary and some living expenses,” Colonel Espina said. “Around five or six thousand soles, I would calculate. I know it isn’t very much.”

  “It’s enough to live modestly.” Bermúdez barely smiled. “Since I’m a modest man, it’ll do me.”

  “Not another word, then,” Colonel Espina said. “But you still haven’t answered me. Did I do something stupid?”

  “Only time will tell, Uplander.” Bermúdez gave a half-smile again.

  Whether the Uplander ever recognized Ambrosio? When Ambrosio was Don Cayo’s chauffeur he got into the car a thousand times, yessir, he’d taken him to his house a thousand times. Maybe he recognized him, but the fact is that he never showed it, no sir. Since he was a minister then, he was probably ashamed that he’d known Ambrosio when he was a nobody, he wouldn’t have found it amusing that Ambrosio knew he’d been mixed up in the kidnapping of Túmula’s daughter. He’d probably erased him from his head so that black face wouldn’t bring back bad memories, no sir. The times they saw each other he treated Ambrosio like a chauffeur seen for the first time. Good morning, good afternoon, and the Uplander just the same. Now he was going to say something, yessir. It’s true that Rosa turned into a fat Indian covered with moles, but underneath it all her story made you feel sorry for her, yessir, right? After all, she was his wife, right? And he left her in Chincha and she couldn’t enjoy anything when Don Cayo became important. What became of her during all those years? When Don Cayo came to Lima she stayed there in the little yellow house, she’s probably still there turning to bone. But he didn’t abandon her the way he did Señora Hortensia, without a penny. He sent her her pension, many times he told Ambrosio, remind me that I have to send Rosa some money, black man. What did she do all those years? Who can say. Probably the same life she always had, a life without friends or relatives. Because from the day she was married she never saw anyone from the settlement again, not even Túmula. Don Cayo must have forbidden it, he must have. And Túmula went on cursing her daughter because she wouldn’t receive her in her house. But that wasn’t why, no sir; she didn’t get into Chincha society, never, who wanted to mix with the milk woman’s daughter, even if she was Don Cayo’s wife and wore shoes and washed her face every day. They’d all seen her driving the donkey and pouring out gourds of milk. And besides, knowing that the Vulture didn’t recognize her as his daughter-in-law. There was nothing left for her to do but shut herself up in a little room that Don Cayo took behind the San José Hospital and live the life of a nun. She almost never went out, from shame, because they pointed at her in the street, or from fear of the Vulture, maybe. Then it must have become a habit. Ambrosio had seen her sometimes, in the market or taking out a washbasin and scrubbing clothes, kneeling on the sidewalk. So what good was all her spark, yessir, all the tricks to catch the white boy. She might have got a better name and joined a better class, but she was left without any friends and even without a mother. Don Cayo, you say? Yes, he had friends. On Saturdays he could be seen having his little old beers in the Cielito Lindo or tossing coins at the toad in the Jardín el Paraíso, and in the whorehouse and they said he always had two of them in the room. He almost never went out with Rosa, no sir, he even went to the movies by himself. What kind of work did Don Cayo do? At the Cruz warehouse, in a bank, in a notary’s office, then he sold tractors to the ranchers. He spent about a year in the little room there, when he was better off he moved to the southern part of town, in those days Ambrosio was already an interprovince driver and didn’t get to Chincha very often, and one of those times he got to town they told him that the Vulture had died and that Don Cayo and Rosa had gone to live with the church biddy. Doña Catalina died during Bustamante’s government, yessir. When Don Cayo’s luck changed, with Odría, in Chincha they said now Rosa will get a new house and have servants. None of that, no sir. Visitors rained down on Rosa then. In La Voz de Chincha they printed pictures of Don Cayo, calling him a Distinguished Son of Chincha, and who didn’t rush to Rosa to ask her for some little job for my husband, a little scholarship for my son, and my brother to be named schoolteacher here, subprefect there. And the families of Apristas and Aprista-lovers to cry in front of her for her to get Don Cayo to let my nephew out or let my uncle come back into the country. That was where Túmula’s daughter got her revenge, yessir, that was where the ones who had snubbed her got what was coming to them. They say that she would receive them at the door and give them all the same idiot face. Her little boy was in jail? Oh, that’s too bad. A position for her stepson? He sh
ould go to Lima and talk to her husband and so long. But Ambrosio only knew all that from hearsay, yessir, can’t you see he too was already in Lima then? Who had convinced him to go look up Don Cayo? His black mama, Ambrosio didn’t want to, he said they say everyone from Chincha who goes to ask him for something gets turned away. But he didn’t turn him away, no sir, he helped him and Ambrosio was grateful to him for it. Yes, he hated the people in Chincha, who knows why, you can see that he didn’t do anything for Chincha, he didn’t even have a single school built in his town. When time passed and people began to say bad things about Odría and the exiled Apristas came back to Chincha, they say that the subprefect put a policeman at the yellow house to protect Rosa, can’t you see how much Don Cayo was hated? Yessir. Pure foolishness, ever since he was in the government they didn’t live together and they didn’t see each other, everybody knew that if they killed Rosa that wouldn’t have hurt Don Cayo, it would have been more like doing him a favor. Because he not only didn’t love her, no sir, he even must have hated her, for having got so ugly, don’t you think?

  “You saw how well he received you,” Colonel Espina said. “You’ve seen what kind of a man the General is.”

  “I’ve got to get my head in order,” Bermúdez muttered. “It’s like a potful of crickets.”

  “Go get some rest,” Espina said. “Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to the people in the Ministry and they will bring you up to date on things. But tell me if you’re happy at least.”

  “I don’t know if I’m happy,” Bermúdez said. “It’s more like being drunk.”

  “All right, I know that’s your way of thanking me.” Espina laughed.

  “I came to Lima with just this satchel,” Bermúdez said. “I thought it was a matter of a few hours.”

  “Do you need some money?” Espina asked. “Yes, sure, I’ll lend you some now and tomorrow we’ll get them to give you an advance in the payroll department.”

  “What bad luck happened to you in Pucallpa?” Santiago asks.

  “I’ll find a small hotel in the neighborhood,” Bermúdez said. “I’ll come by early tomorrow.”

  “For me, for me?” Don Fermín asked. “Or did you do it for yourself, in order to have me in your hands, you poor devil?”

  “Someone who thought he was my friend sent me there,” Ambrosio says. “Get yourself over there, boy. All a story, son, the streets are paved with gold. The biggest roasting of the century. Oh, if I only told you.”

  Espina took him to the office door and shook his hand. Bermúdez left with the satchel in one hand, his hat in the other. He had a distracted and serious look, as if he were looking inside. He didn’t answer the bow or the salute of the officer at the door of the Ministry. Was it quitting time in all the offices? The streets were full of people and noise. He mingled with the crowd, followed the current, he came, went, returned along narrow and jammed sidewalks, dragged along by a kind of whirlwind or spell, stopping at times at a corner or a doorway or a lamppost to light a cigarette. In a café on the Jirón Azángaro he ordered tea with lemon, which he slowly savored, and when he got up he left a tip that was twice the bill. In a bookstore hiding in an alley off the Jirón de la Unión, he thumbed through some novels with flashy covers and cramped and tiny letters, looking without seeing, until The Mysteries of Lesbos caught his eyes for a second. He bought it and left. He wandered awhile longer through the downtown streets, the satchel under his arm, his hat crumpled in his hand, smoking ceaselessly. It was already getting dark and the streets were deserted when he went into the Hotel Maury and asked for a room. They gave him a card and he paused with the pen for a few seconds at where it said profession, he finally wrote civil servant. The room was on the third floor, the window opened onto an inner courtyard. He got into the bathtub and went to bed in his underwear. He thumbed through The Mysteries of Lesbos, letting his eyes run blindly over the tight little black figures. Then he turned out the light. But he couldn’t fall asleep until many hours later. Awake, he lay on his back, his body motionless, the cigarette burning between his fingers, breathing with anxiety, his eyes staring at the dark shadows above him.

  4

  “SO IN PUCALLPA and that Hilario Morales’ fault, so you know when and why you fucked yourself up,” Santiago says. “I’d give anything to know at just what moment I fucked myself up.”

  Would she remember, would she bring the book? Summer was ending, it seemed like five o’clock and it wasn’t even two yet, and Santiago thinks: she brought the book, she remembered. He felt euphoric going into the dusty entranceway with flagstones and chipped columns, impatient, he should get in, she should get in, optimistic, and you got in, he thinks, and she got in: ah, Zavalita, how happy you felt.

  “You’ve got your health, you’re young, you’ve got a wife,” Ambrosio says. “How could you have fucked yourself up, son?”

  Alone or in groups, their faces buried in their notes, how many of these would go in? where was Aída? the candidates walked around the courtyard with the steps of a processional, they reviewed their notes sitting on the splintery benches, leaning against the dirty walls they asked each other questions in low voices. Half-breed boys and girls, proper people didn’t come here. He thinks: you were right, mama.

  “Before I left home, before I got into San Marcos, I was pure,” Santiago says.

  He recognized a few faces from the written exam, he exchanged smiles and hellos, but Aída didn’t appear, and he went to stand by the entrance. He listened to a group reviewing geography, he listened to a boy, motionless, his eyes lowered, reciting the names of the viceroys of Peru as if he were praying.

  “The kind of pure tobacco cigars that the moneybags smoke at bullfights?” Ambrosio laughs.

  He saw her come in: the same straight, brick-colored dress, the same low-heeled shoes from the written exam. She came along with her look of a studious schoolgirl in uniform through the crowded entranceway, she turned her overgrown child’s face from one side to the other, no glow, no grace, no makeup, looking for something, someone with her hard adult eyes. Her lips were tight, her masculine mouth open, and he saw her smile: the hard face grew softer, lighted up. He saw her come toward him: hello, Aída.

  “I said to hell with money and I thought I was capable of great things,” Santiago says. “Pure in that sense.”

  “Melchorita the holy woman lived on Grocio Prado, she gave away everything she had and spent her time praying,” Ambrosio says. “Did you want to be a saint like her when you were a boy?”

  “I brought you Out of the Night,” Santiago said. “I hope you like it.”

  “You’ve told me so much about it that I’m dying to read it,” Aída said. “Here’s that Frenchman’s novel about the Chinese Revolution.”

  “Jirón Puno, Calle de Padre Jerónimo?” Ambrosio asks. “Do they give away money in that place to broken-down black men like yours truly?”

  “That’s where we took the entrance exams the year I entered San Marcos,” Santiago says. “I’d been in love with girls from Miraflores, but on Padre Jerónimo I really fell in love for the first time.”

  “It isn’t much like a novel, it reads more like a history book,” Aída said.

  “Oho,” Ambrosio says. “And did she fall in love with you?”

  “Even though this one is an autobiography, it reads like a novel,” Santiago said. “Wait till you get to the chapter called ‘The Night of the Long Knives,’ about a revolution in Germany. Fantastic, you’ll see.”

  “About a revolution?” Aída thumbed through the book, her eyes and voice full of mistrust now. “But is this Valtin a Communist or an antiCommunist?”

  “I don’t know whether she fell in love with me or not, I don’t even know whether she knew I was in love with her,” Santiago says. “Sometimes I think she was, sometimes I think she wasn’t.”

  “You didn’t know, she didn’t know, what a mess, do you think that things like that can be ignored, son?” Ambrosio asks. “Who was the girl?”

  �
��I warn you that if he’s anti, I’ll give it back to you,” and Aída’s soft, timid voice grew challenging. “Because I’m a Communist.”

  “You’re a Communist?” Santiago looked at her in astonishment. “Are you really a Communist?”

  You still weren’t, he thinks, you wanted to be a Communist. He felt his heart beating strongly and he was amazed: in San Marcos you didn’t study anything, Skinny, they just played politics, it was a nest of Apristas and Communists, all the grumblers in Peru gather together there. He thinks: poor papa. You hadn’t even entered San Marcos, Zavalita, and look what you’d found.

  “Actually I am and I’m not,” Aída confessed. “Because where can you find any Communists around here?”

  How could she be a Communist without even knowing whether a Communist Party existed in Peru? Odría had probably put them all in jail, had probably deported or murdered them. But if she passed her orals and got into San Marcos, Aída would find out in the university, she would get in contact with those who were left and study Marxism and join the Party. She looked at me with a challenge, he thinks, come on, argue with me, her voice was quite soft and her eyes insolent, tell me that they’re atheists, burning, come on, deny what I say, intelligent, and you, he thinks, listened to her, startled and surprised: all that existed, Zavalita. He thinks: did I fall in love then and there?

  “A girl in my class at San Marcos,” Santiago says. “She talked politics, she believed in the revolution.”

  “Oh, Lord, you didn’t fall in love with an Aprista, did you, son?” Ambrosio asks.

  “The Apristas didn’t believe in the revolution anymore,” Santiago says. “She was a Communist.”

  “The devil you say,” Ambrosio says. “The hell you say.”

  New candidates were arriving on Padre Jerónimo, coming in the entranceway, the courtyard, running to the lists tacked up on a bulletin board, eagerly checking their grades. A busy murmur floated about the place.