Conversation in the Cathedral

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  “At noon and at night this place is packed,” Jacobo said. “The students come here after class.”

  “I’ve got to tell you something right off.” Santiago clenched his fists under the table and swallowed. “My father’s in the government.”

  There was a silence, the exchange of looks between Jacobo and Aída seemed eternal, Santiago could hear the seconds pass and bit his tongue: I hate you, papa.

  “It occurred to me that you might be a relative of that Zavala,” Aída said, finally, with an afflicted smile of condolence. “But what difference does that make, your father’s one thing and you’re another.”

  “The best revolutionaries come out of the bourgeoisie,” Jacobo raised their morale, soberly. “They broke with their class and were converted to the ideology of the working class.”

  He gave some examples and, emotional, he thinks, thankful, Santiago told them about his fights over religion with the priests at school, the political arguments with his father and his friends in the neighborhood, and Jacobo started to look through the books that were on the table: Man’s Fate was interesting but a little romantic and Out of the Night wasn’t worth reading, the author was an antiCommunist.

  “Only at the end of the book,” Santiago protested, “only because the Party refused to help him rescue his wife from the Nazis.”

  “Worse yet,” Jacobo explained. “He was a renegade and a sentimentalist.”

  “If a person is sentimental, can’t she be a revolutionary?” Aída asked, saddened.

  Jacobo reflected a few seconds and shrugged his shoulders: maybe it’s possible in some cases.

  “But renegades are the worst there is, look at APRA,” he added. “A person is a revolutionary right down the line or he isn’t at all.”

  “Are you a Communist?” Aída asked, as if she were asking what time is it, and Jacobo lost his calm for an instant: his cheeks flushed, he looked around, he gained time by coughing.

  “A sympathizer,” he said, cautiously. “The Party is outlawed and it’s not easy to get in contact. Besides, in order to be a Communist you’ve got to do a lot of studying.”

  “I’m a sympathizer too,” Aída said, enchanted. “What luck that we met.”

  “So am I,” Santiago said. “I don’t know much about Marxism, but I’d like to know more. But where, how?”

  Jacobo looked at them one by one, into their eyes, slowly and deeply, as if calculating their sincerity or discretion, and he took another look around and leaned toward them: there was a secondhand bookstore, here downtown. He’d discovered it the other day, he went in to look around and he was thumbing through some books when he came across some numbers, very old, very interesting, of a magazine that he thinks was called Cultura Soviética. Forbidden books, forbidden magazines and Santiago could see shelves overflowing with pamphlets that weren’t sold in bookstores, volumes that the police had taken out of libraries. In the shadow of walls gnawed by dampness, through cobwebs and mildew, they consulted the explosive books, argued and took notes, on nights which were as dark as the mouth of a wolf, in the light of improvised candelabras they made résumés, exchanged ideas, read, taught each other, broke with the bourgeoisie, armed themselves with the ideology of the working class.

  “Aren’t there any more magazines in that bookstore?” Santiago asked.

  “There probably are,” Jacobo said. “If you want, we can go together and see. What about tomorrow?”

  “We could go to an art gallery and a museum too,” Aída said.

  “Yes, indeed, I haven’t been to any museum in Lima so far,” Jacobo said.

  “Me either,” said Santiago. “Let’s take advantage of these days before classes start and visit them all.”

  “We can go to the museums in the morning and in the afternoon go through secondhand bookstores,” Jacobo said. “I know a lot of them and sometimes you find some good things.”

  “Revolution, books, museums,” Santiago says. “Do you see what it is to be pure?”

  “I thought that being pure was living without fucking, son,” Ambrosio says.

  “And the movies too one of these afternoons to see a good picture,” Aída said. “And if Santiago the bourgeois wants to treat us, let him treat us.”

  “I’m never going to treat you again, not even to a glass of water,” Santiago said. “Where shall we go tomorrow, and at what time?”

  “Well, Skinny,” Don Fermín said. “Was the oral very hard, do you think you passed, Skinny?”

  “Ten o’clock on the Plaza San Martín,” Jacobo said. “At the express bus stop.”

  “I think so, papa,” Santiago said. “Now you can give up your hopes that someday I’ll go to the Catholic University.”

  “I ought to box your ears for being sassy,” Don Fermín said. “So you passed, so you’re a full-fledged university man. Come here, Skinny, let me give you a hug.”

  You didn’t sleep, he thinks, I’m sure that Aída didn’t sleep either, that Jacobo didn’t sleep either. All the doors open, he thinks, at what moment and why did they begin to close?

  “You’ve had your own way, you got into San Marcos,” Señora Zoila said. “You must be happy, I imagine.”

  “Very happy, mama,” Santiago said. “Especially because I won’t have to associate with proper people ever again. You can’t imagine how happy I am.”

  “If you want to become a peasant half-breed, why don’t you get a job as a servant instead?” Sparky said. “Go around barefoot, don’t bathe, breed lice, Superbrain.”

  “The important thing is that Skinny has gotten into the university,” Don Fermín said. “The Catholic University would have been better, but a person who wants to study can study anywhere.”

  “The Catholic University isn’t any better than San Marcos, papa,” Santiago said. “It’s a priests’ school. And I don’t want to learn anything from priests. I hate priests.”

  “And you’ll go straight to hell, imbecile,” Teté said. “And you let him raise his voice to you like that, papa.”

  “I’m sorry you’ve got those prejudices, papa,” Santiago said.

  “They’re not prejudices, I don’t care whether your classmates are white, black, or yellow,” Don Fermín said. “I want you to study, not waste your time and be left without a career like Sparky.”

  “Superbrain raises his voice to you and you give it to me,” Sparky said. “That’s just fine, papa.”

  “Politics isn’t a waste of time,” Santiago said. “Or are the military the only ones who have the right to be in politics here?”

  “First the priests and now the army, the two same little tunes,” Sparky said. “Change the subject, Superbrain, you’re like a broken record.”

  “How prompt you are,” Aída said. “You were talking to yourself, that’s amusing.”

  “Nobody can get along with you,” Don Fermín said. “Even if we treat you with love, you always give us a kick in the pants.”

  “The fact is I am a little crazy,” Santiago said. “Aren’t you afraid to be with me?”

  “All right, don’t cry, get off your knees, I believe you, you did it for me,” Don Fermín said. “Didn’t you think that instead of helping me you could have sunk me forever? Why did God give you a head, you poor devil?”

  “Don’t you believe it, I love lunatics,” Aída said. “I was undecided between Law and Psychiatry.”

  “The fact is that I let you have your own way too much and you take advantage,” Don Fermín said. “Go to your room, right now, Skinny.”

  “When you punish me, you take away my allowance, when it’s Santiago, you only send him to bed,” Teté said. “What kind of a way is that, papa?”

  “The fact is that nobody is happy with what he’s got,” Ambrosio says. “Not even you, and you’ve got everything. Look at my situation.”

  “Take his allowance away too, papa,” Sparky said. “Why these preferences?”

  “I’m glad you chose Law,” Santiago said. “Look, there’s Jacobo.�
�

  “Don’t butt in when I’m talking to Skinny,” Don Fermín said. “If you do, you two won’t get any allowance.”

  5

  THEY GAVE HER A PAIR of rubber gloves, a smock, they told her she was a bottler. The pills began to fall and they had to put them into the bottles and put in pieces of cotton on top. The ones who put the caps on were called cappers, labelers the ones who put on the labels, and at the end of the table four women gathered the bottles and arranged them in cardboard boxes: they were called packers. The woman next to her was named Gertrudis Lama and she was very quick with her fingers. Amalia began at eight, stopped at twelve, came back at two and quit work at six. Two weeks after she went to work at the laboratory her aunt moved from Surquillo to Limoncillo, and at first Amalia went to have lunch at her house, but so long a bus ride cost a lot and the time was very tight. One day she got back at two-fifteen and the woman in charge are you taking advantage because you were recommended by the owner? Bring your lunch the way we do, Gertrudis Lama advised her, you’ll save time and money. From then on she brought a sandwich and a piece of fruit and went to have lunch with Gertrudis by a drainage canal on the Avenida Argentina where vendors came to offer them lemonade and ices and fellows who worked in the area to tease them. I’m making more than before, she thought, I don’t work as much and I have a girl friend. She missed her room a little and young Teté, but I’ve already forgotten about that other devil, she was telling Gertrudis Lama, and Santiago Amalia? and Ambrosio yes do you remember her, son?

  She hadn’t been at the laboratory a month when she met Trinidad. He made coarse remarks with more humor than the others, Amalia would remember his nonsense when she was alone and burst out laughing. Nice, but a little crazy, don’t you think? Gertrudis told her one day, and another day the way you laugh at him, and another time it’s easy to see that you’re beginning to like the nut. You more likely, Amalia said, and thought am I beginning to like him? and Santiago Amalia your wife, Amalia the one who died in Pucallpa? One night she saw him waiting for her at the trolley stop. As fresh as you like he got on the streetcar, sat down beside her, sang a snatch of “Negra Consentida” and started with his jokes, spoiled Half-breed, she was serious on the outside and dying with laughter inside. He paid her fare and when Amalia got out he bye-bye lovey. He was quite thin, dark, crazy, straight black hair, a good lad. His eyes were shifty and when they got to know each other Amalia told him he had Chinese blood, and he you’re a white half-breed, we’ll make a good combination, and Ambrosio yes, boy, the very same. Another time he took the downtown bus with her and got on the bus to Limoncillo with her and also paid her fare and she all the money I’m saving. Trinidad wanted to invite her to have something to eat but Amalia no, she couldn’t accept. Let’s get off, love, you get off, I haven’t even been introduced to you. I’ll leave if we’re introduced, he said and shook her hand, Trinidad López pleased to meet, and she shook his, pleased to meet you Amalia Cerda. On the following day Trinidad sat down beside her at the canal and began to tell Gertrudis what a spoiled little friend you’ve got, Amalia makes me lose sleep. Gertrudis picked up the thread and they became friends and later Gertrudis to Amalia pay some attention to the nut and you’ll forget about Ambrosio, and Amalia I’ve already forgotten that one, and Gertrudis really? and Santiago were you involved with Amalia ever since she started working at the house? Amalia was shocked by the foolish things Trinidad said, but she liked his mouth and he shouldn’t try anything. The first time he tried was on the bus to Limoncillo. It was packed, people were pressed up against each other, and there she noticed that he was beginning to rub. She couldn’t retreat, she had to play the innocent. Trinidad looked at her seriously, brought his face close, and suddenly I love you and he kissed her. She felt hot, that someone was laughing. You’re abusive, when they got off she was furious, he’d shamed her in front of everybody, taking advantage. She was the woman he was looking for, Trinidad told her, I’ve got you in my heart. I’m not crazy enough to believe what men say, Amalia said, all you want to do is take advantage. They went toward the house, before getting there come on over to this corner for a while, and there he kissed her again, you’re nice, he hugged her and his voice weakened, I love you, feel, feel the way you’ve got me. She held his hands back, she wouldn’t let him open her blouse, lift her skirt: they’d already made love at that time, son, but things got serious later on.

  Trinidad worked in a textile factory near the laboratory, and he told Amalia I was born in Pacasmayo and worked in a garage in Trujillo. But that he’d been jailed as an Aprista he only told her later, one day when they were going along the Avenida Arequipa. There was a house with gardens and trees, trenches all around, patrol cars, police, and Trinidad raised his left hand and said into Amalia’s ear Víctor Raúl the Aprista people salute you, and she have you gone crazy? That’s the Colombian Embassy, Trinidad told her, and that Haya de la Torre had taken asylum inside, and that Odría didn’t want to let him leave the country and that’s why there were so many cops. He laughed and told her: one night a friend and I went by here making the Aprista toot on the horn, and the patrol cars chased them and they were arrested. Was Trinidad an Aprista? and he to the death, and had he been in jail? and he yes, to show the confidence I have in you. He’d become an Aprista ten years ago, he told her, because in that garage in Trujillo they were all in the party, and he explained to her that Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre was a wise man and APRA the party of the poor people and peasants of Peru. He’d been put in jail for the first time in Trujillo because the police caught him painting LONG LIVE APRA on the walls of the street. When he got out of jail they wouldn’t take him back at the garage and that’s why he came to Lima, and here the party found work for me at a factory in Vitarte, he told her, and that during the Bustamante government he’d been a street fighter; he went with his comrades to break up rallies of the oligarchs or the redtails and he also came out beaten up. Not because he was a coward, his physique was of no help, and she of course, you’re so thin, and he but a man, the second time he was put in jail the informers had knocked out two teeth and I didn’t turn anyone in even because of that. When the October third uprising in Callao came off and Bustamante outlawed APRA, the comrades in Vitarte told him to hide, but he I’m not afraid, he hadn’t done anything. He kept on going to work and later, on October twenty-seventh, there was Odría’s revolution and they asked him aren’t you going to hide now either? and he not now either. The first week in November, coming out of the factory one afternoon, a guy came up to him, are you Trinidad López? your cousin’s waiting for you in that car. He started to run because he didn’t have any cousins, but they caught him. At the station house they wanted him to tell them the group’s plans for terrorism, and he what plans, what group? and to tell them who put out the clandestine paper La Tribuna and where. That was when they knocked out the two teeth, and Amalia which ones? and he what do you mean which ones? and she but you’ve got all your teeth, and he they’re false and you can’t tell the difference. He was in jail for eight months, the station house, the penitentiary, Frontón, and when they let him out he’d lost twenty pounds. He was bumming around for three months until he got into the textile place on the Avenida Argentina. Now it was going well for him, he was already specialized. The night they took him in because of that business at the Colombian Embassy he thought I’ve screwed myself again, but they believed him when he said it was a drunken escapade and they turned him loose the next day. Now he had to watch out for two things, Amalia: politics, because they had him on file, and women, rattlesnakes with a fatal bite, and he had them on file. Really? Amalia asked him, and he but you appeared and I fell again, at home nobody knew that you were making it with Amalia, Santiago says, not even my brother and sister or my folks, and Trinidad trying to kiss her, and she let me go, roving hands, and Ambrosio they didn’t know because we kept it quiet, son, and Trinidad I love you, come close, I want to feel you, and Santiago why quiet?

  Amalia was so fri
ghtened to learn that Trinidad had been in jail and that they might arrest him again that she didn’t even tell Gertrudis. But she soon discovered that Trinidad was more interested in sports than in politics, and in sports soccer and in soccer the Municipal team. He would drag her to the stadium very early in order to get a good seat, during the game he would get hoarse from shouting so much, he would make coarse remarks if they scored a goal on Skinny Suárez. Trinidad had played for the Municipal scrubs when he was working in Vitarte, and now he had got together a little team at the textile factory on the Avenida Argentina, and there was a game every Saturday afternoon. You and sports are my vice, he would tell Amalia, and she it must be true, you don’t drink much and you don’t seem to be a woman-chaser. In addition to soccer he liked boxing, wrestling. He would take her to Luna Park and explain to her that the good-looking fellow getting into the ring with a bullfighter’s cape is the Spaniard Vicente García, and that he rooted for El Yanqui not because he was good but because at least he was a Peruvian. Amalia liked Peta, so elegant, he was wrestling and suddenly he told the referee to stop it and he combed his jungle of hair, and she hated the Bull, who won by sticking his fingers in eyes and throwing flying tackles. But hardly any women were to be seen at Luna Park, there were loud drunks and there were worse fights in the seats than in the ring. I went along with you on soccer, but that’s enough of sports, she told Trinidad, take me to the movies instead. He whatever you say, love, but he always had his tricks to get back to Luna Park. He showed her the wrestling ad in La Crónica, started talking about locks and pinning, tonight they’ll take off the Doctor’s mask if the Mongol wins wouldn’t that be something? I don’t think so, Amalia told him, it’ll be the same as it always is. But she was already sweet on him and sometimes all right, Luna Park tonight, and he happy.