Conversation in the Cathedral

by Mario Vargas Llosa

“The business in Arequipa doesn’t surprise me in the least, Dr. Lora,” Dr. Arbeláez said. “On the contrary, we’ve won the lottery. Bermúdez is already starting to smell like a corpse.”

  “Remove him from the cabinet?” Dr. Lora asked. “The President will never do that, Arbeláez, Bermúdez is his favorite spoiled little child. He’d prefer for the army to go at it blood and thunder in Arequipa.”

  “The President isn’t too sharp, but he’s not too stupid either,” Dr. Arbeláez said. “We can explain it to him and he’ll understand. The hatred against the government is concentrated on Bermúdez. Throw them that bone, and the dogs will calm down.”

  “If the army doesn’t intervene, I can’t remain in the city, Don Cayo,” the Prefect said. “Headquarters is only protected by a couple of dozen guards.”

  “If you budge an inch out of Arequipa, you’re fired,” Bermúdez said. “Control your nerves. General Llerena will give the order any moment now.”

  “I’m penned in here, Don Cayo,” Molina said. “We can hear the demonstration on the Plaza de Armas. They might attack the post. Why don’t the troops come out, Don Cayo?”

  “Look, Paredes, the army isn’t going to muddy its boots saving Bermúdez’ cabinet post,” General Llerena said. “No, not in any way. One thing is sure, we have to put an end to this situation. The military leaders and a group of loyalist senators are going to propose the formation of a military cabinet to the President.”

  “It’s the simplest way of liquidating Bermúdez without the government’s appearing to have been defeated by the Arequipans,” Dr. Arbeláez said. “Resignation of civilian ministers, a military cabinet, and the whole matter settled, General.”

  “What’s going on?” Cayo Bermúdez asked. “I’ve been waiting four hours and the President won’t see me. What does this mean, Paredes?”

  “The army comes out perfectly clean with this solution, General Llerena,” Senator Arévalo said. “And you earn an enormous political dividend. Those of us who respect you feel very happy, General.”

  “You can get into the Palace without his aides’ stopping you,” Cayo Bermúdez said. “Run over there, Paredes. Explain to the President that there’s a high-level conspiracy, that at this moment everything depends on him. That he make Llerena understand things. I don’t trust anyone anymore. Even Lozano and Alcibíades have sold me out.”

  “No arrests or anything crazy, Molina,” Lozano said. “You stay right there at your post with your people, and no shooting unless it’s a matter of life and death.”

  “I don’t understand, Mr. Lozano,” Molina said. “You tell me one thing and the Minister of Public Order tells me something else.”

  “Forget about Don Cayo’s orders,” Lozano said. “He’s under quarantine and I don’t think he’s going to last much longer as Minister. What about the wounded?”

  “The most serious ones are in the hospital, Mr. Lozano,” Molina said. “About twenty of them.”

  “Did you bury those two guys of Arévalo’s?” Lozano asked.

  “With the greatest discretion, as Don Cayo ordered,” Molina said. “Two others went back to Ica. There’s only one left in the hospital. A man named Téllez.”

  “Get him out of Arequipa as soon as possible,” Lozano said. “And the same goes for the two I sent you. Those people can’t stay on there.”

  “Hipólito’s already left, in spite of my orders,” Molina said. “But Pantoja’s in the hospital, very serious. He won’t be able to be moved for some time, sir.”

  “Ah, I understand,” Cayo Bermúdez said. “Well, under the present circumstances I understand quite well. It’s a solution, yes, I agree. Where do I sign?”

  “You don’t look so sad, Cayo,” Major Paredes said. “I’m awfully sorry, but I couldn’t back you up. In political matters friendship has to be put to one side sometimes.”

  “Don’t give me any explanations, I understand only too well,” Cayo Bermúdez said. “Besides, I’ve wanted to get away for some time now, you know that. Yes, I’m leaving early tomorrow morning, by plane.”

  “I don’t know how I’m going to feel as Minister of Public Order,” Major Paredes said. “It’s too bad you won’t stay on to give me some advice, with all the experience you’ve had.”

  “I’m going to give you one good piece of advice.”. Cayo Bermúdez smiled. “Don’t even trust your mother.”

  “Mistakes are costly in politics,” Major Paredes said. “It’s like war, Cayo.”

  “That’s true,” Cayo Bermúdez said. “I don’t want anyone to know I’m leaving tomorrow. Please keep that secret for me.”

  “We’ve got a taxi that will take you to Camaná, there you can rest for a couple of days before going on to Ica, if you want,” Molina said. “And it would be better if you didn’t open your mouth about what happened to you in Arequipa.”

  “Fine,” Téllez said. “I’ll be glad to get out of here as soon as I can.”

  “What happens to me?” Ludovico asked. “When are they going to send me off?”

  “As soon as you’re able to stand,” Molina said. “Don’t worry, there’s no reason to anymore. Don Cayo has left the government and the strike’s going to be over.”

  “Don’t be angry with me, Don Cayo,” Dr. Alcibíades said. “The pressures were very strong. They didn’t give me a chance to act any other way.”

  “Of course not, doctor,” Cayo Bermúdez said. “I’m not angry with you. On the contrary, I’m impressed by the able way you handled it. Behave yourself with my successor, Major Paredes. He’s going to name you Director of Security. He asked my opinion and I told him you had what it takes for the job.”

  “I’ll always be here to serve you, Don Cayo,” Dr. Alcibíades said. “Here’s your ticket, your passport. Everything in order. And if I don’t see you, have a good trip, Don Cayo.”

  “Come in, brother, I’ve got great news for you,” Ludovico said. “Guess what, Ambrosio?”

  “It wasn’t to rob her, Ludovico,” Ambrosio said. “No, it wasn’t for that either. Don’t ask me why I did it, brother, I won’t tell you. Will you help me?”

  “They put me on the regular list!” Ludovico said. “Run out and buy a bottle of something and sneak it in here, Ambrosio.”

  “No, he didn’t order me to, he didn’t even know,” Ambrosio said. “Just be satisfied with the fact that I killed her. I thought it up all by myself, yes. He was going to give her the money to go to Mexico with, he was going to let himself be bled for the rest of his life by that woman. Will you help me?”

  “A third-class officer, Homicide Division,” Ludovico said. “And do you know who came to give me the news, brother?”

  “Yes, to do him a favor, to save him,” Ambrosio said. “To show him my gratitude, yes. Now he wants me to go away. No, it isn’t ingratitude, he isn’t evil. It’s because of his family. He doesn’t want this to dirty them. He’s a good person. Let your friend Ludovico advise you and I’ll give him a token of my thanks, he says, you see? Will you help me?”

  “Mr. Lozano in person, just imagine,” Ludovico said. “All of a sudden he appeared in the room and I could have dropped dead, Ambrosio, you can imagine.”

  “He gives you ten thousand and I give you ten thousand out of my savings,” Ambrosio said. “Yes, fine, I’ll leave Lima and you’ll never see my face again, Ludovico. Fine, I’ll take Amalia too. We’ll never set foot in this city again, brother, agreed.”

  “The salary is twenty-eight hundred, but Mr. Lozano is going to get them to recognize my seniority on the force,” Ludovico said. “I’ll even have my increments, Ambrosio.”

  “To Pucallpa?” Ambrosio asked. “But what can I do there, Ludovico?”

  “I know that Hipólito behaved very badly with you,” Mr. Lozano said. “We’re going to give him a post where he can rot while he’s still alive.”

  “And do you know where they’re going to send him?” Ludovico laughed. “To Celendín!”

  “But you mean they’re goin
g to put Hipólito on the regular list too?” Ambrosio said.

  “What difference does it make, if he has to live in Celendín,” Ludovico said. “Oh, brother, I feel so good. And I owe it to you too, Ambrosio. If I hadn’t gone to work for Don Cayo, I’d still be a nothing. It’s something I’m in debt to you for, brother.”

  “You’re so happy because you’re all healed, you can even move,” Ambrosio said. “When are they letting you out?”

  “There’s no hurry, Ludovico,” Mr. Lozano said. “You get well at your leisure, consider this time in the hospital as a vacation. You’ve got nothing to complain about. You sleep all day, you get your meals in bed.”

  “The fact is, everything’s not that rosy, sir,” Ludovico said. “Don’t you realize that while I’m here I’m not making any money?”

  “You’re going to draw your full salary all the time you’re here,” Mr. Lozano said. “You’ve earned it, Ludovico.”

  “We part-timers only get paid by the job, Mr. Lozano,” Ludovico said. “You forget I’m not on the list.”

  “You are now,” Mr. Lozano said. “Ludovico Pantoja, Third-Class Officer, Homicide Division. How does that sound to you?”

  “I almost jumped out of bed and kissed his hand, Ambrosio,” Ludovico said. “Really, did they really put me on the regular list, Mr. Lozano?”

  “I spoke about you to the new Minister, and the Major recognizes your services,” Mr. Lozano said. “We got your appointment through in twenty-four hours. I came to congratulate you.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Ludovico said. “I’m ashamed, Mr. Lozano. But the news has got me so worked up, sir.”

  “Go ahead and cry, don’t be ashamed,” Mr. Lozano said. “I can see that you’ve got a warm feeling for the force and that’s very good, Ludovico.”

  “You’re right, we’ve got to celebrate, brother,” Ambrosio said. “I’m going to go get a bottle. I hope the nurses don’t catch me.”

  “Senator Arévalo must be all worked up, right, sir?” Ludovico said. “His people were the ones who got it the worst. They killed two of them and the other got it bad.”

  “You’d better forget about all that, Ludovico,” Mr. Lozano said.

  “How can I forget, sir?” Ludovico said. “Can’t you see what they did to me? You remember a beating like that for the rest of your life.”

  “Well, if you don’t forget, I don’t know why I’ve gone to so much trouble for you,” Mr. Lozano said. “You haven’t understood a thing, Ludovico.”

  “You’ve got me all confused, sir,” Ludovico said. “What is it I have to understand?”

  “That you’re an officer of investigations, on the same level as those who’ve come out of the School,” Mr. Lozano said. “And an officer can’t have done any work as a hired thug, Ludovico.”

  “Go back to work?” Don Emilio Arévalo said. “What you’re going to do now is get well, Téllez. A few weeks with your family, with full pay. Only when you’re completely recovered will you go back to work.”

  “That kind of work is done by the part-timers, the poor devils without any training,” Mr. Lozano said. “You’ve never been a thug, you’ve always been on high-level operations. That’s what your service record says. Or do you want me to erase all that and put you down as a nobody?”

  “There’s no reason for you to thank me, boy,” Don Emilio Arévalo said. “People are good to me and I’m good to them, Téllez.”

  “Now I understand, Mr. Lozano,” Ludovico said. “I’m sorry I didn’t catch on. I was never a part-timer, I never went to Arequipa.”

  “Because somebody might complain, say he’s got no right to be on the regular list,” Mr. Lozano said. “So that, forget about all that, Ludovico.”

  “I’ve already forgotten, Don Emilio,” Téllez said. “I never left Ica, I broke my leg riding a mule. You don’t know how good I feel over what you’ve done for me, Don Emilio.”

  “Pucallpa for two reasons, Ambrosio,” Ludovico said. “They’ve got the worst police post in all of Peru there. And second, because I’ve got a relative there who can give you a job. He’s got a bus company. You see, I’m offering it to you on a silver platter, brother.”

  FOUR

  1

  “THE BIM-BAM-BOOMS?” Ambrosio says. “I never saw them. Why do you ask me that, son?”

  He thinks: Ana, The Kitty, the Bim-Bam-Booms, the tiger love of Carlitos and China, the old man’s death, the first gray hair: two, three, ten years, Zavalita. Had the bastards on Última Hora been the first to exploit The Kitty as news? No, it had been the ones on La Prensa. It was a new kind of bet and at first the horse players stuck to the daily double. But one Sunday a typesetter picked nine of the ten winning horses and won the hundred thousand soles of The Kitty. La Prensa interviewed him: he smiled in the center of his relatives, toasting around a table loaded with bottles, kneeling before the image of Our Lord of Miracles. The next week the prize for The Kitty was double and Última Hora had a picture on the front page of two Ica businessmen euphorically holding up the winning ticket, and the following week the four hundred thousand soles were won, all by himself, by a fisherman from Callao who had lost an eye in a barroom fight in his youth. The pot kept growing and among the newspapers the hunt for the winners started. Arispe picked Carlitos to cover the news of The Kitty and after three weeks La Crónica had lost all the scoops: Zavalita, you’ll have to take over, Carlitos hasn’t been able to get his foot on the ball. He thinks: if it hadn’t been for The Kitty, there wouldn’t have been any accident and you’d probably still be single, Zavalita. But he was happy with the assignment; there wasn’t much to do and, thanks to that invertebrate kind of work, he was able to steal hours on end away from the newspaper. On Saturday nights he had to stand watch at the main office of the Jockey Club to check on how high the stakes were climbing, and early Monday morning it was already known whether the winner of The Kitty was one or many and what office had sold the prize-winning ticket. Then the hunt for the lucky person started. On Mondays and Thursdays the office was deluged with calls from meddlesome tipsters and he had to go back and forth in the van with Periquito checking out the rumors.

  “Because of that woman over there with all the makeup on,” Santiago says. “She looks like one of the Bim-Bam-Booms, the one named Ada Rosa.”

  With the pretext of tracking down presumptive winners of The Kitty, you could stay away from the newspaper, Zavalita, go to a movie, go to the Patio or the Bransa and have a coffee with people from other papers, or go with Carlitos to the rehearsals of the company of chorus girls that the impresario Pedrito Aguirre was putting together and in which China danced. He thinks: the Bim-Bam-Booms. Up till then he’d only been in love, he thinks, but from then on infected, intoxicated with China. For her sake he did publicity for the Bim-Bam-Booms, writing spontaneous artistico-patriotic articles that he slipped into the entertainment page: why did we have to content ourselves with those Cuban and Chilean chorus girls who were second-rate artists, when there were girls in Peru just as capable of stardom? For her sake he resolutely wallowed in the ridiculous: all they needed was a chance and the support of the public, it was a matter of national prestige, everybody to the opening of the Bim-Bam-Booms. With Norwin, with Solórzano, with Periquito they went to the Teatro Monumental to watch the rehearsals and there was China, Zavalita, her coltish body with its fierce behind, her striking roguish face, her wicked eyes, her husky voice. From the deserted orchestra seats in the midst of the dust and the fleas, they watched her arguing with Tabarín, the fairy choreographer, and they followed her in the whirlwind of figures on stage, dizzy from so much mambo, rumba, guaracha and subi: she’s the best of the lot Carlitos, bravo Carlitos. When the Bim-Bam-Booms began appearing in theaters and cabarets, China’s picture would appear at least once a week in the show column, with captions that praised her to the skies. Sometimes, after the performance, Santiago would accompany Carlitos and China to have something to eat at El Parral, to have a drink at some dismal bar. During
that time the couple had got along quite well, and one night in the Negro-Negro, Carlitos put his hand on Santiago’s arm: we’ve already passed the acid test, Zavalita, three months without a storm, one of these days I’m going to marry her. And on another night, drunk: these have been happy months, Zavalita. But the fights started up again when the company of the Bim-Bam-Booms broke up and China began to dance at El Pingüino, a nightclub that Pedrito Aguirre had opened up downtown. At night, when they left La Crónica, Carlitos would drag Santiago through the arches of the Plaza San Martín, along Ocoña, to the dismally decorated sticky cave of El Pingüino. Pedrito Aguirre wouldn’t charge them a minimum, sold them beer at cost and accepted IOUs. From the bar they would watch the seasoned pirates of Lima night life set out to board the chorus girls. They sent them notes by the waiters, had them sit at their tables. Sometimes, when they arrived, China would have left already and Pedrito Aguirre would give Carlitos a fraternal pat on the back: she hadn’t felt well, she’d left with Ada Rosa, she’d got word that her mother was in the hospital. Other times they would find her at a candlelit table in the back listening to the laughter of some prince of bohemia, curled up in the shadows beside some elegant older man with graying sideburns, dancing tight in the arms of a young Apollo. And there was Carlitos’ downcast face: her contract called for her to entertain the customers Zavalita, or in light of the circumstances let’s go to a whorehouse Zavalita, or I only keep on seeing her out of masochism Zavalita. From that point on the love between Carlitos and China had gone back to the butchering rhythm of before, reconciliations and breaks, scandals and public fisticuffs. During the intermissions of her romance with Carlitos, China showed herself off in the company of millionaire lawyers, adolescents with good names and the look of ruffians, cirrhotic businessmen. She takes on all comers as long as they’re family men, Becerrita would say poisonously, she doesn’t have the calling of a whore but of an adulteress. But those adventures would only last a few days, China always ended up calling La Crónica. There the sarcastic smiles in the editorial room, the perfidious winks over the typewriters, while Carlitos, his sunken-eyed face kissing the phone, moved his lips with humility and hope. China kept him in total bankruptcy, he went about borrowing money everywhere and collectors even showed up at the newspaper with IOUs of his. At the Negro-Negro they cut off his credit, he thinks: he must have owed you at least a thousand soles, Zavalita. He thinks: twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five years. Memories that exploded like the bubbles Teté used to make with that gum of hers, ephemeral, like the stories about The Kitty, whose ink had been erased by time, Zavalita, useless, like the pages tossed into the wicker wastebaskets at night.