Conversation in the Cathedral

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  “What an entertainer, that one,” Ambrosio says. “Her name is Margot and she’s a hustler and famous for it. Every day she drops by La Catedral.”

  *

  Queta was making the gringo drink beautifully: whiskey after whiskey for him and for her little glasses of vermouth (which was watered-down tea). I got you a gold mine, Robertito had told her, you’ve already got twelve tabs. Queta could only understand confused bits and pieces of the story the gringo was telling her along with laughter and mimicry. The robbery of a bank or store or train he’d witnessed in real life or in the movies or read about in a magazine and which, she didn’t know why, brought on a thirsty hilarity. A smile on her face, one of her hands going around his freckled neck, Queta was thinking while they danced: twelve tabs, is that all? And at that moment Ivonne appeared behind the curtain of the bar, bubbling in her mascara and rouge. She winked at her and her silver-clawed hand called her. Queta put her mouth to the ear with blond fuzz on it: I’ll be right back, love, wait for me, don’t go off with anyone else. What, gué, did you say? he said, smiling, and Queta squeezed his arm affectionately: in a minute, I’ll be right back in a minute. Ivonne was waiting for her in the hallway with a festive face: a very important one, Quetita.

  “He’s there in the parlor with Malvina.” She was examining her hair, her makeup, her dress, her shoes. “He wants you there too.”

  “But I’m tied up,” Queta said, pointing toward the bar. “That …”

  “He saw you from the parlor, he liked you.” Ivonne’s eyes were twinkling. “You don’t know how lucky you are.”

  “What about that one there, ma’am?” Queta insisted. “He’s drinking a lot and …”

  “With a golden glove, the way you would a king,” Ivonne whispered avidly. “So he leaves here happy, happy with you. Wait, let me fix you up, your hair’s become mussed.”

  Too bad, Queta thought while Ivonne’s fingers were going through her hair. And then, while they went along the hall, a politician, a military man, a diplomat? The door of the parlor was open and when she went in she saw Malvina tossing her slip onto the floor. She closed the door but it opened immediately and Robertito came in with a tray; he slipped across the carpet all bent over, his smooth face folded up into a servile grimace, good evening. He put the tray on the small table, went out without straightening up, and then Queta heard him.

  “You too, fine girl, you too. Aren’t you hot?”

  A voice devoid of emotion, dry, somewhat despotic and drunk.

  “Such a rush, lovey,” she said, searching for his eyes, but she couldn’t see them. He was sitting in a chair that had no arms, under the three small pictures, partially hidden by the shadows of that corner of the room where the light from the elephant-tusk lamp didn’t reach.

  “One’s not enough for him, he likes them by twos.” Malvina laughed. “You’re a hungry one, aren’t you, lovey? You’ve got a way about you.”

  “Right now,” he ordered, vehemently and yet glacially. “You too, right now. Aren’t you dying from the heat?”

  No, Queta thought, and with regret she thought of the gringo in the bar, longingly. While she was unbuttoning her skirt, she saw Malvina, already naked: a toasted and fleshy shape in a pose that she wanted to be provocative under the light of the lamp and talking to herself. She seemed a little tight and Queta thought: she’s got fat. It doesn’t suit her, her breasts were drooping, pretty soon the old woman would send her to take the Turkish baths at the Virrey.

  “Hurry up, Quetita.” Malvina patted her, laughing. “The one with the whims can’t stand it anymore.”

  “The one without manners, you mean,” Queta murmured, slowly rolling down her stockings. “Your friend didn’t even say good evening.”

  But he didn’t want to joke or talk. He was silent, rocking in the chair with a single obsessive and identical motion until Queta finished undressing. Like Malvina, she had taken off her skirt, blouse and bra, but not her panties. She folded her clothing slowly and placed it on a chair.

  “You’re better off like that, much cooler,” he said with his disagreeable little tone of cold, impatient boredom. “Come, the drinks are getting warm.”

  They went over to the chair together, and while Malvina dropped onto the man’s knees with a forced little laugh, Queta could see his thin and bony face, his bored mouth, his tiny icy eyes. Fifty years old, she thought. Huddled against him, Malvina was purring comically: she was cold, warm me up, a little loving. An impotent man full of hate, Queta thought, a masturbator full of hate. He’d put an arm around Malvina, but his eyes, with their unmovable lack of desire, were running up and down her as she waited, standing by the small table. Finally she leaned over, picked up two glasses, and handed them to the man and Malvina. Then she picked up hers and drank, thinking a deputy, maybe a prefect.

  “There’s room for you too,” he ordered, while he drank. “A knee for each one, so you won’t fight.”

  She felt him pulling on her arm, and when she let herself go against them, she heard Malvina cry out, oh, you hit me on the bone, Quetita. Now they were tight together, the chair was rocking like a pendulum, and Queta felt disgust, his hand was sweating. It was skeletal, tiny, and while Malvina, already quite comfortable or doing a good job of faking, was laughing, joking and trying to kiss the man on the mouth, Queta felt the quick fingers, wet, sticky, tickling her breasts, her back, her stomach and her legs. She started to laugh and began to hate him. He was petting both of them with method and obstinacy, one hand on the body of each, but he wasn’t even smiling, and he looked at them alternately, mute, with a remote and pensive expression.

  “This rude gentleman isn’t much fun,” Queta said.

  “Let’s go to bed now,” Malvina shrilled, laughing. “You’re going to make us come down with pneumonia this way, lovey.”

  “I don’t dare with both of you, that’s too much chicken for me,” he murmured, pushing them softly away from the chair. And he ordered: “First you’ve got to get a little merry. Dance something.”

  He’s going to keep us like this all night, Queta thought, let him go to hell, back to the gringo for her. Malvina had gone off and, kneeling against the wall, was plugging in the phonograph. Queta felt the cold, bony hand pulling her toward him again and she leaned over, put out her head, and separated her lips: sticky, incisive, a form that reeked of strong tobacco and alcohol passed over her teeth, gums, flattened her tongue and withdrew, leaving a mass of bitter saliva in her mouth. Then the hand moved her away from the chair rudely: let’s see if you can dance better than you can kiss. Queta felt a rage coming over her, but her smile, instead of getting smaller, grew. Malvina came over to them, took Queta by the hand, dragged her to the rug. They danced a guaracha, twirling and singing, barely touching each other with the tips of their fingers. Then a bolero, soldered together. Who is he? Queta murmured in Malvina’s ear. Who knows, Quetita, just one of those motherfuckers.

  “Show a little more love,” he whispered slowly, and his voice was different; it had warmed up and was almost human. “Put a little more heart into it.”

  Malvina gave out with her sharp and artificial laugh and began to say in a loud voice baby, mama, and to rub eagerly against Queta, who had taken her by the waist and was rocking her. The movement of the chair began again, faster now than before, uneven and with a stealthy sound of springs, and Queta thought that’s it, now he’ll come. She looked for Malvina’s mouth and while they were kissing, she closed her eyes to keep her laugh in. And at that moment the shattering squeal of an automobile putting on its brakes drowned out the music. They let go of each other, Malvina covered her ears, said noisy drunks. But there was no collision, just the sound of a car door after the sharp and sibilant brakes, and finally the doorbell It buzzed as if it had got stuck.

  “It’s nothing, what’s the matter with you,” he said with dull fury. “Keep on dancing.”

  But the record was over and Malvina went to change it. They embraced again, started dancing, an
d suddenly the door smashed against the wall as if it had been kicked open. Queta saw him: black, big, muscular, as shiny as the blue suit he was wearing, skin halfway between shoe polish and chocolate, tightly straightened hair. Hanging in the doorway, a big hand holding the knob, his eyes white and enormous, he looked at her. Not even when the man leaped out of the chair and crossed the rug in two strides did he stop looking at her.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” the man asked, standing in front of the Negro, his little fists clenched as if he were going to strike him. “Don’t you ask permission to come into a room?”

  “General Espina’s outside, Don Cayo.” He seemed to withdraw, he let go of the doorknob, he was looking at the man in a cowardly way, his words stumbled. “In his car. He wants you to come down, it’s very urgent.”

  Malvina was quickly putting on her skirt, blouse, shoes, and Queta, while she was getting dressed, looked at the door again. Over the back of the little man she caught the black man’s eyes for a second: frightened, dull.

  “Tell him I’ll be right down,” the man murmured. “Don’t you ever come into a room like that again, unless you want a bullet in you someday.”

  “I’m sorry, Don Cayo.” The black man nodded, backing up. “I didn’t think, they told me you were here. I’m sorry.”

  He disappeared in the hallway and the man closed the door. He turned to them and the light of the lamp illuminated him from head to toe. His face was cracked, there was a rancid and frustrated glow in his little eyes. He took some bills from his wallet and put them on a chair. He went over to them, straightening his tie.

  “To console you for my leaving,” he murmured in a coarse way. And he gave Queta a command: “I’m sending for you tomorrow. Around nine o’clock.”

  “I can’t go out at that time,” Queta said quickly, giving Malvina a look.

  “You’ll find out that you can,” he said dryly. “Around nine o’clock, be ready.”

  “So, are you throwing me into the trash can, sweetie?” Malvina laughed, stretching over to look at the bills on the chair. “So, your name is Cayo. Cayo what?”

  “Cayo Shithead,” he said on his way to the door without turning around. He went out and slammed it shut.

  *

  “They just called you from home, Zavalita,” Solórzano said when he saw him come into the office. “Something urgent. Yes, about your father, I think.”

  He ran to the first desk, dialed the number, long, stabbing rings, an unfamiliar upland voice: the master wasn’t home, nobody was home. They’d changed butlers again and this one didn’t know who you were, Zavalita.

  “It’s Santiago, the master’s son,” he repeated, raising his voice. “What’s wrong with my father? Where is he?”

  “Sick,” the butler said. “He’s in the hospital. Don’t know which one, sir.”

  He borrowed ten soles from Solórzano and took a taxi. When he went into the American Hospital he saw Teté on the telephone at the desk: a boy who wasn’t Sparky was holding her shoulders and only when he got close did he recognize Popeye. They saw him, Teté hung up.

  “He’s better now, he’s better now.” Her eyes were teary, her voice broken. “But we thought he was dying, Santiago.”

  “We called you an hour ago, Skinny,” Popeye said. “At your boardinghouse, at La Crónica. I was going to go looking for you in my car.”

  “But it wasn’t that time,” Santiago says. “He died from the second attack, Ambrosio. A year and a half later.”

  It had been at teatime. Don Fermín had come home earlier than usual; he didn’t feel well, he was afraid he was coming down with the flu. He’d had some hot tea, a drink of cognac, and was reading Selecciones del Reader’s Digest, wrapped up in a blanket in the study, when Teté and Popeye, who were listening to records in the living room, heard the noise. Santiago closes his eyes: the heavy body face down on the carpet, the face immobilized in a grimace of pain or fear, the blanket and the magazine on the floor. The shouts that mama must have given, the confusion that must have reigned. They’d wrapped him in blankets, put him in Popeye’s car, taken him to the hospital. In spite of the terrible thing you people did in moving him, he’s resisted the infarction quite well, the doctor had said. He needed complete rest, but there was no cause for fear now. In the hallway outside the room was Señora Zoila, Uncle Clodomiro and Sparky were calming her. His mother gave him her cheek to kiss, but didn’t say a word and looked at Santiago as if reproaching him for something.

  “He’s conscious now,” Uncle Clodomiro said. “When the nurse comes out you can see him.”

  “Just for a moment,” Sparky said. “The doctor doesn’t want him to talk.”

  There was the large room with lime-green walls, the anteroom with flowered curtains, and he, Zavalita, in garnet-colored silk pajamas. The lamp on the night table lighted the bed with a dim church light. There the paleness of his face, his gray hair in disarray over his temples, the dew of animal terror in his eyes. But when Santiago leaned over to kiss him, he smiled: they’d finally found you, Skinny, he thought he wasn’t going to see you.

  “They let me in on the condition you don’t talk, papa.”

  “The scare is over, thank God,” Don Fermín whispered; his hand had slipped out from under the sheets, had grasped Santiago’s arm. “Is everything all right, Skinny? The boardinghouse, your job?”

  “All fine, papa,” he said. “But please don’t talk.”

  “I feel a knot here, son,” Ambrosio says. “A man like him hadn’t ought to die.”

  He stayed in the room for a long time, sitting on the edge of the bed, watching the thick, hairy hand that rested on his knee. Don Fermín had closed his eyes, he was breathing deeply. He didn’t have a pillow, his head was resting on its side on the mattress and he could see his fluted neck and the gray specks of his beard. A short time later a nurse in white shoes came in and made a sign for him to leave. Señora Zoila, Uncle Clodomiro and Sparky were sitting in the anteroom; Teté and Popeye were standing and whispering by the door.

  “Before it was politics, now it’s the lab and the office,” Uncle Clodomiro said. “He was working too hard, it was inevitable.”

  “He wants to be on top of everything, he doesn’t pay any attention to me,” Sparky said. “I’m tired of asking him to let me take charge of things, but there’s no way. Now he’ll be forced to take a rest.”

  “His nerves are shot.” Señora Zoila looked at Santiago with rancor. “It isn’t just the office, it’s this young squirt too. He’s dying to get news about you and keeps begging you more and more to come back home.”

  “Don’t shout like a madwoman, mama,” Teté said. “He can hear you.”

  “You won’t let him live in peace with the fits of anger you give him,” Señora Zoila sobbed. “You’ve made your father’s life bitter, you young squirt.”

  The nurse came out of the room and, as she passed, whispered keep your voices down. Señora Zoila wiped her eyes with her handkerchief and Uncle Clodomiro leaned over her, regretful and solicitous. They were silent, looking at each other. Then Teté and Popeye began whispering again. How everyone had changed, Zavalita, how old Uncle Clodomiro had become. He smiled at him and his uncle returned a sad smile. He had become shrunken, wrinkled, his hair was almost all gone, only white tufts scattered about on his skull. Sparky was already a man; in his movements, his way of sitting down, in his voice, there was an adult assurance, an ease that seemed both physical and spiritual at the same time, and his look was calmly resolute. There he was, Zavalita: strong, tanned, gray suit, black shoes and socks, the clean white cuffs of his shirt, the dark green tie with a discreet clasp, the rectangle of the white handkerchief showing in the breast pocket of his jacket. And there was Teté, talking to Popeye in a low voice. They were holding hands, looking into each other’s eyes. Her pink dress, he thinks, the broad loop that went around her neck and down to her waist. Her breasts were visible, the curve of her hips was becoming noticeable, her legs were long an
d lithe, her ankles thin, her hands white. You weren’t like them anymore, Zavalita, you were a peasant now. He thinks: now I know why you got so furious as soon as you saw me, mama. He felt neither victorious nor happy, only impatient to leave. The nurse came over stealthily to tell them that visiting hours were over. Señora Zoila would sleep at the hospital, Sparky took Teté home. Popeye offered Uncle Clodomiro a ride, but he would take a group taxi, it dropped him off right in front of his house, it was too much trouble, thank you.

  “Your uncle is always like that,” Popeye said; they walked along slowly heading downtown in the new night. “He never wants to be driven home or picked up.”

  “He doesn’t like to bother anyone or ask for any favors,” Santiago said. “He’s a very simple person.”

  “Yes, a very good person,” Popeye said. “He’s lived everywhere in Peru, hasn’t he?”

  There was Popeye, Zavalita: freckle-faced, red, his blond hair standing up straight, the same friendly, healthy look of before. But heavier, taller, more sure of his body and the world. His checkered shirt, he thinks, his flannel jacket with leather-trimmed lapels and elbows, his corduroy pants, his loafers.

  “We had an awful scare with your old man.” He was driving with one hand, turning the radio with the other. “It was lucky it didn’t happen on the street.”