Conversation in the Cathedral

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  Instead of the bachelor’s party you had a wake, he thinks. They spent the following night at Becerrita’s house, on a back alley in Barrios Altos, sitting up with him. There was that tragicomic night, Zavalita, that cheap farce. The reporters from the police page were mournful and there were women sighing beside the coffin in that small parlor with miserable furniture and old oval photographs that had been darkened with black ribbons. Sometime after midnight a woman in mourning and a boy came into the place like a chill, in the midst of whispers of alarm: oh dammy, Becerrita’s other wife; oh dammy, Becerrita’s other son. There’d been the start of an argument, insults mingled with weeping between the family of the house and the new arrivals. Those present had to intervene, negotiate, calm the rival families down. The two women seemed to be the same age, he thinks, they had the same face, and the boy was identical to the male children in the house. Both families had remained there standing guard on opposite sides of the bier, exchanging looks of hate over the corpse. All through the night long-haired newspapermen from days gone by wandered through the house, strange individuals with threadbare suits and mufflers, and on the following day, at the burial, there was a wild gathering of mournful relatives and hoodlumish and nighttime faces, police and plainclothesmen and old retired whores with smeared and weepy eyes. Arispe read a speech and then an official from Investigations and there they discovered that Becerrita had been working for the police for twenty years. When they left the cemetery, yawning and with aching bones, Carlitos, Norwin and Santiago ate in a lunchroom in Santo Cristo, near the Police Academy, and had some tamales, darkened by the ghost of Becerrita, who kept coming up in the conversation.

  “Arispe promised me he won’t print anything, but I don’t trust him,” Santiago said. “You take care of it, Carlitos. Don’t let any joker do his thing.”

  “They’re going to find out sooner or later at home that you got married,” Carlitos said. “But all right, I’ll take care of it.”

  “I’d rather they found out from me, not through the newspaper,” Santiago said. “I’ll talk with the old folks when I get back from Ica. I don’t want any trouble before the honeymoon.”

  That night, the eve of his wedding, Carlitos and Santiago had talked for a while in the Negro-Negro after work. They were joking, they’d remembered the times they’d come to this spot, at this same time, to this same table, and he was a little downcast, Zavalita, as if you were going away on a trip for good. He thinks: that night he didn’t get drunk, didn’t snuff coke. At the boardinghouse you spent the hours remaining until dawn smoking, Zavalita, remembering Señora Lucía’s stupefied face when you told her the news, trying to imagine what life would be like in the little room with another person, whether it wouldn’t be too promiscuous and asphyxiating, how your folks would react. When the sun came up, he packed his bag carefully. He looked the little room over pensively, the bed, the small shelf with books. The group taxi stopped by for him at eight o’clock. Señora Lucía came out in her bathrobe to see him off, still numb with surprise, yes, she swore to him that she wouldn’t say anything to his papa, and she’d given him a hug and kissed him on the forehead. He got to Ica at eleven in the morning and, before going to Ana’s house, he called the Huacachina Hotel to confirm their reservation. The dark suit that he had taken out of the cleaners the day before had become wrinkled in the suitcase and Ana’s mother pressed it for him. Reluctantly, Ana’s parents had done what he had requested: no guests. Only on that condition would you consent to be married in the church, Ana had warned them, he thinks. At four o’clock they went to City Hall, then to the church, and an hour later they were having something to eat at the Tourist Hotel. The mother was whispering to Ana, the father was stringing stories together and drinking, in a very sad mood. And there was Ana, Zavalita: her white dress, her happy face. When they were about to get into the taxi that was taking them to Huacachina, her mother broke into tears. There, the three days of honeymoon beside the green, stinking waters of the lagoon, Zavalita. Walks through the dunes, he thinks, inane conversations with other honeymoon couples, long siestas, the games of Ping-Pong that Ana always won.

  *

  “I was counting the days for the six months to be up,” Ambrosio says. “So, after six months exactly, I dropped in on him very early.”

  One day by the river, Amalia had realized that she was even more accustomed to Pucallpa than she had thought. They’d gone swimming with Doña Lupe, and while Amalita Hortensia was sleeping under the umbrella stuck in the sand, two men had come over. One was the nephew of Doña Lupe’s husband, the other a traveling salesman who had arrived from Huánuco the day before. His name was Leoncio Paniagua and he had sat down beside Amalia. He had been telling her how much he’d traveled all through Peru because of his job and told her what was the same and what was different about Huancayo, Cerro de Pasco, Ayacucho. He’s trying to impress me with his travels, Amalia had thought, laughing inside. She’d let him put on the airs of a world traveler for a good spell and finally she’d told him: I’m from Lima. From Lima? Leoncio Paniagua wouldn’t have believed it: because she talked like the people from here, she had the singsong accent and the expressions and everything.

  “You haven’t lost your mind, have you?” Don Hilario had looked at him with astonishment. “The business is going well but, as is logical, up till now it’s a total loss of money. Do you think that after six months there’ll be any profit left over?”

  Back at the house Amalia had asked Doña Lupe if it was true what Leoncio Paniagua had told her: yes, of course it is, she was already talking like a jungle girl, you should be proud. Amalia had thought how surprised the people she knew in Lima would be if they could hear her: her aunt, Señora Rosario, Carlota and Símula. But she hadn’t noticed any change in the way she talked, Doña Lupe, and Doña Lupe, smiling slyly: the man from Huánuco had been flirting with you, Amalia. Yes, Doña Lupe, and just imagine, he’d even invited her to the movies, but naturally Amalia hadn’t accepted. Instead of being scandalized, Doña Lupe had scolded her: bah, silly. You should have accepted, Amalia was young, she had a right to have some fun, didn’t she think that Ambrosio was doing just as he pleased the nights he spent in Tingo María? Amalia, rather, had been the one who was scandalized.

  “He went over the accounts with me holding the papers in his hand,” Ambrosio says. “He left me dizzy with all those figures.”

  “Taxes, stamps, a commission for the shyster who drew up the transfer.” Don Hilario kept rummaging through the bills and passing them to me, Amalia. “All very clear. Are you satisfied?”

  “Not really, Don Hilario,” Ambrosio had said. “I’m kind of tight and I was hoping to get something, sir.”

  “And here are the payments for the half-wit,” Don Hilario had concluded. “I don’t collect for running the business, but you wouldn’t want me to sell coffins myself, would you? And I don’t imagine you’ll say I pay him too much. A hundred a month is dirt, even for a half-wit.”

  “Then the business isn’t doing as well as you thought, sir,” Ambrosio had said.

  “It’s doing better.” Don Hilario moved his head as if saying make an effort, try to understand. “In the beginning a business is all loss. Then it starts picking up and the returns start coming in.”

  Not long after, one night when Ambrosio had just got back from Tingo María and was washing his face in the back room, where they had a washbasin on a sawhorse, Amalia had seen Leoncio Paniagua appear by the corner of the cabin, his hair combed and wearing a tie: he was coming right here. She had almost dropped Amalita Hortensia. Confused, she’d run into the garden and crouched among the plants, holding the child close to her breast. He was going to go in, he was going to run into Ambrosio. Ambrosio was going to kill him. But she hadn’t heard anything alarming: just Ambrosio’s whistling, the splash of the water, the crickets singing in the darkness. Finally she had heard Ambrosio asking for his dinner. She’d gone in to cook trembling, and even for a long while after everything kept d
ropping out of her hands.

  “And when another six months were up, a year, that is, I dropped in on him very early,” Ambrosio says. “And Don Hilario? You’re not going to tell me that there still hasn’t been any profit.”

  “How could there be, the business is in bad shape,” Don Hilario had said. “That’s precisely what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  The next day Amalia, furious, had gone to Doña Lupe’s to tell her: just imagine, how fresh, just imagine what would have happened if Ambrosio … Doña Lupe had covered her mouth, telling her I know all about it. The man from Huánuco had come to her house and had opened up his heart to her, Señora Lupe: ever since I met Amalia I’ve been a different man, your friend is like no one else in the world. He didn’t intend going into your house, Amalia, he wasn’t that stupid, he just wanted to see you from a distance. You’ve made a conquest, Amalia, you’ve got the man from Huánuco crazy about you, Amalia. She’d felt very strange: still furious, but flattered now as well. That afternoon she’d gone to the small beach thinking if he says the least thing to me I’ll insult him. But Leoncio Paniagua had not made the slightest insinuation to her; very well-mannered, he cleaned the sand for her to sit down, he invited her to have an ice cream cone, and when she looked into his eyes he lowered his, bashful and sighing.

  “Yes, just what you heard, I’ve studied it very carefully,” Don Hilario had said. “The money’s just lying there waiting for us to pick it up. All that’s needed is a little injection of capital.”

  Leoncio Paniagua came to Pucallpa every month, for just a couple of days, and Amalia had come to like the way he treated her, his terrible timidity. She’d grown used to finding him at the beach every four weeks, with his shirt and collar, heavy shoes, ceremonious and sweltering, wiping his wet face with a colored handkerchief. He never went swimming, he sat between Doña Lupe and her and they chatted, and when they went into the water, he took care of Amalita Hortensia. Nothing had ever happened, he’d never said anything to her; he would look at her, sigh, and the most he ever dared was to say what a shame I have to leave Pucallpa tomorrow or I kept thinking about Pucallpa all this month or why is it I like coming to Pucallpa so much. He was awfully bashful, wasn’t he, Doña Lupe? And Doña Lupe: no, it’s more that he’s a dreamer.

  “The big deal he thought of was buying another funeral parlor, Amalia,” Ambrosio had said. “The Model.”

  “The one with the best reputation, the one that’s taking all our business away,” Don Hilario had said. “Not another word. Get hold of that money you’ve got in Lima and we’ll set up a monopoly, Ambrosio.”

  The farthest she’d gone, after a few months and more to please Doña Lupe than him, was to go to a Chinese restaurant and then to the movies with Leoncio Paniagua. They’d gone at night, through deserted streets, to the restaurant with the fewest people, and had gone in after the show had started and left before it was over. Leoncio Paniagua had been more considerate than ever, not only had he not tried to take advantage of being alone with her, but he nearly didn’t say a word all night long. He says because he was feeling so emotional, Amalia, he says he lost his tongue because he was so happy. But did he really like her that much, Doña Lupe? Really, Amalia: the nights he was in Pucallpa he would stop by Doña Lupe’s cabin and talk for hours on end about you and even cry. But why hadn’t he ever said anything to her, then, Doña Lupe? Because he was a dreamer, Amalia.

  “I’ve barely got enough to feed us and you’re asking for another fifteen thousand soles.” Don Hilario had believed the lie I told him, Amalia. “Even if I was crazy, I wouldn’t get mixed up in another funeral parlor deal, no, sir.”

  “It’s not another one, it’s the same one, only bigger, and a chance to get it all sewed up,” Don Hilario had insisted. “Think it over and you’ll see I’m right.”

  And once two months had gone by and the man from Huánuco hadn’t shown up in Pucallpa. Amalia had almost forgotten about him the afternoon she found him sitting on the beach by the river, his jacket and tie carefully folded on a newspaper and with a toy for Amalita Hortensia in his hand. What had he been doing? And he, trembling as if he had malaria: he wasn’t coming back to Pucallpa anymore, could she talk to him alone for a minute? Doña Lupe had moved away with Amalita Hortensia and they talked for almost two hours. He wasn’t a traveling salesman anymore, he’d inherited a small store from an uncle and that was what he came to talk to her about. He’d looked so frightened to her, beating around the bush so much and stammering so much, asking her to go away with him, marry him, that she had even felt a little sorry to tell him he was crazy, Doña Lupe. Now you can see that he really loved you and it wasn’t a passing affair, Amalia. Leoncio Paniagua had not insisted, he’d remained silent, like an idiot, and when Amalia had advised him to forget about her and look for another woman back in Huánuco, he shook his head sorrowfully and whispered never. The fool had even made her feel nasty, Doña Lupe. She’d seen him for the last time that afternoon, crossing the square on the way to his small hotel and staggering like a drunkard.

  “And when we were most short of money, Amalia finds out she was pregnant,” Ambrosio says. “The two bad things at the same time, son.”

  But the news had made him happy: a little playmate for Amalia Hortensia, a jungle-boy son. Pantaleón and Doña Lupe had come to the cabin that night and they had drunk beer into the small hours: Amalia was pregnant, what did they think of that. They’d had a fairly good time and Amalia had got sick to her stomach and done crazy things: she danced all by herself, sang, said dirty words. The next day she’d awakened weak and vomiting and Ambrosio had made her feel ashamed: the child would be born a drunkard with the bath you gave it last night, Amalia.

  “If the doctor had said she might die, I would have had her get an abortion,” Ambrosio says. “It’s easy there, a whole raft of old women who know all the herbs for it. But no, she felt fine and that’s why we didn’t worry about anything.”

  One Saturday, during the first month of her pregnancy, Amalia had gone with Doña Lupe to spend the day in Yarinacocha. All morning they’d sat under a canopy looking at the lagoon where people were swimming, the round eye of the sun was burning in a crystal-clear sky. At noon they had untied their bundles and eaten under a tree, and then they’d heard two women having soft drinks saying awful things about Hilario Morales: he was this, he was that, he’d cheated, he’d robbed, if there was any justice left he’d have been dead or in prison. It’s probably nothing but gossip, Doña Lupe had said, but that night Amalia had told Ambrosio.

  “I’ve heard worse things about him, and not just here, in Tingo María too,” Ambrosio had told her. “What I can’t understand is why he doesn’t pull one of his tricks so our business will start showing some profit.”

  “Because he’s most likely pulling the tricks on you, dope,” Amalia had said.

  “She put the doubt in me,” Ambrosio says. “The poor thing had the nose of a hound, son.”

  From then on, every night when he got back from Pucallpa, even before he brushed off the red dust of the road, he’d asked Amalia anxiously: how many big ones, how many small ones? He had copied down everything that had been sold in a notebook and he had come back every day with stories of new tricks he’d heard concerning Don Hilario in Tingo María and Pucallpa.

  “If you mistrust him that much, I’ve got an idea,” Pantaleón had told him. “Tell him to give you back your money and we’ll go into something together.”

  Ever since that Saturday in Yarinacocha she’d kept a scrupulous watch on the customers at Limbo Coffins. This pregnancy hadn’t been at all like the earlier one, not even like the first one, Doña Lupe: no nausea, no vomiting, not even thirsty, almost. She hadn’t lost her strength, she could do the housework as well as ever. One morning she’d gone to the hospital with Ambrosio and had to stand in a long line. They’d killed time with a game where they tried to guess the number of buzzards they saw sunning themselves on nearby roofs, and when their turn came, Amal
ia was half asleep. The doctor had given her a very quick examination and said get dressed, you’re fine, come back in a couple of months. Amalia had got dressed and only when she was about to leave had she remembered:

  “At the Maternity Hospital in Lima they told me that I could die if I had another baby, doctor.”

  “Then you should have paid attention and taken precautions,” the doctor had grumbled; but then, when he saw she was frightened, he forced a smile. “Don’t be scared, take good care of yourself and nothing will happen to you.”

  A short time later another six months had passed and Ambrosio, before going to Don Hilario’s office, had called her over with a devilish look: come here, I’ve got a secret. What is it? He was going to tell him that he didn’t want to be his partner anymore or his driver either, Amalia, that he could stick The Jungle Flash and Limbo Coffins where it best suited him. Amalia had looked at him with surprise and he: it was a surprise he was saving for you, Amalia. He and Pantaleón had been making plans all that time and they’d come up with a great one. They’d fill their pockets at Don Hilario’s expense, Amalia, that was the funniest part of it. There was a small used truck for sale and Pantaleón had taken it apart and cleaned it up right down to its soul: it worked. They were letting it go for eighty thousand and would take a thirty thousand down payment and the rest on time. Pantaleón would ask for his severance pay and he would move heaven and earth to get his fifteen thousand back and they’d buy it on halves and drive it on halves and charge less and take customers away from the Morales and the Pucallpa companies.