Conversation in the Cathedral

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  “Don’t you ever feel ashamed?” Queta asked. “With people, your friends. Or do you tell them the same thing you’re telling me?”

  She saw him smile with a certain bitterness in the half-darkness; the street window was open but there was no breeze and in the still and reeking atmosphere of the room his naked body began to sweat. Queta moved away a fraction of an inch so that he wouldn’t rub against her.

  “Friends like I had back home, not a single one here,” Ambrosio said. “Just casual friends, like the one who’s Don Cayo’s chauffeur now, or Hipólito, the other one, who looks after him. They don’t know. And even if they did, it wouldn’t bother me. It wouldn’t seem bad to them, you know. I told you what went on with Hipólito and the prisoners, don’t you remember? Why should I be ashamed because of them?”

  “Aren’t you ever ashamed because of me?” Queta asked.

  “Not you either,” Ambrosio said. “You’re not going to spread those things around.”

  “Why not?” Queta said. “You’re not paying me to keep your secrets.”

  “Because you don’t want them to know that I come here,” Ambrosio said. “That’s why you’re not going to spread them around.”

  “What if I told the madwoman what you’re telling me?” Queta asked. “What would you do if I told everybody?”

  He laughed softly and courteously in the darkness. He was on his back smoking, and Queta saw how the little clouds of smoke blended in the air. No voice could be heard, no car passed, sometimes the ticking of the clock on the night table became present and then it would be lost, to reappear a moment later.

  “I’d never come back,” Ambrosio said. “And you’d lose a good customer.”

  “I’ve almost lost him already.” Queta laughed. “You used to come every month before, every two months. And now how long has it been? Five months? Longer. What’s happened? Is it because of Gold Ball?”

  “Being with you for just a little while means two weeks of work for me,” Ambrosio explained. “I can’t always give myself those pleasures. Besides, you’re not around much either. I came three times this month and I didn’t find you any one of them.”

  “What would he do to you if he knew you were coming here?” Queta asked. “Gold Ball.”

  “He’s not what you think he is,” Ambrosio said very quickly, with a serious voice. “He’s not a mean man, he’s not a tyrant. He’s a real gentleman, I already told you.”

  “What would he do?” Queta insisted. “If one day I met him in San Miguel and told him Ambrosio’s spending your money on me?”

  “You only know one side of him, that’s why you’re so wrong about him,” Ambrosio said. “He’s got another side. He’s not a tyrant, he’s good, he’s a gentleman. He makes a person feel respect for him.”

  Queta laughed even louder and looked at Ambrosio: he was lighting another cigarette and the instantaneous little flame of the match showed her his sated eyes and his serious expression, tranquil, and the gleaming perspiration on his brow.

  “He’s turned you into one too,” she said softly. “It isn’t because he pays you well or because you’re afraid. You like being with him.”

  “I like being his chauffeur,” Ambrosio said. “I’ve got my room, I earn more than I did before, and everybody treats me with consideration.”

  “And when he drops his pants and tells you do your duty.” Queta laughed. “Do you like that too?”

  “It’s not what you think,” Ambrosio repeated slowly. “I know what you’re imagining. It’s not true, it isn’t like that.”

  “What about when it disgusts you?” Queta asked. “Sometimes it does me, but what the hell, I open my legs and it’s all the same. What about you?”

  “It’s something that makes you feel pity,” Ambrosio whispered. “It does me, him too. You think it happens every day. No, not even once a month. It’s when something’s gone wrong for him. I can tell, I see him get into the car and I think something went wrong. He’s pale, his eyes are sunken in, his voice is funny. Take me to Ancón, he says. Or let’s go to Ancón, or to Ancón. I can tell. The whole trip without saying a word. If you saw his face you’d say someone close to him had died or that somebody had told him you’re going to die tonight.”

  “What happens to you, what do you feel?” Queta asked. “When he tells you take me to Ancón.”

  “Do you feel disgusted when Don Cayo tells you come to San Miguel tonight?” Ambrosio asked in a very low voice. “When the mistress sends for you?”

  “Not anymore.” Queta laughed. “The madwoman is my friend, we’re chums. We laugh at him instead. Do you think here comes the sacrifice, do you feel that you hate him?”

  “I think about what’s going to happen when we get to Ancón and I feel bad,” Ambrosio complained and Queta saw him touch his stomach. “Bad here, it starts turning. It makes me afraid, makes me feel sorry, makes me mad. I think I hope we only talk today.”

  “We talk?” Queta laughed. “Does he take you there just to talk sometimes?”

  “He goes in with his funeral face, draws the curtains and pours his drink,” Ambrosio said with a thick voice. “I know that something’s biting him inside, eating at him. He’s told me, you know. I’ve even seen him cry, you know.”

  “Hurry up, take a bath, put this on?” Queta recited, looking at him. “What does he do, what does he make you do?”

  “His face keeps on getting paler and paler and his voice gets tight,” Ambrosio murmured. “He sits down, says sit down. He asks me things, talks to me. He has us chat.”

  “Does he talk to you about women, does he tell you about filth, show you pictures, magazines?” Queta went on. “All I do is open my legs. What about you?”

  “I tell him things about myself,” Ambrosio whined. “About Chincha, about when I was a kid, about my mother. About Don Cayo, he makes me tell him things, he asks me about everything. He makes me feel like his friend, you know.”

  “He takes away your fear, he makes you feel comfortable,” Queta said. “The cat and the mouse. What about you?”

  “He starts to talk about his business and things, about his worries,” Ambrosio murmured. “Drinking all the time. Me too. And all the time I can see by his face that something’s eating, something’s gnawing at him.”

  “Is that when you use the familiar form with him?” Queta asked. “Do you dare to during those times?”

  “I don’t use the familiar form with you, even though I’ve been coming to this bed for two years, right?” Ambrosio grumbled. “He lets out everything that worries him, his business, politics, his children. He talks and talks and I know what’s going on inside him. He tells me he’s ashamed, he told me, you know.”

  “What does he start crying about?” Queta asked. “Because you don’t …?”

  “Sometimes he goes on for hours like that,” Ambrosio grumbled. “Him talking and me listening, me talking and him listening. And drinking until I feel I can’t hold another drop.”

  “Because you don’t get excited?” Queta asked. “Does it excite you only when you’re drinking?”

  “It’s what he puts in the drink,” Ambrosio whispered. His voice got thinner and thinner until it almost disappeared, and Queta looked at him: he’d put his arm over his face like a man on his back sunbathing at the beach. “The first time I caught on he realized I’d seen him. He realized I was surprised. What’s that you put in it?”

  “Nothing, it’s called yohimbine,” Don Fermín said. “Look, I’ve put some in mine too. It’s nothing, cheers, drink up.”

  “Sometimes not the drink, not the yohimbine, not anything,” Ambrosio grumbled. “He realizes it, I can see he does. His eyes make you want to cry, his voice. Drinking, drinking. I’ve seen him burst out crying, you know. He says go on, beat it, and locks himself in his room. I can hear him talking to himself, hollering. He goes crazy with shame, you know.”

  “Does he get mad at you, does he put on jealous scenes?” Queta asked. “Does he think that …?”<
br />
  “It’s not your fault, it’s not your fault,” Don Fermín moaned. “It’s not my fault either. A man’s not supposed to get aroused by another man, I know.”

  “He gets down on his knees, you know,” Ambrosio moaned. “Wailing, sometimes half crying. Let me be what I am, he says, let me be a whore, Ambrosio. You see? He humiliates himself, he suffers. Let me touch you, let me kiss it, on his knees, him to me, you see? Worse than a whore, you see?”

  Queta laughed slowly, rolled over on her back and sighed.

  “You feel sorry for him because of that,” she murmured with a dull fury. “I feel more sorry for you.”

  “Sometimes not even then, not even then,” Ambrosio moaned. “I think he’s going to go into a rage, he’s going to go crazy, he’s going to … But no, no. Go on, beat it, you’re right, leave me alone, come back in a couple of hours, in an hour.”

  “What about when you can do him the favor?” Queta asked. “Does he get happy, does he take out his wallet and …?”

  “He’s ashamed too,” Ambrosio moaned. “He goes to the bathroom, locks himself in and doesn’t come out. I go to the other bathroom, take a shower, soap myself up. There’s hot water and everything. I come back and he isn’t out yet. He takes hours getting washed, putting on cologne. He’s pale when he comes out, not talking. Go to the car, he says, I’ll be right down. Drop me off downtown, he says, I don’t want us to arrive home together. He’s ashamed, see?”

  “What about jealousy?” Queta asked. “Does he think you never go out with women?”

  “He never asks me anything about that,” Ambrosio said, taking his arm away from his face. “Or what I do on my day off or anything, only what I tell him. But I know what he’d feel if he knew I went out with women. Not jealousy, don’t you see? Shame, afraid that they’d find out. He wouldn’t do anything to me, he wouldn’t get mad. He’d say go on, beat it, that’s all. I know what he’s like. He’s not the kind to insult you, he doesn’t know how to treat people bad. He’d say it doesn’t matter, you’re right, but go on, beat it. He’d suffer and that’s all he’d do, you see? He’s a gentleman, not what you think he is.”

  “Gold Ball disgusts me more than Cayo Shithead,” Queta said.

  *

  That night, going into the eighth month, she’d felt pains in her back and Ambrosio, half asleep and reluctantly, had given her a massage. She’d awakened with a burning feeling and such lethargy that when Amalita Hortensia began to complain, she’d started to cry, distressed at the idea of having to get up. When she’d sat up in bed, she’d seen chocolate-colored stains on the mattress.

  “She thought the baby had died in her belly,” Ambrosio says. “She was suspicious of something, because she started to cry and made me take her to the hospital. Don’t be afraid, what are you afraid of.”

  They’d stood in line as usual, looking at the buzzards on the roof of the morgue, and the doctor had told Amalia you’re coming in right now. What had he found out, doctor? They were going to have to induce the birth, woman, the doctor had explained. What do you mean, induce it, doctor? and he nothing, woman, nothing serious.

  “She stayed there,” Ambrosio says. “I brought her things to her, I left Amalita Hortensia with Doña Lupe, I went to drive the jalopy. In the evening I went back to see her. Her arm and one cheek of her behind were all purple from so many injections.”

  They’d put her in the ward: hammocks and cots so close together that visitors had to stand at the foot of the bed because there wasn’t room enough to get close to the patient. Amalia had spent the morning looking out a large grilled window at the huts of the new settlement that was springing up behind the morgue. Doña Lupe had come to see her with Amalita Hortensia, but a nurse had told her not to bring the little girl anymore. She’d asked Doña Lupe to stop by the cabin when she got a chance and see if Ambrosio needed anything, and Doña Lupe of course, she’d fix his dinner too.

  “A nurse told me it looks as if they’re going to have to operate,” Ambrosio says. “Is it serious? No, it’s not. They were tricking me, you see, son?”

  The pains had disappeared with the shots and the fever had gone down, but she’d kept on soiling the bed all day with little chocolate-colored spots and the nurse had changed her sanitary napkin three times. It seems they’re going to have to operate, Ambrosio had told her. She’d become frightened: no, she didn’t want them to. It was for her own good, silly. She’d started to cry and all the patients had looked at her.

  “She looked so depressed that I started making up lies,” Ambrosio says. “We’re going to buy that truck, Panta and me, we decided today. She wasn’t even listening to me. Her eyes were big, like this.”

  She’d been awake all night because of the coughing spells of one of the patients, and frightened by another one who kept moving about in his hammock beside her and cursing some woman in his sleep. She’d beg, she’d cry, and the doctor would listen to her: more shots, more medicine, anything, but don’t operate on me, she’d suffered so much the last time, doctor. In the morning they’d brought mugs of coffee to all the patients in the ward except her. The nurse had come and, without saying a word, had given her a shot. She’d started to beg her to call the doctor, she had to talk to him, she was going to convince him, but the nurse hadn’t paid any attention to her: did she think they were going to operate on her because they liked to, silly? Then, with another nurse, she’d pulled her cot to the door of the ward and they’d transferred her to a stretcher and when they had started rolling her along she’d sat up, screaming for her husband. The nurses had left, the doctor had come, annoyed: what was all that noise, what’s going on. She’d begged him, told him about the Maternity Hospital, what she’d gone through, and the doctor had nodded his head: fine, good, just be calm. Like that until the morning nurse had come in: there was your husband now, that’s enough crying.

  “She grabbed me,” Ambrosio says. “Don’t let them operate, I don’t want them to. Until the doctor lost his patience. Either we get your permission or you take her out of here. What was I going to do, son?”

  They’d been trying to convince her, Ambrosio and an older nurse, older and nicer than the first, one who’d spoken to her lovingly and told her it’s for your own good and for the good of the baby. Finally she said all right and that she would behave herself. Then they took her off on the stretcher. Ambrosio had followed her to the door of the other room, telling her something that she’d barely heard.

  “She smelled it, son,” Ambrosio says. “If not, why was she so desperate, so frightened?”

  Ambrosio’s face had disappeared and they’d closed a door. She’d seen the doctor putting on an apron and talking to another man dressed in white and wearing a little cap and a mask. The two nurses had taken her off the cart and laid her on a table. She had asked them raise my head, she was suffocating like that, but instead of doing it they’d said to her yes, all right, quiet now, it’s all right. The two men in white had kept on talking and the nurses had been walking around her. They’d turned on a light over her face, so strong that she had to close her eyes, and a moment later she’d felt them giving her another shot. Then she’d seen the doctor’s face very close to hers and heard him tell her start counting, one, two, three. While she was counting, she’d felt her voice die.

  “I had to work on top of it all,” Ambrosio says. “They took her into the room and I left the hospital, but I went to Doña Lupe’s and she said poor thing, how come you didn’t stay until the operation was over. So I went back to the hospital, son.”

  It had seemed to her that everything was moving softly and she too, as if she were floating on water and beside her she had barely recognized the long faces of Ambrosio and Doña Lupe. She had tried to ask them was the operation over? tell them I don’t feel any pain, but she didn’t have the strength to speak.

  “Not even a place to sit down,” Ambrosio says. “Standing there, smoking all the cigarettes I had on me. Then Doña Lupe arrived and she started waiting too
and they still hadn’t brought her out of the room.”

  She hadn’t moved, it had occurred to her that with the slightest movement a whole lot of needles would start pricking her. She hadn’t felt any pain, more like a heavy, sweaty threat of pain and at the same time a languor and she’d been able to hear, as if they were talking in secret or were far, far away, the voices of Ambrosio, of Doña Lupe, and even the voice of Señora Hortensia: had it been born, was it a boy or a girl?

  “Finally a nurse came pushing out, get out of the way,” Ambrosio says. “She left and came back carrying something. What’s going on? She gave me another push and in a little while the other one came out. We lost the baby, she said, but there’s a chance we can save the mother.”

  It seemed that Ambrosio was weeping and Doña Lupe was praying, that there were people milling around them and telling them things. Someone had crouched over her, his lips near her face. They think you’re going to die, she’d thought, they think that you’re dead. She’d felt a great surprise and much grief for everyone.

  “That there was a chance to save her meant that there was a chance she’d die too,” Ambrosio says. “Doña Lupe began to pray on her knees. I went over and leaned against the wall, son.”

  She hadn’t been able to tell how much time had passed between one thing and another and had still heard them speaking, but long silences too now, which could be heard, which made noise. She had still felt that she was floating, that she was sinking down in the water a bit and that she was rising and sinking and had suddenly seen the face of Amalita Hortensia. She had heard: wipe your feet before you go into the house.

  “Then the doctor came out and put his hand on me here,” Ambrosio says. “We did everything we could to save your wife, but God didn’t will it that way and I don’t know how many other things, son.”

  It had occurred to her that they were going to pull her down, that she was going to drown, and she had thought I’m not going to look, I’m not going to talk, she wasn’t going to move and that way she would keep on floating. She’d thought how can you be hearing things that happened in the past, dummy? and she’d become frightened and had felt a lot of pain again.