Conversation in the Cathedral

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  “We held her wake at the hospital,” Ambrosio says. “All the drivers from the Morales and Pucallpa companies came, and even that bastard Don Hilario came to offer his condolences.”

  She’d felt more and more pain as she sank and she felt that she was going down and spinning as she fell and she knew that the things she was hearing were staying up above and that all she could do while she sank, while she fell, was bear that terrible pain.

  “We buried her in one of the coffins from Limbo,” Ambrosio says. “We had to pay I don’t know how much for the cemetery. I didn’t have it. The drivers took up a collection and even that bastard Don Hilario gave something. And the same day I buried her, the hospital sent someone to collect the bill. Dead or not, the bill had to be paid. With what, son?”

  7

  “WHAT WAS IT LIKE, son?” Ambrosio asks. “Did he suffer much before …?”

  It had been some time after Carlitos’ first attack of d.t.’s, Zavalita. One night he’d announced in the city room, with a determined air: I’m off booze for a month. No one had believed him, but Carlitos scrupulously followed his voluntary cure of drying out and went four weeks without touching a drop of liquor. Each day he would scratch out a number on his desk calendar and wave it around with a challenge: that makes ten, that makes sixteen. At the end of the month he announced: now for my revenge. He’d started drinking that night when he left work, first with Norwin and Solórzano in downtown dives, then with some sports writers he ran into who were celebrating someone’s birthday in a bar, and dawn found him drinking in the Parada market, he said himself afterward, with some strangers who stole his wallet and his watch. That morning they saw him at the offices of Última Hora and La Prensa trying to borrow some money and at nightfall Arispe found him sitting at a table of the Zela Bar on the Portal, his nose like a tomato and his eyes bleary, drinking by himself. He sat down with him, but he couldn’t talk to him. He wasn’t drunk, Arispe told them, he was pickled in alcohol. That night he showed up in the city room, walking with extreme caution and looking straight through things. He smelled of a lack of sleep, of indescribable combinations, and on his face there was a quivering uneasiness, an effervescence of the skin over his cheekbones, his temples, his forehead and his chin: everything was throbbing. Without answering the remarks, he floated over to his desk and stood there, looking at his typewriter with anxiety. Suddenly he lifted it up over his head with great effort and, without saying a word, dropped it: the great noise there, Zavalita, the shower of keys and nuts and bolts. When they went to grab him, he started to run, giving out grunts: he flung paper about, kicked over wastebaskets, stumbled into chairs. The next day he’d been put into the hospital for the first time. How many other times since then, Zavalita? He thinks: three.

  “It doesn’t seem so,” Santiago says. “It seems that he died in his sleep.”

  It had been a month after Sparky and Cary’s wedding, Zavalita. Ana and Santiago received an announcement and an invitation, but they didn’t attend or call or send flowers. Popeye and Teté hadn’t even tried to persuade them. They’d shown up at the elf houses a few weeks after getting back from their honeymoon and there were no hard feelings. They poured out the details of their trip to Mexico and the United States and then they’d gone for a drive in Popeye’s car and stopped for milk shakes in Herradura. They’d continued seeing each other that year every so often, at the elf houses and sometimes in San Isidro when Popeye and Teté moved into their apartment. You got all the news from them, Zavalita: Sparky’s engagement, the wedding preparations, your parents’ pending trip to Europe. Popeye was all taken up in politics. He would accompany Belaúnde on his trips to the provinces and Teté was expecting a baby.

  “Sparky got married in February and the old man died in March,” Santiago says. “He and mama were about to leave for Europe when it happened.”

  “Did he die in Ancón, then?” Ambrosio asks.

  “In Miraflores,” Santiago says. “They hadn’t gone to Ancón that summer because of Sparky’s wedding. They’d only been going to Ancón on weekends, I think.”

  It had been a little while after they had adopted Rowdy, Zavalita. One afternoon Ana came back from the Delgado Clinic with a shoebox that was moving; she opened it and Santiago saw something small and white leap out: the gardener had given him to her with so much affection that she hadn’t been able to say no, love. At first he was an annoyance, a cause of arguments. He wet in the living room, on the beds, in the bathroom, and when Ana tried to teach him to do his duty outside by slapping him on the behind or rubbing his nose in the pool of poop and pee, Santiago came to his defense and they had a fight, and when he began to chew on some book, Santiago would hit him and Ana would come to his defense and they would have a fight. After a while he learned: he would scratch on the street door when he wanted to piss and he would give an electrified look at the bookshelf. During the first days he slept in the kitchen on some old rags, but at night he would howl and come whimpering to the bedroom door, so they ended up fixing a corner for him beside the shoe rack. Little by little, he was winning the right to climb onto the bed. That morning when he’d got into the clothes hamper and was trying to get out, Zavalita, and you were looking at him. He’d stood up with his front paws on the edge, he was putting all his weight forward and the hamper began to rock and finally fell over. After a few seconds without moving, he wagged his tail and went forward to his freedom, and at that moment the rap on the window and Popeye’s face.

  “Your father, Skinny,” it was muffled, Zavalita, heavy, he must have run all the way from his car. “Sparky just called me.”

  You were in your pajamas, you couldn’t find your shorts, your legs got tangled up in your pants, and while you were writing a note for Ana, your hand began to tremble, Zavalita.

  “Hurry up,” Popeye was saying, standing in the door. “Hurry up, Skinny.”

  They got to the American Hospital at the same time as Teté. She hadn’t been at home when Popeye got the phone call, she’d been in church, and she had Popeye’s message in one hand and a veil and a prayerbook in the other. They wasted several minutes going back and forth through the corridors until, turning a corner, they saw Sparky. Disguised, he thinks: the red and white pajama top, his pants unbuttoned, a jacket of a different color, and he wasn’t wearing socks. He was embracing his wife, Cary was crying and there was a doctor who was moving his lips with a mournful look. He shook your hand, Zavalita, and Teté began to weep loudly. He’d died before they got him to the hospital, the doctors said, he was probably already dead that morning when your mother woke up and found him motionless and rigid, his mouth open. It caught him in his sleep, they said, he didn’t suffer. But Sparky was certain that when he, Cary and the butler had put him in the car, he was still alive, that he’d felt a pulse. Mama was in the emergency room and when you went in they were giving her a shot for her nerves: she was raving and when you embraced her she howled. She fell asleep a short time later and the loudest howls were Teté’s. Then the relatives had begun to arrive, then Ana, and you, Popeye and Sparky had spent the whole afternoon making the arrangements, Zavalita. The hearse, he thinks, the business with the cemetery, the notices in the newspapers. There you made up with your family again, Zavalita, since then you hadn’t had another fight. Between one item of business and another, Sparky would give a sob, he thinks, he had some tranquilizers in his pocket and he was swallowing them like candy. They got home at dusk, and the garden, the rooms, the study were already full of people. Mama had got up and was overseeing the preparations for the wake. She wasn’t crying, she wasn’t wearing any makeup, and she looked terribly ugly. Around her were Teté and Cary and Aunt Eliana and Aunt Rosa and Ana too, Zavalita. He thinks: Ana too. People were still coming in, all night long there were people who came and went, murmurs, smoke, and the first flowers. Uncle Clodomiro had spent the night sitting by the coffin, mute, rigid, with a waxen face, and when you’d finally gone over to look at him, dawn was already breaking. The glass
was fogged and you couldn’t make out his face, he thinks: only his hands on his chest, his most elegant suit, and his hair had been combed.

  “I hadn’t seen him for over two years,” Santiago says. “Since I got married. What made me most sad wasn’t that he’d died. We all have to die someday, right, Ambrosio? It was that he’d died thinking that I’d broken with him.”

  The burial was the next day, at three in the afternoon. All morning telegrams, notes, mass cards, offerings and wreaths had been arriving, and in the newspapers the item was edged in black. A lot of people had come, yes, Ambrosio, even an aide to the President, and as they entered the cemetery, the coffin had been accompanied for a moment by a Pradist cabinet member, an Odríist senator, a leader of APR A and a Belaúndist. Uncle Clodomiro, Sparky and you had stood at the cemetery gates receiving condolences for more than an hour, Zavalita. The next day Ana and Santiago spent the whole day at the house. Mama stayed in her room, surrounded by relatives, and when she saw them come in, she had embraced and kissed Ana and Ana had embraced and kissed her, and they both had wept. He thinks: that’s the way the world was made, Zavalita. He thinks: is that how it was made? Uncle Clodomiro came by at dusk and was sitting in the living room with Popeye and Santiago: his mind seemed to be elsewhere, he was lost in his own thoughts, and when they asked him something, he would reply with almost inaudible monosyllables. On the following day, Aunt Eliana had taken mama to her house in Chosica so that she could avoid the parade of visitors.

  “Since he died I haven’t had another fight with the family,” Santiago says. “I don’t see them very often, but even so, even from a distance, we get along.”

  *

  “No,” Ambrosio repeated. “I haven’t come to fight.”

  “That’s good, because if you have, I’ll call Robertito, he’s the one here who knows how to fight,” Queta said. “Tell me right out what the fuck has brought you here, or beat it.”

  They weren’t naked, they weren’t lying on the bed, the light in the room wasn’t out. From down below the same mixed sound of music and voices at the bar and laughter from the little parlor could still be heard. Ambrosio had sat down on the bed and Queta saw him enveloped in the cone of light, quiet and strong in his blue suit and his pointed black shoes and the white collar of his starched shirt. She saw his desperate immobility, the crazed rage embedded in his eyes.

  “You know very well, because of her.” Ambrosio was looking straight at her without blinking. “You could have done something and you didn’t. You’re her friend.”

  “Look, I’ve got enough to worry about,” Queta said. “I don’t want to talk about that, I come here to make some money. Go on, beat it, and most of all, don’t come back. Not here and not to my apartment.”

  “You should have done something,” Ambrosio’s stubborn voice repeated, stiff and clear. “For your own good.”

  “For my own good?” Queta said. She was leaning against the door, her body slightly arched, her hands on her hips.

  “For her good, I mean,” Ambrosio murmured. “Didn’t you tell me that she was your friend, that even though she was crazy you liked her?”

  Queta took a few steps, sat down on the only chair in the room, facing him. She crossed her legs, looked at him calmly, and he resisted her look without lowering his eyes, for the first time.

  “Gold Ball sent you,” Queta said slowly. “Why didn’t he send you to the madwoman? I haven’t got anything to do with this. Tell Gold Ball not to get me mixed up in his problems. The madwoman is the madwoman and I’m me.”

  “Nobody sent me, he doesn’t even know that I know you,” Ambrosio said very slowly, looking at her. “I came so we could talk. Like friends.”

  “Like friends?” Queta said. “What makes you think you’re my friend?”

  “Talk to her, make her be reasonable,” Ambrosio murmured. “Make her see that she hasn’t behaved well. Tell her he hasn’t got any money, that his business is in bad shape. Advise her to forget about him completely.”

  “Is Gold Ball going to have her arrested again?” Queta asked. “What else is that bastard going to do to her?”

  “He didn’t put her in, he went to get her out of jail,” Ambrosio said without raising his voice, without moving. “He helped her, he paid her hospital bills, he gave her money. Without any obligation, just out of pity. He’s not going to give her any more. Tell her that she hasn’t behaved well, not to threaten him anymore.”

  “Go on, beat it,” Queta said. “Let Gold Ball and the madwoman settle their affairs by themselves. It’s no business of mine. Yours either, don’t you get involved.”

  “Give her some advice,” Ambrosio’s terse, sharp voice repeated. “If she keeps on threatening him, it’s going to turn out bad for her.”

  Queta laughed and heard her own forced and nervous giggle. He was looking at her with calm determination, with that steady, frantic boiling in his eyes. They were silent, looking at each other, their faces a couple of feet apart.

  “Are you sure he didn’t send you?” Queta finally asked. “Is Gold Ball scared of the poor madwoman? He’s seen her, he knows what a state she’s in. You know how she is too. You’ve got your spy there too, haven’t you?”

  “That too,” Ambrosio said in a hoarse voice. Queta watched him put his knees together and hunch over, watched him dig his fingers into his legs. His voice had cracked. “I hadn’t done anything to her, it wasn’t my business. And Amalia’s been helping her, she’s stood by her in everything that’s happened. She had no reason to tell him that.”

  “What’s happened?” Queta asked. She leaned toward him a little. “Did she tell Gold Ball about you and Amalia?”

  “That she’s my woman, that we’ve been seeing each other every Sunday for years, that I got her pregnant.” Ambrosio’s voice was torn and Queta thought he’s going to cry. But he didn’t: only his voice was weeping, his eyes were dry and opaque, very wide. “She’s not behaved well at all.”

  “Well,” Queta said, sitting up. “So that’s why you’re here, that’s why you’re so furious. Now I know why you’ve come.”

  “But why?” Ambrosio’s voice was still in torture. “Thinking she could convince him that way? Thinking she could get more money out of him that way? Why did she do a bad thing like that?”

  “Because the poor madwoman is really crazy,” Queta whispered. “Didn’t you know that? Because she wants to get out of here, because she has to get away. It wasn’t because she’s bad. She herself doesn’t even know what she’s doing.”

  “Thinking that if I tell him he’s going to get the worst of it,” Ambrosio said. He nodded, closed his eyes for an instant. He opened them. “It’s going to hurt him, it’s going to ruin him. Thinking that.”

  “Because that son of a bitch of a Lucas, the one she fell in love with, the one who’s in Mexico,” Queta said. “You don’t know about it. He writes her telling her to come, to bring some money, we’ll get married. She believes him, she’s crazy. She doesn’t know what to do anymore, it wasn’t because she’s bad.”

  “Yes,” Ambrosio said. He raised his hands an inch and sank them fiercely into his legs again, his pants wrinkled. “She’s hurt him, she’s made him suffer.”

  “Gold Ball has got to understand her,” Queta said. “Everybody’s acted like such a bastard with her. Cayo Shithead, Lucas, everybody she ever had to her house, all the ones she took care of and …”

  “Him, him?” Ambrosio roared, and Queta fell silent. She kept her legs ready to leap up and run, but he didn’t move. “He acted bad? Would you please tell me what fault it was of his? Does he owe her anything? Was he obliged to help her? Hasn’t he been giving her a lot of money? And to the only person who was ever good to her she does something bad like this. But not anymore, it’s all over. I want you to tell her.”

  “I already have,” Queta murmured. “Don’t you get involved, you’ll be the one who comes out the loser. When I found out that Amalia had told her that she was expecting, I war
ned her. Be careful not to tell the girl that Ambrosio … be careful about telling Gold Ball that Amalia … Don’t start anything, don’t get mixed up in it. It just happened, she didn’t do it to be mean, she wants to bring some money to that Lucas guy. She’s crazy.”

  “And he never did anything to her, just because he was good and helped her,” Ambrosio murmured. “It wouldn’t have mattered so much to me for her to have told Amalia about me. But not to do that to him. That was evil, nothing but evil.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered for her to tell your woman,” Queta said, looking at him. “Gold Ball is all that matters, you’re only worried about the fairy. You’re worse than he is. Get out of here, right now.”

  “She sent a letter to his wife,” Ambrosio moaned, and Queta saw him lower his head, ashamed. “To his wife. Your husband is that way, your husband and his chauffeur, ask him what he feels when the nigger … and two pages like that. To his wife. Tell me, why did she do a thing like that?”

  “Because she’s crazy,” Queta said. “Because she wants to go to Mexico and doesn’t know what to do so she can get there.”

  “She phoned him at home,” Ambrosio roared and lifted his head and looked at Queta, and she saw the madness floating in his eyes, the silent bubbling. “Your relatives, your friends, your children are going to get the same letter. The same letter as your wife. Your employees. The only person who has acted good, the only one who helped her without having any reason to.”

  “Because she’s desperate,” Queta repeated, raising her voice. “She wants that airline ticket so she can leave. Let him give it to her, let …”

  “He gave it to her yesterday,” Ambrosio grunted. “You’ll be a laughingstock, I’ll ruin you, I’ll screw you. He took it to her himself. It isn’t just the fare. That crazy woman wants a hundred thousand soles too. See? You talk to her. She shouldn’t bother him anymore. Tell her it’s the last time.”