Conversation in the Cathedral

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  “I’m not going to say another word to her,” Queta murmured. “I don’t care, I don’t want to hear anything more. She and Gold Ball can kill each other if they want to. I don’t want to get mixed up in any trouble. Are you carrying on like this because Gold Ball has fired you? Are you making these threats so that the fairy will forgive you for the Amalia business?”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t understand,” Ambrosio said. “I didn’t come here to fight, but for us to have a talk. He didn’t fire me, he didn’t send me here.”

  “You should have told me that at the start,” Don Fermín said. “I have a woman, we’re going to have a child, I want to marry her. You should have told me everything, Ambrosio.”

  “So much the better for you, then,” Queta said. “Haven’t you been seeing her secretly for so long because you were afraid of Gold Ball? Well, there it is. He knows now and he hasn’t fired you. The madwoman didn’t do it out of evil. Don’t you get mixed up in this anymore and let them settle it by themselves.”

  “He didn’t fire me, he didn’t get mad, he didn’t bawl me out,” Ambrosio said hoarsely. “He was sorry for me, he forgave me. Can’t you see that she mustn’t do anything bad to a person like him? Can’t you see?”

  “What a bad time you must have had, Ambrosio, how you must have hated me,” Don Fermín said. “Having to hide that business about your woman for so many years. How many, Ambrosio?”

  “Making me feel like dirt, making me feel I don’t know what,” Ambrosio moaned, pounding hard on the bed, and Queta stood up with a leap.

  “Did you think I was going to be mad at you, you poor devil?” Don Fermín said. “No, Ambrosio. Get your woman out of that house, have your children. You’ve got a job here as long as you want. And forget about Ancón and all that, Ambrosio.”

  “He knows how to manipulate you,” Queta murmured, going quickly toward the door. “He knows what you are. I’m not going to say anything to Hortensia. You tell her. And God save you if you set foot in here again or at my place.”

  “All right, I’m leaving, and don’t worry, I don’t intend coming back,” Ambrosio murmured, getting up. Queta had opened the door and the noise from the bar was coming in and it was loud. “But I’m asking you for the last time. Talk to her, make her be reasonable. Have her leave him alone once and for all, hm?”

  *

  He’d only stayed on as a jitney driver for three weeks more, which was as long as the jalopy lasted. It stopped for good one morning going into Yarinacocha, after smoking and shuddering in rapid death throes of mechanical bucking and belching. They lifted the hood, the motor had dropped out. The poor thing, at least it got this far, said Don Calixto, the owner. And to Ambrosio: as soon as I need a driver, I’ll get in touch with you. Two days later, Don Alandro Pozo, the landlord, had appeared at the cabin, all very pleasant: yes, he already knew that you had lost your job, that your wife had died, that you were in bad shape. He was very sorry, Ambrosio, but that wasn’t welfare, you’ve got to leave. Don Alandro agreed to take the bed, the little crib, the table and the Primus stove in payment for the back rent, and Ambrosio had put the rest of the things in some boxes and taken them to Doña Lupe’s. When she saw him so down, she made him a cup of coffee: at least you don’t have to worry about Amalita Hortensia, she would stay with her in the meantime. Ambrosio went to Pantaleón’s shack and he hadn’t come back from Tingo. He got back at dusk and found Ambrosio sitting on his doorstep, his feet sunken in the muddy ground. He tried to raise his spirits: of course he could stay with him until he found a job. Would he get one, Panta? Well, to tell the truth, it was hard here, Ambrosio, why didn’t he try somewhere else? He advised him to go to Tingo or to Huánuco. But Ambrosio had had a funny feeling about leaving so soon after Amalia’s death, son, and besides, how was he going to be able to make it alone in the world with Amalita Hortensia. So he’d made an attempt to stay in Pucallpa. On one day he helped unload launches, on another he cleaned out cobwebs and killed mice at the Wong Warehouses, and he’d even washed down the morgue with disinfectant, but all that was only enough for cigarette money. If it hadn’t been for Panta and Doña Lupe, he would have starved to death. So putting his guts where his heart was, one day he’d shown up at Don Hilario’s, not for a fight, son, but to beg him. He was all fucked up, sir, could he do something for him.

  “I’ve got all the drivers I need,” Don Hilario said with an afflicted smile. “I can’t fire one of them in order to take you on.”

  “Fire the half-wit at Limbo, then, sir,” Ambrosio asked him. “Even if it’s just making me a watchman.”

  “I don’t pay the half-wit, I just let him sleep there,” Don Hilario explained to him. “I’d be crazy to let him go. You’d get a job in a day or so and where would I be able to get another half-wit who doesn’t cost me a cent?”

  “He let the cat out of the bag, see?” Ambrosio says. “What about those receipts for a hundred a month he showed me, where had all that money ended up?”

  But he didn’t say anything to him: he listened, nodded, muttered that’s too bad. Don Hilario consoled him with a pat on the back and, when he said good-bye, gave him ten soles for a drink, Ambrosio. He went to eat at a lunchroom on the Calle Comercio and bought a pacifier for Amalita Hortensia. At Doña Lupe’s he got another piece of bad news: they’d come from the hospital again, Ambrosio. If he didn’t go and talk to them at least, they’d report him to the police. He went to the hospital and the lady in the office bawled him out for hiding. She took out the bills and explained to him what they were for.

  “It was like a joke,” Ambrosio says. “Close to two thousand soles, just imagine. Two thousand for the murder they’d committed.”

  But he didn’t say anything there either: he listened with a serious face, nodding. So? The lady opened her hands. Then he told her about the straits he was in, he made it bigger to get her sympathy. The lady asked him, do you have social security? Ambrosio didn’t know. What had he worked at before? A little while as a jitney driver and before that for Morales Transportation.

  “So you do,” the lady said. “Ask Don Hilario for your social security number. With that you can go to the ministry office to get your card and then come back here. You’ll only have to pay part of the bill.”

  He already knew what was going to happen, but he’d gone to test Don Hilario’s wiles a second time: he’d let out a few clucks, had looked at him as if thinking you’re even dumber than you look.

  “What social security?” Don Hilario asked. “That’s for regular employees.”

  “Wasn’t I a regular driver?” Ambrosio asked. “What was I, then, sir?”

  “How could you be a regular driver when you haven’t got a professional license,” Don Hilario explained to him.

  “Of course I do,” Ambrosio said. “What’s this, if it isn’t a license?”

  “Oh, but you didn’t tell me, so it’s not my fault,” Don Hilario replied. “Besides, I didn’t put you down as a favor to you. Collecting by bill and not being on the payroll saved you the deductions.”

  “But you deducted something from me every month,” Ambrosio said. “Wasn’t that for social security?”

  “That was for retirement,” Don Hilario said. “But since you left the firm, you lost your rights. That’s the way the law is, terribly complicated.”

  “It wasn’t the lies that burned me up most, it was that he told me such imbecile stories as the one about the license,” Ambrosio says. “Where could you hurt him the most? Something to do with money, naturally. That’s where I had to get my revenge on him.”

  It was Tuesday and for everything to come out right, he had to wait till Sunday. He spent the afternoons with Doña Lupe and the nights with Pantaleón. What would become of Amalita Hortensia if something happened to him one day, Doña Lupe, if he died, for example? Nothing, Ambrosio, she’d stay on with her, she was already like a daughter to her, the one she’d always dreamed of having. In the morning he would go to the little beach by the
docks or walk around the square, chatting with the drifters. On Saturday afternoon he saw The Jungle Flash enter Pucallpa; groaning, dusty, its boxes and trunks lashed down and bouncing about, the vehicle went down the Calle Comercio raising a cloud of dust and parked in front of the small office of Morales Transportation. The driver got out, the passengers got out, they unloaded the baggage, and kicking pebbles on the corner, Ambrosio waited for the driver to get back into The Jungle Flash and start up: he was taking it to López’ garage, yes. He went to Doña Lupe’s and stayed until nightfall playing with Amalita Hortensia, who had grown so unaccustomed to him that when he went to pick her up she started to cry. He appeared at the garage at eight o’clock and only López’ wife was there: he’d come for the bus, ma’am, Don Hilario needed it. She didn’t even think to ask him when did you go back to work for the Morales Company? She pointed to a corner of the lot: there it was. All set, gas, oil, everything, yes.

  “I thought of running it off a cliff somewhere,” Ambrosio says. “But I realized that would be stupid and I drove it all the way to Tingo. I picked up a couple of passengers along the way and that gave me enough for gas.”

  When he got into Tingo María the next morning, he hesitated a moment and then drove to Itipaya’s garage: what’s this, have you gone back to work for Don Hilario, boy?

  “I stole it,” Ambrosio said. “In return for what he stole from me. I’ve come to sell it to you.”

  Itipaya was surprised at first and then he burst out laughing: have you gone crazy, brother?

  “Yes,” Ambrosio said. “Will you buy it?”

  “A stolen vehicle?” Itipaya laughed. “What am I going to do with it? Everybody knows The Jungle Flash, Don Hilario has probably reported it missing already.”

  “Well,” Ambrosio said. “Then I’m going to drive it off a cliff. At least I’ll get my revenge.”

  Itipaya scratched his head: such madness. They’d argued for almost half an hour. If he was going to drive it off a cliff, it would be better if it served a more useful purpose, boy. But he couldn’t give him very much: he’d have to dismantle it completely, sell it piece by piece, repaint the body and a thousand other things. How much, Itipaya, right out? And besides, there’s the risk, boy. How much, right out?

  “Four hundred soles,” Ambrosio says. “Less than you can get for a used bicycle. Just enough to get me to Lima, son.”

  8

  “I DON’T WANT TO BOTHER YOU or anything,” Ambrosio says. “But it’s getting awfully late, son.”

  What else, Zavalita, what else? The conversation with Sparky, he thinks, nothing else. After Don Fermín’s death, Ana and Santiago began having lunch with Señora Zoila on Sundays and there they also saw Sparky and Cary, Popeye and Teté, but then, when Señora Zoila decided to take a trip to Europe with Aunt Eliana, who was going to put her oldest daughter in a school in Switzerland and take a two-month tour through Spain, Italy and France, the family lunches stopped and they didn’t start up again later on or will they ever start up again, he thinks: what difference did the time make, Ambrosio, cheers, Ambrosio. Señora Zoila came back less downcast, tanned by the European summer, rejuvenated, her arms loaded with gifts and her mouth loaded with stories. Before a year was out she’d recovered completely, Zavalita, she’d picked up her busy social life again, her canasta games, her visits, her soap operas and her teas. Ana and Santiago went to see her at least once a month and she would cut them short in order to eat and their relationship from then on was distant but courteous, more friendly than familiar, Señora Zoila treated Ana with a discreet friendliness now, a resigned and thin affection. She hadn’t forgotten her in the distribution of her European souvenirs, Zavalita, she’d gotten hers too: a Spanish mantilla, he thinks, a blue silk blouse from Italy. On birthdays and anniversaries Ana and Santiago would come by early and give a quick embrace before the guests arrived, and on some nights Popeye and Teté would show up at the elf houses to chat or to take them out for a drive. Sparky and Cary never, Zavalita, but during the South American Soccer Championship he’d sent you a midfield ticket as a gift. You needed money and you resold it at half price, he thinks. He thinks: we finally found the formula for getting along. At a distance, Zavalita, with little smiles, with jokes: it made a difference to him, son, excuse me. It was getting late.

  The conversation had taken place quite some time after Don Fermín’s death, a week after he’d been transferred from local news to the editorial page of La Crónica, Zavalita, a few days before Ana had lost her job at the clinic. They’d raised your salary five hundred soles, changed your shift from night to morning, now you would almost never see Carlitos, Zavalita, when you ran into Sparky coming out of Señora Zoila’s. They’d spoken for a moment standing on the sidewalk: could they have lunch together tomorrow, Superbrain? Sure, Sparky. That afternoon you’d thought, without curiosity, all of a sudden, what could he have wanted. And the next day Sparky came by to pick up Santiago at the elf houses a little after noon. It was the first time he’d been there and there he was coming in, Zavalita, and there you saw him from the window, hesitating, knocking at the German woman’s door, wearing a beige suit and a vest and that canary shirt with a very high collar. And there was the German woman’s look devouring Sparky from head to toe while she pointed to your door: that one, letter C. And there was Sparky setting foot for the first and last time in the little elf house, Zavalita. He gave him a pat on the back, hi Superbrain, and took possession of the two small rooms with a smiling ease.

  “You’ve found the ideal den, Skinny.” He was looking at the small table, the bookcase, the cloth where Rowdy slept. “Just the right apartment for a pair of bohemians like you and Ana.”

  They went for lunch at the Restaurant Suizo in Herradura. The waiters and the maître d’ knew Sparky by name, exchanged a few pleasantries with him and fluttered about, effusive and diligent, and Sparky insisted that he try that strawberry cocktail, the specialty of the house, Skinny, syrupy and explosive. They sat at a table that looked out over the sea wall: they saw the rough sea, the sky with its winter clouds, and Sparky suggested the Lima soup as a starter and then the spiced chicken or duck with rice.

  “I’ll pick the dessert,” Sparky said when the waiter went off with their order. “Crêpes with blancmange. It’s just the thing after talking business.”

  “Are we going to talk business?” Santiago asked. “I hope you’re not going to ask me to come to work with you. Please don’t spoil the taste of my lunch.”

  “I know that when you hear the word business you break out in hives, bohemian.” Sparky laughed. “But this time you can’t get out of it, just for a little while. I brought you here to see if some spicy dishes and cold beer would make the pill easier to swallow.”

  He laughed again, a bit artificially now, and while he was laughing, that uncomfortable glow had appeared in his eyes, Zavalita, those shiny, restless dots: oh, Skinny, you damned bohemian, he said twice, oh, Skinny, you damned bohemian. Not half crazy, traitor to your class, full of complexes, or Communist anymore, he thinks. He thinks: something more affectionate, vaguer, something that could be everything, Skinny, damned bohemian, Zavalita.

  “Let me have the pill right off, then,” Santiago said. “Before the soup.”

  “You don’t give a damn about anything, bohemian,” Sparky said, stopping his laughter, keeping the halo of a smile on his smoothly shaven face; but in the depths of his eyes the uneasiness was still there, growing, and alarm appeared, Zavalita. “All those months after the old man died and you haven’t thought to ask about the business he left.”

  “I have confidence in you,” Santiago said. “I know you’ll hold up the family name in the business world.”

  “Well, let’s talk seriously.” Sparky put his elbows on the table, his chin on his hand, and there was the glow of quicksilver, his continuous blinking, Zavalita.

  “Get on with it,” Santiago said. “I warn you, when the soup comes, business stops.”

  “A lot of matters
were left pending, as is logical,” Sparky said, lowering his voice a little. He looked at the empty tables around, coughed and spoke with pauses, choosing his words with a kind of suspicion. “The will, for example. It’s awfully complicated, we had to go through a long process to make it valid. You’ll have to go to the notary’s to sign a whole ream of papers. In this country everything is one big bureaucratic complication, all sorts of paper work, you know that.”

  The poor fellow wasn’t only confused, uncomfortable, he thinks, he was frightened. Had he prepared that conversation with great care, trying to guess your questions, imagining what you would ask for and demand, foreseeing what you would threaten? Did he have an arsenal of answers and explanations and demonstrations? He thinks: you were so bashful, Sparky. Sometimes he would fall silent and look out the window. It was November and they still hadn’t put up the canopies and there weren’t any bathers on the beach; a few cars drove along the Malecón and here and there groups of people were walking by the gray and agitated sea. High, noisy waves were breaking in the distance and sweeping the whole beach and white ducks were gliding silently over the foam.

  “Well, it’s like this,” Sparky said. “The old man wanted to have things in good order, he was afraid of a repetition of the first attack. We’d just got started when he died. Only started. The idea was to avoid inheritance taxes, the damned paper work. We were starting to give the thing a legal aspect, putting the companies in my name with fake transfer contracts and so forth. You’re intelligent enough to see why. The old man’s idea wasn’t to leave all the business to me or anything like that. Just to avoid complications. We were going to make all the transfers and at the same time leave your rights and Teté’s in good order. And mama’s, naturally.”