In Praise of the Stepmother

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  But the greatest success was her relationship with the little boy. He had been her greatest concern at one time, something she had believed to be an insurmountable obstacle. A stepson, Lucrecia, she would think whenever Rigoberto insisted that they put an end to their semiclandestine affair and get married without further ado. It’s never going to work. That child is always going to hate you. He’ll make life impossible for you, and sooner or later you’ll end up hating him as well. When has a couple ever been happy when other people’s children enter the picture?

  But that wasn’t how it had turned out at all. Alfonsito adored her. Yes, that was the right word. Perhaps a little too much, in fact. Doña Lucrecia stretched between the warm sheets again, coiling and uncoiling like a lazying serpent. Hadn’t he finished first in his class to please her? She remembered his flushed face, the triumph in his sky-blue eyes when he had handed her his report card:

  “Here’s your birthday present, stepmother. May I give you a kiss?”

  “Of course, Fonchito. Ten, if you like.”

  He was forever asking her for kisses and giving them to her, with an excitement that, at times, gave her misgivings. Could the child really be that fond of her? Yes, she had won him over with all those presents, all that pampering, from the moment she had first set foot in the house. Or, as Rigoberto fantasized, fanning his desire in the midst of his nocturnal labors, was Alfonsito awakening to sexual life and had circumstances entrusted her with the role of inspirer? “What nonsense, Rigoberto. When he’s still just a little boy, when he’s just made his First Communion. What absurd notions you have sometimes.”

  But even though she would never confess aloud to such a thing, least of all in her husband’s presence, when she was by herself, as she was now, Doña Lucrecia wondered whether the boy was not, in fact, discovering desire, the nascent poetry of the body, using her as a stimulus. Alfonsito’s attitude intrigued her: it seemed so innocent yet at the same time so ambiguous. She remembered then—it was an incident dating from her adolescence that she never forgot—the chance pattern she saw the graceful little feet of a seagull trace in the sand at the Yacht Club; she went closer to get a better look, expecting to come upon an abstract form, a labyrinth of straight lines and curves, and what she saw reminded her, rather, of a big, humpbacked penis! Was Foncho aware that when he threw his arms around her neck the way he did, when he gave her those lingering kisses, seeking her lips, he was going beyond the bounds of the permissible? Impossible to know. The child had such a candid, such a gentle gaze, that it seemed impossible to Doña Lucrecia that the small blond head of this exquisite beauty posing as a shepherd in the Christmas tableaux at the Santa María School for Boys could harbor dirty, scabrous thoughts.

  “Dirty thoughts,” she whispered, her mouth against the pillow, “scabrous thoughts. Ha-ha!” She felt in fine spirits, and a delicious warmth was coursing through her veins, as though her blood had been transubstantiated into mulled wine. No, Fonchito couldn’t have any intimation that he was playing with fire; those effusions were doubtless prompted by a vague instinct, an unconscious tropism. They were dangerous games, nonetheless, weren’t they, Lucrecia? Because when she saw him, just a little boy still, kneeling on the floor, contemplating her as though his stepmother had just descended from Paradise, or when his little arms and his frail body clung to her, and his lips, so thin as to be nearly invisible, glued themselves to her cheeks and slid down to graze hers—she had never permitted them to linger there for more than a second—Doña Lucrecia could not help feeling at times a sudden sharp stab of excitement, a steamy breath of desire. “You’re the one who has dirty, scabrous thoughts, Lucrecia,” she murmured, hugging the mattress with her eyes closed. Would she one day become a hot-to-trot older woman, like some of her bridge cronies? Was that what was meant by the devil at midday, the passion of women of a certain age? Calm yourself, remember that you’ve been a grass widow for two days—Rigoberto, off on a business trip, some sort of deal having to do with insurance, wouldn’t be back till Sunday—and no more of this lolling about in bed. On your feet, you lazy creature! Struggling to shake off her pleasant drowsiness, she picked up the intercom and ordered Justiniana to bring her breakfast upstairs.

  The girl entered the room five minutes later, with Doña Lucrecia’s breakfast on a tray, and her mail and the morning newspapers. She opened the curtains, and the humid, dreary gray light of September in Lima invaded the room. How grim winter is, Doña Lucrecia thought. And she dreamed of the summer sun, the burning sands of the beaches of Paracas, and the salty caress of the sea on her skin. So far off still! Justiniana placed the tray on her lap and plumped up the pillows to make a backrest. She was a slender woman, dark-skinned and kinky-haired, with bright sparkling eyes and a melodious voice.

  “There’s something I don’t know how to tell you, señora,” she murmured, a tragicomic expression on her face, as she handed Doña Lucrecia her dressing gown and placed her mules at the foot of the bed.

  “Well, you must tell me now, because you’ve whetted my appetite,” Doña Lucrecia said as she bit into a slice of toast and took a sip of tea without sugar or cream. “What’s happened?”

  “I’m ashamed to say, señora.”

  Doña Lucrecia, amused, looked at her closely. She was a young woman, and beneath the blue apron of her uniform was the merest hint of the supple curves of her slender, resilient body. What did she look like when her husband made love to her? She was married to a doorman at a restaurant, a tall black as well built as an athlete, who brought her to the house every morning. Doña Lucrecia had advised her not to complicate her life by having children while she was still so young, and had personally taken her to her own doctor to get her a prescription for the pill.

  “Another fight between the cook and Saturnino?”

  “No, it has to do with little Alfonso.” Justiniana lowered her voice as though the boy could hear her from his far-off school, and pretended to be more embarrassed than she really was. “The thing is, last night I caught him… But please don’t tell him, señora. If Fonchito finds out I told you, he’ll kill me.”

  These affectations of modesty and exaggerated fears with which Justiniana always embroidered whatever she was saying amused Doña Lucrecia.

  “Where did you catch him? Doing what?”

  “Spying on you, señora.”

  Some instinct warned Doña Lucrecia of what she was about to hear and put her on her guard. Justiniana was pointing to the bathroom ceiling and seemed genuinely embarrassed now.

  “He could have fallen down into the garden and might even have killed himself,” she whispered, rolling her eyes. “That’s why I’m telling you, señora. When I scolded him, he told me it wasn’t the first time. He’d climbed up onto the roof lots of times. To spy on you.”

  “What’s that you’re telling me?”

  “Just what you heard,” the child answered defiantly, almost heroically. “And I’ll go on doing it even if I slip and fall and kill myself, if you want to know the truth.”

  “You’ve lost your mind, Fonchito. That’s very bad; it’s just not right. What would Don Rigoberto say if he found out that you spy on your stepmother while she’s taking a bath? He’d be terribly angry; he’d give you a thrashing. And what’s more, you might kill yourself. Just think how high up it is.”

  “I don’t care,” the boy said, a determined gleam in his eye. But he calmed down immediately and, shrugging his shoulders, added meekly: “Even though my papa beats me, Justita. So, are you going to tell on me?”

  “I won’t say a word to him if you promise me you won’t ever climb up here again.”

  “I can’t promise you that, Justita,” the boy said regretfully. “I don’t make promises I’m not going to keep.”

  “Aren’t you making all this up with that tropical imagination of yours?” Doña Lucrecia stammered. Ought she to laugh, lose her temper?

  “I hesitated a long time before working up my courage to tell you, señora. Because I love
Fonchito so dearly; he’s such a good boy. But the thing is, he could kill himself climbing up on that roof, I swear it.”

  Doña Lucrecia tried in vain to imagine him up there, crouching like a wild animal, watching her.

  “I just can’t bring myself to believe it. So polite, so well mannered. I just can’t see him doing a thing like that.”

  “It’s because Fonchito has fallen in love with you, señora.” The girl sighed, clapping a hand over her mouth and smiling. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know, because I don’t believe it.”

  “What nonsense you’re talking, Justiniana.”

  “Is there such a thing as a right age for love, señora? There are youngsters who first fall in love at Fonchito’s age. And what’s more, he’s smart as a whip, no matter what he’s up to. If only you’d heard what he told me, you’d be dumbfounded. Left with your mouth hanging open. The way I was.”

  “What’s this story you’re making up now, you silly girl?”

  “It’s just the way I’m telling you, Justita. When she takes off her dressing gown and gets into the tubful of foam, I can’t tell you what I feel. She’s so pretty, so very pretty. It’s as though I’m watching a movie, I tell you. It’s as though—it’s something I just can’t explain to you. Could that be why I cry, do you think?”

  Doña Lucrecia chose to burst out laughing. The maidservant felt more sure of herself and smiled, too, a look of complicity on her face.

  “I believe only a tenth of what you’re telling me,” Doña Lucrecia finally said, climbing out of bed. “But even so, something has to be done about that boy. Cut these games off at their very root, and do so immediately.”

  “Please don’t tell the señor,” Justiniana begged her, in fear and trembling. “He’d be very angry and might give him a thrashing. Fonchito doesn’t have the least idea he’s doing something bad. I give you my word he doesn’t. He’s like a little angel; he doesn’t know good from evil.”

  “I can’t tell Rigoberto, no, of course not,” Doña Lucrecia agreed, thinking aloud. “But this foolishness must be brought to an end. Immediately, though I don’t know how.”

  She felt apprehensive and uneasy, irritated at the boy, the maidservant, and herself. What should she do? Have a word with Fonchito and reprimand him? Threaten to tell Rigoberto the whole story? What would his reaction be? Would he be hurt, feel betrayed? Would the love he now felt for her suddenly turn into hatred?

  Soaping herself, she fondled her big strong breasts, the erect nipples, and her still-graceful waist, from which the ample curves of her hips opened out, like two halves of a fruit, and her thighs, her buttocks, her armpits with the hair removed, and her long smooth neck with one solitary mole. “I shall never grow old,” she prayed, as she did each morning at her bath. “Even if it means having to sell my soul or anything else. I shall never be ugly or miserable. I shall die beautiful and happy.” Don Rigoberto had convinced her that saying, repeating, and believing these things would make them come true. “Sympathetic magic, my love.” Lucrecia smiled: her husband might be a little eccentric, but, in all truth, a woman never tired of a man like that.

  All the rest of the day, as she gave orders to the servants, went shopping, visited a woman friend, lunched, made and received phone calls, she wondered what to do with the child. If she gave his secret away to Rigoberto, he would turn into her enemy and then the old premonition of a domestic hell would become a reality. Perhaps the most sensible thing to do was to forget Justiniana’s revelation and, adopting a cool aloofness, gradually undermine the fantasies the boy had woven around her, no doubt only half aware that that was what they were. Yes, that was the prudent thing to do: say nothing, and, little by little, distance herself from him.

  That afternoon, when Alfonsito, back from school, came to kiss her, she quickly turned her cheek away and buried herself in the magazine she was leafing through, without asking him how his classes had gone or if he had homework for the next day. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his little face pucker up in a tearful pout. But she was not moved and that night she let him eat his dinner alone, without coming downstairs to keep him company as she often did (she rarely ate dinner herself). Rigoberto phoned her a little later, from Trujillo. All his business deals had gone well and he missed her lots. He would miss her even more that night, in his dreary room in the Hotel de Turistas. Nothing new there at home? No, nothing. Take good care of yourself, darling. Doña Lucrecia listened to a bit of music, alone in her room, and when the child came to bid her good night, she coldly bade him the same. Shortly thereafter, she told Justiniana to prepare the bubble bath she always took before going to bed.

  As the girl drew the bathwater and she undressed, the feeling of apprehension that had dogged her footsteps all day came to the fore again, much stronger now. Had she done the right thing by treating Fonchito as she had? Despite herself, it pained her to remember the look of hurt and surprise on his little face. But wasn’t that the only way to put a stop to childish behavior that threatened to become dangerous?

  She was half asleep in the tub, immersed up to her neck, stirring the swirls of soap bubbles with a hand or a foot, when Justiniana knocked on the door: might she come in, señora? Doña Lucrecia watched her approach, a towel in one hand and a dressing gown in the other, with a frightened look on her face. She realized immediately what the girl was about to whisper to her: “Fonchito is up there, señora.” She nodded and with an imperious wave of her hand ordered Justiniana out of the room.

  She lay in the water without moving for a long time, carefully not looking up. Ought she to look? Should she point her finger at him? Cry out, call him names? She could hear the clatter behind the dark glass cupola overhead; see in her mind’s eye the little kneeling figure, his fright, his feeling of shame. She could hear his strident scream, see him break into a run. He would slip, fall into the garden with the roar of a rocket exploding. The sudden thud of his little body as it hit the balustrade, flattened the croton hedge, caught in the witchy-fingered branches of the datura would reach her ears. “Make an effort, control yourself,” she said to herself, clenching her teeth. “Don’t create a scandal. Keep clear, above all, of something that might end in tragedy.”

  She was trembling with anger from head to foot and her teeth were chattering, as though she were chilled to the bone. Suddenly she rose to her feet. Not covering herself with the towel, not cowering so that those invisible little eyes would have no more than an imperfect, fleeting vision of her body. No, quite the contrary; she stood up on tiptoe, parting her legs, and before emerging from her bath she stretched, revealing herself generously, obscenely, as she removed her plastic bath cap and loosed her long hair with a toss of her head. And on stepping out of the bathtub, instead of donning her dressing gown immediately, she stood there naked, her body gleaming with tiny drops of water, tense, daring, furious. She dried herself very slowly, limb by limb, rubbing the towel over her skin again and again, leaning to one side, bending over, halting at times as though distracted by a sudden idea, in a posture of indecent abandon, or contemplating herself carefully in the mirror. And with the same lingering, maniacal care she then rubbed her body with moisturizing lotions. And as she thus displayed herself before the invisible observer, her heart pulsed with wrath. What are you doing, Lucrecia? What is the meaning of these affected poses, Lucrecia? But she went on exposing herself, as she had never done before to anyone, not even to Don Rigoberto, moving from one side of the bathroom to the other at a slow, deliberate pace, naked, as she brushed her hair and her teeth and sprayed herself with cologne. As she played the leading role in this improvised spectacle, she had the presentiment that what she was doing was also a subtle way of punishing the precocious libertine crouched in the darkness up above, with images of an intimacy that would shatter, once and for all, that innocence that served him as an excuse for his boldness.

  When she climbed into bed, she was still trembling. She lay there for a long time, unable to sleep, missing Rigoberto. She
felt thoroughly displeased with what she had done; she positively detested the boy and forced herself not to divine the meaning of those hot flashes that, from time to time, electrified her nipples. What’s happened to you, woman? She did not recognize herself. Could it be because she’d turned forty? Or a consequence of those nocturnal fantasies and bizarre caprices of her husband’s? But it was all Alfonsito’s fault. That child is corrupting me, she thought, disconcerted.

  When, finally, she managed to drop off to sleep, she had a voluptuous dream that seemed to bring to life one of those etchings in Don Rigoberto’s secret collection that he and she were in the habit of contemplating and commenting upon together at night, seeking inspiration for their love.

  Five.

  Diana after Her Bath

  That one, the one on the left, is me, Diana Lucrecia. Yes, me, the goddess of the oak tree and of forests, of fertility and childbirth, the goddess of the chase. The Greeks call me Artemis. I am related to the Moon and Apollo is my brother. Among my worshippers are countless women and common folk. There are temples in my honor scattered throughout the wilds of the Empire. On my right, bending over, gazing at my foot, is Justiniana, my favorite. We have just bathed, and are about to make love.

  The hare, the partridges, the pheasant I bagged at dawn this morning, with arrows that, drawn from the game and cleaned by Justiniana, have been replaced in their quiver. The hounds are mere decoration; I rarely use them when I hunt. Never, in any event, to retrieve delicate prey such as today’s, since their jaws mangle it so badly it becomes unfit to eat. Tonight we shall eat the tender, tasty flesh of these animals, seasoned with exotic spices, and drink Capua wine, till we fall back exhausted. I know how to enjoy myself. It is an aptitude that I have been continually perfecting, throughout time and history, and I maintain, without boasting, that in this domain I have attained wisdom. By that I mean: the art of sipping the nectar of pleasure from every fruit—even those gone rotten—that life offers.