Conversation in the Cathedral (9 page)

“You saw how well he received you,” Colonel Espina said. “You’ve seen what kind of a man the General is.”

“I’ve got to get my head in order,” Bermúdez muttered. “It’s like a potful of crickets.”

“Go get some rest,” Espina said. “Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to the people in the Ministry and they will bring you up to date on things. But tell me if you’re happy at least.”

“I don’t know if I’m happy,” Bermúdez said. “It’s more like being drunk.”

“All right, I know that’s your way of thanking me.” Espina laughed.

“I came to Lima with just this satchel,” Bermúdez said. “I thought it was a matter of a few hours.”

“Do you need some money?” Espina asked. “Yes, sure, I’ll lend you some now and tomorrow we’ll get them to give you an advance in the payroll department.”

“What bad luck happened to you in Pucallpa?” Santiago asks.

“I’ll find a small hotel in the neighborhood,” Bermúdez said. “I’ll come by early tomorrow.”

“For me, for me?” Don Fermín asked. “Or did you do it for yourself, in order to have me in your hands, you poor devil?”

“Someone who thought he was my friend sent me there,” Ambrosio says. “Get yourself over there, boy. All a story, son, the streets are paved with gold. The biggest roasting of the century. Oh, if I only told you.”

Espina took him to the office door and shook his hand. Bermúdez left with the satchel in one hand, his hat in the other. He had a distracted and serious look, as if he were looking inside. He didn’t answer the bow or the salute of the officer at the door of the Ministry. Was it quitting time in all the offices? The streets were full of people and noise. He mingled with the crowd, followed the current, he came, went, returned along narrow and jammed sidewalks, dragged along by a kind of
whirlwind
or spell, stopping at times at a corner or a doorway or a lamppost to light a cigarette. In a café on the Jirón Azángaro he ordered tea with lemon, which he slowly savored, and when he got up he left a tip that was twice the bill. In a bookstore hiding in an alley off the Jirón de la Unión, he thumbed through some novels with flashy covers and cramped and tiny letters, looking without seeing, until
The
Mysteries
of
Lesbos 
caught his eyes for a second. He bought it and left. He wandered awhile longer through the downtown streets, the satchel under his arm, his hat crumpled in his hand, smoking ceaselessly. It was already getting dark and the streets were deserted when he went into the Hotel Maury and asked for a room. They gave him a card and he paused with the pen for a few seconds at where it said profession, he finally wrote civil servant. The room was on the third floor, the window opened onto an inner courtyard. He got into the bathtub and went to bed in his underwear. He thumbed through
The
Mysteries
of
Lesbos,
letting his eyes run blindly over the tight little black figures. Then he turned out the light. But he couldn’t fall asleep until many hours later. Awake, he lay on his back, his body motionless, the cigarette burning between his fingers, breathing with anxiety, his eyes staring at the dark shadows above him.

“S
O IN
P
UCALLPA
and that Hilario Morales’ fault, so you know when and why you fucked yourself up,” Santiago says. “I’d give anything to know at just what moment I fucked myself up.”

Would she remember, would she bring the book? Summer was ending, it seemed like five o’clock and it wasn’t even two yet, and Santiago thinks: she brought the book, she remembered. He felt euphoric going into the dusty entranceway with flagstones and chipped columns, impatient, he should get in, she should get in, optimistic, and you got in, he thinks, and she got in: ah, Zavalita, how happy you felt.

“You’ve got your health, you’re young, you’ve got a wife,” Ambrosio says. “How could you have fucked yourself up, son?”

Alone or in groups, their faces buried in their notes, how many of these would go in? where was Aída? the candidates walked around the
courtyard
with the steps of a processional, they reviewed their notes sitting on the splintery benches, leaning against the dirty walls they asked each other questions in low voices. Half-breed boys and girls, proper people didn’t come here. He thinks: you were right, mama.

“Before I left home, before I got into San Marcos, I was pure,” Santiago says.

He recognized a few faces from the written exam, he exchanged smiles and hellos, but Aída didn’t appear, and he went to stand by the entrance. He listened to a group reviewing geography, he listened to a boy,
motionless
,  his eyes lowered, reciting the names of the viceroys of Peru as if he were praying.

“The kind of pure tobacco cigars that the moneybags smoke at bullfights?” Ambrosio laughs.

He saw her come in: the same straight, brick-colored dress, the same low-heeled shoes from the written exam. She came along with her look of a studious schoolgirl in uniform through the crowded entranceway, she turned her overgrown child’s face from one side to the other, no glow, no grace, no makeup, looking for something, someone with her hard adult eyes. Her lips were tight, her masculine mouth open, and he saw her smile: the hard face grew softer, lighted up. He saw her come toward him: hello, Aída.

“I said to hell with money and I thought I was capable of great things,” Santiago says. “Pure in that sense.”

“Melchorita the holy woman lived on Grocio Prado, she gave away everything she had and spent her time praying,” Ambrosio says. “Did you want to be a saint like her when you were a boy?”

“I brought you
Out
of
the
Night,
” Santiago said. “I hope you like it.”

“You’ve told me so much about it that I’m dying to read it,” Aída said. “Here’s that Frenchman’s novel about the Chinese Revolution.”

“Jirón Puno, Calle de Padre Jerónimo?” Ambrosio asks. “Do they give away money in that place to broken-down black men like yours truly?”

“That’s where we took the entrance exams the year I entered San Marcos,” Santiago says. “I’d been in love with girls from Miraflores, but on Padre Jerónimo I really fell in love for the first time.”

“It isn’t much like a novel, it reads more like a history book,” Aída said.

“Oho,” Ambrosio says. “And did she fall in love with you?”

“Even though this one is an autobiography, it reads like a novel,” Santiago said. “Wait till you get to the chapter called ‘The Night of the Long Knives,’ about a revolution in Germany. Fantastic, you’ll see.”

“About a revolution?” Aída thumbed through the book, her eyes and voice full of mistrust now. “But is this Valtin a Communist or an
antiCommunist
?”

“I don’t know whether she fell in love with me or not, I don’t even know whether she knew I was in love with her,” Santiago says. “
Sometimes
I think she was, sometimes I think she wasn’t.”

“You didn’t know, she didn’t know, what a mess, do you think that things like that can be ignored, son?” Ambrosio asks. “Who was the girl?”

“I warn you that if he’s anti, I’ll give it back to you,” and Aída’s soft, timid voice grew challenging. “Because I’m a Communist.”

“You’re a Communist?” Santiago looked at her in astonishment. “Are you really a Communist?”

You still weren’t, he thinks, you wanted to be a Communist. He felt his heart beating strongly and he was amazed: in San Marcos you didn’t study anything, Skinny, they just played politics, it was a nest of Apristas and Communists, all the grumblers in Peru gather together there. He thinks: poor papa. You hadn’t even entered San Marcos, Zavalita, and look what you’d found.

“Actually I am and I’m not,” Aída confessed. “Because where can you find any Communists around here?”

How could she be a Communist without even knowing whether a Communist Party existed in Peru? Odría had probably put them all in jail, had probably deported or murdered them. But if she passed her orals and got into San Marcos, Aída would find out in the university, she would get in contact with those who were left and study Marxism and join the Party. She looked at me with a challenge, he thinks, come on, argue with me, her voice was quite soft and her eyes insolent, tell me that they’re atheists, burning, come on, deny what I say, intelligent, and you, he thinks, listened to her, startled and surprised: all that existed, Zavalita. He thinks: did I fall in love then and there?

“A girl in my class at San Marcos,” Santiago says. “She talked politics, she believed in the revolution.”

“Oh, Lord, you didn’t fall in love with an Aprista, did you, son?” Ambrosio asks.

“The Apristas didn’t believe in the revolution anymore,” Santiago says. “She was a Communist.”

“The devil you say,” Ambrosio says. “The hell you say.”

New candidates were arriving on Padre Jerónimo, coming in the entranceway, the courtyard, running to the lists tacked up on a bulletin board, eagerly checking their grades. A busy murmur floated about the place.

“You’ve been looking at me as if I were some kind of ogre,” Aída said.

“What a thing to think, I respect all ideas, and besides, you can believe it or not, I’ve got …” Santiago fell silent, searched for words,
stammered
, “advanced ideas too.”

“Well, I’m happy for you,” Aída said. “Are we going to have the orals today? With so much waiting I’m terribly confused, I can’t remember anything I’ve studied.”

“We can review a little, if you want,” Santiago said. “What are you most scared of?”

“World history,” Aída said. “Yes, let’s ask each other questions. But while we’re walking. I can study better that way than sitting down, what about you?”

They went through the entranceway with wine-colored floor tiles and classrooms along the sides, where did she live? he wondered, there was a small courtyard with fewer people in back. He closed his eyes, he could see the narrow little house, clean, with austere furniture, and he could see the streets around it, and the faces—strong, dignified, serious, sober?—of the men who came along the sidewalks in overalls and gray jackets, and he could hear their conversations—all for one and one for all, spare, clandestine?—and he thought workers, and he thought Communists and he decided I’m not a Bustamantist, I’m not an Aprista, I’m a
Communist
. But what was the difference? He couldn’t ask her, she’ll think I’m an idiot, he’d have to worm it out of her. She must have spent the whole summer like that, her fierce little eyes fastened on the questions, pacing back and forth in a tiny little room. There probably wasn’t much light, in order to take notes she probably sat at a little table lighted by a lamp with no shade or by candles, she probably moved her lips slowly, closing her eyes, she would get up and, as she walked, repeat names, dates, nocturnal and dedicated, was her father a worker, her mother a maid? He thinks: poor Zavalita. They walked very slowly, the dynasties of the pharaohs, asking each other questions in a low voice, Babylonia and Nineveh, could she have heard Communism talked about in her home? the causes of World War I, what would she think when she found out that his old man was an Odríist? the Battle of the Marne, she probably wouldn’t want to meet you anymore, Zavalita: I hate you, papa. We asked each other questions but we didn’t ask each other anything, he thinks. He thinks: we were getting to be friends. Could she have studied at a national high school? Yes, in a central school, what about him? at Santa María, ah, a school for rich boys. There were all kinds, it was an awful school, it wasn’t his fault if his folks had sent him there, he’d rather have gone to Guadalupe and Aída began to laugh: don’t blush, she wasn’t prejudiced, what happened at Verdun. He thinks: we expected great things at the university. They were in the Party, they went to the press together, they hid in a union hall together, they put them in jail together and they exiled them together: it was a battle, not a treaty, silly boy, and he of course, how foolish, and now she who was Cromwell. We expected great things of ourselves he thinks.

“When you got into San Marcos and they shaved your head, Missy Teté and young Sparky hollered pumpkin head at you,” Ambrosio says. “Your papa was so happy that you’d passed the exams, son.”

She talked about books and she wore skirts, she knew about politics and she wasn’t a man, the Mascot, the Chick, the Squirrel all faded away, Zavalita, the pretty little idiots from Miraflores melted away,
disappeared
. Discovering that one of them at least was good for something else, he thinks. Not just to be climbed on top of, not just to make him masturbate thinking about them, not just to fall in love with. He thinks: for something else. She was going into Law and Education too, you were going into Law and Letters.

“Are you supposed to be a vamp, a clown, or what?” Santiago asked. “Where are you going all prettied up and with all that makeup on?”

“What’s your major in Letters going to be?” Aída asked. “
Philosophy
?”

“Wherever I feel like and what business is it of yours?” Teté asked. “Who said anything to you and what right have you got to talk to me?”

“Literature, I think,” Santiago said. “But I’m still not sure.”

“Everybody who goes into Literature wants to be a poet,” Aída said. “You too?”

“Stop your fighting,” Señora Zoila said. “You’re like a cat and a dog, that’s enough.”

“I had a notebook of poems hidden away,” Santiago says. “No one was to see it, no one was to know about it. You see? I was a pure boy.”

“Don’t blush because I asked you if you wanted to be a poet.” Aída laughed. “Don’t be so bourgeois.”

“They drove you crazy too by calling you Superbrain,” Ambrosio says. “All the fights you people had, child.”

“You can go change that dress and wash your face,” Santiago said. “You’re not going out, Teté.”

“And what’s wrong with Teté’s going to the movies?” Señora Zoila asked. “Since when have you been so strict with your sister here, you, the liberal, the priest-eater?”