The Discreet Hero (10 page)

“Me, I’m not afraid of those sons of bitches,” he suddenly exclaimed, hitting the table. His sons stopped eating. “The worst they can do is kill me. But I’m not afraid of dying. I’ve lived fifty-five years and that’s plenty. I’m at peace knowing Narihualá Transport will be in good hands when I go to join my father.”

He noticed that the boys tried to smile but were upset and nervous.

“We don’t want you to die yet, Father,” murmured Miguel.

“If those guys hurt you, we’ll make them pay,” declared Tiburcio.

“I don’t think they’ll dare to kill me,” said Felícito, trying to reassure them. “They’re thieves and extortionists, that’s all. You need more balls to kill than you do to send letters with drawings of spiders.”

“At least buy a revolver and carry it with you, Father,” Tiburcio persisted. “So you can defend yourself just in case.”

“I’ll think about it, we’ll see,” Felícito conceded. “Now I want you to promise me that when I leave this world and Narihualá Transport is in your hands, you won’t give in to extortion by these motherfuckers.”

He saw his sons exchange a look that was somewhere between surprise and alarm.

“Swear to God, right now,” he demanded. “I want to rest easy on that score in case something happens to me.”

They both agreed and crossed themselves as they murmured, “We swear to God, Father.”

They spent the rest of lunch talking about other things. Felícito began to think about an old idea. Since they’d left home to live on their own, he knew very little about what Tiburcio and Miguel did when they weren’t working. They didn’t live together. The older one boarded in a house in the Miraflores district, a white neighborhood, of course, and Tiburcio rented an apartment with a friend in Castilla, near the new stadium. Did they have girlfriends, lovers? Were they carousers, gamblers? Did they get drunk with their friends on Saturday night? Did they go to bars and taverns or patronize whorehouses? What did they do in their spare time? On Sundays when they stopped by to have lunch in the house on Calle Arequipa, they didn’t talk much about their private lives, and he and Gertrudis didn’t ask questions. Maybe he should talk with them, find out a little more about the boys’ personal lives.

The worst thing during this period were all the interviews, the result of the notice in
El Tiempo
, at several local radio stations, with reporters from the newspapers
Correo
and
La República
, and with the correspondent in Piura for RPP Noticias. The journalists’ questions made him very tense: His palms got sweaty and chills ran down his spine. His answers were punctuated by long pauses; he searched for words, denying vehemently that he was a civic hero or an example for anybody. Not at all, what an idea, he was simply following the philosophy of his father, who’d left him this piece of advice as an inheritance: “Son, never let anybody walk all over you.” They’d smile; some looked at him with an intimidating expression. He didn’t care. Screwing up his courage, he went on. He was a workingman, that’s all. He’d been born poor, very poor, near Chulucanas, in Yapatera, and everything he had he’d earned by working. He paid his taxes, obeyed the law. Why should he allow a few crooks to take what he had, sending him threats without even showing their faces? If nobody gave in to extortion, extortionists would disappear.

He didn’t like to receive awards either; he broke into a cold sweat when he had to give speeches. Of course, deep down, he was proud and thought how happy his father, the sharecropper Aliño Yanaqué, would have been at the Exemplary Citizen medal pinned on his chest at a Rotary Club lunch in the Piuran Center, attended by the regional president and the mayor and the bishop of Piura. But when he had to approach the microphone to express his gratitude, he became tongue-tied and lost his voice. The same thing happened when the Enrique López Albújar Civic-Cultural-Athletic Society declared him Piuran of the Year.

This was when a letter came to his house on Calle Arequipa from the Club Grau, signed by the president, the distinguished chemist-pharmacist Dr. Garabito León Seminario. It stated that the board of directors had unanimously accepted his application for membership in the institution. Felícito couldn’t believe his eyes. He’d sent in his application two or three years ago, and since they never responded, he thought they’d voted against him because he wasn’t white, which is what they believed they were, those gentlemen who went to the Club Grau to play tennis, Ping-Pong, Sapo, the card game
cacho
, swim in the pool, and dance on Saturday nights to the best orchestras in Piura. He’d found the courage to apply after he saw Cecilia Barraza, the Peruvian artist he admired most, sing at a party in the Club Grau. He’d gone with Mabel and sat at the table of Colorado Vignolo, who was a member. If he’d been asked to name the happiest day of his life, Felícito Yanaqué would have chosen that night.

Cecilia Barraza had been his secret love even before he saw her in photographs or in person. He fell in love with her because of her voice. He didn’t tell anyone about it; it was private. He’d been in La Reina, a now-defunct restaurant on the corner of the Eguiguren Seawalk and Avenida Sánchez Cerro, where on the first Saturday of each month the board of directors of the Association of Interprovincial Drivers of Piura, of which he was a member, would meet for lunch. They were toasting with carob syrup cocktails when suddenly he heard someone on the radio singing one of his favorite waltzes, “Soul, Heart, and Life,” with more charm, emotion, and candor than he’d ever heard before. No Peruvian singer he knew—not even Jesús Vásquez, or the Morochucos, or Lucha Reyes—interpreted this beautiful waltz with as much feeling, charm, and mischievous wit as this singer he was hearing for the first time. She imbued each word and syllable with so much truth and harmony, so much delicacy and tenderness, that it made you want to dance, even to cry. He asked her name and was told: Cecilia Barraza. As he listened to that girl’s voice, he seemed to understand completely, and for the first time, many of the words in Peruvian waltzes that had seemed mysterious and incomprehensible before—“arpeggios,” “skylights,” “ecstasy,” “cadence,” “yearning,” “celestial”—became clear:

Soul to conquer you,

heart to love you,

and life to live it

beside you!

He felt vanquished, moved, bewitched, loved. From that time on, at night before he went to sleep, or at dawn before he got up, he sometimes imagined himself living among arpeggios, cadences, skylights, and yearnings beside the singer named Cecilia Barraza. Without telling anyone, least of all Mabel, of course, he’d lived platonically in love with that smiling face, those expressive eyes, that seductive smile. He assembled a fine collection of photographs of her that had appeared in newspapers and magazines, which he jealously guarded under lock and key in a desk drawer. The fire had made short work of them, but not of his collection of Cecilia Barraza records, which was divided between his house on Calle Arequipa and Mabel’s house in Castilla. He believed he owned every CD made by the artist who, in his modest opinion, had raised Peruvian music—
valses
,
marineras
,
tonderos
,
pregones
—to new heights. He listened to them almost every day—generally at night after supper, when Gertrudis had gone to bed—sitting in the living room, where they kept the television set and stereo. The songs made his imagination soar; sometimes he was so moved his eyes grew wet at the sweet, caressing voice that saturated the night. And so, when it was announced she would come to Piura to sing at the Club Grau, and the event would be open to the public, he was one of the first to buy a ticket. He invited Mabel, and Colorado Vignolo had them sit at his table, where they had a sumptuous meal with both white and red wine before the show. Seeing the singer in person, even if she was at some distance, put Felícito into an ecstatic trance. She seemed prettier, more charming, and more elegant than in photographs. He applauded so enthusiastically after each song that Mabel said to Vignolo, pointing at him, “Look, Colorado, at the state this dirty old man is in.”

“Don’t be evil-minded, Mabelita,” he said, dissembling, “what I’m applauding is Cecilia Barraza’s art, just her art.”

The third spider letter arrived some time after the second, just when Felícito was wondering whether after the fire, the notice in
El Tiempo
, and the uproar it had caused, the crooks hadn’t resigned themselves to leaving him in peace. It had been three weeks since the fire, and the dispute with the insurance company still hadn’t been resolved, when one morning, at the improvised desk in the garage, Señora Josefita, who was opening the mail, exclaimed, “How strange, Don Felícito, a letter with no return address.”

The trucker snatched it from her hands. It was what he’d feared.

Dear Mr. Yanaqué:

We’re glad you’re now so popular and well-respected a man in our beloved city of Piura. We hope this popularity is beneficial to Narihualá Transport, especially after the mishap the business suffered because you’re so stubborn. It would be better for you to accept the lessons of reality and be pragmatic instead of remaining as obstinate as a mule. We wouldn’t want you to suffer another loss even more serious than the last. That’s why we invite you to be flexible and attend to our requirements.

Like the rest of Piura, we’re aware of the notice you published in
El Tiempo
. We feel no rancor toward you. What is more, we understand your decision to place the notice, giving in to a temperamental fit of rage, in view of the fire that destroyed your offices. We’ve forgotten it, you forget it too, and we’ll start again from zero.

We’re giving you two weeks—fourteen days, counting from today—to use your reason and reconsider, so that we can resolve the matter that concerns us. If you don’t, you can be certain of the consequences. They’ll be more serious than anything you’ve suffered so far. A word to the wise, as the saying goes, Señor Yanaqué.

May God keep you.

This time the letter was typed, but the signature was the same drawing in blue ink found in the two earlier ones: a spider with five long legs and a dot in the center that represented the head.

“Do you feel sick, Don Felícito? Don’t tell me it’s another of those letters,” his secretary said.

Her boss had lowered his arms and seemed to have collapsed into his chair, very pale, his eyes staring at the piece of paper. Finally he nodded and brought his finger to his mouth, indicating that she should be silent. The people in the garage didn’t need to know. He asked for a glass of water and drank it slowly, making an effort to control the anxiety that had overwhelmed him. His heart felt agitated and it was difficult to breathe. Naturally those bastards hadn’t stopped, naturally they hadn’t changed their tune. But they were wrong if they thought Felícito Yanaqué would give in. He felt rage, hatred, a fury that made him tremble. Perhaps Miguel and Tiburcio were right. Not about the bodyguard, of course, he’d never throw his dough away on something like that. But maybe about the revolver. Nothing in this life would give him as much pleasure as shooting them, if those shits ever came within range. Riddle them with bullets and even spit on their corpses.

When he’d calmed down a little, he walked very quickly to the police station, but Captain Silva and Sergeant Lituma weren’t there. They’d gone out to lunch and would be back at about four. He sat in a cafeteria on Avenida Sánchez Cerro and ordered an ice-cold soda. Two women approached to shake his hand. They admired him, he was an example and an inspiration for all Piurans. They said goodbye and gave him their blessing. He thanked them with a smile. “The truth is, right now I don’t feel like a hero at all,” he thought. “More like a prick. A real asshole, that’s what I am. They’re playing with me, having their fun, and I can’t find my way out of this damn mess.”

He was returning to his office, walking slowly along the high sidewalks of the avenue, surrounded by noisy mototaxis, cyclists, and pedestrians, when in the midst of his dejection he felt a sudden, overwhelming desire to see Mabel. See her, talk to her, maybe feel his desire gradually waking, a disturbance that for a few moments would make him dizzy, make him forget about the fire, and Dr. Castro Pozo’s ongoing quarrels with the insurance company, and the latest spider letter. And maybe, after taking his pleasure, he might be able to sleep for a while, peacefully and contentedly. As far as he could remember, not once in these years had he dropped in on Mabel unannounced, in the middle of the day; he’d always come after dark and on days decided with her in advance. But these were extraordinary times and he could change the routine. He was tired, it was hot, and instead of walking he took a cab. When he got out in Castilla, he saw Mabel at the door of her house. Was she going out or coming back? She stood looking at him in surprise.

“What are you doing here?” she said in greeting. “Today? At this hour?”

“I didn’t mean to bother you,” Felícito apologized. “If you have an engagement, I’ll go.”

“I do, but I can cancel it.” Mabel smiled at him, recovering from her surprise. “Come in, come in. Wait for me, I’ll take care of it and be right back.”

In spite of her friendly words, Felícito noted her irritation. He’d come at a bad time. Maybe she was going shopping. No, no. She was probably meeting a girlfriend for a stroll and then lunch. Or maybe a young man was waiting for her, young like her, one she liked and maybe they were seeing each other in secret. He felt a pang of jealousy imagining that Mabel was going to meet a lover. Some guy who’d undress her and make her cry out. He’d ruined their plans. He felt a current of desire, a tingling in his groin, the beginning of an erection. Well, after how many days. Mabel looked nice this morning in a white dress that left her arms and shoulders bare, spike-heeled sandals, her hair arranged, her eyes and lips made up. Could she have a boyfriend? He’d gone inside, taken off his jacket and tie. When Mabel came back, she found him reading the spider letter again. Her irritation had vanished. Now she was as smiling and affectionate as always.