The Discreet Hero (16 page)

Miki and Escobita arrived right on time, at exactly eleven in the morning. Lucrecia opened the door for them herself, and they kissed her on the cheek. Then, when they were sitting in the living room, Justiniana came in to ask what they would like to drink. Miki asked for an espresso cut with milk and Escobita a glass of sparkling mineral water. It was a gray morning, and low clouds passed over the dark green, foam-flecked ocean in Lima bay. Out at sea some small fishing boats were visible. Ismael Carrera’s sons wore dark suits, ties, handkerchiefs in their breast pockets, and glittering Rolex watches on their wrists. When they saw Rigoberto come in they rose to their feet: “Hello, uncle.” “Damn stupid custom,” thought the master of the house. He didn’t know why, but he was exasperated by the fashion, widespread for some years among Lima’s younger generation, of calling family acquaintances and older people “uncle” or “aunt,” inventing a kinship that didn’t exist. Miki and Escobita shook his hand and smiled, displaying cordiality too effusive to be true. “How well you’re looking, Uncle Rigoberto,” “Retirement agrees with you, uncle,” “You look I don’t know how many years younger than the last time we saw you.”

“You have a nice view from here,” Miki finally said, indicating the seawall and the Barranco ocean. “When it’s clear you must be able to see all the way from La Punta to Chorrillos, isn’t that right, uncle?”

“And I also see and am seen by all the hang gliders and paragliders who brush against the windows as they go by,” Rigoberto agreed. “Any day now a gust of wind will blow one of those intrepid fliers right inside our house.”

His “nephews” greeted the joke with exaggerated laughter. “They’re more nervous than I am,” Rigoberto told himself in surprise.

They were twins but looked nothing alike except for their height, athletic bodies, and bad habits. Did they spend hours in the gym of the Club de Villa or the Regatas Club, exercising and lifting weights? How to reconcile those muscles with their irregular lives, the alcohol, the cocaine, the wild parties? Miki had a round, self-satisfied face, a thick-lipped mouth full of carnivorous teeth, and a pair of pendulous ears. He was very white, almost a gringo with his light hair, and from time to time he would smile in a mechanical way, like a ventriloquist’s dummy. Escobita, on the other hand, was very dark-skinned and had dark piercing eyes, a lipless mouth, and a thin, penetrating voice. He wore the long sideburns of a flamenco singer or a bullfighter. “Which one is stupider?” Rigoberto thought. “And which one more depraved?”

“Don’t you miss the office now that all your time is free, uncle?” asked Miki.

“The truth is I don’t, nephew. I read a great deal, listen to good music, lose myself for hours in my art books. I’ve always liked painting more than insurance, as Ismael must have told you. Now I can finally devote a great deal of my time to it.”

“What a library you have here, uncle,” Escobita exclaimed, indicating the orderly shelves in the adjacent study. “Damn, that’s a lot of books! Have you read them all?”

“Well, not yet, not all of them.” (“This one’s stupider,” he decided.) “Some are reference books, like the dictionaries and encyclopedias in this corner. But my theory is that there’s more chance of reading a book if you have it at home than if it’s in a bookstore.”

The two brothers, disconcerted, kept looking at him, no doubt wondering whether he’d made a joke or was serious.

“With so many art books it’s like you’ve brought to your study here all the museums in the world,” declared Miki, putting on the face of an astute and learned man. “And this way you can visit them without bothering to leave your house. That’s really convenient.”

“When you’re as imbecilic as this biped, you become intelligent,” Rigoberto thought. It was impossible to know which he was: six of one, half a dozen of the other. A heavy, interminable silence had settled over the living room, and to hide the tension, the three of them looked toward the study. “The time has come,” Rigoberto thought. He experienced a slight feeling of alarm but was curious to know what would happen. He felt absurdly protected because he was on his own territory, surrounded by his books and etchings.

“Well, uncle,” Miki said, blinking very quickly, his finger in the air moving toward his mouth, “I think the moment has come for us to take the bull by the horns and move on to some sad topics.”

With a gargling sound, Escobita continued to drink the mineral water in his half-empty glass. He scratched his forehead ceaselessly and his eyes darted from his brother to Rigoberto.

“Sad? Why sad, Miki?” Rigoberto assumed a surprised expression. “What’s wrong, boys? Are we having some more little problems?”

“You know very well what’s wrong, uncle,” Escobita exclaimed, an offended tone in his voice. “Don’t act dumb, please.”

“Are you referring to Ismael?” Rigoberto played the fool. “Do you want to talk about him? About your father?”

“We’re the laughingstock of Lima, the talk of the whole city.” Miki assumed a melodramatic expression, zealously biting his little finger. He spoke without taking his finger out of his mouth and his voice sounded affected. “You must have known, because even the stones knew. No one talks about anything else in this city, maybe in all of Peru. I never imagined the family would be involved in a scandal like this.”

“A scandal you could have avoided, Uncle Rigoberto,” Escobita declared, almost pouting. Only now did he seem to notice that his glass was empty. He placed it on the table in the center of the room with exaggerated care.

“First melodrama, then threats,” Rigoberto thought to himself. He was uneasy, naturally, but increasingly intrigued by what was happening. He observed the twins as if they were a pair of incompetent actors. His expression was attentive and courteous. He didn’t know why, but he wanted to laugh.

“I?” He pretended to be baffled. “I don’t know what you’re trying to say, nephew.”

“You’re the person my papa always listened to,” Escobita stated with great emphasis. “Maybe the only one he always listened to. You know that very well, uncle, so stop pretending. Please. We’re not here to play guessing games. Please!”

“If you’d advised him, if you’d opposed him, if you’d made him see the great mistake he was about to make, the wedding would never have happened,” Miki declared, slapping the table. Now he’d changed, and a small viper zigzagged at the back of his light-colored eyes. His voice had become heated.

Rigoberto heard some music down below, at the seawall: It was the knife grinder’s penny whistle. He always heard it at the same time. The fellow was a punctual man. He’d have to see his face some time.

“A wedding, by the way, that’s worthless because it’s pure garbage,” Escobita corrected his brother. “A travesty without the slightest legal standing. You know that too, uncle; you’re not a lawyer for nothing. So let’s talk turkey, if you don’t mind, and call a spade a spade.”

“What’s this imbecile trying to say?” Don Rigoberto wondered. “They both use clichés however they choose, like wild cards, not knowing what they mean.”

“If you’d let us know in time what my papa was planning, we’d have stopped it, even if it meant calling in the police,” Miki insisted. He still spoke with a forced sadness that couldn’t hide the trace of fury in his tone. Now his partially hooded eyes were threatening Rigoberto.

“But instead of warning us, you took part in that fraud and even signed as a witness, uncle.” Escobita raised his hand and made an enraged gesture in the air. “You signed along with Narciso. The two of you even involved the driver, that poor illiterate, in your ugly, ugly intrigue. So cruel, to take advantage of an ignorant man like that. Frankly, we didn’t expect anything like this from you, Uncle Rigoberto. I can’t get it into my head that you’d go along with this pathetic farce.”

“You’ve disappointed us, uncle,” was Miki’s finishing touch; he moved as if his clothes were too tight. “That’s the simple truth: dis-ap-point-ed. Just as it sounds. It makes me sad to say this to you, but that’s the way it is. I’m saying it to your face and as frankly as I can because it’s the sad truth. You bear a huge responsibility for what’s happened, uncle. And we’re not the only ones who think so. Lawyers are saying it too. And to be perfectly frank, you don’t know what you’ve let yourself in for. This could have very bad consequences in your private life and in your other one.”

“What’s the other one?” thought Don Rigoberto. Both of them kept raising their voices, and their initial affectionate courtesy had evaporated along with their smiles. The twins were very serious now, no longer hiding their resentment. “Will they offer me money? Threaten me with a hired killer? Pull out a revolver?” Everything was possible with a pair like this.

“We haven’t come to reproach you.” Escobita suddenly changed strategy, sweetening his voice again. He smiled, caressing one of his sideburns, but there was something twisted and belligerent in his smile.

“We love you very much, uncle,” Miki agreed with a sigh. “We’ve known you since we were born, you’re like our closest relative. Except…”

He couldn’t finish the idea and was left with his mouth open and an indecisive, disheartened look in his eyes. He opted for nibbling furiously on his little finger again. “Yes, he’s the stupider one,” Don Rigoberto thought to himself.

“The feeling is mutual, nephews.” He took advantage of the silence to get a sentence in. “Calm down, please. Let’s talk like rational, civilized people.”

“That’s easier for you than for us,” replied Miki, raising his voice.

“Of course,” Don Rigoberto thought. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying, but sometimes he gets it right.”

“It’s not your father but ours who married his maid, an ignorant, lousy half-breed, a
chola
, and made us the laughingstock of all the decent families in Lima.”

“A marriage that isn’t worth a damn besides!” Escobita reminded him again, gesturing frenetically. “A farce with no legal basis at all. I suppose you’re well aware of that, Uncle Rigoberto. So stop acting like a boob, it doesn’t suit you at all.”

“What should I be aware of, nephew?” he asked very serenely, with a curiosity that seemed genuine. “And I’d like you to explain the meaning of that word ‘boob.’ It’s a synonym for imbecile, isn’t it?”

“I mean you’ve gotten involved in a huge mess out of pure ignorance,” Escobita exploded in anger. “A motherfucking mess, if you’ll pardon my language. Maybe without meaning to, thinking you were helping your good friend. We grant your good intentions. But none of that matters, because the law is the law for everybody, in this case most of all.”

“This could mean serious personal problems for you and your family.” Miki’s voice was filled with pity, and as he spoke, he put his little finger back in his mouth. “We don’t want to scare you, but this is how things are. You never should have signed that paper. I tell you that objectively and impartially. And with all my love, of course.”

“We’re telling you this for your own good, Uncle Rigoberto,” said his brother, adding nuance to their argument. “Thinking more of your own interest than of ours, though you may not believe it. I only hope you won’t come to regret your mistake.”

“Soon they’ll be in a rage, and these animals are capable of hitting me,” Rigoberto realized. The twins were letting themselves be carried away by anger, and their looks, gestures, and expressions were increasingly aggressive. “Will I have to defend myself against these two with my fists?” he wondered. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been in a fight. In the Academy of La Recoleta, surely, during some recess.

“We’ve consulted the best lawyers in Lima. We know what we’re talking about. That’s why we can assure you that you’re now involved in one huge goddamn mess. Forgive me for using such ugly words, but we men have to look truth in the face. It’s better that you know.”

“For complicity and concealment,” Miki explained in a solemn tone, saying each word very slowly to emphasize its hostility. His thin voice kept breaking and his eyes were ablaze.

“The annulment of the marriage is under way and the judgment won’t be long in coming,” Escobita explained. “That’s why the best thing you could do is help us, Uncle Rigoberto. The best thing for you, I mean.”

“In other words, it’s not us we want you to help but my papa, Uncle Rigoberto. Your lifelong friend, the person who’s been like an older brother to you. And we want you to help yourself and get out of this fucking predicament that you’ve gotten yourself and us into. Do you understand?”

“Frankly, I don’t, nephew. I don’t understand anything except that the two of you are very upset.” Rigoberto chided them with serenity, affection, and a smile. “Since you’re both talking at the same time, I confess you have me a little confused. I really don’t understand what this is about. Why don’t you settle down and calmly explain what it is you want.”

Did the twins believe they’d beaten him? Is that what they thought? Because their attitude became immediately more temperate. Now he saw that they were smiling, nodding, exchanging complicit, self-satisfied glances.

“Yes, yes, forgive us, we went a little too fast,” Miki apologized. “You know we love you very much, uncle.”

“His ears are as big as mine,” thought Rigoberto. “But his flutter and mine don’t.”

“And forgive us above all for raising our voices to you,” Escobita added, waving his hands in the air for no reason, like a frantic monkey. “But things being the way they are, it’s just as well, you have to understand. This craziness of my doddering old papa has Miki and me running around in circles.”

“It’s very simple,” Miki explained. “We understand perfectly that while my papa was your boss at the company, you couldn’t refuse to sign that paper as a witness. Just like poor Narciso. The judge will take that into account, of course. As an extenuating circumstance. Nothing will happen to either of you. The lawyers guarantee it.”

“In his mouth, the word ‘lawyer’ is like a magic wand,” Rigoberto thought with amusement.

“You’re wrong, Narciso and I didn’t agree to be your papa’s witnesses because we were his employees,” he replied amiably. “I did it because Ismael, besides being my boss, is a lifelong friend. And Narciso did it because of the great affection he’s always had for your father.”