The Discreet Hero (42 page)

One night, the widow woke Felícito saying that the half-crazy Chinese woman from Lau’s general store was shouting at the door and nobody understood what she was saying. Felícito went out in his underwear. Lau’s sister, her hair uncombed, was gesticulating, pointing toward the store and shrieking hysterically. He ran after her and found the grocer naked, writhing in pain on a mat, his fever soaring. It required tremendous effort to get a vehicle to take Lau to the closest Public Assistance. The nurse on duty there said they ought to move him to the hospital, at Assistance they handled only minor cases and this looked serious. It took close to half an hour to find a taxi to take Lau to the emergency room at the Hospital Obrero, where they left him lying on a bench until the next morning because there were no free beds. The next day, when a doctor finally saw him, Lau was moribund and died a few hours later. Nobody had money to pay for a funeral—Felícito earned just enough to eat—and they buried him in a common grave after receiving a certificate explaining that the cause of death was an intestinal infection.

The curious thing about the case is that Lau’s sister disappeared on the same night the storekeeper died. Felícito never saw her again or heard anything about her. The store was looted that same morning, and a short while later the sheets of corrugated metal and the poles were stolen, so that within a few weeks there was no trace left of the brother and sister. When time and the desert had swallowed up the last remnants of the hut, a cockpit was set up there, without much success. Now that part of El Chipe has been developed, and there are streets, electricity, water, sewers, and the houses of families entering the middle class.

The memory of the storekeeper Lau remained vivid for Felícito. After thirty years it was made real every morning, each time he did qigong exercises. After so much time he still wondered about the story of Lau and his sister, why they’d left China, what vicissitudes they’d suffered before they washed up in Piura, condemned to their sad, solitary existence. Lau repeated frequently that one always had to find the center, something he, apparently, had never achieved. Felícito told himself that perhaps today, when he did what he was going to do, he’d recover his lost center.

He felt somewhat tired when he finished, his heart beating a little faster. He showered calmly, polished his shoes, put on a clean shirt, and went to the kitchen to prepare his usual breakfast of goat’s milk, coffee, and a slice of black bread that he toasted and spread with butter and dark honey. It was six thirty in the morning when he went out to Calle Arequipa. Lucindo was already on his corner, as if waiting for him. He dropped a sol in his tin can, and the blind man immediately acknowledged him.

“Good morning, Don Felícito. You’re leaving earlier today.”

“It’s an important day for me and I have a lot to do. Wish me luck, Lucindo.”

There weren’t many people on the street. It was pleasant to walk along the sidewalk and not be pursued by reporters. And even more pleasant to know that in principle he’d inflicted a necessary defeat on those journalists, poor devils, who never found out that Armida, the supposed kidnapping victim, the person most sought after by the Peruvian press, had spent an entire week—seven days and nights!—hidden in his house, right under their noses, without their suspecting. What a shame they’d never know they’d missed the scoop of the century. Because Armida, at the packed press conference she gave in Lima, flanked by the minister of the interior and the chief of police, didn’t reveal to the press that she’d taken refuge in Piura with her sister, Gertrudis. She only indicated vaguely that she’d stayed with friends to escape the siege by the press that had brought her close to a nervous breakdown. Felícito and his wife watched the conference—crowded with reporters, flashbulbs, and cameras—on television. He was impressed by the confidence his sister-in-law showed responding to questions, never revealing confusion, never whimpering, speaking calmly, engagingly. Her humility and simplicity, everyone said afterward, had found favor with the public, which from then on was less likely to believe the image of a greedy, gold-digging opportunist that had been circulated by the sons of Don Ismael Carrera.

Armida’s secret departure from the city of Piura at midnight, in a Narihualá Transport car with his son Tiburcio at the wheel, was a perfectly planned and executed operation that no one, beginning with the police and ending with the reporters, found out about. At first Armida wanted to bring in from Lima someone named Narciso, her late husband’s driver, in whom she had a great deal of confidence, but Felícito and Gertrudis convinced her that Tiburcio, in whom they had blind faith, should drive the car. He was a magnificent driver, a discreet person, and after all, her nephew. Señor Rigoberto, who encouraged Armida to return to Lima immediately and appear in public, eventually convinced her.

Everything worked out as planned. Don Rigoberto, his wife, and his son returned to Lima by plane. A couple of days later, after midnight, Tiburcio, who was happy to collaborate, appeared at the house on Calle Arequipa at the agreed-upon hour. Armida took her leave with kisses, tears, and thanks. After twelve hours of uneventful driving she arrived at her house in San Isidro, in Lima, where her lawyer, bodyguards, and the authorities were waiting for her, happy to announce that the widow of Don Ismael Carrera had reappeared safe and sound after her weeklong mysterious disappearance.

When Felícito reached his office on Avenida Sánchez Cerro, the first buses, vans, and jitneys of the day were preparing to leave for all the provinces of Piura and the neighboring departments of Tumbes and Lambayeque. Narihualá Transport was gradually recovering its old customers. People who had avoided the company because of the spider episode, afraid they would fall victim to some kind of violence by the supposed kidnappers, were now forgetting about the matter and trusting once again in the good service offered by its drivers. He finally had settled with the insurance company, which had agreed to pay half the cost of reconstruction following the damage caused by the fire. Repair work would begin soon. Though it would be with an eyedropper, the banks would give him credit again. Day by day normalcy was being restored. He breathed with relief: Today he’d bring to an end that unfortunate matter.

He worked all morning on ordinary problems, spoke to mechanics and drivers, paid some bills, made a deposit, dictated letters to Josefita, had two cups of coffee, and at nine thirty, taking the portfolio prepared by Dr. Hildebrando Castro Pozo, went to the police station to pick up Sergeant Lituma, who was waiting for him at the entrance. A taxi took them to the men’s prison in Río Seco, outside the city.

“Are you nervous about this meeting, Don Felícito?” the sergeant asking during the trip.

“I don’t think I am,” he replied, hesitating. “We’ll see when I have him in front of me. You never know.”

In the prison, they had to go to the checkpoint, where guards searched Felícito’s clothes to verify that he wasn’t carrying weapons. The warden himself, a stooped, lugubrious man in shirtsleeves who dragged both his voice and his feet, led them to a small room that was protected by metal grating as well as a heavy wooden door. The walls were covered by scrawls, obscene drawings, vulgarities. As soon as he crossed the threshold, Felícito recognized Miguel standing in the center of the room.

Only a few weeks had passed since he’d last seen him, but the boy had undergone a remarkable transformation. He not only seemed thinner and older, perhaps because his blond hair was long and uncombed and a beard now dirtied his face, but his expression had changed too; previously juvenile and smiling, it was now taciturn, exhausted, the expression of someone who’s lost the drive and even the desire to live because he knows he’s defeated. But perhaps the greatest change was in his clothing. He used to be well-dressed and smart with the flashy coquetry of a neighborhood Don Juan, unlike Tiburcio who always wore the jeans and guayabera of the drivers and mechanics, but now his shirt, open over his chest, had no buttons, his trousers were wrinkled and stained, and his shoes were muddy and had no laces. He wasn’t wearing socks.

Felícito stared into his eyes and Miguel held his glance for only a few seconds; then he began to blink, lowered his eyes, and kept them focused on the floor. Felícito thought that only now had he realized he barely reached Miguel’s shoulder, that his son was more than a head taller than him. Sergeant Lituma remained leaning against the wall, very still, tense, as if he wished he could become invisible. There were two metal chairs in the room, but all three men remained standing. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling among the “shit”s written on the walls and coarse drawings of cunts and pricks. The room smelled of urine. The prisoner wasn’t handcuffed.

“I haven’t come to ask if you’re sorry for what you’ve done,” Felícito said at last, looking at the tangle of dirty blond hair a meter away, satisfied that he was speaking firmly, not revealing the rage that overwhelmed him. “You can take care of that up there, when you die.”

He paused and took a deep breath. He’d spoken very quietly, and when he continued, he raised his voice.

“I’ve come about a matter that’s much more important to me. More than the spider letters, more than your attempt to extort money from me, more than the fake kidnapping you planned with Mabel, more than the fire at my office.” Miguel remained motionless, his head down, and Sergeant Lituma didn’t move either. “I’ve come to tell you that I’m glad about what happened, glad you did what you did. Because thanks to that, I’ve been able to clear up a doubt I’ve had my whole life. You know what it is, don’t you? You must have thought about it every time you saw your face in the mirror and wondered why you had a white mug when your mother and I are
cholos
. I spent my life asking myself that question too. Until now I swallowed it and didn’t try to find out, for fear of hurting your feelings or Gertrudis’s. But now there’s no reason for me to worry about you. I solved the mystery. That’s why I came. To tell you something that will make you as happy as it makes me. You’re not my son, Miguel. You never were. Your mother and the Boss Lady—your mother’s mother, your grandmother—when they found out Gertrudis was pregnant, made me believe I was the father to force me to marry her. They tricked me. I wasn’t the father. I married Gertrudis out of the goodness of my heart. My doubts are cleared up now. Your mother came clean and confessed everything to me. A great joy, Miguel. I would have died of sadness if a son of mine, with my blood in his veins, had done what you did to me. Now I’m calm and even happy. It wasn’t a son of mine, it was some bastard. What a relief to know it isn’t my blood, my father’s clean blood, in your veins. Another thing, Miguel. Not even your mother knows who got her pregnant with you. She says it was probably one of the Yugoslavs who came for the Chira irrigation. Though she isn’t sure. Or maybe it was another of the hungry white men who’d fall into El Algarrobo boardinghouse and pass through her bed too. Make a note of that, Miguel. I’m not your father and not even your own mother knows whose jizzum made you. So you’re one of the many bastards in Piura, one of those kids born to washerwomen or sheepherders after gangs of drunken soldiers shoot their loads. A bastard with lots of fathers, Miguel, that’s what you are. I’m not surprised you did what you did with such a mix of blood in your veins.”

He stopped speaking because the head with unkempt blond hair came up, violently. He saw the blue eyes bloodshot and filled with hatred. “He’s going to attack me, he’ll try to strangle me,” he thought. Sergeant Lituma must have thought the same thing because he took a step forward, and with his hand on his holster, stood next to the trucker to protect him. But Miguel seemed crushed, incapable of reacting or moving. Tears ran down his cheeks and his hands and mouth trembled. He was ashen. He wanted to say something, but the words wouldn’t come out, and at times his body made an abdominal noise, like a belch or retching.

Felícito Yanaqué started to speak again with the same contained coldness he’d used in his long statement.

“I haven’t finished. A little patience. This is the last time we’ll see each other, happily for you and for me. I’m going to leave you this portfolio. Read each of the papers carefully that my lawyer has prepared for you. Dr. Hildebrando Castro Pozo, you know him very well. If you agree, sign each of the pages where there’s an X. He’ll have the papers picked up tomorrow and will take care of procedures before the judge. It’s something very simple. It’s called a change of identity. You’re going to give up the name Yanaqué, which doesn’t belong to you anyway. You can keep your mother’s surname or invent anything you like. In exchange, I won’t press charges against the author of the spider letters, the man responsible for the fire at Narihualá Transport, and for the false abduction of Mabel. It’s possible that because of this, you’ll escape the years in prison you’d have faced otherwise and walk out of here. But, as soon as you’re free, you’re going to leave Piura. You won’t set foot again in this place, where everybody knows you’re a criminal. Besides, nobody would give you a decent job here. I don’t want to run into you again. You have until tomorrow to think it over. If you don’t want to sign those papers, so be it. The trial will follow and I’ll move heaven and earth to make sure your sentence is a long one. It’s your decision. One last thing. Your mother hasn’t come to visit you because she doesn’t want to see you again either. I didn’t ask her, it was her own decision. That’s it. We can leave, Sergeant. May God forgive you, Miguel. I never will.”

He tossed the portfolio of papers at Miguel’s feet and turned toward the door, followed by Sergeant Lituma. Miguel remained motionless, the green portfolio on the floor in front of him, his eyes filled with hatred and tears, silently moving his mouth, as if he’d been hit by a lightning bolt that had deprived him of movement, speech, and reason. “This will be the last image of him that I’ll remember,” thought Felícito. They walked silently to the prison exit. The taxi was waiting for them. As the rattling jalopy jounced its way through the outskirts of Piura on the way to the police station on Avenida Sánchez Cerro to drop off Lituma, he and the trucker were silent. When they were already in the city, the sergeant was the first to speak.