The Sky Over Lima (24 page)

On some afternoons he makes his way to the garret. After idly chatting with the watchman, he climbs the stairs very slowly, gripping the banister on each step. He likes to study among the worn furniture and burlap sacks. He repeats aloud the elements of rhetorical discourse—
inventio
,
dispositio
,
elocutio
—and the punishment prescribed by law for the crime of impersonating another individual: three years in jail. All this in the very same place where he and José once recited Baudelaire, Yeats, Mallarmé. And during his breaks from reading, he thinks about many things. He thinks about the Professor, whom he's been ducking for weeks, taking long detours to avoid passing through the square and running into him beneath the arches and then having to tell him—tell him what? He thinks about Ventura and his friends, who no longer haunt the club and its billiards tables. They have vanished as thoroughly as José himself, and with him those letters he is no doubt still writing and that Carlos will never read, blank chapters of the novel that once was his.

Often he thinks:
I too am a character in that novel.
Everything will be documented in the pages that José is writing, even Carlos's own repeated visits to the whore he never sleeps with. He wonders if there is any explanation for certain things—a chapter, a page, even just a line to say why he feels this need to sleep next to a whore at night. He'd like to understand it himself. He's had time to try out any number of explanations, not in front of the mirror now but in the dusty solitude of the garret. That the whore reminds him of Georgina. That she reminds him of the Polish prostitute. That he needs someone who believes in Georgina. That he feels lonely. He has even considered that perhaps his father might have been right all along and all that poetry has feminized him. Don Augusto warned him so many times as a boy, whenever he caught him with a book of poetry—Mark my words, your taste for metaphors is going to make you an invert. And now here he is, incapable of arousal even in the presence of a beautiful woman, proving his father right nearly a decade after the fact.

He dreams, too, of José's novel. That he's trapped within its pages, forced to do what the narrator commands him to do. It's his worst nightmare: ending up as a pansy in José's novel. Discovering that's what he is only because that's what the narrator wants.

◊

The gentleman's gifts, always as extravagant as they are beautiful. At the moment, for example, he is loaded down with cardboard boxes and tubes that he wants her to open. Look inside and tell me if you like them, see if they're your size. She hates ripping the wrapping paper and cutting the ribbons, but at last she does and goes through the packages in wonder, pulling out petticoats and hats, bodices and skirts, satin veils and shoes and nightgowns. Gauzes so fine that she feels like she's holding air, like someone's sewn stitches through nothing. He says it's his mother's and sisters' castoff clothing, and she pretends to believe him, even though the garments smell new and it's clear no one's had the chance to wear out the hems of the dresses. His mother's and sisters' clothing, sure, if he says so, but at the bottom of the last box she finds a receipt with a figure so enormous, so astronomical, that she cannot even comprehend it.

From now on, happiness will mean this. She's decided it must be so. When she hears the word
happiness
—not that it's heard with any frequency in the brothel—she will remember placing the dresses on their hangers. Seeing her fingers peeking through the sheer muslin. Finding, and not understanding, that astonishing number.

“Do you like them?” asks the gentleman, without a hint of joy in his voice, with something more like aching hope.

“They're—they're for me?”

“For you, if you like them.”

It's not the sort of clothing a whore wears. That's the first thing she thinks. It's the sort of clothing worn by the young ladies she sees through the bars, passing by in their carriages. A fleeting sight that lasts just long enough for her to begin to envy them and then watch them disappear, unsure what to do with their memory.

“How could I not like them?”

“Why don't you try them on?”

Yes, why not? She starts undressing immediately, pulling off her skirt, her garter, her petticoats, flinging her shoes and bodice aside. The garments sail through the air in a blind frenzy born of pure happiness. She does it so quickly that she's already half naked when Carlos manages to tear his eyes away and suggests that it might be better if she undressed behind the screen.

He stammers as he says it, still not looking at her, and for the first time she recalls the screen that stands behind the door, a faded parchment-like material printed with flowers, which no customer has required until now. But no one else has given her clothing and shoes, or read her poetry at dawn, so why shouldn't Carlos be the one to request it? The screen—why not. She covers herself as best she can with whatever clothing she hasn't yet removed and slips behind the screen, blushing and silent.

As she finishes getting undressed, she ponders Carlos's discomfort and comes up with a number of possible explanations before finally deciding that she doesn't understand it at all. She is not ashamed of her body and never has been; showing it to her customers has always seemed completely natural to her, as commonplace as a naked babe. But as much as Carlos has looked at her as a customer would, he also watches her as a preacher might, or a policeman sealing off the whorehouse door, or a haughty old woman crossing herself when she sees her on the street. She pauses a moment to study herself, now completely naked behind the shelter of the screen, and in the candlelight her body appears inoffensive. But suddenly an unfamiliar sensation comes over her. A whiff of modesty, as if it were no longer she who was looking at her—as if Carlos had lent her his eyes and through them she felt an unfamiliar curiosity about the roundness of those breasts and the curve of that hip. The sensation provokes fear, but also desire and guilt and arousal and hope. She closes her eyes. Then, with a sudden brusque movement, she starts to get dressed.

The first box contains a floor-length white gown with a bonnet, gloves, and garters to match. When she emerges from behind the screen, she has been transformed into a figure from a Sorolla painting who has wandered out of her canvas and into a Toulouse-Lautrec brothel. Naturally, she has no idea who Sorolla and Lautrec are, but she does know this: when Carlos sees her, it's as if he were looking at the static image of a painting. He recognizes fear in her eyes, but also desire and guilt and arousal and hope. She smiles nervously, her hands clasped behind her back—Does she look like a young lady now? Can the whorehouse still be discerned in her face?—but Carlos doesn't smile in return. He just hands her a parasol, also white, and asks her to open it. She hesitates a moment.

“Isn't it bad luck?”

“That's umbrellas.”

Indeed, a parasol is not an umbrella, though they're similar. A parasol is used not to shield from rain but to provide shade from the sun—and why on earth does the young man want her to open it here, in the light of the oil lamp?—but she takes it and minces primly from the bed to the wardrobe and from the wardrobe to the window. Taking small steps like a woman with a tiny dog. What would her mother say if she could see her now, looking like a real lady? And what would Carlos say, if instead of staring at her with his mouth agape he ventured to say something? But no matter. She feels joy wash over her because he is still looking at her, because he's never looked at her so intently as he is right now.

There are many other outfits, and eventually, many nights later, she has tried them all on for him. Maybe he's looking for the dress that suits her best, the one they'll use for their first promenade through the streets of Lima—why else would he give her such sumptuous garments?—but time passes and he proposes no such outing. The clothing remains there, stuffed into one of Madame Lenotre's wardrobes, ready to be used at any moment. Sometimes the young man has a hankering to see her wearing one of the dresses, and then she must try it on and walk around the room, or sit on the edge of the bed, or pretend to be doing something, while he sits smoking in a corner and contemplates her through the haze. And though she does find it strange, she also accepts it easily, because it is all from that same beautiful, alien world where naked bodies are cause for embarrassment, whores are treated like ladies, and men don't sleep with those ladies but instead read them poetry.

She finds some of the ensembles quite amusing. An old-fashioned skirt and mantle, for instance, that look like something straight out of a dowager's armoire, but still the young man asks her to put them on. It all seems rather absurd, him sitting there, her with the mantle over her head, just one eye left uncovered. An eye that, seen so separately from her face, could belong to a virgin or a whore or even a man. Behind the mantle she laughs to herself, because it's laughable, but the young gentleman is solemn.

And then there's the night she tries on the outfit that looks like a little girl's—a summer dress with buttons, a long blue skirt, pink shoes, even little bows for the braids she doesn't have—and when he sees her come out from behind the screen he is gob-smacked; the girls were right to call him that, Mr. Gob-Smacked, your beau Mr. Gob-Smacked. And Mr. Gob-Smacked—who's not really her beau—slowly approaches, as if recognizing her, and reaches out to stroke her face with his hand. The young gentleman, touching her. And then he whispers a strange phrase that seems to come from far away.

“
Che is to moro
. . .”

And at first she pays it no mind, thinking it must be another of those incomprehensible words the young gentleman likes to include in his poems.
Gossamer, diadem, alabaster
, and now, why not,
che is to moro.
But then she thinks that maybe it means something else—that maybe it's like when the prince rescues the odalisque of the southern seas and before he kisses her he tells her he loves her more than life itself, and even though the oda-lisque does not speak his language she nevertheless understands him, because a person just knows that sort of thing. That's what she imagines as she stands there in her little-girl dress: Carlos telling her in Persian,
I love you, I will take you away with me, I won't forget you either, not ever.

“
Chcę iść do domu
,” she murmurs, trying to imitate the beautiful sounds she's just heard as best she can.

Carlos doesn't react at first. He blinks and then looks into her eyes, surprised and also satisfied. Suddenly he seems very happy. He patiently repeats the phrase again, a faint smile still on his face.

“
Che is to moro.
”

“
Che is do domo.
”

And then him, slower:

“
Che-is-to-moro.
”

“
Che is to moro.
”

He laughs.

“Better.”

From now on, happiness will mean this. She's just decided it. Being so close to the young man, and seeing him laugh, and repeating
che is to moro
till daybreak.

◊

Somebody calls out his name. He is crossing Jirón de la Unión, and amid the hustle and bustle of passersby it takes a moment to locate him. Finally he sees someone emerge from a nearby tavern, staggering slightly and rosy-cheeked from alcohol. Professor Cristóbal.

“Well, well. Look who we have here. If it isn't the concerned cousin.”

Then he says:

“You haven't come by in a long time. I thought you were dead, my friend.”

“No, no, I wasn't dead,” Carlos answers, as if Cristóbal might need clarification on that point. “I've just been very busy lately.”

That is certainly the case. He's been avoiding the main square for three months just so he won't run into him, and as a result he has spent a great deal of time walking in complex, exhausting circles around the place. And so it is true he's had no lack of work.

He's carrying a book under his arm, and Cristóbal grabs it from him.

“Let's see what you're reading . . . Oh!
Introduction to Canon Law
. Excellent. For a moment I thought it might be a romantic novel. I was worried about you, but this sort of book poses no danger . . .”

“No, it's not a romantic novel,” Carlos answers, confirming the obvious once more.

But that's just what the Professor wants to talk about: romantic novels. He wants to know what happened with Carlos's cousin. Whether she married her Spanish poet in the end. And above all, he adds with a smile, what it is he did wrong to lose his best customer. Carlos tries to smile too. You didn't do anything wrong, he replies, you mustn't worry about that; it's just that my relationship with my cousin has become somewhat strained over the past few months.

He pauses, clears his throat. He is looking for an excuse to continue on his way, but the Professor breaks in before he can find one. His brow is furrowed.

“So you've had a falling-out.”

“Something like that.”

“And, naturally, you have no idea how things are going with the poet. Whether the relationship has continued or not.”

“No.”

Cristóbal has started to unwrap a cigar. He watches his own fingers intently, as if the task were a difficult one or as if he were pondering something.

“Well. Let's not worry about her. I'm sure she's found someone to help her, don't you think? Maybe that friend of yours, the one who doesn't much like her . . .”

Carlos doesn't know what to say.

“Yes, I suppose so . . . And now if you'll excuse me, Dr. Professor, I'm late to class at the university.”

Cristóbal cheerfully claps him on the shoulder.

“What a shame! I thought we might chat awhile. But I don't want to keep you, of course. You must come pay me a visit at some point. You've abandoned me, my friend. Come and we'll drink pisco and talk about love, yes indeed.”