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“Yes, that has to be it, but out of pure selfishness, ” Carlitos said. “Not so much for your sake as for mine. I won’t have anyone to tell me his troubles anymore, anyone to watch the sun rise with in a dive. Have it your own way, Zavalita. ”

On Thursday someone who was coming from Ica left Ana’s letter at the boardinghouse in Barranco: you can sleep peacefully, love. The heavy, asphyxiating sadness of bourgeois words, he thinks, she’d convinced a doctor and it was all over, the Mexican movies, all very painful and sad and now she was in bed and had had to invent a thousand lies so that mama and papa won’t know what’s going on, but even the misspellings had moved you so much, Zavalita. He thinks: what made her happy in the midst of her sorrow was the fact that she’d taken such a great worry off your back, love. She’d discovered that you didn’t love her, that she was just a toy for you, she couldn’t bear the idea because she did love you, she wasn’t going to see any more of you, time would help her forget you. That Friday and Saturday you’d felt relieved but not happy, Zavalita, and at night the upset would come along with peaceful feelings of remorse. Not the little worm, he thinks, not the knives. On Sunday, in the group taxi to Ica, he hadn’t shut his eyes.

“You made up your mind when you got the letter, you masochist, ” Carlitos said.

He walked so fast from the square that he was out of breath when he got there. Her mother opened the door and her eyes were blinking and sensitive: Anita was ill, a terrible attack of colic, she’d given them a scare. She had him come into the living room and he had to wait some time until her mother returned and told him go up. That dizzy tender feeling when he saw her in her yellow pajamas, he thinks, pale and combing her hair hurriedly as he came in. She let go of the comb, the mirror; she began to cry.

“Not when the letter arrived, but right then, ” Santiago said. “We called her mother, we announced it to her, and the three of us celebrated the engagement with coffee and tarts. ”

They would be married in Ica, with no guests or ceremony, they would return to Lima and, until they found an inexpensive apartment, they would live at the boardinghouse. Maybe Ana could get a job in a hospital, both their salaries would be enough if they tightened their belts: there, Zavalita?

“We’re going to give you a bachelor party that will go down in the annals of Lima journalism, ” Norwin said.

She went to fix her makeup in Malvina’s little room, she came back down, and when she passed the little parlor she ran into Martha, furious: now they were letting anybody in here, this place has turned into a dung heap. Anyone who could pay could come here, Flora was saying, ask old Ivonne and she’d see, Martha. Queta saw him through the door to the bar, from the back, like the first time, up on a stool, wrapped in a dark suit, his curly hair gleaming, his elbows on the bar. Robertito was serving him a beer. He was the first to arrive in spite of its being after nine o’clock, and there were four women chatting around the phonograph, pretending not to notice him. She went over to the bar, still not knowing whether or not it bothered her to see him there.

“The gentleman was asking for you, ” Robertito said with a sarcastic smile. “I told him it would be a miracle if he found you, Quetita. ”

Robertito slipped catlike to the other end of the bar and Queta turned to look at him. Not like coals, not frightened, not like a dog: impatient, rather. His mouth was closed and it was moving as if chewing on a bit: his expression was not servile or respectful or even cordial, just vehement.

“So you came back to life, ” Queta said. “I didn’t think we’d ever see you around here again. ”

“I’ve got them in my wallet, ” he muttered quickly. “Shall we go up? ”

“In your wallet? ” Queta began to smile, but he was still very serious, his tight jaws throbbing. “What’s eating you? ”

“Has the price gone up over the last few months? ” he asked, not sarcastically but with an impersonal tone, still in a hurry. “How much has it gone up? ”

“You’re in a bad mood, ” Queta said, startled by him and by the fact that she wasn’t annoyed at the changes she saw in him. He was wearing a red necktie, a white shirt, a cardigan sweater; his cheeks and chin were lighter than the quiet hands on the bar. “What kind of a way to act is this? What’s come over you during all this time? ”

“I want to know if you’re coming up with me, ” he said with a deadly calm in his voice now. But there was still that savage haste in his eyes. “Yes and well go on up, no and I’ll leave. ”

What had changed so much in so little time? Not that he was any fatter or thinner, not that he’d become insolent. He’s like furious, Queta thought, but not with me or anyone, with himself.

“Or are you scared? ” she said, making fun. “You’re not Cayo Shithead’s servant anymore, now you can come here whenever you feel like it. Or has Gold Ball forbidden you to go out at night? ”

He didn’t get enraged, he didn’t get upset. He blinked just once and didn’t answer anything for a few minutes, slowly, pondering, searching for words.

“If I’ve wasted a trip, I’d better leave, ” he finally said, looking into her eyes without fear. “Tell me right out. ”

“Buy me a drink. ” Queta got up on one of the stools and leaned against the wall, irritated now. “I can order a whiskey, I imagine. ”

“You can order anything you want, but upstairs, ” he said softly, very serious. “Shall we go up, or do you want me to leave? ”

“You’ve learned bad manners with Gold Ball, ” Queta said dryly.

“You mean the answer is no, ” he muttered, getting off the stool. “Good night, then. ”

But Queta’s hand held him back when he had already turned half around. She saw him stop, turn and look at her silently with his urgent eyes. Why? she thought, startled and furious, was it out of curiosity, was it because …? He was waiting like a statue. Five hundred, plus sixty for the room and for one time, and she heard and barely recognized her own voice, was it because …? did he understand? And he, nodding his head slightly: he understood. She asked him for the room money, ordered him to go up and wait for her in number twelve and when he disappeared up the stairs there was Robertito, a malefic, bittersweet smile on his smooth face, clinking the little key against the bar. Queta threw the money into his hands.

“Well, well, Quetita, I can’t believe my eyes, ” he said slowly, with exquisite pleasure, squinting his eyes. “So you’re going to take care, of the darky. ”

“Give me the key, ” Queta said. “And don’t talk to me, fag, you know I can’t hear you. ”

“How pushy you’ve become since you’ve joined the Bermú dez family, ” Robertito said, laughing. “You don’t come around much and when you do, you treat us like dogs, Quetita. ”

She snatched the key. Halfway up the stairs she ran into Malvina, who was coming down dying with laughter: the black sambo from last year was there, Queta. She pointed upstairs and all of a sudden her eyes lighted up, ah, he’d come for you, and she clapped her hands. But what was the matter, Quetita.

“That piece of shit of a Robertito, ” Queta said. “I can’t stand his insolence anymore. ”

“He must be jealous, don’t pay any attention to him. ” Malvina laughed. “Everybody’s jealous of you now, Quetita. So much the better for you, silly. ”

He was there waiting by the door to number twelve. Queta opened it and he went in and sat down on the corner of the bed. She locked the door, went to the washstand, drew the curtains, turned on the lights and then put her head into the room. She saw him, quiet, serious under the light bulb with its bulging shade, dark on the pink bedcover.

“Are you waiting for me to undress you? ” she asked in a nasty way. “Come here and let me wash you. ”

She saw him get up and come over without taking his eyes off her, his look had lost the aplomb and haste and had taken on the docility of the first time. When he was in front of her, he put his hand into his pocket with a quick and almost reckless motion, as if he remembered something essential. He handed her the bills, reaching out a hand that was slow and somewhat shameful, you paid in advance, didn’t you? as if he were handing her a letter with bad news in it: there it was, she could count it.

“You see, this whim is costing you a lot of money, ” Queta said, shrugging her shoulders. “Well, you know what you’re doing. Take off your pants, let me get you washed up. ”

He seemed undecided for a few seconds. He went toward a chair with a prudence that betrayed his embarrassment, and Queta, from the washstand, saw him sit down, take off his shoes, his jacket, his sweater, his pants, and fold them with extreme slowness. He took off his tie. He came toward her, walking with the same cautious step as before, his long tense legs moving rhythmically below the white shirt. When he was beside her he dropped his shorts and, after holding them in his hands for an instant, threw them at the chair, missing it. While she grasped his sex tightly and soaped and washed it, he didn’t try to touch her. She felt him stiff beside her, his hip rubbing against her, breathing deeply and regularly. She handed him the toilet paper to dry himself and he did it in a meticulous way, as if he wanted to take time.

“Now it’s my turn, ” Queta said. “Go wait for me. ”

He nodded, and she saw a reticent serenity in his eyes, a fleeting shame. She drew the curtain and, while she was filling the basin with hot water, she heard his long, even steps on the wooden floor and the creaking of the bed as it received him. The shitass has affected me with his sadness, she thought. She washed herself, dried, went into the room and, as she passed by the bed and saw him lying on his back, his arms crossed over his eyes, his shirt still on, half his body naked under the cone of light, she thought of an operating room, a body waiting for the scalpel. She took off her skirt and blouse and went over to the bed with her shoes on; he was still motionless. She looked at his stomach: beneath the tangle of hair was the blackness which just barely stood out against the skin, shiny with the recent water, and there his sex, which lay small and limp between his legs. She went over to turn out the lights. She came back and lay down beside him.

“Such a hurry to come upstairs, to pay me what you don’t have, ” she said when she saw him making no move. “All for this? ”

“You’re not treating me right, ” his voice said, thick and cowardly. “You don’t even pretend. I’m not an animal, I’ve got my pride. ”

“Take your shirt off and stop your nonsense, ” Queta said. “Do you think you disgust me? With you or with the King of Rome, it’s all the same to me, black boy. ”

She felt him sit up, sensed his obedient movements in the dark, saw in the air the white splotch of the shirt that he threw at the chair, visible in the threads of light coming through the window. The naked body fell down beside her again. She heard his more agitated breathing, smelled his desire, felt him touching her. She lay on her back, opened her arms, and an instant later received his crushing, sweaty flesh on her body. He was breathing anxiously beside her ear, his damp hands ran over her skin, and she felt his sex enter her softly. He was trying to take off her bra and she helped him by rolling to one side. She felt his wet mouth on her neck and shoulders and heard him panting and moving; she wrapped her legs around him and kneaded his back, his perspiring buttocks. She let him kiss her on the mouth but kept her teeth together. She heard him come with short, panting moans. She pushed him aside and felt him roll over like a dead man. She put her shoes on in the dark, went to the washbasin, and when she came back into the room and turned on the light, she saw him on his back again, his arms crossed over his face.

“I’ve been dreaming about this for a long time, ” she heard him say as she was putting on her bra.

“Now you’re sorry about your five hundred soles, ” Queta said.

“What do you mean, sorry? ” She heard him laugh, still hiding his eyes. “No money was ever better spent. ”

While she was putting on her skirt, she heard him laugh again, and the sincerity of his laugh surprised her.

“Did I really treat you bad? ” Queta asked. “It wasn’t because of you, it was because of Robertito. He gets me on edge all the time. ”

“Can I smoke a cigarette like this? ” he asked. “Or do I have to leave now? ”

“You can smoke three, if you want to, ” Queta said. “But go wash up first. ”

A send-off that would go down in history: it would start at noon in the Rinconcito Cajamarquino with a native lunch attended only by Carlitos, Norwin, Soló rzano, Periquito, Milton and Darí o; they would drag him around to a lot of bars in the afternoon, and at seven o’clock there’d be a cocktail party with nighttime butterflies and reporters from other papers at China’s apartment (she and Carlitos were back together again, for a while); Carlitos, Norwin and Santiago, just they, would top off the day at a whorehouse. But on the eve of the day set for the send-off, at nightfall, when Carlitos and Santiago were getting back to the city room after eating in La Cró nica’s canteen, they saw Becerrita collapse on his desk, letting out a desperate God damn it to hell. There was his square, chubby little body falling apart, there the writers running over. They picked him up: his face was wrinkled in a grimace of infinite displeasure and his skin was purple. They rubbed him with alcohol, loosened his tie, fanned him. He was lying with his lungs congested, inanimate and exhaling an intermittent grunt. Arispe and two writers from the police page took him to the hospital in the van; a couple of hours later they called to tell them that he’d died of a stroke. Arispe wrote the obituary, which appeared edged in black: With his boots on, he thinks. The police reporters had written biographical sketches and apologies: his restless spirit, his contribution to the development of Peruvian journalism, a pioneer in police reporting and chronicles, a quarter of a century in the journalistic trenches.

Instead of the bachelor’s party you had a wake, he thinks. They spent the following night at Becerrita’s house, on a back alley in Barrios Altos, sitting up with him. There was that tragicomic night, Zavalita, that cheap farce. The reporters from the police page were mournful and there were women sighing beside the coffin in that small parlor with miserable furniture and old oval photographs that had been darkened with black ribbons. Sometime after midnight a woman in mourning and a boy came into the place like a chill, in the midst of whispers of alarm: oh dammy, Becerrita’s other wife; oh dammy, Becerrita’s other son. There’d been the start of an argument, insults mingled with weeping between the family of the house and the new arrivals. Those present had to intervene, negotiate, calm the rival families down. The two women seemed to be the same age, he thinks, they had the same face, and the boy was identical to the male children in the house. Both families had remained there standing guard on opposite sides of the bier, exchanging looks of hate over the corpse. All through the night long-haired newspapermen from days gone by wandered through the house, strange individuals with threadbare suits and mufflers, and on the following day, at the burial, there was a wild gathering of mournful relatives and hoodlumish and nighttime faces, police and plainclothesmen and old retired whores with smeared and weepy eyes. Arispe read a speech and then an official from Investigations and there they discovered that Becerrita had been working for the police for twenty years. When they left the cemetery, yawning and with aching bones, Carlitos, Norwin and Santiago ate in a lunchroom in Santo Cristo, near the Police Academy, and had some tamales, darkened by the ghost of Becerrita, who kept coming up in the conversation.

“Arispe promised me he won’t print anything, but I don’t trust him, ” Santiago said. “You take care of it, Carlitos. Don’t let any joker do his thing. ”

“They’re going to find out sooner or later at home that you got married, ” Carlitos said. “But all right, I’ll take care of it. ”

“I’d rather they found out from me, not through the newspaper, ” Santiago said. “I’ll talk with the old folks when I get back from Ica. I don’t want any trouble before the honeymoon. ”

That night, the eve of his wedding, Carlitos and Santiago had talked for a while in the Negro-Negro after work. They were joking, they’d remembered the times they’d come to this spot, at this same time, to this same table, and he was a little downcast, Zavalita, as if you were going away on a trip for good. He thinks: that night he didn’t get drunk, didn’t snuff coke. At the boardinghouse you spent the hours remaining until dawn smoking, Zavalita, remembering Señ ora Lucí a’s stupefied face when you told her the news, trying to imagine what life would be like in the little room with another person, whether it wouldn’t be too promiscuous and asphyxiating, how your folks would react. When the sun came up, he packed his bag carefully. He looked the little room over pensively, the bed, the small shelf with books. The group taxi stopped by for him at eight o’clock. Señ ora Lucí a came out in her bathrobe to see him off, still numb with surprise, yes, she swore to him that she wouldn’t say anything to his papa, and she’d given him a hug and kissed him on the forehead. He got to Ica at eleven in the morning and, before going to Ana’s house, he called the Huacachina Hotel to confirm their reservation. The dark suit that he had taken out of the cleaners the day before had become wrinkled in the suitcase and Ana’s mother pressed it for him. Reluctantly, Ana’s parents had done what he had requested: no guests. Only on that condition would you consent to be married in the church, Ana had warned them, he thinks. At four o’clock they went to City Hall, then to the church, and an hour later they were having something to eat at the Tourist Hotel. The mother was whispering to Ana, the father was stringing stories together and drinking, in a very sad mood. And there was Ana, Zavalita: her white dress, her happy face. When they were about to get into the taxi that was taking them to Huacachina, her mother broke into tears. There, the three days of honeymoon beside the green, stinking waters of the lagoon, Zavalita. Walks through the dunes, he thinks, inane conversations with other honeymoon couples, long siestas, the games of Ping-Pong that Ana always won.

“I was counting the days for the six months to be up, ” Ambrosio says. “So, after six months exactly, I dropped in on him very early. ”

One day by the river, Amalia had realized that she was even more accustomed to Pucallpa than she had thought. They’d gone swimming with Doñ a Lupe, and while Amalita Hortensia was sleeping under the umbrella stuck in the sand, two men had come over. One was the nephew of Doñ a Lupe’s husband, the other a traveling salesman who had arrived from Huá nuco the day before. His name was Leoncio Paniagua and he had sat down beside Amalia. He had been telling her how much he’d traveled all through Peru because of his job and told her what was the same and what was different about Huancayo, Cerro de Pasco, Ayacucho. He’s trying to impress me with his travels, Amalia had thought, laughing inside. She’d let him put on the airs of a world traveler for a good spell and finally she’d told him: I’m from Lima. From Lima? Leoncio Paniagua wouldn’t have believed it: because she talked like the people from here, she had the singsong accent and the expressions and everything.

“You haven’t lost your mind, have you? ” Don Hilario had looked at him with astonishment. “The business is going well but, as is logical, up till now it’s a total loss of money. Do you think that after six months there’ll be any profit left over? ”

Back at the house Amalia had asked Doñ a Lupe if it was true what Leoncio Paniagua had told her: yes, of course it is, she was already talking like a jungle girl, you should be proud. Amalia had thought how surprised the people she knew in Lima would be if they could hear her: her aunt, Señ ora Rosario, Carlota and Sí mula. But she hadn’t noticed any change in the way she talked, Doñ a Lupe, and Doñ a Lupe, smiling slyly: the man from Huá nuco had been flirting with you, Amalia. Yes, Doñ a Lupe, and just imagine, he’d even invited her to the movies, but naturally Amalia hadn’t accepted. Instead of being scandalized, Doñ a Lupe had scolded her: bah, silly. You should have accepted, Amalia was young, she had a right to have some fun, didn’t she think that Ambrosio was doing just as he pleased the nights he spent in Tingo Marí a? Amalia, rather, had been the one who was scandalized.

“He went over the accounts with me holding the papers in his hand, ” Ambrosio says. “He left me dizzy with all those figures. ”

“Taxes, stamps, a commission for the shyster who drew up the transfer. ” Don Hilario kept rummaging through the bills and passing them to me, Amalia. “All very clear. Are you satisfied? ”

“Not really, Don Hilario, ” Ambrosio had said. “I’m kind of tight and I was hoping to get something, sir. ”

“And here are the payments for the half-wit, ” Don Hilario had concluded. “I don’t collect for running the business, but you wouldn’t want me to sell coffins myself, would you? And I don’t imagine you’ll say I pay him too much. A hundred a month is dirt, even for a half-wit. ”

“Then the business isn’t doing as well as you thought, sir, ” Ambrosio had said.

“It’s doing better. ” Don Hilario moved his head as if saying make an effort, try to understand. “In the beginning a business is all loss. Then it starts picking up and the returns start coming in. ”

Not long after, one night when Ambrosio had just got back from Tingo Marí a and was washing his face in the back room, where they had a washbasin on a sawhorse, Amalia had seen Leoncio Paniagua appear by the corner of the cabin, his hair combed and wearing a tie: he was coming right here. She had almost dropped Amalita Hortensia. Confused, she’d run into the garden and crouched among the plants, holding the child close to her breast. He was going to go in, he was going to run into Ambrosio. Ambrosio was going to kill him. But she hadn’t heard anything alarming: just Ambrosio’s whistling, the splash of the water, the crickets singing in the darkness. Finally she had heard Ambrosio asking for his dinner. She’d gone in to cook trembling, and even for a long while after everything kept dropping out of her hands.

“And when another six months were up, a year, that is, I dropped in on him very early, ” Ambrosio says. “And Don Hilario? You’re not going to tell me that there still hasn’t been any profit. ”

“How could there be, the business is in bad shape, ” Don Hilario had said. “That’s precisely what I wanted to talk to you about. ”

The next day Amalia, furious, had gone to Doñ a Lupe’s to tell her: just imagine, how fresh, just imagine what would have happened if Ambrosio … Doñ a Lupe had covered her mouth, telling her I know all about it. The man from Huá nuco had come to her house and had opened up his heart to her, Señ ora Lupe: ever since I met Amalia I’ve been a different man, your friend is like no one else in the world. He didn’t intend going into your house, Amalia, he wasn’t that stupid, he just wanted to see you from a distance. You’ve made a conquest, Amalia, you’ve got the man from Huá nuco crazy about you, Amalia. She’d felt very strange: still furious, but flattered now as well. That afternoon she’d gone to the small beach thinking if he says the least thing to me I’ll insult him. But Leoncio Paniagua had not made the slightest insinuation to her; very well-mannered, he cleaned the sand for her to sit down, he invited her to have an ice cream cone, and when she looked into his eyes he lowered his, bashful and sighing.

“Yes, just what you heard, I’ve studied it very carefully, ” Don Hilario had said. “The money’s just lying there waiting for us to pick it up. All that’s needed is a little injection of capital. ”

Leoncio Paniagua came to Pucallpa every month, for just a couple of days, and Amalia had come to like the way he treated her, his terrible timidity. She’d grown used to finding him at the beach every four weeks, with his shirt and collar, heavy shoes, ceremonious and sweltering, wiping his wet face with a colored handkerchief. He never went swimming, he sat between Doñ a Lupe and her and they chatted, and when they went into the water, he took care of Amalita Hortensia. Nothing had ever happened, he’d never said anything to her; he would look at her, sigh, and the most he ever dared was to say what a shame I have to leave Pucallpa tomorrow or I kept thinking about Pucallpa all this month or why is it I like coming to Pucallpa so much. He was awfully bashful, wasn’t he, Doñ a Lupe? And Doñ a Lupe: no, it’s more that he’s a dreamer.

“The big deal he thought of was buying another funeral parlor, Amalia, ” Ambrosio had said. “The Model. ”

“The one with the best reputation, the one that’s taking all our business away, ” Don Hilario had said. “Not another word. Get hold of that money you’ve got in Lima and we’ll set up a monopoly, Ambrosio. ”

The farthest she’d gone, after a few months and more to please Doñ a Lupe than him, was to go to a Chinese restaurant and then to the movies with Leoncio Paniagua. They’d gone at night, through deserted streets, to the restaurant with the fewest people, and had gone in after the show had started and left before it was over. Leoncio Paniagua had been more considerate than ever, not only had he not tried to take advantage of being alone with her, but he nearly didn’t say a word all night long. He says because he was feeling so emotional, Amalia, he says he lost his tongue because he was so happy. But did he really like her that much, Doñ a Lupe? Really, Amalia: the nights he was in Pucallpa he would stop by Doñ a Lupe’s cabin and talk for hours on end about you and even cry. But why hadn’t he ever said anything to her, then, Doñ a Lupe? Because he was a dreamer, Amalia.

“I’ve barely got enough to feed us and you’re asking for another fifteen thousand soles. ” Don Hilario had believed the lie I told him, Amalia. “Even if I was crazy, I wouldn’t get mixed up in another funeral parlor deal, no, sir. ”

“It’s not another one, it’s the same one, only bigger, and a chance to get it all sewed up, ” Don Hilario had insisted. “Think it over and you’ll see I’m right. ”

And once two months had gone by and the man from Huá nuco hadn’t shown up in Pucallpa. Amalia had almost forgotten about him the afternoon she found him sitting on the beach by the river, his jacket and tie carefully folded on a newspaper and with a toy for Amalita Hortensia in his hand. What had he been doing? And he, trembling as if he had malaria: he wasn’t coming back to Pucallpa anymore, could she talk to him alone for a minute? Doñ a Lupe had moved away with Amalita Hortensia and they talked for almost two hours. He wasn’t a traveling salesman anymore, he’d inherited a small store from an uncle and that was what he came to talk to her about. He’d looked so frightened to her, beating around the bush so much and stammering so much, asking her to go away with him, marry him, that she had even felt a little sorry to tell him he was crazy, Doñ a Lupe. Now you can see that he really loved you and it wasn’t a passing affair, Amalia. Leoncio Paniagua had not insisted, he’d remained silent, like an idiot, and when Amalia had advised him to forget about her and look for another woman back in Huá nuco, he shook his head sorrowfully and whispered never. The fool had even made her feel nasty, Doñ a Lupe. She’d seen him for the last time that afternoon, crossing the square on the way to his small hotel and staggering like a drunkard.

“And when we were most short of money, Amalia finds out she was pregnant, ” Ambrosio says. “The two bad things at the same time, son. ”

But the news had made him happy: a little playmate for Amalia Hortensia, a jungle-boy son. Pantaleó n and Doñ a Lupe had come to the cabin that night and they had drunk beer into the small hours: Amalia was pregnant, what did they think of that. They’d had a fairly good time and Amalia had got sick to her stomach and done crazy things: she danced all by herself, sang, said dirty words. The next day she’d awakened weak and vomiting and Ambrosio had made her feel ashamed: the child would be born a drunkard with the bath you gave it last night, Amalia.