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He hesitated and Queta turned her head a bit to observe him: look of what?

“Of a fine gentleman, ” Ambrosio said very quickly. “Of a president, how should I know. ”

Queta let out a curious and impertinent merry little laugh, stretched, and as she moved her hip she rubbed against his: she instantly felt Ambrosio’s hand come to life on her knee, come up under her skirt and anxiously look for her thigh, she felt his arm pressing on her up and down, down and up. She didn’t scold him, didn’t stop him, and she heard her own merry little laugh again.

“He was softening you up with drinks, ” she said. “What about the madwoman, what about her? ”

She kept lifting her face every so often, as if she were coming out of the water, looking around the room with eyes that were wild, moist, sleepwalking, she picked up her glass, raised it to her mouth and drank, murmuring something unintelligible, and submerged again. What about Cayo Shithead, what about him? He was drinking steadily, joining in the conversation with monosyllables and acting as if it were the most natural thing in the world for Ambrosio to be sitting there and drinking with them.

“That’s how it went, ” Ambrosio said: his hand calmed down, returned to her knee. “The drinks made me less bashful and I was already bearing up under his little look and answering his jokes. Yes I like whiskey sir, of course it’s not the first time I’ve drunk whiskey sir. ”

But now Don Fermí n wasn’t listening to him or so it seemed: he had him photographed in his eyes, Ambrosio looked at them and he saw himself, did she see? Queta nodded, and all of a sudden Don Fermí n tossed down what was left in his glass and stood up: he was tired, Don Cayo, it was time to go. Cayo Bermú dez also got up.

“Let Ambrosio take you, Don Fermí n, ” he said, holding back a yawn with his fist. “I won’t need the car until tomorrow. ”

“It means that he didn’t only know, ” Queta said, moving about. “Of course, of course. It means that Cayo Shithead had planned it all. ”

“I don’t know, ” Ambrosio cut in, rolling over, his voice suddenly agitated, looking at her. He paused, fell onto his back again. “I don’t know if he knew, if he planned it. I’d like to know. He says he didn’t know either. You, hasn’t he …? ”

“He knows now, that’s the only thing I know. ” Queta laughed. “But neither the madwoman nor I have been able to get out of him whether he planned it or not. When he wants to be, he’s as silent as a tomb. ”

“I don’t know, ” Ambrosio repeated. His voice sank into a well and came back up weak and hazy. “He doesn’t know either. Sometimes he says yes, he has to know; other times no, maybe he doesn’t know. I’ve seen Don Cayo a lot of times and there’s been nothing about him that tells me he knows. ”

“You’re completely out of your mind, ” Queta said. “Of course he knows now. Who doesn’t know now? ”

He accompanied them to the street, ordered Ambrosio tomorrow at ten o’clock, shook hands with Don Fermí n and went back into the house, crossing through the garden. Dawn was about to break, small strips of blue were peeping through across the sky and the policemen on the corner murmured good night with voices that were cracked from being up all night and from so many cigarettes.

“And then there was that funny thing, ” Ambrosio whispered. “He didn’t sit in back the way he should have, but next to me. That was when I had my suspicions, but I couldn’t believe that was it. It couldn’t be, not in the case of someone like him. ”

“Not in the case of someone like him, ” Queta said slowly, with disgust. She turned over: “Why are you so servile, so …? ”

“I thought it was just to show me a little friendship, ” Ambrosio whispered. “I treated you like an equal back there, now I’m still doing the same thing. I thought sometimes he likes the common touch, to be on familiar footing with the people. No, I don’t know what I thought. ”

“Yes, ” Don Fermí n said, closing the door carefully and not looking at him. “Let’s go to Ancó n. ”

“I looked at his face and it seemed the same as ever, so elegant, so proper, ” Ambrosio said in a complaining way. “I got very nervous, you know. You said Ancó n, sir? ”

“Yes. Ancó n. ” Don Fermí n nodded, looking out the window at the faint light in the sky. “Have you got enough gas? ”

“I knew where he lived, I’d driven him home from Don Cayo’s office once, ” Ambrosio complained. “I started up and on the Avenida Brasil I got up the courage to ask him. Aren’t you going to your house in Miraflores, sir? ”

“No, I’m going to Ancó n, ” Don Fermí n said, looking straight ahead now; but a moment later he turned to look at him and he was a different person, you know? “Are you afraid of going to Ancó n alone with me? Are you afraid something will happen to you on the way? ”

“And he began to laugh, ” Ambrosio whispered. “And I did too, but it didn’t come out. It couldn’t. I was so nervous, I knew then. ”

Queta didn’t laugh: she’d turned over, resting on her elbow, and she looked at him. He was still on his back, not moving, he’d stopped smoking and his hand lay dead on her bare knee. A car passed and a dog barked. Ambrosio had closed his eyes and was breathing with his nostrils opened wide. His chest was slowly going up and down.

“Was that the first time? ” Queta asked. “Had there ever been anyone before for you? ”

“Yes, I was afraid, ” he complained. “I went up Brasil, along Alfonso Ugarte, crossed the Puente del Ejé rcito and both of us quiet. Yes, the first time. There wasn’t a soul on the streets. On the highway I had to turn my bright lights on because there was fog. I was so nervous that I started driving faster. All of a sudden the needle was at sixty, seventy, you know? It was there. But I didn’t run into anything. ”

“The street lights have already gone out, ” Queta said distractedly for an instant, and turned back. “What was it you felt? ”

“But I didn’t crash, I didn’t crash, ” he repeated furiously, clutching her knee. “I felt myself waking up, I felt … but I was able to put the brakes on. ”

Suddenly, as if a truck, a donkey, a tree, a man had appeared out of nowhere on the wet pavement, the car skidded, squealing savagely and whipping from left to right, zigzagging, but it didn’t leave the road. Rolling, creaking, it recovered its balance just when it appeared it would turn over and now Ambrosio slowed down, trembling.

“Do you think that with the braking, with the skid he let go of me? ” Ambrosio complained, hesitating. “His hand stayed right there, like this. ”

“Who told you to stop, ” Don Fermí n’s voice said. “I said Ancó n. ”

“And his hand there, right here, ” Ambrosio whispered. “I couldn’t think and I started up again and, I don’t know. I don’t know. You know? All of a sudden sixty, seventy on the needle again. He hadn’t let go of me. His hand was still like this. ”

“He had your number as soon as he saw you, ” Queta murmured, turning over on her back. “One look and he saw that you’d evaporate if you were treated badly. He looked at you and saw that if someone got on your good side, you’d be putty in his hands. ”

“I thought I’m going to crash and I went faster, ” Ambrosio complained, panting. “I went faster, you know. ”

“He saw that you’d die of fright, ” Queta said dryly, without compassion. “That you wouldn’t do anything, that he could do whatever he wanted with you. ”

“I’m going to crash, I’m going to crash. ” Ambrosio panted. “And I pushed my foot farther down. Yes, I was afraid, you know? ”

“You were afraid because you’re servile, ” Queta said with disgust. “Because he’s white and you’re not, because he’s rich and you’re not. Because you’re used to having people do whatever they want to with you. ”

“All I had room for in my head was that, ” Ambrosio whispered, more agitated. “If he doesn’t let go, I’m going to crash. And his hand here, like this, see? Just like that all the way to Ancó n. ”

Ambrosio had come back from Morales Transportation with a face that right away made Amalia think it went bad for him. She hadn’t asked him anything. She’d seen him pass her without looking, go out into the garden, sit down on the chair that had no seat, take off his shoes, light a cigarette, scratching the match angrily, and start looking at the grass with murder in his eyes.

“That time there wasn’t any foo yong or foo beer, ” Ambrosio says. “I went into his office and right off he held me back with a look that meant you can stew in your own juice, nigger. ”

Besides that, he’d run the index finger of his right hand across his neck and then raised it to his temple: bang, Ambrosio. But still smiling with his wide face and his wily bulging eyes. He was fanning himself with a newspaper: it’s bad, boy, a total loss. They practically hadn’t sold a single coffin and for those last two months he’d had to pay the rent out of his own pocket, as well as the pittance for the half-wit and what they owed the carpenters: there were the bills, Ambrosio had fingered them without looking, Amalia, and had sat down across the desk: that was awful news he was giving him, Don Hilario.

“Worse than awful, ” he’d admitted. “The times are so bad that people can’t even afford to die. ”

“I just want to say one thing, Don Hilario, ” Ambrosio had said after a moment, with complete respect. “Look, you’re right, of course. Of course the business will show a profit in a little while. ”

“Absolutely, ” Don Hilario had said. “The world belongs to people who are patient. ”

“But I’ve got money trouble and my wife is expecting another child, ” Ambrosio had continued. “So even if I wanted to be patient, I can’t. ”

An intricate and surprised smile had filled out Don Hilario’s face as he continued fanning himself with one hand and had begun to pick his tooth with the other: two children were nothing, the trick was to reach a dozen, like him, Ambrosio.

“So I’m going to let you have Limbo Coffins all to yourself, ” Ambrosio had explained. “I’d rather have my share back. To work with it on my own, sir. Maybe I’ll have better luck. ”

That’s when he started his cackling, Amalia, and Ambrosio had fallen silent, as if concentrating on killing everything close by: the grass, the trees, Amalita Hortensia, the sky. He hadn’t laughed. He’d watched Don Hilario wriggling in his chair, fanning himself rapidly, and he’d waited with a tight seriousness for him to stop laughing.

“Did you think it was some kind of savings account? ” he’d finally thundered, drying the perspiration on his forehead, and the laugh got the better of him again. “That you can put your money in and take it out whenever you feel like it? ”

“Cluck, cluck, cock-a-doodle-doo, ” Ambrosio says. “He was crying, he was laughing so hard, he turned red from laughing, he was worn out from laughing. And I was waiting peacefully. ”

“It’s not stupidity, it’s not trickery, I don’t know what it is. ” Don Hilario pounded on the table, flushed and wet. “Tell me what you think I am. A fool, an imbecile, what am I? ”

“First you laugh and then you get mad, ” Ambrosio had said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, sir. ”

“When I tell you the business is going under, what do you think it is that’s going under? ” He started to talk in riddles, Amalia, and he’d looked at Ambrosio with pity. “If you and I put fifteen thousand soles each into a boat and the boat sinks in the river, what sinks along with the boat? ”

“Limbo Coffins hasn’t sunk, ” Ambrosio had stated. “It’s right there as large as life across from my house. ”

“You want to sell it, transfer it? ” Don Hilario had asked. “I’d be delighted, right now. Except that first you’ve got to find some easy mark who’d be willing to take on the corpse. Not someone who’d give you back the thirty thousand we put in, not even a lunatic would do that. Someone who’d accept it as a gift and be willing to take care of the half-wit and pay the carpenters. ”

“Do you mean I’m never going to see a single one of the fifteen thousand soles I gave you? ” Ambrosio had said.

“Someone who would at least give me back the extra money I advanced you, ” Don Hilario had said. “Twelve hundred now, here are the receipts. Or have you forgotten already? ”

“Go to the police, file a complaint against him, ” Amalia had said. “Have them make him give you back your money. ”

That afternoon, while Ambrosio was smoking one cigarette after another on the chair without a seat, Amalia had felt that burning that was hard to locate, that acid emptiness at the mouth of her stomach from her worst moments with Trinidad: was bad luck going to start all over again for her here? They’d eaten in silence and then Doñ a Lupe had come by to chat, but when she saw them so serious, she’d left at once. At night, in bed, Amalia had asked him what are you going to do. He didn’t know yet, Amalia, he was thinking. The next day Ambrosio had left very early without taking his lunch for the trip. Amalia had felt nauseous and when Doñ a Lupe came in, around ten o’clock, she’d found her vomiting. She was telling her what had been happening when Ambrosio arrived: what’s up, hadn’t he gone to Tingo? No, The Jungle Flash was being repaired in the garage. He’d gone out to sit in the garden, spent the whole morning there thinking. At noontime Amalia had called him in for lunch and they were eating when the man had come in, almost on the run. He’d come to attention in front of Ambrosio, who hadn’t even thought to stand up: Don Hilario.

“You were spreading insolent stories around town this morning. ” Purple with rage, Doñ a Lupe, raising his voice so much that Amalita Hortensia had waked up crying. “Saying on the street that Hilario Morales had stolen your money. ”

Amalia had felt the breakfast-time nausea coming back. Ambrosio hadn’t budged: why didn’t he stand up, why didn’t he answer him? Nothing of the sort, he’d remained seated, looking at the little fat man who was roaring.

“Besides being a fool, you don’t trust people and you’re a blabbermouth, ” shouting, shouting. “So you told people you’re going to put the screws on me with the police? Fine, everything out in the open. Get up, let’s go, right now. ”

“I’m eating, ” Ambrosio had barely murmured. “Where was it you wanted me to go, sir? ”

“To the police, ” Don Hilario had bellowed. “To set things straight in the presence of the Major. To see who owes money to who, you ingrate. ”

“Don’t act like that, Don Hilario, ” Ambrosio had begged him. “They’ve been telling lies to you. How can you believe a bunch of gossips. Have a seat, sir, let me get you a beer. ”

Amalia had looked at Ambrosio in astonishment: he was smiling at him, offering him a seat. She’d stood up in a leap, run out into the yard, and vomited on the manioc plants. From there she’d heard Don Hilario: he wasn’t in the mood for any beer, he’d come to dot a few i’s, he should get up, let’s go see the Major. And Ambrosio’s voice, getting more and more faint and fawning: how could he mistrust him, sir, he’d only been complaining about his bad luck, sir.

“So no more threats or loose talk in the future, then, ” Don Hilario had said, calming down a bit. “You be careful about going around smearing my good name. ”

Amalia had seen him take a half-turn, go to the door, turn around and give one last shout: he didn’t want to see him at the business anymore, he didn’t want to have an ingrate like you as a driver, he could come by Monday and pick up his wages. Yes, it had started up again. But she’d felt more rage against Ambrosio than against Don Hilario and she came running into the room.

“Why did you let yourself be treated like that, why did you knuckle under? Why didn’t you go to the police and make a complaint? ”

“Because of you, ” Ambrosio had said, looking at her sorrowfully. “Thinking about you. Have you forgotten so soon? Don’t you remember anymore why we’re in Pucallpa? I didn’t go to the police because of you, I knuckled under because of you. ”

She’d started to cry, asked his forgiveness, and she had vomited again at night.

“He gave me six hundred soles severance pay, ” Ambrosio says. “With it we got by for a month, I don’t know how. I spent the month looking for work. In Pucallpa it’s easier to find gold than a job. Finally I got a starvation job driving a group taxi to Yarinacocha. And after a little while the final blow came, son. ”

DURING THOSE FIRST MONTHS of marriage without seeing your parents or your brother and sister, almost without hearing anything about them, had you been happy, Zavalita? Months of privation and debts, but you’ve forgotten about them and bad times are never forgotten, he thinks. He thinks: you probably had been, Zavalita. Most likely that monotony with a tight belt was happiness, that discreet lack of conviction and exaltation and ambition, most likely it was that bland mediocrity about everything. Even in bed, he thinks. From the very beginning the boardinghouse was uncomfortable for them. Doñ a Lucí a had allowed Ana to use the kitchen on the condition that it didn’t interfere with her schedule, so Ana and Santiago had to have lunch and dinner very early or very late. Then Ana and Doñ a Lucí a started having arguments over the bathroom and the ironing board, the use of dusters and brooms and the wearing out of curtains and sheets. Ana had tried to get back into La Maison de Santé but there wasn’t any opening and they had to get through two or three months before she got a part-time job at the Delgado Clinic. Then they began looking for an apartment. When he got back from La Cró nica, Santiago would find Ana awake, looking through the classified ads, and while he got undressed, she would tell him about her activities and her walks. It was her happiness, Zavalita, marking ads, making phone calls, asking questions and haggling, visiting five or six of them when she left the clinic. And yet, it had been Santiago who just by chance discovered the elf houses on Porta. He’d gone to interview someone who lived on Benavides, and as he was going up toward the Diagonal he found them. There they were: the reddish faç ade, the little pygmy houses lined up around the small gravel rectangle, the windows with grillwork and the corbels and pots of geraniums. There was a sign: apartments for rent. They’d hesitated, eight hundred was a lot of money. But they were already sick of the inconveniences of the boardinghouse and the arguments with Doñ a Lucí a and they took it. Little by little they started filling the empty little rooms with cheap furniture that they bought on time.

If Ana had her shift at the Delgado Clinic in the morning, when Santiago woke up at noon he would find breakfast all ready to be warmed up. He would stay reading until it was time to go to the paper or out on some assignment, and Ana would get back around three o’clock. They’d have lunch, he’d leave for work at five and come back at two in the morning. Ana would be thumbing through a magazine, listening to the radio, or playing cards with their neighbor, the German woman with mythomaniacal duties (one day she was an agent of Interpol, the next a political exile, another time the representative of a European consortium who had come to Peru on a mysterious mission) who lived alone and on bright days she would go out in a bathing suit to sun herself in the rectangle. And there was the Saturday ritual, Zavalita, your day off. They would get up late, have lunch at home, go to the matinee at a local movie, take a walk along the Malecó n or through Necochea Park or on the Avenida Pardo (what did we talk about? he thinks, what did we say? ), always in places that were visibly empty so as not to run into Sparky or his folks or Teté, at nightfall they would eat in some cheap restaurant (the Colinita, he thinks, at the end of the month in the Gambrinus), at night they would plunge into a movie theater again, a first run if they could manage it. At first they chose their movies with some sort of balance, a Mexican movie in the afternoon, a detective film or western at night. Now almost all Mexican, he thinks. Had you started to give in to keep things running smoothly with Ana or because it didn’t matter to you either, Zavalita? On an occasional Saturday they would travel to Ica to spend the day with Ana’s parents. They visited no one and had no visitors themselves, they didn’t have any friends.

You hadn’t gone back to the Negro-Negro with Carlitos, Zavalita, you hadn’t gone back to scrounge a free show at nightclubs or brothels. They didn’t ask him, they didn’t insist, and one day they began to tease him: you’ve gotten to be a solid citizen, Zavalita, you’ve become a good bourgeois. Had Ana been happy, was she, are you, Anita? Her voice there in the darkness on one of those nights when they made love: you don’t drink, you don’t chase women, of course I’m happy, love. Once Carlitos had come to the office drunker than usual; he came over and sat on Santiago’s desk and was looking at him in silence, with an angry face: now they only saw each other and talked in this tomb, Zavalita. A few days later, Santiago invited him to lunch at the elf house. Bring China too, Carlitos, thinking what will she say, what will Ana do: no, China and he were on the outs. He came alone and it had been a tense and uncomfortable lunch, larded with lies. Carlitos felt uncomfortable, Ana looked at him with mistrust and the topic of conversation would die as soon as it was born. Since then Carlitos hadn’t gone back to their place. He thinks: I swear I’ll come see you.

The world was small, but Lima was large and Miraflores infinite, Zavalita: six, eight months living in the same district without running into his folks or Sparky or Teté. One night at the paper, Santiago was finishing an article when someone touched him on the shoulder: hi, Freckle Face. They went out for coffee on Colmena.

“Teté and I are getting married on Saturday, Skinny, ” Popeye said. “That’s why I came to see you. ”

“I already knew, I read about it in the paper, ” Santiago said. “Congratulations, Freckle Face. ”

“Teté wants you to be her witness at the civil ceremony, ” Popeye said. “You’re going to say yes, aren’t you? And Ana and you have to come to the wedding. ”

“You remember that little scene at the house, ” Santiago said. “I suppose you know that I haven’t seen the family since then. ”

“Everything’s all been patched up, we finally convinced your old lady. ” Popeye’s ruddy face lighted up with an optimistic and fraternal smile. “She wants you to come too. And your old man, I don’t have to tell you that. They all want to see you both and make up once and for all. They’ll treat Ana with the greatest love, you’ll see. ”

They’d pardoned her, Zavalita. The old man must have lamented every day of those months over why Skinny hadn’t come, over how annoyed and resentful you must have been, and he’d probably scolded and blamed mama a hundred times, and on some nights he must have come and stood watch in his car on the Avenida Tacna to see you come out of La Cró nica. They must have talked, argued, and mama must have cried until they got used to the idea that you were married and to whom. He thinks: until we, they’ve forgiven you, Anita. We forgive her for having inveigled and stolen Skinny, we forgive her for being a peasant girl: she could come.

“Do it for Teté ’s sake and for your old man most of all, ” Popeye insisted. “You know how much he loves you, Skinny. And even for Sparky, man. Just this afternoon he told me that Superbrain should start acting like a man and come. ”

“I’d be delighted to be Teté ’s witness, Freckle Face. ” Sparky had forgiven you too, Anita: thank you, Sparky. “You have to tell me what I have to sign and where. ”

“And I hope you both will always come to our house, you will, won’t you? ” Popeye said. “You’ve got no reason to be mad at Teté and me, we didn’t do anything to you, did we? We think Ana’s very nice. ”

“But we’re not going to the wedding, Freckle Face, ” Santiago said. “I’m not mad at the folks or at Sparky. It’s just that I don’t want another little scene like the last one. ”

“Don’t be pigheaded, man, ” Popeye said. “Your old lady has her prejudices like everyone else, but underneath it all she’s a very good person. Give Teté that pleasure, Skinny, come to the wedding. ”

Popeye had already left the firm he had worked for since his graduation, the company he had set up with three colleagues was getting along, Skinny, they already had a few clients. But he’d been very busy, not so much in architecture or even with his fiancé e—he’d given you a jovial nudge with his elbow, Zavalita—but in politics: what a waste of time, right, Skinny?

“Politics? ” Santiago asked, blinking. “Are you mixed up in politics, Freckle Face? ”

“Belaú nde for all. ” Popeye laughed, showing a button on the lapel of his jacket. “Didn’t you know? I’m even on the Departmental Committee of Popular Action. You must read the papers. ”

“I never read the political news, ” Santiago said. “I didn’t know a thing about it. ”

“Belaú nde was my professor at the university, ” Popeye said. “We’ll sweep the next elections. He’s a great guy, brother. ”

“And what does your father say? ” Santiago smiled. “Is he still an Odrí ist senator? ”

“We’re a democratic family. ” Popeye laughed. “Sometimes we argue with the old man, but on a friendly basis. Aren’t you for Belaú nde? You’ve seen how they’ve called us left-wingers, just for that reason alone you should be backing the architect. Or are you still a Communist? ”

“Not anymore, ” Santiago said. “I’m not anything and I don’t want to hear anything about politics. It bores me. ”

“Too bad, Skinny, ” Popeye scolded him cordially. “If everybody thought that way, this country would never change. ”

That night, at the elf houses, while Santiago told her, Ana had listened very attentively, her eyes sparkling with curiosity: naturally they weren’t going to the wedding, Anita. She naturally not, but he should go, love, she was your sister. Besides, they’d probably say Ana wouldn’t let him come, they’d hate her all the more, he had to go. The next morning, while Santiago was still in bed, Teté appeared at the elf houses: her hair in curlers, which showed through the white silk kerchief, svelte, wearing slacks and happy. It was as if she’d been seeing you every day, Zavalita: she died laughing watching you light the oven to heat up your breakfast, she examined the two small rooms with a magnifying glass, poked through the books, even pulled on the toilet chain to see how it worked. She liked everything: the whole development looked as if it had been made for dolls, the little red houses all so alike, everything so small, so cute.

“Stop messing things up, your sister-in-law will be mad at me, ” Santiago said. “Sit down and let’s talk a little. ”

Teté sat on the low bookcase, but she kept looking around voraciously. Was she in love with Popeye? Of course, idiot, did you think she’d marry him if she wasn’t? They’d live with Popeye’s parents for a little while, until the building where Freckle Face’s folks had given them an apartment as a wedding present would be finished. Their honeymoon? First to Mexico and then the United States.

“I hope you’ll send me some postcards, ” Santiago said. “All my life I’ve dreamed of traveling and up till now I’ve only got as far as Ica. ”

“You didn’t even call mama on her birthday, you brought on a flood of tears, ” Teté said. “But I suppose that on Sunday you’ll be coming to the house with Ana. ”

“Be content with the fact that I’ll be your witness, ” Santiago said. “We’re not going to the church and we’re not going to the house. ”

“Stop your nonsense, Superbrain, ” Teté said, laughing. “I’m going to convince Ana and I’m going to give it to you, ha-ha. And I’m going to get Ana to come to my shower and everything, you’ll see. ”

And in fact, Teté did come back that afternoon and Santiago left them, her and Ana, when he went off to La Cró nica, chatting like two lifelong friends. At night Ana received him all smiles: they’d spent the whole afternoon together and Teté was so nice, she’d even convinced her. Wasn’t it better if they made up with your family once and for all?

“No, ” Santiago said. “It’s better we don’t. Let’s not talk about it anymore. ”