Conversation in the Cathedral (80 page)

“At that pace you’re going to get sick on us.” Don Fermín started to laugh. “Go ahead, have another drink.”

“Playing with you like a cat with a mouse,” Queta murmured with disgust. “You like that, I’ve come to see it. Being the mouse. Letting them step on you, treat you badly. If I hadn’t treated you badly, you wouldn’t have got the money together to come up here and tell me your troubles. Your troubles? The first few times I thought so, now I don’t. You enjoy everything that happens to you.”

“Sitting there like an equal, having a drink,” he said with the same opaque, rarefied, distant tone of voice. “Don Cayo didn’t seem to mind or he was pretending he didn’t. And he wouldn’t let me leave, you know?”

“Where are you going there, stay,” Don Fermín joked, ordered for the tenth time. “Stay there, where are you off to?”

“He was different from all the other times I’d seen him,” Ambrosio said. “Those times he hadn’t seen me. By his way of looking and talking too. He was talking without stopping, about anything under the sun, and all of a sudden he said a dirty word. He, who seemed to have such good manners and with that look of a …”

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 Fermín 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 Fermín tossed down what was left in his glass and stood up: he was tired, Don Cayo, it was time to go. Cayo Bermúdez also got up.

“Let Ambrosio take you, Don Fermín,” 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 Fermín 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 Fermín said, closing the door carefully and not looking at him. “Let’s go to Ancón.”

“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 Ancón, sir?”

“Yes. Ancón.” Don Fermín 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 Ancón,” Don Fermín 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 Ancón 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 Ejército 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 Fermín’s voice said. “I said Ancón.”

“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 Ancón.”

*

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 Doña 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 Doña 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.