Mario Vargas Llosa: The Discreet Hero

Armida? Armida? Rigoberto went over all the women he knew, but none had that name.

“Do I know her?” he finally asked.

“Armida,” Ismael repeated, scrutinizing and measuring him with a little smile. “You know her very well. You’ve seen her a thousand times in my house. It’s just that you never noticed her. Because nobody ever notices domestic servants.”

Rigoberto’s fork, holding another mouthful of corvina, slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor. As he bent over to pick it up he felt his heart begin to pound. He heard his boss laughing. Was it possible? Was he going to marry his servant? Didn’t these things happen only in soap operas? Was Ismael serious or was he kidding? He imagined the rumors, the inventions, the conjectures, the jokes that would inflame the gossips of Lima: This diversion would last a long time.

“Somebody here is crazy,” he mumbled. “You or me. Or are we both crazy, Ismael?”

“She’s a good woman and we love each other,” his boss said, without the slightest sign of discomfort. “I’ve known her a long time. She’ll be an excellent companion in my old age, you’ll see.”

Now Rigoberto could see her, re-create her, invent her. A good-looking brunette, very black hair, lively eyes. A typical woman from the coast with an easy manner, slim, not very short. A fairly presentable chola . “He must be forty years older than her, maybe more,” he thought. “Ismael has lost his mind.”

“If your intention in your old age is to be part of the most sensational scandal in the history of Lima, you’ll succeed,” he said with a sigh. “You’ll be fodder for the gossips for God only knows how many years. Centuries, perhaps.”

Ismael laughed openly, with good humor this time, agreeing.

“At last I’ve told you, Rigoberto,” he exclaimed with relief. “The truth is I found it very difficult. I confess I had endless doubts. I was dying of embarrassment. When I told Narciso, that black man’s eyes opened as wide as saucers, and he almost swallowed his tongue. Well, now you know. There’ll be a huge scandal and I don’t give a damn. Do you still agree to be my witness?”

Rigoberto nodded his head: Yes, yes, Ismael, if he asked how would he not agree. But, but … Damn, he didn’t know what the hell to say.

“Is this wedding absolutely necessary?” he finally found the courage to say. “I mean, to risk facing everything that you’ll suffer. I’m not thinking only of the scandal, Ismael. You can imagine where I’m going with this. Is it worth the monumental trouble this will unleash with your sons? A marriage has legal and economic effects. Well, I imagine you’ve thought about all this and that I’m talking to you like a fool. Am I right, Ismael?”

He saw his boss drink half a glass of white wine in a single swallow. He saw him shrug and agree.

“They’ll try to have me declared incompetent,” he said sarcastically, making a scornful face. “Of course a lot of palms will have to be greased, what with judges and shyster lawyers. I have more money than they do, so they won’t win the suit, if they decide to bring it.”

He spoke without looking at Rigoberto, without raising his voice so people at nearby tables couldn’t hear him, with his eyes fixed on the ocean. But he clearly wasn’t seeing the surfers, or the gulls, or the waves rushing to the shore and throwing off white foam, or the double line of cars driving along the Costa Verde. His voice was filling with rage.

“Is it all worth it, Ismael?” Rigoberto repeated. “Lawyers, notaries, judges, court appearances, the indecency of reporters digging into your private life ad nauseam. All that trouble, besides the fortune that this kind of whim will cost you, the headaches and quarrels. Is it worth it?”

Instead of responding, Ismael surprised him with another question.

“Do you remember when I had my heart attack in September?”

Rigoberto remembered very well. Everyone had thought Ismael would die. It had taken him by surprise in his car, driving back to Lima from a lunch in Ancón. He’d passed out and Narciso took him to the Clínica San Felipe. They kept him in intensive care for several days, on oxygen, so weak he couldn’t speak.

“We thought you were done for, what a scare you gave us. Why do you bring that up now?”

“That was when I decided to marry Armida.” Ismael’s face had become sour and his voice filled with bitterness. At that moment he looked older. “I was close to death, of course I was. I could see it up close, touch it, smell it. I was too weak to speak, that’s true. But I could hear. That pair of contemptible sons I have didn’t know that, Rigoberto. I can tell you. Only you. You’ll never tell anyone about it, not even Lucrecia. Swear you won’t, please.”

“Dr. Gamio has been crystal clear,” Miki said enthusiastically. “He kicks the bucket tonight, brother. A massive heart attack. A devastating heart attack, he said. And slim chances of recovery.”

“Not so loud,” Escobita reproached him. He spoke very softly in the half-light that deformed silhouettes, in the strange room that smelled of formaldehyde. “From your lips, compadre. Couldn’t you find out anything about the will in Dr. Arnillas’s office? Because if he wants to fuck us, we’re fucked. That old bastard knows all the tricks.”

“Arnillas keeps his mouth shut because he’s been paid off,” said Miki, lowering his voice. “I went to see him this afternoon and tried to get something out of him but there was no way. I asked around anyway. Even if he wanted to fuck us, he couldn’t. The money he gave us when he got us out of the company doesn’t count, there are no documents and no solid proof. The law’s absolutely clear. We’re compulsory heirs. That’s what it’s called: compulsory. He can’t do anything, brother.”

“Don’t be so sure, compadre. He knows all the tricks. As long as he can fuck us he’s capable of anything.”

“Let’s hope he doesn’t last the day,” said Miki. “Because, if nothing else, the old geezer will give us another sleepless night.”

“‘Old bastard’ says one, ‘I hope he croaks right now’ says the other, less than a meter away from me, happy to know I was dying,” Ismael recalled, speaking slowly, his gaze lost in the void. “Do you know something, Rigoberto? They saved me from dying. Yes, those two, I swear it. Because listening to them say those outrageous things gave me an incredible will to live. To deny them the satisfaction, to not die. And I swear my body responded. I decided right there, right in the hospital: If I recover, I’m marrying Armida. I’ll fuck them before they can fuck me. They wanted war? They’d have one. And they’ll have one, old man. I can see their faces now.”

Bitterness, disappointment, anger filled not only his words and voice but also the grimace that twisted his mouth, the hands that crushed his napkin.

“It could have been a hallucination, a nightmare,” Rigoberto murmured, not believing what he was saying. “With all the drugs in your body, you could have dreamed the whole thing, Ismael. You were delirious, I saw you.”

“I knew very well my sons never loved me,” his boss continued, ignoring him. “But not that they hated me so much that they’d wish me dead so they could get their inheritance once and for all. And of course squander in the blink of an eye what my father and I broke our backs to build up over so many years. Well, they won’t be able to. Those hyenas will be disappointed.”

Hyenas described Ismael’s sons pretty well, thought Rigoberto. A couple of scoundrels, one worse than the other. Lazy, too fond of carousing, abusive, a pair of parasites who dishonored the name of their father and grandfather. How had they turned out this way? It certainly wasn’t for lack of affection and care from their parents. Just the opposite. Ismael and Clotilde always bent over backward for them, doing the impossible to give them the best upbringing. They dreamed of turning them into two fine gentlemen. How the devil did they turn out so bad? It wasn’t all that strange that they’d had their sinister conversation at the foot of their dying father’s bed. And they were stupid on top of everything else, not even thinking he could hear them. They were capable of that and worse, of course. Rigoberto knew this very well; over the years he’d often been the shoulder his boss had cried on, Ismael’s confidant about his sons’ outrageous behavior. How Ismael and Clotilde had suffered because of the scandals the boys had caused from the time they were very young.