Mario Vargas Llosa - The Discreet Hero

“I’ve come about a matter that’s much more important to me. More than the spider letters, more than your attempt to extort money from me, more than the fake kidnapping you planned with Mabel, more than the fire at my office.” Miguel remained motionless, his head down, and Sergeant Lituma didn’t move either. “I’ve come to tell you that I’m glad about what happened, glad you did what you did. Because thanks to that, I’ve been able to clear up a doubt I’ve had my whole life. You know what it is, don’t you? You must have thought about it every time you saw your face in the mirror and wondered why you had a white mug when your mother and I are cholos . I spent my life asking myself that question too. Until now I swallowed it and didn’t try to find out, for fear of hurting your feelings or Gertrudis’s. But now there’s no reason for me to worry about you. I solved the mystery. That’s why I came. To tell you something that will make you as happy as it makes me. You’re not my son, Miguel. You never were. Your mother and the Boss Lady — your mother’s mother, your grandmother — when they found out Gertrudis was pregnant, made me believe I was the father to force me to marry her. They tricked me. I wasn’t the father. I married Gertrudis out of the goodness of my heart. My doubts are cleared up now. Your mother came clean and confessed everything to me. A great joy, Miguel. I would have died of sadness if a son of mine, with my blood in his veins, had done what you did to me. Now I’m calm and even happy. It wasn’t a son of mine, it was some bastard. What a relief to know it isn’t my blood, my father’s clean blood, in your veins. Another thing, Miguel. Not even your mother knows who got her pregnant with you. She says it was probably one of the Yugoslavs who came for the Chira irrigation. Though she isn’t sure. Or maybe it was another of the hungry white men who’d fall into El Algarrobo boardinghouse and pass through her bed too. Make a note of that, Miguel. I’m not your father and not even your own mother knows whose jizzum made you. So you’re one of the many bastards in Piura, one of those kids born to washerwomen or sheepherders after gangs of drunken soldiers shoot their loads. A bastard with lots of fathers, Miguel, that’s what you are. I’m not surprised you did what you did with such a mix of blood in your veins.”

He stopped speaking because the head with unkempt blond hair came up, violently. He saw the blue eyes bloodshot and filled with hatred. “He’s going to attack me, he’ll try to strangle me,” he thought. Sergeant Lituma must have thought the same thing because he took a step forward, and with his hand on his holster, stood next to the trucker to protect him. But Miguel seemed crushed, incapable of reacting or moving. Tears ran down his cheeks and his hands and mouth trembled. He was ashen. He wanted to say something, but the words wouldn’t come out, and at times his body made an abdominal noise, like a belch or retching.

Felícito Yanaqué started to speak again with the same contained coldness he’d used in his long statement.

“I haven’t finished. A little patience. This is the last time we’ll see each other, happily for you and for me. I’m going to leave you this portfolio. Read each of the papers carefully that my lawyer has prepared for you. Dr. Hildebrando Castro Pozo, you know him very well. If you agree, sign each of the pages where there’s an X. He’ll have the papers picked up tomorrow and will take care of procedures before the judge. It’s something very simple. It’s called a change of identity. You’re going to give up the name Yanaqué, which doesn’t belong to you anyway. You can keep your mother’s surname or invent anything you like. In exchange, I won’t press charges against the author of the spider letters, the man responsible for the fire at Narihualá Transport, and for the false abduction of Mabel. It’s possible that because of this, you’ll escape the years in prison you’d have faced otherwise and walk out of here. But, as soon as you’re free, you’re going to leave Piura. You won’t set foot again in this place, where everybody knows you’re a criminal. Besides, nobody would give you a decent job here. I don’t want to run into you again. You have until tomorrow to think it over. If you don’t want to sign those papers, so be it. The trial will follow and I’ll move heaven and earth to make sure your sentence is a long one. It’s your decision. One last thing. Your mother hasn’t come to visit you because she doesn’t want to see you again either. I didn’t ask her, it was her own decision. That’s it. We can leave, Sergeant. May God forgive you, Miguel. I never will.”

He tossed the portfolio of papers at Miguel’s feet and turned toward the door, followed by Sergeant Lituma. Miguel remained motionless, the green portfolio on the floor in front of him, his eyes filled with hatred and tears, silently moving his mouth, as if he’d been hit by a lightning bolt that had deprived him of movement, speech, and reason. “This will be the last image of him that I’ll remember,” thought Felícito. They walked silently to the prison exit. The taxi was waiting for them. As the rattling jalopy jounced its way through the outskirts of Piura on the way to the police station on Avenida Sánchez Cerro to drop off Lituma, he and the trucker were silent. When they were already in the city, the sergeant was the first to speak.

“May I say something, Don Felícito?”

“Go on, Sergeant.”

“I never imagined anyone could say those awful things you said to your son in the prison. My blood ran cold, I swear.”

“He isn’t my son,” said the trucker, raising his hand.

“I’m really sorry, I know that,” the sergeant apologized. “Of course I agree with you, what Miguel did is unforgivable. But even so. Don’t get angry, but those were the cruelest things I’ve ever heard anybody say, Don Felícito. I’d never have believed it of a person as good-hearted as you. I don’t understand why the boy didn’t attack you. I thought he would, which is why I opened my holster. I was ready to pull out the revolver, I tell you.”

“He didn’t dare to because I won the moral battle,” replied Felícito. “What I said might have been harsh, but did I lie or exaggerate, Sergeant? I might have been cruel, but I only told him the absolute truth.”

“A terrible truth that I swear I won’t repeat to anybody. Not even Captain Silva. My word of honor, Don Felícito. On the other hand, you’ve been very generous. If you drop all charges against him, he’ll go free. One other thing, changing the subject. That expression, ‘shoot their load.’ I heard it as a kid but had forgotten it. I don’t think anybody says it nowadays in Piura.”

“There aren’t so many gangs of men shooting their load as there used to be,” the taxi driver interposed, laughing with some nostalgia. “When I was a kid there were a lot. Soldiers don’t go down to the river anymore or to the farms to fuck the cholas . Now things are stricter in the barracks and they’re punished if they shoot their load. They even force them to get married, hey waddya think.”

They said goodbye at the entrance to the police station, and the trucker ordered the taxi to take him to his office, but when the car was about to stop outside Narihualá Transport, he suddenly changed his mind. He told the driver to go back to Castilla and leave him as close as possible to the Puente Colgante. As they drove through the Plaza de Armas, he saw Joaquín Ramos, the reciter of poetry, dressed in black, wearing his monocle and dreamy expression, walking undaunted in the middle of the road, pulling his she-goat along. Cars swerved, and instead of insulting him, the drivers waved a hand in greeting.