Mario Llosa: Who Killed Palomino Molero?

When would Lieutenant Silva start asking her questions? Lituma felt the corn beer going to his head. It was high noon and hot as hell. He and the lieutenant were the only customers. Looking out the door, they could see the slumped-over little Church of St. Nicholas, heroically resisting the passage of time. A few hundred yards beyond the dunes was the highway and the trucks going to Sullana or Talara. Lituma and the lieutenant had hitched a ride on a truck loaded with chickens. They’d been dropped off on the highway, and as they walked through the town they’d seen curious faces pop out of every shack in Amotape. The lieutenant asked which place was Doña Lupe’s, and the chorus of kids around them instantly pointed out the place where he and Lituma were now sipping chicha out of gourds.

Lituma sighed in relief. At least the woman existed, so the trip might not be a wild-goose chase. They’d had to ride on the back of the truck, deafened by the clucking, with the smell of chicken shit in their noses and with feathers flying in their mouths and ears. The unrelenting sun had given them a headache. When they went back to Talara, they’d have to walk all the way to the highway, stand there, and wait until some truck driver condescended to give them a lift.

“Afternoon, Doña Lupe,” Lieutenant Silva had said as they walked in. “We’ve come to see if your chicha , your banana chips, and your kid stew are as good as people say. We’ve heard a lot of good things about your place; I hope you don’t let us down.”

Judging by the way she looked at them, Doña Lupe hadn’t swallowed the lieutenant’s story. Especially, thought Lituma, when you consider how sour her chicha is and how tasteless this stew is. At first there were children crowding around them, but little by little they got bored and drifted out. Now the only ones left in the shack were three half-naked little girls sitting around the stove playing with some empty gourds. They must have been Doña Lupe’s daughters, though it was hard to see how a woman her age could have such young kids. Maybe she wasn’t as old as she looked. All their attempts to strike up a conversation with her failed. They’d talked about the weather, the drought, this year’s cotton crop, how Amotape got its name-and she’d answered every question the same way: yes, no, I don’t know, or just plain silence.

“I’m going to say something that’s going to surprise you, Lituma. You think Doña Adriana’s fat, right? Well, you’re wrong. What she is is plump, which is not the same as being fat.”

When was the lieutenant going to get started? How-would he do it? Lituma couldn’t sit still; his boss’s tricks constantly surprised him and aroused his admiration. It was clear that Lieutenant Silva was as eager as he was to untangle the mystery surrounding Palomino Molero’s death, and he’d seen how excited the lieutenant had become when he read the anonymous letter. Sniffing at the paper like a bloodhound sniffing a trail, he declared, “This isn’t bullshit. It’s a promising lead. We’ve got to go to Amotape.”

“Know the difference between a fat woman and a plump woman, Lituma? A fat woman is soft, covered with rolls, spongy. You poke her, and your hand sinks in as if she were made of cottage cheese. You think you’ve been fooled. A plump woman is hard, filled-out, she’s got what it takes and more. Everything in the right places. It’s all well distributed and well proportioned. You poke her and your finger bounces off. There’s always enough, more than enough, enough to take all you want and even to give some away.”

All the way to Amotape, as the desert sun bore its way through their caps, the lieutenant kept on talking about the anonymous note, speculating about Lieutenant Dufó, Colonel Mindreau, and his daughter. But from the moment they entered Doña Lupe’s shack, it was as if his interest in Palomino Molero had gone into eclipse. As they ate, he talked only about how Amotape got its name, or-of course -about Doña Adriana. And out loud to boot, totally unconcerned that Doña Lupe might hear his lascivious remarks.

“It’s the difference between fat and muscle, Lituma. A fat woman is pure lard. A plump woman is pure muscle. Tits that are pure muscle-that’s the best thing in the world! Even better than this stewed kid of Doña Lupe’s. Don’t laugh, Lituma, it’s the God’s honest truth. You don’t know about these things, but I do. A big, muscular ass, muscular thighs, shoulders, hips: isn’t that a lovely dish to set before a king? God almighty! That’s the way my baby back in Talara is, Lituma. Not fat, but plump. A woman who’s pure muscle, goddamn it. Just what I like.”

Lituma laughed because it was his duty to laugh, but Doña Lupe remained serious throughout the lieutenant’s discourse, scrutinizing the two of them. “She’s waiting,” thought Lituma, “probably as nervous as I am.” When would the lieutenant get going? He acted as if he had all the time in the world. And he just never gave up talking about the fat love of his life.

“You might well be wondering how it is that I know Doña Adrianita is plump and not fat. Does that mean I’ve touched her? Just here and there, Lituma, just here and there. Quick feels. It’s dumb, I know it. And you’re right to think it. But the fact is that I’ve seen her. There it is, now I’ve told you my biggest secret. I’ve seen her bathing in her slip over on that little beach behind Crab Point where all the Talara women go so the men won’t see them. Why do you think I disappear all the time at about five in the afternoon with my binoculars? I tell you I’m going to have coffee over at the Hotel Royal. Why do you think I climb up that point by that little beach? What else, Lituma? I go to see my honey bathing in her pink slip. When that slip gets wet, it’s as if she had nothing on at all, Lituma. God almighty! Get out the fire extinguisher, Doña Lupe, I’m on fire! Put out this blaze! Now that’s where you can see a plump body, Lituma. That hard ass, those hard tits, pure muscle from head to toe. Someday I’ll take you with me and show you. I’ll lend you my binoculars. Then you’ll really get cross-eyed. And you’ll see how right I am. That’s right, Lituma, I’m not jealous, at least of enlisted men. If you behave yourself, I’ll take you out to the point. You’ll be in heaven when you see that Amazon.”

It was as if he’d forgotten why they’d come to Amotape, goddamn it. But just when Lituma’s impatience had reached its limit, Lieutenant Silva suddenly fell silent. He took off his sunglasses-Lituma saw that his eyes were bright and incisive-cleaned them with his handkerchief, and put them on again.

He calmly lit a cigarette and began to speak in honeyed tones: “Excuse me, Doña Lupe. Come on over here a minute and sit down with us, will you? We have to have a little talk, okay?”

“What about?” Her teeth were chattering, and she was shaking so much it was as if she had malaria. Lituma realized that he, too, was trembling.

“About Palomino Molero, Doña Lupe, what else could it be? I wouldn’t talk with you about my sweetie over in Talara, my little chubby, right? Come on, sit right here.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.” She sat down like a robot on the bench the lieutenant had pointed to. She seemed to have shriveled and gotten thinner than before. “I swear I don’t know who that is.”

“Of course you know who Palomino Molero is, Doña Lupe.” The lieutenant was no longer smiling and spoke in a cold, hard tone that caught even Lituma off-guard: “Okay, now we’re going to find out what happened.” Lieutenant Silva went on: “You remember him, Doña Lupe. The Air Force guy they killed over in Talara. The one they burned with cigarettes and then hung. The one who got a stick shoved up his backside. Palomino Molero, a skinny kid who sang boleros. He was here, right where we are now. Now do you remember?”