Mario Llosa - Who Killed Palomino Molero?

“On my first tour of duty, in Abancay, when I’d just graduated from officer candidate school, I had a boss who wouldn’t stand for bullshit like that. A captain who, if anyone ever did something like that, you know what he did, Lituma? He’d take out his revolver and blow out the guy’s tires.” The lieutenant stared bitterly at the truck disappearing in the distance. “We called him Captain Cunthound because he was always after women. Wouldn’t you like to blow out that bastard’s tires?”

“Yes, Lieutenant.”

The officer looked at him curiously.

“You can’t get all that stuff you heard out of your head, can you?”

Lituma nodded.

“I just can’t believe everything Doña Lupe told us. Or that it happened here in this miserable hole.”

The lieutenant tossed his cigarette butt to the other side of the road and mopped his forehead and neck with his already drenched handkerchief.

“Right. She told us a lot.”

“I never thought the story would turn out like this. Lieutenant. I’d imagined all kinds of things, but not this.”

“Does that mean that you know everything that happened to the kid, Lituma?”

“Well, more or less, Lieutenant. Don’t you?”

“Not yet. That’s another thing you’re going to have to learn. Nothing’s easy, Lituma. The truths that seem most truthful, if you look at them from all sides, if you look at them close up, turn out either to be half truths or lies.”

“Okay, that may be, but in this case, aren’t things pretty much cut-and-dried?”

“As of now, even though you think I’m kidding, I’m not even completely convinced that it was Colonel Mindreau and Lieutenant Dufó who killed him.” There was no irony in his voice. “The only thing I’m sure of is that they were the two men who came here and took them away.”

“I’m going to tell you something. That’s not what got to me in all this. Know what it is? Now I know why the kid enlisted at the Talara base. So he could be near the girl he loved. Doesn’t it seem incredible that anyone would do something like that? That a boy exempt from the draft would come and join up for love, to be near the girl he loves?”

“And why does that surprise you so much?” said Lieutenant Silva, laughing.

“It’s certainly not what just anybody would do, not something you hear of every day.”

Lieutenant Silva began to flag down a vehicle approaching in the distance.

“Then you don’t know what love is. I’d join the Air Force, become a buck private in the Army, become a priest, a garbageman, and I’d even eat shit if I had to, just to be near my chubby, Lituma.”

“There she is. Didn’t I tell you? Here she comes,” exclaimed Lieutenant Silva, his binoculars jammed against his eyes. He stretched his neck like a giraffe reaching for a high branch. “As punctual as if she were meeting the Queen of England for tea. Welcome, my dear! Come on, strip so we can see you once and for all. Get down, Lituma, if she even turns this way a little she’ll see us for sure.”

Lituma flattened out behind the rock where they’d taken up positions half an hour earlier. Was that dust cloud approaching them really Doña Adriana? Or was Lieutenant Silva so hot for her that he was seeing visions? The two of them were hiding up on Crab Point, a natural watchtower that overlooked a stony beach and a quiet inlet. How had the lieutenant discovered that Doña Adriana came here to take her afternoon baths when the setting sun turned red and the heat relented a little? Because in fact that moving red dust cloud was Doña Adriana. Lituma could now make out her compact shape and undulating walk.

“This is the greatest gift I’ve ever given anyone, Lituma. You’re going to see Chubby’s ass, nothing less. And her tits. And, if you’re lucky, her snatch with its curly little hairs. Get ready, Lituma, because you’re going to die when you see it all. It’s your birthday present, your promotion. How lucky you are to work for a guy like me!”

Lieutenant Silva had been chattering like a parrot ever since they’d arrived, but Lituma barely heard him. He paid more attention to the crabs than to his boss’s jokes or even to the advent of Doña Adriana. The point was justifiably famous for its myriad crabs: each one of those tiny holes in the ground represented a crab. Lituma watched in fascination as they peeked out, looking at first like moving stains. Once they emerged, they stretched, widened, and began to run in that confusing way which made it impossible to know if they were moving forward or backward. “Just like us in this Palomino Molero business.”

“Get down, get down, don’t let her see you. Terrific! She’s stripping.”

It occurred to Lituma that the entire point was honeycombed with crab tunnels. What if it caved in? Both of them would sink into the dark, asphyxiating sand crawling with swarms of those living shells armed with pincers. Before they died, they’d suffer hellish torture. He patted the ground: it was as hard as stone. Good.

“Well, at least lend me the binoculars,” Lituma complained. “You invited me here so I could see her, too, but you’re doing all the looking.”

“Why do you think I’m the boss, asshole?” But he passed him the binoculars. “Take a quick look. I don’t want you to become an addict.”

Lituma adjusted the binoculars and looked. He saw Doña Adriana down below, leaning against the breakwater, calmly taking off her dress. Did she know she was being watched? Did she take her time like that just to get the lieutenant hot and bothered? No, her movements were loose and casual, because she was sure she was alone. She folded her dress and stretched to lay it on a rock where the spray wouldn’t reach it. Just as the lieutenant had said she wore a short pink slip, and Lituma could see her thighs which were as thick as young laurel trees, and her breasts which were exposed right to the edge of her nipples.

“Who would have thought that at her age Doña Adriana had so many tasty little tidbits?”

“Don’t look so hard. You’re going to wear her out,” the lieutenant scolded him as he took back the binoculars. “Actually, the best part comes now when she goes in the water, because the slip sticks to her body and turns transparent. This is not a show for enlisted men, Lituma. Only lieutenants and above.”

Lituma laughed, just to be amiable, not because the lieutenant’s jokes were funny. He felt uncomfortable and impatient. Was it because of Palomino Molero? Could be. Ever since he’d seen the boy impaled, crucified, and burned on that rocky field, he hadn’t been able to get him out of his mind for a single moment. At first he thought that once they’d found out who killed him and why, he’d be free of Palomino Molero. But now, even though they’d more or less cleared up the mystery, the image of the boy was in his mind night and day. You’re ruining my life, you little bastard. He decided that this weekend he’d ask the lieutenant for a pass to go to Piura. It was payday. He’d dig up the Unstoppables and invite them to get drunk at La Chunga ’s place. Then they’d finish off the evening in the Green House, with the whores. That would get his mind off things and make him feel better, goddamn it.

“My little Chubby belongs to a superior race of women: those who don’t wear panties. Think of all the advantages of having a woman who goes through life without panties.”

Lieutenant Silva passed him the binoculars, but no matter how much he squinted, he really didn’t see very much. Doña Adriana bathed right at the edge of the water: her paddling and the mild surf made her slip wet and translucent, so Lituma could actually see her body. It was garbage.

“My eyes must not be so good, or maybe I just don’t have your imagination, Lieutenant. All I see is foam.”