Mario Llosa - Who Killed Palomino Molero?

“He knows every trick in the book. He could make a mute talk.” Lituma had discreetly retreated to the wall. From there he could see the girl’s oblique, thin profile, her solemn, judgmental little nose. Suddenly he understood Palomino: she certainly wasn’t a beauty, but there was something in that cold face that was fascinating, mysterious, something that could drive a man crazy. He felt contradictory emotions. He wanted the lieutenant to get his way and make Alicia Mindreau tell everything she knew, but at the same time, without understanding why, he was sorry this child was going to reveal all her secrets. It was as if Alicia Mindreau were falling into a trap. He wanted to save her. Could she really be crazy?

“The one who might have a little trouble is the jealous lover.” The lieutenant seemed almost sorry to have to mention it. “I mean Ricardo Dufó. Richard. Of course, jealousy is something that any judge who understands the human heart will call a mitigating circumstance. I mean, I always think of jealousy as a mitigating circumstance. If a guy-really loves a woman, he gets jealous. I know it, miss, because f know what love is and I’m a jealous man. Jealousy upsets your thinking, keeps you from thinking straight. It’s like drinking. If your boyfriend can prove that what he did to Palomino Molero happened because he was crazy-that’s the important idea, miss, he’s got to say he was crazy, remember that-it may be they’ll say he wasn’t responsible for his acts. With a little luck and a good lawyer, it may work out that way. So you needn’t worry about your jealous lover either, Miss Mindreau.”

He raised the cup to his lips and noisily drank the rest of the coffee. His forehead still had the mark of his cap, and Lituma could not see his eyes, hidden behind dark glasses. All he could see were the thin mustache, the mouth, and the chin. Once Lituma had asked him, “Why don’t you ever take off your glasses, even when it’s dark, Lieutenant?” He’d answered, mockingly, “So I can screw people up.”

“I’m not worried about him. I hate him. I only wish the worst things in the world would happen to him. I say it to his face all the time. Once he went and got his revolver. He said to me, ‘Just pull the trigger like this. Now take it. If you really hate me so much, I deserve to die. Do it, kill me.’”

There was a long silence, punctuated by the hiss of the frying pan in the house next door and the drunk’s confused monologue. The drunk finally gave up and went off, saying that since nobody loved him around here he’d go see a witch he knew over in Ayabaca who’d cure his hurt foot.

“But I know in my heart that you’re a good person who’d never kill anyone.”

“Don’t pretend to be dumber than you really are.” Alicia Mindreau’s chin was trembling, and her nostrils were flared. “Don’t fool yourself into thinking I’m as dumb as you are. Please. I’m a grownup, after all.”

“Please forgive me. I just didn’t know what to say. What you said just caught me off-guard, really.”

“So you actually don’t know if you were in love with Palomino Molero or not,” Lituma heard himself mutter. “Didn’t you come to love him, even a little bit?”

“Much more than a little bit,” the girl quickly replied again without turning in the direction of the enlisted man. Her head was still, and her rage seemed to have evaporated just as quickly as it had come. She stared into space. “I loved Palito a lot. If we had found the priest in Amotape, I would have married him. But what you call falling in love is disgusting, and what we had was beautiful. Are you playing dumb, too?”

“What kind of question is that to ask, Lituma?” Lituma understood that the lieutenant wasn’t really reproaching him, that it was all part of his plan to keep the girl talking. “Do you think that if the young lady didn’t love him she would have eloped with him? Or do you think he kidnapped her?”

Alicia Mindreau said nothing. More and more insects buzzed around the paraffin lamps. Now they could hear the tide as it came in. The fishermen were probably setting up their nets. Don Matías Querecotillo and his two helpers were probably pushing The Lion of Talara into the surf, or they might already be rowing beyond the floating piers. He wished he were there with them instead of here listening to these things. And, nevertheless, he heard himself whisper: “And what about your other boyfriend, miss?” As he spoke, he felt he was balancing on a high wire.

“You must mean Miss Mindreau’s official boyfriend,” said the lieutenant, correcting Lituma. He sweetened his tone as he spoke to her: “Because since you came to love Palomino Molero, I would imagine that Lieutenant Dufó could only be a kind of screen to keep up appearances in front of your father. That’s how it was, right?”

“That’s right.”

“So your dad wouldn’t catch on about your love for Palomino Molero. Naturally, it wouldn’t exactly make your father happy to find out his daughter was in love with an ordinary airman.”

Lituma’s nerves were put on edge now by the buzzing insects smashing against the lamps, in the same way they’d been put on edge before by the screeching bicycle.

“He enlisted just so he could be near you?” Lituma realized that this time he was no longer faking: his voice was saturated with the immense pity he felt for the kid. What had he seen in this half-crazy girl? That she was from a good family, that she was white? Or did her rapidly changing moods fascinate him, those incredible passions that in a few seconds made her pass from fury to indifference?

“The poor jealous guy couldn’t understand a bit of this,” the lieutenant was thinking out loud as he lit a cigarette. “But when he did figure a few things out, he went nuts. That’s it: he lost control of himself. He did what he felt he had to do, and then, half crazy with fear, sorry for what had happened, he came to you. Crying his eyes out, he must have said, Alicita, I’m a murderer. I tortured and killed the airman you ran away with. You confessed that you never loved him, that you hated him. And then he brought you his revolver and said, Kill me . But you didn’t do it. First you cheated on him, then he took it on the neck. Poor Richard Dufó. On top of that, the colonel forbade him to see you ever again. Because naturally a son-in-law who’s a murderer is just as socially unacceptable as a little cholo from Castilla-a common airman at that. Poor jealous Richard! Well, that seems to be the whole story. Was I wrong about anything, miss?”

“Ha-ha! You were wrong about every single thing!”

“I know. I said it that way on purpose. Tell me how it really was.”

Did she really laugh? Yes, a short little laugh, ferociously mocking. Now she was serious again, sitting stiffly on the edge of her chair with her knees together. Her little arms were so thin that Lituma could have wrapped his fingers around both of them at the same time. Sitting there half in the shadow, her body so tall and slender, she could have been taken for a boy. And yet she was a young woman. No longer a virgin. He tried to imagine her naked, trembling in Palomino Molero’s arms, lying on a cot in Amotape, or maybe on a straw mat in the sand. Wrapping her little arms around Palomino’s neck, opening her mouth, spreading her legs, moaning. No, impossible. He couldn’t see her. In the interminable pause that followed, the buzz of insects became deafening.

“The one who brought me the revolver and told me to kill him was Daddy. What will you do to him?”

“Nothing,” stuttered Lieutenant Silva, as if he were choking. “Nobody’s going to lay a hand on your dad.”

“There’s no justice. He should be thrown in jail, killed. But no one would dare to. Of course, who’d dare to do it?”