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I was at my desk in the shack at Panamericana earlier than usual that morning, and when Pascual and Big Pablito arrived at eight, I had already written the bulletins, read all the newspapers, and annotated and marked in red all the news items to be plagiarized. As I did all these things, I kept watching the clock. Aunt Julia called me at exactly the hour we’d agreed on.

“I didn’t close my eyes all night long,” she murmured in a faint voice I could barely hear. “I love you very much, Varguitas.”

“I love you too, with all my heart,” I whispered, feeling indignant on seeing Pascual and Big Pablito move closer so as to be able to hear better. “I didn’t sleep at all either, thinking about you.”

“You can’t imagine how nice my sister and my brother-in-law were to me,” Aunt Julia said. “We stayed up late playing cards. It’s hard to believe that they know, that they’re plotting against us.”

“They are, though,” I told her. “My parents have sent word that they’re coming to Lima. And that’s the only possible reason—they never travel at this time of year.”

She didn’t answer, and in my mind’s eye I could see her on the other end, looking sad, furious, disappointed. I told her again that I loved her.

“I’ll phone you again at four, as we agreed,” she finally said. “I’m at the Chinese grocery store on the corner and there’s a line waiting. Ciao.”

I went down to Genaro Jr.’s office, but he wasn’t there. I left a message for him that there was an urgent matter I needed to discuss with him immediately, and just to be doing something, to fill up in some way or other the emptiness I felt, I went to the university. It was the day of my class in penal law, taught by a professor who had always struck me as a character straight out of a short story. A perfect combination of satyriasis and coprolalia, he looked at his girl students as though he were undressing them and used anything and everything as an excuse for double entendres and obscene remarks. When one girl, who was very flat-chested, answered a question well, he congratulated her, savoring the word: “You’re very synthetic, Señorita,” and on commenting on one article in the Code, he launched into a peroration on venereal diseases.

When I went back to the radio station, Genaro Jr. was waiting for me in his office. “I trust you’re not here to ask me for a raise,” he warned me the moment I entered the door. “We’re on the edge of bankruptcy.”

“I want to talk to you about Pedro Camacho,” I said, to set his mind at ease on that score.

“Did you know he’s started to do all sorts of outrageous things?” he said to me, as though laughing at a good joke. “He’s been shifting his characters around from one serial to another, changing their names, mixing up all the plots, and gradually turning all the stories into one. A stroke of genius, don’t you agree?”

“Well, I have heard what he’s up to,” I said, disconcerted by his enthusiasm. “As a matter of fact, I talked with the actors just last night. They’re worried about him. He works much too hard, and they think he’s in danger of collapsing from exhaustion. You might very well lose the goose that laid the golden eggs. Why not give him a little vacation so he can rest up a bit?”

“Give Camacho a vacation?” the impresario said in a shocked tone of voice. “Was he the one who suggested such a thing?”

No, I told him, it was the scriptwriter’s co-workers who had suggested it.

“They’re tired of working as hard as he wants them to and want to get rid of him for a few days,” he said. “It would be insane to give him a vacation right now.” He picked up a handful of papers from the desk and waved them triumphantly in the air. “We’ve beaten the record for the number of listeners again this month. In other words, his idea of tying the stories together works. My father’s worried about these existentialist innovations, but they produce results—the surveys are right here to prove it.” He laughed again. “So, as long as the listeners like what he’s doing, we’ll just have to put up with his eccentricities.”

I didn