Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter - Mario Vargas Llosa [148]
“Since there’s no chance of getting my parents to give their consent or to emancipate me, and since it’s also possible that Julia doesn’t have all the necessary papers, the only solution is to find a kindhearted mayor.”
“What you really mean is one who can be bribed,” he corrected me. He examined me as though I were a beetle. “But who are you in any position to bribe, you penniless wretch?”
“A mayor with his head in the clouds who won’t notice details. One who’ll fall for most any kind of sob story.”
“Okay, let’s start looking for this extraordinary creature, a kindhearted idiot who’ll perform the ceremony even though it’s against every law in the books.” He laughed again. “Too bad Julita’s divorced. Otherwise, you could get married in church. That’d be easy—there are any number of priests who are kindhearted idiots.”
Javier always cheered me up, and we ended up joking about my honeymoon, about the fees he was going to charge me for his services (helping him abduct Nancy, of course), and regretting not being in Piura, where it was such a common thing for couples to elope that there would have been no problem finding the kindhearted idiot required. By the time we said goodbye to each other, he’d promised to start looking for a mayor that very afternoon and to pawn all his possessions that weren’t indispensable in order to help out with the wedding expenses.
Aunt Julia had said she’d come by the office at three, and when she hadn’t shown up by three-thirty, I began to worry. At four, my fingers were getting in each other’s way as I typed, and I was chain-smoking. At four-thirty, Big Pablito, seeing how pale I was, asked me if I wasn’t feeling well. At five, I had Pascual phone Uncle Lucho’s house and ask to speak to her. She hadn’t come back there. She still hadn’t come back half an hour later, or at six or at seven. After the last evening newscast, instead of getting off the jitney at my grandparents’ street, I went on as far as the Avenida Armendáriz and hung around my aunt’s and uncle’s house, without daring to knock at the door. I spied Aunt Olga through the windows, changing the water in a vase of flowers, and a few minutes later I saw Uncle Lucho turn out the lights in the dining room. I walked around the block several times, overcome by contrary emotions: anxiety, anger, sadness, a desire to slap Aunt Julia’s face, and a desire to kiss her. I was just completing one of these agitated turns around the block when I saw her get out of a big expensive car with diplomatic plates. I strode over to the car, my legs trembling with fury and jealousy, and determined to punch my rival in the nose, whoever he might be. He turned out to be a gentleman with white hair, and moreover, there was a lady sitting inside the car. Aunt Julia introduced me, explaining that I was a nephew of her brother-in-law’s, and I discovered that I was meeting the ambassador of Bolivia and his wife. I felt ridiculous, and at the same time as though I’d had a great load taken off my chest. When the car drove off, I grabbed Aunt Julia by the arm and almost dragged her bodily across the avenue and down toward the Malecón.
“Good heavens, what a temper,” I heard her say as we came within sight of the sea. “You looked as though you were about to strangle poor Dr. Gumucio.”
“You’re the one I’m going to strangle,” I said to her. “I’ve been waiting for you since three o’clock this afternoon and it’s now eleven at night. Did you forget that we had a date?”
“I didn’t forget. I stood you up on purpose,” she said firmly.
We’d reached the little park in front of the Jesuit seminary. It was deserted, and though it wasn’t raining, the grass, the laurel trees, the geraniums were glistening from the dampness. The mist was forming ghostly little umbrellas around the yellow cones of light from the lampposts.
“Well, let’s postpone this fight to another day,” I said to her, sitting her down on the edge of the jetty, with the deep-pitched, synchronous sound of