Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter - Mario Vargas Llosa [15]
After he’d wandered all over the house, more or less—shaking hands, giving and receiving friendly embraces—he went back out into the garden and sat down under an awning to sip his second glass of champagne of the day in relative peace and quiet. It was all going very well; Margarita and Roberto were really experts at the grand gesture. And even though he considered their idea of hiring a combo a touch lacking refinement—the carpets, the pedestal table, and the buffet with the ivory pieces had been removed so that there would be room to dance—he excused this inelegance as being a concession to the younger generation, since, as everybody knew, today’s young people thought that a party without any dancing wasn’t a party at all. They were starting to serve the turkey and the wine, and now Elianita, standing on the second step in the foyer, was tossing her bride’s bouquet as dozens of her schoolmates and neighborhood girlfriends waited with outstretched arms, hoping to catch it. In a corner of the garden Dr. Quinteros spied old Venancia, Elianita’s nanny since the day she’d been born, moved to tears, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron.
His palate was unable to discern the vintage of the wine, but he knew immediately that it was an imported one, perhaps Spanish or Chilean, or for that matter—in view of all this day’s mad extravagances—possibly a French one. The turkey was so tender it melted in his mouth, the puree as smooth as butter, and there was a cabbage-and-raisin salad that, despite his dietary principles, he couldn’t resist the second time it came around. He was enjoying a second glass of wine, as well, and beginning to feel pleasantly drowsy, when he saw Richard making his way toward him, swaying back and forth with a glass of whiskey in his hand; his eyes were glassy and his voice quavered.
“Is there anything stupider than a wedding celebration, Uncle Alberto?” he murmured, with a scornful wave of his hand at everything around them and collapsing in the chair alongside him. His tie had come undone, there was a fresh stain on the lapel of his gray suit, and his eyes showed signs not only of all the liquor he had drunk but of a barely repressed, oceanic rage.
“Well, I grant you I’m not terribly fond of parties,” Dr. Quinteros replied good-naturedly. “But the fact that at your age you don’t like them very much either surprises me, Richard.”
“I absolutely abhor them,” his nephew muttered, looking about as though he’d like to wipe every last guest off the face of the earth. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here.”
“Just think how your sister would have felt if you hadn’t come to her wedding.” Dr. Quinteros pondered all the silly things that alcohol makes a person say. Hadn’t he seen Richard whooping it up at many a party? Wasn’t he an excellent dancer? Hadn’t he often seen his nephew trooping in at the head of the gang of boys and girls coming up to Charito’s rooms to have a spur-of-the-moment dance? But he didn’t remind him of any of these things, and merely watched him drain his glass and ask a waiter for another whiskey.
“Be that as it may, you’d better steel yourself,” he said to him. “Because when you get married,