Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter - Mario Vargas Llosa [183]
The event, a red-letter day in the history of the City of the Viceroys, took place on the day that Crisanto reached the prime of life: his fiftieth birthday? He was a man with a penetrating forehead, a broad nose, an aquiline gaze, the very soul of rectitude and goodness, and possessed of a graceful physical bearing that mirrored the beauty of his spirit.
Even though (precautions on the part of the individual whom society tramples to bits) personal invitations had been sent out and fair warning had been given that no one without one would be admitted to the recital, reality weighed more heavily in the balance: the police lines, under the command of the celebrated Sergeant Lituma and his right-hand man Corporal Jaime Concha, gave way like tissue paper before the multitudes. They had been gathered there since the evening before, and now they (reverently) invaded the cloisters, the galleries, the stairways, the vestibules. The invited guests were obliged to enter through a secret door leading directly to the balconies above, where, crowded together behind ancient railings, they settled down to enjoy the performance.
When, at 6 p.m., the bard (conquistador’s smile, navy-blue suit, lithe step of a gymnast, flowing golden locks) entered, escorted by his orchestra and chorus, an ovation that echoed from the rafters resounded in the chapel of Las Descalzas. As Gumercindo Maravillas knelt there, reciting an Our Father and an Ave Maria in his baritone voice, his eyes (as melting as honey?) identified, among the heads, a host of friends.
Sitting in the first row was a celebrated astrologer, Professor (Ezequiel?) Delfín Acémila, who, scrutinizing the heavens, measuring the tides, and making Cabalistic passes, had foretold the fate of the city’s millionairesses, and (simplicity of heart of the savant who plays games of marbles) had a weakness for Peruvian music. Also present, dressed to the nines, with a red carnation in his buttonhole and a brand-new straw hat, was the most popular black in Lima, the one who, having crossed the ocean as a stowaway in the hold of—an airplane?—had made a new life for himself here (devoted to the civic pastime of killing rodents through the use of poisons typical of his tribe, thereby earning a fortune?). And (coincidences that are the work of the Devil or sheer chance) among those present, attracted by their common admiration for the musician, were the Jehovah’s Witness Lucho Abril Marroquín, who by virtue of the epic deed he had performed (guillotining the index finger of his right hand with a keen-edged paper knife?) had earned himself the nickname of Maimie, and Sarita Huanca Salaverría, the charming, capricious Victorian belle who had demanded such a great sacrifice of him as a token of his love. And how could the bard of Lima have failed to see, deathly pale and anemic amid the multitude of devotees of Peruvian music, Richard Quinteros, the young man from Miraflores? Taking advantage of the fact that, for the one and only time in his life, the doors of the convent of the Carmelites had been opened, he had slipped into the cloister in the midst of the crowd to see, if only from a distance, that sister of his (Sister Fátima? Sister Lituma? Sister Lucía?), sequestered within its walls by her parents in order to rid her of her incestuous love. And even the Berguas, deaf-mutes who never left the Pensión Colonial where they lived, devoting their lives to the altruistic occupation of teaching poor deaf-and-dumb children to communicate with each other by means of gestures and grimaces, had come, infected by the universal curiosity, to see (since they were unable to hear) the idol of Lima.
The apocalypse that was to plunge the city into mourning was unleashed after Father Gumercindo Tello had begun his recital. As the hundreds of people gathered in the doorways and the patios, on the stairways, the rooftop terraces listened,