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By Root 1090 0

questions for sums that could reach that figure. Through Genaro Jr., with whom I sometimes had coffee at the Bransa on La Colmena (though only on rare occasions now), I kept track of Pedro Camacho’s whereabouts. He’d spent almost a month in Dr. Delgado’s private clinic, but as it was very expensive, the Genaros managed to have him transferred to Larco Herrera, the public asylum, where, apparently, he was being treated with kindness and respect. One Sunday, after cataloguing tombs in the Presbítero Maestro Cemetery, I took a bus to the entrance of Larco Herrera, intending to pay him a visit. I was bringing him as a present some little bags of verbena and mint so he could have his herb tea. But just as I was about to pass through the main gate of that prisonlike place, along with other visitors, I changed my mind. The idea of seeing the scriptwriter shut up inside that crowded institution—during my first-year psychology class at the university, we’d been sent to work on the wards as student assistants—just one more madman among hordes of other madmen, was so distressing I couldn’t make myself go inside. I turned around and went back to Miraflores.

That Monday I told my mama that I wanted to have a talk with my father. She counseled me to be careful, not to say anything that might make him angry, not to get myself into a situation where he might do me harm, and gave me the phone number of the house where he was staying. My father informed me that he would receive me the following morning, at eleven, in what had been his office before he left for the United States. It was on the Jirón Carabaya, at the end of a tiled corridor on both sides of which there were apartments and offices. At the Import/Export Company—I recognized several employees I’d met before when he was working there—I was shown into the managing director’s office. My father was alone, sitting at his former desk. He was wearing a cream-colored suit and a green tie with white polka dots; he looked to me as though he’d lost weight since the year before and seemed a bit pale.

“Hello, Papa,” I said as I stood in the doorway, trying my best to speak in a firm voice.

“Tell me what it is you’ve come to tell me,” he said, in a tone of voice more neutral than wrathful, pointing to a chair.

I sat down on the edge of it and took a deep breath, like an athlete about to perform. “I’ve come to tell you what I’m doing, what I’m going to do,” I stammered.

He sat there without saying a word, waiting for me to go on. Then, speaking very slowly so as to appear calm and collected, and carefully watching his every reaction, I gave him a detailed account of all the jobs I’d found, how much I earned from each, how I had divided my time so as to fit them all in and do my homework and prepare for my exams at the university besides. I didn’t tell any lies, but I presented everything in the most favorable light possible: I’d organized my life in an intelligent, responsible way and was anxious to get my degree. After I finished, my father remained silent, waiting for me to sum up what I’d had to say.

Swallowing hard, I did so. “So you see that I can earn my living, support myself, and go on with my studies.” And then, hearing my voice trailing off till it was barely audible: “I’ve come to ask your permission to send for Julia. We’re married and she can’t go on living by herself.”

He blinked, turned paler still, and for a moment I thought he was going to have one of those fits of rage that had been the nightmare of my childhood. But all he said to me, curtly and coldly, was: “As you know, this marriage isn’t legal. Being a minor, you can’t get married without your parents’ permission. So if you’ve married, you’ve been able to do so only by presenting a fake document authorizing you to do so or by tampering with your birth certificate. In either case, the marriage can easily be annulled.”

He explained that the falsification of a legal document was a serious offense, punishable by law. If anyone had to pay the penalty for the mischief done, it wouldn’t be me, a minor, for the judges