Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter - Mario Vargas Llosa [202]
On the other side of the screen, in front of walls also covered with sensational front pages, there were three desks, each with a little square of cardboard on which the function of its occupant was written, by hand, in ink: editor-in-chief, chief copy editor, managing editor. When they saw us enter the room, two persons bending over, looking at galleys, raised their heads. The one standing was Pascual.
He gave each of us a friendly hug. Unlike Big Pablito, he’d changed quite a lot: he’d gotten fat and had a paunch and a double chin, and somehow there was a look about him that made him seem almost an old man. He’d grown himself a very odd, almost Hitlerian mustache, which was turning gray. He greeted me with what were clearly signs of great affection, and when he smiled, I saw that he had lost some of his teeth. He then introduced me to his colleague, a swarthy, dark-haired man in a mustard-colored shirt, who remained sitting at his desk.
“The editor of Extra,” Pascual said. “Dr. Rebagliati.”
“I almost put my foot in my mouth,” I told Pascual as I shook hands with Dr. Rebagliati. “Big Pablito told me that you were the editor.”
“We’ve gone downhill, but not that far,” Dr. Rebagliati said. “Have a seat, have a seat.”
“I’m chief copy editor,” Pascual explained to me. “This is my desk.”
Big Pablito told him we’d come to take him off to The Royal Peacock to celebrate the good old days at Panamericana. Pascual was all for it, but he hoped we wouldn’t mind, we’d have to wait for him a few minutes, he had to take the galleys there on his desk round to the printer’s on the corner, it was urgent because they were just putting the edition to bed. He went off and left me sitting face to face with Dr. Rebagliati. When the latter learned that I lived in Europe, he devoured me with questions. Was it true that Frenchwomen were pushovers, as he’d always heard? Were they as expert and as shameless in bed as they were reputed to be? Was it true that females in every country had their very own special tricks? He’d personally heard, for instance, extremely interesting things (Big Pablito’s eyes rolled in delectation as he listened to him) from people who’d traveled a lot. Was it true that Italian women were crazy about sucking cock? That Parisian women weren’t ever satisfied unless one bombarded them from behind? That Scandinavian women made out with their own fathers? I answered Dr. Rebagliati’s verborrhea as best I could as he contaminated the atmosphere of the little room with his lustful, seminal intensity, and regretted more and more having allowed myself to be trapped into accepting an invitation to this repast that would no doubt end up at some ungodly hour. Amazed and all worked up by the editor’s sociologico-erotic revelations, Big Pablito laughed and laughed. When Dr. Rebagliati’s curiosity eventually wore me out, I asked if I could use his phone.
A sarcastic look came over his face. “It’s been cut off for a week now, because we haven’t been able to pay the bill,” he said with brutal frankness. “Because, as you can very well see, this rag is going under and all of us imbeciles who work here are going under with it.”
And he immediately went on to tell me, with masochistic pleasure, that Extra had been born in the Odría era, under very favorable auspices: the regime placed ads in it and slipped it money under the table to attack certain individuals and defend others. Moreover, it was one of the few publications that were allowed to appear, and it had sold like hotcakes. But once Odría had been ousted, cutthroat competitors had appeared on the scene and Extra had gone broke. And it was at that point that he had taken it over, when it was already on its last legs. And he had gotten