Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter - Mario Vargas Llosa [204]
But the differences were greater than the resemblances. The principal change in his appearance was due to the haircut. Having the locks that had come down to his shoulders shorn and what was left cropped so close to his skull that his head appeared to be shaved had made his face look more angular, smaller; it had lost character and authority. Moreover, he was a very great deal thinner; he looked like a fakir, a specter almost. But what really kept me from recognizing him at first was his attire. I had never seen him dressed in anything but black, the funereal, shiny suit and the little bow tie that were inseparable from his person. Now, with this pair of stevedore’s overalls, this much-mended shirt, these tennis shoes with string tied round them, he looked like a caricature of the caricature he had been twelve years before.
“I assure you that things don’t turn out the way you think, sir,” he said, standing his ground. “I’ve demonstrated to you that I arrive at any assigned destination faster on foot than in those pestilential public vehicles. It’s not out of niggardliness that I walk places, but in order to fulfill my duties more diligently. And frequently, sir, I run.”
In this respect, too, he was the same as before: his total lack of a sense of humor. He spoke without the slightest spark of wit, or even of emotion, in an automatic, depersonalized way, though the things he was saying would have been unthinkable coming from him in the old days.
“That’s enough of your nonsense and your manias. I’m too old to bamboozle.” Dr. Rebagliati turned to us, taking us as witnesses. “Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? That a person can make the rounds of the commissariats of Lima faster on foot than by bus? And this gentleman wants me to swallow shit like that.” He turned once again to the Bolivian scriptwriter, who hadn’t taken his eyes off him or given the rest of us so much as a side-long glance. “I don’t have to remind you, because I imagine that you remember it every time you sit down with a plate of food in front of you, that we’re doing you a big favor around here by giving you work when we’re in such terrible straits that we have to let reporters go, not to mention messengers. You could at least be grateful and do your job properly.”
At this point Pascual came back in, announcing from the screen: “Everything’s all set, the edition’s gone to press,” and apologizing for having made us wait.
I walked over to Pedro Camacho as he was about to leave. “How are you, Pedro?” I said, holding out my hand. “Don’t you remember me?”
He looked me up and down, squinting his eyes and bringing his face closer, looking surprised, as though this were the first time in his life that he’d ever seen me. Finally, he extended his hand, shook mine briefly and ceremoniously, made his characteristic bow, and said: “Pleased to meet you. My name is Pedro Camacho.”
“But this can’t be,” I said, feeling quite distraught. “Have I gotten as old as all that?”
“Stop pretending you’ve had one of your attacks of amnesia,” Pascual said, clapping him on the back so hard he staggered. “Don’t you remember how you spent all your time cadging coffees at the Bransa off him, either?”
“No, it was verbena-and-mint tea,” I joked, scrutinizing Pedro Camacho’s face, at once politely attentive and indifferent, for some sign of recognition.
He nodded (I saw his nearly bare skull) and gave me a very brief, courteous smile that exposed his teeth to the air for a second or so. “Highly recommended for the stomach, an excellent digestive, and moreover it burns up fat,” he said. And then rapidly, as though making a concession in order to be free of us: “Yes, it’s possible, I don’t deny the fact. We might indeed have met before.” And he added: “It’s been my pleasure.”
Big Pablito had also walked over to him. He put an arm around his shoulder, in a paternal, mocking gesture. As he rocked him back