Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter - Mario Vargas Llosa [37]
“Where in the world did you get this scarecrow?” the lieutenant finally asked.
“Is it a man, an animal, or a thing?” Apple Dumpling Arévalo said, getting to his feet and sniffing at the black. The latter hadn’t uttered a sound since setting foot inside the commissariat but simply stood there, moving his head in all directions with a terrified look on his face, as though he were seeing electric lights, typewriters, civil guards for the first time in his life. But on seeing Arévalo approaching him, he again let out his hair-raising howl—Lituma noted that Lieutenant Concha was so taken aback he almost fell to the floor, chair and all, and that Snotnose Camacho tipped over the Chinese-checker board—and tried to go back outside. The sergeant held him back with one hand and gave him a little shake. “Quiet, sambo, don’t panic on me.”
“I found him in the new warehouse down at the harbor terminal, lieutenant,” he said. “He got in by kicking a hole in the wall. Should I make out an arrest report for robbery, for breaking and entering, for indecent exposure, or for all three?”
The black had hunched over again as the lieutenant, Camacho, and Arévalo scrutinized him from head to foot.
“Those aren’t smallpox scars, lieutenant,” Apple Dumpling said, pointing to the slash marks on his face and body. “They were made with a knife, incredible as that may seem.”
“He’s the skinniest man I’ve ever seen in my life,” Snotnose said, looking at the naked black’s bones. “And the ugliest. Good lord, what kinky hair! And what enormous hands!”
“We’re curious,” the lieutenant said. “Tell us your life story, black boy.”
Sergeant Lituma had taken off his kepi and unbuttoned his greatcoat. Sitting at the typewriter, he was beginning to write up his report. He shouted over: “He doesn’t know how to talk, lieutenant. He just makes noises you can’t understand.”
“Are you one of those guys who pretends to be nuts?” the lieutenant went on, more curious than ever. “We’re too old to fall for a trick like that, you know. Tell us who you are, where you come from, who your mama was.”
“Or else we’ll teach you to talk all over again with a few good punches in the snout,” Apple Dumpling added. “To sing like a canary, Little Black Sambo.”
“But if those are really knife scars, they must have cut him a good thousand times,” Snotnose said in amazement, taking another good look at the tiny slash marks crisscrossing the black’s face. “How is it possible for a man to get himself marked up like that?”
“He’s freezing to death,” Apple Dumpling said. “His teeth are chattering like maracas.”
“You mean his molars,” Snotnose corrected him, examining the man from very close up, as though he were an ant. “Can’t you see that he’s only got one front tooth, this elephant tusk here? Man, what a hideous-looking character: straight out of a nightmare.”
“I think he’s got bats in his belfry,” Lituma said, without looking up from the typewriter. “Nobody in his right mind would go around like that in this cold, isn’t that so, lieutenant?”
And at that moment the commotion made him look up: suddenly electrified by something, the black had pushed the lieutenant aside and darted like an arrow between Camacho and Arévalo. Not toward the street, however, but toward the Chinese-checkers table, and Lituma saw him grab up a half-eaten sandwich, stuff it into his mouth, and swallow it in a single ravenous, bestial gulp. As Arévalo and Camacho went for him and began cuffing him over the head, the black was downing the remains of the other sandwich on the table with the same ravenous haste.
“Don’t hit him you guys,” the sergeant said. “Be charitable—offer him some coffee instead.”
“This isn’t a welfare institution,” the lieutenant said. “I don’t