Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter - Mario Vargas Llosa [5]
It was the Thursday following her arrival, and even though the prospect of being the butt of her Bolivian jokes didn’t appeal to me, I didn’t want to miss my weekly lunch at Uncle Lucho’s and Aunt Olga’s. I had hoped she wouldn’t be there, since the night before—on Wednesday nights the whole family went to visit Aunt Gaby—I had heard Aunt Hortensia announce, in the tone of voice of one who is privy to the secrets of the gods: “During her first week in Lima she’s gone out four times—with four different suitors, one of whom is married. There are no lengths that divorcée won’t go to!”
When I arrived at Uncle Lucho’s, after the noon Panamericana newscast, I found her there—with one of her suitors. I savored the sweet pleasure of vengeance on entering the living room and finding sitting next to her, gazing upon her with the eyes of a conquistador, looking absolutely ridiculous in his hopelessly oldfashioned suit, his bow tie, and his carnation boutonniere, an elderly relative of mine, Uncle Pancracio, my grandmother’s first cousin. He’d been a widower for ages, he walked with his feet spread wide apart, like the hands of a clock at ten past ten, and in the family his visits set tongues to wagging maliciously because he brazenly pinched the maidservants in full view of everybody. He dyed his hair, wore a pocket watch with a silver chain, and could be seen daily at 6 p.m. hanging around the Jirón de la Unión, flirting with office girls. As I leaned over to kiss her, I whispered in the Bolivian divorcée’s ear, my voice dripping with irony: “What a fine conquest, Julita.” She winked an eye and nodded slyly. During lunch, Uncle Pancracio, after holding forth on Peruvian popular music, at which he was an expert—at family celebrations he always offered a solo on the cajón, a traditional “musical instrument” that in reality was simply a wooden box or drawer on which the player drummed with his fingers or the palm of his hand—turned to her, and, licking his chops like a cat, said: “By the way, on Thursday evenings the Felipe Pinglo Association meets at the Victoria, the heart of Peruvianism. Would you like to hear a little genuine indigenous music?” Without hesitating an instant, and with an air of heartfelt regret that added insult to injury, Aunt Julia answered, pointing to me. “What a pity—Mario’s already invited me to the movies.” “Well then, I yield to youth,” Uncle Pancracio replied, like a good sport. Later, after he’d left, I thought I was saved when Aunt Olga said to Aunt Julia: “I take it that business about the movies was just to get rid of the old lecher?” But Julia shot back immediately: “Not at all, Olga, I’m dying to see the one that’s showing at the Barranco—the censors have rated it ‘not suitable for minors.’” She turned to me (I was listening intently, since my fate for that evening was at stake), and to set my mind at ease added this exquisite flower: “Don’t worry about the money, Marito—it’s my treat.”
And there we were, walking down the dark Quebrada de Armendáriz, then along the wide Avenida Grau, heading for a film that, to top everything off, was Mexican and called Mother and Mistress.
“The worst thing about being a divorcée isn’t that all men think they’re obliged to proposition you,” Aunt Julia informed me. “Rather, it’s the fact that because you’re a divorcée they think there’s no need to be romantic. They don’t flirt with you, they don’t whisper sweet nothings in your ear. They just come straight out with what it is they want from you, right off the bat, in the most vulgar way imaginable. That really puts me off. That’s why I’d rather go to the movies with you than go out dancing with a man.”
“Thanks a whole lot—I appreciate the compliment,” I said.
“They’re so stupid they think that every divorcée’s a street-walker,” she went on, not even noticing the irony in my voice. “And what’s more, all they think about is doing things with you. Even though