Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter - Mario Vargas Llosa [56]
(Dr. Don Barreda y Zaldívar smiled at this slip of the pen on the part of the officer of the law who had drawn up the complaint and thus inadvertently attributed to the Huanca Salaverrías the habit, so common among inhabitants of Buenos Aires, of attending to their calls of nature in a bucket located in the same room in which they eat and sleep.)
Once he had contrived, by means of this stratagem, to get inside room H, the accused locked the door. He then got down on his knees and, joining his hands, began to murmur words of love to Sarita Huanca Salaverría, who only then began to be alarmed as to the outcome of this visit from her neighbor. In language that the young girl described as romantic, Gumercindo Tello urged her to accede to his desires. And what were these desires? That she remove all her clothes and allow herself to be fondled, kissed, and robbed of her maidenhead. Pulling herself together, Sarita Huanca emphatically rejected his propositions, reprimanded Gumercindo Tello, and threatened to call the neighbors. On hearing these words, the accused, abandoning his supplicating attitude, drew a knife from his clothes and threatened to stab the girl if she made the slightest outcry. Rising to his feet, he advanced toward Sarita, saying: “Come, come, off with all your clothes, my love,” and when, despite everything, she did not obey him, he gave her a hail of blows and kicks until she fell to the floor. And then as she lay there, so frightened that, according to the victim, her teeth chattered, the rapist tore all her clothes off, proceeded to unbutton his own as well, and fell upon her, perpetrating there on the floor the carnal act, which, due to the resistance offered by the girl, was accompanied by further blows, of which she still bore the traces in the form of bumps and bruises. Once his desires had been satisfied, Gumercindo Tello left room H, after advising Sarita Huanca Salaverría not to say a word about what had happened if she wanted to live to a ripe old age (and brandishing the knife to show that he meant what he said). On returning from the Metropolitán, the girl’s parents found their daughter with tears streaming down her face and her body ravaged. After caring for her injuries, they pleaded with her to tell them what had happened, but out of shame she refused to do so. And thus the entire night went by. The following morning, however, having somewhat recovered from the emotional shock of losing her maidenhead, the girl told her parents everything, and they immediately presented themselves at the commissariat of La Victoria to bring a complaint.
Dr. Don Barreda y Zaldívar closed his eyes for a moment. He felt great pity for what had happened to the girl (despite his daily contact with crime, he had not grown callous), but he said to himself that, to all appearances, this was a case involving a prototypical crime, with nothing bizarre or mysterious about it, one minutely dealt with in the Penal Code, under the sections having to do with rape and abuse of a minor, along with the classic aggravating circumstances of premeditation, verbal and physical violence, and mental cruelty.
The next document that he reread was the report of the officers of the law who had placed Gumercindo Tello under arrest.
In accordance with instructions from their superior, Captain G. C. Enrique Soto, Guardias Civiles Alberto Cusicanqui Apéstegui and Huasi Tito Parinacocha had appeared at Number 12, Avenida Luna Pizarro, with a warrant for the arrest of the aforementioned Tello, but the individual in question was not at home. They learned from the neighbors that he was an automobile mechanic who worked at the “El Inti” Garage and Welding Shop, at the opposite end of the district, almost in the foothills of El Pino. The two officers of the law proceeded there immediately. At the garage, they were surprised to discover that Gumercindo Tello had