Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter - Mario Vargas Llosa [60]
As he smiled to himself, the thought occurred to the magistrate that these humble peasants—it was obvious that they were from the Andes and had lived close to the soil—made him feel like an acrimonious father refusing to give his son his permission to marry. He did his best to make them think the matter through clearly: how could they possibly want to marry their daughter off to a man capable of raping a helpless girl? But they kept interrupting, insisting Sarita would be a model wife, even though she was scarcely more than a child she already knew how to cook and sew and all the rest, the two of them were far along in years and didn’t want to leave her a defenseless orphan when they died, Señor Tello seemed to be a responsible, hardworking man, he had admittedly gone too far with Sarita the other night, but on the other hand they had never seen him drunk, he was very respectful, he left for work very early every morning with his toolbox and his bundle of little magazines that he peddled from house to house. Wasn’t a young man who worked that hard to make a living a good match for Sarita? And with outstretched hands the two oldsters implored the magistrate: “Have pity on us and help us, Your Honor.”
Like a little black cloud heavy with rain, a hypothesis drifted through Dr. Don Barreda y Zaldívar’s mind: what if all this were merely a plot hatched by this couple to marry off their daughter? But the medical report stated categorically: the girl had been raped. Not without difficulty, he dismissed the two witnesses, and had the victim brought in.
Sarita Huanca Salaverría’s entrance seemed to light up the austere chambers of the examining magistrate. A man who had seen everything, before whose eyes every conceivable bizarre human type and weird psychological case had passed in review, as perpetrators of crime and as victims of crime, Dr. Don Barreda y Zaldívar nonetheless told himself that confronting him was a genuinely unusual specimen. Was Sarita Huanca Salaverría a little girl? No doubt, judging from her chronological age, her little body with the full rounded curves of femininity timidly beginning to make their appearance, her hair done up in braids, and the schoolgirl’s blouse and skirt that she was wearing. On the other hand, however, her markedly feline way of moving, her way of standing, legs apart, one hip thrust out, shoulders thrown back, her two little hands resting provocatively on her waist, and above all the look in her velvety, worldly eyes and her way of biting her lower lip with little mouse teeth, made Sarita Huanca Salaverría appear to possess vast experience, a wisdom as old as time itself.
Dr. Don Barreda y Zaldívar’s interrogations of minors were always extraordinarily tactful. He knew how to gain their confidence, use circumlocutions so as not to hurt their feelings, and by being gentle and patient it was easy for him to lead them around to talking about the most scandalous subjects. But this time his experience was of little use to him. The moment he asked the minor, euphemistically, whether it was true that Gumercindo Tello had bothered her for some time by making indecent remarks, Sarita Huanca began to talk in a steady stream. Yes, ever since he’d come to La Victoria to live; everywhere; at all hours of the day. He would be waiting at the bus stop and walk home with her, saying things like “I’d love to suck your honey,” “You’ve got two