Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter - Mario Vargas Llosa [62]
Dr. Don Barreda y Zaldívar smiled at him. “We have been privileged to witness a most unusual spectacle,” the magistrate philosophized. “That youngster has the devil in the flesh, and what’s worse, she probably doesn’t even know it.”
“Is that what Yankees call a Lolita?” the secretary asked in an attempt to further his knowledge.
“I’m certain of it—a typical Lolita,” was the judge’s verdict. And in an effort to put the best possible face on things, an impenitent sea wolf who draws optimistic lessons even from typhoons, he added: “We can at least feel pleased to have discovered that the colossus of the North doesn’t enjoy a monopoly in this field. That little home-grown product could steal any gringa Lolita’s man away from her.”
“I take it she drove that mechanic out of his mind and he deflowered her,” the secretary mused. “But after seeing and hearing her you’d swear that she was the one who raped him.”
“Stop right there. I forbid you to assume any such thing,” the judge said sternly, and the secretary paled. “Let’s have none of these suspect oracular pronouncements. Have them bring in Gumercindo Tello.”
Ten minutes later, on seeing the man enter his chambers escorted by two guards, Dr. Don Barreda y Zaldívar realized immediately that he did not fit the neat pigeonhole that the secretary had too hastily assigned him. This was not a classic Lombrosian criminal type, but in a certain sense a far more dangerous type. a believer. With a mnemonic shiver that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, the judge, on seeing Gumercindo Tello’s face, remembered the implacable gaze of the man with the bicycle and the copies of The Watchtower who had given him so many nightmares, that serenely stubborn gaze of a man who knows, who has no doubts, who has solved all his problems. Rather short in stature, he was a young man, doubtless not yet thirty, whose frail physique, nothing but skin and bones, proclaimed to the four winds his scorn for bodily nourishment and the material world, with hair cropped so short his skull was nearly bare, and a swarthy complexion. He was dressed in a gray suit the color of ashes, the costume neither of a dandy nor of a beggar but something in between, which was dry now but very wrinkled from the baptismal rites, a white shirt, and ankle boots with cleats. Just one glance sufficed for the judge—a man with a flair for anthropology—to discern immediately his distinctive personality traits: circumspection, moderation, fixed ideas, imperturbability, a spiritual vocation. Obviously well-mannered, the moment he entered the room he bade the judge and the secretary good morning in a polite, friendly tone of voice.
Dr. Don Barreda y Zaldívar ordered the guards to remove the man’s handcuffs and leave his chambers. This was a habit he had adopted from the very beginning of his career as a magistrate: he had always interrogated even the most depraved criminals without officers of the law being present, without coercion, paternally, and in the course of these tête-à-têtes, even the most hard-bitten of them usually opened their hearts to him, like penitents to a confessor. He had never had cause to regret this risky practice. Gumercindo Tello rubbed his wrists and thanked the judge for this proof of his trust. The latter pointed to a chair and the mechanic sat down on the very edge of it, his spine rigid, like a man who feels uncomfortable at the very idea of comfort. The magistrate composed in his mind the motto that no doubt governed the Witness’s life: get up out of bed though still sleepy, get up from the table though still hungry, and (if