Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter - Mario Vargas Llosa [90]
“It’s just like I keep telling you—can’t you see that?” she said to me, as though scolding me for something or other. “Javier’s a real romantic, he woos his beloved the way she ought to be wooed.”
Javier, absolutely charmed by her, proposed that the four of us go out together, any day we liked the following week, to the movies, to tea, to dance.
“And what would my little cousin Nancy say if she saw the two of us going out on a date together?” I said, to bring him back down to earth.
But he floored us by answering: “Don’t be silly, Varguitas, she knows everything and thinks it’s great. I told her all about it the other day.” And, on seeing how dumfounded we were, he added with a mischievous twinkle in his eye: “The truth of the matter is that I don’t keep anything a secret from your cousin, since sooner or later, come hell or high water, she’s going to end up marrying me.”
It worried me to hear that Javier had told her all about our romance. Nancy and I were very close, and I was quite certain she wouldn’t give us away deliberately, but she might let a word or two slip out inadvertently, and the news would spread like wildfire in the family forest. Aunt Julia had been left speechless for a moment, but now she was doing her best to conceal her surprise by encouraging Javier to proceed with his taurino-sentimental plan. He walked back with us to Panamericana and said goodbye to me at the downstairs door, and Aunt Julia and I arranged to see each other again that evening, on the usual pretext that we were just going out to take in a flick together. As I kissed her goodbye, I said in her ear: “Thanks to the endocrinologist, I’ve realized I’m in love with you.” “So I see, Varguitas,” she agreed.
I watched her walk off with Javier toward the bus stop, and it was only then that I noticed the crowd that had gathered outside the doors of Radio Central, young women for the most part, although there were a few men as well. They had formed a double line, but as more people arrived, everyone started shoving and pushing and the lines broke up. I walked over to see what was going on, presuming that whatever it was, it undoubtedly had something to do with Pedro Camacho. And in fact they turned out to be autograph hunters. I then caught sight of the scriptwriter standing at the window of his lair, with Jesusito on one side of him and Genaro Sr. on the other, scrawling a signature with fancy flourishes on the pages of autograph books, notebooks, loose sheets of paper, the margins of newspapers, and dismissing his admirers with an Olympian gesture. They were gazing at him in rapture, approaching him timidly and respectfully, stammering a few heartfelt words of appreciation.
“He causes us headaches, but there’s no doubt that he’s the king of the Peruvian airwaves,” Genaro Jr. said to me, putting a hand on my shoulder and pointing to the mob. “What do you think of that?”
I asked how long these autographing sessions had been going on.
“For a week now, half an hour a day, from six to six-thirty. You’re not very observant, are you?” the progressive-minded impresario answered. “Haven’t you seen the ads we’re publishing, don’t you listen to the radio network you work for? I was skeptical, but you can see how wrong I was. I thought people would only show up for a couple of days, and I realize now that this may go on for a month.”
He invited me to have a drink with him at the Bolívar bar. I ordered a Coke,