The Time of the Hero Read online

  “I’ll take care of my poor son’s future!” his mother shouted.

  Alberto kissed his parents and went out quickly, closing the door behind him.

  Teresa had finished washing the dishes. Her aunt was resting in the bedroom. The girl picked up a towel and a bar of soap and tiptoed out of the house. The house next door was old and narrow, with faded yellow walls. She knocked on the door. A slim, cheerful girl opened it for her.

  “Hello, Tere.”

  “Hello, Rosa. Can I take a bath?”

  “Come in.”

  They went down a dark hallway. Its walls were covered with photographs clipped from magazines and newspapers: movie stars and soccer players.

  “Look at this one,” Rosa said. “They gave it to me this morning. It’s Glenn Ford. Have you ever seen any of his movies?”

  “No. But I’d like to.”

  The dining room was at the end of the hallway. Rosa’s parents were eating in complete silence. The chair that the wife was sitting in had lost its back. The husband raised his eyes from the newspaper beside his plate and looked at Teresa.

  “Ah, Teresita,” he said, getting up.

  “Hello,” she said.

  He was growing old; he was pot-bellied and bow-legged, with sleepy-looking eyes. He grinned and reached out a hand to the girl’s face in a friendly way, but Teresa stepped back and his hand wavered in the air and then dropped.

  “I want to take a bath, Señora,” Teresa said to the wife. “All right?”

  “Yes,” the woman said curtly. “It’ll be a sol. Have you got it?”

  Teresa stretched out her hand. The coin was dull and lifeless from long usage.

  “Make it snappy,” the woman said. “There isn’t much water.”

  The bathroom was a dim nook only a yard square with some slimy, worn-out boards on the tile floor. The shower was a pipe on the wall. Teresa closed the door and hung the towel on the handle, making sure it covered the keyhole. Then she undressed. She was slender, with a graceful figure and very dark skin. She turned on the water. It was cold again. As she soaped herself, she heard the wife shout, “Get away from there, you filthy old goat!” The husband’s footsteps went away and she could hear the couple arguing. She got dressed and went out. The husband was sitting at the table, and when he saw Teresa he winked at her. The wife scowled: “You’re getting the floor wet.”

  “I’m going home now,” Teresa said. “Thank you, Señora.”

  “So long, Teresa,” the husband said. “Come back whenever you want to.”

  Rosa went to the door with her. In the hallway Teresa whispered, “Do me a favor, Rosita. Lend me your blue ribbon. The one you were wearing Saturday. I’ll bring it back tonight if you want.”

  Rosa nodded and put a finger to her lips. She tiptoed down the hallway, vanished for a few moments, and came tiptoeing back.

  “Here,” she said, with the look of a happy conspirator, “but what do you want it for? Where’re you going?”

  “I’ve got a date,” Teresa said. “He’s taking me to the movies.”

  Her eyes were shining with joy.

  A light drizzle swayed the leaves on the trees along Alcanfores Street. Alberto went into the corner store, bought a pack of cigarettes, and walked down to Larco Avenue. A lot of cars were going by, some of them almost new, with bright-colored tops that contrasted with the gray of the buildings and the sky. There were also a great many pedestrians, and he watched a tall, slinky girl in black tights until she vanished in the crowd. The express was late as usual. Then Alberto noticed a couple of boys grinning at him. It was a few seconds before he recognized them. He turned pink and said, “Hi!” and they came running over with open arms.

  “Where’ve you been all this while?” one of them asked him. He was wearing a sporty suit, and his hair was combed up in a peak like the comb of a rooster. “Is it really you?” he asked Alberto.

  “We thought you didn’t live in Miraflores any more,” the other one said. He was short and heavy, and was wearing loafers. “You haven’t been around to the neighborhood for years.”

  “Well, I’m living in Alcanfores now,” Alberto said. “I’m going to the Leoncio Prado. I only get out on weekends.”

  “You mean the Military Academy?” the one with the hair-do asked him. “It must be a real bitch. What’d you do to get sent there?”

  “It’s not too bad. Not after you get used to it.”

  The express was full when it arrived, and they had to stand up and hold onto the overhead rail. Alberto thought about the people he saw on Saturdays on the La Perla buses or the Lima-Callao streetcars: loud ties, if any, and a smell of sweat and dirt. But on the express: clean clothes, dignified faces, smiles.

  “And your car?” Alberto asked.

  “Mine?” the one in loafers said. “It’s my father’s. He won’t let me use it any more. I had an accident.”

  “What, you didn’t know?” the other one said excitedly. “You didn’t hear about the race on the Malecón?”

  “No, I didn’t hear a thing.”

  “Where’ve you been living, man? This Tico is a real fiend.” The other gave a satisfied smile. “He made a bet with that crazy Julio—the guy that lived on Francia Street, you remember him—for a race on the Malecón to La Quebrada. And it’d been raining, the pair of idiots. I was co-pilot for this one here. The highway patrol caught Julio, but we got away. We’d just come from a party, so you can imagine.”

  “But the accident?” Alberto asked.

  “That was after. Tico decided it’d be a good idea to drive backward for a while. He hit a post. Can you see this scar? And Tico didn’t even get scratched. It isn’t fair, the luck he’s got.”

  Tico smiled broadly, gleefully.

  “He’s a fiend, all right,” Alberto said. “How’s everything in the neighborhood?”

  “Fine,” Tico said. “We don’t get together during the week the way we used to, the girls are taking exams and they’re only around on Saturdays and Sundays. Things have changed, their parents let them go out with us, to parties or the movies. Their old ladies are getting civilized, they even let them have steady boy friends. Did you know Pluto’s going around with Helena?”

  “You’re going around with Helena?” Alberto asked.

  “It’ll be a month tomorrow,” Pluto said, blushing.

  “And they let her go out with you?”

  “Of course they do, man. Sometimes her mother invites me to lunch. You used to really like her, right?”

  “Me?” Alberto said. “No.”

  “Sure you did!” Pluto said. “You were nuts about her. Don’t you remember the time we were teaching you how to dance at Emilio’s house? We told you you’d have to tell her how you felt.”

  “Those were the days,” Tico said.

  “Hey, now,” Pluto said, looking toward the back of the express. “Do you gentlemen see what I see?”

  He shoved his way to the back seats. Tico and Alberto followed him. The girl was aware of them and turned her head to look out the window at the trees along the avenue. She was plump and pretty. Her nose was wriggling like a rabbit’s. It was almost pressed up against the window, and her breath clouded the glass.

  “Hello, my love,” Pluto said.

  “Don’t molest my sweetheart,” Tico said, “or I’ll kill you.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Pluto said. “I’d gladly die for her.” He spread his arms like an orator. “I love her!”

  Tico and Pluto laughed loudly. The girl went on looking at the trees.

  “Don’t mind him, my darling,” Tico said. “He’s just a savage. Pluto, ask the señorita to excuse you.”

  “You’re right,” Pluto said. “I’m a savage and I regret it. Please forgive me. Tell me you forgive me or I’ll make a scene.”

  “Have a heart,” Tico said.

  Alberto was also looking out the window. The trees were moist, the pavement shining. There was a steady stream of cars coming from the other direction. The ex
press had already passed through Orrantia and its big, multicolored houses. Now the houses were small and drab.

  “This is disgraceful,” a woman said. “Leave the poor girl alone!”

  Tico and Pluto went on laughing. The girl stopped looking at the avenue for a moment and glanced around her with the quick, bright eyes of a squirrel. A smile crossed her face and vanished.

  “With the greatest pleasure, Señora,” Tico said. Then turning to the girl again: “Please excuse us, Señorita.”

  “This is my stop,” Alberto said, shaking hands. “I’ll be seeing you.”

  “Come on with us,” Tico said. “We’ll go to the movies. We can get a girl for you. She’s really okay.”

  “No, I can’t,” Alberto said. “I’ve got a date.”

  “In Lince?” Pluto asked him with a malicious grin. “So you’ve got something going, you half-breed! Well, I hope you make it. And don’t get lost again, come around to the neighborhood, everybody still remembers you.”

  I knew she’d be ugly, he thought when he first saw her in the doorway. And he hurriedly said, “Good afternoon. Is Teresa in?”

  “I’m Teresa.”

  “I’ve got a message from Arana. Ricardo Arana.”

  “Come in,” the girl said in a shy voice. “Sit down.”

  Alberto sat down gingerly on the edge of the chair, wondering if it might not collapse. There was a gap in the curtains that separated the rooms, and he could see the end of a bed and a woman’s large, dark feet.

  “Arana didn’t get a pass,” Alberto said. “It was just bad luck. They confined him to the grounds this morning. He told me he had a date with you and he asked me to come and excuse him.”

  “They confined him?” the girl asked. Her face clearly revealed her disappointment. She had her hair tied up at the back of her neck with a blue ribbon. I wonder if he’s ever kissed her, Alberto thought.

  “That’s something that happens to everybody,” he said. “It’s all in your luck. He’ll come and see you next Saturday.”

  “Who is it?” a grumpy voice demanded. Alberto looked over, and the feet had vanished. A moment later a greasy face peered out between the curtains. Alberto stood up.

  “It’s a friend of Arana’s,” Teresa said. “His name is…”

  Alberto told them his name. The hand he had to shake was fat, limp, sweaty, clammy. The woman gave him a theatrical smile and started talking so fast there was no chance of interrupting. Her prattle sounded to him like a caricature of all the polite jargon he had heard since childhood, spiced with fine, superfluous adjectives and with here a Don, there a Señor, and she asked him innumerable questions without waiting for answers. He felt trapped in a web of words, in an echoing labyrinth.

  “Sit down, sit down,” the woman said, waving toward the chair and bowing to him over her vast bosom, “don’t put yourself out on my account, just feel right at home, it’s a poor home but a decent one, you know what I mean, I’ve earned my daily bread my whole life long with the sweat of my brow, I’m a seamstress and I’ve been able to give Teresita a good education, she’s my niece, you know, the poor thing’s an orphan, she owes everything to me, sit down, Señor Alberto.”

  “Arana was confined to the grounds,” Teresa said. She avoided looking at Alberto or her aunt. “This señor brought me the message.”

  Señor? Alberto thought. He tried to see the girl’s eyes but she was looking down at the floor. The woman stiffened and dropped her arms but there was still the trace of a frozen smile on her thick lips, her flat nose, and the pouches under her eyes.

  “Poor thing,” she said. “Poor boy, how his mother’ll suffer, I’ve had children myself so I know what a mother’s grief is, my children died, that’s the way God is and there’s no use trying to understand, but he’ll get out next week, life is hard for all of us, I know it only too well, you youngsters shouldn’t think about it, tell me, where are you going to take Teresita?”

  “Aunt,” the girl said with a gesture of impatience, “he came to give me a message. He isn’t…”

  “Don’t worry about me,” the woman added, generous, understanding, self-sacrificing. “You young people are happier when you’re alone together, I was young once too and now I’m old, that’s life, but you’ll have your troubles soon enough, the older you get the worse it is, did you know I’m going blind?”

  “Aunt,” the girl said. “Please…”

  “If you’ll let us,” Alberto said, “we could go to a movie. That is, if it’s all right with you.”

  The girl had lowered her eyes again. She was silent and could not tell what to do with her hands.

  “Bring her back early,” the aunt said. “Young people shouldn’t stay out late, Don Alberto.” She turned to Teresa. “Come with me a minute. Excuse us, Señor.”

  She took Teresa by the arm and led her into the other room. The woman’s words reached his ears in fragments, as if partly blown away by a high wind. He could make out isolated words, but he could not put them together. Still, he could understand obscurely that the girl refused to go out with him, and that the aunt, without replying to that, was creating a grand, all-inclusive portrait of him, or rather, of the ideal being he represented in her eyes: she saw him as rich, elegant, enviable, a man of the world.

  The curtains parted again. Alberto smiled. The girl was rubbing her hands, disgusted and even shyer than before.

  “You can go out,” the woman said. “I take very good care of her, I want you to know. I don’t let her go out with just anybody. She’s a good worker, though you wouldn’t think it to see how thin she is. I’m happy you’re going to enjoy yourselves for a while.”

  The girl went to the door and stood aside for Alberto to go out first. The drizzle had stopped, but the air smelled damp and the sidewalk and the street were glistening and slippery. Alberto walked beside Teresa on the outside of the sidewalk. He took out his cigarettes and lit one. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye: she was upset, and walked with short quick steps, looking straight ahead. They reached the corner without having spoken. Teresa stopped.

  “You can leave me here,” she said. “I know a girl, a friend of mine, who lives on the next block. Thanks for everything.”

  “No,” Alberto said. “Why?”

  “You’ll have to excuse my aunt,” Teresa said. She was looking at him now, and seemed calmer. “She’s very kind, she’ll do everything she can so I can go out on a date.”

  “Yes,” Alberto said, “she’s very nice, very friendly.”

  “But she talks a lot,” Teresa said, and laughed.

  She isn’t pretty but she’s got beautiful teeth, Alberto thought. How did the Slave get to be her boy friend?

  “Will Arana be mad if you go out with me?”

  “He isn’t my boy friend,” she said. “This is the first time we had a date. He didn’t tell you?”

  “No.”

  They were still at the corner. They could see a few people at a distance on the streets around them. It began drizzling again, and a fine mist drifted down on them. They were silent for a moment. Alberto dropped his cigarette and stamped it out.

  “Well,” Teresa said, reaching out her hand, “good-by.”

  “No,” Alberto said. “You can visit your friend some other time. Let’s go to the movies.”

  Her face grew very serious. “Don’t invite me because you think you ought to. Really. Haven’t you got something you have to do?”

  “Even if I did, I’d invite you,” Alberto said. “But honestly, I don’t.”

  “All right,” she said. She stretched out her hand, palm up, and looked at the sky. Alberto could see that her eyes were gleaming.

  “It’s raining.”

  “Just barely.”

  “Let’s take the express.”

  They walked down to Arequipa Avenue. Alberto lit another cigarette.

  “You just put one out,” Teresa said. “Do you smoke a lot?”

  “No. Only when I’m on pass.”
r />   “Don’t they let you smoke in the Academy?”

  “Strictly forbidden. But of course we smoke anyway, in secret.”

  As they approached the avenue the houses were larger, the streets wider. Groups of people went by. Some boys in shirt sleeves shouted something at Teresa. Alberto turned around to go back, but she stopped him.

  “Don’t pay any attention to them,” she said. “They’re always saying silly things.”

  “They shouldn’t bother a girl when she’s with a fellow,” Alberto said. “That’s an insult.”

  “You cadets from the Leoncio Prado, you all like to fight.”

  He reddened with pleasure. Vallano was right: the cadets really impressed the girls. Not those in Miraflores, but those in Lince. He started talking about the Academy, the rivalries among the Years, the field exercises, the vicuña, the dog Skimpy. Teresa listened attentively, and showed how she liked his stories. Then she told him she worked in a downtown office and that earlier she had studied typing and shorthand in a secretarial school. They got on the express at the Raimondi Academy stop and got off at the San Martín Plaza. Pluto and Tico were there under the arcades. They looked them up and down, and Tico grinned at Alberto and winked his eye.

  “Aren’t you going to the movies?”

  “They stood us up,” Pluto said.

  They said good-by. Alberto could hear them whispering behind him. He felt as if the dirty looks of the whole neighborhood were falling on him like a cloudburst.

  “What movie would you like to see?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Any one you want.”

  Alberto bought a newspaper and read out the movie ads in a loud, affected voice. Teresa laughed and the people walking through the arcades turned to look at them. They decided to go to the Metro. Alberto bought two tickets for downstairs. If Arana only knew how I’m spending the money he loaned me, he thought. And now I can’t go see Golden Toes. He smiled at Teresa and she smiled back at him. It was still early and the theater was almost empty. Alberto grew very talkative: since he was not intimidated by this girl, he could make good use of all the smart phrases and wisecracks and puns he had heard so often in the neighborhood.