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  She hung up, and Chabela was left holding the receiver. She was very worried and began to dial Marisa’s cell phone but stopped herself. Better to find out first. On the intercom she called the chauffeur and told him to go out and buy a magazine called Exposed. She finished getting ready to go to the gym but, since the chauffeur took so long to return, she decided to forget about Pilates and yoga and, summoning her courage, called Marisa. The line was busy. She called ten times in a row and it was still busy. Finally, the chauffeur returned holding the magazine, on his face an expression of surprise and mockery that he didn’t try to hide. On the cover was a large photograph in which Chabela instantly recognized Quique’s face. My God! It couldn’t be! Quique—no doubt it was him—naked! Naked from head to toe. And what was he doing, she couldn’t be seeing what she was seeing. Her face burned and her hands were trembling.

  The phone rang. Chabela continued looking at the cover as if in a trance, not managing to read the caption that accompanied the photograph. She saw that Nicasia was coming into her room and saying that Señora Marisa was on the phone. Her friend could barely speak.

  “Have you seen what’s going on, Chabela?” she heard her stammer. A sob cut off her voice.

  “Calm down, darling,” she consoled her, stammering as well. “Shall I come to see you? You have to get out of your house, the reporters will drive you crazy. I’ll come for you right now, okay?”

  “Yes, yes, please, come quickly.” Marisa sobbed into the telephone. “I can’t believe it, Chabela. I have to get out of here, yes. The calls are driving me crazy.”

  “I’m leaving right now. Don’t answer the phone, don’t open the door to anyone. Those awful people must be all around the entrance to the building.”

  She hung up, and though she wanted to take a fast shower, she couldn’t move. Astonished, disconcerted, she flipped through the pages of the magazine and didn’t believe, didn’t accept, wasn’t convinced she was seeing what she saw. Could they have faked the photos? Yes, certainly they had. That’s why poor Quique had been so troubled recently. Poor? What an animal if those photographs were true. What a scandal, what ugly gossip would pour down on poor Marisa’s head. She had to get her out of the house right now. She tossed the copy of Exposed to the floor, ran to the bathroom, showered quickly, threw on the first thing she found, tied a kerchief around her head, got into the car, and sped to Marisa’s house. It took more than half an hour to reach San Isidro because traffic was very heavy at that time of day on Javier Prado Avenue and the Zanjón. Poor Marisa. Incredible, my God. This was why she’d been in that state for so many days, of course. Poor Quique, too. Or not, what a despicable little man, what a hateful wretch that meek little hypocrite had turned out to be. Of course, naturally. What a dirty trick on poor Marisa!

  When she reached the building where Marisa and Enrique lived, near the Golf Club, she saw a small group of people crowded around the entrance with their flashbulbs and cameras. She didn’t stop but drove on and parked around the corner. She walked back, said excuse me to the photographers and cameramen, and one of them asked: “Are you coming to see the Cárdenas family, señora?” She didn’t stop and shook her head no. The doorman, who blocked the door with his body, recognized her right away and stepped aside to let her in. The elevator was free, and she rode up alone to the penthouse. Quintanilla, who opened the door for her, had a mournful face and, not saying a word, pointed to the bedroom.

  Chabela went in and saw Marisa standing at the window, looking down at the street. When she heard her, a livid Marisa turned and came toward her. She threw herself into her arms, sobbing. Chabela felt her friend’s entire body shivering, and she couldn’t speak for weeping. “Calm down, darling,” she whispered in her ear. “I’m going to help you, and be with you. You have to be strong, Marisita, tell me what happened, how this could have happened.”

  Marisa finally began to calm down. Taking her by the hand, Chabela led her to a sofa, sat her down next to the Berrocal sculpture, and then sat beside her. Her friend was in her robe, her hair uncombed, and she must have been crying for a long time, because her eyes were swollen and her lips bluish, as if she had been biting them.

  “How did this happen? Have you talked to Quique?” Chabela asked, smoothing Marisa’s blond hair, caressing her, putting her face next to hers and kissing her check, holding her white hands in hers. They were icy. She rubbed them, warming them.

  “I don’t know anything, Chabela,” she heard her stammer; she never had seen her so pale. Her blue eyes seemed liquefied. “I can’t talk to him, he isn’t in the office or he’s told them to say he isn’t. This is horrible. Have you seen those photos? I still can’t believe it’s true, Chabela. I don’t know what to do, I want him to explain it to me. How can it be possible, I feel so ashamed, I’ve never felt so wounded, so betrayed, how awful. My parents, my brothers and sisters have called, horrified. I don’t even know what to say to them.”

  “They might be faked; nowadays photographers can falsify anything,” Chabela said, trying to comfort her.

  In half a voice, as if she hadn’t heard her, Marisa said that her husband had gotten up very early, as usual, they’d had breakfast together, and he had left for the office before eight o’clock. And at that very moment, Marisa had received the first phone call. Her cousin Alicia, who was taking her little boy to the Colegio San Agustín, had been horrified when, at a traffic light, a newsboy had pushed that filthy magazine into the car. And, of course, she had bought it when she saw Quique on the cover. And naked, just what you’re hearing, naked! Her cousin also thought it was a fake, that they had doctored those photos, it was impossible for Quique to have done things like that. Marisa had someone buy the magazine and still could not believe what those disgusting pages showed. The entire magazine devoted to an orgy in Chosica! She retched, she threw up. And the calls didn’t stop, every damn gossip in Lima seemed to know the story. And soon radio stations, newspapers, television stations began to call, too. A magazine that Marisa didn’t even know existed until now. Yes, it had to be a falsification, didn’t it? Because, she repeated over and over again, as if to convince herself, it wasn’t possible that Quique would do those things. The worst part was that she still couldn’t speak to him. He had disappeared from his office, or they said he had; his secretary contradicted herself, claiming he hadn’t come in yet or that he had just left in a hurry. Surely the damn reporters were looking for him and the poor man had hidden somewhere to get rid of them. But how was it possible he hadn’t called to calm her down, to offer some explanation, to say it was all a lie and that soon the refutations would come and everything would be cleared up?

  “Take it easy, Marisa.” Chabela took her by the shoulders. “You have to get out of here. They’ll drive you crazy if you don’t. Get dressed and I’ll have Luciano’s driver come for us. I’ll tell him to stop at the garage so the reporters don’t see you go out, because they’ll follow us. Let’s go to my house, it’ll be quiet there and we can talk calmly and find Quique. I’m sure this is a trick, a fake by that disgusting rag, he’ll explain everything. The important thing now is to get you out of here, agreed, darling?”

  Marisa nodded and now she embraced her. They barely kissed on the lips. “Yes, yes, let’s do that, Chabelita, you don’t know how grateful I am that you’re here, I was going crazy before you arrived.”

  Now Chabela kissed her on the cheek and helped her stand. “Pack a small bag with what’s absolutely necessary, Marisa. The best thing will be for you to spend a few days with me until the storm passes. We can call Quique from my place. While you get ready, I’ll call Luciano.”

  Marisa went into the bathroom and Chabela called Luciano at the office. As soon as she heard his voice she knew that her husband knew about everything.

  Even so, she asked if he had seen Exposed.

  “I don’t think there’s a single person in this country who hasn’t seen that stinking rag,” said Luciano in an acid voice. “I’m trying to locate Quique but
can’t find him.”

  “Neither can Marisa,” Chabela interrupted. “But what matters now is to get Marisa out of here, Luciano. Yes, I’m at her house. As you can imagine, there’s a crowd of reporters at the entrance to the building. Send the driver with the car. Have him go to the garage, and I’ll have them open the door for him. We’ll be waiting. We’ll see each other at home. Can you come and talk to her?”

  “Yes, yes, I’ll go to lunch and talk to her at home,” said Luciano. “But the most important thing now is to find Quique. I’ll send the chauffeur over right away. If Marisa finds Quique, have her tell him to get in touch with me right away and not to even think about making any statement to anybody before talking to me.”

  They did just as Chabela had planned. Luciano’s chauffeur drove directly into the garage, the two women got in the car, and Marisa slumped down in her seat so the reporters wouldn’t see her. The car passed in front of them and they thought Chabela was the only passenger. None of them followed the car. Half an hour later they were in La Rinconada and Chabela helped her friend settle into the guest room, in a wing completely independent from the rest of the house. Then she led her to the living room and had the cook prepare hot chamomile tea. She sat next to her and dried her tears with a handkerchief.

  “This is what kept him from sleeping or eating, what was wearing him down for more than two weeks,” said Marisa after taking a few sips from the cup. “He told me that some blackmailers had threatened him on the phone. Now I’m sure it was because of this, the photographs this magazine published.”

  “These photos are faked, Marisa.” Chabela took her hands and kissed them. “You don’t know how sad it makes me that you’re going through this, darling. Quique will come and give you an explanation, you’ll see.”

  “Do you think it hasn’t occurred to me that they could be faked?” Marisa squeezed her hands. “But have you looked at them carefully, Chabela? I really hope they’re falsified, retouched. Sometimes I doubt it. But even if they are, the scandal’s out there, nobody can stop it now, there’s no turning back. Can you imagine what my life will be like after this? And I swear it will kill my mother-in-law. She’s so proud and straitlaced, she won’t survive something like this.”

  As if confirming her words, Nicasia came in to tell them that the Exposed photographs were being talked about on the radio and on television.

  “We’re not interested in hearing about it,” Chabela interrupted her. “Turn off the radio and the television and don’t pass through any phone call unless it’s Luciano or Señor Enrique.”

  A few minutes later, Luciano called.

  “I just spoke to Quique,” he told his wife. “He’s at his mother’s. They’d already brought the magazine to the poor woman, can you imagine, what awful people. He had to call her doctor. Quique is still with her, he can’t leave until he knows whether it’s anything serious. Tell Marisa not to even think about going to her mother-in-law’s house. The reporters are prowling around there, too. I’ll go as soon as I can. Try to calm Marisa down; tell her that as soon as his mother’s better, Quique will see her and explain everything.”

  Chabela and Marisa spent the rest of the morning talking. The only topic was those disgusting photographs, of course. “My mother-in-law’s going to die,” she kept repeating. “Did Luciano tell you who brought her the magazine? The people of Lima are the most perverse in the world, Chabela. I don’t think the poor woman will survive the scandal. She’s virtue personified, the poor old woman must have had a terrible shock when she saw the photos. Didn’t you think it was incredible to see Quique there, naked in the middle of those prostitutes, doing those disgusting things?”

  “It probably isn’t him, darling, probably all those photographs have been doctored to harm him. Calm down, please.”

  “I am calm, Chabela. But don’t you realize what’s going to happen now to my life, to my marriage? How can a marriage survive something like this?”

  “Don’t think about that now, Marisa. First talk to Quique. I’m sure this is all a scheme to hurt him. Some envious person, one of those enemies you make in this country simply because your business is doing well.”

  Marisa didn’t eat a mouthful at lunch. They turned on the television to watch the news, but since the first thing to appear on the screen was the cover of Exposed, and the announcer almost shouted the news item—“Scandal in high society!”—they turned it off. Luciano arrived at about four. He embraced and kissed Marisa and read them a communiqué that, he said, had been distributed to the press in Quique’s name. Engineer Enrique Cárdenas Sommerville said he was the victim of a publication that specialized in yellow journalism and scandal, which in its most recent edition published photographs that had been doctored and falsified in an attempt to undermine the businessman’s good name. This reprehensible effort would have its response and sanction according to current law. Lawyers had already presented an appeal for protection to the Judicial Branch, asking for the immediate seizure by the police of the libelous and insulting paper, as well as precautionary measures so that Rolando Garro, the editor of Exposed, the reporter Julieta Leguizamón, co-author of the defamatory article, and the corresponding photographer would be prevented from fleeing the country in order to escape the punishment they deserved for attempted blackmail, libel, falsification of documents, and affronts to honor and privacy. The judicial suit had already been filed, and Engineer Enrique Cárdenas Sommerville would soon hold a press conference in response to this cowardly, base attempt by gutter journalism to harm his person and his family.

  Chabela looked at Marisa. She had listened to Luciano reading the communiqué, as white as a sheet, looking down, motionless in her chair. When he finished, she made no comment. Luciano folded the text and approached Marisa, whom he embraced and kissed again on the forehead.

  “All this is moving ahead, Marisita,” he said. “It may be too late to withdraw the magazine from every kiosk. But I assure you that the rat who has done this will pay dearly for it.”

  “Where’s Quique?” Marisa asked.

  “He stopped at his office for a moment to see to some urgent matters. He told me to wait for him here. He’ll come very soon. It’s better for you and Quique to stay with us for a few days until the storm dies down. You have to be brave, Marisa. Scandals seem terrible when they happen, but they quickly pass and soon nobody even remembers them.”

  Chabela thought that her husband didn’t believe a word he was saying. Luciano was so proper he didn’t even know how to hide his lies.

  12

  The People’s Dining Room

  Juan Peineta began the morning, as he did almost every day, writing in pencil, in his trembling hand, a letter against Rolando Garro. He addressed it to the newspaper El Comercio. In it he protested because the dean of the national press hadn’t published his three previous letters “against that outlaw, the enemy of art and of quality, Señor Rolando Garro,” who continued “doing his dirty business in his slanderous rags and programs, destroying reputations and committing offenses against everything that is decent, creative, and talented in the nation’s artistic world, in which he is nothing but a pestilential excrescence.” He signed it and put it in an envelope on which he placed a stamp and then put it in his pocket so he could drop it in the first mailbox he passed. He hoped he wouldn’t forget, because sometimes that happened and some of his letters vegetated for many days in his pockets without his remembering to mail them.

  Three or four times a week he went to have lunch at the people’s dining room that the Barefoot Carmelites had in their convent of Our Lady of Carmen, on the eighth block of Junín Alleyway, in Carmen Alto. The food wasn’t substantial, but it had the advantage of being free. He had to wait in a long line among crowds of poor people; better to get there early, since admission was limited, no more than fifty at a time, and many people never got in. That was why Juan would leave the Hotel Mogollón in good time. It wasn’t too long a walk from there to Barrios Altos; all the way up Aba
ncay Avenue, then around the Plaza de la Inquisición and the Congreso de la República, and up Junín Alleyway almost to Five Corners. But it was long for him because, with his varicose veins and his distractions, he had to walk very slowly. It took him close to an hour, and he had to stop at least a couple of times along the way.

  Serafín didn’t accompany him on these trips. He would leave the Hotel Mogollón with him, but when he realized that Juan was going up to Barrios Altos, he silently disappeared. Why was he so afraid of that impoverished area in the center of Lima? Perhaps because, with the natural intelligence of cats, Juan Peineta’s friend had concluded it was a dangerous neighborhood where he could be kidnapped and turned into fricassee or “cat stew” and become a meal for those in the district who ate cats, and there must have been many of them. Eating a domestic animal so close to Juan Peineta seemed to him a form of cannibalism, almost like eating a human being.

  He arrived at the Convent of Las Descalzas early, but even so there was already a long line of poor people, beggars, vagrants, the unemployed, little old men and women who looked as if they had just arrived in Lima from remote mountain communities. They could be recognized because they tended to look bewildered, as if they had lost their way and were afraid they’d never find it again. After standing in line for half an hour, Juan saw that they were opening the large doors to the people’s dining room, and those in the first shift were beginning to go in. From the doorway, he could make out the bulky, shapeless silhouette of his friend Crecilda; he waved to her but she didn’t see him. He had known her for many years, when she’d had a school of tropical dance in the Magdalena Vieja district. But they had become friends only here, in the people’s dining room, where the Carmelite Sisters had been preparing free lunches since time immemorial.

  The menu was almost always the same, served on old, dented tin dishes: noodle soup, stewed greens with rice, and for dessert, apple or lemon compote. The dishes were already on the tables when they arrived; the food was served to them with large spoons by women in smocks with kerchiefs on their heads, but when they finished eating, it was the poor people themselves who carried the dishes to a sink, where the same women who had served them from large pans took the dishes and washed them. Crecilda directed all of this with a gentle but energetic hand; that was why she was always moving from one side to the other, agile in spite of her corpulence: enormous breasts, muscular legs, and dancing buttocks. This time she saw him first, sitting next to an Ayacuchan couple who were speaking Quechua. She came to say hello and to tell him not to leave immediately after eating but to stay and have a little maté with her and chat for a while.