Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa

friend sent me there,” Ambrosio says. “Get yourself over there, boy. All a story, son, the streets are paved with gold. The biggest roasting of the century. Oh, if I only told you.”
    Espina took him to the office door and shook his hand. Bermúdez left with the satchel in one hand, his hat in the other. He had a distracted and serious look, as if he were looking inside. He didn’t answer the bow or the salute of the officer at the door of the Ministry. Was it quitting time in all the offices? The streets were full of people and noise. He mingled with the crowd, followed the current, he came, went, returned along narrow and jammed sidewalks, dragged along by a kind of whirlwind or spell, stopping at times at a corner or a doorway or a lamppost to light a cigarette. In a café on the Jirón Azángaro he ordered tea with lemon, which he slowly savored, and when he got up he left a tip that was twice the bill. In a bookstore hiding in an alley off the Jirón de la Unión, he thumbed through some novels with flashy covers and cramped and tiny letters, looking without seeing, until The Mysteries of Lesbos  caught his eyes for a second. He bought it and left. He wandered awhile longer through the downtown streets, the satchel under his arm, his hat crumpled in his hand, smoking ceaselessly. It was already getting dark and the streets were deserted when he went into the Hotel Maury and asked for a room. They gave him a card and he paused with the pen for a few seconds at where it said profession, he finally wrote civil servant. The room was on the third floor, the window opened onto an inner courtyard. He got into the bathtub and went to bed in his underwear. He thumbed through The Mysteries of Lesbos, letting his eyes run blindly over the tight little black figures. Then he turned out the light. But he couldn’t fall asleep until many hours later. Awake, he lay on his back, his body motionless, the cigarette burning between his fingers, breathing with anxiety, his eyes staring at the dark shadows above him.

4
     
     
    “S O IN P UCALLPA and that Hilario Morales’ fault, so you know when and why you fucked yourself up,” Santiago says. “I’d give anything to know at just what moment I fucked myself up.”
    Would she remember, would she bring the book? Summer was ending, it seemed like five o’clock and it wasn’t even two yet, and Santiago thinks: she brought the book, she remembered. He felt euphoric going into the dusty entranceway with flagstones and chipped columns, impatient, he should get in, she should get in, optimistic, and you got in, he thinks, and she got in: ah, Zavalita, how happy you felt.
    “You’ve got your health, you’re young, you’ve got a wife,” Ambrosio says. “How could you have fucked yourself up, son?”
    Alone or in groups, their faces buried in their notes, how many of these would go in? where was Aída? the candidates walked around the courtyard with the steps of a processional, they reviewed their notes sitting on the splintery benches, leaning against the dirty walls they asked each other questions in low voices. Half-breed boys and girls, proper people didn’t come here. He thinks: you were right, mama.
    “Before I left home, before I got into San Marcos, I was pure,” Santiago says.
    He recognized a few faces from the written exam, he exchanged smiles and hellos, but Aída didn’t appear, and he went to stand by the entrance. He listened to a group reviewing geography, he listened to a boy, motionless ,  his eyes lowered, reciting the names of the viceroys of Peru as if he were praying.
    “The kind of pure tobacco cigars that the moneybags smoke at bullfights?” Ambrosio laughs.
    He saw her come in: the same straight, brick-colored dress, the same low-heeled shoes from the written exam. She came along with her look of a studious schoolgirl in uniform through the crowded entranceway, she turned her overgrown child’s face from one side to the other, no glow, no grace, no