Read Online B004QGYWKI EBOK by Mario Vargas Llosa - Free Book Online
Authors: Mario Vargas Llosa
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Cuéllar, buddy, it’s okay, leave us off at our houses, and Lalo he was getting married tomorrow, he didn’t want to break his neck the night before, don’t be so inconsiderate, he shouldn’t go up on the sidewalk, don’t run the light at that speed, stop being a pain. He hit a taxi on Alcanfores and Lalo he wasn’t hurt, but Manny and Choto bruised their faces and he broke three ribs. We had a falling out and a little later he telephoned them and we made up and they went out to eat together but this time something had come between them and him and it was never the same again.
From then on we didn’t see much of each other and when Manny got married he sent him an announcement of the wedding without an invitation, and he didn’t go to the bachelor party and when Chingolo came back from the United States married to a pretty Yankee and with two kids who hardly spoke a word of Spanish, Cuéllar had already gone up into the mountains, to Tingo Maria, to grow coffee, they said, and whenever he came down into Lima and they met him on the street, we hardly said hello, what’s new kid, how are you P.P., what’s up old boy, so-so, ciao, and he had already come back to Miraflores, crazier than ever, and he had already killed himself, going up north, how? in a crack-up, where? on those treacherous curves at Pasamayo, poor guy, we said at the funeral, how much he suffered, what a life he had, but this finish is something he had in store for him.
They were mature and settled men by now and we all had a wife, car, children who studied at Champagnat, Immaculate Conception or St. Mary’s, and they were building themselves a little summerhouse in Ancon, St. Rose or the beaches in the south, and we began to get fat and to have gray hair, potbellies, soft bodies, to wear reading glasses, to feel uneasy after eating and drinking and age spots already showed up on their skin as well as certain wrinkles.
The Leaders
1.
Javier jumped the gun by a split second.
“The whistle!” he shouted, already up on his feet.
The tension broke, violently, like an explosion. We were all standing up. Dr. Abasolo’s mouth was open. He turned red, clenching his fists. When he raised his hand and, getting a grip on himself, seemed on the verge of launching into a sermon, the whistle really did blow. We ran out in an uproar, frenzied, urged on by the crow’s cackle from Amaya, who pushed ahead turning over desks.
Yells jolted the courtyard. The third- and fourth-year students had gotten out earlier: they formed a huge circle that swirled beneath the dust. The first and second years came out almost at the same time we did: they brought new, aggressive phrases, more hatred. The circle grew. Indignation was unanimous in the high school. (The elementary school had a small blue mosaic patio in the opposite wing of the building.)
“He wants to screw us, the hick.”
“Yeah, up his.”
Nobody said a word about final exams. The students’ excitement, the shouting, the commotion, all pointed to this as the right time for confronting the principal. Suddenly I stopped trying to hold myself back and I feverishly started running from group to group. “He picks on us and we don’t say a word?” “We’ve got to do something.” “We’ve got to do something to him .”
An iron hand yanked me out of the center of the circle.
“Not you,” said Javier. “Don’t get mixed up in this. They’ll expel you. You know that already.”
“Doesn’t matter to me now. I’m going to make him pay for everything. It’s my chance, see? Let’s get them into formation.”
We went around the courtyard whispering in each ear: “Get in line.” “Form ranks, on the double.”
“Let’s line up!” Raygada’s booming voice vibrated in the suffocating morning air.
A lot of the others chimed in:
“Ranks! Ranks!”
Surprised, the school monitors Gallardo and Romero then saw that the uproar had suddenly subsided and that the ranks were formed
From then on we didn’t see much of each other and when Manny got married he sent him an announcement of the wedding without an invitation, and he didn’t go to the bachelor party and when Chingolo came back from the United States married to a pretty Yankee and with two kids who hardly spoke a word of Spanish, Cuéllar had already gone up into the mountains, to Tingo Maria, to grow coffee, they said, and whenever he came down into Lima and they met him on the street, we hardly said hello, what’s new kid, how are you P.P., what’s up old boy, so-so, ciao, and he had already come back to Miraflores, crazier than ever, and he had already killed himself, going up north, how? in a crack-up, where? on those treacherous curves at Pasamayo, poor guy, we said at the funeral, how much he suffered, what a life he had, but this finish is something he had in store for him.
They were mature and settled men by now and we all had a wife, car, children who studied at Champagnat, Immaculate Conception or St. Mary’s, and they were building themselves a little summerhouse in Ancon, St. Rose or the beaches in the south, and we began to get fat and to have gray hair, potbellies, soft bodies, to wear reading glasses, to feel uneasy after eating and drinking and age spots already showed up on their skin as well as certain wrinkles.
The Leaders
1.
Javier jumped the gun by a split second.
“The whistle!” he shouted, already up on his feet.
The tension broke, violently, like an explosion. We were all standing up. Dr. Abasolo’s mouth was open. He turned red, clenching his fists. When he raised his hand and, getting a grip on himself, seemed on the verge of launching into a sermon, the whistle really did blow. We ran out in an uproar, frenzied, urged on by the crow’s cackle from Amaya, who pushed ahead turning over desks.
Yells jolted the courtyard. The third- and fourth-year students had gotten out earlier: they formed a huge circle that swirled beneath the dust. The first and second years came out almost at the same time we did: they brought new, aggressive phrases, more hatred. The circle grew. Indignation was unanimous in the high school. (The elementary school had a small blue mosaic patio in the opposite wing of the building.)
“He wants to screw us, the hick.”
“Yeah, up his.”
Nobody said a word about final exams. The students’ excitement, the shouting, the commotion, all pointed to this as the right time for confronting the principal. Suddenly I stopped trying to hold myself back and I feverishly started running from group to group. “He picks on us and we don’t say a word?” “We’ve got to do something.” “We’ve got to do something to him .”
An iron hand yanked me out of the center of the circle.
“Not you,” said Javier. “Don’t get mixed up in this. They’ll expel you. You know that already.”
“Doesn’t matter to me now. I’m going to make him pay for everything. It’s my chance, see? Let’s get them into formation.”
We went around the courtyard whispering in each ear: “Get in line.” “Form ranks, on the double.”
“Let’s line up!” Raygada’s booming voice vibrated in the suffocating morning air.
A lot of the others chimed in:
“Ranks! Ranks!”
Surprised, the school monitors Gallardo and Romero then saw that the uproar had suddenly subsided and that the ranks were formed
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