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Authors: Mario Vargas Llosa
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an orphan in my own country. I lived in my aunt Alberta's
apartment on Calle Colon in Miraflores, which still was filled with
her presence and where everything reminded me of her, of my years
at the university, of my adolescence without parents. It moved me
when I found all the letters I had written to her from Paris, arranged
chronologically, in her bedside table. I saw some of my old
Miraflores friends from the Barrio Alegre, and with half a dozen of
them went one Saturday to eat at the Kuo Wha Chinese restaurant
near the Via Expresa to talk about old times. Except for our
memories, we didn't have much in common anymore, since their
lives as young professionals and businessmen—two were working in
their fathers' companies—had nothing to do with my life in France.
Three were married, one had begun to have children, and the other
three had girlfriends who would soon be their brides. In the jokes
we told one another—a way of filling empty spaces in the
conversation—they all pretended to envy me for living in the city of
pleasure and fucking those French girls who were famous for being
wild women in bed. How surprised they would have been if I
confessed that in the years I spent in Paris, the only girl I went to
bed with was a Permian, Lily of all people, the false Chilean girl of
our childhood. What did they think of the guerrillas and their
announcement in the papers? Like Uncle Ataulfo, they didn't think
they were important. Those Castristas sent here by Cuba wouldn't
last very long. Who could believe that a Communist revolution
would triumph in Peru? If the Belaunde government couldn't stop
them, the military would come in again and impose order,
something they didn't look forward to.
That's what Dr. Ataulfo Lamiel was afraid of too. "The only thing
these idiots will achieve by playing guerrilla is to hand the military
an excuse for a coup d'etat on a silver platter. And stick us with
another eight or ten years of military dictatorship. Who even thinks
about making a revolution against a government that's not only
Chilian and democratic, but that the entire Permian oligarchy,
beginning with La Prensa and El Comercio, accuses of being
Communist because it wants agrarian reform? Peru is confusion,
nephew, you did the right thing when you went to live in the country
of Cartesian clarity."
Uncle Ataulfo was a lanky, mustachioed man in his forties who
always wore a jacket and bow tie and was married to Aunt Dolores, a
kind, pale woman who had been an invalid for close to ten years and
whom he looked after with devotion. They lived in a nice house, full
of books and records, in Olivar de San Isidro, where they invited me
to lunch and dinner. Aunt Dolores bore her illness without
bitterness and amused herself by playing the piano and watching
soap operas. When we recalled Aunt Alberta, she started to cry. They
had no children and he, in addition to his law practice, taught classes
in mercantile law at Catholic University. He had a good library and
was very interested in local politics, not hiding his sympathies for
the democratic reform movement incarnated, to his mind, in
Belaunde Terry. He was very kind to me, expediting the formalities
of the inheritance as much as he could and refusing to charge me a
cent for his services: "Don't be silly, nephew, I was very fond of
Alberta and your parents." Those were tedious days of abject
appearances before notaries and judges and carrying documents
back and forth through the labyrinthine Palace of Justice, which left
me sleepless at night and increasingly impatient to return to Paris.
In my free time I reread Flaubert's Sentimental Education because
now, for me, Madame Arnoux in the novel had not only the name
but also the face of the bad girl. Once the taxes on the inheritance
had been deducted and the debts left behind by Aunt Alberta had
been paid, Uncle Ataulfo announced that with the apartment sold
and the furniture
apartment on Calle Colon in Miraflores, which still was filled with
her presence and where everything reminded me of her, of my years
at the university, of my adolescence without parents. It moved me
when I found all the letters I had written to her from Paris, arranged
chronologically, in her bedside table. I saw some of my old
Miraflores friends from the Barrio Alegre, and with half a dozen of
them went one Saturday to eat at the Kuo Wha Chinese restaurant
near the Via Expresa to talk about old times. Except for our
memories, we didn't have much in common anymore, since their
lives as young professionals and businessmen—two were working in
their fathers' companies—had nothing to do with my life in France.
Three were married, one had begun to have children, and the other
three had girlfriends who would soon be their brides. In the jokes
we told one another—a way of filling empty spaces in the
conversation—they all pretended to envy me for living in the city of
pleasure and fucking those French girls who were famous for being
wild women in bed. How surprised they would have been if I
confessed that in the years I spent in Paris, the only girl I went to
bed with was a Permian, Lily of all people, the false Chilean girl of
our childhood. What did they think of the guerrillas and their
announcement in the papers? Like Uncle Ataulfo, they didn't think
they were important. Those Castristas sent here by Cuba wouldn't
last very long. Who could believe that a Communist revolution
would triumph in Peru? If the Belaunde government couldn't stop
them, the military would come in again and impose order,
something they didn't look forward to.
That's what Dr. Ataulfo Lamiel was afraid of too. "The only thing
these idiots will achieve by playing guerrilla is to hand the military
an excuse for a coup d'etat on a silver platter. And stick us with
another eight or ten years of military dictatorship. Who even thinks
about making a revolution against a government that's not only
Chilian and democratic, but that the entire Permian oligarchy,
beginning with La Prensa and El Comercio, accuses of being
Communist because it wants agrarian reform? Peru is confusion,
nephew, you did the right thing when you went to live in the country
of Cartesian clarity."
Uncle Ataulfo was a lanky, mustachioed man in his forties who
always wore a jacket and bow tie and was married to Aunt Dolores, a
kind, pale woman who had been an invalid for close to ten years and
whom he looked after with devotion. They lived in a nice house, full
of books and records, in Olivar de San Isidro, where they invited me
to lunch and dinner. Aunt Dolores bore her illness without
bitterness and amused herself by playing the piano and watching
soap operas. When we recalled Aunt Alberta, she started to cry. They
had no children and he, in addition to his law practice, taught classes
in mercantile law at Catholic University. He had a good library and
was very interested in local politics, not hiding his sympathies for
the democratic reform movement incarnated, to his mind, in
Belaunde Terry. He was very kind to me, expediting the formalities
of the inheritance as much as he could and refusing to charge me a
cent for his services: "Don't be silly, nephew, I was very fond of
Alberta and your parents." Those were tedious days of abject
appearances before notaries and judges and carrying documents
back and forth through the labyrinthine Palace of Justice, which left
me sleepless at night and increasingly impatient to return to Paris.
In my free time I reread Flaubert's Sentimental Education because
now, for me, Madame Arnoux in the novel had not only the name
but also the face of the bad girl. Once the taxes on the inheritance
had been deducted and the debts left behind by Aunt Alberta had
been paid, Uncle Ataulfo announced that with the apartment sold
and the furniture
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