Ricardo, for a moment, thought he might confess to him that he had seen everything, but Moreno had dressed up as a Franciscan for a reason, and uncovering this now was not advisable.
He decided to go along with the farce. It both amused and intrigued him.
G
ulietta found her unfortunate husband
still in bed, resting against a pair of pillows. He was doing his accounts in a leather-bound ledger. When he saw her come in, he asked her to sit next to him.
“There's no doctor on the train. Maybe in Charaña we can find a cardiologist.”
“Nothing's wrong with my heart. I'm healthier than that pimp Tréllez. You were too young to understand what was happening. When he was ambassador in Paris, that wannabe Frenchman brought back a French girl, one of those department store salesgirls, without his wife knowing it. Of course, he paid for her trip across the ocean and rented her an apartment at the bottom of Seis de Agosto, near the gas station. The jerk visited her every day. The money came from his wife, who owns haciendas on the Altiplano and in the Yungas. He took money from his wife and gave it to the French girl.”
“And why did you care?”
“I didn't care.”
“So why did you tell her?”
“You believe that nonsense?”
“He told it to your face.”
“That moron is a liar.”
“He said the French girl didn't pay any attention to you, and that you ratted on him to get revenge.”
Alderete tossed the ledger aside, removed his reading glasses, and barked, “You're my wife, right?”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“You can't take that pimp's side. You should believe
me
.”
“All right, I believe you,” said Gulietta, sounding fatigued. She stood up and fixed her hair in front of the mirror.
“Imagine how pissed those useless society boys must be: a beautiful girl like you, married to me. They can't swallow it.”
“Mind if I smoke?” Gulietta asked.
“Of course not. You can do whatever you want. You have married a man who can never say no to you.”
Gulietta eyed him as if he were a piece of furniture. “You're looking better. You were very pale.”
“Sit here,” Alderete ordered.
Gulietta didn't have any choice. Alderete's hands went up her arm until they arrived at her neck. They stopped there and awaited a response. Gulietta remained motionless. Alderete's fingers felt rough and shaky to her.
“I want you so badly,” he said.
“We'll be going up to near 16,000 feet,” Gulietta remarked.
“So?”
Gulietta smiled. It took great effort for her to treat him with affection. Her feeling of repulsion was stronger than her will. “So, you shouldn't get too aroused at that altitude.”
“That's my problem . . . Now turn this way.” He took off her sweater and rested a cheek against one of her well-rounded breasts. “Unbutton your bra,” he said imperiously.
Gulietta obeyed. She was naked from the waist up. Alderete's nostrils gave off steam like an angry buffalo.
“Your skin is incredible!” he stammered. His lips opened up to receive a drop of youth.
Gulietta could not take her eyes off his greasy mane. She felt one of her nipples being suctioned as if by a rubber doll, and wanted to laugh. Alderete went from one nipple to the other with the expression of a dying man. He continued back and forth for a few minutes, while Gulietta closed her eyes.
“Your skirt,” Alderete said. “Take it off.”
“It's almost tea time.”
“The hell with tea! Do what I say,” Alderete grunted.
Gulietta removed him from her naked bust. “After dinner, I'll do whatever you say. Besides, my mother will be here any minute.”
“It was stupid of me to bring her on this trip,” Alderete said. “I don't know how the old hag convinced me.”
“What old hag?”
“Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you.”
Gulietta said nothing and put her sweater back on.
“Are you mad at me?”
“My mother is not an old hag. She's a mature lady. Nobody forced you to bring her.”
“Yes, she forced me! She said it was part of the deal.”
“Deal?”
“Well, part of my promise. She wants to see the United States.”
“She protects me. Don't forget that I just graduated from high school. I'm eighteen years old. I've never been with a man before, much less a man who's more than fifty years old. You're old enough to be my father.”
“But I'm not. I'm at an enviable age. Experienced but still potent.”
Gulietta needed to use the bathroom; she was going to retch. She covered her mouth and left. She crossed the corridor, entered the bathroom, and vomited.
Alderete thought that the girl would stop being difficult once she was on the boat.
She's afraid and she's proud, just like her old man, may he rest in peace. Some of her gestures remind me of the Italian. They don't look alike, but there's an unmistakable family resemblance. The old man used to treat me that way, yet he came to regret it. He had a complex around me. He knew deep down that I was capable of more. It's a shame that he shacked up with that half-breed woman Tomasa; she was sluttier than a hen. This little society girl wants to do the same thing with me, but I'm sharper than her father was. That whole thing about virginity, I believe it and I don't believe it. In Buenos Aires, the gauchos don't put up with that stuff. I know all about that business of the lemon juice and howling with pain. The sister-in-law of that stupid Irishman who got on the train in El Alto tried to tell me that I was the only one. The only sucker.
Alderete gingerly walked up to the mirror. There wasn't a lot of light, just enough to see himself. Without pleasure, he peered at that face sculpted in mud, half-finished. The sculptor had forgotten to put it in the oven and the model remained formless. It looked like the slightest blow would leave a lifelong dent. His forehead, which was sunken, consumed half his face. His flaccid jowls sagged like those of a bulldog. His jaw was small, without personality. Behind Alderete's reading glasses, his intense eyes were perhaps the only feature worthy of note. His stiff, greasy hair could be mistaken for a fistful of damp hay.
What the hell does that little girl want? If she's not happy, I'm going to make her shape up, whatever the cost. I should never have brought her mother. She's like her mirror. The old lady hates me and tries to hide it. One month in the U.S. and I'll send her back. Nobody rains on my parade. If only my father could see me nowâat the pinnacle, damn it. I don't know a word of English, but when you're carrying lots of dollars, they translate for you immediately. I'll buy Gulietta clothes; the cost won't matter. And when I buy them for her, I'll order her not to wear panties in the apartment. That turns me on. I'll make her love me, otherwise I won't have peace.
Gulietta returned from the bathroom. She washed her face and, without a word, went back out.
Alderete found her in the corridor contemplating the landscape, which was signaling the approach of nightfall.
“What's wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Come into the cabin. It's cold out here.”
“I want to be alone for a moment.”
“I'm sorry for that bit about the old hag. I won't say that again.”
Gulietta didn't answer. The steward was sitting at the end of the corridor chewing coca. The train was moving slowly.
“Do you know where we are?” Alderete asked the steward.
“Near the Calacoto station.”
Gulietta entered her mother's cabin. Alderete smirked, opened the window, and breathed in the pure air of the Andean plateau.
“I'm a little dizzy,” he said to the steward.
“Happens to everybody.”
“What's at the border?”
“The Chileans have a barracks.”
“How many years have you been working for the railway?”
“About thirty.”
“It's time to retire.”
“I'll work just one more year. If the opposition wins, they'll nationalize the trains,” the steward said.
“That, and my balls.”
Alderete breathed calmly. He didn't need to retire. He had enough money to last him two hundred years. Old age was still remote. Death worried him only in his nightmares.
The dust eventually forced him out of the corridor and he returned to his cabin. Doña Clara had told him to change for dinner. She stressed that he would have to get used to the etiquette.
Now it's half-breed Alderete's turn to have a piece of that blue-blood girl
, he said to himself.
In cabin number four, Gulietta paced back and forth in front of her mother, who sat with her arms crossed over her chest, examining her distraught face. Gulietta was pale.
“I can't stand him. When he touches me, I feel like throwing up.”
“We agreed that you would put up with him for at least a couple of months,” Doña Clara said.
“I made a mistake.”
“And what do you plan to do?”
“I don't know.”
“It will take a few more weeks for the deeds to the house in Obrajes and the other properties to get signed over to your name. You know how bureaucracy moves in our country. That old man could order his lawyer to annul everything. He knows what he's doing.”
“If he knows what he's doing, then why did you make a deal with him?”
“Let a couple weeks go by. He's crazy about you. In France they call that state of mind a mid-life crisis, when an older guy falls for a young girl. It's like an illness. You have to take advantage of it.”
Gulietta froze and glared at her mother. Doña Clara returned the look.
“That's easy for you to say,” Gulietta snapped. “You're not directly involved.”
“We made a pact. The idea was to avenge your father. We have to get the money back that Alderete stole.”
“That might take months, or years. I can't even stand him for a single night. You don't know what it's like to put up with a pig like him on top of me.”
“Did it happen . . . ?”
“Not yet. I'm as much of a virgin as Joan of Arc.”
“But you've been married for two days.”
“He passed out drunk after our wedding, and last night I put a sleeping pill in his drink.”
“You did?”
“I told you, he disgusts me. Don't you understand?”
Doña Clara stood up and kissed her on the forehead. The girl looked very fragile. Gulietta rested her head on her mother's shoulder.
“Don't cry, we'll think of something. I know: Tell him that sex at this altitude is risky because of his high blood pressure. What do you think?”
“The man acts like a beast. If I tell him that, he might try to do it by force, just to prove me wrong. And anyway, I already said something similar and he didn't care.”
“He can't force you.”
“He's my husband. He has the right.”
“Not with violence. If he wants to force you, call for me, I'm right here next door.”
Gulietta ran her fine fingers through her mother's hair. “It would've been better not to do this marriage experiment.”
“Oh, really? You'd rather be dirt poor?”
“You only think about yourself. You're being selfish. Don't you realize that?”
“I promise you it won't be for very long. You'll get a divorce as soon as we get what we want.”
Gulietta lit a cigarette and walked to the window. A few minutes passed in silence. The sun painted a yellow hue over the Altiplano. As small clouds moved across the sky, they would eventually fade away, leaving trails in their wake. Gulietta watched a herd of llamas fleeing across the countryside, frightened by the sound of the train's horn. A peasant boy melancholically observed the locomotive's passing. He was the only human being in all of that desolate space.
“He's looking bad,” said Doña Clara. “He has altitude sickness.”
“I don't plan on killing him with multiple orgasms. You can be sure of that.”
“But if you keep avoiding him, he'll get furious.”
“Let him think what he wants. His breathing makes a rattling sound like it's coming up from deep inside his evil soul.”
Doña Clara couldn't contain her laughter and sat down on the bed. “It's all my husband's fault.”
Gulietta sighed. The light of dusk brought out the best in her; her dark hair revealed silver highlights. “Why?”
“For getting together with that half-breed woman.”
“Come on, Mom. You know it's normal for society gentlemen to have lower-class lovers.”