Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa

has she been pregnant? Three months, four?”
    It was at that moment that the first hint of the awful truth dawned on Dr. Quinteros, as swift and as deadly as a rattlesnake bite. In terror, sensing that the silence in the bathroom had turned electric, he looked in the mirror. Red was standing there, staring at him with incredibly wide-open eyes, his mouth contorted in a grimace that made his face look grotesque, and deathly pale.
    “Three months, four?” he heard him stammer in a choked voice. “A miscarriage?”
    Dr. Quinteros felt the earth sinking beneath his feet. What a stupid, ignorant fool you are, he thought. He remembered now, of course, with the terrible clarity of hindsight, that the whole thing—Elianita’s getting engaged, the wedding—had taken place within just a few short weeks. He turned his eyes away from Antúnez and stood there, drying his hands too slowly, as he searched desperately in his mind for some lie, some pretext that would rescue this youngster from the hell into which he had just plunged him. He managed only to mutter something that seemed to him to be equally stupid: “Elianita mustn’t find out that I know. I let her think I didn’t. And above all, don’t worry. She’s quite all right.”
    He headed quickly for the door, looking at Antúnez out of the corner of his eye as he went past him. He was standing there, rooted to the spot, his eyes staring into empty space, his mouth wide open too now, and his face drenched with sweat. He heard him lock the bathroom door from inside behind him. He’s going to burst into tears, he thought, pound his head against the wall and tear his hair, he’s going to curse me and hate me even more than her, even more than—who? He walked slowly down the stairs, covered with guilt, full of misgivings, as he kept repeating to people, like an automaton, that Elianita was quite all right, that she’d be coming back downstairs in just a few minutes. He went out into the garden, and breathing a bit of fresh air did him good. He walked over to the bar, drank a glass of whiskey neat, and decided to go back home without waiting to witness the denouement of the drama that, out of sheer naïveté and with the very best of intentions, he had provoked. What he wanted was to shut himself up in his study, curl up in his black leather armchair, and immerse himself in Mozart.
    At the front gate he came upon Richard, sitting on the grass in a lamentable state. He was sitting cross-legged like a Buddha, leaning back against the fence, his suit wrinkled and covered with dust, stains, bits of grass. But it was his face that distracted the doctor from the memory of Red and Elianita and made him pause: in Richard’s bloodshot eyes, alcohol and rage seemed to have wreaked their mounting havoc in equal degrees. Two threads of spittle hung from his lips, and the expression on his face was both pitiful and grotesque.
    “This can’t be, Richard,” he murmured, bending over and trying to make him get to his feet. “Your mother and father mustn’t see you like this. Come on, let me take you home with me till you’ve sobered up. I never thought I’d see you in such a state, my boy.”
    Richard looked at him without seeing him, his head dangling, and though he obediently did his best to stand up, his legs gave way. The doctor had to take him by the arms and hoist him to his feet as though he were lifting weights. He managed to make him walk, holding him up by the shoulders. Richard teetered back and forth like a rag doll and seemed about to tumble headlong at any moment. “Let’s see if we can find a taxi, because if we walk you’re not even going to make it to the corner, my boy,” he murmured, stopping along the curb of the Avenida Santa Cruz, and holding Richard up with one arm. Several taxis went by, but they were occupied. The doctor kept trying to flag one down. The wait, on top of the memory of Elianita and Antúnez and his anxiety as to the state his nephew was