The Discreet Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa Page A

disappearing in the small dark courtyard, around which the bedrooms, dining room, living room, and kitchen were located. He’d never loved her the way you love a woman, but he felt affection for her mixed with some pity, because even though she didn’t complain, Gertrudis must be very frustrated with a husband who was so cold and unloving. It couldn’t be otherwise in a marriage that wasn’t the result of falling in love but of a drunken spree and a fuck in the dark. Or, who knows. It was a subject that, in spite of doing everything he could to forget it, came to Felícito’s mind from time to time and ruined his day. Gertrudis was the daughter of the owner of El Algarrobo, a cheap boardinghouse on Calle Ramón Castilla in the area that back then was the poorest in El Chipe, where a good number of truck drivers would stay. Felícito had gone to bed with her a couple of times, almost without realizing it, on two nights of carousing and cane liquor. He did it because he could, because she was there and was a woman, not because he wanted the girl. Nobody wanted her. Who’d want a broad who was half cross-eyed, slovenly, and always smelled of garlic and onion? As a result of one of those two fucks without love and almost without desire, Gertrudis became pregnant. That, at least, is what she and her mother told Felícito. The owner of the boardinghouse, Doña Luzmila, whom the drivers called the Boss Lady, filed a complaint against him with the police. He had to go and make a statement and acknowledge before the police chief that he’d gone to bed with a minor. He agreed to marry her because it bothered his conscience that a child of his might be born without a father and because he believed the story. Afterward, when Miguelito was born, the doubts began. Was he really his son? He never got anything out of Gertrudis, of course, and he didn’t talk about it with Adelaida or anybody else. But for all these years he’d lived with the suspicion that he wasn’t. Because he wasn’t the only one who went to bed with the Boss Lady’s daughter during those little parties they had on Saturday nights at El Algarrobo. Miguel didn’t look anything like him; the boy had white skin and light eyes. Why did Gertrudis and her mother make him the one responsible? Maybe because he was single, a decent guy, hardworking, and because the Boss Lady wanted to marry off her daughter any way she could. Maybe Miguel’s real father was some white guy who was married or had a bad reputation. From time to time the question returned and ruined his mood. He never let anyone know about it, beginning with Miguel himself. He always treated him as if he were as much his son as Tiburcio. If he sent him into the army, it was to do him a favor, because the boy was leading a dissipated life. He’d never shown any preference for the younger son who was his spitting image: a Chulucano cholo from head to foot, with not a trace of white in his face or body.
    Gertrudis had been hardworking and self-sacrificing during the difficult years. And afterward too, when Felícito had opened Narihualá Transport and things got better. Even though they had a nice house, a servant, and dependable income, she still lived with the austerity of the years when they were poor. She never asked for money for anything personal, only food and other daily expenses. From time to time he had to insist that she buy herself shoes or a new dress. But even though she did, she always wore flip-flops and a robe that looked like a cassock. When had she become so religious? She wasn’t like that in the beginning. It seemed to him that over the years Gertrudis had turned into a piece of furniture, that she’d stopped being a living person. They spent entire days not exchanging a word except for good morning and good night. His wife had no women friends, she didn’t pay visits or receive them, she didn’t even go to see her children when they let days go by without coming to see her.