The Discreet Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa Read Free Book Online Page A

they’d seen who put it there. The kids looked at one another in surprise and shrugged. Naturally nobody had seen anything. When he went back to the house, Mabel was very pale, and a gleam of distress flickered deep in her eyes.
    “Do you think that…?” she murmured, biting her lips. She looked at the unopened white envelope in his hand as if she could make it disappear.
    Felícito went inside, turned on the light in the small hallway, and with Mabel hanging from his arm and craning her neck to read what he was reading, he recognized the capital letters in the same blue ink.
    Señor Yanaqué:
    You made a mistake going to the police station in spite of the recommendation made by the organization. We want this matter to be resolved privately, through dialogue. But you’re declaring war on us. You’ll have it, if that’s what you prefer. And if that’s the case, we can promise you’ll lose. And you’ll be sorry. You’ll have proof very soon that we’re capable of responding to your provocations. Don’t be obstinate, we’re telling you this for your own good. Don’t risk what you’ve achieved after so many years of hard work, Señor Yanaqué. And above all, don’t bring your complaints to the police again, because you’ll regret it. Think of the consequences.
    May God keep you.
    The drawing of the spider that substituted for a signature was identical to the one in the first letter.
    “But why did they put it here, on my house?” Mabel stammered, clutching tightly at his arm. He felt her trembling from head to toe. She’d turned pale.
    “To let me know they know about my private life, what else could it be?” Felícito put his arm around her shoulder and hugged her. She shuddered, and it made him sad. He kissed her hair. “You don’t know how sorry I am that you’ve become mixed up in this because of me, Mabelita. Be very careful, sweetheart. Don’t open the door without checking the peephole first. Better yet, don’t go out alone at night until this is straightened out. Who knows what these guys are capable of?”
    He kissed her hair again and whispered in her ear before he left: “I swear on the memory of my father, the holiest thing I have, that nobody will ever hurt you, love.”
    In the few minutes that had passed since he’d gone out to talk to the boys spinning tops, it had grown dark. The old-fashioned lights in the area barely lit the sidewalks that were filled with large cracks and potholes. He heard barking and obsessive music, the same note over and over again, as if someone were tuning a guitar. Even though he kept tripping, he walked quickly. He almost ran across the narrow Puente Colgante, now a pedestrian walkway, and recalled that when he was a boy, the nocturnal lights reflected in the Piura River frightened him, made him think of a whole world of devils and ghosts in the depths of the water. He didn’t respond to the greeting of a couple coming toward him. It took him almost half an hour to reach the police station on Avenida Sánchez Cerro. He was sweating and so agitated he could barely speak.
    “We don’t usually see the public this late,” said the very young police officer at the entrance, “unless it’s a very urgent matter, señor.”
    “It’s urgent, extremely urgent,” Felícito said in a rush. “Can I speak to Sergeant Lituma?”
    “What name shall I give him?”
    “Felícito Yanaqué, Narihualá Transport. I was here a few days ago to file a complaint. Tell him something very serious has happened.”
    He had to wait a long time out on the street, listening to the sound of male voices speaking obscenities inside the station. He saw a waning moon rise over the surrounding roofs. His entire body was burning, as if he were being consumed by fever. He recalled his father’s fits of shaking when he suffered attacks of tertian fever back in Chulucanas, and the cure was to sweat it out, wrapped in a heap of burlap. But it was fury, not fever, that made him tremble.