The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto by Mario Vargas Llosa Read Free Book Online Page B

material. On the way to Barranco he provided her with a meticulous accounting of events at the office and Fonchito’s school, and their breakfasts, lunches, and dinners during her absence. The house sparkled with extravagant order and cleanliness. Justiniana had even had the curtains washed and the fertilizer in the garden replaced, tasks usually reserved for the end of the month.
    The afternoon was spent unpacking suitcases, talking to the servants about practical matters, and answering phone calls from friends and relations who wanted to know how she had enjoyed her trip to Miami to shop for Christmas presents (the official version of her adventure). The atmosphere was absolutely uncharged when she took out gifts for her husband, her stepson, and Justiniana. Don Rigoberto liked the French ties, the Italian shirts, and the sweater from New York, and Fonchito looked marvelous in the jeans, leather jacket, and athletic gear. Justiniana gave a cry of enthusiasm when she tried on the duck-yellow dress over her smock.
    After supper, Don Rigoberto withdrew to the bathroom and took less time than usual with his ablutions. When he emerged, he found the bedroom in darkness cut by indirect lighting that illuminated only the two engravings by Utamaro depicting the incompatible but orthodox matings of the same couple, the man endowed with a long, corkscrew member, the woman with a Lilliputian sex, the two of them surrounded by kimonos billowing like storm clouds, paper lanterns, floor mats, low tables holding a porcelain tea service, and, in the distance, bridges spanning a sinuous river. Doña Lucrecia lay beneath the sheets, not naked, he discovered when he slipped in beside her, but in a new nightgown—purchased and worn on her trip?—that allowed his hands the freedom necessary to reach her most intimate corners. She turned on her side, and he could slide his arm under her shoulders and feel her from head to foot. He did not crush her to him but kissed her, very tenderly, on the eyes and cheeks, taking his time to reach her mouth.
    “Don’t tell me anything you don’t want to,” he lied into her ear with a boyish coquetry that inflamed her impatience as his lips traced the curve of her ear. “Whatever you have a mind to. Or nothing at all, if you prefer.”
    “I’ll tell you everything,” Doña Lucrecia murmured, searching for his mouth. “Isn’t that why you sent me?”
    “That’s one reason,” Don Rigoberto agreed, kissing her on the neck, the hair, her forehead, returning again and again to her nose, cheeks, and chin. “Did you enjoy yourself? Did you have a good time?”
    “Whether it was good or bad will depend on what happens now between you and me,” said Señora Lucrecia hurriedly, and Don Rigoberto felt his wife become tense for a moment. “Yes, I enjoyed myself. Yes, I had a good time. But I was always afraid.”
    “Afraid I would be angry?” Now Don Rigoberto was kissing her firm breasts, millimeter by millimeter, and the tip of his tongue played with her nipples, feeling them harden. “That I would make a scene and be jealous?”
    “That you would suffer,” Doña Lucrecia whispered, embracing him.
    “She’s beginning to perspire,” Don Rigoberto observed to himself. He felt joy as he caressed her increasingly responsive body, and he had to bring his mind to bear to control the vertigo that was overtaking him. He whispered into his wife’s ear that he loved her more, much more than before her trip.
    She began to speak, pausing as she searched for the words—silences meant to conceal her awkwardness—but little by little, aroused by his caresses and amorous interruptions, she gained confidence. At last, Don Rigoberto realized she had recovered her natural fluency and could tell her story by assuming a feigned distance from the account, clinging to his body, her head resting on his shoulder. The couple’s hands moved from time to time to take possession or verify the existence of a member, a