Who Killed Palomino Molero: - By Mario Vargas Llosa Page 0,2

he didn’t give them a cent.

He headed for the Plaza de Armas. On the way he spotted the poet Joaquín Ramos on the corner, wearing a monocle and pulling along the goat he called his gazelle. The plaza was crowded, as if people were there for some church function. Lituma paid no attention to them and, making as if he were going to meet a woman, crossed the Old Bridge over to Castilla. The idea had taken shape while he was drinking his beer in La Chunga’s. Suppose she wasn’t there? What if she’d moved to some other city to put her grief behind her?

But there she was, sitting on a bench in the doorway of her house, enjoying the cool of the evening as she shucked some corn. Through the open door of the adobe hut, Lituma could see the woman’s few pieces of furniture: cane chairs (some without seats), a table, some clay pitchers, a box she used as a dresser, and a tinted photograph. “The kid,” he thought.

“Evening.” He stood in front of the woman. She was barefoot, wearing the same black dress she had on that morning in the Talara Police Station.

“Evening,” she murmured, looking at him without recognizing him. Some squalid dogs sniffed at him and growled. In the distance, someone strummed a guitar.

“May I talk with you for a minute, Doña Asunta? About your son Palomino.”

In the half light, Lituma could just make out her furrowed, wrinkled face, her tiny eyes covered by puffy lids scrutinizing him uneasily. Were her eyes always like that, or were they swollen from crying?

“Don’t you recognize me? I’m Officer Lituma, from Talara. I was there when Lieutenant Silva took your statement.”

She crossed herself, muttered something incomprehensible, and Lituma watched her laboriously stand up. She went into the house, carrying her corn and her bench. He followed her and took off his cap as soon as he was inside. He was moved by the fact that this had been Palomino Molero’s house. He was not following orders but his own initiative; he hoped it wouldn’t mean trouble.

“Did you find it?” she mumbled in the same tremulous voice she used in Talara to make her declaration. She sagged into a chair, and since Lituma stared at her questioningly, she raised her voice. “My son’s guitar. Did you find it?”

“Not yet.” He remembered Doña Asunta sobbing as she answered Lieutenant Silva’s questions, and constantly asking about getting back Palomino’s guitar. But after she’d gone, neither he nor the lieutenant remembered. “Don’t worry. Sooner or later it’ll turn up, and I’ll bring it to you myself.”

She crossed herself again, and it seemed to Lituma she was exorcising him. “I bring it all back to her.”

“He wanted to leave it here, but I told him, Bring it with you, bring it with you. No, Ma, at the base I won’t have any time to play. Besides, I might not even have a locker to store it in. Let it stay here. I’ll play when I come to Piura. No, Palomino, take it with you so you can pass the time better, so you can accompany yourself when you sing. Don’t give up your guitar when you love it so much. Oh, God . . . my poor child.”

She started to cry, and Lituma was sorry he’d stirred up the old woman’s memories. He muttered some broken consolations as he scratched his neck. He sat down, just to do something. Yes, the photograph was of Palomino making his First Communion. For a long time, Lituma stared at the long, angular little face of the dark-skinned boy with his hair slicked down, dressed all in white, with a candle in his right hand, a missal in his left, and a scapulary around his neck. The photographer had reddened his cheeks and lips. A scrawny kid, in a rapture, as if he were contemplating the infant Jesus.

“Already he sang beautifully,” whimpered Doña Asunta, pointing to the photo. “Father Garcia had him sing by himself, and everybody clapped, right during Mass.”

“Everybody said he had a terrific voice. He might have become an artist, like the ones that sing on the radio and make tours. Everybody says so. Artists shouldn’t get drafted. They should be exempt.”

“Palomino didn’t get drafted. He was exempt.”

Lituma looked her in the eye. The old lady crossed herself and started to cry again. As he listened to her crying, Lituma stared at the insects swarming around the lamp. There were dozens, buzzing and crashing