The truth was that until the damn blackmail that Rolando Garro attempted to inflict on him, his sexual life with Marisa had been withering, turning into a gymnastic exercise without fire. And then, with no warning, during the days of their separation following the scandal of the pictures in Exposed, and during their reconciliation, he had experienced that rebirth of relations with his wife, a second honeymoon. The same thing had happened to her. Not to mention later on, when he finally found out about Chabela and Marisa’s affair. It would soon be three years since the triangle had begun that had given them back the energy of adolescents, a new vitality. How wonderful that Luciano hadn’t learned about it. Breaking off that friendship would have been a misfortune for Quique.
When he came out, Marisa was ready, waiting for him. She looked very attractive in a low-cut blouse that revealed her perfect white shoulders, and very close-fitting orange pants that emphasized her delicate waist and high buttocks. He leaned down to kiss her on the neck: “How pretty you look this morning, señora.”
As Quique drove the car toward La Rinconada, Marisa said:
“I love the idea of watching a movie in the screening room Luciano and Chabela have built for themselves. Don’t you think it’s fantastic to have a theater at home and to see the movies you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want, in those big, comfortable seats?”
“A cinema wouldn’t fit in our apartment,” said Quique. “But if you like, we’ll sell it and build a house with a garden and pool, like Luciano’s. And I’ll build you the most modern theater in Peru, my love.”
“How gallant,” Marisa said with a laugh. “But no, thanks. I don’t want to be bothered with a big house and all its complications, or have to live at the end of the world, like they do. I’m happy with my Golf Club apartment, close to everything. Well, you seem very happy, Quique.”
“I’m enormously pleased that he hasn’t found out about anything,” he said. “It would make me very sad to fight with someone who’s been like a brother to me ever since we were kids.”
Luciano and Chabela received them in bathing suits. Because it was hot, they were in the pool with the two girls. It was a splendid morning, with a vertical sun in a cloudless sky. They didn’t want to swim, and they sat under umbrellas in the easy chairs around the pool, drinking Campari and eating yucca with ocopa sauce, which the cook had prepared for them, knowing it was Marisa’s favorite canapé.
Luciano was full of good humor and more affectionate than usual. He complimented Marisa, saying that recently she was suspiciously good-looking—“You must have a lover tucked away somewhere, Marisita”—and congratulated Quique because he knew he had just acquired another mine, in Huancavelica, in association with a Canadian company. “I mean, you want to keep getting richer. Will your ambition to be King Midas and turn everything you touch into gold ever end?” They talked about politics and acknowledged that all in all, in spite of the ferocious attacks against him, the new president, the mestizo Toledo, was doing pretty well. Things were improving, the economy was growing, there was stability, and, thank God, the abductions and assaults had stopped.
Luciano told them that his firm was now legal counsel to the leading film-distributing chain in Peru, and he was happy; thanks to that relationship, they sent him all the new films so that he and Chabela could watch them in the brand-new screening room in the garden. Sometimes he and his wife stayed up till dawn on Friday or Saturday nights, watching future premieres. Marisa and Quique were invited to those movie nights whenever they liked.
When they sat down at the table, it was close to three o’clock. In fact, the ceviche and the grilled corvina were fresh and delicious, especially with the French white wine, a well-chilled Chablis.
The afternoon was relaxed, amusing, and pleasant—the girls had left to play with the dogs—and lemon cake with coconut ice cream had just been served—when Luciano, in the same casual, nonchalant tone in which he had spoken and joked throughout lunch, suddenly exclaimed:
“And now I’m going to give you all a big surprise: I’ve decided to go with you to Miami so I can celebrate this third anniversary, too!” And after a brief pause he smiled and added: “In fact, it’s time I took a vacation.”
Quique, at the same time that he noticed how Chabela’s dark face reddened, felt that a solar panel was unexpectedly burning in his brain. Had he heard correctly? He looked at Marisa, his wife was blushing too, and a flash of panic appeared in her eyes. Now Chabela lowered her head, unable to hide her confusion. She kept mechanically carrying to her mouth the small spoonful of ice cream that she returned to her plate without tasting it. The atmosphere seemed leaden. Quique didn’t know what he should say, and neither did Marisa. The only one who was calm, unchangeable, and cheerful was Luciano.
“I thought I was going to make you happy, and you all have funereal faces,” he joked, holding his glass of wine, bursting into laughter. “Don’t worry. If I’m not welcome at the celebration, I’ll stay in Lima, sad and abandoned.”
He burst into laughter again, raised the glass to his mouth, and drank some wine with a very satisfied expression.
Quique’s hands and legs were trembling, and he only managed to observe, right in front of him, Chabela’s black hair; she kept her head lowered. And then he heard Marisa, sounding passably natural in spite of how slowly she pronounced each syllable:
“What a good idea for you to come to Miami too, Lucianito. You’re right, it’s time for you to take a vacation, like everybody else.”
“Thank goodness, at least somebody in this group loves me.” Luciano thanked Marisa, taking her hand and kissing it. “I know we’ll all have a good time up in Miami.”
ALSO BY MARIO VARGAS LLOSA
The Cubs and Other Stories
The Time of the Hero
The Green House
Captain Pantoja and the Special Service
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
The War at the End of the World
The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta
The Perpetual Orgy
The Storyteller
In Praise of the Stepmother
A Fish in the Water
Death in the Andes
Making Waves
The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto
The Feast of the Goat
Letters to a Young Novelist
The Language of Passion
The Way to Paradise
The Bad Girl
Touchstones
The Dream of the Celt
The Discreet Hero
Notes on the Death of Culture
Sabers and Utopias
A Note About the Author
Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010 “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.” He has also won the Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world’s most distinguished literary honor. His many works include Sabers and Utopias, The Discreet Hero, The Feast of the Goat, The Bad Girl, and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, all published by FSG. You can sign up for email updates here.
A Note About the Translator
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
1. Marisa’s Dream
2. An Unexpected Visit
3. Weekend in Miami
4. The Entrepreneur and the Lawyer
5. The Den of Gossip
6. A Wreck of Show Business
7. Quique’s Agony
8. Shorty
9.
A Singular Affair
10. The Three Jokers
11. The Scandal
12. The People’s Dining Room
13. An Absence
14. Conjugal Disagreements and Agreements
15. Shorty Is Afraid
16. The Landowner and the Chinese Woman
17. Strange Operations Regarding Juan Peineta
18. Engineer Cárdenas’s Longest Night
19. Shorty and Power
20. A Whirlpool
21. Special Edition of Exposed
22. Happy Ending?
Also by Mario Vargas Llosa
A Note About the Author and Translator
Copyright
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
175 Varick Street, New York 10014
Copyright © 2016 by Mario Vargas Llosa
Translation copyright © 2018 by Edith Grossman
All rights reserved
Originally published in Spanish in 2016 by Alfaguara Ediciones, Spain, as Cinco Esquinas
English translation published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
First American edition, 2018
E-book ISBN: 978-0-374-71613-4
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