Conversation in the Cathedral Read Online Free PDF

like that, he and Santiago were buddies, but the old lady frowned: that boy’s got a screw loose, don’t you think? Popeye raised a spoonful of ice cream to his mouth, who said that? another of meringue, maybe he could convince Santiago for them to go to his house and listen to records and call Teté just to talk a little, Skinny. Zoila herself had said so at canasta last Friday, the old lady insisted. Santiago was giving her and Fermín a lot of headaches lately, he spent all day fighting with Teté and Sparky, he’d become disobedient and he talked back. Skinny had come out first in the final exams, Popeye protested, what more did his old man and old lady want?
    “He doesn’t want to go to the Catholic University but to San Marcos,” Señora Zoila said. “That upset Fermín very much.”
    “I’ll bring him to his senses, Zoila, don’t you get involved,” Don Fermín said. “He’s at the foolish age, you have to know how to lead him. If you fight with him, he’ll get all the more stubborn.”
    “If instead of advice you’d give him a couple of whacks, he’d pay more attention to you,” Señora Zoila said. “The one who doesn’t know how to raise him is you.”
    “She married that boy who used to come to the house,” Santiago says. “Popeye Arévalo, Freckle Face Arévalo.”
    “Skinny doesn’t get along with his old man because they don’t have the same ideas,” Popeye said.
    “And what ideas does that snotnose still wet behind the ears have?” The senator laughed.
    “Study hard, get your law degree and you can dip your spoon into politics,” Don Fermín said. “Right, Skinny?”
    “Skinny gets mad because his old man backed Odría in his revolt against Bustamante,” Popeye said. “He’s against the military.”
    “Is he a Bustamantist?” the senator asked. “And Fermín thinks he’s the genius of the family. He can’t be much of that if he admires that weak sister Bustamante.”
    “He might have been a weak sister, but he was a decent person and he’d been a diplomat,” Popeye’s old lady said. “Odría, on the other hand, is a coarse soldier and a half-breed.”
    “Don’t forget that I’m an Odríist senator,” the senator laughed, “so stop half-breeding Odría, silly.”
    “He’s got the notion of going to San Marcos because he doesn’t like priests and because he wants to go where the people go,” Popeye said. “He’s really doing it because he’s an againster. If his folks told him to go to San Marcos, he’d say no, Catholic University.”
    “Zoila’s right, at San Marcos he’d lose his contacts,” Popeye’s old lady said. “Boys from good families go to the Catholic University.”
    “There are enough Indians at the Catholic University to give you a good scare too, mama,” Popeye said.
    “With all the money Fermín’s bringing in now that he’s buddy-buddy with Cayo Bermúdez, the squirt won’t need any contacts,” the senator said. “O.K., Freckle Face, on your way.”
    Popeye left the table, brushed his teeth, combed his hair and went out. It was only two-fifteen, it was better to go along marking time. Aren’t we pals, Santiago? come on, give me a little push with Teté. He went up Larco blinking in the sunlight and stopped to look in the windows of the Casa Nelson: those deerskin moccasins with brown shorts and that yellow shirt, wild. He got to the Cream Rica before Santiago, settled down at a table from where he could see the avenue, and ordered a vanilla milk shake. If he couldn’t convince Santiago to go listen to records at his house they would go to the matinee or to gamble at Coco Becerra’s, what was it that Skinny wanted to talk to him about. And at that moment Santiago came in, long face, feverish eyes: his folks had fired Amalia, Freckle Face. The doors of the branch of the Banco de Crédito had just opened and through the windows of the Cream Rica Popeye watched the revolving doors swallow up the people who had been waiting on