The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto Read Online Free PDF Page B

life; her heart warned her that a trap, a danger lay there, one she absolutely had to avoid. What had gotten into Justiniana to make her egg him on that way? The boy left the kitchen. She heard him picking up his book bag, portfolio, and pencils in the dining alcove. When he came back, he had straightened his tie, put on his cap, and buttoned his jacket.
    Standing in the doorway, looking into her eyes, with utter naturalness he asked, “May I kiss you goodbye, Stepmamá?”
    Doña Lucrecia’s heart, which was returning to normal, began to race again; but what disturbed her most was Justiniana’s little smile. What should she do? It was ridiculous to refuse. She nodded, bending her head down. A moment later she felt a baby bird’s peck on her cheek.
    “May I kiss you too, Justita?”
    “Make sure it’s on the mouth,” and the girl burst out laughing.
    This time the boy joined in the joke, laughed, and stood on tiptoe to kiss Justiniana on the cheek. It was foolish, of course, but Señora Lucrecia did not dare to meet the eyes of her servant or reprimand her for carrying her tasteless jokes too far.
    “I could kill you,” she said finally, half seriously, half in jest, when she heard the street door close. “Have you lost your mind, making jokes like that with Fonchito?”
    “Well, there’s something about that boy,” Justiniana apologized with a shrug. “I don’t know what it is, but it fills your head with sin.”
    “Whatever,” said Doña Lucrecia. “But where he’s concerned, it’s better not to throw fuel on the fire.”
    “Fire is what’s on your face, señora,” replied Justiniana, with her customary impudence. “But don’t worry, you look terrific in that color.”
    Chlorophyll and Dung
    I am sorry I must disappoint you. Your impassioned arguments in favor of preserving nature and the environment do not move me. I was born, I have lived, and I will die in the city (in the ugly city of Lima, to make matters worse), and leaving the metropolis, even for a weekend, is a servitude to which I submit occasionally because of family or professional obligations, but always with distaste. Do not count me as one of those bourgeois whose fondest wish is to buy a little house on a southern beach where they can spend summers and weekends in obscene proximity to sand, salt water, and the beer bellies of other bourgeois identical to themselves. This Sunday spectacle of families fraternizing beside the sea in a bien pensant exhibitionism is, in the ignoble annals of gregariousness, one of the most depressing offered by this pre-individualist country.
    I understand that for people like you a landscape peppered with cows grazing on fragrant grasses or nanny goats sniffing around carob trees gladdens your heart and makes you experience the ecstasy of a boy seeing a naked woman for the first time. As far as I am concerned, the natural destiny of the bull is the bullring—in other words, it lives in order to face the matador’s cape and cane, the picador’s lance, the banderillero’s dart, the sword—and as for the stupid cows, my only wish is to see them carved, grilled, seasoned with hot spices, and set down before me bloody and rare and surrounded by crisp fried potatoes and fresh salads, and the goats should be pounded, shredded, fried, or marinated, depending on the recipe for northern seco , one of my favorite of all the dishes offered by our brutal Peruvian gastronomy.
    I know I am offending your most cherished beliefs, for I am not unaware that you and your colleagues—yet another collectivist conspiracy!—are convinced, or are almost convinced, that animals have rights and perhaps a soul, all of them, not excluding the malarial mosquito, the carrion-eating hyena, the hissing cobra, and the voracious piranha. I openly admit that for me, animals are of edible, decorative, and perhaps sporting interest (though I state specifically that I find love of horses as unpleasant as vegetarianism, and consider