The She-Devil in the Mirror Read Online Free PDF Page B

so weird, I
never thought Yuca would end up in politics, they’re even pushing him as a
candidate for president, my dear, but he’s still pretty young, he’s still got to
earn his stripes. You know he married Kati, Don Federico Schultz’s daughter,
filthy rich, they’re drowning in money, and she’s the apple of Don Federico’s
eye; it’s largely due to Don Federico that Yuca has done so well. He’s supported
him in everything, not only business—starting up that superstore chain—but also
politics, he’s treated him like a son, without Don Federico’s support who knows
how poor Yuca would have ended up, my dear, his family lost almost everything
during the agrarian reform, what a disgrace, the Berrenecheas were the richest
cotton growers in the country, but those communists with their agrarian reform
pretty much left them penniless, practically in the streets. That’s what I mean
when I say Yuca owes so much to Don Federico, there are even people who say
terrible things about how Yuca married Kati for the money, people are so
spiteful, my dear, and now that he’s a politician they just want to sling mud at
him. Yuca is a very hard worker, you’ve got to give it to him, and if he got
involved in politics it was because they took all his family’s fincas, I
remember it well, my dear, right at the beginning of the war, Yuca was up there
with Major Le Chevalier, taking a stand against the communists. He hasn’t had
anything handed to him on a silver platter, on the contrary, that man has worked
like a dog to get where he is, that’s why Don Federico lent him a hand. Quite a
man, Yuca: nice, good-looking, intelligent. He’ll be president in about five
years, definitely, no doubt about it, his rise is meteoric, he’s getting more
and more popular all the time. He’s got loads of charisma, my dear, people will
vote for him, people like to have a leader who’s successful, in business, I
mean, someone who knows how to speak in public, and it’s even better if he’s
handsome, even very handsome like Yuca. He’s so different from that idiot we
have for president now, that stupid fat old man, his own mother doesn’t even
like him, I voted for him just so the communists wouldn’t win. Imagine what a
terrible situation, my dear: we had to choose between that moron and the
communists. With Yuca it would be different; he’s so distinguished. You just saw
him: nice, don’t you think? He’d have as much pull as Major Le Chevalier, people
simply adore him. The communists are already afraid of him, that’s why they’ve
started a campaign to try to discredit him, saying he was a member of the death
squads, he put bombs in some ministry or other during the agrarian reform—the
same old accusations—he’s taken advantage of his contacts with people in the
government to make millions off those superstores—the same nonsense they pull
out of their hats whenever they want to ruin an honorable person. I really like
Yuca, my dear, I always did, ever since we were small, at the American School,
and Olga María did, too, even though all they ever did was say hi when they ran
into each other at the club, their teenage romance already long forgotten, but
even though they’d both gotten married, made separate lives for themselves, and
taken different paths, Yuca always carried a torch for Olga María, I’m
absolutely sure of it, and Olga María always carried a torch for him, that’s why
I wasn’t at all surprised three months ago when she told me she saw him again,
apparently they ran into each other in the parking lot of the Villas Españolas
Mall; as usual she was rushing to the boutique, and he was surrounded by his
bodyguards on his way to pick up a suit at Chaín the Turk’s shop. I could see it
in her eyes as she was talking about him, she had that same gleam I already