But Mabel came in alone a short while later, when Felícito Yanaqué, because of the nervous tension of waiting, was yawning and beginning to feel an invading fatigue. He gave a start when he heard the street door. His mouth was very dry, like sandpaper, as if he’d been drinking chicha. He saw her frightened face and Mabel exclaimed (“Oh my God!”) when she found him in the living room. He saw her turn as if to run out.
“Don’t be frightened, Mabel.” He reassured her with a serenity he didn’t feel. “I’ve come in peace.”
She stopped and turned. She stood looking at him, her mouth open, her eyes uneasy, not saying anything. She looked thinner. Wearing no makeup, with a simple kerchief holding back her hair, dressed in a plain housedress and old sandals, she seemed much less attractive than the Mabel in his memory.
“Sit down and let’s talk awhile.” He indicated one of the easy chairs. “I haven’t come to reproach you or demand an explanation. I won’t take much of your time. As you know, we have some matters to settle.”
She was pale. Her mouth was closed so tightly that her face looked contorted. He saw her nod and sit on the edge of the chair, her arms crossed over her belly, as if for protection. Uncertainty and alarm were in her eyes.
“Practical things that only you and I can deal with directly,” the trucker added. “Let’s begin with the most important thing. This house. The agreement with the owner is to pay the rent to her every six months. It’s paid through December. Starting in January, it’ll be up to you. The contract’s in your name, so you’ll see what you want to do. You can renew it or cancel it and move. You’ll decide.”
“All right,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “I understand.”
“Your account at the Banco de Crédito,” he continued, feeling more confident when he saw Mabel’s fragility and fear. “It’s in your name, though it has my guarantee. For obvious reasons, I can’t continue my endorsement. I’m going to withdraw it, but I don’t think they’ll close the account because of that.”
“They already did,” she said. She fell silent, and after a pause explained: “I found the notice here when I got out of prison. It said that under the circumstances, they had to cancel it. The bank only accepts honorable clients with no police record. I have to stop by and withdraw the balance.”
“Have you done that yet?”
Mabel shook her head.
“I’m embarrassed,” she confessed, looking at the floor. “Everybody knows me at that branch. I’ll have to go one of these days, when I run out of money. For daily expenses there’s still something left in the drawer of the night table.”
“They’ll open an account for you at any other bank, with or without a record,” Felícito said drily. “I don’t think you’ll have any problem with that.”
“All right,” she said. “I understand perfectly. What else?”
“I just visited Miguel,” he said, more on edge, gruffer, and Mabel went rigid. “I made him a proposition. If he agrees to change the name Yanaqué before a notary, I’ll withdraw all legal charges and won’t testify for the prosecution.”
“Does that mean he’ll go free?” she asked. She wasn’t afraid now, she was terrified.
“If he accepts the deal I’m offering, yes. You will both be free, if there’s no civil charge. Or the sentence will be very light. At least that’s what my lawyer told me.”
Mabel had raised her hand to her mouth. “He’ll want revenge, he’ll never forgive me for betraying him to the police,” she murmured. “He’ll kill me.”
“I don’t think he’ll want to go back to prison for murder,” Felícito said brusquely. “Besides, my other condition is that when he gets out of prison he must leave Piura and never set foot here again. So I doubt he’ll do anything to you. Anyway, you can ask the police for protection. Since you cooperated with the cops, they’ll give it to you.”
Mabel had begun to cry. Tears wet her eyes and the effort she made to hold back her sobs gave her face a distorted, somewhat absurd expression. She’d shrunk into herself, as if she were cold.
“Even though you don’t believe me, I hate that man with all my heart,” he heard her say after a time. “Because he ruined my life forever.”
She let out a sob and covered her face with both hands. It made no impression on Felícito. “Is she sincere or is this nothing but an act?” he wondered. It didn’t really matter, either way, it was all the same to him. Ever since everything had happened, in spite of his rancor and anger, he’d had moments when he thought of Mabel with affection, even longing. But at this moment he felt none of that, not even desire; if he’d had her naked in his arms, he wouldn’t have been able to make love to her. It was as if the eight years of accumulated feelings Mabel had inspired in him had at last been eclipsed.
“None of this would have happened if you’d told me when Miguel started hanging around.” Again he had the strange sensation that none of this was occurring, he wasn’t in this house, Mabel wasn’t there beside him, crying or pretending to cry, and he wasn’t saying what he was saying. “We both would’ve saved ourselves a lot of headaches, Mabel.”
“I know, I know, I was a coward and a fool,” he heard her say. “Do you think I haven’t regretted it? I was afraid of him and didn’t know how to get rid of him. Aren’t I paying for it? You don’t know what the women’s prison in Sullana was like. Even though I was there for just a few days. And I know I’ll keep dragging this behind me for the rest of my life.”
“The rest of your life is a very long time,” Felícito said sarcastically, still speaking calmly. “You’re very young and have plenty of time to start your life over. That’s not true for me, of course.”
“I never stopped loving you, Felícito,” he heard her say. “Though you won’t believe me.”
He let out a mocking little laugh. “If you did what you did loving me, what would you have done if you’d hated me, Mabel.”
And hearing himself say this, he thought those words might be the lyrics of one of the songs by Cecilia Barraza that he liked so much.
“I’d like to explain it to you, Felícito,” she begged, her face still hidden by her hands. “Not so you’ll forgive me, not so everything can go back to the way it was before, but just so you’d know that things weren’t what you think, they were very different.”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Mabel,” he said, speaking now in a resigned, almost friendly way. “What had to happen happened. I always knew it would, sooner or later. That you’d get tired of a man so much older than you and fall in love with someone younger. That’s a law of life.”