Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa Page A

fearful silence had come over the place. Boys and girls watched the three men cross through the entranceway led by a beadle, watched them disappear into a classroom. Let me get in, let her get in. The buzzing started up again, thicker and louder than before. Aída and Santiago went back to the rear courtyard.
    “You’re going to pass with high marks,” Santiago said. “You know all the answers right down to the last comma.”
    “Don’t you believe it, there’s a lot I just barely know,” Aída said. “You’re the one who’s going to get in.”
    “I spent all summer cramming,” Santiago said. “If they flunk me, I’ll blow my brains out.”
    “And I’m against suicide,” Aída said. “Killing yourself is a sign of cowardice.”
    “Priests’ tales,” Santiago said. “It takes a lot of courage to kill yourself .”
    “I don’t care about priests,” Aída said, and her little eyes think: come on, come on, I dare you. “I don’t believe in God, I’m an atheist.”
    “I’m an atheist too,” Santiago said immediately. “Naturally.”
    They started walking again, the questions, sometimes they became distracted, they forgot about the questions and they began to chat, to argue: they agreed, disagreed, joked, time was flying and suddenly Zavala, Santiago! Hurry up, Aída smiled at him, and hoped he got an easy question. He passed between two rows of candidates, went into the examination room, and you can’t remember anything else, Zavalita, what question you got or the examiners’ faces or what you answered: just that you were happy when you came out.
    “You remember the girl you liked and the rest is all erased,” Ambrosio says. “That’s natural, son.”
    You liked everything about the day, he thinks. The place that was falling apart from old age, the shoe-polish, earthen, or malarial faces of the candidates, the atmosphere that bubbled with apprehension, the things that Aída was saying. How did you feel, Zavalita? He thinks: like on the day I had my first communion.
    “You came because it was Santiago making it,” Teté pouted. “You didn’t come to mine, I don’t love you anymore.”
    “Come here, give me a kiss,” Don Fermín said. “I came because Skinny took first place, if you’d have gotten good marks I would have come to your first communion too. I love all three of you the same.”
    “You say that, but it’s not true,” Sparky complained. “You didn’t come to my first communion either.”
    “With all this jealousy, Skinny’s day will be ruined, stop the nonsense ,” Don Fermín said. “Come on, get in the car.”
    “To Herradura beach to have milk shakes and hot dogs, papa,” Santiago said.
    “To the Ferris wheel they’ve set up in the Campo de Marte, papa,” Sparky said.
    “We’re going to Herradura,” Don Fermín said. “Skinny’s the one who made his first communion, we have to give him what he wants.”
    He ran out of the classroom, but before he got to Aída, did you get your grade right there, were the questions long or short? he had to hold off the candidates’ attack, and Aída received him with a smile: from his face you could see he’d passed, wonderful, now he wouldn’t have to blow his brains out.
    “Before I picked the ball with the question, I thought, I’ll sell my soul for an easy one,” Santiago said. “So if the devil does exist, I’m going to go to hell. But the end justifies the means.”
    “Neither the soul nor the devil exists”—I challenge you, I dare you. “And if you think that the end justifies the means, then you’re a Nazi.”
    “She had a negative answer for everything, she had an opinion about everything, she argued as if she wanted to start a fight,” Santiago says.
    “A pushy girl, the ones you say white to and they say black, black and they say white,” Ambrosio says. “Tricks to get a man all heated up, but which have their effect.”
    “Of course I’ll wait for you,” Santiago said. “Do you want me to