The Discreet Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa Page A

Interprovincial Drivers of Piura, of which he was a member, would meet for lunch. They were toasting with carob syrup cocktails when suddenly he heard someone on the radio singing one of his favorite waltzes, “Soul, Heart, and Life,” with more charm, emotion, and candor than he’d ever heard before. No Peruvian singer he knew—not even Jesús Vásquez, or the Morochucos, or Lucha Reyes—interpreted this beautiful waltz with as much feeling, charm, and mischievous wit as this singer he was hearing for the first time. She imbued each word and syllable with so much truth and harmony, so much delicacy and tenderness, that it made you want to dance, even to cry. He asked her name and was told: Cecilia Barraza. As he listened to that girl’s voice, he seemed to understand completely, and for the first time, many of the words in Peruvian waltzes that had seemed mysterious and incomprehensible before—“arpeggios,” “skylights,” “ecstasy,” “cadence,” “yearning,” “celestial”—became clear:
    Soul to conquer you,
    heart to love you,
    and life to live it
    beside you!
    He felt vanquished, moved, bewitched, loved. From that time on, at night before he went to sleep, or at dawn before he got up, he sometimes imagined himself living among arpeggios, cadences, skylights, and yearnings beside the singer named Cecilia Barraza. Without telling anyone, least of all Mabel, of course, he’d lived platonically in love with that smiling face, those expressive eyes, that seductive smile. He assembled a fine collection of photographs of her that had appeared in newspapers and magazines, which he jealously guarded under lock and key in a desk drawer. The fire had made short work of them, but not of his collection of Cecilia Barraza records, which was divided between his house on Calle Arequipa and Mabel’s house in Castilla. He believed he owned every CD made by the artist who, in his modest opinion, had raised Peruvian music— valses , marineras , tonderos , pregones —to new heights. He listened to them almost every day—generally at night after supper, when Gertrudis had gone to bed—sitting in the living room, where they kept the television set and stereo. The songs made his imagination soar; sometimes he was so moved his eyes grew wet at the sweet, caressing voice that saturated the night. And so, when it was announced she would come to Piura to sing at the Club Grau, and the event would be open to the public, he was one of the first to buy a ticket. He invited Mabel, and Colorado Vignolo had them sit at his table, where they had a sumptuous meal with both white and red wine before the show. Seeing the singer in person, even if she was at some distance, put Felícito into an ecstatic trance. She seemed prettier, more charming, and more elegant than in photographs. He applauded so enthusiastically after each song that Mabel said to Vignolo, pointing at him, “Look, Colorado, at the state this dirty old man is in.”
    “Don’t be evil-minded, Mabelita,” he said, dissembling, “what I’m applauding is Cecilia Barraza’s art, just her art.”
    The third spider letter arrived some time after the second, just when Felícito was wondering whether after the fire, the notice in El Tiempo , and the uproar it had caused, the crooks hadn’t resigned themselves to leaving him in peace. It had been three weeks since the fire, and the dispute with the insurance company still hadn’t been resolved, when one morning, at the improvised desk in the garage, Señora Josefita, who was opening the mail, exclaimed, “How strange, Don Felícito, a letter with no return address.”
    The trucker snatched it from her hands. It was what he’d feared.
    Dear Mr. Yanaqué:
    We’re glad you’re now so popular and well-respected a man in our beloved city of Piura. We hope this popularity is beneficial to Narihualá Transport, especially after the mishap the business suffered because you’re so stubborn. It would be better for you