doesn’t feel well is you,” he says without moving his lips. “All afternoon, four hours of this, it’s made you feel bad.”
“Don’t you believe it, I’ve got a good head for drinking,” Ambrosio says, and, for an instant, he laughs. He stands there with his mouth ajar, his hand petrified on his chin. He’s motionless, three feet from Santiago, his lapels turned up, and Rowdy, his ears stiff, his teeth showing, looks at Santiago, looks at Ambrosio, and scratches the ground, startled or restless or frightened. Inside La Catedral they’re dragging chairs and seem to be mopping the floor.
“You know damned well what I’m talking about,” Santiago says. “Please don’t play dumb with me.”
He doesn’t want to or he can’t understand, Zavalita: he hasn’t moved and in his eyes there’s still the same blind challenge, that terrible dark tenacity.
“If you don’t want me to go with you, son,” he stammers and lowers his eyes, his voice, “do you want me to get you a taxi then?”
“They need a janitor at La Crónica ,” and he lowers his voice too. “It’s not as nasty a job as the one at the pound. I’ll see that they hire you without any papers. You’d be a lot better off. But please, stop playing dumb for a little while.”
“All right, all right.” There’s a growing uneasiness in his eyes, it’s as if his voice were going to break up into shreds. “What’s the matter, boy, why do you act like this?”
“I’ll give you my whole month’s pay,” and his voice suddenly becomes thick, but he doesn’t weep; he’s rigid, his eyes opened very wide. “Three thousand five hundred soles. Couldn’t you get along with that money?”
He’s silent, he lowers his head and automatically, as if the silence had loosened an inflexible mechanism, Ambrosio’s body takes a step backward and he shrugs his shoulders and his hands come forward at the level of his stomach as if to defend himself or attack. Rowdy growls.
“Have the drinks gone to your head?” he snorts, his voice upset. “What’s the matter, what is it you want?”
“For you to stop playing dumb.” He closes his eyes and breathes in some air. “For us to talk frankly about the Muse, about my father. Did he order you? It doesn’t matter anymore, I just want to know. Was it my father?”
His voice is cut off and Ambrosio takes another step backward and Santiago sees him crouched and tense, his eyes open wide with fear or rage: don’t leave, come here. He hasn’t become brutalized, you’re not a boob, he thinks, come on, come on. Ambrosio wavers with his body, waves a fist, as if threatening or saying good-bye.
“I’m leaving so that you won’t be sorry for what you’ve said,” he growls, his voice painful. “I don’t need work, I want you to know that I won’t take any favors from you, least of all your money. I want you to know that you don’t deserve the father you had, I want you to know that. You can go straight to shit hell, boy.”
“All right, all right, I don’t care,” Santiago says. “Come on, don’t leave, come back.”
There is a short growl by his feet, Rowdy is looking too: the small dark figure is going off clinging to the fences of the vacant lots, standing out against the gleaming windows of the Ford garage, sinking into the stairway by the bridge.
“All right,” Santiago sobs, leaning over, petting the stiff little tail, the anxious snout. “We’re going now, Rowdy.”
He straightens up, sobs again, takes out a handkerchief and wipes his eyes. For a few seconds he doesn’t move, his back against the door of La Catedral, getting the drizzle in his face full of tears once more. Rowdy rubs against his ankles, licks his shoes, whimpers softly, looking at him. He starts walking slowly, his hands in his pockets, toward the Plaza Dos de Mayo and Rowdy trots alongside. People are collapsed at the base of the monument and around them a dung heap of cigarette butts, peels and paper; on the