The Sky Over Lima Read online

  The war didn’t last long. Or, rather, what began as a war and lasted a mere four years on the battlefield became a humiliating loss that would haunt Peruvians’ memory for decades. When Cristóbal—now known as Professor Cristóbal—returned to Lima, he did not want to go back to his position in the notary office. It was, it seems, a question of ethics—no more falsified wills for him, no more perjuries to assist the head notary’s accumulation of wealth—though, in fact, the matter remains somewhat muddled, as at the time the Professor was really too poor to have principles. What he did have, though, was the firm intention never to serve another master again, and so he began working under the arcades in the Plaza de Santo Domingo.

  The letter writers have no superiors and no fixed schedules. In pompous moments, they call themselves public secretaries, a solemn way of saying that they don’t even have their own offices, or rather that their offices and the street are one and the same. They occupy a corner under the arches in the square, and there, each morning, they set up their ramshackle desks and wait for customers to come in search of their services. They are sometimes called evangelists because, like the evangelists of the New Testament, their work is to transcribe the words dictated to them by others. And that is all they do from morning to night, at the foot of the columns around the plaza: write letters for the unlettered. They provide a voice to the emigrant who wants to send news home—Mother, you wouldn’t believe how big Juanito’s gotten. They provide eyes to the illiterate young woman who needs to read the note someone slipped under her door. They provide elegant words to the widow or bureaucrat writing to the government to request a pension or a particular post in the provinces.

  Professor Cristóbal set up his supplies in an unoccupied corner of the square, and soon that empty space belonged to him so wholly that he even nailed a hook for his hat and jacket into one of the pillars. He has a school desk, its surface marred by scratches and dents, and for twenty years he has arranged the same objects on it, always in the same order: inkwell, pen, penholder, drafting triangles, blotting paper. He also has a case that once contained a Singer sewing machine and now serves as a footstool and occasionally as a storage box where he can keep a few coins. And, finally, there’s a portrait of his dead wife, to whom he probably never wrote a single letter or poem.

  He accepts only commissions for sentimental correspondence. A cardboard sign on the table states it quite clearly: PROFESSOR CRISTÓBAL: LOVE LETTERS WRITTEN ON REQUEST. But the category of love is broad enough to include the old woman who has visited him every Monday for twelve years to have him write a new petition for pardon for her imprisoned son, letters that, Cristóbal would argue, are charged with as much emotion as the most passionate romance. Dozens of customers line up in front of his desk every day, wringing their hands as they wait, or rolling their eyes, or fulfilling some other cliché of their condition, because the lovers of Lima are as unoriginal as those anywhere else in the world. It is not only the illiterate who come to him. He also helps young people who need gallant phrases with which to woo the objects of their affection. In those instances, Cristóbal is not merely an evangelist but also a poet who must imagine what the recipient of the letter is like and then compose verses to which the aspirants contribute only the wordless fever of love.

  When he finishes, he places all his drafts and abortive attempts in a wicker basket, to be used later to feed the wood stove in his kitchen. He jokes about it frequently, saying that all winter long he is warmed by the love of strangers. Romance provides only an ephemeral light, one that burns quickly but leaves behind neither heat nor embers.

  ◊

  At first they don’t see anything remarkable. Just a gray-haired, bespectacled old man who doesn’t even lift his eyes from his papers when their turn comes.

  “Good morning, Dr. Professor.”

  “Just call me Professor, if you please.”

  “We’ve come to consult with you about a problem, Professor.”

  Still without looking at them, Cristóbal spoke again.

  “I’ll bet you have. And I’ll bet your problem wears a skirt and a bodice.”

  José smiles a bit late.

  “Don’t forget the petticoats, Professor.”

  At that, Cristóbal looks up. The pause lasts only an instant, but in that instant his gaze seems to take everything in. The imported suits. The silver knob on Carlos’s walking stick. The gold cufflinks.

  “Expensive petticoats, from the looks of it.” Then he interlocks his fingers and rests his chin on them. “Let me guess. A little young lady from . . . La Punta or Miraflores, but I’d say it’s more likely she’s from Miraflores. No older than twenty. Quite beautiful. Regular features, shapely, delicate ears, velvety skin, winsome eyes . . .”

  José arches his eyebrows.

  “How do you know all that?”

  “Well, Miraflores . . . To be frank, I can’t see men of your sort falling in love with a poor woman from San Lázaro. As for the rest of it, I don’t know if your damsel is actually as I’ve described her, but no doubt the two of you think she is. I’ve never met a man who said his beloved was hunchbacked, that she had ill-formed ears or homely eyes. And with regard to the velvety skin, neither of you could possibly contradict me, as you haven’t fondled even a ruffle of her clothing.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “What’s even rarer than meeting a man who doesn’t think his beloved is beautiful is finding one with a woman who, once she’s consented to his caresses, does not then consent to everything else. To which saint will you be writing these letters, then, since you already have it all?”

  José laughs.

  “Irrefutable logic, Professor. I had no idea mathematics and love went so well together.”

  “And now comes the easy part. Deciding which of you is in love and which is the loyal squire who rides at his side . . . There’s no question you’re the one who’s in love—you, the quiet one.”

  He points at Carlos.

  “Me?”

  “Oh, dear. Your logic has failed you there, Professor,” José tells him. “Let’s say we’re both interested in the young lady, what do you say to that?”

  Cristóbal seems unimpressed.

  “That the two of you have a closer relationship than I’d realized.”

  “Don’t pay him any mind,” says Carlos. “She’s not anybody’s beloved, at least not yet. And she’s my cousin.”

  “Her name is Carlota.”

  “My friend is joking again. Georgina. Her name is Georgina.”

  Cristóbal’s expression has grown stern.

  “Your cousin, is she? And which one of you is courting her? For the sake of our business, I hope I’m mistaken about you, because it is a rule of mine never to wet my nib for love affairs between blood relatives. Nor do I place my wax seal on romances between two men, much less produce letters for girls who have not yet been presented in society. Even we scriveners have our ethics, you know.”

  “There’s no need to worry about that. We’re not the ones courting her.”

  “She’s hung up on another man. A Spanish friend she’s been exchanging letters with for some months.”

  “A friend, or maybe something more,” Carlos adds.

  “The truth is, it’s hard to tell how things stand, Professor.”

  “It’s hard to tell, but my cousin, you know—she’s smitten.”

  “She can’t think about anything else, poor thing.”

  Cristóbal focuses on his papers again.

  “I understand. And I suppose you want me to help her with the next letters, is that it? Put a little polish on the correspondence to see if we can reel this Spanish fellow in?”

  “No, she takes care of the letters,” Carlos answers, his voice suddenly harsh.

  “We are asking a much smaller favor, Professor. The girl insists, you know, on writing the letters herself. She’s a romantic, his cousin is. The one we’re not so sure about is that friend of hers.”

  “W
e’re concerned her affections might be unrequited, you see. That he’s only stringing her along,” says Carlos.

  “That even if it seems like he’s ready to pluck the hen, the only thing he really wants to take off her is her inheritance.”

  “That’s why we need your advice, Professor.”

  “We were told there’s nobody in Lima who knows more than you about love letters and how to interpret them,” says José.

  “If you could give us your impression as to the gentleman’s intentions . . .”

  “Or tell us if there are signs he is going to make some noble gesture, like perhaps writing her a poem or two. That’s just the sort of thing she longs for, you see.”

  Professor Cristóbal twirls his eyeglasses between his fingers as he listens.

  “Yes, I see. So let’s just get right down to it: Do we or do we not want the courtship to end well?”

  “We do, we do.”

  “Of course we do! All we want is for his cousin to be happy.”

  The scrivener nods, pleased.

  “I’m glad to hear that, because I also refuse to dip my nib to swim against love’s tide. Indeed, you might say that’s my golden rule in this work: love above all else. Even a poor man has ethics. You understand.”

  “There’s no need to worry about that.”

  “I don’t help seduce married women either. That’s another rule that’s not up for discussion.”

  “You can rest assured that everything is quite ethical and wholesome.”

  “And very romantic. We’re romantics too, you know.”

  The Professor claps his hands together loudly.

  “Then say no more. But if you want my opinion, we’re going to need the chap’s letters. So if you could—”

  Before he’s finished the sentence, Carlos has already placed a packet on the table.

  “Here are his letters, and hers are at the bottom. You can’t say we haven’t been thorough.”

  Cristóbal accepts the bundle of letters and warily examines both sides of it.

  “And how is it that you have hers too? Does your cousin write them and then just stick them in a drawer?”

  “She mails them, but she makes a lot of drafts beforehand, Professor,” says Carlos.

  “As we said, she is unable to think about anything else.”

  “She’s completely hung up on him.”

  “And it’s hard to tell how things stand,” José adds.

  “It’s hard to tell,” Carlos confirms.

  Cristóbal stares at them in silence for a moment, as if attempting to tease out something else behind their words. Then he unties the bundle and gently unfolds the first letter. Almost immediately he looks up from the writing paper.

  “What exquisite handwriting your cousin has! I’ve never seen anything like it. It looks like a doll’s handwriting!”

  José laughs again.

  “That’s exactly what I’m always telling her.”

  ◊

  It takes almost an hour for the scrivener to read all the letters, and in the meantime José and Carlos wait in silence. They study his reactions, the indifferent or alert expression with which he turns the pages. They fear that at any moment he might look up and offer some crisp commentary. Perhaps:

  These are the best letters I’ve ever read in my life.

  Or maybe:

  These are the worst letters I’ve ever read in my life.

  But nothing of the sort happens. After folding up the last letter, Cristóbal only takes off his glasses, methodically lights a cigar, and asks them if they’ve ever seen one of Lima’s covered ladies.

  “Covered ladies?”

  “Of course not,” José interjects. “It’s been half a century since that was the fashion in this country.”

  The Professor nods in agreement.

  “That’s true. But you’ve no doubt seen that style of dress on postcards or in photographs. Maybe even in the old armoire of a coquettish grandmother . . . am I right?”

  “Yes,” says Carlos, still uncertain what the covered ladies have to do with his Georgina. Or, rather, with his cousin.

  But Cristóbal keeps talking.

  “You could still see the last of them when I was a boy. Many years ago. The French styles with their petticoats and corsets had become quite popular, and very few women still wore the old colonial dress. It was something to see: a long skirt that came down to the ankles, so narrow and restrictive that there was barely room to put one foot in front of the other to walk. And a pleated mantle, reminiscent of an Arab veil, that covered the bust and the entire head, leaving only the smallest bit of the face exposed. A little silken cleft through which you could see just a single eye . . . And do you know why the covered ladies left that eye uncovered?”

  “So they could see where they were going?” asks José, chuckling.

  “To flirt,” says Carlos, refusing to join in on the joke.

  “Exactly. But don’t you think men would find it more tantalizing if they left more of the face or body uncovered?”

  “No,” Carlos swiftly replies.

  “Why not?”

  “Because something that shows half is always more suggestive than something that shows everything, Professor.”

  “And do you think they’d have been more seductive if they’d covered themselves entirely, wrapped from head to foot like the mummies of ancient Egypt?”

  “No,” he answers cautiously. “Because showing nothing at all has as little allure as showing too much.”

  Professor Cristóbal claps his hands together so hard that he almost drops his cigar.

  “Correct! Even you, who are still novices in this area, who are, shall we say, babes in the woods when it comes to love, understand this basic law, do you not? Love is a door left ajar. A secret that survives only as long as it is half kept. And that roguish eye was the lure that Lima’s women tied on their lines when they went out on their promenades. The bait upon which men hooked themselves like fools. Have you heard of the language of the fan and handkerchief? How a woman could speak the language of love without opening her mouth? Well, the same thing can be achieved with batted eyelashes beneath a shawl. A long blink means ‘I belong to you.’ Two short blinks, ‘I desire you, but I am not free.’ A long one and then a short one—”

  “You know an awful lot about covered ladies,” says José in a voice that contains not a hint of admiration. “But as to our cousin—”

  “Your cousin,” Cristóbal interrupts him with imperious calm, “has forgotten the fundamental rule of love that your friend recalls so well. Perhaps she never knew it. Read the letters yourselves, if you haven’t already. Oh, I can see by your faces that you have. Several times, even. So tell me, what is this cousin like?”

  José and Carlos exchange glances.

  “She’s twenty years old . . .”

  “She’s beautiful . . .”

  Cristóbal waves a hand in the air.

  “Yes, yes, fine! Regular features, winsome eyes, velvety skin, slender waist . . . I know all that already. I knew it before you opened your mouths. But what is she like? What does she tell us about herself in the letters? Nothing! She hardly talks about anything except literature and poems and . . . whatever else. I wasn’t paying much attention by the end, to be honest. It may be that the distinguished gentleman with whom she is exchanging letters thinks her a sophisticated correspondent, but I doubt he could say much more than that. Some women sin in their letters by revealing too much. They approach love naked, so to speak. Your cousin is making the opposite error. This covered lady’s so timid that she’s cloaked herself head to foot and forgotten to leave an eye showing. And as you said yourself, such prudishness does not work well in the game of seduction. Do you understand?”

  For a few moments neither speaks. They stare at the floor like chastened schoolboys. “So . . . Juan Ramón isn’t . . .”

  “In love? How could he be? He doesn’t have anybody to fall in love with! A man can’t desire something
he knows nothing about. If things were to change . . . who knows? Of course he talks like a bachelor. If you pushed me, I might even say he talks like someone ripe for infatuation. But as things stand now . . .”

  Carlos’s voice trembles.

  “So . . . what do you recommend, Professor?”

  “To you two? Nothing. I might recommend something to your cousin. And my recommendation is that she talk about herself a little more. Show a tiny bit of her face so that this Juan Ramón fellow has something to remember when he thinks of her. Something that sets her apart from other women. In short, she should be a covered lady, not a mummy. Are we all set, then?”

  But he doesn’t let them answer. With a deft movement, he digs in his pocket and flips open the cover of his watch.

  “And with your permission, gentlemen, it is time for my midmorning glass of pisco. If it’s not too much trouble, I would ask that you pay me the two-sol fee we agreed on so that I may, in turn, pay the barkeep his.”