“Well you ought to be named Luzbel.” The gentleman smiled. His slow, educated voice pronounced each word as precisely as a grammar teacher. His long, bony face looked recently shaved. He had long fingers with trimmed nails.
“I swear he seemed like a very proper person, Papa.”
“Do you know what ‘Luzbel’ means?”
Fonchito shook his head.
“‘Luzbel,’ that’s what he said to you?” Don Rigoberto became concerned. “Did you say ‘Luzbel’?”
“The one who carries the light, the bearer of light,” the man explained calmly.
“He talked like he was moving in slow motion, Papa.”
“It’s a way of saying you’re a very handsome young man. When you grow up, all the girls in Lima will be crazy about you. Didn’t they teach you who Luzbel was in school?”
“I can see it coming, I can imagine very well what he wanted,” Rigoberto murmured, giving him his full attention now.
Fonchito shook his head again.
“I knew I had to leave right away. I remember very clearly how often you told me I should never talk to strangers like that man who wanted to teach me what that name meant, Papa,” he explained, gesturing. “But … but, I tell you, there was something in him, his manners, the way he spoke, that made me think he wasn’t a bad man. Besides, he made me curious. At Markham I don’t remember them ever telling us about Luzbel.”
“He was the most beautiful of the archangels, the favorite of God on high.” He wasn’t joking, he spoke very seriously, the hint of a benevolent smile on his carefully shaved face; he pointed a finger at the sky. “But Luzbel, since he knew he was so beautiful, became vain and committed the sin of pride. He even felt equal to God. Imagine. Then God punished him, and from being the angel of light, he became the prince of darkness. That’s how it all began. History, the appearance of time and evil, human life.”
“He didn’t seem like a priest, Papa, or one of those Evangelical missionaries who give away religious magazines door to door. I asked him: ‘Are you a priest, señor?’ ‘No, no, me a priest, Fonchito, whatever gave you that idea?’ And he started to laugh.”
“It was irresponsible of you to talk to him, he probably followed you here,” Doña Lucrecia scolded him, caressing his forehead. “Never again, never again. Promise me, honey.”
“I have to go, señor,” said Fonchito, standing up. “They’re expecting me at home.”
The gentleman did not attempt to keep him. As a kind of farewell, he smiled at him more openly, nodded slightly, and barely gestured goodbye with his hand.
“You know very well who he was, don’t you?” Rigoberto repeated. “You’re fifteen now and know about these things, don’t you? A pervert. A pedophile. I suppose you understand what that means, I don’t need to explain it to you. He was looking you over. Lucrecia’s right. It was a mistake to answer him. You should have stopped everything and left as soon as he spoke to you.”
“He didn’t look like a fag, Papa,” Fonchito reassured him. “I swear. I recognize queers on the prowl for boys right away because of how they look at me. Even before they open their mouths, honestly. And because they’re always trying to touch me. This man was just the opposite — very educated, very refined. He didn’t seem to have evil intentions, really.”
“They’re the worst kind, Fonchito,” Doña Lucrecia declared, frankly alarmed. “Hypocrites, who don’t seem to be but are.”
“Tell me, Papa,” Fonchito said, changing the subject. “What he told me about the archangel Luzbel, is it true?”
“Well, it’s what the Bible says.” Don Rigoberto vacillated. “It’s true for believers, at any rate. It’s incredible that at the Markham Academy they don’t have you read the Bible, at least for your general education. But let’s not get distracted. I’ll tell you again, son: It’s absolutely forbidden for you to accept anything from strangers. No invitations, no conversations, no nothing. You understand, don’t you? Or do you want me to forbid you to go out at all?”
“I’m too old for that now, Papa. Please, I’m fifteen.”
“Yes, as old as Methuselah.” Doña Lucrecia laughed. But Rigoberto immediately heard her sighing in the dark. “If we’d only known how far this would go. My God, what a nightmare. I think it’s gone on for a year.”
“A year or even a little more, love.”
Rigoberto forgot about the stranger who talked to Fonchito about Luzbel in the café in Barranco Park almost immediately. But he was reminded and became uneasy a week later when, according to his son, as he was coming back from playing soccer at San Agustín Academy, the same gentleman showed up again.
“I had just taken a shower in the San Agustín lockers and was going to meet up with Chato Pezzuolo so we could ride the jitney together to Barranco. And you won’t believe it but there he was, Papa. Him, the same man.”
“Hello, Luzbel.” The gentleman greeted him with the same affectionate smile. “Remember me?”
He was sitting in the hall that separated the soccer field from the exit door of San Agustín Academy. Behind him was the dense serpent of cars, trucks, and buses moving along Avenida Javier Prado. Some vehicles had their headlights on.
“Yes, yes, I remember,” said Fonchito, sitting up straight. And, in an unequivocal tone, he confronted him. “Excuse me, but my papa has forbidden me to talk to strangers.”
“Rigoberto is absolutely right,” the man said, nodding. He was wearing the same gray suit as last time, but the purple sweater was different, without the white diamond pattern. “Lima is filled with bad people. There are perverts and degenerates everywhere. And good-looking boys like you are their favorite targets.”
Don Rigoberto opened his eyes very wide.
“He mentioned me by name? Did he say he knew me?”
“Do you know my papa, señor?”
“And I knew Eloísa, your mama, too,” the gentleman replied, becoming very serious. “And I also know Lucrecia, your stepmother. I can’t say we’re friends, because we hardly see one another. But I like both of them very much; since the first time I saw them, they seemed a magnificent couple. I’m glad to know they take good care of you and look out for you. A boy as handsome as you is not at all safe in the Sodom and Gomorrah that Lima is.”
“Could you tell me what this Sodom and Gomorrah is, Papa?” Fonchito asked, and Rigoberto noticed a sly gleam in his eyes.
“Two ancient cities, very corrupt, and because they were, God destroyed them,” he replied cautiously. “It’s what believers believe, at least. You have to read the Bible a little, son. For your general education. At least the New Testament. The world we live in is filled with biblical references, and if you don’t understand them, you’ll live in total confusion and ignorance. For example, you won’t understand anything of classical art or ancient history. Are you sure he said he knew Lucrecia and me?”
“And my mama too,” Fonchito specified. “He even said her name: Eloísa. He said it in a way that made it impossible not to believe he was telling the truth, Papa.”
“Did he tell you his name?”
“Well, not that,” Fonchito said, disconcerted. “I didn’t ask him and I didn’t even give him time to tell me. Since you ordered me not even to say a word to him, I ran away. But I’m sure he knows you, knows both of you. If not, he wouldn’t have told me your name, he wouldn’t have known my mother’s name, or that my stepmother is named Lucrecia.”
“If by any chance you run into him again, be sure to ask what his name is,” said Rigoberto, scrutinizing the boy with suspicion. Could what he was telling them be true, or was it another of his inventions? “But don’t talk to him, let alone accept a Coca-Cola or anything else. I’m more and more convinced he’s one of those depraved people who wander loose through Lima looking for young boys. What else would he be doing at the San Agustín Academy?”