The Unconquerables! La Chunga! Damn, how time flew. The León brothers, Josefino, and Bonifacia were probably dead and buried by now, nothing left of them but memory. How sad.
He was walking almost in darkness, because after you passed the Club Grau and entered the residential neighborhood of Buenos Aires, the streetlights were farther apart and dimmer. He walked slowly, tripping over the cracks in the asphalt, past houses that once had gardens and two stories and over time had become lower and poorer. As he approached his boardinghouse the buildings turned into huts, rough constructions with adobe walls, posts of carob wood, and corrugated metal roofs on streets without sidewalks and hardly any automobile traffic.
When he returned to Piura after serving for many years in Lima and in the mountains, he moved into a room on the military base, where police as well as soldiers could live. But he didn’t like that much intimacy with his associates on the force. It was like still being in the service, seeing the same people and talking about the same things. That’s why, after six months, he moved to the house of the Calancha family, who had five rooms for boarders. It was extremely modest and Lituma’s bedroom was tiny, but he paid very little and felt more independent there. The Calanchas were watching television when he came in. The husband had been a teacher and his wife a municipal employee. They’d been retired for some time. Board included only breakfast, but if the tenant desired, the Calanchas could order in lunch and dinner from a nearby restaurant whose stews were pretty substantial. The sergeant asked if they happened to remember a little bar near the old stadium, run by a fairly masculine woman who was named, or called, La Chunga. They looked at him uneasily, shaking their heads no.
That night he lay awake for a long time and didn’t feel very well. Damn, he never should have mentioned Josefino to Captain Silva. Now he was almost certain the pimp hadn’t been drawing spiders but something else. Rummaging around in his past wasn’t a good idea. It made him sad to remember his youth, to think about how old he was — close to fifty now — how solitary his life was, the misfortunes that had battered him, that idiotic Russian roulette with Seminario, his years in prison, what happened to Bonifacia, which left a bitter taste in his mouth each time he thought about it.
He slept at last, but badly, and had nightmares that left him with a memory of calamitous, terrifying images when he woke. He washed, had breakfast, and was out before seven, on his way to the spot where his memory guessed La Chunga’s bar had been. It wasn’t easy to orient himself. In his memory, this had been the outskirts of the city, just a few huts of clay and wild reeds built on the sandy tracts. Now there were streets, cement, houses made of reputable materials, streetlights, sidewalks, cars, schools, gas stations, shops. So many changes! The old neighborhood was now a part of the city and bore no resemblance to his memories. His attempts to speak to residents — he asked only older people — led nowhere. Nobody remembered either the bar or La Chunga; a lot of people in the area weren’t even Piuran but had moved here from the mountains. He had the unpleasant sensation that his memory was lying to him; none of the things he remembered had existed, they were phantoms and always had been phantoms, pure products of his imagination. Thinking about that frightened him.
At midmorning he called a halt to the search and returned to the center of Piura. It was hot, and before going back to the police station, he had a soda at the corner. The streets were filled with noise, cars, buses, students in uniform. Lottery-ticket sellers and trinket vendors hocking their wares, sweaty people all in a hurry, crowding the sidewalks. And then his memory retrieved the name and number of the street where his cousins, the León brothers, had lived: Calle Morropón 17. In the very heart of Mangachería. Half closing his eyes, he saw the faded façade of the one-story house, grillwork on the windows, pots of wax flowers, the chicha bar over which a white flag on a reed fluttered, a sign that cold chicha was served there.
He took a mototaxi to Avenida Sánchez Cerro and, feeling the drops of sweat streaming down his face and wetting his back, he walked into the ancient labyrinth of streets, alleys, crescents, dead ends, empty lots that had been Mangachería, a neighborhood, people said, that got its name because in colonial times it had been populated by slaves brought over from Madagascar. This had all changed too — in its form, people, texture, and color. The dirt streets were paved in asphalt, the houses were made of brick and cement, there were some office buildings, street lighting, not a single chicha bar or burro left in the streets, only stray dogs. Chaos had turned into order and straight, parallel streets. Nothing here resembled his Mangache memories now. The neighborhood had been made respectable and become colorless, impersonal. But Calle Morropón still existed, and so did number 17. Except that instead of his cousins’ little house he found a large auto repair shop, with a sign that read: WE SELL REPLACEMENT PARTS FOR ALL MAKES OF CARS, VANS, TRUCKS, AND BUSES. He went inside, and in the huge, dim place that smelled of oil he saw dismantled car bodies and engines, heard the sound of welding, observed three or four workers in blue overalls leaning over their machines. A radio played music from the jungle, “La Contamanina.” He walked into an office where a fan was humming. A very young woman sat in front of a computer.
“Good afternoon,” said Lituma, removing his kepi.
“Can I help you?” She was looking at him with the slight uneasiness with which people usually regarded the police.
“I’m looking for a family that used to live here,” Lituma explained, indicating the premises. “When this wasn’t a repair shop but a house. Their name was León.”
“As far as I know, this has always been a repair shop,” said the girl.
“You’re very young, you can’t remember,” Lituma replied. “But maybe the owner knows something.”
“You can wait for him if you’d like.” The girl indicated a chair. And then, suddenly, her face lit up. “Oh, I’m so dumb. Of course! The owner’s name is León, Don José León, to be precise. He probably can help you.”
Lituma dropped into the chair, his heart pounding. Don José León. Damn. It was him, his cousin José. It had to be the Unconquerable. Who else could it be?
He was on pins and needles as he waited. The minutes seemed endless. When the Unconquerable José León finally appeared in the shop — though he was now a stout, big-bellied man with streaks of gray in his thinning hair, dressed like a white man in a jacket, business shirt, and shoes shined as bright as glass — Lituma recognized him immediately. He stood, filled with emotion, and held out his arms. José, surprised, didn’t recognize him and brought his face very close to examine him.
“I see you don’t know who I am, cousin,” said Lituma. “Have I changed that much?”
José’s face broke into a broad smile.
“I don’t believe it!” he exclaimed, holding out his arms as well. “Lituma! What a surprise, brother. After so many years, hey waddya think.”
They embraced, patted each other’s backs under the astonished gazes of the secretary and the workers. They scrutinized each other, smiling and effusive.
“Do you have time for a coffee, cousin?” Lituma asked. “Or would you prefer to get together later or tomorrow?”