“Unlawful association for the purpose of committing a criminal act in a kidnapping scheme and sending anonymous letters and extortion threats. Unlawful association for the purpose of destroying a commercial site with explosives, with the aggravating circumstance of putting at risk the houses, businesses, and persons in the area. Active participation in a false kidnapping for the purpose of frightening and coercing a businessman into paying protection. Dissimulation, duplicity, and deception before the authorities during their investigation into the false kidnapping.” He put the paper back in his pocket and added: “These would be the principal charges against the señora, Captain. The prosecutor might add other, less serious ones, like the clandestine practice of prostitution.”
“And how high could the penalty go if the señora is convicted, Lituma?” the captain asked, his mocking eyes fixed on Mabel.
“Eight to ten years in prison,” the sergeant replied. “It would depend on the aggravating and extenuating circumstances, naturally.”
“You’re trying to scare me, but you’ve made a mistake,” murmured Mabel, making an enormous effort to get her tongue, as dry and harsh as an iguana’s, to form words. “I won’t answer any of those lies without a lawyer present.”
“Nobody’s asking you questions yet,” Captain Silva said ironically. “For now, the only thing you’re being asked to do is listen. Understood, Mabelita?”
He kept looking at her with a leer that forced her to lower her eyes. Disheartened, defeated, she nodded.
As a result of nerves, fear, and the idea that with every step she took she’d have an invisible pair of cops on her tail, she didn’t leave the house for five days. She went out only to run to the Chinese store on the corner to buy a few things, to the laundry, and to the bank. She hurried back to close herself in with her worries and tortured thoughts. On the sixth day she couldn’t stand any more. Living this way was like being in prison, and Mabel wasn’t made for confinement. She needed to be out, see the sky, smell, hear, walk in the city, listen to the bustle of men and women, hear the donkeys braying and the dogs barking. She wasn’t and would never be a cloistered nun. She called her friend Zoila and suggested they go to the movies, the late-afternoon show.
“And see what, honey?” asked Zoila.
“Anything, whatever they’re showing,” Mabel answered. “I need to see people, talk a little bit. I’m suffocating here.”
They met in front of Los Portales, on the Plaza de Armas. They had lunch at El Chalán, and went into the multiplex at the Centro Comercial Open Plaza, next to the Universidad de Piura. They saw a fairly graphic movie with nudity. Zoila, who pretended to be very proper, crossed herself when there were sex scenes. She was shameless; in her personal life she was a real libertine, changed partners every other day, and even bragged about it: “As long as your body holds out, you have to use it, baby.” She wasn’t especially pretty, but she had a good body and nice taste in clothes. Because of that and her uninhibited ways, she was successful with men. When they left the theater, she suggested they have something to eat at her house, but Mabel said no, she didn’t want to go back to Castilla alone when it was late.
She took a taxi, and as the old jalopy plunged into the half-darkened neighborhood, Mabel told herself that, after all, it was lucky the police had kept the kidnapping from the press. They thought this would confuse the extortionists and make it easier to catch them. But she was convinced that at any moment the news would reach the papers, radio, and television. What would her life turn into if that scandal broke? Maybe the best thing would be to listen to Felícito and leave Piura for a while. Why not go to Trujillo? They said it was big, modern, lively, with a nice beach and colonial houses and parks. And that the Marinera Dance Competition held there every summer was worth seeing. Were those two cops in plain clothes following her in a car or on a motorcycle? She looked through the rear and side windows and didn’t see any vehicles. Probably her protection was a lie. You had to be a half-wit to believe the cops’ promises.
She got out of the taxi, paid, and walked the twenty-some paces from the corner to her house down the center of an empty street, even though at almost all the neighboring doors and windows the dim lights of the neighborhood flickered. She could make out the silhouettes of people inside. She had her door key ready. She opened the door, went in, and when she reached out her hand to the light switch, she felt another hand in the way, blocking her and covering her mouth, stifling her scream as a man’s body pressed against hers and a well-known voice whispered in her ear, “It’s me, don’t be scared.”
“What are you doing here?” Mabel protested, trembling. She thought she’d collapse onto the floor if he weren’t holding her up. “Have you gone crazy, you asshole? Have you gone crazy?”
“I needed to fuck you,” said Miguel, and Mabel felt his feverish lips on her ear, her neck, eager, avid, his strong arms squeezing her and his hands touching her everywhere.
“Stupid pig, imbecile, vulgar filthy moron,” she protested, defending herself, furious. She was dizzy with indignation and fear. “Don’t you know the police are watching the house? Don’t you know what can happen to us on account of you, you dirty idiot?”
“Nobody saw me come in, the cop is in the dive on the corner drinking coffee, nobody was on the street.” Miguel kept embracing her, kissing her, pressing her body against his, rubbing against her. “Come on, let’s go to bed, I’ll fuck you and leave. Come on, baby.”
“You dumb, miserable dog, how do you have the nerve to come here, you’re out of your mind.” They were in the dark and, furious and frightened, she was trying to resist and push him away, at the same time feeling that in spite of her rage, her body was beginning to give in. “Don’t you realize that you’re ruining my life, damn you? And ruining your own too, you bastard.”
“I swear nobody saw me come in, I was very careful,” he repeated, pulling at her clothes to try to undress her. “Come on, come on. I want you, I’m hungry for you, I want to make you cry out, I love you.”
Finally she stopped defending herself. Still in the dark, fed up, exhausted, she allowed him to undress her and throw her down on the bed, and for a few minutes she abandoned herself to pleasure. Could that be called pleasure? It was, in any case, something very different from what she’d felt at other times. Tense, on edge, sad. Not even at the height of her excitement, when she was about to come, could she get the images of Felícito, the police who questioned her at the station house, the scandal that would explode if the news reached the press, out of her head.
“Now go, and don’t set foot in this house again until all of this is over,” she ordered when she felt Miguel release her and fall back onto the bed. “If your father finds out because of this crazy thing you did tonight, I’ll get back at you. I swear it’ll be bad. I swear you’ll regret it the rest of your life, Miguel.”
“I told you nobody saw me. I swear nobody did. At least tell me if you liked it.”
“I didn’t like anything and I hate you with all my heart, just so you know,” Mabel said, slipping out of Miguel’s hands and standing up. “Go on, leave right now and don’t let anybody see you go out. Don’t come back here, you idiot. You’ll get us sent to prison, you son of a bitch, why can’t you see that.”
“All right, I’m going, don’t be like that,” said Miguel, sitting up. “I’m putting up with your insults because you’re so stressed. Otherwise, I’d knock them down your throat, sweetie.”
She could hear Miguel dressing in the semidarkness. Finally he bent over to kiss her and at the same time, with the vulgarity that erupted from all the pores of his body at intimate moments, he said, “For as long as I like you, I’ll come here to fuck you every time my prick tells me to, baby.”