They went down in the elevator directly to the garage, and with Rigoberto at the wheel, drove quickly toward the Church of Santa María Reina, in San Isidro; the funeral party would leave from there for the cemetery, Los Jardines de la Paz, in La Molina.
“Did you notice last night that Miki and Escobita didn’t go up to Armida even once during the vigil?” Lucrecia remarked. “Not once. How inconsiderate. Those two are really mean-spirited.”
Rigoberto had noticed and, of course, so had most of the crowd who, over the course of several hours, until close to midnight, had filed past the funeral chapel covered in flowers. The wreaths, arrangements, bouquets, crosses, and cards filled the area and spread into the courtyard and then all the way to the street. Many people loved and respected Ismael, and there was the proof: hundreds saying goodbye to him. There would be as many or more this morning at the burial. But last night there had been, and would be now as well, people who viciously condemned him for marrying his servant, and even those who sided with Miki and Escobita in the lawsuit they’d brought to have the marriage annulled. Like Lucrecia’s and his own, people’s eyes at the vigil had been focused on the hyenas and Armida. The twins, dressed in mourning and in dark glasses they hadn’t removed, looked like two movie gangsters. The dead man’s widow and his sons were separated by a few meters that the twins never attempted to cross. It was almost comical. Armida, in mourning from head to toe and wearing a dark hat and veil, sat close to the coffin, holding a handkerchief and a rosary and telling the beads slowly as she moved her lips in silent prayer. Now and then she wiped away tears. Now and again, helped by the two large men with the faces of outlaws directly behind her, she stood, approached the coffin, and bent over the glass to pray or weep. Then she would receive condolences from recent arrivals. After that the hyenas would move, approach the coffin, and remain for a moment or two, crossing themselves, in distress, not turning their heads, not even once, back toward the widow.
“Are you sure those two brawny men who looked like boxers and were beside Armida all night were bodyguards?” asked Lucrecia. “They could have been relatives. Don’t drive so fast, please. One dead body is enough for now.”
“Absolutely sure,” said Rigoberto. “Claudio Arnillas confirmed it, because Ismael’s lawyer is her lawyer now. They were bodyguards.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little ridiculous?” remarked Lucrecia. “Why the devil does Armida need bodyguards, I’d like to know.”
“She needs them now more than ever,” replied Don Rigoberto, slowing down. “The hyenas could hire a killer and have her murdered. That kind of thing happens now in Lima. I’m afraid those two degenerates will destroy that woman. You can’t imagine the fortune the brand-new widow has inherited, Lucrecia.”
“If you keep driving like this, I’m getting out,” his wife warned him. “Ah, so that was the reason. I thought she was putting on airs and had hired those giants just to show off.”
When they reached the Church of Santa María Reina, on the Gutiérrez de San Isidro Oval, the cortege was already leaving, so they joined the caravan without getting out of the car. The line of automobiles was endless. Don Rigoberto saw, as the hearse passed, many pedestrians making the sign of the cross. “Fear of dying,” he thought. As far as he could recall, he’d never been afraid of death. “At least, not yet,” he corrected himself. “All of Lima must be here.”
And in fact, all of Lima was there. The Lima of big businesses, owners of banks, insurance, mining, fishing, and construction companies, television stations, newspapers, country estates, and ranches, as well as many of the employees of the company Ismael had led until a few weeks ago, and even some humble people who must have worked for him or owed him favors. There was a military man wearing a dress uniform with gold braid, probably an aide-de-camp to the president, and the ministers of finance and foreign trade. A minor incident occurred when the coffin was taken out of the hearse and Miki and Escobita attempted to go to the head of the retinue. They succeeded for only a few seconds, because when Armida emerged from her car on the arm of Dr. Arnillas and surrounded now not by two but four bodyguards, the four immediately opened a path for her to the front of the cortege, firmly moving the twins out of the way. Miki and Escobita, after a moment’s confusion, chose to cede to the widow and fell back to either side of the coffin. They grasped the straps and followed the cortege with lowered heads. Most of those attending were men, but there were also a good number of elegant women who, during the priest’s prayer for the dead, kept staring insolently at Armida. They couldn’t see very much. Dressed all in black, she wore a hat and large sunglasses that hid a good part of her face. Claudio Arnillas — he wore his usual multicolored suspenders under a gray jacket — remained at her side, and the four security men formed a wall at her back that no one attempted to breach.
When the ceremony was over and the coffin finally hoisted into one of the recesses that was closed with a marble tablet bearing the name of Ismael Carrera and the dates of his birth and death in golden letters — he had died three weeks before his eighty-second birthday — Dr. Arnillas, his stride more unruly than usual because of his fast pace, and the four bodyguards took Armida to the exit, preventing anyone from approaching her. Rigoberto noted that once the widow had left, Miki and Escobita stood together at the tomb and many people came up to embrace them. He and Lucrecia withdrew without greeting them. (The previous night, at the vigil, they’d approached the twins to offer their condolences, and the handshake had been glacial.)
“Let’s stop by Ismael’s house,” Doña Lucrecia suggested to her husband. “Even if it’s only a moment, to see if we can talk to Armida.”
“All right, let’s try it.”
When they arrived at the house in San Isidro, they were surprised not to see a crowd of cars parked near the door. Rigoberto got out, announced himself, and after a wait of several minutes, they were shown into the garden, where they were received by Dr. Arnillas. With an air appropriate to the circumstances, he seemed to have taken control of the situation, though perhaps not completely. He seemed uncertain.
“A thousand pardons on Armida’s behalf,” he said. “She was awake all night at the vigil, and we’ve made her lie down. The doctor has ordered her to rest for a while. But come in, let’s go to the room by the garden and have something to drink.”
Rigoberto’s heart contracted a little when he saw the lawyer leading them to the room where two days earlier he’d seen his friend for the last time.
“Armida is very grateful to you both,” said Claudio Arnillas. He looked worried and very serious, pausing as he spoke. His gaudy suspenders gleamed each time his jacket opened. “According to her, you’re the only friends of Ismael she trusts. As you can imagine, the poor woman feels very helpless now. She’s going to need your support—”
“Excuse me, Doctor, I know this isn’t the right time,” Rigoberto interrupted. “But you know better than anybody everything that’s been left hanging with Ismael’s death. Do you have any idea of what’s going to happen now?”
Arnillas nodded. He’d asked for coffee and held the cup to his mouth. He blew on it slowly. In his lean, bony face, his steely, astute eyes looked doubtful.
“It all depends on those two gentlemen,” he said with a sigh, expanding his chest. “Tomorrow the will is opened at Nuñez Notary. I more or less know its contents. We’ll see how the hyenas react. Their lawyer is a shyster who advises them to threaten and make war. I don’t know how far they’ll want to take this. Señor Carrera has left practically his entire fortune to Armida, so we’ll have to be prepared for the worst.”