The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto by Mario Vargas Llosa Page A

his mouth partly open, his eyes as round as full moons, ecstatic. Señora Lucrecia let five, ten, fifteen seconds go by, lying absolutely still, infected by how solemnly the boy played the game. Something had happened. The suspension of time? A presentiment of the absolute? The secret of artistic perfection? She was struck by a suspicion: “He’s just like Rigoberto. He’s inherited his tortuous imagination, his manias, his power of seduction. But, fortunately, not his clerk’s face, or his Dumbo ears, or his carrot nose.” She found it difficult to break the spell.
    “Enough. Now it’s your turn.”
    Disappointment overcame the archangel. But his response was instantaneous: “You’re right. That’s what we agreed.”
    “Get to work,” Doña Lucrecia spurred them on. “What picture are you going to do? I’ll choose it. Give me the book, Justiniana.”
    “Well, there are only two pictures for Justita and me,” Fonchito advised her. “ Mother and Child and the Nude Man and Woman Lying Down and Embracing . The others are just men, or just women, or two women together. Take your pick, Stepmamá.”
    “What a know-it-all!” exclaimed a stupefied Justiniana.
    Doña Lucrecia examined the images, and in fact, those mentioned by Alfonsito were the only ones they could imitate. She rejected the second, since how believable would it be if a beardless boy played the part of the bearded redhead identified by the author of the book as the artist Felix Albrecht Harta, who looked out at her from the photograph of the oil painting with an imbecilic expression, indifferent to the faceless nude in red stockings who slithered like an amorous snake beneath his bent leg. At least in Mother and Child the age difference was similar to the one that separated Alfonso and Justiniana.
    “That mommy and baby are in a nice little pose!” The maid pretended to be alarmed. “I suppose you won’t ask me to take off my dress, you rascal.”
    “Only to put on black stockings,” the boy replied with absolute seriousness. “I’ll take off just my shoes and shirt.”
    There was no nasty undercurrent in his voice, not a shadow of malicious intent. Doña Lucrecia sharpened her ears and scrutinized his precocious face with suspicion: no, not a shadow. He was a consummate actor. Or merely an innocent boy and she an idiotic, dirty old woman? What was the matter with Justiniana? In all the years she had known her, she could not recall seeing her so impertinent and bold.
    “How can I put on black stockings when I don’t even own any?”
    “My stepmamá will lend you some.”
    Instead of cutting the game short, as her reason told her to, she heard herself saying, “Of course.” She went to her room and returned with the black wool stockings she wore on cold nights. The boy was removing his shirt. He was slim and well proportioned, his skin between white and gold. She saw his torso, his slender arms, his thin shoulders with the fine little bones protruding, and Doña Lucrecia remembered. Had it all really happened? Justiniana had stopped laughing and was avoiding her eyes. She must be on edge as well.
    “Put them on, Justita,” the boy urged her. “Shall I help you?”
    “No, thanks very much.”
    The girl had also lost the naturalness and assurance that rarely abandoned her. Her fingers were fumbling, and the stockings were crooked when she put them on. As she straightened and tugged at them, she bent over in an effort to hide her legs. She stood on the rug next to the boy, looking down and moving her hands, to no discernible effect.
    “Let’s begin,” said Alfonso. “You’re facedown, resting your head on your arms; they’re crossed, like a pillow. I have to be on your right. My knees on your leg, my head on your side. Except, since I’m bigger than the boy in the painting, my head reaches to your shoulder. Are we getting it, Stepmamá?”
    Holding the book, caught up in a desire for perfection, Doña Lucrecia leaned over them.