The brother who vanished into smoke - "VLADIMIRO MONTESINOS PRESIDENT OF PERU" - A novel by Daniel Gutiérrez Híjar

 

Francisco!, detonated Alfonso, my uncle, a young and successful lawyer graduated from the University of San Agustin, which had been founded by his great-grandfather, Andres Martinez de Orihuela, prestigious Minister of Finance in the tumultuous times of President Gamarra. At his early twenty-two years of age, and barely twenty-four months after having concluded his university studies with honors, Alfonso was already a professor at his alma mater, where he taught Roman Law in classrooms full of students eager to see him and listen to him lecture.

The one being called out like that, at the top of the lungs, was Francisco Montesinos, the good-for-nothing who in a few years would become my father; a guy who, within the mediocrity of his life, managed to do something —of course, involuntarily— that the rest of the Montesinos did not: to beget me, the future redeemer president of Peru.

The coward Francisco intuited instantly the reason for the harsh fraternal summons and, for that reason, he headed for the street door. He lacked the spirit to suffer once more the reproaches for his university desertion and for having married a well-known fornicator; a woman who had cohabited with a man outside of any ecclesiastical sacrament.

It hadn't been such a good idea to visit his mother's house in search of the delicious food that the Negra Dolores —Lola, to the family— prepared. The stews she made on Tuesdays, like that day, were not to be missed. Elena, on the other hand, was incapable of making even a simple rice with egg and, when she tried, it was preferable to fast.

Don't make me call you twice, Francisco. It will be worse. Alfonso's voice was thunderous. When he set his mind to it, he inspired fear. Not in vain was he considered a forceful and versatile orator, possessor and cultivator of the necessary registers to move, frighten, raise awareness, and stir up multitudes; tools that over time would make the seats of the national parliament vibrate.

My father, dragging his feet as was his bad habit, made his way toward the majestic wooden staircase that described a curve at the back of the living room. His footsteps echoed in that hollow space where long ago my grandfather Guillermo had offered his tertulias and recitals. When he reached the second floor, Francisco headed, always dragging his reluctance, toward the room that served as the office of the young lawyer and prodigy of the family.

His soul jumped when, in addition to Alfonso, he saw in the office his mother, my grandmother Maria Montesinos Martinez. Things looked bad. It would not be one of the usual admonitions that Alfonso, as the older brother and pater familias, used to dish out to him.

Maria maintained a severe, almost impenetrable expression, standing, beside and one step behind my uncle.

Close the door, ordered Alfonso.

With evident reluctance, Francisco obeyed.

Enough! You have gone too far. Do you want to kill our mother with your antics?, thundered Alfonso once the door was closed.

My father looked at them with a calmness almost insolent. He saw coming the same reproach from his brother, only now reinforced by the melodramatic tears of his mother. He suppressed a smile and maintained a neutral posture, although he found it hard to hide a certain enjoyment seeing Alfonso, the unbeatable, the exemplary, the pure intellect, the natural heir of the deceased Guillermo, red with rage and frustration. In the end, you couldn't have a perfect life, because either you messed it up yourself or someone in your family messed it up for you. Francisco was the cancer of Alfonso's happiness.

Answer!, demanded Alfonso from his desk. He hadn't bothered to stand up or greet his brother. Neither had Francisco. My grandmother Maria used to say that the newcomer should initiate the obligatory greetings, but what was happening there was far from any example of good protocol. My father had entered a boiling pot without having any idea of its temperature.

What happened?, said Francisco, dismissively. The same thing again? Are you going to talk to me about Elena? I've told you until I'm exhausted that I married her for love, out of conviction. You can say mass, but I'm going to stay with her.

Yes, sure, replied Alfonso. And did you think we wouldn't find out that you've gotten her pregnant?

My father turned pale instantly. How had they found out? Elena hardly went out, and they had planned to leave Arequipa before her belly betrayed them. Francisco wasn't very happy with the idea of becoming a father, but he harbored the illusion that, with the baby, changes would come that would push him out of the mediocrity in which he moved. He had been dragging the stigma of having abandoned the university, an unforgivable affront to his father's widow and to the more high-ranking Montesinos, obsessive guardians of the family's intellectual prestige.

I don't know who else might be aware of this unhappy news, declared Alfonso, but I assure you that I will do everything possible to prevent you from continuing to tarnish the prestige and decency of our surname.

What an ill-fated hour you got involved with that woman, Francisco, lamented Doña Maria, clutching a rosary of thick beads, intertwined in her fingers as if she wanted to strangle the disgrace. She has all the possible defects that can be attributed to a woman.

What defects? I've always seen her as very fine, replied Francisco, with a hint of sarcasm that was a sign he was recovering from the first blow they had dealt him. And even more so in intimacy.

Fool! Pig!, burst out Doña Maria. You know perfectly well what I'm referring to, insolent brat. That woman is an adulteress, a corrupter of minors, and on top of that, poor; she doesn't have a penny to her name, she finished with fury. The corrupter of minors thing was not a lie: Francisco was seventeen years old when he married Elena Bouroncle, a woman abandoned by the man she never ended up marrying, thus sustaining sexual relations without the consent of a priest. Peruvian law then, as now, considered Francisco a minor. But the society of that time, unlike today, judged terribly the women who fornicated without the acquiescence of the Divine.

She's a Bouroncle, mother, defended Francisco his wife.

That surname was never of high lineage, and the little fortune they had went to hell when Leguia fell. The Bouroncles are as ruined as…, Doña Maria searched for the exact word that could inflict the deepest humiliation on her son.

As we are, completed Francisco. Since our father died, we have nothing left. Look at them: all your grandchildren begging for a roof, and soon they will flood this mansion, because it can easily fit the dozens of families of the dozens of your children.

I'm not going to allow you to speak to our mother like that. Better shut up, ordered Alfonso.

Now you want me to shut up?, mocked Francisco. Where do we stand? Do I talk or not?

Tomorrow Bishop Holguin is going to divorce you, sentenced Doña Maria. Her words fell like a machete blow on Francisco's back, his mocking expression withering.

Alfonso opened a drawer of his desk and took out a stack of papers that he planted with haughtiness in front of him. And here are the copies of the file that has already been entered into the ecclesiastical court. Everything is within the law and the divorce is almost a done deal. As our mother said, our friend, Bishop Holguin, will stamp his seal on the petition tomorrow.

You can't do that, protested Francisco.

Of course not, admitted Alfonso, without hiding the sarcasm. That's why the bishop of Arequipa himself will do it, who is a friend of the house and who, as you well know, was president of this troubled country. Feel fortunate that such a high figure divorces you, not like the piddly little priest who married you behind our backs.

Bishop Mariano Holguin had been, barely four years earlier, one of the four fleeting presidents that Peru had in the dizzying span of eleven days that followed the resignation of Sanchez Cerro from the military junta that he himself had established after overthrowing President Leguia. The bishop governed for a few hours before handing over command to the president of the Supreme Court, one Ricardo Elias.

And I also have ready this other file, continued Alfonso, extracting from the right drawer of his desk another voluminous bundle of papers. With this we were going to hit your nefarious wife with a good lawsuit for having married a minor. Fortunately, she knew how to choose well.

Alfonso's verbal calculation took effect. The anguished uncertainty on his brother's face was a painting.

What did she choose?, dared to murmur Francisco. Why do you say you 'were going to' hit her with the lawsuit? Aren't you going to do it anymore?

Our selfless mother, continued Alfonso, has had to sell one of the last properties of our deceased father to give all the money from that sale to your little woman in exchange for her getting out of our lives. It was that or agree to spend the rest of her days in prison. Honoring her reputation, she took the money without thinking twice.

Francisco's eyes tried to find meaning in what his ears were hearing by scrutinizing the complex design printed on the thick carpet of that room.

In the future you will appreciate all this that we are doing for you, Francisco, said Alfonso. Now perhaps you don't realize it, but we are fixing your life. In about five years, when you are a prestigious lawyer and form a real family, you will thank us. For the moment, I don't care about your long face. The thing is, you don't leave this house until you become a great magistrate, and you forget about that woman.

And my son?, Francisco raised his gaze.

You don't have a son, settled my grandmother, erasing, just like that, my father's firstborn from the history of the Montesinos.

What do you mean I don't have a son?, said Francisco, thinking of Elena, his wife, who was waiting for him at home, awaiting the delicacies of Negra Dolores.

Your Elena took the money that was offered to her and right now, according to the agreement, she must have already left the pigsty where you lived, carrying in her womb that son who, I could bet, surely isn't even yours. Do you think she suddenly craved Lola's stew? I gave her the idea to put that story into your head so she could leave without any trouble.

Alfonso left the necessary space so that his words could forcefully strike his brother's morale. Then, he added, coldly: That's how she loved you. That's how people without dignity are: they always end up choosing the comfortable philosophy of money, instead of defending their honor.

You are lying to me. I don't believe you, you pair of liars, shouted Francisco.

Listen to me, burst out Alfonso, standing up with the same vehemence with which years later he would defend his political positions in the Senate, already militating in the Party of Democratic National Youth, the one that in 1956 would mutate into Popular Action, a party that was born hurling bravado against Odria and ended up becoming the refuge of little Lima gentlemen experts in promising sandcastles, always entangled in pacts with everyone except the people, whom they never managed to get close to. You will not speak to our mother like that, do you understand?

Francisco remained silent. He had nothing more to add. Since the death of his father, and even more so since Alfonso graduated as a lawyer, the latter had established himself as the master and lord of the family universe. Each of his words carried the blessing of Doña Maria. He, on the other hand, had left the university, had given himself over to drink, and had ended up sending his life to hell by marrying an adulteress, being a minor and, on top of that, getting her pregnant.

But the great Alfonso Montesinos y Montesinos (he had added the "y" to give himself an air of supplementary nobility) or Almanegra, as he was nicknamed, together with the all-powerful Doña Maria Montesinos, had just fixed his life for him. There would be neither dead nor wounded, because when you know presidents, bishops, and military men, or military presidents and bishop presidents, everything could be resolved, avoiding scandal or reducing it to a minimum.

My future father, Francisco, locked himself in the house's bar, always stocked with the best liquors thanks to Alfonso's money, and uncorked a bottle of wine which he drank in less than an hour. He fell asleep, deeply drunk: a habit that, over time, would only worsen.

The President's grandfather — "VLADIMIRO MONTESINOS PRESIDENT OF PERU" — A Novel by Daniel Gutiérrez Híjar

 

Charles Darwin —who related us to monkeys—, Albert Einstein —who shattered Newton's theory of gravitation—, Edgar Allan Poe —who awakened terror in entire generations— and my grandfather, Guillermo Montesinos —who composed exquisite symphonies with his cello and left impressive pictorial captures of the Arequipa sky—, all married their cousins or had children with them.

I am the still-living proof that from such unions the product is not always defective or monstrous. Rather, I was president of my country, of Peru, and I turned it into the most modern in Latin America, not without first having redeemed it from the ruins in which it lay sunk.

And although my contemporaries did not know how to thank me for this, who will let me die in prison because, at over ninety years of age, little time remains for me; I hold onto the hope that you, Peruvian reader of the future, will manage to appreciate my deeds. Therefore, I am going to tell you my story.

***

I belong to a lineage, that of the Montesinos, which moved with a certain mediocrity, since the dawn of the republic, within the cultural and political spheres of Peru. Its legacy was discreet; without much brilliance, barely a faint trace. I, however, refounded the social, political, and economic bases of the country; practically, I reinvented it, after having lifted it from the abyss with the metallic pulse of a crane. That is to say, my legacy was total.

***

I will begin my story by telling that of my grandfather Guillermo.

I should clarify that I did not know him directly. I was born twenty years after his death, which occurred in the year 1925.

He died young, playing the cello; an instrument whose echoes accompanied him from his mother's womb and from which he did not detach himself even while falling from the wooden platform he had erected on the roof of his house to give memorable nightly serenades to his beloved Arequipa.

From that platform, moreover, Guillermo, assisted by the curious eye of his camera, captured the most handsome, insolent, and mysterious cloud formations of the Arequipa sky.

***

Rudecindo was the name of the Indian whom Guillermo commissioned to build the platform. In reality, he was a frequent laborer at the house, though not hired full-time.

He was also a voyeur; a voyeur of women. He deserved that no one give him work, but my grandfather, who was generous —a rare thing among the Montesinos— would offer him one or another specific odd job. That said, he would never have hired him permanently in his mansion.

The beauty of my grandmother drove Rudecindo crazy, who, whenever he could, spied on her through some crack, imagining her in a series of heated scenes in which he turned out to be the unflagging lover.

Despite the biological turmoil to which she was subjected by Guillermo —she suffered twenty-four pregnancies from which fourteen children survived— María Montesinos, my grandmother, maintained her conventual beauty; an austere beauty that I managed to inherit.

***

My grandfather was a peaceful man. This was because he was only interested in three things in the world: playing the cello in the early morning, photographing the clouds that coiled around the peaks of El Misti, and fathering children on my grandmother; in that order.

Despite his height, corpulence, and his large Kaiser-style mustache (he was indeed named Guillermo in honor of the first of those German emperors), his eyes revealed an overgrown, self-absorbed child.

It was because of his peaceful spirit that my grandfather did not make any scandal when he caught Rudecindo spying on his wife while she was undressing in the master bedroom. The shameless little savage had been caught with his hands down his pants. Guillermo grabbed him by the neck, dragged him to the backyard, and admonished him severely, though in a low voice, to prevent the atrocious fault from becoming general knowledge in the mansion. The reprimand included a good ear pulling and a couple of blows with his cane.

After a few minutes, Guillermo forgot the incident, such was his nature, so prone to not harboring any grudge or resentment. But it was in Rudecindo's heart where the employer's rebuke took thick and twisted root. He determined that he had to return the affront to wash his honor as an Indian. It would be a revenge that would bash his aggressor, keep him away from intellectual salons, from the photography he so loved, and from going around beating innocent Indians for a good long time.

***

One afternoon, taking advantage of the absence of the mansion's occupants, Rudecindo pulled out the nails from the planks that supported my grandfather's platform.

That night, returning from an intellectual gathering, and after a brief and forgettable argument with my grandmother, Guillermo took off his coat, put on some slippers, poured himself a small glass of whisky, and went up to the platform.

Hidden behind the bushes in the mansion's orchard, Rudecindo spied on each of his master's movements. He waited impatiently for the moment when the planks would give way and the musician would break a few bones in his fall. He wanted to see him battered in a bed, unable to take care of his own needs.

Guillermo unsheathed his instrument and caressed its strings. With delicacy, he took it by its neck and, with his free hand, picked up the bow. The first tuning notes escaped the clearing provided by the lamp hanging high on the platform.

That night, he would begin rehearsing one of the compositions he had just finished a few days earlier. He would offer it at the next private recital he would give to his fellow tertulia members in his magnificent mansion. At these musical evenings, he used to decorate the walls of his manor with his most recent landscape captures.

Since, in these solipsistic concerts, Guillermo gave himself without reserve or any shadow, both musically and photographically, he practiced with the discipline of a craftsman, even though many of the guests, who were his neighbors, complained about the early morning rehearsal melodies, calling them noise.

Hypocrites, my grandfather would murmur in a silent dialogue with himself. They gobble down and devour everything I put on the tables at my recitals; but how they love to badmouth when I start rehearsing. They don't even have the courage to voice their complaints to my face. Bunch of cowards. They're just as pharisaical as the people from Lima.

Those thoughts dissolved as soon as the bow made the cello strings vibrate. The deep night awakened with those virgin notes. Guillermo, softly illuminated by the dancing folds of light from the lamp, did not need to read the scores standing upright before him; he knew the meanderings of his composition by heart. He closed his eyes, enraptured by the sonic ecstasy.

Meanwhile, the platform remained intact, supporting my grandfather's weight without issue, which was no small matter. Rudecindo, hidden by the thick night and the shaggy bushes, bit his lips, cursing the resistance of the few nails that still fastened the planks. With jealousy and rage, he helplessly observed Guillermo's unpunished enjoyment as he lyrically intruded upon his neighbors' sleep.

Then, he decided to intervene to see his hunger for revenge satisfied. Slipping through the grass, agile and furtive like creatures of the underworld, Rudecindo managed to get under the platform and, grabbing the hammer he had hidden right there, began to remove more nails. He had loosened seven, and was working on the eighth, when the planks exhaled a scream similar to that made by the ghostly woman who shrieked at night searching for her dead children. Before Rudecindo could react, the platform came crashing down on him.

Some legendary witnesses, of the kind that invent memories without having seen anything, claimed that my grandfather did not even realize he was falling, so blinded was he with the notes he was milking from his tireless cello.

Guillermo Montesinos broke his neck instantly.

Those same witnesses also assured that the powerful melodies of the cello were responsible for having loosened the nails that were found scattered among the rubble.

Rudecindo was never heard from again. No one asked about him.