Free The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto by Mario Vargas Llosa Page A

by a joy that compensated, on this last night, for his timidity and obedience. She would be his, he would love her: his hands fumbled at the buttons of his shirt, caught the zipper on his trousers, stumbled when he took off his shoes, and when, wild-eyed, he was about to climb into the bed where that magnificent body lay waiting for him in the dark, in a languid pose—Goya’s Naked Maja , Don Rigoberto thought, though her thighs are wider apart—he banged his ankle on the edge of the bed and squealed “Owwowoww!” Don Rigoberto enjoyed listening to the hilarity the mishap provoked in Lucrecia. Modesto laughed too as he knelt in the bed: “Emotion, Lucre, pure emotion.”
    The burning coals of his pleasure cooled when, stifling her laughter, he saw his wife abandon the statue-like indifference with which she had received the caresses of the engineer on the previous day and begin to take the initiative. She embraced him, she obliged him to lie beside her, on top of her, beneath her; she entwined her legs in his legs, she searched for his mouth, she thrust her tongue deep inside, and—oh, oh, Don Rigoberto protested—she crouched down with amorous intent, fished with gentle fingers for his startled member, and, after stroking the shaft and head, brought it to her lips and kissed it before taking it into her mouth. Then, at the top of his voice, bouncing in the soft bed, the engineer began to sing—to bellow and howl—“ Torna a Sorrento .”
    “He began to sing ‘ Torna a Sorrento ’?” Don Rigoberto sat up violently. “At that very moment?”
    “At exactly that moment.” Doña Lucrecia burst into laughter again, then controlled herself and apologized. “You astonish me, Pluto. Are you singing because you like it or because you don’t?”
    “I’m singing so I will like it,” he explained, tremulous and bright red, between false notes and arpeggios.
    “Do you want me to stop?”
    “I want you to continue, Lucre,” a euphoric Modesto implored. “Laugh, I don’t care. I sing to make my happiness complete. Cover your ears if it distracts you or makes you laugh. But by all you hold most dear, don’t stop.”
    “And he went on singing?” Don Rigoberto exclaimed, intoxicated, mad with satisfaction.
    “Without stopping for a second,” Doña Lucrecia affirmed, between giggles. “While I was kissing him, when I was on top, when he was on top, while we made love both orthodox and heterodox. He sang, he had to sing. Because if he didn’t sing, fiasco.”
    “And always ‘ Torna a Sorrento ’?” Don Rigoberto delighted in the sweet pleasure of revenge.
    “Any song of my youth,” the engineer sang, leaping with all the power of his lungs from Italy to Mexico. “ Voy a cantarles un corrido muy mentadooo …”
    “A potpourri of cheap music from the fifties.” Doña Lucrecia was very specific. “‘ O sole mio ,’ ‘ Caminito ,’ ‘ Juan Charrasqueado ,’ ‘ Allá en el rancho grande ,’ and even Agustín Lara’s ‘Madrid.’ Oh, it was so funny!”
    “And without all that musical vulgarity, fiasco?” Don Rigoberto asked for confirmation, a visitor to seventh heaven. “It’s the best part of the night, my love.”
    “You haven’t heard the best part yet, the best part came at the end, it was the height of absurdity.” Doña Lucrecia wiped away her tears. “The other guests began to bang on the walls, the front desk called saying we should turn down the TV, the phonograph, nobody in the hotel could sleep.”
    “In other words, neither of you ever finished…” Don Rigoberto suggested, with faint hope.
    “I did, twice,” said Doña Lucrecia, bringing him back to reality. “And he, at least once, I’m sure of that. When he was all set for the second one, that’s when the complaints started and he lost his inspiration. Everything ended in laughter. What a night. Worthy of Ripley.”
    “Now you know my secret,” said Modesto, once their neighbors and the front desk had been