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celebration was going to go beyond his own predictions, that he was about to attend a social event that the gossip columnists would describe as “a magnificent occasion.”
    Tables and umbrellas had been set up all over the garden, and at the far end of it, next to the kennels, a huge awning shaded a table with a snow-white tablecloth running the length of the wall and loaded with trays of multicolored canapés. The bar was next to the pond full of bright-gilled Japanese fish, and there were enough glasses, bottles, cocktail shakers, and pitchers of punch set out to quench the thirst of an army. Waiters in short white jackets and maids in coifs and aprons were receiving the guests and plying them, from the moment they entered the gate, with pisco sours, carob piscos, vodka and tropical fruit, glasses of whiskey or gin or flutes of champagne, and little cheese sticks, tiny potatoes with hot peppers, sour cherries stuffed with bacon, breaded shrimp, vol-au-vent, and all the tidbits dreamed up by the collective culinary genius of Lima to stimulate the appetite. Inside the house, huge baskets and bouquets of roses, gladiolas, stocks, carnations, tuberoses, standing against the walls, set out along the stairways or on the windowsills and the tables and desks and commodes and cabinets, refreshed the atmosphere. The parquet floor was newly waxed, the curtains pristine, the porcelains and silver gleaming, and Dr. Quinteros smiled at the thought that probably even the pre-Columbian figurines in their glass cases had been polished. There was also a buffet in the foyer, and in the dining room a vast assortment of desserts—marzipan, ice cream, ladyfingers, meringues, candied egg yolk, coconut sweets, walnuts in syrup—had been set out around the impressive wedding cake, a construction decorated with tulle and spun-sugar columns that set the ladies to cooing with admiration. But what aroused their curiosity most of all were the wedding presents, on display upstairs; such a long line had formed to have a look at them that Dr. Quinteros immediately decided not to queue up too, even though he would have liked to see if his bracelet looked impressive alongside all the other gifts.
    After he’d wandered all over the house, more or less—shaking hands, giving and receiving friendly embraces—he went back out into the garden and sat down under an awning to sip his second glass of champagne of the day in relative peace and quiet. It was all going very well; Margarita and Roberto were really experts at the grand gesture. And even though he considered their idea of hiring a combo a touch lacking refinement—the carpets, the pedestal table, and the buffet with the ivory pieces had been removed so that there would be room to dance—he excused this inelegance as being a concession to the younger generation, since, as everybody knew, today’s young people thought that a party without any dancing wasn’t a party at all. They were starting to serve the turkey and the wine, and now Elianita, standing on the second step in the foyer, was tossing her bride’s bouquet as dozens of her schoolmates and neighborhood girlfriends waited with outstretched arms, hoping to catch it. In a corner of the garden Dr. Quinteros spied old Venancia, Elianita’s nanny since the day she’d been born, moved to tears, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron.
    His palate was unable to discern the vintage of the wine, but he knew immediately that it was an imported one, perhaps Spanish or Chilean, or for that matter—in view of all this day’s mad extravagances—possibly a French one. The turkey was so tender it melted in his mouth, the puree as smooth as butter, and there was a cabbage-and-raisin salad that, despite his dietary principles, he couldn’t resist the second time it came around. He was enjoying a second glass of wine, as well, and beginning to feel pleasantly drowsy, when he saw Richard making his way toward him, swaying back and forth with a