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the first time he saw her.
    That was in the old stadium in the Buenos Aires district during a historic match: Atlético Grau, which hadn’t been in the first division for thirty years, took on and defeated none other than Alianza Lima. For him it was love at first sight. “You’re in a daze, compadre,” joked Colorado Vignolo, his friend, colleague, and competitor—he owned La Perla del Chira Transport—with whom he would go to soccer games when the teams from Lima and other departments came to Piura to play. “You’re staring at that little brunette so hard you’re missing all the goals.” “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” Felícito murmured, clicking his tongue. “She’s absolutely fantastic!” She was a few meters away, accompanied by a young man who put his arm across her shoulders and from time to time caressed her hair. After a while, Colorado Vignolo whispered in his ear, “I know her. Her name’s Mabel. You’re primed and loaded, compadre. That one fucks.” Felícito gave a start: “Are you telling me, compadre, that this delicious girl is a whore?”
    “Not exactly,” Colorado corrected himself, nudging him with his elbow. “I said she fucks, not that she whores around. Fucking and whoring are two different things, my friend. Mabel is a call girl, or something like that. Only with certain privileged men, and only in her own house. Charging an arm and a leg, I imagine. Do you want me to get you her phone number?”
    He did, and, half dead with embarrassment—for, unlike Colorado Vignolo, who had been living high and whoring since he was a kid, Felícito had always led a very austere life, dedicated to his work and his family—he called her, and after beating around the bush, arranged a meeting with the pretty woman from the stadium. She met him for the first time at the Balalaika, a café on Avenida Grau near the benches where the old gossips, founders of CILOP (Center for the Investigation of the Lives of Other People), would gather to enjoy the cool breeze at nightfall. They had lunch and talked for a long time. He felt intimidated by so pretty and young a girl, wondering from time to time what he would do if Gertrudis or Tiburcio and Miguelito suddenly appeared in the café. How would he introduce Mabel to them? She played with him like a cat with a mouse: “You’re pretty old and worn out to fool around with a woman like me. Besides, you’re really a runt, with you I’d always have to wear flats.” She flirted with him all she wanted, bringing her smiling face close to his, her eyes flashing, grasping his hand or arm, a contact that made Felícito shiver from head to toe. He had to go out with Mabel for close to three months—taking her to the movies, inviting her to lunch or dinner, taking a ride to the beach at Yacila and the chicha bars in Catacaos, giving her a good many presents, from lockets and bracelets to shoes and dresses that she picked out herself—before she would allow him to visit her in her little house north of the city, near the old San Teodoro cemetery, on a corner in the labyrinth of alleyways, stray dogs, and sand that was the last remnant of La Mangachería. The day he went to bed with her, Felícito Yanaqué cried for the second time in his life (the first had been the day his father died).
    “Why are you crying, old man? Didn’t you like it?”
    “I’ve never been so happy in my life,” Felícito confessed, kneeling and kissing her hands. “Until now I didn’t know what it meant to feel pleasure, I swear. You’ve taught me happiness, Mabelita.”
    A short while afterward, without further ado, he offered to set her up in what Piurans called a casa chica , a permanent love nest, and give her a monthly allowance so she could live without worries or concerns about money, in an area better than this one filled with streetwalkers and Mangache pimps and bums. Surprised, all she could find to say was: “Swear you’ll never ask me about my past or