the last book I ever read (I Give You My Silence: A Novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, excerpt four)

from I Give You My Silence: A Novel by Mario Vargas Llosa:

Toño asked him to wait while he ran to his room for his notebook. He didn’t want to miss anything that might prove important. He came back sweating, thirsty for another beer despite his finances, but thinking that Collau had lent him money to research, not to wet his whistle. He bombarded Pedro with questions, starting from the beginning, with Lalo’s origins. Toño supposed that someone close to Lalo, his mother or his father, perhaps, had taught him the guitar, but Pedro Caballero told him otherwise: Lalo Molfino had been an orphan. He never knew who his real parents were.

“And where he came from?” Toño asked, scribbling frantically.

“He never knew that either, I think,” Pedro said with a shrug. “Neither did Father Molfino, who raised him. At least he said he didn’t.”