I believe that all of those present spoke, a number of them in dramatic terms, all of them, with the exception of Enrique Ghersi, urging me not to drop out. Only Ghersi pointed out that, in principle, he did not reject the idea of negotiating with Fujimori if that would allow us to salvage certain key points of our program; but Enrique too had his doubts about the independence of the Cambio 90 candidate to make decisions about anything on his own, since, like all the other advisers, he believed him to be a vassal of Alan García’s.
One of the most lively contributions to the discussion was the one made by Enrique Chirinos Soto, whom the monumental surprise of the election had pulled out of his lethargy and driven into a state of lucid paroxysm. He abounded with technical reasons proving that resigning from the second round went against the letter and the spirit of the Constitution; but it seemed to him even graver still to abandon the fight and offer a free field to a candidate who had been made up out of whole cloth, without a program or ideas or a team — to a political adventurer who, once in power, might well mean the collapse of democratic rule. He did not believe in my thesis that in the second round there would be a holy APRA-Socialist-Communist alliance backing Fujimori; he was certain that the Peruvian people would not vote for a “first-generation Peruvian, who did not have a single one of his dead kinfolk buried in Peru.”* This was the first time that I had heard such an argument, but not the last. I was frequently to hear it from partisans of mine as cultivated and intelligent as Enrique: because Fujimori was the son of Japanese parents, because he didn’t have roots in Peruvian soil, because his mother was a foreigner who still hadn’t learned Spanish, he was less Peruvian than I was, less Peruvian than those who — whether Indians or whites — had shared Peruvian life for many generations.
Many times in the course of the next two months, I had to come out and say that arguments of that sort made me want Fujimori to win, since they betrayed two aberrations against which I have written and spoken throughout my life: nationalism and racism (two aberrations that, in fact, are one and the same).
Alfredo Barnechea delivered a long historical disquisition on Peruvian crises and decadence, which, according to him, had in recent years reached a critical point, which could be the source of an irreparable catastrophe, not only for the survival of democracy, but for the fate of the nation. The governing of the country could not be entrusted to someone who represented sheer dyed-in-the-wool knavery or was very probably a front for Alan García; my resignation was not going to appear to be a generous gesture to facilitate a change in the current situation. It would appear to be the haughty flight of a vain man whose self-esteem had been wounded. Moreover, it could lead to a ridiculous outcome. For, since it was constitutionally illegal, the National Election Board could call for a second round and allow my name to remain on the ballot, even though I wanted it removed.
At that point, Patricia interrupted our meeting to whisper in my ear that the archbishop of Lima had come to see me, in secret. He was upstairs in my study. I apologized to those present for leaving the meeting and, thunderstruck, went upstairs to see my illustrious visitor. How had he managed to get into the house? How had he been able to get past the barrier of reporters and demonstrators without being discovered?
Many versions of this visit have made the rounds, and I admit that it was a determining factor in my reversing my decision not to participate in the second round. I have only now learned the true version, through Patricia, who, in order that this book might be a true account, finally made up her mind to tell me what had really happened. On the day after the elections, several calls had come from the archbishop’s office, saying that Monsignor Vargas Alzamora would like to see me. In all the confusion, no one passed the message on to me. That morning, as we were holding our discussion in the meeting of the political committee, Lucho Bustamante, Pedro Cateriano, and Álvaro had left several times so as to keep Patricia and the leaders of Solidaridad, gathered together in the garden, informed about our heated discussion: “There is no way to convince him. Mario is going to give up running as a candidate in the second round.” At that point, it was Patricia, who remembered the splendid impression that Monsignor Vargas Alzamora had made on me the day I met him, who suddenly had an idea. “Have the archbishop come here to talk with him. He can convince him.” She conspired with Lucho Bustamante, and he telephoned to Monsignor Vargas Alzamora, explained to him what was happening, and the archbishop agreed to come out to my house. In order to get inside without being recognized, the car with reflecting plate-glass windows that I myself used when I went out and about was sent to fetch him, and brought him straight into the garage.
When I went upstairs to my study, which also had the blinds down so as to keep people from peering in from the street — there the archbishop was, taking a look at the books on the shelves. The half- or three-quarters of an hour that we talked together has become confused in my memory with certain of the most unusual episodes of the good novels that I have read. Although the conversation had the political situation of the moment as its only reason for being, subtle person that he is, Monsignor Vargas Alzamora managed to transform it into an interchange having to do with high culture, sociology, history, and lofty spirituality.
With a cheerful laugh, he remarked on his fantastic trip to my house, crouching down in the car, and like someone who is talking in order to while away the time, he told me that every morning, as soon as he got up, he always read a few pages of the Bible, opened at random. What chance had placed before his eyes that morning amazed him: it seemed to be a commentary on current events in Peru. Did I have a Bible at hand? I fetched the Jerusalem version and he told me which chapter and verses he was referring to. I read them aloud and the two of us burst out laughing. Yes, it was true, the intrigues and misdeeds ablaze with the fires of hell committed by that Evil One of the holy book were reminiscent of those of yet another one, more terrestrial and closer at hand.
Had it come as a surprise to him that, in the elections two days before, some fifteen evangelical representatives and senators on agricultural engineer Fujimori’s lists had won? Well, yes, just as it had surprised all of Peru, although the archbishop had had advance notice, through parish priests, of a very resolute mobilization on the part of pastors of evangelical sects, in the urban slum settlements and in the villages and small towns in the mountains, to further Fujimori’s candidacy. These sects had become more and more deeply involved with the marginal sectors of Peruvian society, filling the vacuum left by the Catholic Church because of the scarcity of priests. Naturally, nobody wanted to revive the wars of religion, altogether dead and buried now. In these days of tolerance and ecumenism, the Church got along quite harmoniously with the historic religious institutions that had come into existence at the time of the Reformation. But weren’t these sects, frequently small and sometimes given to extravagant practices and doctrines, whose mother houses were located in Tampa and Orlando, going to add yet another factor leading to factionalism and division in a society already as fragmented and divided as our Peruvian one was? Above all if, as appeared to be the case, judging from the belligerent declarations of some of the brand-new evangelical representatives and senators, the aim of these sects in coming to our country was to make war on Catholics. (One of the evangelicals just elected had declared that there would now be a Protestant church alongside every temple of popery in Peru.) Despite all the commentaries and criticisms that could be made against it, the Catholic Church was one of the most widespread bonds of kinship between Peruvians of different ethnic groups, languages, regions, or economic levels. One of the few ties that had resisted the centrifugal forces that had increasingly been separating one group from another, furthering their enmities and stirring up trouble between them. It would be a shame for religion to be turned into another factor of division and controversy among Peruvians. Didn’t it seem so to me?