This is one of the things I understand least in this story, the strangest episode. Wasn’t it absurd to reveal details about an uprising to a political enemy, to whom — this was the icing on the cake — he was not even going to propose a pact, a joint action, from whom he was not going to ask a thing? What sense was there in all that? “Early this morning, over that radio over there, they said that red flags have been flying since last night over Puno, and that before tomorrow they will be flying over Arequipa and Cuzco,” someone says. “Fabrications,” someone else counters.
“When he came to see me, I also thought it didn’t make any sense,” agrees Blacquer. “First, I thought it was a trap. Or that Mayta had gotten involved in something, was sorry he ever did it, and was now trying to weasel out by creating complications and difficulties … Later on, after what happened, it was all clear.”
“The only clear thing in all this is a knife in our backs,” roared Comrade Pallardi. “To ask for help from the Stalinists for this adventure isn’t merely indiscipline. It’s purely and simply betrayal.”
“I’ll explain it to you all over again, if I have to,” Mayta interrupted him, without getting upset. He was sitting on a pile of back numbers of Workers Voice and was leaning on the poster with Trotsky’s face on it. Within a few seconds, an electric tension had galvanized the garage on Jirón Zorritos. “But before I do, comrade, clear something up for me. When you say adventure, are you referring to the revolution?”
Blacquer slowly savors his watery coffee and runs the tip of his tongue over his cracked lips. He narrows his eyes and remains silent, seeming to reflect on the dialogue taking place at a nearby table: “If this news is right, tomorrow or the day after, the war will be right here in Lima.” “Do you really think so, Pacho? A war would really be somethin’, doncha think?” The afternoon passes and the automobile traffic intensifies. The Diagonal is bumper-to-bumper. The beggar kids and the women selling cigarettes have also become more numerous. “I’m happy the Cubans and Bolivians have crossed the border,” exclaims an irritable guy. “Now the Marines in Ecuador have no reason to stay out. It may well be that they’re already in Piura or Chiclayo. I hope they kill the people they have to kill and that they put an end to all this once and for all, goddamn it.” I barely hear him, because, in fact, at this very moment his bloody speculation has less life to it than those two meetings in that Lima of fewer cars, fewer beggars, and fewer blackmarket dealers, where the things that are happening now would seem impossible: Mayta going to share his plot with his Stalinist enemy, Mayta fighting it out with his comrades in the final session of the Central Committee of the RWP(T).
“Coming to see me was the only sensible thing he did in that entire crazy business he got involved in,” adds Blacquer. He’s taken off his glasses to clean them, and he looks blind. “If the guerrilla war really took off, they would have needed urban support. Networks that would send them medicine and information, that could hide and nurse the wounded and recruit new fighters. Networks that would broadcast the actions of the advance guard. Who was going to create those networks? The twenty-odd Peruvian Trots?”
“Actually, there are only seven of us,” I correct him.
Had Blacquer understood him? He was still as a statue again. Leaning his head forward, realizing that he was sweating, trying to find the words that fatigue and worry were stealing from him, hearing from time to time, in that invisible upper floor, the child and the woman, I explained it to him again. No one was asking the militants of the Communist Party to go out to the mountains — he had taken the precaution not to mention to him Vallejos, Jauja, or any date whatsoever — or that they give up any of their theories, ideas, prejudices, dogmas, anything. Only that they be informed and alert. Soon they would be in a situation where they’d have only two alternatives: put their convictions into practice or renounce them. Soon they would have to show the masses they really wanted to topple the exploitive system and replace it with a revolutionary worker-peasant regime. Or they would show that all they had been saying was just rhetoric: they could vegetate in the shadow of the powerful ally that had adopted them and wait for the revolution to fall on Peru someday like a gift from heaven.
“When you attack us, then you seem like your old self,” said Blacquer. “What are you asking for? Make your point.”
“All I’m asking is that you be ready, nothing more.” I thought: Will I lose my voice? I had never been so exhausted. I had to make a huge effort to articulate every syllable. Overhead, the child began to wail again. “Because, when we act, there is going to be a massive counterstrike. And of course you all won’t be exempt from the repression.”
“Of course,” muttered Blacquer. “If what you’re telling me isn’t a lie, the government, the press, and everybody else will say that it was planned and executed by us, that it was paid for with Moscow gold and carried out under orders from Moscow. Right?”
“That’s probably the way it’ll be.” I nod. The child was crying even more loudly, and its wailing began to rattle me. “But now that you’ve been warned, you can take precautions. Besides …”
I stood there with my mouth hanging open, without the spirit to finish, and for the first time since my talk with Blacquer began, I hesitated. Sweat was pouring down my face, my pupils were dilated, and my hands shook. Adventure and betrayal?
“They’re the words that sum up what you’ve done, and I stand by them,” said Comrade Carlos in a flat voice. “Comrade Pallardi has simply spoken the truth.”
“Stick to the Vallejos business for now,” the general secretary chided him. “We said we would discuss the Jauja matter first. The meeting between Comrade Mayta and Blacquer comes second.”
“Right,” replied Comrade Carlos, and Mayta thought: They’re all turning against me. A lieutenant who plans a revolution as if it were a Putsch, without union support, without the participation of the masses. What else can this thing be called but an adventure?
“We could call it a provocation or a big joke,” Comrade Medardo interrupted. He looked at Mayta and added, with a lapidary gesture: “The party can’t sacrifice itself for something that hasn’t got a chance in the world.”
Mayta felt that the pile of Workers Voice he was sitting on had begun to tip over and he thought how ridiculous it would be if he slipped and took a fall. He stole a look at his comrades, and understood why, when he came in, they had greeted him so distantly, and why no one was absent from this meeting. Were they all against him? Even the members of the Action Group? Would Anatolio be against him, too? Instead of depression, he felt a wave of rage roll over him.
“And, ‘besides,’ what?” Blacquer encouraged me to go on.
“Rifles,” I said in a small voice. “We have more than we need. If the Communist Party wants to defend itself when the bullets start flying, we’ll give you weapons. Free of charge, of course.”
Blacquer was lighting his ten millionth cigarette of the morning. But his matches went out twice in a row, and when he took his first drag, he choked. “You’re sure that this time it’s for real.” I saw him stand up, smoke pouring out of his nose and mouth, poke his head into the next room, and shout, “Take him for a walk. We can’t talk with all that crying.” There was no answer, but the child instantly quieted down. Blacquer sat down again, to stare at me and calm down.
“I still don’t know if this is a trap, Mayta,” he said, muttering. “But I do know one thing. You’ve gone crazy. Do you really think the party would ever, under any circumstances, join forces with the Trots?”