“He didn’t cry, there was no melodrama,” Adelaida adds, staring into space. “He asked me a few questions, as if out of mere curiosity. What was Mayta like? Why did we get divorced? Nothing else. He seemed to calm down, to the point that I thought: Judging by what little effect it’s had on him, telling him seems to have been a waste of time.”
But the next day, the boy disappeared. Adelaida hasn’t seen him for ten years. Her voice breaks, and I see her wring her hands as if she wants to tear the skin off.
“Is that how Catholics behave?” she whispers. “To break off with a mother because of something that at worst was only a mistake. Everything I did, didn’t I do it for his sake?”
She even went to the Missing Persons Bureau, though the boy was nearly of legal age. I’m sorry to see how tormented she is and I understand that she’s added this episode to the list of Mayta’s crimes, but, at the same time, I feel distant from her grief, nearer to Mayta, following him through the streets of Lince toward Avenida Arequipa, to get the bus. Did he walk slumped over because of the bitterness of that visit to his ex-wife and the frustration of not having seen that son he would certainly never see? Was he demoralized, pained? He was euphoric, charged with energy, impatient, mentally allocating the time he had left in Lima. He knew how to overcome reverses by an emotive leap, knew how to draw strength from them for the task he had in front of him. Before, the simple, precise, daily manual labor that wiped out his depression and self-pity was painting walls, working in the Cocharcas print shop, distributing handbills on Avenida Argentina and Plaza Dos de Mayo, correcting proofs, translating an article from French for Workers Voice. Now it was a flesh-and-blood revolution, the real thing, which would begin any moment now. He thought: The revolution you are going to start. Was he going to waste time torturing himself because of domestic complications? He went through his pockets, took out the list, reread what he had to buy. Would they have his severance pay ready for him at France-Presse?
“At first, I thought he’d killed himself,” Adelaida says, furiously wringing her hands. “That I’d have to kill myself to make up for his death.”
They learned nothing about him for weeks and months, until one day Juan Zárate received a letter. Serene, measured, well-thought-out. He thanked Juan for what he had done for him, said he wished he could repay him for his generosity. He said he was sorry that he had left in such a brusque fashion, but he thought it best to avoid explanations that would be painful to both of them. He shouldn’t worry about him. Is he high up in the mountains which are beginning to fade into the night? Is he one of the men who jumps and runs back and forth among the survivors — his sub-machine gun on his shoulder, his pistol in his belt — trying to impose order on chaos.
“The letter came from Pucallpa,” says Adelaida. “He didn’t even mention my name.”
Yes, his severance pay was ready — and in cash, not a check: 43,000 soles. He could buy everything on the list and still have some left over. Naturally, he did not bid the editors at France-Presse a fond farewell. When the chief asked him if he could stand in for someone on Sunday, Mayta said he was going to Chiclayo. He walked out in high spirits, hurrying toward Avenida Abancay. He never had the patience to go shopping, but this time he went to several stores, looking for the best-quality khaki trousers, a pair that could stand up to a harsh climate, rough terrain, and heavy action. He bought two pairs, each in a different store, and then, from a vendor out on the sidewalk, he purchased a pair of sandals. The vendor lent him his bench, leaning on the walls of the National Library, so he could try them on. He went into a pharmacy on Jirón Lampa. He was about to take out his list and hand it to the pharmacist, when he stopped himself, repeating, as he had thousands of times in his life, “You can’t take enough precautions.” He decided to buy the bandages, the antiseptics, the coagulants, the sulfa, and the other first-aid materials Vallejos had told him to get, in several different pharmacies.
“And you haven’t seen him since then?”
“I haven’t,” Adelaida says.
But Juan Zárate has. Every so often, he would come to Lima from Pucallpa or Yurimaguas, where he was working in lumber camps, and they would have lunch. But ever since this stuff began — the attacks, the kidnappings, the bombings, the war — he hasn’t written or come: he’s either dead or he is one of them. Night has fallen and the survivors have huddled together to protect themselves from the cold and the darkness of Cuzco. The crowd babbles in its sleep, hearing spectral planes and bombs that multiply those of the previous day. But Mayta’s son is not asleep. In the small headquarters dugout, he argues, trying to impose his point of view. The people should return to Cuzco as soon as the noxious fumes from the fires dissipate, and begin to rebuild. There are commanders with other opinions: there they will be all too easy a target for renewed bombings, and a slaughter like today’s hamstrings the masses. It would be better for the people to stay in the country, scattered in the outlying districts, settlements, and camps, less vulnerable to air attacks. Mayta’s son replies, argues, raises his voice in the glare of the small fire. His face seems tanned, scarred, serious. He hasn’t taken his sub-machine gun off his shoulder or removed his pistol from his belt. The cigarette between his fingers has gone out and he doesn’t realize it. His voice is that of a man who has overcome all tests — cold, hunger, fatigue, retreat, terror, crime — and is sure of an inevitable, imminent victory. So far, he has never been wrong, and it doesn’t look as though he’ll make any mistakes in the future.
“The few times he came, he would pick up Juan and they’d go out together,” Adelaida repeats. “He never came to see me, never called me, and never let Juan even mention the possibility of his visiting me. Can you understand that kind of resentment, that kind of hate? At the beginning, I wrote him lots of letters. Later I just gave up.”
He picked up the package, handed over the receipt, and went out. With the sulfa and Mercurochrome from the last pharmacy, he’d finished up the list. The packages were big and heavy. When he got to his room on Jirón Zepita, his arms hurt. He had his bag ready: the sweaters, the shirts, and right in the middle, the sub-machine gun Vallejos had given him. He packed the medicine and looked over the piles of books. Would Blacquer come to take them? He went out and hid the key between the two loose boards on the landing. If Blacquer didn’t come, the landlord would sell them to make up for the unpaid rent. What did that matter now, anyway? He took a taxi to Parque Universitario. What did his room, his books, Adelaida, his son, or his former comrades matter now? He felt his heart pounding as the driver put the valise on the luggage rack. The bus would leave for Jauja in a few minutes. He thought: From this trip, there is no return, Mayta.
I get up, I give her the money, I thank her, and she sees me to the door, which she closes as soon as I cross the threshold. It seems strange to see the phony façade of the Rospigliosi Castle in the fading light. Once again, I have to allow the airmen to frisk me. They let me pass. As I walk along, past houses sealed up with stone and mud, all around me I hear noises that are no longer exclusively shots. There are hand grenades exploding, and cannon being fired.
Eight
He looks like one of Arcimboldo’s figures: his nose a twisted carrot, his cheeks two quinces, his chin a protruding potato covered with eyes, and his neck a cluster of half-skinned grapes. His ugliness is so outrageous that it’s charming. If you didn’t know better, you’d say all that greasy hair hanging in tufts over don Ezequiel’s shoulders is a wig. His body seems even spongier than it really is, because it’s stuffed into those baggy pants and that tattered sweater. Only one of his shoes has laces; the other threatens to fall off with each step he takes. Nevertheless, don Ezequiel is not a beggar but the owner of the furniture and housewares store located in the Plaza de Armas of Jauja, next to the Colegio del Carmen and the Iglesia de las Madres Franciscanas. The gossips of Jauja say that this man before us is the richest merchant in the city. Why hasn’t he fled, like the other rich people? The insurgents kidnapped him a few months ago, and the vox populi has it he paid a high ransom. Ever since then, they’ve left him alone, because, as they say, he’s paid his “revolutionary taxes.”