“I know who sent you here. I know it was that son of a bitch Shorty Ubilluz.” He stops me dead as soon as he sees me walk into his store. “You’re wasting your time, I don’t know anything, I never saw anything, and I was never involved in that dumb bullshit. I have nothing to say. I know you’re writing about Vallejos. Don’t put me in it, or I’ll sue you. I’m telling you without getting mad, just so you’ll get the idea through your thick skull.”
As he speaks to me, his eyes are burning with indignation. His shouts are so loud that some troops on patrol in the plaza come over to see if there’s anything wrong. No, nothing. When they leave, I go into my usual routine: No reason to get upset, don Ezequiel, I’m not going to use your name, not once. Not a single person who participated in the action, not even Second Lieutenant Vallejos or Mayta, appears by name. No one could tell from what I’m writing what really happened.
“So why the fuck did you bother coming to Jauja?” he retorts, gesturing with fingers that look like hooks. “Why the fuck are you asking questions up and down every street in town? What the fuck is all this gossip-collecting for?”
“So I will know what I’m doing when I lie,” I say for the hundredth time this year. “At least let me try to explain it to you, don Ezequiel. Just two minutes of your time. Okay? May I come in?”
The light that bathes Jauja is like the dawn, like first light, hesitant, blackish, and in it the outline of the cathedral, the balconies, and the fenced-in garden constantly dissolve and reappear. The sharp breeze gives him goose bumps. Was it nerves? Was it fear? He wasn’t nervous or frightened, just slightly anxious, and not about what was going to happen but because of the damn altitude, which made him aware of his heart every second. He’d slept a few hours, despite the cold that came in through the broken windows, despite the fact that the barbershop chair was not an ideal bed. At five, a crowing rooster had awakened him, and the first thing he thought was: Today’s the day. He got up, stretched and yawned in the darkness, and, banging into one thing after another, went over to the washbowl filled with water. He sat down on one of the chairs where Ezequiel shaved his customers, and, closing his eyes, went over his orders. He was confident, serene, and if it weren’t for that shortness of breath, he would have felt happy. Minutes later, he heard the door open. In the glow of a lantern, he saw Ezequiel, carrying hot coffee in a canteen cup.
“Was it very uncomfortable sleeping in here?”
“I slept very well,” said Mayta. “Is it five-thirty already?”
“Just about,” whispered Ezequiel. “Go out the back way, and don’t make any noise.”
“Thanks for your hospitality,” Mayta said, bidding him goodbye. “Good luck.”
“Bad luck is what it was. My big mistake was being a nice guy, an asshole.” His nose swells up, and myriad wine-colored veins pop out. His frenetic eyes dance in his head. “My big mistake was to feel sorry for an outsider I didn’t know and to let him sleep for one single night in my barbershop. And who was it who came to me with the sad tale of how this poor fellow had no place to stay and wouldn’t I put him up? Who else but that son of a bitch Shorty Ubilluz!”
“But that was twenty-five years ago, don Ezequiel,” I say, trying to calm him down. “It’s an old story no one remembers. Don’t get so worked up.”
“I get worked up because that bastard isn’t happy with what he did to me then. Now he’s going around saying I’ve sold out to the terrorists. Let’s see if the army shoots me — the world will finally be rid of me.” Don Ezequiel snorts. “I get worked up because nothing ever happened to that smart-aleck shithead — but me, who knew nothing, who understood nothing, who saw nothing, they locked me up in jail, they broke my ribs, and they had me pissing blood, they kicked me so many times in the kidneys and the balls.”
“But they let you out of jail, you started over, and now you’re the envy of everyone in Jauja. Don Ezequiel, you shouldn’t let yourself get like this, don’t lose your temper. Forget it.”
“How can I forget it if you come around here bothering me to tell you things I don’t know anything about,” he says, growling, and stretches out his fingers as if to scratch me. “It’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. The one who knew the least about what was going on was the only one to get fucked up.”
He went down the hall, made sure there was no one in the street, opened the half door of the barbershop, went out, and closed the door behind him. There wasn’t a soul in the plaza, and the timid light was barely strong enough for him to see where he was walking. He went to the bench. The Ricrán men hadn’t arrived yet. He sat down, put his suitcase between his feet, pulled up the collar of his sweater so he could breathe through it, and stuck his hands in his pockets. He would have to be a machine. It was something he remembered from his military instruction course: a lucid robot, who is neither early nor late, and, above all, who never doubts; a fighter who executes his orders with the precision of an electric mixer or a lathe. If everyone did just that, the toughest test, the one they’d face today, would be no problem. The second test would be even easier, and from then on, there would be a clear road to victory.
He heard roosters he couldn’t see; behind him, in the grass of the little garden, a toad croaked. Would they be late? The truck from Ricrán would park in the Plaza de Santa Isabel, where all the vehicles carrying merchandise for the market came. From there, divided into small groups, they would take up their positions. He didn’t even know the names of the two comrades who would go with him to seize the jail and then the telephone company. “Who’s today’s saint?” “St. Edmund Dantés.” Behind the collar that covered half his face, he smiled. He’d thought of the password while remembering The Count of Monte Cristo. Just then, the punctual joeboy appeared. His name was Feliciano Tapia and he was in uniform — khaki shirt and trousers, cap of the same color, and a gray sweater — carrying books under his arm. They are going to help us start the revolution and then go to school, he thought. We have to hurry, so they won’t be late for class. Each group had a joeboy attached to it as messenger, in case they had to communicate something unforeseen. Once each group began its withdrawal, the joeboy was supposed to return to his normal life.
“The guys from Ricrán are late,” said Mayta. “Could the mountain road be blocked?”
The kid looked at the clouds. “No, it hasn’t rained.”
It was improbable that a rainstorm or a landslide would close the road at this time of year. If it did happen, their backup plan had the Ricrán people heading across the mountains to Quero. The joeboy looked enviously at Mayta. He was just a little kid, with rabbit teeth and fuzz on his cheeks.