The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta

  “No problem,” said Mayta, relieved to see them again. “What about the police station?”

  “A breeze,” answered Vallejos. “Well done, I congratulate all of you. And we have ten more rifles.”

  “We aren’t going to have enough men for so many rifles,” said Mayta.

  “We’ll have enough,” replied the lieutenant, as he looked over the new Mausers. “In Uchubamba there are more than enough, right, Condori?”

  It seemed incredible that everything was going so well, Mayta.

  “They loaded another pile of rifles in my Ford,” Mr. Onaka says, sighing. “They ordered me to drive to the telephone company, and what else could I do?”

  “When I got to work, I saw two cars there, and I recognized the Chink from the store, that Onaka character, the crook,” says Mrs. Adriana Tello, a tiny, wrinkled-up old lady with a firm voice and gnarled hands. “He had such a face on that I thought he’s either gotten up on the wrong side of the bed or he’s a neurotic Chinaman. As soon as they saw me, some guys got out and went into the office with me. Why should I have been suspicious? In those days there weren’t even robberies in Jauja, much less revolutions, so why be suspicious? Wait, we’re not open yet. But it was as if they hadn’t heard a word. They jumped over the counter, and one turned Asuntita Asís’s—may she rest in peace—desk over. What’s all this? What are you doing? What do you want? To knock out the telephone and telegraph. Good gracious! I’ll be out of a job. Ha, ha, I swear that’s just what I was thinking. I don’t know how I can still laugh with all the things that are going on. Have you seen the impudence of these gringos who say they have come to help us? They can’t even speak Spanish, and they walk around with their rifles and just go into any house they please, what nerve. As if we were their colony. There must not be any more patriots left in our Peru when we have to put up with that kind of humiliation.”

  When she saw Mayta and Vallejos kicking the switchboard apart, smashing the machinery with their rifle butts, and pulling out all the wires, Mrs. Adriana Tello tried to run out. But Condori and Zenón Gonzales held her while the lieutenant and Mayta finished breaking things up.

  “Now we can take it easy,” said Vallejos. “With the guards locked up and the telephone line cut, we’re out of immediate danger. We don’t have to split up.”

  “Will the people with the horses be in Quero?” Mayta was thinking aloud.

  Vallejos shrugged. Could anyone be counted on?

  “The peasants,” murmured Mayta, pointing at Condori and Zenón Gonzales, who, after the lieutenant signaled to them, had released the woman, who ran, terrified, out of the building. “If we get to Uchubamba, I’m sure they won’t let us down.”

  “We’ll get there.” Vallejos smiled. “They won’t let us down.”

  They’d go on foot to the plaza, comrade. Vallejos ordered Gualberto Bravo and Perico Temoche to take the taxis to the corner of the Plaza de Armas and Bolognesi. That would be where they’d meet. He went to the head of those who remained and gave an order that left Mayta with goose bumps: “Forward, march!” They must have been a strange, unimaginable, disconcerting group—those four adults and five schoolboys, all armed, marching along the cobblestone streets toward the Plaza de Armas. They would attract attention, they would stop anyone on the sidewalks, they would cause people to come to windows and doors. What did the good citizens of Jauja think as they saw them pass?

  “I was shaving, because in those days I’d get up sort of late,” says don Joaquín Zamudio, ex-hatmaker, ex-businessman, and now vendor of lottery tickets on the streets of Jauja. “I saw them from my room and thought they were rehearsing for the national holidays. But why so early in the year? I poked my head out the window and asked: What parade is this? The lieutenant didn’t answer me and instead shouted: Long live the revolution! The others shouted: Hurrah, hurrah! What revolution is it? I asked them, thinking they were fooling around. And Corderito answered: The one we’re starting, the socialist revolution. Later I found out that they went along just the way I’d seen them, marching and cheering, and robbed two banks.”

  They marched into the Plaza de Armas, and Mayta saw few passersby. When people did turn to look at them, it was with indifference. A group of Indians with ponchos and packs, sitting on a bench, just followed them with their eyes. There weren’t enough people for a demonstration yet. It was ridiculous to be marching, because instead of looking like revolutionaries, they looked like boy scouts. But Vallejos set the example, and the joeboys, Condori, and Gonzales followed suit, so Mayta had no choice but to get in step. He had an ambiguous feeling, exaltation and anxiety, because even though the police were locked up, and their weapons captured, and the telephone and telegraph knocked out, wasn’t their little group extremely vulnerable? Could you begin a revolution just like that? He gritted his teeth. You could. You had to be able to.

  “They walked through the main door, practically singing,” says don Ernesto Durán Huarcaya, ex-president of the International Bank and today an invalid dying of cancer on a cot in the Olavegoya Sanatorium. “I saw them from the window and thought that they couldn’t even get in step, that they couldn’t march worth a damn. Later, since they headed straight for the International Bank, I said here comes another request for money, for some carnival or parade. There was no more mystery after they got inside, because they turned their guns on us and Vallejos shouted: We’ve come to take the money that belongs to the people and not to the imperialists. I’m not going to put up with this, hell no, I’m going to face them down.”

  “He got down on all fours under his desk,” says Adelita Campos, retired from the bank and now a seller of herb concoctions. “A real macho when it came to docking us for coming in late or pinching us when we passed too close to him. But when he saw the rifles—zoom—down he went under the desk, not even ashamed. If the president did that, what were we employees supposed to do? We were scared, of course. More of the kids than of the old guys. Because the boys were bawling like calves: Long live Peru! Long live the revolution! They were so wild they could easily start shooting. The person who had the great idea was the teller, old man Rojas. What could have become of him? I guess he’s dead, probably someone killed him, because the way things have been going in Jauja, no one dies of old age anymore. Somebody kills you. And you never know who.”

  “When I saw them come up to my window, I opened the box on the left side,” says old man Rojas, ex-teller at the International Bank, in the squalid quarters where he’s waiting to die in the Jauja old-folks home. “That’s where I had the morning deposits and the small bills we used to make change, nothing much. I raised my hands and prayed: ‘Holy Mother, let them believe this one.’ They did. They went right to the open box and took what they saw: fifty thousand soles, or thereabouts. Now that’s nothing, but then it was quite a tidy sum, but nothing compared to what there was in the box on the right—almost a million soles that hadn’t yet been put in the vault. They were amateurs, not like the ones that came later. Shh, now, sir, don’t repeat what I’ve told you.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes, that’s all.” The teller trembled. “It’s early, only a few people have come in.”

  “This money isn’t for us but for the revolution,” Mayta interrupted him. He spoke into the incredulous faces of the employees. “For the people, for those who have sweated. This isn’t stealing, it’s expropriation. You have no reason to be frightened. The enemies of the people are the bankers, the oligarchs, and the imperialists. All of you are being exploited by them.”

  “Yes, of course,” the teller said, quaking. “What you say is true, sir.”

  When they got out into the plaza, the boys went on cheering. Mayta, carrying the moneybag, went up to Vallejos: Let’s go to the Regional, there aren’t enough people here for a meeting. He saw very few people, and although they looked at the insurgents with curiosity, they wouldn’t come too close.

  “But we’ve got to move quickly,” agreed Vallejos, “before they b
olt the door on us.”

  He started running, and the others followed him, lining up in the same order in which they’d been marching. A few seconds of running eliminated Mayta’s ability to think. Shortness of breath, pressure in his temples: the malaise came back, even though they weren’t running that quickly, but almost, as it were, warming up before a game. When, two blocks later, they stopped at the doors of the Regional Bank, Mayta was seeing stars and his mouth was hanging open. You can’t faint now, Mayta. He entered with the group, but in a dream. Leaning on the counter, seeing the shock on the face of the woman in front of him, he heard Vallejos explain: “This is a revolutionary action, we’ve come to recover the money stolen from the people.” Someone protested. The lieutenant shoved a man and punched him.

  He had to help, move, but he didn’t do a thing, because he knew that if he stepped away from the counter, he’d fall down. Propped on his elbows, he pointed his weapon at the group of employees—some shouting, some seemingly about to defend the man who had protested—and saw Condori and Zenón Gonzales grab the man from the big desk, the one Vallejos had hit. The lieutenant pointed his sub-machine gun at him with a menacing gesture. The man finally gave in and opened the safe next to his desk. When Condori had finished putting the money into the bag, Mayta began to feel better. You should have come a week earlier to acclimatize yourself to the altitude, you just don’t know how to do things.

  “Are you okay?” Vallejos asked him on the way out.

  “A touch of mountain sickness from running. Let’s hold the meeting with whatever people are here. We’ve got to do it.”

  One of the boys euphorically shouted: “Long live the revolution!”

  “Hurrah!” bellowed the other joeboys. One of them pointed his Mauser at the sky and fired. The first shot of the day. The other four followed. They invaded the plaza, cheering the revolution, firing shots in the air, and telling people to gather around.

  “Everyone’s told you there was no meeting, because nobody wanted to hear what they had to say. They called to the people walking on the square, standing in doorways, anyone—but no one would come,” says Anthero Huillmo, ex-street photographer, now blind and selling novenas, religious pictures, and rosaries from eight in the morning until eight at night at the cathedral door. “They even tried to stop the truck drivers: ‘Stop!’ ‘Get out!’ ‘Come on!’ But the drivers had their doubts and just stepped on the gas. But there was a meeting. I was there, I saw it and heard it. That was before God saw fit to send that tear-gas grenade that burned my face. Now I can’t see, but then I could and did. Actually, it was a meeting held exclusively for me.”

  Was that the first sign that their calculations were wrong not just about the people involved in the uprising but about the people of Jauja? The purpose of the meeting was crystal-clear in his mind: inform the man on the street about what had gone on that morning, explain the class struggle in its historic and social sense, and show their conviction—maybe even give some of the poorest money. But in the center of the plaza, to which Mayta had made his way, there was no one but a street photographer, the little bunch of Indians petrified on their bench, trying their best not to look at the revolutionaries, and the five joeboys. They vainly waved and called to the groups of curious people on the corners near the cathedral and the Colegio del Carmen. If the joeboys tried to approach them, they ran off. Did the shots scare them? Could the news have spread already, so that these people would be afraid to be taken for revolutionaries if the police were suddenly to appear? Did it make any sense to go on waiting?

  Cupping his hands over his mouth, Mayta shouted: “We are rebelling against the bourgeois order, so the people can throw off their chains! To end the exploitation of the masses! To give land to the people who work it! To stop the imperialist rape of our nation!”

  “Don’t shout yourself hoarse. They’re far away and can’t hear you,” said Vallejos, jumping off the little wall around the garden in the plaza. “We’re wasting our time.”

  Mayta obeyed and began walking alongside him toward the corner of Bolognesi, where the taxis, guarded by Gualberto Bravo and Perico Temoche, were waiting. Well, there was no meeting, but at least his mountain sickness was better. Would they get to Quero? Would the people who were supposed to be there really be there with horses and mules?

  As if there were telepathic communication between them, Mayta heard Vallejos say, “Even if the Ricrán guys don’t show up in Quero, there won’t be any problem, because there are lots of horses and mules there. It’s a cattle town.”

  “We’ll buy them, in that case,” said Mayta, patting the bag he carried in his right hand. He turned to Condori, who marched behind him: “How is the road to Uchubamba?”

  “When it’s dry, easy,” replied Condori. “I’ve done it a thousand times. It’s only rough at night because of the cold. But as soon as you get to the jungle, easy as pie.”

  Gualberto Bravo and Perico Temoche, who were sitting next to the taxi drivers, got out to meet them. Envious of not having gone with them to the banks, they kept saying, “Tell us about it, tell us.” But Vallejos ordered an immediate departure.

  “We mustn’t separate under any circumstance,” said the lieutenant, coming up to Mayta, who, with Condori and the three joeboys, was already in Mr. Onaka’s taxi. “No need to speed. First stop, Molinos.”

  He went to the other taxi, and Mayta thought: We’ll get to Quero, we’ll load the Mausers on mules, we’ll cross the mountains, go down to the jungle, and in Uchubamba the community will receive us with open arms. We’ll give them weapons, and Uchubamba will be our first base camp. He had to be optimistic. Although there had been desertions, and even if the Ricrán men didn’t show up in Quero, he couldn’t allow himself to doubt. Hadn’t everything gone so well this morning?

  “That’s what we thought,” says Colonel Felicio Tapia, a doctor drafted into the army, a married man with four sons, one an invalid and another an army man, wounded in action in the Azángaro sector. He’s passing through Jauja because he has to make constant inspections of the clinics in the Junín zone. “We thought the guards and the lieutenant we’d left locked up would take a long time to get out, and since communications were cut, they’d have to go to Huancayo to get reinforcements. Five or six hours, at least. By then, we’d be well on our way to the jungle. Who’d find us then? Vallejitos had chosen the place very well.

  “It’s the area where we’ve had the most trouble carrying out operations. Ideal for ambushes. The Reds are out there in their dens, and the only way to root them out is by saturation bombing, by destroying everything, and attacking with bayonets—which means heavy casualties. If people knew how many men we’ve lost, they’d be shocked. Well, I don’t suppose Peruvians are shocked by anything nowadays. Where were we? Oh yeah, that’s what we thought. But Lieutenant Dongo got right out of the cell. He went to the telegraph office and saw everything smashed, so he went down to the station and found the telegraph there working perfectly. He telegraphed, and a busload of police left Huancayo about the time we were leaving Jauja. Instead of five hours, we barely had a two-hour lead on them. How stupid! To knock out the telegraph at the train station would have taken two minutes.”

  “So why didn’t you do it?”

  He shrugs and blows smoke out his mouth and nose. He’s old before his time, his mustache stained by nicotine. He gasps. We are talking in the infirmary at the Jauja barracks. From time to time, Colonel Tapia glances into the waiting room crowded with sick and wounded being looked after by nurses.

  “You know, I don’t know why we didn’t do it. Underdevelopment, I suppose. In the original plan, in which there were going to be some forty people, I think, not counting the joeboys, one group was supposed to seize the station. At least that’s how I remember it. Then, in the confusion of changing plans, Vallejitos must have forgotten about that. Probably no one remembered that there was a telegraph at the station. The fact is, we left happy, thinking we had all the time in the world.”

/>   In fact, they weren’t very happy. When Mr. Onaka (whining that he couldn’t go to Molinos with his wife sick, that he didn’t have enough gas to get there) started up, the incident with the watchmaker took place. Mayta saw him appear suddenly, snorting like a wild bull, right in front of the glass door with gothic letters on it: “Jewels and Watches: Pedro Bautista Lozada.” He was an older man, thin, wearing glasses, his face red with indignation. He was carrying a shotgun. Mayta took the safety off his sub-machine gun, but he was calm enough not to fire—after all, the man was howling like a banshee, but he wasn’t even aiming his gun at them. He was waving it around like a cane, shouting: “Fucking communists, you don’t scare me,” while stumbling around by the curb, his glasses bouncing on his nose. “Fucking communists! Alight if you’ve got any balls!”

  “Get going and don’t stop,” Mayta ordered the driver, sticking his finger in his back. At least, no one shot that old grouch. “He’s a Spaniard,” Felicio Tapia said, laughing. “What does alight mean?”

  “Everyone in Jauja says you are the most pacific man in the world, don Pedro, a person who makes no trouble for anyone. What got into you that morning that you went out and insulted the revolutionaries?”

  “I don’t know what got into me.” He talks through his nose, his toothless mouth dripping saliva. He lies under the vicuña blanket in his chair in the shop where he’s passed the more than forty years since he came to Jauja: don Pedro Bautista Lozada. “I just got mad. I saw them go into the International and carry out the money in a bag. That didn’t bother me. Then I heard them give communist cheers and shoot off their rifles. They didn’t care that their stray shots could hurt someone. What was all that foolishness? So I took my shotgun, this one I have between my legs in case of unannounced guests. Then I noticed I hadn’t even loaded it.”

  The dust, the junk, the disorder, and the character’s incredible age remind me of a movie I saw when I was a kid: The Prodigious Magician. Don Pedro’s face is a prune and his eyebrows are bushy and huge. He’s told me he lives alone and prepares his own food—his principles forbid him to have servants.