Mario Vargas Llosa: A Fish in the Water: A Memoir

Almost the moment I returned to Lima, a few days later, I wrote an article, “Hacia el Perú totalitario” (“Toward a Totalitarian Peru”) that appeared in El Comercio on August 2, *outlining the reasons for my opposition to the measure and urging Peruvians to oppose it by any and every legal means if they wanted the democratic system to survive. I did so in order to put my reaction to it on record, even though I was convinced that my effort would be useless, and that, with the exception of a few protests, the measure would be passed by Congress with the approval of the majority of my compatriots.

But that was not how things turned out. At the same time that my article appeared, the employees of banks and of other threatened companies took to the streets, in Lima, in Arequipa, in Piura, participating in marches and small-scale meetings that surprised everyone, me first of all. In order to support them, along with four close friends with whom for years Patricia and I had gone out to have dinner and talk together once a week — three architects, Luis Miró Quesada, Frederick Cooper, and Miguel Cruchaga, and the painter Fernando de Szyszlo — we decided to draft a manifesto as quickly as possible, for which we were sure we could collect some hundred signatures. The text, affirming in part that “the concentration of political and economic power in the hands of the party in power may well mean the end of freedom of expression and, should worst come to worst, of democracy,” was given to me to read on television and published under my name in the newspapers of August 5 with the heading “Against the Totalitarian Threat.”

What happened in the next few days unexpectedly turned my life upside down. My house was flooded with letters, phone calls, and visits of individuals who were in entire accord with the manifesto and brought piles of signatures that they had spontaneously collected. Lists of the names of hundreds of new supporters appeared every day in the press not controlled by the government. Even people from the provinces sought me out, asking how they could help. I was stunned. General Velasco had nationalized hundreds of companies without anyone’s lifting a finger; on the contrary, he had the support of a large percentage of public opinion, which saw in these measures an act of social justice and the hope for a change. In Peru, as in the rest of Latin America, statism, the pillar of Third World ideology, had become the ruling doctrine not only of the left but also of vast sectors of the center and the right, to such a degree that Belaunde Terry’s conservative government (1980–85), elected at the end of the military dictatorship, had not dared to privatize a single one of the companies nationalized by Velasco (with the exception of the communications media, returned to their owners immediately after Belaunde Terry took power). But in those feverish days of August 1987 it appeared that significant sectors of Peruvian society had become disenchanted with the statist formula.

Alan García, nervous over the protest moves, decided to “bring the masses out into the streets.” He traveled through the north of the country, the traditional citadel of the APRA party, vituperating imperialism and bankers and voicing threats against those of us who were protesting. His party, a revolutionary one half a century before, had little by little, over the course of the years, turned into a bureaucratic and opportunistic party, and followed his lead with obvious reluctance. It had first attained power in 1985, after it had been in existence for sixty years, with a very clever electoral campaign, presenting a moderate social-democratic image, and the majority of the party leaders seemed to be quite satisfied to be enjoying the prerogatives of power. The business of going about making a revolution at this point seemed to set about as well with many Apristas as a kick in the belly. But the APRA, whose doctrine of state control is socialist, owes its hierarchical structure to fascism — its founder, Haya de la Torre, called the Jefe Máximo, the Maximum Leader, had imitated the organization, the stage effects, and the shortcut methods of Italian fascism — and for the sake of discipline, although without a great deal of enthusiasm, followed Alan García when he called for revolutionary mobilizations. Those, on the other hand, who supported him with sincere and irrepressible enthusiasm were the Socialists and Communists of the coalition of the IU (Izquierda Unida: United Left). Whether moderates or extremists, they could not believe their eyes. The APRA, their old enemy, was putting their very own program into effect. Were the good old days of General Velasco, when they had very nearly managed to seize power, being brought back to life, then? Socialists and Communists immediately adopted as their own the fight for nationalization. Their leader at the time, Alfonso Barrantes, appeared on television to read a speech in favor of the nationalization law, and the senators and representatives of the United Left became its most unyielding defenders in Congress.

Felipe Thorndike and Freddy Cooper turned up at my house one night at the beginning of the second week in August, all excited and in a conspiratorial mood. They had had meetings with groups of independents and had come to propose to me that we call for a public demonstration, at which I would be the main speaker. The idea was to show that if the Apristas and the Communists could take to the streets in defense of statism, we could too, to impugn their policy in the name of freedom. I accepted their proposal, and that night I had the first of a series of arguments with Patricia that were to go on for a year.

“If you go up onto that platform you’ll end up going into politics, and literature can go to hell. And your family along with it. Can it be that you don’t know what it means to go into politics in this country?”

“I headed the protest against nationalization. I can’t back down now. It’s just one demonstration, just one speech. That doesn’t mean devoting one’s life to politics!”

“Then there’ll be another and another and you’ll end up being a candidate for president. Are you going to leave your books, the quiet, comfortable life you’re living now, to go into politics in Peru? Don’t you know how they’re going to pay you back? Have you forgotten Uchuraccay?” *

“I’m not going to go into politics or give up literature or be a candidate for any office. I’m going to speak at this one demonstration so that it will at least be clear to everyone that not all of us Peruvians are letting ourselves be taken in by Señor Alan García.”

“Don’t you know what kind of thugs you’re picking as enemies? I’ve noticed you don’t answer the phone anymore.”

Because, ever since the day our manifesto came out, the anonymous calls had started. They came in the daytime or at night. In order to be able to get some sleep we had to disconnect the phone. The voices sounded like different ones each time, so that I came to think that every Aprista’s idea of fun, once he had a drink under his belt, was to call my house to threaten us. These calls went on for almost the entire three years this account covers. They finally became a part of the family routine. When the calls stopped, a sort of vacuum, a nostalgia even, lingered on in the house.

The demonstration — we called it A Meeting for Freedom — was set for August 21 in the classic place for rallies in Lima: the Plaza San Martín. The organizing of it was in the hands of independents who had never been political militants or had any experience in this sort of contention, people like the university professor Luis Bustamante Belaunde or the business leader Miguel Vega Alvear, with whom we were to become fast friends. Among the political novices that all of us were, the exception perhaps was Miguel Cruchaga, Belaunde Terry’s nephew, who as a young man had been a member of the AP (Acción Popular: Popular Action) party. But he had kept his distance from active militancy for some time. My friendship with the tall, gentlemanly, grave Miguel was of long standing, but it had become a very intimate one after my return to Peru, after nearly sixteen years in Europe, in 1974, on the eve of the capture of the news media by the dictatorship. We always used to talk politics whenever we were together, and each time, somewhat cast over with sickly melancholy, we wondered why everything in Peru always tended to get worse, why we were wasting opportunities and persisting so perversely toward working for our ruin and our downfall. And each time, too, in a very vague way, we outlined projects to do something, at some time or other. That intellectual game took on, all of a sudden, in the fever and boiling fury of those August days, a disconcerting reality. Because of this background and because of his enthusiasm, Miguel took on the job of coordinating the arrangements for the protest rally. These were intense and exhausting days which, from a distance, seem to me to be the most generously motivated and the most exciting ones of those years. I had asked the shareholders of the threatened companies and the opposition parties — Popular Action and the Christian Popular Party — to remain on the sidelines, so as to make the event clearly a matter of principle, of Peruvians who were not taking to the streets to defend personal or political interests but to defend values that seemed to us to be endangered by nationalization.