Mario Llosa - The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta

I park and walk among dumps that double as pigpens. The pigs root around in these mounds of garbage, and I have to wave both hands around to keep the flies off. On top of and in between the mounds of garbage huddle the huts, made of tin cans, bricks, cement (some), adobe, wood, and with tin roofs (some). They are all half started, never finished, always decrepit, leaning on one another, collapsing or about to collapse, swarming with people who look at me with the same indolence as the last time. Until a few months ago, political violence did not affect the slums on the outskirts of Lima as much as it affected the residential neighborhoods and the downtown area. But now most of the people assassinated or kidnapped by revolutionary commandos, the armed forces, or the counterrevolutionary death squads come from these zones.

There are more old men than young, more women than men, and from time to time I have the impression that I’m not in Lima or even on the coast but in some village in the Andes: sandals, Indian skirts, ponchos, vests with llamas embroidered on them, dialogues in Quechua. Do they really live better in this stink and scum than in the mountain villages they have abandoned to come to Lima? Sociologists, economists, and anthropologists assure us that, as amazing as it might seem, this is the case. Their expectations for bettering themselves and for simply surviving are greater, it seems, in these fetid dumps than in the plateaus of Ancash, Puno, or Cajamarca, where drought, epidemics, barren land, and unemployment decimate the Indian towns. This is probably true. How else can you explain someone’s choosing to live in these dumps and this filth?

“For them, it’s the lesser of two evils, a better choice,” said Mayta. “But if you think that just because there is misery in these slums they must contain revolutionary potential, you’re mistaken. These people aren’t proletarians: they’re lumpen. They have no class consciousness, because they aren’t a class. They can’t even imagine what the class struggle is.”

“Then they’re like me.” Vallejos smiled. “What the fuck is the class struggle?”

“The motor of history,” explained Mayta, very serious, full of his role as professor. “The struggle that results from the contrary interests of each class in society. Interests innate in the role of each class in the production of wealth. There are those who own capital, those who own property, those who own knowledge. And there are those who own nothing but their labor: the workers. And there are as well the marginal people, those people from the slums, the lumpen. Are you getting confused?”

“Just hungry.” Vallejos yawned. “These talks always give me an appetite. Let’s forget the class struggle for today and have a nice cold beer. I’m inviting you to have lunch at my parents’ house. My sister is coming out. A big event. She’s worse off than if she were in a barracks. I’ll introduce you. And the next time we see each other, I’ll bring the surprise I told you about.”

They were in Mayta’s tiny room, Mayta sitting on the floor and the second lieutenant on the bed. From outside came the sounds of voices, laughter, and automobiles. Minute dust motes floated around them like weightless little animals.

“If you go on this way, you won’t learn anything about Marxism.” Mayta gave up. “The fact is, you don’t have much of a teacher. I always complicate the things I teach.”

“You’re better than many of the ones I had in military school.” Vallejos encouraged him with a laugh. “You know what happens to me? I’m really interested in Marxism, but all those abstractions get me. I’m much more open to practical, concrete things. By the way, should I tell you my plan for revolution before we have the beer, or later?”

“I’ll only listen to your inspired plan if you pass the test,” Mayta said, following his lead. “So what the fuck is the class struggle?”

“The big fish eats the little fish,” said Vallejos, cackling. “What else could it be, brother? To know that a landowner with a thousand acres and his Indians hate each other, you don’t have to do much studying. Well, did I get a hundred? Now, my plan is gonna knock your socks off, Mayta. Even more when you see the surprise. Will you come to lunch? I want you to meet my sister.”

“Mother? Sister? Miss?”

“Juanita,” she decides. “We’re better off calling each other by name. After all, we’re about the same age, right? And this is María.”

The two women wear leather sandals, and from the bench I’m sitting on, I can see their toes: Juanita’s are still, and María’s wiggle around nervously. Juanita is dark, energetic, with thick arms and legs, and dark down on her upper lip. María is small and light-skinned, with clear eyes and an absent expression.

“A Pasteurina or a glass of water?” Juanita asks me. “Better for us if you have a soda, because around here water is gold. Just to get it, you have to go all the way to Avenida de los Chasquis.”

The place reminds me of a cabin out in the San Cristóbal hills where two Frenchwomen, sisters in the congregation of Father de Foucauld, lived. That was long ago. Here the walls are also whitewashed and bare, the floor covered with straw mats; the blankets make you think this could be the dwelling of a desert nomad.

“All we need is sun,” says María. “Father Charles de Foucauld. I read his book In the Heart of the Masses . It was famous at one time.”

“I read it, too,” says Juanita. “I don’t remember much. I never did have a good memory, even when I was young.”

“What a shame.” Nowhere do I see a crucifix, an image of the Virgin, a religious picture, a missal. Nothing that might allude to the fact that the inhabitants are nuns. “About that lack of memory. Because I …”

“Well, that’s something else. Of course I remember him.” Juanita chides me with a look, as she hands me the Pasteurina. Then her tone changes: “I haven’t forgotten my brother, of course.”

“What about Mayta?” I ask her, swigging that tepid, overly sweet stuff straight from the bottle.

“I remember him, too.” Juanita nods. “I saw him only once. At my parents’ house. I don’t remember much, because that was the next-to-the-last time I talked to my brother. The last time was two weeks later. All he did was talk about his friend Mayta. He really liked him and admired him. His influence was … Perhaps I’d better say nothing.”

“Ah, so that’s what it’s about.” María uses a piece of cardboard to shoo the flies away from her face. Neither wears a habit, only flannel skirts and gray blouses. But in the way they wear their clothes, in the way their hair is held back in a net, in the way they talk and move, you can see they are nuns. “At least it’s about them and not about us. We were nervous, now I can say it, because publicity is bad for the things we do.”

“And just what is it we do?” mocked Mayta, with a sarcastic laugh. “We’ve taken over the town, the police station, the jail, we’ve got all the weapons in Jauja. What now? Head for the hills like mountain goats?”

“Not like mountain goats,” replied the second lieutenant, without getting angry. “We can go on horseback, burro, mule, by truck, or on foot. On foot is best, because there’s no better way to get around in the mountains. It’s easy to see you don’t know much about the mountains, buddy.”

“It’s true, I really don’t know much about them,” admitted Mayta. “I’m really ashamed.”

“Well, we can help you there. Come with me tomorrow to Jauja.” Vallejos nudged him with his elbow. “You’ll have a free place to stay, and free food. Just the weekend, man. I’ll show you the country, we can go to the Indian towns, you’ll see the real Peru. But listen, now: don’t open the surprise. You promised. Or I’ll take it back.”