Mario Llosa - The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta

The afternoon has slipped by, and when I get around to looking at my watch, I see I’ve been there for almost four hours. I would have liked to hear what Juanita heard, to hear from Mayta’s mouth how he lost his faith. Over the course of our conversation, children have appeared at the half-open door from time to time: they poke their heads in, spy on us, get bored, and go away. How many of them have been recruited by the insurgents? Did my old schoolmate ever tell me about his trips to El Montón to lend a hand to the Canadian mission? How many of them will kill or be killed? Juanita has stepped over to the nearby clinic to see if there are any problems. Did he go every afternoon, after classes at the Salesian School let out, or did he only go on Sundays?

The clinic is open from eight to nine, run by two volunteer doctors who take turns; in the afternoons, a male and a female nurse come to give vaccinations and first aid. Did Mayta help the redheaded, desperate, angry priest bury the babies wiped out by hunger and infection, did his eyes fill with tears, did his heart pound in his breast, did his childish, believer’s imagination soar to heaven to ask why: Why do you permit this to happen, Lord? Next to the clinic, in a shack made from boards, is the office of Communal Action. Along with the clinic, that office is the reason why Juanita and María are in the slum. Did the Canadian mission where Mayta did volunteer work look like this one? Did a lawyer go to that one to give free legal counsel to the neighborhood, was there also a technical adviser to advise them on establishing businesses? Mayta would go there, would plunge into all that misery, his faith would begin to falter, and at the Salesian he wouldn’t say a word about it. With me, he went on talking about serials and how terrific it would be to see a picture based on The Count of Monte Cristo .

Juanita and María tell me they worked for a few years in the bottling plant at San Juan de Lurigancho, but that since the plant closed they have devoted themselves exclusively to Communal Action. Their respective orders send them enough to live on. Why did he confide just like that in a person he was meeting for the first time? Because she was a nun, because she inspired affection, because the nun was the sister of his new friend, or because he suddenly felt a wave of melancholy, remembering the ardent faith he’d felt as a Salesian student?

“When the terrorism started, we were really frightened,” María says. “We thought they’d blow the place up and destroy everything. But so much time has passed that we don’t even remember anymore. We’ve been lucky. Even though there’s been some violence around here, they haven’t touched us yet.”

“Is your family very Catholic?” asked Mayta. “Didn’t you have problems with …?”

“They’re Catholics, but more out of routine than conviction.” The nun smiled. “Like most people. Sure I had problems. They were really astonished when I told them I wanted to be a nun. For my mother, it was the end of the world. For my father, it was as if I had been buried alive. But they’ve gotten used to it.”

“One son in the army and one daughter in the convent,” said Mayta. “It was the usual pattern in aristocratic families in colonial times.”

“Come on out,” called Vallejos from the table. “Talk with the rest of the family, too, and don’t monopolize my sister — we never get to see her.”

Both teach morning classes in the little school they’ve set up in Communal Action. On Sundays, when the priest comes to say Mass, the place turns into a chapel. He hasn’t come often of late: someone blew up his church and he’s had problems with his nerves ever since.

“It doesn’t look as if it was the freedom squads that did it, but some neighborhood kids who wanted to play a little trick on him, knowing he’s so chickenhearted,” María says. “The poor man has never said a single word about politics, and his only weakness is chocolate. But after the blast, and with his nerves, he’s lost more than twenty pounds.”

“Does it seem to you that I speak of him with some anger and resentment?” Juanita makes a curious face, and I see she is not asking just for the sake of asking. It’s something that must have been bothering her now for a long time.

“No, I didn’t sense anything like that,” I say to her. “What I’ve noticed is that you try to avoid mentioning Mayta by name. You always beat around the bush instead of saying ‘Mayta.’ Is it because of the Jauja thing, because you’re sure he pushed Vallejos into it?”

“I’m not sure about that,” Juanita denies it. “It’s possible that my brother is also to blame. But even though I don’t want to, I realize that I still resent him a little. Not because of Jauja. But because he made him doubt. That last time we were together, I asked him, ‘Are you going to become an atheist like your friend Mayta? Are you going that way, too?’ He didn’t give me the answer I was looking for. He just shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘I probably will, sister, because the revolution is the most important thing.’”

“Father Ernesto Cardenal also said the revolution was the most important thing,” María recalls. She adds that — she doesn’t know why — the redheaded priest Mayta talked about reminded her of the visits to Peru of, first, Ivan Ilyich, and then Ernesto Cardenal.

“Yes, it’s true, what would Mayta have said that afternoon when we talked, if he had known that we would be hearing things like that from within the Church,” Juanita says. “Even though I thought I was up on everything, I was shocked when Ivan Ilyich came. Could it be a priest saying those things? Had our revolution gotten to that point? It certainly wasn’t a silent revolution any longer.”

“But Ivan Ilyich wasn’t anything,” interposes María, her blue eyes filled with mischief. “You had to hear Ernesto Cardenal to get the good stuff. Where we were teaching, some of us asked special permission to go to the National Institute of Culture and the Teatro Pardo y Aliaga to see him.”

“Now he’s a government minister in his country, a real political figure, right?” asked Juanita.

“Yes, I’ll go to Jauja with you,” Mayta promised him in a low voice. “But, for God’s sake, let’s be discreet. Above all, after what you’ve told me. What you’re doing with those boys is subversion, comrade. You’re risking your career, and lots of other things.”

“Look who’s talking. And who fills my head with subversive propaganda every time we meet?”

They started laughing, and the Chinese man who was bringing them their coffee asked what the joke was. “A traveling-salesman joke,” said the lieutenant.

“The next time you come to Lima, we’ll fix a date for me to go to Jauja,” Mayta promised him. “But give me your word you won’t say a thing to your group about my visit.”

“Secrets, secrets, you’ve got a mania for secrets,” Vallejos protested. “Yeah, I know: security is vital. But you can’t always be so finicky, brother. Shall I tell you about secrets? Pepote, that creep from your aunt’s party, took Alci from me. I went to see her and I found her with him. Holding hands. ‘Let me introduce my boyfriend,’ she said. They set me up as their audience.”

It didn’t seem to bother him, since he laughed as he told the story. No, he wouldn’t say a thing to the joeboys or to Ubilluz, it would be a surprise. Now he had to take off. They parted with a heartfelt handshake, and Mayta watched him leave the store, ramrod-straight and solid in his uniform, walking toward Avenida España. As he watched him disappear, he thought that this was the third time they were meeting in the same place. Was it smart? The police station was just down the way, and it wouldn’t be odd to see informers having coffee there. So he had formed — on his own, taking his chances — a Marxist circle. Who would have guessed? He half closed his eyes and saw, at an altitude of about nine thousand feet, their adolescent, mountain-Indian faces, their rosy cheeks, their stringy hair, their wide mountaineer’s chests. He saw them chasing a ball, sweating, excited. The second lieutenant running with them, as if he were one of them, but he was taller, more agile, stronger, more skillful, kicking, charging, and with every jump, kick, or charge, his muscles would harden. After the game, he saw them crowded into a whitewashed adobe room — through the windows, you could see white clouds skimming over purple peaks. They would be listening attentively to the lieutenant, who would be showing them Lenin’s What Is to Be Done , saying, “Boys, this is pure dynamite.” He didn’t laugh. He felt not the slightest desire to make fun of him, to say to himself what he had been saying about Vallejos to his comrades in the RWP(T): “He’s very young, but he’s made of good stuff.” “He’s good, but he’s got to grow up.” He felt, at this moment, considerable admiration for Vallejos, a bit of envy for his youth and enthusiasm, and something more, something intimate and warm. At the next meeting of the Central Committee of the RWP(T), he would request a discussion because the Jauja business was now taking on a new character. He was about to get up from his corner table — Vallejos had paid the check before he left — when he discovered the bulge in his trousers. His face and body burned. He realized he was trembling with desire.