Mario Llosa - The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta

“Of course I can tell you what he did, said, saw, and heard on that first trip. He stuck to me like a leech. We organized a couple of meetings for him, first with the joeboys and later with comrades who had seen fighting. Miners from La Oroya, from Casapalca, from Morococha. Men from Jauja who had gone to work in the mines of the great imperialist octopus of the time, the Cerro de Pasco Copper Corporation. They would come back for holidays and occasionally for weekends.”

“Were they also committed to the project?”

Vallejos and Ubilluz said they were, but Mayta wouldn’t have sworn to it. There were five of them. They had talked the following morning, also in Shorty’s house, almost two hours straight. He thought the meeting was terrific and that communication with all of them was easy — above all, with the Parrot, the best-read and most politicized of the bunch — but at no time did any of them say they would give up their jobs and leave their homes to fight. At the same time, Mayta wasn’t so sure they wouldn’t do so. They’re sensible, he thought. They were workers and knew what they were risking. They were seeing him for the first time. Wasn’t it logical they would be cautious? They seemed to be old friends of Ubilluz. At least one of them, the one with a mouth full of gold teeth, the Parrot, had been a militant in APRA. Now he said he was a socialist. When they talked about the gringos in Cerro de Pasco, they were decidedly anti-imperialist. When they talked about salaries, accidents, the diseases they contracted in the tunnels, they were absolutely revolutionary. But every time Mayta tried to get them to say exactly how they would participate in the uprising, their answers were vague. When they went from the general to the specific, their resolve seemed to weaken.

“We also went to Ricrán,” adds Professor Ubilluz, dropping out his pearls one by one. “I brought him myself, in a truck that belonged to one of my nephews, because Vallejos had to stay at the jail that day. Ricrán, which has now disappeared. Do you know how many villages like Ricrán have been destroyed in this war? A judge was telling me the other day that, according to a colonel on the General Staff, the secret statistics of the armed forces list half a million dead, since all this started. Yes, I brought him to Ricrán. Four hours of bouncing around, climbing up to a valley about twenty-five hundred feet above sea level. Poor Trotskyite! His nose began to bleed, and his handkerchief was soaked. He just wasn’t cut out for high altitudes. The gorges scared the hell out of him. He got dizzy just looking, I swear.”

He thought he would die, fall off a cliff, that his nose would never stop bleeding. Nevertheless, that twenty-four-hour trip to the Ricrán district, way out there in a corner of the mountains, was the most stimulating thing that he did in Jauja. A land of condors, snow, clear sky, jagged, ocher peaks. He had thought: “Incredible how they can live at these altitudes, dominate these mountains, sow and cultivate on these slopes, build a civilization in this wasteland. The men to whom Shorty Ubilluz introduced him — a dozen subsistence farmers and artisans — were highly motivated. He was able to communicate with them because they all spoke Spanish. They asked him lots of questions, and infused with enthusiasm, he gave them even more assurances than he gave the joeboys about the support of the progressive sectors in Lima. How encouraging it was to see the naturalness with which these humble men, some wearing sandals, talked about the revolution. As if it were imminent, concrete, decided, irreversible. There were no euphemisms at all in their conversation: they talked about arms, hideouts, and their participation in the action from day one on. But Mayta did have one difficult moment. What help would the U.S.S.R. give them? He didn’t have the heart to talk to them about the betrayed revolution, the Stalinist bureaucratization, about Trotsky. He felt it wouldn’t be prudent to confuse them with all that stuff just yet. The U.S.S.R. and the other socialist countries would help, but later, when the Peruvian revolution was a fact. Before, they would lend only their moral support — words, not deeds. The same as some Peruvian progressives. They would extend a hand only when all the others pressed them to do it. But they would be pressed, because the revolution, once in motion, would be unstoppable.

“In sum, Ricrán left you with your mouth hanging open,” Vallejos said. “I knew it would, brother.”

They were in front of the train station, in a small restaurant with oilcloth on the tables and calico curtains on the windows: the Duckpull. From their table, Mayta could see the mountains, on the other side of the railing and the tracks. They were turning black and gray after having been ocher and golden. They had been there for several hours, ever since lunch. The owner knew Ubilluz and Vallejo and would come over to chat with them. Whenever he did, they would change the subject, and Mayta would ask about Jauja. Where did that name “Duckpull” come from? Because of a local game played on the festival of January 20 in the Yauyos neighborhood: they would dance the pandilla and they would hang up a live duck that horsemen and dancers would try to decapitate by grabbing at it and pulling.

“Lucky times those, when there were ducks to decapitate in the Duckpull festival,” growls Professor Ubilluz. “We thought we had touched bottom. And yet there were ducks within reach of anyone’s budget, and people in Jauja ate twice a day, something that children today can’t even believe.” He sighs again. “It was a beautiful festival, more fun and more to drink even than during Carnival.”

“All we ask is that when we get moving, the party comes through for us,” Vallejos said. “They’re revolutionaries, right? I’ve read every single Workers Voice you gave me, backwards and forwards. Every single article is about the revolution. Well, I hope they’ll come across with actions to back up their words.”

Mayta became nervous. It was the first time Vallejos had let him know he had doubts about the support of the RWP(T). Mayta hadn’t mentioned a word about the internal debates concerning the project and concerning Vallejos himself.

“The party will come through. But it has to be sure this is a serious, well-planned action that is likely to succeed.”

“Well, it was during those days that our Trotskyite saw that our project was neither hastily organized nor mad.” Professor Ubilluz returns to the subject. “He just couldn’t believe that we had prepared things that well.”

“It’s true, it’s more serious than I’d thought.” Mayta turned to Vallejos. “You know you completely faked me out? You had a network of insurgents, made up of peasants, workers, and students. I tip my hat to you, comrade.”

They put on the lights in the Duckpull. Mayta saw that buzzing insects were beginning to smash into the bulb that swayed over them, hanging from a long wire.

“I, too, had to take precautions, as you did with me,” said the lieutenant, speaking suddenly with that aplomb which, when it emerged, made him into another man. “I had to be sure I could confide in you.”

“You learned the lesson well.” Mayta smiled at him. He paused to take a deep breath. Today the mountain sickness bothered him less. He was able to sleep for a few hours, after having had insomnia for two days. Were the mountains accepting him? “Two more comrades, Anatolio and Jacinto, will be coming next week. Their report will be decisive as far as the party’s going all the way is concerned. I’m optimistic. When they see what I’ve seen, they’ll understand that there’s no reason to hold back.”

It was here, no doubt about it, during his first visit to Jauja, that the idea that brought him so many problems lodged in his head. Did he share it with them in the Duckpull? Did he unfold it in a low voice, choosing his words carefully so he wouldn’t upset them with revelations about the divisions in what they thought was a united left? Professor Ubilluz assures me he didn’t say anything about it. “Even though this body of mine is the worse for wear, my memory is still good.” Mayta never told him about his intention to involve other groups or parties. Could he have told only Vallejos about it? In any case, it’s certain that he had already decided on the plan in Jauja, because Mayta was not impulsive. If he went to see Blacquer and, probably, the people from the other RWP when he went back to Lima, it’s because he had seriously thought things over in the mountains.