Mario Llosa - The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta

A total orphan. That’s what he became, by being a militant in smaller and smaller, ever more radical sects, looking for an ideological purity he never found. He was the supreme orphan when he threw himself into this extraordinary conspiracy to start a war in the heights of Junín, with a twenty-two-year-old second-lieutenant jailer and a secondary-school teacher, both of them totally disconnected from the Peruvian left. It certainly was fascinating. It kept on fascinating me for a year after I made the investigation, just as much as it fascinated me that day when I found out in Paris what had happened in Jauja … The wretched light of the widely spaced streetlights wraps around the old façades of the houses, some with enormous gateways and ironclad doors, wrought-iron bars on their windows, and shuttered balconies. Behind all that, I can imagine entrance-ways, patios with plants and trees, and a life once upon a time ordered and monotonous and now, doubtless, beside itself with fear.

In that first visit to Jauja, nevertheless, the total orphan must have felt exultation and happiness such as he never felt before. He was going to act, the revolt was becoming tangible: faces, places, dialogues, concrete action. As if suddenly his whole life as a militant, a conspirator, a persecuted individual, a political prisoner was justified and at the same time catapulted into a higher reality. Besides, it all coincided with the attainment of something which until a week ago had seemed a wild dream. Hadn’t he dreamed? No, it was as true and concrete as the imminent revolt: he had had in his arms the boy he had desired for so many years. He had made him experience pleasure and he had experienced pleasure himself. He had heard him whimper under his caresses. He felt a burning in his testicles, the prelude to an erection, and he thought: Have you gone crazy? Here? Right in the station? Here, in front of Vallejos? He thought: It’s happiness. You have never felt like this before, comrade.

Nothing’s open, and I remember from a previous visit, years ago, before all this, the eternal shops of Jauja at dusk, illuminated with kerosene lamps: the tailor shops, the candlemaker’s shop, the barbershops, the jewelers, the bakeries, the hat stores. And also that hanging from the balconies you could sometimes see rows of rabbits drying in the sun. Suddenly I’m hungry again, and my mouth waters. I think about Mayta. Excited, happy, he got ready to return to Lima, certain that his comrades in the RWP(T) would approve the plan of action without reservations. He thought: I’ll see Anatolio, we’ll spend the night talking, I’ll tell him everything, we’ll laugh, he’ll help me to get the others excited. And later … There is a placid silence, the kind you find in books by the Spanish writer Azorín, broken from time to time by the cry of a night bird, invisible under the eaves of a house.

Now I’m leaving the town. This is where it took place, this is where they did it, in these little streets, so tranquil, so timeless then, in that plaza of such beautiful proportions, which twenty-five years ago had a weeping willow and a border of cypresses. Here in this land where it would be difficult to imagine that things could be worse, that hunger, murder, and the danger of disintegration would reach the extremes of today. Here, before returning to Lima, when they said goodbye in the station, the total orphan indicated to the impulsive second lieutenant that in order to give a greater impetus to the start of the rebellion he should consider a few armed acts of propaganda.

“And just what is that?” Vallejos asked.

The train was in the station and people were shoving their way on. They talked near the stairs, taking advantage of the last minutes.

“Translated into Catholic language, it means to preach by example,” said Mayta. “Actions that educate the masses, that take hold in their imagination, that give them ideas, show them their own power. One armed act of propaganda is worth hundreds of issues of the Workers Voice .”

They were speaking in low tones, but there was no danger of their being heard, because of the pandemonium all around them.

“And you want more armed acts of propaganda than taking over the Jauja jail and seizing the weapons? More than seizing the police station and the Civil Guard post?”

“Yes, I want more than that,” said Mayta.

Capturing those places was a belligerent, military act, which would seem like a traditional military coup because a lieutenant was doing it. It wasn’t sufficiently explicit from the ideological point of view. He would have to take maximum advantage of those first hours. Newspapers and radios would be reporting nonstop. Everything they did in those first hours would reverberate and remain engraved in the memory of the people. So he would have to take full advantage and carry out acts that would have a symbolic charge to them, whose message would be both about revolution and about the class struggle, which would reach the militants, students, intellectuals, workers, and peasants.

“You know something?” said Vallejos. “I think you’re right.”

“The important thing is how much time we have.”

“A few hours. With the telephone and telegraph lines cut and the radio out of commission, the only way to sound the alarm is for someone to go to Huancayo. While they go and come back and mobilize the police — let’s say, five hours.”

“More than enough for some didactic action,” said Mayta. “Action that will show the masses that our movement is against bourgeois power, imperialism, and capitalism.”

“Now you’re making a speech.” Vallejos laughed, hugging him. “Get on, get on. And now that you’re going back, don’t forget the surprise I gave you. You’re going to need it.”

“The plan was perfect,” Professor Ubilluz said several times during our chat. What went wrong then, Professor? “That it was changed, rushed, turned upside down.” Who did all that? “I couldn’t tell you, exactly. Vallejos, naturally. But perhaps influenced by the Trotskyite. I’ll wonder about that until I die.” A doubt, he says, that has eaten away at his life, that is still eating away at it, even more than the infamous calumnies against him, even more than being on the insurgents’ blaklist. I have gone halfway back to the inn without running into a patrol, armored car, man, or beast: only invisible chirps. The stars and the moon render visible the quiet, bluish countryside, the fields, the eucalyptus trees, the mountains, the small houses along the road sealed up with mud and rocks, just like those in the city. The waters of the lake, in a night like this, should be worth seeing. When I get to the inn, I’ll go out to look at them. The walk has restored my enthusiasm for my book. I’ll go out on the terrace and the dock, no stray or intended shots will interrupt me. And I shall think, remember, and imagine until, just before dawn, I give form to this episode in the real life of Alejandro Mayta. A whistle blew and the train began to move.

“It was the most terrifying encounter I ever had in my life,” says Blacquer. “I stood there blinking, not really believing he was actually standing there. Was it really Mayta? ‘Yes, it’s me,’ said Mayta quickly. ‘Can I come in? It’s urgent.’”

“Can you imagine me letting a Trot in?” Blacquer smiles, remembering the shiver that ran down his spine that morning when he found himself face to face with that apparition. “I don’t think you and I have anything to say to each other, Mayta.”

“It’s important, it’s urgent, it goes way beyond our differences.” He spoke vehemently, and seemed not to have slept or washed. You could see he was really excited. “If you’re afraid you’ll be compromised if you let me in, we can go anywhere you like.”