Mario Llosa - The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta

“The points of view are clear, and the arguing is hot,” said Comrade Anatolio.

“You’re right,” grunted the secretary general. “We’ll vote with a show of hands. How many in favor?”

Mayta’s suggestion — to change the name of Workers Voice (T) to Proletarian Voice —was rejected, three to two. Comrade Jacinto’s vote broke the tie. The answer Medardo and Anatolio gave to Mayta’s and Joaquín’s argument about the confusion caused by the existence of two papers with the same name attacking each other was that changing the name would seem to be giving in to the divisionists, admitting that they were the real RWP, not the RWP(T). And wasn’t it the RWP(T) that was holding to the party line? Besides, to give them the name of the paper as well as the name of the organization — wasn’t that like rewarding betrayal? According to Medardo and Anatolio, the similarity of the titles, a transitory problem, would no longer confuse the workers as soon as the workers saw how the content of the articles, editorials, the news itself — the doctrinal coherence — defined the situation, revealing which was the genuinely Marxist, anti-bureaucratic newspaper, and which the fraud. The discussion was harsh, extremely long, and Mayta thought how much more fun he had had talking the night before with that silly, idealistic boy. I’ve lost this vote because I’m befuddled by lack of sleep, he thought. Oh, well, what difference did it make? If keeping the title meant they’d have more problems distributing Workers Voice (T) , he would request a review of the decision when all seven members of the committee were present.

“You mean there were really only seven of you when Mayta met Second Lieutenant Vallejos?”

“So you remember Vallejos, too.” Moisés smiles. He studies the menu and orders a shrimp ceviche and scallops with rice. I’ve left the choice to him, having told him that a sensualized economist like himself could do a better job than I ever could. “Yes, seven. I don’t remember all their names — their real names — but I do remember their party names. Comrade Jacinto, Comrade Anatolio, Comrade Joaquín. I was Comrade Medardo. Have you noticed how the Costa Verde’s menu has declined since rationing went into effect? If we go on like this, every restaurant in Lima will close down.”

They’ve given us a table in back, and we can just barely see the ocean. It’s blocked by the heads of the other customers — tourists, couples, employees celebrating some company birthday. There must be an important politician or a member of the board of directors among them, because I see four bodyguards dressed in business suits, and carrying automatic rifles, sitting at a nearby table. They are silently drinking beer, keeping an eye on everything that goes on in the restaurant. The talk, the laughter, the clatter of dishes and glasses drowns out the surf.

“With Vallejos, then, you were eight,” I say to him. “Your memory’s tricked you.”

“Vallejos was never in the party,” he replies instantly. “The idea of a party with only seven members sounds like a joke, doesn’t it? Vallejos was never a member. As a matter of fact, I never met the man. The first time I saw him was in the papers.”

He speaks with absolute certainty, and I have to believe him. Why would he lie? In any case, what he says surprises me, even more than the number of militants in the RWP(T). I imagined it was small, but not as tiny as that. I had imagined a scenario that I now have to discard — Mayta bringing Vallejos to the garage on Jirón Zorritos, introducing him to his comrades, incorporating him into the party structure as secretary of defense… Another idea down the drain.

“Now, when I say seven, I mean seven full-time professionals,” Moisés clarifies after a moment. “There were also the fellow travelers, students and workers with whom we set up study groups. And we had some influence in some unions — Fertisa, for example, and Civil Construction.”

The waiter brings the ceviche , and the shrimp look fresh and moist. You can sense the picante in the very aroma. We drink and eat, and as soon as we finish, we get back down to business. “Are you sure you never saw Vallejos?”

“Mayta was the only one who saw him. For a long time, anyhow. Later on, we named a special commission. The Action Group. Anatolio, Mayta, and Jacinto, I think. They all saw him for sure, a few times at least. The rest of us, never. Don’t you understand? He was in the army. What were we? Underground revolutionaries. And him? A second lieutenant!”

“He’s been ordered to infiltrate our group,” said Comrade Joaquín. “At least that much is clear, I hope.”

“That’s what I thought at first, of course,” Mayta agrees. “Let’s review the facts, comrades. Are they that dumb? Would they send a lieutenant to infiltrate the party who spouts off about the socialist revolution at a birthday gathering? I got him to spill his guts, and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. His heart’s in the right place, but he’s naïve, emotional. He talks about revolution without knowing what it is. He’s an ideological virgin. The revolution for him is Fidel Castro and his happy band of bearded heroes taking potshots out in the Sierra Maestra. It sounds like a good thing to him, but he just doesn’t understand how it works. Mind you, I’ve only had a little time to sound him out, that’s as far as it goes.”

He sat down and was talking rather impatiently because over the course of the three-hour session he had finished off all his cigarettes and he was dying for a smoke. Why didn’t he believe Vallejos could be an intelligence officer ordered to gather information about the RWP(T)? And if he were? Was it so strange the army would resort to such a crude plan? Weren’t the cops, the military men, and the whole Peruvian bourgeoisie all crude? But the jovial and exuberant image of the young chatterbox again dispelled his suspicion.

He listened to Comrade Jacinto agree with him: “Maybe they have ordered him to infiltrate us. At least we have the advantage over him of knowing who he is. We can take the necessary precautions. If they’re giving us the chance to infiltrate them, it’s our revolutionary obligation to take advantage of it, comrades.”

That’s how a subject that had provoked innumerable arguments in the RWP(T) suddenly resurfaced. Should the party have as one of its goals infiltrating the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, in order to form cells made up of soldiers, sailors, and airmen? Or to indoctrinate the troops about their common cause with the proletariat and the peasants? Or was it a mistake to present the idea of a class struggle to the military, because over and beyond their social differences, there was an institutional link, an esprit de corps that united enlisted men and officers in an unbreachable unity? Mayta was sorry he had reported on the lieutenant. This was going to go on for hours. He dreamed about soaking his swollen feet in a washbasin. He had done it that morning when he came home from the party over in Surquillo, happy that he had gone over to give his aunt-godmother a hug. He had fallen asleep with wet feet, dreaming that he and Vallejos were running a race on a beach that could have been Agua Dulce, empty of swimmers, at dawn. He was falling behind, and the boy kept turning back to cheer him on, laughing. “Get a move on, come on, or are you getting so old you’ve run out of breath, Mayta?”

“Those meetings would drag on for hours. By the end, we’d all lose our voices,” says Moisés, digging into the rice. “For example: Should Mayta go on seeing Vallejos or be on the safe side and drop him? Things like that, you just didn’t decide in a minute. Oh, no. You had to analyze the circumstances, the causes, and the effects. We had to wring out a slew of hypotheses. The October Revolution, the relationship among socialist, capitalist, and bureaucratic-imperialist forces in the world, the development of the class struggle on all five continents, the pauperization of the neocolonial nations, monopolistic concentration…”