The Way to Paradise

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  In the end, she found one, though he wasn’t from Nîmes but—naturally!—from Lyon. Out of forty thousand workers at this center for the production of silk, wool, and cotton shawls, he was the only one at the four meetings she managed to organize—with the unenthusiastic help of a pair of doctors recommended to her as philanthropists, modern thinkers, and Fourierists, Dr. Pleindoux and Dr. De Castelnaud—who didn’t seem completely numbed by the narcotizing teachings of the priests, which the workers of Nîmes shamelessly swallowed. You thought you knew all there was to know about imbecility, Andalusa, but Nîmes showed you that its bounds could be extended indefinitely. The day she heard a mechanic at a meeting say, “Rich people are necessary because thanks to them there are poor people in the world, and we’ll go to heaven and they won’t,” she first burst out laughing, and then suffered a dizzy spell. So disheartened was she to learn that the priests had convinced the workers it was good to be exploited—because by being poor they would gain entrance to Paradise—that she was speechless for some time, without even the heart to be angry.

  Only during the tragicomic farce of the Battle of Cangallo, toward the end of her stay in Arequipa ten years before, had she seen such monumental idiocy and confusion—with one difference, Florita. A decade ago, as the Gamarristas and Orbegosistas enacted their pantomime complete with bloodshed and death on the outskirts of Arequipa, you, a privileged spectator, watched with emotion, sadness, irony, and compassion, trying to understand why Indians and men of mixed race, dragged into a civil war devoid of principles, ideas, or morals, a crude display of the ambitions of military leaders, allowed themselves to be used as cannon fodder, instruments in a struggle of factions that had nothing to do with them. In Nîmes, however, faced with a wall of religious prejudices and folly that blocked all prospects for the preaching of peaceful revolution, you reacted in a bitter, impassioned way, letting your rage cloud your judgment.

  Was it your ill health that made you so impatient? Was it the fatigue of all these months living on the road, in shabby boardinghouses and inns, or squalid lodgings like the Hôtel du Gard, that was causing your depression? The nightmares in which the priests of Nîmes ordered the rabble to hunt you down left you exhausted. Better not to sleep at all than to dream. She spent much of the night with her window open, plotting apocalyptic ends for the city’s priests. If you come to power, you’ll teach them a terrible lesson, Florita. You’ll drive them into the Roman coliseum they’re so proud of and let them be devoured there by the same workers who’ve been turned into heartless beasts by their sermons. In the end, imagining these cruelties restored her good humor, making her laugh like a girl. Then, she would return to Arequipa.

  What if all battles were as ridiculous as the one you happened to witness in the White City? Scenes of human chaos that afterward, to satisfy national patriotism, would be turned by the history writers into coherent demonstrations of idealism, courage, generosity, and principles, erasing all the fear, stupidity, avarice, egoism, cruelty, and ignorance of the many who were mercilessly sacrificed to the ambition, greed, and fanaticism of the few. It was possible that one hundred years from now, the travesty that was the Battle of Cangallo, that orgy of absurdity, would appear in Peruvian history books as an exemplary page in the country’s glorious past, with heroic Arequipa, defender of General Orbegoso, the chosen president, fighting gallantly against the rebel forces of General Gamarra and losing, after deeds as bloody as they were brave (days later to be magically declared victorious). Yes, Florita: real history was a hideous mess, and written history was a maze of patriotic trickery.

  General San Román’s Gamarrista troops took so long to reach Arequipa that the Orbegosista army, led by General Nieto and Dean Valdivia, with Flora’s cousin Clemente Althaus as chief of staff, nearly forgot about them, to such an extent that on April 1, 1834, General Nieto gave his soldiers permission to go into the city and get drunk. All night, from the Tristán house on Calle Santo Domingo, Florita could hear the clamor of singing, dancing, and shouting as the soldiers celebrated their free night at the city’s chicha stands, downing the fermented corn drink and eating spicy stews. The music of guitars and the lutelike charangos rang through the streets. The next day, along the crest of the hills in the distance, in the crystalline air between the volcanoes on the horizon, General San Román’s soldiers came into sight. Protected from the sun by a red parasol and armed with binoculars, Florita watched them appear and crawl closer, like a patch of ants. Meanwhile, in the midst of great uproar, her uncle Pío, cousin Carmen, aunt Joaquina, and everyone else—aunts, cousins, uncles, retainers, and friars—rushed around the house, filling bags and boxes with jewelry, money, clothing, and valuables, to take with them when they sought shelter in the city’s monasteries, convents, and churches, like the rest of Arequipan society. At midmorning, when a great cloud of dust had completely obscured her view of General Román’s soldiers, Flora saw Clemente Althaus appear on horseback, sweating and fully armed. The colonel had escaped the camp for a moment to warn them.

  “All our men are drunk, including the officers, because of Nieto’s stupid idea to give them the night free,” he shouted angrily. “If San Román attacks now, we’re lost. Go immediately to the monastery, to Santo Domingo.”

  And he rode off at full gallop, cursing in German. Although her aunts and female cousins urged her to accompany them, Flora stayed on the roof of the mansion with the men. They would move to nearby Santo Domingo when the battle began. The first bursts of musket fire sounded at seven in the evening. The shooting continued for several hours, sporadic and distant, without coming any nearer to the city. Around nine, a lone orderly appeared on Calle Santo Domingo. He had been sent by General Nieto to his wife, to tell her to hurry to the nearest monastery; things weren’t going well. Don Pío Tristán had refreshment brought for him, while the orderly told them what had happened. Panting with fatigue, he described the battle as he gulped food and drink. General Román’s square battalion was the first to attack. General Nieto’s dragoons moved forward to meet it, and managed to hold it back. The struggle was even until, as night fell, Colonel Morán’s artillery got its target confused, and instead of aiming at the Gamarristas, fired volleys of grapeshot at its own dragoons, wreaking havoc among them. The outcome was still undecided, but the triumph of San Román could no longer be ruled out. In anticipation of an invasion of the city by enemy troops, it would be best if “the gentlemen went into hiding.” Did you remember the general terror this news produced, Florita? Minutes later, uncles and male cousins, followed by slaves, some loaded down with rugs and sacks of food and clothing, and many others carrying silver, china, and porcelain chamber pots, paraded toward the monastery and church of Santo Domingo, after boarding up the doors. The news must have spread like wildfire, because on their way to shelter, Florita recognized other families, running frantically for consecrated ground. In their arms they had all the riches and treasure they could carry, to keep it safe from the victor’s grasp.

  At the church and monastery of Santo Domingo, indescribable chaos reigned. The families of Arequipa could barely move, crammed into halls, passageways, naves, cloisters, and cells, with their children and slaves sprawled on the floor. There was a nauseating smell of urine and excrement, and a maddening din. Scenes of panic coincided with the prayers and psalms being sung by some groups, while the monks scurried back and forth, trying in vain to keep order. Because of their rank and fortune, Don Pío and his family had the privilege of occupying the prior’s office; there, the vast clan, despite the closeness of the room, could at least take turns moving. The shooting stopped during the night, grew loud again at dawn, and ceased completely a little while later. When Don Pío decided to go and see what was happening, Flora went with him. The street was deserted; the Tristán house hadn’t been invaded. From the roof, with her binoculars, the morning skies clear and the dust cloud swept away by a fresh breeze, Flora could see the shapes of soldiers embracing one another in the distance. What was happening?
They soon found out, when Colonel Althaus came galloping down Calle Santo Domingo, blackened from head to toe, his hands covered in scratches, and his blond hair white with dust.

  “General Nieto is even more of a fool than his officers and soldiers,” he bellowed, beating the dust off his uniform. “He’s accepted the truce requested by San Román, when we could have finished him off.”

  Colonel Morán’s artillery, as well as causing losses among the army’s own dragoons—between thirty and forty were killed, Althaus calculated—had bombarded the camp followers, mistaking them for Gamarristas; the colonel’s cannons had crushed and crippled God knew how many of the women, irreplaceable as auxiliaries and provisioners of the troops. Despite this, after several bayonet charges, Nieto’s soldiers, roused by the example of Dean Valdivia and Althaus himself, forced San Román’s army to retreat. Then, instead of allowing the priest and the German to give chase and annihilate them, as they requested, Nieto accepted the enemy’s appeal for a truce. He met with San Román, and they embraced and wept, kissing a Peruvian flag together. After the Gamarrista promised that he would recognize Orbegoso as president of Peru, that idiot Nieto sent him food and drink for his hungry soldiers. Dean Valdivia and Althaus had assured him it was a ploy by his adversary to gain time and regroup his forces. It was madness to accept a truce! Nieto stood firm: San Román was a gentleman; he would recognize Orbegoso as head of state, and thus the Peruvian family would be reconciled.

  Althaus asked Don Pío, together with other Arequipa notables, to dismiss Nieto, assume command of the army, and order the resumption of hostilities. Flora’s uncle turned as pale as death. He swore that he felt ill, and went away to bed. “The only thing that old miser cares about is his money,” Althaus muttered. Florita asked her cousin whether, since the war had come to a halt, he would take her to the camp. After hesitating for a moment, the German agreed, hoisting her onto his horse’s rump. The whole surrounding area was in ruins. Farms and dwellings had been sacked before being occupied by the camp followers and turned into shelters or infirmaries. Bloody women, half bandaged, were cooking on improvised hearths, and wounded soldiers still lay moaning on the ground, unattended, while others, exhausted by their endeavors, slept the sleep of the dead. Many dogs were roaming about, sniffing at corpses under clouds of vultures. While Florita was requesting details of the battle from some officers at Althaus’s command post, an envoy arrived from San Román. By consensus of the general staff, he explained, his superior’s promise to recognize Orbegoso as president could not be upheld: all his officers were opposed. Thus, action would begin anew. “Because of that cretin Nieto, we’ve lost a battle we had already won,” Althaus whispered to Flora. He gave her a mule to return to Arequipa and tell the family that the war was starting up again.

  Dawn found her laughing to herself in her miserable little room at the Hôtel du Gard at the memory of that battle, which proceeded from one mishap to the next on the way to its improbable conclusion. It was her third day in odious Nîmes, and at midmorning she had an appointment with the baker-poet Jean Reboul, whose poems had been praised by Lamartine and Victor Hugo. Would this bard, sprung from the world of the downtrodden, at last be the champion you needed to make the idea of the Workers’ Union take hold in Nîmes and wake its people from their slumbers? Not a chance. Jean Reboul, famous worker poet of France, was, she discovered, a vain and prideful man—vanity was the poets’ malady, Florita; it had been amply proved—whom she came to hate after spending ten minutes in his company. At one point she wanted to cover his mouth to silence his detestable flow of nonsense. He received her at his bakery and escorted her to the floor above. When she asked if he had heard of her crusade and the Workers’ Union, the conceited tub of flesh began to list the dukes, professors, officials, and teachers who had written him, praising his inspired vision and thanking him for all he had done for French letters. When she tried to explain about the peaceful revolution that would end discrimination, injustice, and poverty, the fatuous pig interrupted her with a declaration that rendered her speechless. “But that is precisely what our Holy Mother the Church does, madame.” Regaining her composure, Flora tried to enlighten him, explaining that all religious leaders—Jews, Protestants, and Mahometans, but especially Catholics—were allies of the exploiters and the rich because in their sermons they held out the promise of Paradise to keep suffering humanity resigned to its fate, when what was important wasn’t some improbable heavenly reward after death but the free and just society that should be built here and now. The baker-poet recoiled as if the devil himself had appeared before him.

  “You are evil, evil,” he exclaimed, performing a kind of exorcism with his hands. “And you thought to come to me for help, with a project opposed to my religion?”

  Madame-la-Colère finally exploded, calling Reboul a traitor to his origins, an impostor, an enemy of the working class undeserving of his high reputation, as time would make plain.

  The visit to the baker-poet upset her so much that she had to sit on a bench in the shade of some plane trees until she was a little calmer. Next to her, she heard a couple, both very excited, saying they were going that afternoon to hear the pianist Liszt at the municipal auditorium. A curious thing; she and the pianist had coincided at nearly every stop on her tour. He seemed to be following on your heels, Florita. What if that night you took a rest and went to hear him play? No, impossible. You couldn’t waste your time attending concerts like a bourgeoise.

  It was only a month later, in Lima, that she heard how the Battle of Cangallo had ended, from the Gamarrista colonel Bernardo Escudero, with whom she may have embarked on a romance in her final days in Arequipa (did you, Florita?). The memory obliterated all thoughts of Jean Reboul. What a story! The day after the interruption of hostilities between Orbegosistas and Gamarristas, General Nieto ordered his army to set out in search of the conniving San Román. He found the Gamarrista soldiers in Cangallo, bathing in the river and resting. Nieto fell upon them, and victory seemed at hand. But once again, errors aided San Román. This time, it was Nieto’s dragoons who mistook their target. Instead of firing their rifles at the enemy, they decimated their own artillery forces, even injuring Colonel Morán. Overwhelmed by what they imagined to be an unstoppable attack by the Gamarristas, Nieto’s soldiers turned and ran in wild retreat toward Arequipa. At the same time, not knowing what was happening on the other side, and believing himself lost, General San Román also ordered his troops to retreat by forced marches, in view of the enemy’s superior strength. In his flight, which was as desperate and ridiculous as Nieto’s, he didn’t stop until he reached Vilque, forty leagues away. The picture of the two armies running from each other with their generals at their heads, each believing it had been defeated, was something you would always remember, Florita—a symbol of the chaos and absurdity of life in your father’s country, that endearing caricature of a republic. Sometimes the memory amused you, as it did now now, seeming to represent on a grand scale one of those Molièresque farces of entanglements and misunderstandings that here in France were thought to unfold exclusively on the stage.

  The day after the battle, San Román learned that his rival had also fled, and once again he made an about-face and led his troops to occupy Arequipa. General Nieto had had time to enter the city, leave his wounded in the churches and hospitals, and with the troops still remaining to him, beat a retreat toward the coast. Florita said goodbye to her cousin, Colonel Clemente Althaus, with tears in her eyes. You suspected you would never see your darling blond barbarian again. You yourself helped pack his bags with changes of clean clothing, tea, bottles of bordeaux, and bags of sugar, chocolate, and bread.

  When the soldiers of San Román, the inadvertent victor of the Battle of Cangallo, entered Arequipa twenty-four hours later, the feared plundering did not ensue. A commission of notables, led by Don Pío Tristán, welcomed them with flags and bands of musicians. In pledge of his solidarity with the conquering army, Don Pío gave Colonel Bernardo Escudero a
donation of two thousand pesos for the Gamarrista cause.

  Did Colonel Escudero fall in love with you, Andalusa? You were sure he did. And you fell in love with him too, didn’t you? Well, maybe. But you were restrained by your better judgment before it was too late. According to the gossip, for the last three years, Escudero had been not only the secretary, deputy, and aide-de-camp but also the lover of the astonishing Doña Francisca Zubiaga de Gamarra, called Doña Pancha or La Mariscala, and the Virago by her enemies; the wife of Marshal Agustín Gamarra, ex-president of Peru, military leader, and professional conspirator.

  Which parts of La Mariscala’s story were truth, and which fiction? You would never be sure, Florita. The woman fascinated you, firing your imagination as no one ever had before; it might have been her warlike image, making her seem a character out of a novel, that awoke in you the determination and inner strength to become as free and forthright as in those days only men were allowed to be. La Mariscala had done it: why not Flora Tristán? She must have been the same age as you, perhaps thirty-three or thirty-four. She was from Cuzco, the daughter of a Spanish father and Peruvian mother; she met Agustín Gamarra, hero of Peru’s struggle for independence—he fought alongside Sucre at the Battle of Ayacucho—in Lima, in a convent where she had been placed by her parents. In love, the girl ran away from the convent to be with him. They married in Cuzco, where Gamarra was prefect. The twenty-year-old wasn’t the domestic, passive, child-bearing wife that most Peruvian ladies were, and were expected to be. She was her husband’s most effective collaborator, his brains and right hand in all matters political, social, and even—this especially enhanced her legend—military. She served in his place as prefect of Cuzco when he was traveling, and on one such occasion, she crushed a conspiracy, appearing at the headquarters of the conspirators dressed as an officer, carrying a bag of money and a loaded pistol. “Which do you choose? Will you surrender and share the contents of this bag among you, or fight?” They preferred to surrender. More intelligent, courageous, ambitious, and audacious than General Gamarra, Doña Pancha rode on horseback alongside her husband, always dressed in boots, trousers, and army jacket, and fought in battles and skirmishes like the boldest of warriors. She became famous as an excellent shot. During the conflict with Bolivia, it was she, at the head of the troops, with her boundless daring and rash courage, who won the Battle of Paria. After the victory, she celebrated with her soldiers dancing huaynos and drinking chicha. She talked to them in Quechua, and she knew how to swear. After that, her influence over General Gamarra was absolute. In the three years that he was president of Peru, Doña Pancha wielded the true power. She was said to be embroiled in intrigues and to treat her enemies with unprecedented cruelty, because she was as lacking in scruples and restraint as she was brave. It was also said that she had many lovers, and that she alternately pampered and abused them, as if they were dolls or lapdogs.