Conversation in the Cathedral

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  “It’s the best thing that can happen to someone, Ambrosio,” Santiago says. “Believing in what he says, liking what he does.”

  “Why does APRA, which has become pro-imperialist, still get support from the people?” Aída asked.

  “By force of habit and by their demagoguery and because of the Aprista martyrs,” Llaque said. “Especially because of the right wing in Peru. They don’t understand that APRA isn’t their enemy anymore but their ally, and they keep on persecuting it and that’s why all the prestige with the people.”

  “It’s true, the stupidity of the right has made APRA a big party,” Carlitos said. “But if the left has never gone beyond being a kind of freemasonry, it hasn’t been because of APRA but because there haven’t been any capable people.”

  “Capable people like you and me don’t get involved,” Santiago said. “We’re content to criticize the incapable people who do. Do you think that’s right, Carlitos?”

  “I don’t, and that’s why I never discuss politics,” Carlitos said. “You force me to with your disgusting nightly show of masochism, Zavalita.”

  “Now it’s my turn to ask a question, comrades.” Llaque smiled, as if ashamed. “Do you want to join Cahuide? You can work as sympathizers, you don’t have to join the Party yet.”

  “I want to join the Party right now,” Aída said.

  “There’s no rush, you can take your time and think it over,” Llaque said.

  “We’ve had more than enough time for that in the group,” Jacobo said. “I want to join too.”

  “I’d rather keep on as a sympathizer,” the little worm, the knife, the snake. “I’ve got some doubts, I’d like to study a little more before I join up.”

  “Fine, comrade, don’t join up until you’ve got rid of all your doubts,” Llaque said. “As a sympathizer you can play a very useful role too.”

  “That’s when it was shown that Zavalita wasn’t pure anymore, Ambrosio,” Santiago says. “That Jacobo and Aída were purer than Zavalita.”

  And what if you had joined up that day, Zavalita? he thinks. Would militancy have pulled you along, getting more and more involved, would you have become a man of faith, an optimist, another pure person, dark and heroic? You would have had a hard life, Zavalita, the way Jacobo and Aída must have, he thinks, in and out of jail a few times, hired and fired from dirty jobs, and instead of editorials against mad dogs in La Crónica, you would have been writing for the poorly printed pages of Unidad, when there was enough money and the police didn’t stop you, he thinks, about the scientific advances in the socialist fatherland and the victory in the bakers’ union of Lurín’s revolutionary slate over that of the defeatist, pro-management Apristas, or in the even worse printed pages of Bandera Roja, against Soviet revisionism and the traitors of Unidad, he thinks, or maybe you would have been more generous and would have joined a rebel group and dreamed and acted and failed in guerrilla operations and you’d be in jail, like Héctor, he thinks, or dead and rotting in the jungle, like Half-breed Martínez, he thinks, and made semiclandestine trips to youth congresses, he thinks, Moscow, bearing fraternal greetings to journalistic meetings, he thinks, Budapest, or received military training, he thinks, Havana or Peking. Graduated as a lawyer, a married man, counselor to a union, a deputy, would you have been worse off or the same or happier? He thinks: oh, Zavalita.

  “It wasn’t horror over the dogma, it was the reflex of a two-bit anarchist child who doesn’t like to take orders,” Carlitos said. “Underneath it all you were afraid of breaking with people who eat and dress and smell well.”

  “But I hated those people, I still hate them,” Santiago said. “That’s the only thing I am sure of, Carlitos.”

  “Then it was the spirit of contradiction, the chip on your shoulder,” Carlitos said. “You should have stuck to literature and forgotten about revolution, Zavalita.”

  “I knew that if everybody set himself to being intelligent and having his doubts, Peru would go on being fucked up forever,” Santiago said. “I knew there was a need for dogmatic people, Carlitos.”

  “Dogmatic people or intelligent people, Peru will always be fucked up,” Carlitos said. “This country got off to a bad start and it’s going to end up bad. Just like us, Zavalita.”

  “Capitalists like us?” Santiago asked.

  “Scatographers like us,” Carlitos said. “We’re all going to explode and foam at the mouth, like Becerrita. To your health, Zavalita.”

  “Months, years dreaming about joining the Party, and when I get the chance, I draw back,” Santiago said. “I’ll never understand it, Carlitos.”

  “Doctor, doctor, I’ve got something that keeps on going up and down in me and I don’t know what it is,” Carlitos said. “It’s a crazy little fart, madam, you’ve got a face like an ass and the poor little fart doesn’t know which way to get out. The thing that’s upsetting your life is a crazy little fart, Zavalita.”

  Do you swear to dedicate your lives to the cause of socialism and the working class? Llaque had asked, and Aída and Jacobo I swear, while Santiago looked on; then they picked their pseudonyms.

  “Don’t feel left out,” Llaque said to Santiago. “Sympathizers and militants are on an equal footing in the University Section.”

  He shook hands with them, good-bye comrades, they should leave ten minutes after him. The morning was cloudy and damp when they left Matías’ bookstore behind and went into the Bransa on Colmena to have some coffee.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Aída said. “Why didn’t you join up? What doubts have you got?”

  “I talked to you about it once,” Santiago said. “I’m still not convinced about some things. I’d like …”

  “Are you still not convinced that God doesn’t exist?” Aída laughed.

  “Nobody has any right to argue about his decision,” Jacobo said. “Let him take his own time.”

  “I’m not arguing about it, but I’m going to tell you one thing,” Aída said, laughing. “You’re never going to join up, and when you finish at San Marcos you’re going to forget all about the revolution, and you’ll be a lawyer for International Petroleum and a member of the Club Nacional.”

  “You’ve got one consolation, the prophecy wasn’t fulfilled,” Carlitos said. “You’re not a lawyer and not a member of the Club Nacional, you’re not a proletarian and not a bourgeois, Zavalita. Just a poor little turd somewhere in between.”

  “What ever became of that Jacobo, that Aída?” Ambrosio asks.

  “They got married, I suppose they have children, I haven’t seen them for years,” Santiago said. “I learn about Jacobo’s existence when I read in the papers that he’s been arrested or just let out.”

  “You’re still jealous of him,” Carlitos said. “I’m going to forbid you to bring the matter up with me again, it does you more harm than drinking does to me. Because that’s your addiction, Zavalita: that Jacobo, that Aída.”

  “That thing in La Prensa this morning was horrible,” Señora Zoila said. “They shouldn’t print stories about atrocities like that.”

  Jealous because of Aída? Not anymore, he thinks. Because of that other business, Zavalita? He would have to see him, talk with him, find out if that sacrificed life had made him better or worse. He thinks: find out if his conscience is at rest.

  “You spend all your time complaining about crime and that’s the first page you read,” Teté said. “You’re awfully funny, mama.”

  He probably didn’t feel alone, at least, he thinks, but surrounded, accompanied, protected by people. That thing that was a little warm and viscous that he felt during discussions in the group and the cell and the section, he thinks.

  “Another child kidnapped and raped by a monster?” Don Fermín asked.

  “Ever since that day we saw even less of each other than before,” Santiago said. “Our groups became cells, so we kept on being separated. At the meetings of the section we were surrounded by people.”

  “You’re worse than
the newspapers,” Señora Zoila said. “You shouldn’t talk that way in front of Teté.”

  “But how many were there and what the devil were they doing?” Carlitos asked. “I never heard of Cahuide during Odría’s times.”

  “Do you think I’m still ten years old, mama?” Teté asked.

  “I never knew how many there were,” Santiago said. “But we did some things against Odría, at the university, at least.”

  “Isn’t anyone going to tell me what the piece of news that’s so horrible is?” Don Fermín asked.

  “Did they know at home what you were mixed up in?” Carlitos asked.

  “Selling his children!” Señora Zoila said. “Did you ever hear of anything as horrible?”

  “I tried to avoid seeing them and talking to them,” Santiago said. “Relations with my folks kept getting worse and worse.”

  Days, weeks without rain in Puno, the drought had destroyed crops, decimated livestock, emptied villages, and there were Indians painted against a backdrop of parched landscapes, Indian women walking across cracked furrows with their children on their backs, dying animals with open eyes, and the titles and subtitles appeared followed by a question mark.

  “They have feelings, but most of all they’re hungry, mama,” Santiago said. “If they sell them it must be so they won’t starve to death.”

  Slave trade between Puno and Juliaca under the effects of the drought?

  “What else did you do besides discussing newspaper editorials and reading Marxist books?” Carlitos asked.

  Indian women selling their children to tourists?

  “They don’t know what a child is, what a family is, poor simple animals,” Señora Zoila said. “If you don’t have enough to eat, you shouldn’t have children.”

  “We revived the Federated Centers, the University Federation,” Santiago said. “Jacobo and I were elected delegates from our classes.”

  “I don’t suppose you’re going to blame the government because it hasn’t rained in Puno,” Don Fermín said. “Odría is trying to help those poor people. The United States has made an important donation. They’re sending them food, clothing.”

  “The elections were a success for the section,” Santiago said. “Eight Cahuide delegates from Letters, Law and Economics. The Apristas had more, but if we voted together we could control the centers. The non-political people weren’t organized and it was easy for us to split them up.”

  “Don’t tell me again that the gift from the gringos will only line the pockets of the Odríists,” Don Fermín said. “Odría has asked me to head up the commission in charge of distributing the aid.”

  “But every agreement between us and the Apristas came at the price of endless arguments and fights,” Santiago said. “For a whole year my life was nothing but meetings, at the center, at the section, and secret meetings with the Apristas.”

  “He’ll probably say that you’re stealing too, papa,” Sparky said. “Superbrain thinks that everyone who’s respectable in Peru is an exploiter and a thief.”

  “Here’s another news item in La Prensa made to order for you, mama,” Teté said. “Two people died in the Cuzco jail and when they performed an autopsy they found shoelaces and the soles of shoes in their bellies.”

  “Why did you get so bitter over losing the friendship of that pair?” Carlitos asked. “Didn’t you have any other friends in Cahuide?”

  “Do you think they ate the soles of their shoes because they didn’t know any better, mama?” Santiago asked.

  “The only thing this sassy little boy hasn’t done is call me an imbecile and give me a slap, Fermín,” Señora Zoila said.

  “I was friends with all of them, but it was a functional friendship,” Santiago said. “We never talked about personal things. With Jacobo and Aída friendship had become kind of deep.”

  “Don’t you keep saying that the newspapers lie?” Don Fermín said. “Why does it have to be a lie every time they talk about government projects and the truth when they publish a horror story like that?”

  “You ruin lunch and dinner for us every time,” Teté said. “Do you always have to be looking for a fight, Superbrain?”

  “But I’ll tell you one thing,” Santiago says. “I never regretted going to San Marcos instead of the Catholic University.”

  “Here’s the clipping from La Prensa,” Aída said. “Read it so you can vomit.”

  “Because, thanks to San Marcos, I didn’t become a model student, a model son, or a model lawyer, Ambrosio,” Santiago says.

  “The drought has created an explosive situation in the South,” Aída said, “an excellent stew for agitators. Keep on reading, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

  “Because you’re closer to reality in a whorehouse than in a convent, Ambrosio,” Santiago says.

  “Garrisons should be alerted, the farmers who suffered damages should be watched closely,” Aída said. “They’re worried about the drought because there might be an uprising, not because Indians are dying of hunger. Have you ever seen anything like it?”

  “Because, thanks to San Marcos, I fucked myself up,” Santiago says. “And in this country a person who doesn’t fuck himself up fucks up other people. I don’t regret it, Ambrosio.”

  “It’s precisely because they’re filthy trash that these newspapers are a great stimulant,” Jacobo said. “If you feel demoralized, all you have to do is open up any one of them to bring back your hatred for the Peruvian bourgeoisie.”

  “So you might say that with our scatography we’re stimulating eighteen-year-old rebels,” Carlitos said. “So don’t let your conscience bother you so much, Zavalita. Look, even though it’s indirect, you’re still helping your ex-buddies.”

  “You’re making fun, but it just might be true,” Santiago said. “Every time I write something that’s repugnant to me, I make the article as disgusting as I can. Suddenly, on the following day a boy reads it and feels like throwing up and, well, something’s happened.”

  On the door was the sign Washington had spoken about. Dust completely covered the crude letters of “Parlor,” but the picture of the table, the cue, the three billiard balls stood out very clearly and there was also the sound of balls coming from inside: that was it.

  “Now it turns out that Odría is noble.” Don Fermín laughed. “Did you read El Comercio? He’s the descendant of barons, and so forth, and if he wants to, he can claim his title.”

  Santiago pushed open the door and went in: a half-dozen pool tables and, between the green velvet and the naked beams of the ceiling, faces dissolved in waves of smoke; a wire network hung over the table, the players kept count of their points with their cues.

  “What did that streetcar workers’ strike have to do with your leaving home?” Carlitos asked.

  He crossed the playing area, then another room with only one table being used, then a courtyard overflowing with garbage cans. In the back, beside a fig tree, there was a small closed door. Two knocks, he waited, then two more, and it opened at once.

  “Odría doesn’t realize that by allowing that kind of fawning he’s becoming the laughingstock of Lima,” Señora Zoila said. “If he’s noble, what can we be, then?”

  “The Apristas haven’t got here yet,” Héctor said. “Come in, the comrades are here already.”

  “Up till then our work had been on the student level,” Santiago said. “Collections for students in jail, discussions at the centers, the distribution of fliers, and Cahuide leaflets. That streetcar strike let us go on to greater things.”

  He went in and Héctor closed the door. The room was older and dirtier than the ones used for billiards. Four pool tables had been pushed up against the wall to make more space. The delegates from Cahuide were spread about the room.

  “What fault is it of Odría’s if someone writes an article saying that he’s noble?” Don Fermín asked. “Sharp people will think of anything to make a little money. Even invent family trees!”

  Washington and Half-breed M
artínez were standing and talking near the door, Solórzano was sitting on a table looking through a magazine, Aída and Jacobo had almost disappeared into the shadows of a corner, The Bird had made herself comfortable on the floor, and Héctor was peeping into the courtyard through the cracks in the door.

  “The streetcar workers’ strike wasn’t political, but for a pay raise,” Santiago said. “The union sent a letter to the San Marcos Federation asking for the students’ support. In the section we thought it was our great opportunity.”

  “The Apristas were told to come one at a time, but they don’t give a damn about security,” Washington said. “They’ll come in a gang the way they always do.”

  “Then call that fellow up and have him check our titles too,” Señora Zoila said. “Odría noble, that’s all we needed.”

  They arrived a few minutes later, in a group, just as Washington had feared, five of the twenty-odd Aprista delegates: Santos Vivero, Arévalo, Ochoa, Huamán and Saldívar. They mixed in with the Cahuide people, without taking a vote it was decided that Saldívar would run the meeting. His thin face, his bony hands, his graying hair gave him a responsible look. As always, before starting, they swapped jokes, sarcastic remarks.

  “In the section we agreed to try to have a strike at San Marcos in support of the streetcar workers,” Santiago said.

  “I can see now why you’re so worried about security,” Santos Vivero told Washington. “Because you’re all the redtails left in the country and if the cops come and arrest us, Communism will disappear in Peru. The five of us, on the other hand, are just one drop in the broad sea of Peruvian Aprismo.”

  “Anyone who falls into it won’t drown in water but in a sea of bourgeois snobs,” Washington said.

  Héctor had remained at his observation post by the door; they were all speaking in low voices, there was a continuous murmur, a fluffy sound, and suddenly a laugh would arise, an exclamation.