“The delegates from the section couldn’t decide a strike, we only had eight votes in the Federation,” Santiago said. “But with the Apristas we could. We had a meeting with them in a pool parlor. It started there, Carlitos.”
“I doubt that these guys will support the strike,” Aída whispered to Santiago. “They’re divided. Everything depends on Santos Vivero, if he agrees the rest will follow him. Like sheep, you know, whatever the boss says is fine.”
“It was the first big argument in Cahuide,” Santiago said. “I was against the sympathy strike; the one who headed those in favor was Jacobo.”
“All right, companions.” Saldívar clapped his hands twice. “Come closer, we’re going to begin.”
“It wasn’t just to go against Jacobo,” Santiago said. “I didn’t think we would get the support of the students, I thought it would be a failure. But I was in the minority and the idea carried.”
“Companions must apply to you people.” Washington laughed. “We’re all in the same place, but don’t get us mixed up, Saldívar.”
“Those meetings with the Apristas were like friendly soccer matches,” Santiago said. “They began with embraces and sometimes ended up with punches.”
“All right, companions and comrades, then,” Saldívar said. “Come closer or I’m going to the movies.”
A circle was formed around him, the laughs and murmurs died out. Adopting a sudden funereal gravity, Saldívar summed up the reasons for the meeting: tonight at the Federation they would discuss the petition for support of the streetcar workers, companions, to decide if we could bring off a motion together, comrades. Jacobo raised his hand.
“In the section we would rehearse those meetings like a ballet,” Santiago said. “Taking turns, each one developing a different argument, always knocking any contrary opinion down.”
His tie was hanging loose, his hair was uncombed, he was speaking in a low voice: the strike was a magnificent occasion to take over the students’ awareness. His hands hanging beside his body: to develop the student-worker alliance. Looking at Saldívar very seriously: to initiate a movement that could be extended to demands like the freeing of imprisoned students and political amnesty. He stopped speaking and Huamán raised his hand.
“I’d been against the idea of a strike for the same reasons as those expressed by Huamán, an Aprista,” Santiago said. “But since the section had agreed on a strike, it was up to me to defend it against Huamán. That’s called democratic centralism, Carlitos.”
Huamán was small and mannered, it had taken us three years to rebuild the centers and the Federation of San Marcos after the repression, his gestures were elegant, how could we start a strike for reasons that lay outside the university which might be rejected by our power base? and he spoke with one hand on his lapel and the other fluttering about like a butterfly, if the base rejected the strike we would lose the confidence of the students, and his voice was artificial, florid, shrill at times, and furthermore, repression would come and the centers and the Federation would be dismantled before they’d been able to operate.
“I know Party discipline has to be like that,” Santiago said. “I know that if it wasn’t there’d be chaos. I’m not defending myself, Carlitos.”
“Don’t get bogged down in details, Ochoa,” Saldívar said. “Stick to the point under discussion.”
“Exactly, precisely,” Ochoa said. “I ask: is the Federation of San Marcos strong enough to make a frontal action against the dictatorship?”
“Say what you’ve got to say, we haven’t got much time,” Héctor said.
“And if it isn’t strong enough and goes on strike,” Ochoa said, “what will the attitude of the Federation be? That’s my question.”
“Why don’t you get a job running the Kolynos program, ‘The Twenty Thousand Soles Question’?” Washington asked.
“Would it or wouldn’t it be an act of provocation?” Ochoa said imperturbably. “I ask a question and I give a constructive answer: yes, it would be. What? A provocation.”
“It was in the middle of those meetings that all of a sudden I felt I’d never be a revolutionary, a real militant,” Santiago said. “All of a sudden, anguish, nausea, a feeling of a horrible waste of time.”
“The young romantic didn’t want discussions,” Carlitos said. “He wanted epic actions, bombs, shooting, attacks on a military post. All stuff out of novels, Zavalita.”
“I know it bothers you having to speak in defense of the strike,” Aída said. “But you’ve got one consolation, all the Apristas are against it. And without them the Federation will reject our motion.”
“They should have invented a pill, a suppository to work against doubts, Ambrosio,” Santiago says. “Just think how beautiful, you stick it in and there you are: I believe.”
He raised his hand and he began to speak before Saldívar recognized him: the strike would consolidate the centers, it would fire up the delegates, the student base would give their support because hadn’t they shown their support for them by electing them? He kept his hands in his pockets and dug in his nails.
“Just the same as when I made the examination of my conscience on Thursdays before confession,” Santiago said. “Had I dreamed about nude women because I’d wanted to dream about them or because the devil had wanted it and I couldn’t stop him? Were they there in the dark as intruders or as invited guests?”
“You’re wrong, you did have the making of a militant,” Carlitos said. “If I had to defend ideas that were contrary to my own, all that would come out would be brays, grunts or peeps.”
“What are you doing on La Crónica?” Santiago asked. “What are we doing each one of these days, Carlitos?”
Santos Vivero raised his hand, he’d listened to the speeches with an expression of soft uneasiness, and before he spoke, he closed his eyes and coughed as if he still had his doubts.
“The omelet was flipped at the last minute,” Santiago said. “It looked as if the Apristas were against it, that there wouldn’t be any strike. Maybe everything would have been different, then, I wouldn’t have gone to work at La Crónica, Carlitos.”
He thought, companions and comrades, that the fundamental thing at this time was not the struggle for university reform, but the struggle against the dictatorship. And an effective way of fighting for civil liberties, the release of prisoners, the return of exiles, the legalization of parties was, companions and comrades, by forging the worker-student alliance, or, as a great philosopher had said, the one between manual and mental workers.
“If you quote Haya de la Torre again, I’ll read you the Communist Manifesto,” Washington said. “I’ve got it right here.”
“You’re like an old whore thinking back about her youth, Zavalita,” Carlitos said. “We’re different that way too. What happened to me as a boy has been erased for me and I’m sure that the most important thing is going to happen to me tomorrow. You seem to have stopped living when you were eighteen years old.”
“Don’t interrupt him, he might change his mind,” Héctor whispered. “Can’t you see he’s in favor of the strike?”
Yes, it could be a good opportunity because the companions on the streetcars were showing courage and fight, and their union wasn’t full of yellow dogs. The delegates shouldn’t follow their electorate blindly, they should show them the direction: wake them up, companions and comrades, push them into action.
“After Santos Vivero, the Apristas began to talk again and we talked again,” Santiago said. “We left the pool parlor in agreement and that night the Federation approved an indefinite strike of sympathy with the streetcar workers. I was arrested exactly ten days later, Carlitos.”
“Your baptism of fire,” Carlitos said. “Or rather, your death certificate, Zavalita.”
9
“MAYBE IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER if you’d stayed at the house, not gone to Pucallpa,” Santiago says.
“Yes, a lot better,” Ambrosio says. “But who could have known, son.”
See how pretty he talks, Trifulcio shouted. There was scattered applause in the square, horn-blowing, a few hurrahs. From the steps of the platform Trifulcio saw the crowd curling like the surface of the sea in a rainstorm. His hands were smarting, but he kept on clapping.
“First, who sent you to shout Long live APRA by the Colombian Embassy?” Ludovico asked. “Second, who are your buddies? And third, where are your buddies? Out with it, Trinidad López.”
“And, while we’re on it,” Santiago says, “why did you leave the house?”
“Take a seat, Landa, we stood long enough during the Te Deum,” Don Fermín said. “Take a seat, Don Emilio.”
“I was getting tired of working for other people,” Ambrosio says. “I wanted to try it on my own, son.”
Sometimes he shouted Long live Don Emilio Arévalo, sometimes Long live General Odría, sometimes Arévalo-Odría. From the platform they made signs to him saying don’t interrupt while he’s speaking, cursing under their breath, but Trifulcio didn’t obey: he was the first to start clapping, the last to stop.
“I feel like a hanged man in this stiff shirt,” Senator Landa said. “I wasn’t meant to wear full dress. I’m just a country boy, what the hell.”
“Come on, Trinidad López,” Hipólito said. “Who sent you, who are they, and where are they. Out with it.”
“I thought my old man had fired you,” Santiago says.
“Now I know why you didn’t accept Odría’s offer of the senate seat from Lima, Fermín,” Senator Arévalo said. “So you wouldn’t have to wear a full dress suit and a high hat.”
“What an idea, just the opposite,” Ambrosio says. “He asked me to stay on with him and I refused. See how wrong you’ve been, son?”
Sometimes he would go to the railing of the platform, face the crowd with his hands in the air, three cheers for Emilio Arévalo! and he himself would roar hurrah! three cheers for General Odría! and in a stentorian voice, hip, hip, hurrah!
“Parliament is fine for people who have nothing to do,” Don Fermín said. “For you people, landowners.”
“I’m all excited now, Trinidad López,” Hipólito said. “Now I really am excited, Trinidad.”
“I only got into this mess because the President insisted that I head up the ticket in Chiclayo,” Senator Landa said. “But I’m sorry already. I won’t be able to look after Olave. This goddamned stiff shirt.”
“How did you find out that the old man died?” Santiago asks.
“Stop your fooling, the senate seat has made you ten years younger,” Don Fermín said. “And you’ve got no reason to complain, in elections like these a person is glad to be a candidate.”
“In the newspapers, son,” Ambrosio says. “You can’t imagine how sorry I was. Because your papa was a great man.”
The square was boiling with songs, murmuring and shouts now. But when the voice of Don Emilio Arévalo came out through the microphone, it turned off the noise: it fell onto the square from the roof of the City Hall, the belfry, the palm trees, the park in the middle. Trifulcio had even set up a loudspeaker on the Hermitage of the Holy Woman.
“Hold it right there, the election may have been easy for Landa, who ran unopposed,” Senator Arévalo said, “but in my district there were two slates and it cost me half a million soles to win, which is no joke.”
“You see, Hipólito got excited and he whacked you,” Ludovico said. “Who was it, who are they, where. Before Hipólito gets excited again, Trinidad.”
“It’s not my fault that the other slate in Chiclayo had Aprista signatures on its petitions.” Senator Landa laughed. “The Electoral Court turned it down, I didn’t.”
What happened to the banners? Trifulcio said suddenly, his eyes full of surprise. He had his pinned to his shirt like a flower. He pulled it off with one hand, showed it to the crowd with a challenging gesture. A few banners here and there rose up over the straw hats and the paper hats many had made to protect themselves from the sun. Where were the others, what did they think they were for, why didn’t they bring them out? Quiet, boy, the man who gave the orders said, everything’s working out fine. And Trifulcio: they took their drinks, but they forgot about the banners, sir. And the man who gave the orders: leave them alone, everything’s fine. And Trifulcio: it’s just that the ungrateful bastards make me mad, sir.
“What did your papa die of, son?” Ambrosio asks.
“This election hurly-burly may have made Landa younger, but it’s turned my hair gray,” Senator Arévalo said. “I’ve had enough elections for a while. I’m going to get laid five times tonight.”
“A heart attack,” Santiago says. “Or from the rages I made him have.”
“Five?” Senator Landa laughed. “You won’t have any ass left, Emilio.”
“And now Hipólito’s got all aroused,” Ludovico said. “Oh, mama, now you’re really going to get it, Trinidad.”
“Don’t say that, child,” Ambrosio says. “Don Fermín loved you so much. He always said Skinny’s the one I love the best.”
Solemn, martial, Don Emilio Arévalo’s voice floated over the square, went down the unpaved streets, was lost in the planted fields. He was in shirtsleeves, waving his arms, and his ring flashed beside Trifulcio’s face. He raised his voice, had he become angry? He looked at the crowd: quiet faces, eyes reddened with alcohol, boredom, or heat, mouths smoking or yawning. Had he become angry because they weren’t listening?
“You’ve become infected from rubbing elbows with the rabble so much during the campaign,” Senator Arévalo said. “I hope you won’t make jokes like that when you speak in the senate, Landa.”
“So much that he went through hell when you ran away from home, son,” Ambrosio says.
“Well, the gringo gave me his complaints, this is what they were all about,” Don Fermín said. “The elections are over, it makes a bad impression on his government to have the opposition candidate still in jail. Those gringos believe in formalities, you understand.”
“Every day he went to your Uncle Clodomiro’s and asked about you,” Ambrosio says. “What do you hear from Skinny, how’s Skinny?”
But suddenly Don Emilio stopped shouting and smiled and spoke as if he was happy. He smiled, his voice was soft, he was moving his hand, he looked as if he were holding a muleta and the bull had passed by, brushing his body. The people on the platform were smiling, and Trifulcio, relieved, smiled too.
“There’s no longer any reason to keep him in jail, they’re going to release him any day now,” Senator Arévalo said. “Didn’t you tell that to the Ambassador, Fermín?”
“What do you know, you’ve started talking,” Ludovico said. “Or maybe you’d rather have Hipólito petting you than hitting you. What do you say, Trinidad?”
“And to the boardinghouse in Barranco where you were living,” Ambrosio says. “And asking the landlady what’s my son doing, how’s my son.”
“I don’t understand those shitty gringos,” Senator Landa said. “It seemed fine to them for Montagne to be put in jail before the elections, but now it doesn’t. They send us circus people for ambassadors, those people.”
“He used to go to the boardinghouse and ask about me?” Santiago asks.
“I told him that, of course, but last night I spoke to Espina and he has his doubts,” Don Fermín said. “We have to wait, if Montagne is let out now people might think he was put in jail so that Odría could win the elections without any opposition, that the business of the plot was all a lie.”
“That you’re Haya de la Torre’s right-hand man?” Ludovico asked. “That you’re the real headman of APRA and Haya de la Torre is your flunky, Trinidad?”
“Of course, son, all the time,” Ambrosio says. “He’d give the landlady a tip so she wouldn’t tell you.”
“Espina’s a hopeless dumbbell,” Senator Landa said. “He evidently thinks there’s someone who swallowed the tale of a plot. Even my maid knows that Montagne was put in jail to leave the field to Odría.�
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“Don’t kid us like that, pappy,” Hipólito said. “Do you want me to stick my prick in your mouth, or what, Trinidad?”
“The boss thought you’d get mad if you found out,” Ambrosio says.
“The truth is that arresting Montagne was a bad step,” Senator Arévalo said. “I don’t know why they allowed an opposition candidate if they were going to take a step backward at the last minute and put him in jail. The political advisers are to blame. Arbeláez, that idiot Ferro, and even you, Fermín.”
“You can see how much your papa loved you, son,” Ambrosio says.
“Things didn’t turn out the way they were expected to, Don Emilio,” Don Fermín said. “We could have had a scare with Montagne. Besides, I wasn’t in favor of putting him in jail. In any case, now we have to try to patch things up.”
He was shouting now and his arms were like those of a windmill, and his voice rose and thundered like a great wave that suddenly broke Long live Peru! A volley of applause on the platform, a volley on the square. Trifulcio was waving his banner, Long Live Don Emilio Arévalo, now a lot of banners did appear among the heads, Long Live General Odría, now they did. The loudspeakers scratched for a second, then they flooded the square with the National Anthem.
“I told Espina what I thought when he announced to me that he was going to arrest Montagne on the pretext of a plot,” Don Fermín said. “Nobody’s going to swallow it, it’s going to hurt the General, don’t we have people we can trust on the Electoral Court, at the polling places? But Espina’s an imbecile, no political tact.”
“So, the headman, so, a thousand Apristas are going to attack Headquarters and rescue you,” Ludovico said. “You think that by acting crazy you’re going to make fools out of us, Trinidad.”
“I’m not being nosy, but why did you run away from home that time, son?” Ambrosio asks. “Weren’t you well off at home with your folks?”
Don Emilio Arévalo was sweating; he was shaking the hands that converged on him from all sides, he wiped his forehead, smiled, waved, embraced the people on the platform, and the wooden frame swayed as Don Emilio approached the steps. Now it was your turn, Trifulcio.
Conversation in the Cathedral Page 18