The Gringa

by Andrew Altschul

  “You’re happy, Profesora? You see what we get for all your fucking theory? Grandmothers! Lying there with their tits out. Little kids in the fucking hospital.”

  Julian looms over the kitchen table, red-faced, out of breath. He smacks a rolled copy of El Comercio on the edge of the table so Marta’s coffee sloshes over her cup. “Fucking fascists. You know why they do this? Because they can. Who’s going to stop them? You’re so busy with your political line, your pedagogy—”

  “Cálmate, hermano,” Marta says, face mild, as if confronting a lunatic. Chaski stands uncomfortably in the doorway, lowering his eyes when Leo looks his way. “We can’t react with emotions. Lenin said, ‘Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement—’ ”

  “Don’t quote Lenin to me,” Julian says, tossing the paper on the table. It unrolls to reveal front-page photos of President Clinton and Paula Jones. “And don’t call me hermano. I’m tired of your principles. I’m tired of talking. It’s time to act.”

  Leo opens the paper to the protest, impotence gnawing her gut as she reads. All the waiting has begun to dull her thoughts, shrink the revolution to something drab, academic—like the image before her, outrage reduced to a well-composed photo.

  “You don’t speak for everyone,” Julian says. “Chaski, oye—what do you think? We sit here and talk about shit, study Mariátegui?”

  Chaski looks up warily, like a lab animal whose cage has been suddenly thrown open. “Nothing can be accomplished if we’re always fighting with ourselves…”

  “Nothing’s being accomplished anyway,” Julian says. “You want more nothing? What about Neto and Juancito, man? You forgot about Los Muertos?”

  “We’re only a small group, compañero…”

  “Fidel had twelve men.”

  “We have eight.”

  Marta sets down her cup. “You see? Even your pet thinks you’re wrong. We talk to Miguel before taking any action,” Marta says. “That’s what was agreed. I will not let your ego put us all in danger—”

  “My ego? Who compares herself to Lenin—”

  With a sigh, Leo takes her cup to the sink and starts on the breakfast dishes. It’s too much, this sniping and glowering, this jockeying for control. After what was done to the Abuelitas, to Neto—it’s too small. Out the window, the gloom is drawing back, giving way to a rare, bright autumn day. What if she were to leave these dishes, this house, walk out into Pueblo Libre and keep walking? Would it change anything at all?

  “So what about you?”

  It takes a second for Leo to understand she’s been spoken to. She turns to find Julian close behind her, as close as the day he threw her into the street. Panic snatches at her thoughts but she forces herself not to shrink away.

  “What about me?”

  “I’m asking what you think, Soltera.”

  She sets her jaw, wills her voice to be steady—like Marta’s. “I think Soltera’s not my name. I think you should stop calling me that.”

  Julian lets out a laugh. “Okay, good, what else? You’ve got so many ideas. You’re always opening your mouth. So what now?”

  She stares into his eyes, their cold blue spiced with something restive. He needs her, she realizes, he’s asking for her help. The thought sends a subtle jolt up her spine. The others are watching, waiting for her answer. Upstairs, the metal door shivers. Someone calls for Marta in a low, impatient voice. Bill Clinton stares from the table, one stubby finger poking at the camera.

  “I think it’s an outrage,” she says, a little breathless with new power. She stands a bit straighter, holds Julian’s gaze. “I think something has to be done.”

  * * *

  —

  The first issue appeared on April 9, five hundred copies that found their way to newsstands in Lurigancho and Callao, to the San Marcos campus, and as far south as Los Arenales. Alvaro’s nephews handed them out at busy intersections. A twelve-page jumble of domestic and foreign news, old speeches by Castro and Haya de la Torre, a handful of photos, a semi-accurate timeline of the war. It was an amateurish production: dry and polemical, with dropped text, numerous typos, and the haphazard aesthetic of something thrown together in a rush. The front page bore the images of the Los Muertos Three and an interview with an anonymous eyewitness to the massacre; the back page offered the inciting editorial, quoted at Leo’s trial and in countless articles since:

  “The Cuarta Filosofía calls on all revolutionary forces, on workers everywhere, all people who love Peru: Rise up!”

  The editorial—a manifesto, really—was written by Comrade Julian and delivered to Leo, handwritten, on cocktail napkins from the Café Haiti. “Make it look good,” he told her. “And don’t change a single fucking word.” She’d put the issue together over two sleepless nights—it was urgent they respond quickly to the obscenity at the Palace of Justice, equally urgent that she finish before Julian reconsidered this new confidence in her. As she rode the bus to meet Josea, she turned the bulky computer disks over in her hands and tried to stifle a sense of pride. At last she’d done something tangible, something only she could have done. It was a group effort, she reminded herself—they were Marta’s photos; Chaski took care of the shopping while Leo worked—but as she stepped onto the sidewalk, avoiding eye contact with passers-by, she couldn’t help but feel larger, in some way more real.

  The satisfaction lasts only a day—long enough to hold the first copy in her hands, to accept the thanks of her comrades and collapse on her bedroll, already planning the next issue as she drifts off. Late that night, she wakes to the sound of Julian’s voice, disorientingly close in the dark:

  Open your eyes, he says. I’m trying to tell you something.

  She startles, drags herself sitting and feels for her glasses. The window is open, a night breeze rippling in the curtains. The air is moist and cool. It feels like a dream, the goosebumps tingling her arms, the echo of his voice too private, almost arousing.

  The dead are alive, he says. Los muertos viven. The blind can see…

  At last she finds her glasses, flings the blankets off and starts to reach for the light. That’s when she sees Marta sitting against the wall, knees pulled up, the transistor radio at her side.

  “What’s happening?” Leo whispers.

  It’s time to wake from these dreams, compañeros. It’s time to cast out the specter haunting Peru…

  Marta’s voice is clear and steady. “Your brave compañero is starting a war.”

  I was never able to locate a transcript of the speech Julian gave on Radio 2000, a few minutes before two a.m. on April 10. I can’t even be sure it was him. There was no recording, only a brief story in El Comercio two days later, referring to three “delinquents” who forced their way into the studio and “recited incoherent slogans.” But I find the coincidence of dates encouraging. Who else would it have been?

  I’ve imagined the speech here as a version of the manifesto. I’ve imagined Julian reading it straight off the page: the statistics on poverty, infant mortality, illiteracy, on the dead and missing of the unresolved war. Above all the indictment of the middle class, well-fed in their Lima enclaves while the rest of the country starved. It was their war, he insisted, an extermination of those whose humanity they couldn’t acknowledge, whose suffering they preferred not to see.

  I imagine Leo listening closely, knowing every word by heart, maybe mouthing along in admiration: How many thousands are listening? How many complacent people at last hearing the truth?

  A disgrace that has never ended. Nothing has changed, it has only been made invisible…

  History, politics. Someone had to make them see.

  He speaks of the Fatherland. But what kind of father tortures his children? What father throws his sons in dungeons and leaves them to die? Only when we rid ourselves of this cruel dictator will all Peruvians be free.

  The
re’s a shuffling of paper and a familiar voice starts translating in Quechua: Chaski. Marta breathes a low curse and turns on Leo an expression of resignation and displeasure—in a breath the implications come to her: They’ve declared themselves, there’s no turning back now, no way to know what comes next. Her first impulse is to protest, to apologize: she’d had nothing to do with it! She’d only done what she was told.

  But then she remembers: the gleam of triumph in Julian’s eye, the conspiratorial hand on her shoulder that morning in the kitchen. Something has to be done! She’d said it more than once. She’d blazed with indignation. The memory brings on a slight dizziness, a shiver of euphoria—a connection.

  Rise up, compañeros! Resume the struggle! It’s time for a new story. It is time to open your eyes!

  * * *

  —

  “Get back inside!” Julian says. “Now, goddammit.” He’s a shadow in the courtyard, moving with difficulty, half dragging another body toward the house. The moon is a nick in the corner of the sky, lights coming on in houses across the street. “Inside, Marta. And get her the fuck out of here.”

  At first Leo can’t see the other man’s face. Only when they cross the threshold does she recognize Chaski. His drawn cheeks and fevered eyes, the shine of vomit on his chin snatch her breath; the smell of sweat and adrenaline, the bloodstained rags trussed around one leg send her sprinting to the bedroom, chased by a string of Julian’s curses.

  She shuts the door and scans the sparse room—her books, some strewn clothing—tries to ignore the moans in the living room, the heavy thumps as they haul Chaski upstairs. She forces herself to focus: Where is her wallet? Her passport? The Sheraton, she thinks. She’ll go to the Sheraton. No one would look for her there. Marta can come, too. But what about the others? What about Chaski? What about all that blood?

  Something has to be done! It wasn’t what she’d meant. How was she to have known what he would do? But that makes no difference now, she thinks as she shoves clothes in a pillowcase, the American Express card in her pocket. She’s as responsible as he is. And what about the computer, shouldn’t she do something with the computer? There’s no way she can show up at the Sheraton like this. Rattled, her mind blank, she takes up the folder of photos, sits hard on her bedroll and lets it all scatter across the floor.

  There was a guard, Marta explains when she comes in a few minutes later. They’d tied him up, but somehow he escaped. The police got there just as Julian and the others were leaving. The bullet hit Chaski below the knee, she says. He’d lost blood, but it appears to have gone clean through. “There’s a doctor, a friend of Julian’s. One of the cumpas went to call him.”

  “Doesn’t he need a hospital?” But she already knows: he can’t be taken to a hospital. No one can see him, no one can leave the house. Marta is alert, energized, her voice tightly controlled. Staring at her comrade, Leo’s own actions come into shameful relief: just like in Los Muertos, her first instinct had been to run.

  Half an hour passes before Julian comes down. His eyes are still wild, his face shining with sweat. “Okay, I think it’s going to be okay,” he says, squeezing his forehead until his hand trembles. “Albert will be here soon. He’ll take care of it.”

  “No names,” Marta says.

  “The fucking guard!” He paces the room, pulls back the curtain. “I told Macho to knock him out. I told that asshole. Why the fuck…Jesus Christ, Chaski!”

  “You should have done it yourself,” Marta says.

  “I told Macho to do it—”

  “Macho was not the leader. You are the leader, compañero.”

  Abruptly, he stops pacing and looks up. For the first time Leo sees something vulnerable behind all that brashness and swagger—a child, she thinks, he’s a child who’s taken something too far. He wanted to see what would happen but now someone’s gotten hurt and he’s terrified of getting caught.

  “Where is Miguel’s truck?” Marta says.

  “On the next street.”

  “Get it out of here.”

  “But we need it—”

  “Take it to the airport. Or to the beach. Take the license plate. Listen to me: they’re looking for you now. They’re looking for all of us. And what was gained? A hundred drunks and taxi drivers? People who know nothing about socialism or armed struggle. All for the glory of Comrade Julian. I warned you about your ego,” she says, “but you didn’t listen.”

  Throughout this lecture, Julian stares at the floor, shaking his head as if to expel water from his ears. “Are you the leader?” Marta says now. When he doesn’t answer, she reaches for his arm. “Julian, asshole,” she says quietly, “are you the leader of this group?”

  With great effort, he raises his eyes. Slowly, he straightens, nodding. “Yeah, okay.” He takes a heavy breath. “Okay.”

  Leo, transfixed, watches from a great distance, as if they were actors on a stage. There’s sand in her throat, a buzzing in her ears, like a powerful drug wearing off. For a long moment no one speaks. It’s she who breaks the silence.

  “Where’s Macho?”

  She’d never heard the name before tonight, never laid eyes on the man who answered to it. Speaking it now, the name has a strange power, like an incantation from old parchment, a presence she’s conjured into the room.

  “Comrade Macho,” she says. “Where is he?”

  Julian’s answer is sober, tinged with disbelief. “Macho knew the risk.”

  For a long time she turns the words over in her mind, waiting for them to click into place. Her feet feel enormous, her legs iron bolted to the floor. But her head is light as helium, just a pair of eyes blinking at the bright room. A knock comes at the front door and Marta hurries to answer it, leaving Leo alone with Julian, who regards her without mockery, a little sadly, as if seeing her for the first time.

  “You said you wanted to be a part of this,” he says.

  Leo’s eyes slide across the photos on the wall, the old and young, the men and women and children caught forever in poses of abjection and endurance. Though their faces are familiar, she can’t recognize any of them, or guess where the photos were taken. She can’t quite remember what she’s doing here.

  “Yes,” she says, though she’s forgotten the question. She doesn’t know this person watching her, what he wants, what happens next. She knows nothing—the thought rings in her mind with the clarity of a glass bell. Somebody once told her she didn’t belong here. They said it had nothing to do with her, it wasn’t her story to tell. She should have listened to them. But she’s gone too far to turn back now.

  “Yes,” she says again, ignoring his puzzled look, shaking off the hand that reaches for her. She knows nothing, understands nothing. Except that she’s a long way—lifetimes away—from Cannondale. How had she gotten so far?

  “Yes, why not?”

  ANDRES

  I was a nomad, a stateless actor, a refugee from George W. Bush’s America. Amurka, he called it, flinty-eyed, squinting—a primitive place, Amurka, where trespasses are never forgiven, where arguments are always settled with fisticuffs, a lost eye avenged at the blade of a knife, a lost tooth repaid with your whole fucking head.

  Amurka: a place without history or memory, where it’s always morning, and to dwell on what you might have done last night—drunk and staggering, smashing bottles, molesting the wenches, pissing on the floor—would be a show of weakness, an impediment to your doing it again. And so when the bartender comes looking for you, or the wench’s father, what you do in Amurka, what you do if you’re a real Amurkan, is stand tall, double down, put up your dukes and spit right in the bastard’s eye.

  “We are all American,” my friends in Babilonia used to say. But Amurkan? That title is reserved for the kingdom’s rightful heirs: they who fear God and love Britney, who never met an assault rifle they didn’t like; who hacked their way across a continent, murdering, c
heating, infecting, and torturing the natives into submission; who imposed dominion upon a hemisphere, sucked its oil and gouged its gold, poisoned its aquifers, mined its harbors, assassinated its leaders and redrew its maps. It was Amurkans who named the animals, Amurkans who split the atom, who won the Cold War by threatening to extinguish us all. Don’t give me that nonsense about equality and fair play—Amurkans know cooperation is a sucker’s game. It interferes with profits. We have no truck with treaties, no time for old-world politesse: we take what we want by force or deception and woe unto your children’s children if you dare ask for it back.

  What I’d once been: a novelist, a skeptic, a conscientious objector—hardly an American to begin with, that is, subject to constant suspicion, to bafflement and revulsion at my lack of a mortgage and a jumbo TV. Barely tolerated, banished to the margins, I stood outside the fence and watched the unending carnival, the bright pink neon, the clown-grins and the whirl of heavy machinery. I listened to the shrieks of children, the haunting calliopes, smelled the treacle and the burning meat, ever torn between horror and longing, disapproval and loneliness and a clawing sense of failure.

  But one bright Tuesday morning I became something else: a naysayer, an outlier, one more obstacle for my country to roll over and pulverize on its way to war. Moments after the first tower fell you could feel it: the rough beast stirring under the ash cloud, itching to rip the sky asunder. Born ready, spoiling for a fight, he burst into the September light, shook off rubble, cast a blue eye far and wide in search of a target for his wrath. Someone would pay, someone would rue the day they’d fucked with Amurka—What are you lookin’ at, asshole?—stand back and watch what happens when you crash our party, when you make the connection.