The Gringa

  “I’m not really a journalist,” I said.

  He sighed, then pushed up a sleeve and thrust his arm at me. I felt his gaze on my head as I examined what looked, at first, like musical notation—lines and dots, thick swirls of scar tissue twining their way up the skin.

  “Do you think La Leo has scars like this? Do you?” he shouted. There was something insincere in his anger; like the speech that preceded it, the outburst was a kind of performed intimidation, an impression of a militant, maybe of Abimael himself.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. And I was. But I was desperate to change the subject, to extract myself from this unpleasant encounter. Sensing this, Quintana pulled down his sleeve. His eyes blinked slowly behind the thick lenses.

  “How is Damien Cohen, the faggot?” he said, dropping heavily to the couch and picking up his mug of tea. “Still writing lies for the imperialist dogs?”

  * * *

  —

  A biology professor whose lab had burned when members of Sendero and Cuarta Filosofía argued over the revolutionary significance of cell mutation. A laundress whose husband and son were killed in a government raid. A left-wing congressman who’d gone into hiding in Bolivia for seven years. A retired Bayer executive who’d been kidnapped and ransomed by the MRTA. A librarian who was kicked out of his “study group” because the leader wanted to sleep with his girlfriend—a week before the group was wiped out by the army. A British journalist whose Peruvian husband was pulled from their car one night on the road to Huancayo and never seen again.

  Once I got started, there was no shortage of people to interview, each with their own version of the war. By the end of two weeks I’d recorded more than twenty hours’ worth, a catalog of outrage and loss that I couldn’t bring myself to transcribe. Everyone wanted to teach me the same history, to relitigate the war by recitation of uncontestable facts—but one man’s facts were another’s paranoid fantasy, one woman’s convulsions of grief another’s “collateral damage.”

  I met them in city parks, in Papa John’s pizzeria, in marble foyers and windowless offices that stank of tobacco. I went to neighborhoods of flower-lined boulevards and clothing boutiques; others where toothless women sat on crates and boys kicked plastic bottles down unpaved streets. I did not belong in these places—I felt this so acutely I could hardly speak. I sat and listened and arranged my face in the proper expressions and then I went home and tried to fit what I’d heard into five thousand words. I wrote dozens of first paragraphs. I tried to make an outline, to channel the flood into something straightforward and discrete—but the thought of choosing between horrors, highlighting the most gruesome or redemptive or instructive, seemed ridiculous, a sacrilege. Was one person’s tragedy worth less than another’s? How could I write any of it without writing all of it?

  “For Christ’s sake just get started,” Jack said. “Don’t give me the history of Peru. Nobody’s gonna click on that!”

  “But they want to know why. They want to understand her.”

  “Yeah, as a person, dude. A terrorist. Not some history class. Not a piece of a huge puzzle. Who’s got time for that?”

  But a tiny piece of a puzzle is exactly what she was. You couldn’t tell where she fit until you saw the whole picture, but once you did you had to squint to see her. Like Icarus in Breugel’s painting: just a pair of pale, drowning knees. Jack wanted a cover girl, a protagonist. I didn’t know how to make her so large without making everything else too small.

  “It must seem incredible to you. Like savages. Telling this to you I feel I must apologize for my country.” I sat in a high-backed leather chair in the Sheraton bar with Aníbal Rausch, a courtly physician in his early sixties. “One must think of it as a kind of infection, a fever. Any small incident serves as the pathogen. It enters the bloodstream and provokes a massive response from the immune system.”

  He crossed his legs and bounced a tasseled loafer up and down, hands flat on the arms of the chair. He had long, hollow cheeks and a too-prominent jaw. A cane with a gold horse’s head for a handle lay by his chair. “This is why, afterward, it is difficult to remember,” he said. “As with a fever. The body does what it must to heal itself.”

  Rausch had been arrested in Huánuco, in 1989, after being named by a convicted terrorist whose sentence was reduced for identifying others. He was taken to the military barracks at Los Cabitos, where he was interrogated for three weeks, hung naked by the wrists from a water pipe, electrodes attached to his scrotum and nipples, and beaten. Though there was no other evidence against him, he was convicted of aiding Sendero and spent two years in prison. Now he ran a private women’s clinic in San Isidro. He recounted his ordeal in the low, deliberate voice of one who has told the same story many times, refining it over the years to its most effective form.

  “Did you ever think of leaving Peru?” I asked.

  His hands rose briefly and settled again. “This is my country. What one man or a hundred men did cannot change that.”

  “But it wasn’t just those men. It was the whole system.”

  His foot stopped its nervous bouncing and he turned his gaunt face to me. Not for the first time, I felt a steep disorientation, the surreal disconnect between Rausch’s creaky dignity and the savagery he described. It was everywhere in these stories, from Abimael, the learned professor who goaded his followers to “cross the river of blood,” to the generals and cabinet ministers, educated in Europe and the U.S., who shed tears at Mass before giving the order to wipe their enemies from the earth.

  “There is no such thing as a system,” Rausch said. He pressed a large, spotted hand on my leg. “Even in the body, what we perceive as a system is in fact separate cells or organs with no awareness of one another.”

  I looked around the bar at the boisterous professionals and pale tourists. I stirred my drink. He was trying to tell me something. “Were you…um, associated? In any way?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “With the Shining Path?”

  “I’m sorry. I have to ask.”

  He considered this. With a graceful gesture, he pointed to the television above the bar, where a Pentagon official was giving a briefing, something about a village in Pakistan that had been blown to bits. “Tell me, Andres, are you associated with this?

  “Associations are never so clear,” he said. “The truth is there are only people, each acting according to his desires and according to his conscience. Perhaps others act similarly. Still others benefit from these actions in one way or another. One might call this an association, or a community. But the community is only the expression of those acts, as the sea is turned red by the presence of certain organisms. It does not create those organisms.”

  He reached for his cane and levered himself out of the chair. When he was standing before me, he offered his hand.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I said, trying to hide my frustration. I was tired of performances, gnomic pronouncements. I’d been there for three weeks.

  The doctor smiled and patted me on the shoulder. Then he made his way through the crowd, nodding to the other patrons as though they were there at his sufferance. I lost him a moment later, drawn again to the news flashing above the bar: bandaged children, charred corpses hanging out of jeeps. Over the years I’d grown numb to such images, but Rausch’s question had renewed their urgency. I couldn’t turn away. In the background, a huddle of men argued and glared straight at the camera, as if they could see us all on the other side. The Pentagon spokesman denied there were civilian casualties.

  * * *

  —

  Lucrecia called almost every day, hanging up after one ring so I knew to call back. On the phone her voice was deeper, more intimate, as if we’d somehow grown closer, though in fact everything was tangled and uncertain between us.

  “Amor, I miss you,” she’d say.

  “It’s okay,” I’d tell her. “Everything’s fine
.”

  She’d finally gone to a clinic, an hour’s bus ride from her barrio, where a doctor examined her for less than a minute, then scowled and handed her a box of vitamins.

  “I am so bad. A bad woman. I am a disgrace,” she said. Her mother always told her never to date a gringo but she’d been too stupid to listen. “She will never forgive me,” she moaned. “God will never forgive me. Why I don’t listen to everybody?”

  “These things happen. You’re not stupid. We’ll figure it out.”

  I shoved aside a stack of case studies from Human Rights Watch and lay back on the bed. Part of me wanted to comfort her, for her to know she could count on me. But we hardly knew each other. I couldn’t forget Ronaldo’s face as he stormed up the stairs of La Luna—the hard anger in his eyes, the arms flexed for violence. It bothered me to think she’d been with someone like that. It made me wonder which was the real Lucrecia and which was an act.

  “You love me, Andres, ¿sí o no?”

  “Of course.”

  “¿Sí o no?” she said with sudden force.

  “Lulu, calm down,” I said. “I’ll be back soon, and we’ll take care of everything.”

  Her vehemence depleted, she sniffled, “Only one more week? You promise?”

  “One more week,” I said. I grabbed the voice recorder and cigarettes. I had an appointment at noon, another at one-thirty. I was going to be late. “Maybe two.”

  * * *

  —

  On a Friday night, nearly a month after I arrived in Lima, Damien insisted I go dancing with him and Carlito. “Mark says you are the King of Salsa,” he said, peering into the guest room, “but all we’ve seen is smoking and writing. Even the Muse needs diversion, Andres.”

  This seemed an excellent idea, a reprieve. The endless research had done little to bolster my confidence; the deeper I got, the longer and harder it seemed I’d need to dig. That morning I’d resolved to start writing. I’d cancelled my appointments, spent an hour reviewing my notes. But when I finally opened the computer I got lost in the news: the disintegrating economy, those children in Pakistan, bodies burned beyond recognition.

  El Castillo perched above the bright Paseo de la República, the city’s main north-south artery. A line of taxis and black sedans crawled up the drive. Damien paid my cover, and as the bouncers frisked us I felt acutely aware of my hiking boots and frayed jeans. With its roped-off booths and uplit shelves, an enormous Inca sun suspended over the dance floor, the club belonged to a different world than the one I’d been living in. The martinis Damien ordered came in sleek goblets, with skins of ice that glowed pale blue.

  Until then I’d had little conversation with Carlito, an attorney for an investment bank whom Damien, ten years his elder, described affectionately as “a rich snob from a fallen family.” Carlito was slim and handsome, with well-coiffed hair and a hawk’s watchfulness. His attitude toward me had been one of polite tolerance, as if I were a repairman whose job was taking much longer than expected. He and Damien had not spoken in the taxi. They seemed at pains to avoid each other’s eyes.

  “So, Andres,” he said now, with forced enthusiasm, “your work is going well?”

  I tried to sound nonchalant. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  He blinked at me, then at Damien. Behind him, early dancers chased one another around the floor. “It seems very difficult to be a writer,” he said, smiling into his martini. Damien gave a long sigh, the sound of an indulgent parent well familiar with such behavior.

  “I hope I’m not in your way,” I told Carlito. “I didn’t expect to stay this long. The story’s more complicated than I expected.”

  He lit a cigarette and looked me over, like a tailor deciding where to stick the pins. “But Peru is not a complicated country. I’ll explain it to you,” he said. “In this country, you must consider everything to be an accident or a mistake. Everything is ruined by the stupidity of Peruvians.”

  “Amor…” Damien groaned.

  “In this country only the worst ideas survive. Everything else is too difficult for the people to understand.” Over the years I’d heard many limeños talk this way: Peruvians were dishonest, incompetent, they were all drunkards and thieves. It went without saying which Peruvians they meant. “But you already knew this, Andres,” he said. “You are medio-peruano, no?”

  I laughed warily, caught in a too-bright spotlight. “Maybe un cuarto.”

  Carlito showed his perfect teeth. “Which cuarto?”

  “Shall we dance, minino?” Damien said, standing abruptly.

  “But we’re talking, amorcito,” Carlito said, never taking his eyes off me. “I’m getting to know our friend, as you asked. So, which cuarto, Andres? True, your Spanish is passable. And I’m told you are the King of Salsa. But surely there’s more? Surely you’ve learned something about Peru other than bricheras and war?”

  He fished his olive from his glass and popped it into his mouth. “You are a writer,” he went on. “Have you read the great Peruvian writers? Vargas Llosa? Bryce Echenique? Do you know the poems of César Vallejo? And what about younger writers? I assume you take an interest in our literary culture. Perhaps I can make some introductions for you.

  “And of course you’ve travelled widely—Trujillo, Arequipa, Amazonas? Have you gone to Madre de Dios, or the Festival de Qollur Rit’i? Have you seen the Nazca Lines? Someone so interested in our country must want to see these places. Don’t tell me you’ve only stayed with the other gringos of Babilonia?”

  His smile was thin, one eyebrow raised to the level of maximum torment. I took a gulp of the martini and grimaced at the gin’s cold burn. “I’m not a tourist,” I managed.

  “Then what are you?”

  I opened my hands, surprised by the heat in my throat. Damien, too, was paralyzed, unable to come to my rescue. “I just like it here,” I said lamely. “I’m just tired of living in a country that embarrasses me.”

  Carlito watched me a long moment. His smile softened. I almost saw a glimmer of pity. “So instead you write what embarrasses us.”

  Before I could think of a response, a woman in black pants and a silky copper top strode up to our table, beaming. Damien’s relief was extravagant. “Ah!” he cried, nearly tripping over his chair. “Here she is!”

  They embraced and traded half a dozen air kisses. She had long, straight hair and high cheekbones, round eyes with fine lines at the corners. For a heart-skipping instant, I thought it was Lucrecia.

  “Andres, I want you to meet Yesenia, a dear old friend,” Damien said. “Yesenia, here is the new friend I told you about.”

  “He is the King of Salsa,” Carlito added.

  Yesenia looked between them with a puzzled smile, then held out a slender hand to me. “Mucho gusto,” she said, her voice dubious but willing to be proven wrong.

  * * *

  —

  We danced for a few songs—long enough for me to step on Yesenia’s feet half a dozen times, to nearly drop her when I tried a dip. She was kind enough not to show annoyance. She lifted my hands to her shoulders and took the lead, counting to herself as we drifted to the edge of the floor. After a farcical collision with another couple, she asked if I’d like to go up to the roof.

  “I haven’t been dancing in a while,” I said when we were leaning on the rail, the city laid out before us. “I’m usually a little smoother.”

  Yesenia crinkled her eyes and sipped her drink. “You are the king.”

  “Standards are lower in Babilonia.”

  “Ah, Babilonia…” she said, with a knowing, devious smile. “This is where you live?”

  Lima twinkled all around us, its brightness contained by the ring of dark mountains, the ocean to the south and west. I was mildly drunk but wide awake, determined to shake off my mood. Yesenia was pretty and high-spirited, with an easy sophistication. Her nearness, her slight shiver,
brought an immediacy to everything, a crystal sense of now. It felt good to be standing on that roof, my sweat cooling, music vibrating from below. Here, at least, was something I knew how to do.

  “Damien says you are a writer?” she said.

  “A novelist,” I said, feigning reluctance. “Nothing like the great Damien Cohen.” She asked what I was working on, and I started to tell her about The Moon Also Rises, about the nonstop revelry of expatriate life. I stopped when I saw her confusion.

  “He told me you are writing about the war.”

  In a breath my euphoria deflated, as if I’d been accused of some perversion. The argument with Carlito hadn’t worn off, the feeling of having been undressed before strangers. He was right, of course—in three years I’d seen very little of the country. Someone—I couldn’t remember who—had given me a copy of Vargas Llosa’s Conversations in the Cathedral, but I didn’t like to read in Spanish so it sat on my windowsill year after year, its cover blanching in the sharp light.

  “I’m trying to write about Leonora Gelb,” I admitted. “It’s not going very well.”

  As she watched me over her drink, I felt the night slipping away. I’d thought to spend an hour talking about something other than politics and slaughter, but politics and slaughter wouldn’t leave me alone. It was a setup, but not the kind I’d first assumed: Damien hadn’t wanted me to meet an eligible female, he’d wanted to give me a source.

  Yesenia had grown up in San Borja, in a middle-class family of teachers and government functionaries. Like most limeños, they’d paid little attention to the war. They read stories, or saw things on TV, but there seemed to be no reason for the carnage, and no relevance to their own lives.

  “The blackouts and the curfew, only things like this bother us. Some girls have to cancel their quinceañeras,” she said, rolling her eyes. “What a tragedy!”