The Gringa

by Andrew Altschul

  4

  She remembers Victor Beale. On the coldest nights in El Arca, when the air threatens to crack and shatter, Leo pictures his battered face, his swollen hands, the sores that covered his neck and torso. She sees him shivering in his underground cell, made crazy by darkness, by the scurries and crawlings of invisible creatures. For two months he languished in that cell, howled there, pissed and shit there. How he must have longed for a glimpse of his captors, for even the roughest word—though he feared them, hated them, hated himself for this weakness. Over time even that hatred ebbed, leaving only the primal, babbling need: to be seen, touched, gathered together. To know he was still alive.

  She never laid eyes on him. And yet she can imagine the reek of his terror, feel the dehumanizing agony of his solitude. How easy it is, in the end, to empathize. Too easy, she knows: What can her empathy do for him now?

  In articles about her arrest and trial, in Gorriti’s history of the Cuarta Filosofía, Beale’s name is always mentioned. At her retrial, the prosecutor described the appalling conditions in which he was held. “El Arca is a resort hotel compared to what Victor Beale endured,” he said. But the link between Leo and Beale has never been clear. His story is evoked not as evidence but as atmosphere, a bit of gruesome mood music. There’s no way I can leave it out of the story. But it’s up to me to make the connection.

  The scion of a wealthy Arequipa family, Victor Beale Ocampo was a deputy director of the InterAmerican Development Bank, which in the 1990s provided Peru with nearly $4 billion in loans. The IDB was a key driver of the so-called Washington Consensus, under which countries throughout the developing world were forced to privatize major industries, weaken labor unions, eliminate subsidies and tariffs. In Peru as elsewhere, foreign investment soared, GDP rose, hyperinflation was brought under control; but the gains benefited few outside the elite: by 1998, wages were less than half what they’d been a decade earlier, and the poverty rate remained well above 50 percent.

  In May, 1998, the IDB and the Ministry of Economy and Finance announced a $350 million initiative to build new hydroelectric stations in the south of the country. An exposé in Caretas revealed that one of the plants was to be built on land belonging to the Beale family, for which they would be compensated twenty million soles, or nearly seven million dollars. Such a cozy arrangement would have elicited hardly a shrug—Peruvians of every class had long since accepted corruption as part of the national genome—had not Victor Beale disappeared soon after the article was published.

  On June 10, the night desk editor of El Comercio received a phone call from someone identifying himself as “a professor of philosophy.” The caller dictated a message, which ran in the next day’s paper. “For the crime of theft, a hand must be amputated,” it said. “A cancer must be cut out with the sharpest of knives.” It demanded that the sale of the Beale family’s land be cancelled, the parcel redistributed to tenant farmers, the twenty million soles given as ransom. The President refused to negotiate. He vowed to pursue Beale’s captors “to the end of time.”

  They hadn’t told her. When she saw Beale’s picture on the TV in the bodega—young and handsome, with a prominent brow and an expensive suit—that was the first thing that came to mind. He reminded her of her brother and his groomsmen, all confidence and oblivious charm, the world ever bending itself to their expectations. But her comrades hadn’t told her—just as they hadn’t told her about Radio 2000, or the cumpas’ arrival, or anything about their plans. From the first she’s been cut out of the discussion, consulted only regarding the most menial tasks. Only Miguel seemed to recognize her value: an asset, he’d called her. But where is Miguel now?

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks Marta that night. She stands at the front door, blocking Marta’s way out. “Didn’t you think I should know about this?”

  “Let me pass, compañera.”

  “The whole country is looking for him, Marta. I had a right to know.”

  “Again you talk of rights?”

  Above and around them, the house is listening. Without looking up, Leo can sense Chaski at the top of the stairs. It’s the first time since the night at the golf club that she’s exchanged more than two words with Marta. If Leo had believed that her heroism would be rewarded with trust, that she’d at last be admitted to the inner circle, she was wrong. Nothing has changed—only the intensity of her anticipation, the frustration of endless, uneventful days, not knowing what was happening, even in other parts of her own house.

  “I need to leave, Linda,” Marta says, trying to step around her. “Let me pass.”

  “I want to know where you’re going.”

  She’s answered by the same unblinking expression—too familiar. In a rage Leo flings the newspaper at Marta’s feet. “I’m sick of being left out of everything. I’m sick of being told you don’t need me. You needed me at the Conquistador’s Club, didn’t you?”

  Marta bends to gather up the newspaper, holds it out until Leo, abashed, takes it back. “I already told you. If you want to leave, leave,” Marta says. She pulls Leo aside and steps past. “Why are you so angry, compañera? Finally something is happening. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  * * *

  —

  Something is happening. Though she’d known nothing about it someone has done something—and it dawns on her now that she never really believed anyone would. The months of secrecy, the fiction of the art school, the tedious rote of the cumpas’ training—at times she’d half-believed it was all an act, a game they’d all indulged in together. Like the incidents in “The Scorecard”—a bodega robbery, a military garrison vandalized, a hold-up on the Cuzco bus. She’s written of such things with revolutionary braggadocio, described them as great victories, precursors to war.

  And what if they were?

  For the next few days the thought plagues her, scratching at her awareness like a specter: What if all along the war were being revived, blows being struck, while she’s spent months on errands, housework, oblivious to it all? It disorients her, this opening of possibility, of another story running parallel to her own; it tilts the ground she walks on. She remembers the vision she’d once had—of a city dotted with houses like this one, people like her and Marta, preparing to change the world. How fanciful she’d been then, driven by grief and wishful thinking, by the romance of resistance. How sober and disquieting that vision seems, now that it’s real.

  Needing to steady herself, to focus, she throws herself back into the newspaper, scribbling notes and queries in the middle of the night. The clack of her fingertips on the keyboard, the concreteness of images returns her, for a few hours, to the world of presence. She rides buses all morning in search of photos, alights on random corners, talks to vendors in a reeking fish market in Callao, tourists in Miraflores jewelry boutiques, surfers at the Playa Redondo. But the specter never quite leaves her; on the street she moves with new vigilance, a heightened attention to her words and gestures. Out of body—in every part of Lima she feels watched, evaluated, but she knows the observer is herself.

  For the first time since February, she goes back to the Hostal Macondo and interviews Ricky, who tells her about growing up in Pucallpa during the war, about his uncle, Carlos “The Eagle” Poma, a notorious rondero who went on to become vice governor of the Ucayali region. Later, she climbs to the roof and peers into the dim closet where she’d once lived, long since reclaimed by mops and old blankets. She leans on the slate wall and takes in the city’s torpid sprawl. Six months, she thinks—half a year since Neto died. She remembers the signal—the burning number 4 that lit up the night—and how she’d told herself, without entirely believing, that it was meant for her eyes. Someone had seen it, she thinks. But who?

  That night she types up what she remembers of Chaski’s story: Sendero’s arrival in his village, the army’s rampage, his experiences in the camp and on the streets of Lurigancho. Where he gave n
o description she adds vivid detail—the stray dogs who ate his parents’ tongues, the face of a village girl who was raped by a soldier. Where something reads as counterrevolutionary—the rondero’s wife who bought clothes and toys for the orphans; the business class Chaski enrolled in after Tarata—she leaves it out. She brings herself nearly to tears thinking of the innocent boy he once was, the wounded man he’s become—and of the secret he’s kept from everyone in the house but her. After an hour of tinkering she lays out this narrative of injustice and noble suffering—the tale of a promising life abused and discarded by the social order—on page three, under the headline ¿Por qué Lucho? or Why Do I Fight?

  With one last column to fill she pens her masterpiece: “The Banker: A Fable.” It’s the story of “Vincente Bell,” a mid-level bureaucrat in the “Bank of Washington” who concocts a scheme with his cronies to get rich by selling worthless land for an unnecessary construction project. “Everyone wins!” Bell declares, to which one crony adds, “Everyone who matters.” One morning, walking from his mansion to a waiting limousine, Bell is seized by a group of “brave fighters” and taken to the campo, where he spends years planting potatoes and digging wells, learning firsthand “the superiority of this life […] the cruelty we have heaped upon such undeserving victims” before returning to Lima to fight for justice for the people he once exploited.

  It’s no Moby-Dick, but it will do. She’s especially pleased with her research, having used details of Victor Beale’s actual house in Barranco, and the building in San Isidro where the IDB has its offices. It has the ring of authenticity, the logic of the real—rereading the story, Leo has to remind herself it’s not true. The descriptions and dialogue have lodged in her mind, images of things that never happened, whole scenes easily mistaken for memories.

  But they could have happened—that’s what matters. They feel true. No one reads The Eyes of the World for a factual account of history. You don’t motivate people with facts, you motivate them with stories: people’s experiences, their tragedies, their pain. What matters is that logic, that authenticity. Who even knows what the facts are? Had Neto’s killers worried about facts? Was El Comercio objective when it described Beale’s captors as “criminals and traitors”? It’s exhilarating, this new approach, a liberation. Let others waste their time chasing what “really happened”—The Eyes of the World will offer a better story, a more coherent reality. It will tell a greater truth.

  * * *

  —

  “You need to arrange a new drop,” Josea says. “Tell Marta. Álvaro doesn’t want the packages coming to his store anymore.”

  “Did something happen?” Leo says.

  Josea shrugs, watching her over the rims of his eyeglasses. Behind him, the café mutters and clinks with mid-day traffic; well-dressed women squawk over cappuccinos. As always at these brief rendezvous, she feels herself relaxing into his easy humor, his air of wantonness. Her sense of urgency softens and for a moment she’s just a twenty-six-year-old woman having coffee with an older man. A single woman—when was the last time she went on a real date? How long has it been since she’s taken a man to bed? Before she can stop herself, she pictures Josea and Marta as young lovers, younger than she is now, and shifts in her seat. Conspiracy, it turns out, is an aphrodisiac. Since the night at the Conquistador’s Club, she’s wanted to fuck every man she sees.

  “Álvaro is superstitious,” he says, half-turning to watch the pedestrians outside. “He has a store to protect, customers, merchandise. He’s a businessman. Without a doubt he’s the smart one.”

  “Chaski told me he survived a massacre. During the war.”

  Wincing, he removes his glasses and cleans them with a paper napkin. “Everyone survived something. If they didn’t die, they found a new way to live. We had no choice. Even an animal stops fighting when he knows he can’t win.”

  “No one stops fighting. Not if it’s for their lives.”

  Josea laughs at this. “You, too, amiga? Whose life are you fighting for?”

  She puts down her cup, bristling at the old accusation. “That’s the wrong question and you know it. That’s how we lose. The point is to keep fighting. La lucha es lo importante.”

  “Lower your voice, mija,” he says, leaning toward her—close enough for her to smell the sweet leather of his cologne. “Listen to me. Álvaro has a point. This thing with the IDB asshole, Beale, this kidnapping. I don’t want to know anything about it. It doesn’t matter who did what—you’ve got their attention now. And if they decide…” He trails off, some old anguish fleeting through his gaze. “Mira, Leo. It’s different now. Things are more open. The government feels more secure, so they allow demonstrations, things like this, up to a point. A newspaper is one thing—”

  “We aren’t demonstrators.”

  “Then who are you? What are you doing?”

  Leo bites her lip, furious at this condescension. “When you need to know, you’ll be told, compañero. Until then, you just need to follow instructions.”

  It’s a deliberate provocation, but Josea only smiles and sips his beer. “Tell me, who’s giving these instructions? Has the great Comrade Julian returned?”

  “Comrade Marta is in charge now.”

  “Comrade Marta,” he repeats. He drums his fingers on the table. “Listen, Leo, I’ve known Marta a long time. I know her…determination. But loyalty, trustworthiness, these are not her best qualities.”

  “She’s loyal to the people she respects.”

  At last her words have the desired effect: Josea sucks his teeth and turns back to watch the street. Of course he’d malign Marta—in this country of machistas no one expects a woman to be capable of leadership. Who needs Julian? Who cares where he’s slunk off to lick his wounds? She and Marta will show them how capable two women can be. In fact, Leo thinks, this is the perfect topic for her next editorial. A title comes to her immediately: “The Sheath Is Mightier Than the Sword.”

  “We’re up to twelve pages,” she says brightly, sliding a copy of Don Quixote across the table, the SyQuest cartridge nestled inside. “Some great images. Spot color on the covers and centerfold. Let us know if we owe you.”

  Wordlessly, Josea puts the book in his satchel and returns her copy of Moby-Dick.

  “I hope you enjoyed it,” she says.

  “Who wouldn’t enjoy all that struggle? And in the end, everyone is destroyed by a dream.” When she lays a coin on the table and stands, Josea reaches for her wrist. “Leo. Hija. I hope you’re keeping your eyes open.”

  “Call me Linda,” she says, measuring out her condescension. Then, pitching her voice so the women at the next table can hear, “We’re having fun, tío. Don’t worry! The art school opens next month. Come by and we’ll paint your portrait. No charge.”

  * * *

  —

  What else? What am I missing?

  It’s late June in Lima, the dismal months of winter taking hold. The August arrest, the press conference, El Arca—it’s all looming on the horizon, though I can’t quite make it out. Like a pointillist painting: the closer I get the fuzzier it becomes.

  Of this last, critical period there’s little record, less verifiable fact. Like the dunes of Los Muertos the weeks spread bare and treacherous, only scraps of thatch and trash, bent shards of metal, to indicate anyone ever lived there. Government documents, heavily redacted. Faded issues of The Eyes of the World. Leo never discussed how she and her comrades passed these anxious, in-between days. As far as I know, no one ever asked.

  There are three items left in the Leo File. Three disintegrating scraps between me and a bright void. The first is a note from DINCOTE’s report, referring to a second meeting between Leo and Comrade Miguel. It took place in Lince, not far from the café where she delivered the fifth issue to Josea Torres. It’s unclear whether the meeting was planned, but I suspect not. I suspect Miguel was following her—the report
describes Leo as “confused and agitated” when he approached her on the street. They ducked into a bar—the Taberna Los Perros—where they spent only half an hour. It’s unclear what was talked about. It’s unclear what any of it means.

  I’ve gone back to that corner, not far from Damien’s apartment. I’ve walked that stretch of the Avenida Canevaro—bank branches and drab hotels, a profusion of optometrists—hoping to find some lingering trace. When I peered into Los Perros I thought I could still see them, side by side at the bar, he in khaki pants and a tailored shirt, she in too-large jeans, a wool sweater moth-eaten at the wrists—

  Compañero, has anything happened? Have I done something wrong?

  No, Linda. You’ve done excellent work. The house, the newspaper, it’s all very helpful.

  I look forward to doing more.

  —but it’s as if the film were degrading, the soundtrack lost. They clink glasses. He touches a fingertip to her wrist. It makes me uncomfortable to watch them, undetected. What right do I have to spy on them this way?

  I withdrew, sucking at the outside air like a swimmer after a dive. Lima rushed past me, oblivious. I had the urge to grab someone and shout, “It matters! Look what’s happening—it matters, don’t you see?”

  I’m running out of time. In less than two months she’ll be taken off that bus in a hail of gunfire. The house in Pueblo Libre will burn. All the way back to Damien’s I fought a sense of displacement, of walking outside the real story in my mind. My reflection in car windows was thin and indistinct. I thought at any moment I might run into them—Leo, Miguel, Julian, any of the characters I’d been living with. But each time I turned the corner, there was only an empty street.

  * * *

  —