The Gringa

by Andrew Altschul

  They’d renewed the compact almost every night since. During the day she hardly thought about it—until the inevitable bladder infection. It wasn’t romance, it was fucking: a shot of pure, liberated present. From time to time she thinks of the afternoon when he’d hit her, and for a day or two she refrains, mulling her motives, reassuring herself. But their sex is a separate matter, a correction. What use in depriving herself when it pleases her, the hard press of him, the pressure and release and brief floating out of time. Why doesn’t matter. Why does there need to be a why?

  But tonight she finds him strangely passive, distracted. There’s little heat, not enough force, his broad hips hardly move as she rides him. After half an hour of fruitless lurching she rolls off of him, gently twists his nipple. “What’s wrong with you?”

  With a grunt, he sits up and yanks his boxers on. His cigarette lighter casts bronze light on his meaty shoulders, the ever-present scruff at his jaw.

  “Have you thought about what I asked?” he says.

  She sighs, deflated, staving off dread. “I can’t. Please don’t ask me.”

  His exhalation spreads silver smoke in the light from the window. “Then everything is wasted. All this time for nothing.”

  “I’ve done everything I was told. Rented the house, bought the food…”

  “It’s your plan. You want to let it die?”

  After months of delays and legal battles, Vía América has entered the final phase of its monstrous birth. The grand opening two weeks away: a gala event with movie stars and soccer heroes, foreign ambassadors, a performance by Ricky Martín. The windows and video screens have been fitted, parking spaces painted; trucks deliver merchandise night and day, lined up along the malecón, where Christopher Columbus beckons, the colonialist patriarch reimagined as grinning ringmaster of a circus of consumption.

  August 23. When limeños wake up to find their party cancelled, their billion-dollar bauble in sea-thrashed ruins, there will be no doubt what it means. Never again will her comrades ask what she’s doing here.

  “You said you had everything you needed,” she says.

  “That was before Victor Beale.”

  “I don’t see what difference that makes.”

  Footsteps overhead, a door closing: Marta coming down the stairs, putting a pot on the stove. I have to see him, Marta said, one more secret she’s kept from Leo. For a second Leo hopes she’ll come into the bedroom, that she’ll see her and Julian like this.

  “You remember what happened at Los Muertos, right?” he says.

  “Of course I do.”

  “You remember Ernesto?”

  “Compañero—”

  “Listen. Ernesto was known to us. He and the others—Juancito, Nalda. Chaski met them at the business school. They went to some meetings together, listened to old cumpas talk about the war. It was theory to those kids. It was cool. When the government decided to tear down Los Muertos, Chaski convinced them they had to do something.”

  “And they got killed for it. I was there.”

  “They were making a film about the protest. They were on the roof.” He fixes her with a stare. “What about the others? The ones who burned the cars?”

  “What about them?” she whispers, gripped by premonition.

  “We don’t know who they were.”

  Again the feeling of being split, doubled, of another story sliding beneath her own. She struggles to her feet, moves abruptly between the window and the door. “I don’t believe it,” she says. She walks the room’s edges, digs a fingernail into the plaster. “You never liked Chaski. Any of you. Because he’s gay, that’s why you blame him.”

  “That’s Marta’s problem,” Julian says, stubbing out the cigarette. “Marta didn’t like him because he followed my brother around like a kitten. He brought Chaski home once, you know? I think he wanted to upset my mother—a dirty cholo in her beautiful house. But they liked each other right away. They sat talking until midnight, like a couple of old gossips. I don’t care that he’s gay. I care that he’s a traitor.”

  “He’s not,” she says, but her voice isn’t convincing, even to her. Had it all been Chaski’s doing: Josea, Álvaro, Neto? Had he been the invisible hand all along? But he’d protected her, soothed her. He’d introduced her to the others. A sudden dizziness strikes and she touches a hand to the wall. Was she, too, part of his plan?

  Now Julian is standing next to her. “I don’t know, and neither do you. Marta’s right. There’s more going on than we know. We have to be able to defend ourselves. We need the guns.”

  “I already told you. There’s no more money. My father cancelled the credit card.”

  “He didn’t cancel his own.”

  She pulls back, examines his face, his hands. She hadn’t told them about the money, the thick envelope she’d flung onto the table, her father’s grieving eyes. It had been so clear then what she needed to do. But that was before Victor Beale, back when it was still clear what everyone needed.

  David’s flight leaves in the morning. If she takes an early bus she’ll just catch him. She has no doubt he’ll give her the money. He won’t even argue. All it will take is one more performance: as the sweet, helpless daughter needing to be rescued, the innocent expat ready to come home.

  * * *

  —

  Actually, that’s an interesting story. ¿Te cuento en español?

  But I’ve heard you speaking Spanish, Leonora. You don’t remember? It was only a few months ago, at a protest in the Plaza de Armas. You were about to do something rather stupid…

  ¡Sí! Exactly. So you do remember.

  Of course I knew who you were. Even before that. The minute you set foot in Los Arenales. There are a lot of things we don’t do very well in Peru, God knows. But it’s not quite the “banana republic” your mother says it is. We know how to keep track of terrorists. We’ve had a lot of experience with that. Unlike the Americans, who are required to act as if someone is not a terrorist and give them a chance to do what they’re going to do before you can arrest them or even watch them. As if it’s a kind of game, each side gets a fair chance. That country doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

  Yes, of course, we are all Americans. ¿Sabes qué? My father’s from Baltimore. I lived there until I was nine. My brother went back to the U.S., during the war. He teaches Spanish in a high school. He says he’ll never come back to Peru. It breaks my mother’s heart.

  Your mother said many things. I don’t blame her. If it was my daughter…Well, she also has to play a game. This is the situation you’ve created for her.

  Yes, your father was also there. But only your mother and the woman from the embassy spoke.

  How did he look? He looked like somebody had died.

  Sure, you can go back to your cell. But I thought you wanted to hear about Rosa.

  The painter. That was her name. She was from an old family in Trujillo. Not a rich family. They had lost most of their land, but were still members of certain social clubs, et cetera. This is how she grew up. When she came to Lima and met children from the true ruling class, I think it was a shock to her. Always, she spoke and moved as if she was enduring mistreatment—but in a noble way, to set an example. What can I say? I found her very appealing, and also impossible. She was beautiful, too, but in an older way, very simple. I knew that she had political activities, friends writing for leftist magazines or involved with ‘cultural education.’ I didn’t pay attention to that. I told myself that her involvement was minimal, that because she was an artist she couldn’t participate in anything so…mundane. I was in love, so I was ready to believe anything if it maintained the image of my beloved. Very dangerous, of course, not to see clearly…

  No, never. I wasn’t interested. All I wanted was to spend time with Rosa, even though she laughed at me. I was like her pet. I didn’t want other people around. Well, of cour
se this couldn’t last. One time, she left for a month. Some friends told her about a doctor who was going to the Emergency Zone to work with orphans. She wanted to paint them. When she came back, this was when she asked me to model for her. I think she enjoyed it that I didn’t like the painting. She wanted me to be offended. She said it was her new style, she could no longer paint in the oppressor’s vernacular. This was her phrase: ‘the oppressor’s vernacular.’ She showed me something, a document, like a diploma. It said she would give her life for justice, that she’d proven her dedication to the country and its people. A lot of nonsense about love and hate, the future is the mother of the past, or whatever. The document was signed with a name I had never heard. ‘Who is Mira?’ I said. She told me it was her new name. From now on, I have to call her Mira. She also said this group didn’t believe in monogamy, that she had slept with other men and other women, that it was important to be loyal to everyone, not just one person. We argued. She said she couldn’t love someone who accepted reactionary bourgeois fantasies. I didn’t understand any of this. It seemed like a performance, like she was saying these things only so someone else could hear. I thought she had lost her mind.

  I left. I was very angry. Occasionally I would see her at demonstrations, standing on a platform screaming something. She became well known as an artist. Many groups used her work in their propaganda. But we never spoke again after that night.

  Actually, I do know what happened to her. You know the MRTA, the terrorist group? You remember two years ago they took over the Japanese embassy with everyone inside? There are films taken after the army went in. It was shown on the news. In one, you can see the President walking through the house, going up the stairs and stepping over the bodies of terrorists. On the last step before the second floor. That one is Rosa.

  Yes, terrible. But I’ll tell you something strange. Only when I saw this I understood something about what she wanted, and what her group was trying to achieve. Because when I look at this footage, of these people whose bodies are destroyed by bullets or bombs, for the first time I see a world that looks like her paintings.

  Reality? I don’t know. Maybe she was only trying to make the world as ugly as what she already imagined, to make people accept her vision. This kind of art, it’s not more real than the world, just more arrogant.

  Actually, I haven’t thought about her in a long time. Even when I saw the film, I don’t think I felt anything so terrible. It had been almost a decade. At one time…at the beginning, when my heart was broken, I had an idea that this is why she changed her name: to protect me, so I wouldn’t see the person I loved saying and doing these things. For a time, I told myself this, and it was a consolation. But I don’t believe it anymore. That would have been an act of love. And although terrorists always say they love the people, I find they are not capable of loving an actual person.

  Cowardice? A sense of shame? Otherwise, why not use your true names? If you believe all of this bullshit, the manifestos and propaganda. If the Philosophers are so proud of what they’re doing why don’t they admit who they are? When we find you you should stand up and say ‘Yes, I am a fucking revolutionary.’ If you’re so sure the people are with you. Why won’t you say who you really are?

  On the contrary, we had nothing to do with what happened to Josea Torres.

  You can believe it or not believe it. The man is working with terucos, helping to recruit more criminals. If we caught him, wouldn’t we tell the whole country about it?

  A message? You think the government sends messages like this? What’s the message, that a man should eat his own balls? What does this mean?

  I really don’t know. Maybe it was ronderos. Or someone in your own organization. You have to understand this as the consequence of what you started. You and Julian. You think you can control it, that you make the rules of the game, but there are others who don’t acknowledge those rules, or who are playing a different game entirely. You’re not the only group to operate outside the system. Of course there are others who have different aims, who maybe see themselves as part of the system, although the system itself doesn’t acknowledge them. These groups can’t be controlled or predicted, the things they do can’t be interpreted in the normal way.

  Yes, that’s what I’m saying. I told you already: every story is a true story, or becomes one. That’s why we need to talk about what you’ll say tomorrow—

  Because things must be called by their proper names. Because there is a natural division between what’s real and what’s not real, and when that division is confused society can’t function. Maybe in the U.S. it’s different. There you’re so used to fantasies no one cares anymore what the fantasies mean or what they refer to. Peru can’t afford such confusion. A country can’t survive when it doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies.

  Tomorrow? Tomorrow we’ll introduce you to the country. The minister insists. It seems your embassy has begun to feel some urgency about the matter. Maybe they don’t like seeing your mother on television, even if she is very entertaining. Or maybe they want it resolved before the human rights people get involved. But everyone agrees this problem can be fixed quickly. Everyone wants the same thing.

  For you to go home, of course. Nobody wants to see you in El Arca. The minister will have his presentation, the press has a few days shouting about the ‘terrorista gringa,’ and then you go back to the U.S. and after a year or two you’ll be free and you can return to Stanford University and give speeches with Gabriel Zamir about oppression and injustice and the brave martyrs of the Cuarta Filosofía. Nobody will care.

  It’s simple. You say, ‘I’m sorry, I made a mistake, met the wrong people, fell in love with the wrong guy, etc. etc.’ As a favor to our friends in the United States, the President agrees to let you return to your country and serve a light sentence of some kind, giving money to an illegal group, or I don’t know. Madeleine Albright gets something to brag about, Bill Clinton can stop talking about his cock…It’s called ‘bilateral transfer.’ Like if someone’s child went to the neighbor’s house and broke their window, but the neighbor lets the child’s parents decide the punishment—

  Don’t be foolish. Señorita Ramos is Peruvian. You have to think about yourself now, Leonora. You have to think about your family. Think of it as a moment of total freedom, an opportunity to tell a new story about yourself.

  Of course you can think about it. The guard will take you back. I almost forgot—here is the amoxicillin you asked for. And ibuprofen. I hope you feel better.

  Well, in that case you would go to prison for a long time. Five years, maybe ten. But let’s forget about that, okay? Who would benefit from such a sacrifice?

  Yes. That’s right. This is what was discussed.

  No. You misunderstand. I don’t want you to lie. I want you to tell the truth. By tomorrow at noon, you have to decide what that is.

  * * *

  —

  The first time she sees him, she doesn’t know what she’s seen. Walking quickly through the jostling market, eyes down, sensitive to every inquisitive gaze, she ignores the jolt of unease, the uptick of her vigilance. Everywhere now this feeling follows her—from parked cars and high windows, combi drivers, park benches. Even in crowds she feels scrutinized, picked over by anonymous eyes. But this feeling is smaller, intensely specific. Not until she’s back on Almagro does she know what she felt was recognition.

  The next day, on the Plaza de la Bandera, she feels it again: a watching eye, patient, unthreatening. She says nothing to Julian or Marta. On Sunday afternoon, as she walks the busy avenue outside Católica, she knows she’s being followed. She steadies her pace, turns onto a quieter street and heads west—she can feel him behind her but she won’t let him get any nearer, not yet. After ten minutes, she finds herself at the edge of an empty parking lot. The faded sign reads Zoológico Nacional. With a dry laugh—when did she turn into a character from a bad spy nove
l?—she digs in her pocket for a coin.

  The zoo is unkempt, plastic bags and paper scraps gliding across parched enclosures, turtle ponds clogged with old leaves and floating tufts of scum. Only a few visitors stroll the shady paths—elderly men with granddaughters or nurses, middle-aged women with haunted eyes. As she passes the monkey cages half a dozen stark, wrinkled faces turn to watch; a single giraffe stands warily by a half-built wall. She stops on a shaded footbridge and lights a cigarette, watches the alligator napping in the mud below. Even the dragonflies that perch on its rough hide don’t wake it, the splashing of fish in the brackish water.

  “Do you think it’s alive?” says a voice behind her.

  Chaski is standing a few feet away. With a glance she takes in his newly short hair, his clean shirt and ironed pants, the single aluminum crutch. The small gold cross hangs, as ever, at his neck. It’s the same person, the same contagious smile. But that’s precisely where the danger is, she tells herself. Julian, her father—whatever their resemblance, no one is who they say they are anymore.

  “Leave me alone,” she says. “I don’t know you.”

  “Yes, you know me, Leo.”

  “Don’t call me that. Why are you following me?”

  “You’re my friend.”

  “If I were your friend you wouldn’t have left. You wouldn’t have left any of us.”

  “Those other people aren’t my friends,” he says. “They’re not yours, either.”

  They wait as a group of schoolchildren approach, jabbering and shouting, their teacher nowhere in sight. The children throw sticks and bits of trash over the side, calling to the alligator, who takes no notice. Flustered, Leo turns from Chaski and follows them across the bridge, into a dense eucalyptus grove, trying to compose herself, to quell her apprehension. Whether Chaski was an informant or not he’d left her, hadn’t he? He’d betrayed her. Now he calls her “friend”?