The Gringa

by Andrew Altschul

  Soon enough the rabbi would understand what she was trying to tell him. He would see her bruised, livid face and blame himself for not having heard. Or had he heard? The congregation mingling downstairs, the building alive with community, had he understood too well what her words might mean?

  He leans forward, offers a soothing smile. “Do you really believe this, Linda?”

  “You’re a rabbi,” she says. “Isn’t God supposed to help people? To feed them?”

  “What I mean,” he says, “is do you think you can take His place?”

  As he walks her downstairs, one hand on her shoulder, he tries to ignore the feeling of accompanying a prisoner to the gallows. They pass quickly through the crowded lobby and at the door he invites her to come back once the art school has opened. He assures her she’ll find eager students among the congregation.

  “Don’t worry, Linda,” he says. “No one can have a problem with art. With education. Where would our children be without these things?”

  Leo smiles weakly. For a moment he thinks she might ask to stay. Someone calls to him from across the room, a woman he’s known for decades, whose sons moved to New York long ago and never visited or sent for her. When he turns back, Leo’s already moving past the guard into the dim orange light of the street. He watches for another few seconds—how small she is against that darkness—then closes the temple door.

  4

  “Because it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t add up.”

  “Nothing makes sense, Andres. This is Peru.”

  “But why would she say those things, make that sacrifice? She had to know what would happen. What was the point?”

  Damien filled my glass and leaned back on the couch. Carlito was working late, and with Stephanie still in Canada the apartment felt large and sterile, carefully staged.

  “She’d been in custody for three days,” he said. “Pissing on herself—”

  “No, she’s too controlled, too aware of what she’s doing. Have you watched closely? There’s something else.”

  “That’s journalism,” he said. “There are always holes. The truth is very messy. It’s the story that has everything accounted for, every thread tied, that you can’t trust.”

  “That’s not good enough,” I said, provoking another Gallic shrug. “It was over. There was nothing to gain or take responsibility for. Why not just go home?”

  “Shame? Pride?” He was almost laughing now. “Andres, this is not the most stable person. Six months with the Philosophers. She has to justify it, to prove it to herself. If she takes the government’s offer she breaks this vow. She tells the world she is not the person she claimed to be.”

  I rolled my glass between my palms. The dark wine glimmered. “That’s what her mother says in her book: She had these principles, she felt she had to stand up for them.”

  “You see?”

  “But I don’t buy it.”

  I was so close. I’d worked out everything else: the motivations and misunderstandings, the logic that brought her to that threshold. I’d written more than a hundred pages, working in a fever, moving myself often to astonishment. I’d been studying the footage of the presentation for days, caught by some cadence in her tirade, some canny glint in the eye. She was trying to tell me something.

  Who am I?

  “Look at this,” I said, opening a folder of news clippings. “El Comercio, August 23: ‘Seven Philosophers lost their lives in the assault on Calle Almagro.’ La República: ‘Between seven and nine militants died.’ The radio, TV news—you hear the same thing: seven people. Seven or eight. Then, August 26, El Comercio says there were six people killed. Every paper after that,” I said, laying one sheet after another on the table. “ ‘Six terrorists.’ ‘Six people.’ Now it’s the official body count.”

  Damien glanced at each article and set it aside. “I don’t understand.”

  “What happened to the seventh person?”

  Slowly, he put down his glass. He looked at me as if considering for the first time that I might not be just incompetent but also deranged. “So there was confusion. It always takes a few days—”

  “Sure,” I conceded. “Maybe. But what if they got it wrong? Or they didn’t even have to get it wrong, but what if she thought they got it wrong? If she thought someone survived. You see? If she’s just a stupid foreigner caught up in something she didn’t understand, then there’s still a problem, there are more Philosophers out there. By the logic of its own story the government has to hunt them down. But if she knew what she was doing, if she’s La Leo, the revolutionary—”

  “The Gringa Terrorist—”

  “If the real terrorist has been caught, you can’t ramp up the war again. The public won’t support it. What if she thought it was the best chance for him to get away?”

  “Who, Andres?”

  But I had no answer, not yet. Damien tapped his fingertips, shook his head as if to clear a vivid dream. “You give her too much credit,” he said. “You make it sound as if she really were the mastermind they tried to portray.”

  “Isn’t that what she would have wanted to believe? Wouldn’t you?”

  * * *

  —

  August 22, a dry and mild Saturday afternoon. The skies over Pueblo Libre brushed with gauze, a gentle wind lifting the scent of jasmine from neighboring gardens. At the appointed time, Leo waits in the courtyard, face to the sun. She squints up at the silent house, the sparrows lit on the bare lime tree, and remembers the day she met Señora Zavallos, the picture she’d painted of a school rampant with children. It had never been anything but an alibi, a lie. But she’d told it so often, imagined it in such detail, she feels a twinge of regret to think it never came true.

  One more task. One last bit of preparation and everything will be in place. The others spent the night rehearsing, visualizing, running through contingencies—though Leo stayed awake listening to their heavy movements, Julian didn’t come downstairs, and at last she stumbled into dreams of wild surf, anguished whispers; she was missing someone—a terrible absence, akin to dread—but she didn’t know who. At dawn she’d woken to the feel of him next to her, his hand resting cool and gentle on her thigh. They fucked in silence, slowly, each distracted but working to pull the other into the secret circle. When it was over, he propped himself on an elbow and stared at her.

  “What?” she said. She pulled the sheet over herself, surprised at her self-consciousness.

  There wasn’t a trace of mockery in his expression, none of the old contempt. Affection, perhaps, and maybe something sadder. He seemed unable to look away. It wasn’t love—she wasn’t foolish enough to think it was love. But it might have been something better: respect.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, reaching for his chin, pulling at the wiry hairs. “We’ll be careful. Marta will only be gone an hour, and I’ll be back after I see the printer.”

  He nodded, his mouth slightly open. For an astonished heartbeat she thought he might burst into tears. But then he said something even more shocking:

  “I trust you.”

  She shook her head mutely, moved by something she couldn’t yet grasp. Deep down, she must have understood.

  “Remember that, okay?” he said. “Compañera? Leonora?”

  He rolled away, pulled on his clothes, lit a cigarette. She said nothing—or she said something pointless and instantly forgotten, unlike the hundreds of things she’s said to him since, words of true understanding that crystallize in the frozen night of El Arca.

  “Sí, mi compañero,” is what she said, but by then he was at the door.

  When Marta emerges from the house, in the floppy hat and cheap sunglasses Leo bought for her, Leo has to stifle a laugh. She looks like a housewife, a trendy urbanite on a beach outing. She looks, Leo realizes, strikingly beautiful—a beauty Leo had forgotten, or learned to see past, over the mo
nths of routine and rivalry. She’d stopped looking at Marta—at all of them, even Julian—except through the veil of the plan. But as she and Marta stare at each other what comes into Leo’s thoughts are those first days in the house—before the cumpas and Radio 2000, before Josea and Álvaro, before exigency turned them into strangers—the two of them together, barely speaking a common language but not quite needing to. It had felt to Leo like having an older sister, her wisdom and protection cloaked in unfathomable experience.

  What comes next? she wants to ask. But she won’t, not now, here on the verge. She won’t give into the old needs, or deface the plan by losing her nerve.

  “Vámonos,” Marta says.

  “Are you sure about this?” Leo says. “Maybe you should stay.”

  “It’s four o’clock. We need to go.”

  “Stay here,” Leo says. “I can do it, I swear. Just give me your camera.”

  “Linda—”

  “Why take the risk? Really, you can count on me.”

  The courtyard fills with the rustle of sparrows. The house seems to lean over them, as though César and the others are listening from the third floor. Marta hesitates, stares at the gate as if, after weeks of seclusion, she can’t recognize the outside world.

  “No,” Marta says. “I have to.” With a nervous smile she adds, “I am the photographer.”

  As they cross the courtyard, Leo steals a glance at the rosebushes: three small buds on the tallest cane, tiny green fists still reluctant to open. She’s been watching them for days. All that work, she thinks. When will she have something to show for it?

  * * *

  —

  The entire print run of The Eyes of the World, no. 8, was confiscated from Eladio Huatay’s shop almost as soon as the presses stopped. Four dry, dour pages, the final number had little of the panache of its predecessors—no poems or repurposed ads, little humor. Notably, there was no “Scorecard” highlighting the noble exploits of hidden revolutionaries. More notable still was the blank space on the back page: a white void, an empty frame that would forever await its image.

  The essay arranged around this space was entitled ¿Quiénes Somos? (Who Are We?), and was clearly intended as the centerpiece. Unsigned, the essay glosses the history of modern Peru from Independence through the dirty war and “its so-called end.” The theme is clear: a war is not over until its wounds have closed, until “people’s hearts have been pacified, and the physical, spiritual, and national body made whole.” At the same time, the author—whether Leo, Julian, or a combination of the two—asserts that the Cuarta Filosofía should be seen as a unifying force, their actions as having been designed to bring Peruvians together, to remind them of their common bonds:

  “Until we embrace all our brothers and sisters, our body will remain broken…Peace is not peace if it demands we leave parts of ourselves behind.”

  At Leo’s civilian trial, the prosecutor read the entire essay aloud, alongside rhetorically similar passages from old Shining Path communiqués. (Once again, the defense’s objection was ignored.) He cited its veiled reference to Victor Beale—“one eye closed in return for the thousands you have plucked out”—as proof of coordination between the Pueblo Libre and Jacaranda groups.

  But despite its excesses, its militant posture, the essay is no manifesto. To me, it reads not as a threat but a plea: for justice, for recognition, even forgiveness. Knowing what we know now, it’s impossible not to see it as a swan song, a final bid for empathy from people who had all but given up on being understood:

  “We are the ones you want to forget. But we have not forgotten you.”

  * * *

  —

  It’s Marta she’ll remember, Marta whose face and voice, whose secrets, will come to her every night. She’ll remember the long walk to Miraflores, the feeling of ease that crept over her the farther they got from the house. And the light, its thick liquid quality, warm honey of the afternoon sun, neighborhoods alive with strolling families—the weeks of paranoia seem suddenly absurd, a child’s fantasy. How absurd to think anyone could find them in a city of eight million. How narcissistic to think they’re looking!

  Like shreds of a torn photograph: she’ll remember the long silences, the glances and irrelevant words. She’ll assemble them piece by piece, rearrange them with tweezers and glue, each iteration resulting in a different image.

  The thick traffic on the avenues, the wafting stink of gasoline broken by long, cool drafts of ocean air. As they cross onto the malecón they pick up the pace. It’s nearly five o’clock, the sun starting its descent into a nest of coral and rose. Leo can feel Marta’s growing disquiet; several times she seems about to say something but stops herself. Over the ocean, two paragliders’ colorful canopies wink in the late light and Leo stops to watch, savoring what small seconds of leisure remain. The gliders soar upward in the ocean drafts, legs rising at the top of their arcs, then abruptly drop, gliding in long, hawklike curves over the cliffs before swooping back out to sea. How small they are, she thinks, struck by the grandeur. Marta moves next to her and they stand a moment without speaking. Far below, tiny surfers etch white lines into green metal.

  They don’t see the barricade until they’ve rounded the last curve, the jeeps parked grill-to-grill across the intersection, men in fatigues smoking or leaning on their rifles.

  “Puta madre,” Marta says, drawing back into the entryway of an apartment building. “A checkpoint. We have to go back.”

  “Why is the military guarding a shopping mall?”

  “You should have thought of this, Linda,” Marta says. “You should have known.”

  Beyond the roadblock, the lush promenade flows to the edge of the land—bright new flowers, rustling palms, Christopher Columbus backlit by a perfect sunset. Vía América finished at last, awaiting only the masses that will crawl over its glossy surface like maggots on meat. When Leo peeks out, the soldiers are staring in their direction. She feels her breath quickening—she wants that photograph, they need it. Ducking back, she starts to ask Marta something but Marta is clutching her arm, pulling her close.

  “Leo, go now,” she says.

  “I’m not going back without that picture.”

  “Not back: leave. Take a bus somewhere. Anywhere. Call your father and go home.”

  Unnerved, Leo takes a step back. “What are you talking about?”

  “Nobody will stop you. Nobody will look for you. I swear it. Listen to me,” she says. “The newspaper is finished. One photograph—it’s not important. You did what you wanted, what you promised. So go now. Please. Before it’s too late.”

  Leo stares into the opaque shine of Marta’s sunglasses but can’t see what’s in her comrade’s eyes: fear, calculation, or some other inscrutable motive. She fishes a bent cigarette from her pack, flicks her lighter with trembling fingers. Even now, she thinks, pulling the smoke deep into her lungs. Even now, they don’t believe. Once, she knows, she was tempted. She jumped into the car and sped away while the people behind her burned. But she’s not that person anymore. She takes another long drag and drops the cigarette, crushes it with her toe. Before Marta can stop her, she steps into the street.

  “Hola! Hola!” she shouts, hurrying toward the checkpoint with an imbecilic smile, a fatuous bounce in her step. “Hola, amigos! Me llamo Linda. ¿Como está usted?”

  The soldiers gather around her, blocking her path, competing to display the most malevolent glare. Leo speaks haltingly, mangling words, misplacing accents. “Shop-ping? I go shop-ping?” She points to the statue behind them, fumbles in her pocket for the slab of plastic. “Expresso Americano, amigos. ¿Comprendo?”

  One soldier examines the card while the others frankly assess her breasts. They’re all younger, some still teenagers; from their embarrassed expressions it’s clear they’ve never talked to a gringa, maybe never seen one up close. An older man, their captain,
strides up from behind the jeeps. Short and swarthy, his face is round as a pie, adorned with a mustache that looks pencil-drawn. A fat black holster slaps against his hip. The other soldiers straighten and pull back when he addresses them.

  “Está cerrado,” he tells Leo. He points back up the street. “No se puede entrar.”

  Leo mimics bewilderment. “Shopping?” she says, waggling the card. “¿Qué hora?”

  “Está cerrado,” he coughs. “Hay que volver mañana. Andale, señorita.”

  “My guidebook,” she says, standing on tiptoes and letting a note of entitlement creep into her voice. “Lonely Planet? It says I go Ví-a A-mé-ri-ca. No comprendo?” The captain shakes his head, tries futilely to interrupt. When he reaches for her shoulder she jerks away, hands on her hips. “Hey, you can’t treat me like this! I’m an American citizen! Yo soy Americano—”

  —and then Marta is between them, as Leo knew she would be. She stands close to the captain, speaks in Quechua, leads him back to the jeep. She shows him her camera, cocks her hips while he handles it. Her voice is higher, with the teasing, nasal quality Leo’s heard from street vendors and pop singers from the provinces—it’s startling, this side of Marta, but Leo knows it’s no act or transformation, just one of her friend’s many selves. The other soldiers laugh at something Marta says and the captain blushes, his irritation giving way to amusement as they all look at Leo, who stands with arms crossed, shaking with staged anger.

  “Fie minute,” the captain coughs, turning with exaggerated chivalry to let them pass. Marta claps her hands and kisses his cheek, to the delight of his subordinates, but Leo’s already crossing the street, heading toward the high metal fence that marks the edge of the cliffs.