Death in the Andes

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  “And what does that mean?” the moaning woman in the back seat finally asked. “Does that mean we’re in danger?”

  “I hope not,” replied the driver. “But it’s my duty to warn you.”

  “And if they do attack, then what?” asked another passenger.

  “Then the best thing is to keep your mouths shut,” the driver recommended. “At least, that’s my advice. They have weapons and itchy trigger fingers.”

  “In other words, just give them everything we have, like sheep,” the woman said angrily. “Even the shirts off our backs. Damn, that’s really great advice!”

  “If you want to be a heroine, that’s fine with me,” said the driver. “I’m only giving my opinion.”

  “You’re scaring the passengers,” Carreño intervened. “Advice is one thing. Making people afraid is something else again.”

  The driver turned his head slightly and looked at him. “I don’t want to scare anybody,” he declared. “But I’ve been attacked three times, and the last time they split my knee with a sledgehammer.”

  There was a long silence, broken by the spasms and snorts of the engine and the metallic clanking of the car as it jolted over ruts and stones in the road.

  “I don’t know why you do such dangerous work,” said one of the passengers who had not spoken before.

  “For the same reason you travel overland to Lima when you know how dangerous it is,” said the driver. “Because I have to.”

  “I should never have gone to Tingo María. I should never have accepted an invitation from that imbecile,” Mercedes whispered in the boy’s ear. “I was doing just fine, I could buy clothes, I liked doing the show at the Vacilón, I was independent. And now they’re after me and here I am shacked up with a Civil Guard.”

  “It was your destiny.” The boy kissed her again on the ear and felt her shiver. “Maybe you don’t believe it, but the best part of your life is beginning now. Do you know why? Because we’re together. Want me to tell you something?”

  “I’m always waiting for the good stuff, a little feeling up and fucking around to take my mind off having to live like a monk, and you always get romantic,” Lituma complained. “You’re hopeless, Tomasito.”

  “What?” she whispered.

  “We’re together until death do us part.” Carreño nibbled the edge of her ear and Mercedes burst into laughter.

  “Are you on your honeymoon, by any chance?” The driver glanced at them.

  “We just got married,” Carreño replied immediately. “How’d you guess?”

  “I have a sixth sense.” The driver laughed. “Besides, you haven’t stopped kissing.”

  Someone in the back seat laughed, and a passenger murmured: “Congratulations to the happy couple.”

  Carreño pulled Mercedes even closer and whispered as he kissed her: “Now the whole world knows you’re my wife. Now you’ll never be free.”

  “If you keep on tickling me, I’ll change my seat,” she whispered. “I’m peeing my pants, I’m laughing so hard.”

  “I’d give anything to see a nice little broad peeing,” Lituma howled, shaking his cot. “It never occurred to me, damn it. And now it’s making me hot and there’s not a woman in sight.”

  “You’d have to go into the trunk,” said Carreño. “Well, I’ll give you some time off. Ten minutes with no kissing. You can rest on my shoulder, like in the truck. I’ll wake you up if there’s an attack.”

  “It was getting good with all that peepee, and you send her off to sleep,” Lituma protested. “Just my luck.”

  “What a funny little cop you are,” she said, making herself comfortable.

  “Nobody can ruin our honeymoon,” said the boy.

  The highway was empty; from time to time they passed a huge truck that forced the Dodge to the side of the road. It wasn’t raining, but the sky was overcast, and instead of stars, a faint glow softened the contours of leaden clouds and snow-covered peaks and crags on the horizon. Carreño began to doze.

  “What woke me up was a light in my eyes and a voice saying, ‘Papers,’” the guard continued. “I was still half asleep but I checked my belt and the revolver was where it belonged.”

  “Now we’re back to cowboys again,” observed Lituma. “How many did you kill this time?”

  Mercedes rubbed her eyes and shook her head from side to side. The driver handed the passengers’ voter identifications to a man who held a submachine gun and leaned his head halfway into the car. Carreño saw a sentry post illuminated by lanterns, a coat of arms, and another man, wrapped in a poncho, who was carrying a submachine gun over his shoulder and rubbing his hands together. A metal chain was stretched between two barrels, blocking the road. There were no lights or houses in view, only hills.

  “Just a minute,” the man said, and he walked to the post, holding the documents in his hand.

  “I don’t know what’s eating them,” the driver remarked, turning toward the passengers. “They never stop cars here, least of all at this time of night.”

  In the stale light of the lantern inside the post, the guard inspected each document, bringing it close to his eyes as if he were nearsighted. The other man continued to rub his hands.

  “He must be freezing out there,” murmured the woman in the back seat.

  “Wait till we get to the barrens, then you’ll find out what cold means,” warned the driver.

  They sat in silence and listened to the whistling of the wind. The police were talking to each other now, and the one who had collected the documents was showing the other a paper and pointing at the Dodge.

  “If anything happens to me, you keep on going.” The boy kissed Mercedes on the ear, watching the two men leave the post and approach the automobile, one behind the other.

  “Mercedes Trelles,” said the man, putting his head inside the car again.

  “Was that your Piuran’s last name?” said Lituma. “Then she must be related to somebody I know. Patojo Trelles. He had a shoe store near the Municipal Movie Theater and was always eating banana chips.”

  “That’s me.”

  “Come with us a moment, we have to check something.”

  He gave the other documents to the driver so he could return them to the passengers, and waited while Carreño got out and then helped her from the car. The other guard now held the submachine gun in both hands and stood a meter away from the Dodge.

  “Neither of them seemed to think it was very important,” said Tomás. “They looked bored, like it was just routine. Maybe it was only a coincidence that they called her. But I couldn’t take any chances when it came to her.”

  “Sure, of course not,” Lituma joked. “You’re one of those guys who shoot first and ask questions later.”

  Mercedes walked slowly toward the post, followed by the man who had inspected their documents. Carreño remained standing beside the open door of the car, and though it was unlikely the police officer watching the car could see in the darkness, Tomás gave him an exaggerated smile.

  “I don’t know how you don’t die of cold up here, Chief,” he said, making a show of rubbing his hands together, saying “Brrr.” “How high are we?”

  “Thirty-two hundred meters.”

  The boy took out a pack of cigarettes and placed one in his mouth. He was about to put it back, but as if he had just thought of it, he offered the pack to the man. “Care for a smoke?” At the same time, not waiting for an answer, he took two steps toward him. The policeman was in no way alarmed. He took a cigarette and set it between his lips without thanking him.

  “That was one sloppy cop,” Lituma declared. “I’m pretty sloppy myself, and even I would’ve suspected something.”

  “They were asleep on their feet, Corporal.”

  Carreño lit a match, but the wind blew it out. He lit a second, hunching over to protect the flame with his body, all his senses alert, like an animal ready to pounce; he heard the woman in the back ask the driver to close the door, and he brought his hand up to
the mouth where the cigarette dangled. The policeman froze when, instead of a light, the barrel of a pistol knocked against his teeth.

  “Don’t shout, don’t move,” Tomás ordered. “I’m telling you for your own good.”

  With his eyes fixed on the man, whose mouth fell open—the cigarette rolled on the ground—Tomás gently took the submachine gun with his free hand but focused his ears on the car, waiting for the driver or one of the passengers to shout a warning to the guard inside the post.

  “But he didn’t hear a thing, and the passengers were half asleep and had no idea what was going on,” Lituma intoned. “You see, I’m one step ahead of you. Know why? Because I’ve seen a lot of movies in my life, and I know all the tricks.”

  “Hands up,” he ordered in a loud voice from the doorway. He aimed his revolver at the policeman sitting at a small table, and pointed the submachine gun at the head of the one he held in front of him as a shield. He heard Mercedes give a little cry, but he did not look at her, he did not take his eyes off the man at the table, who, after a stunned moment, raised his hands, staring and blinking in stupefaction.

  “‘Take his gun,’ I told Mercedes.” Carreño recalled. “But she was scared to death and didn’t move. I had to tell her again, shouting this time.”

  “Didn’t she almost pee her pants then, too?”

  Using both hands, she picked up the weapon the officer had left on the table.

  “I made the two of them stand against the wall, with their hands on their heads,” the boy went on. “You wouldn’t believe how cooperative they were, Corporal. They let me search them, take their pistols, tie them together, and not a peep out of them.”

  It was only as Tomás and Mercedes were leaving that one had the courage to murmur: “You won’t get very far, compadre.”

  “And you didn’t,” said Lituma. “I’m going to sleep, Tomasito. I’m tired, and your story is boring.”

  “I have enough guns to take care of myself,” Carreño cut him off.

  “What’s going on here?” the driver said behind him.

  “Nothing, nothing at all, we’re leaving now.”

  “What do you mean, nothing?” he heard him exclaim. “Who are you? Why…”

  “Take it easy, go on, it doesn’t have anything to do with you, nothing’s going to happen to you,” said the boy, pushing him outside.

  The passengers had climbed out of the Dodge and were standing around Mercedes, bombarding her with questions. She waved her hands and shook her head, almost hysterical: “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

  Carreño threw the guards’ submachine guns and pistols into the front seat of the Dodge and motioned to the driver to get behind the wheel. Taking Mercedes by the arm, he forced her into the car.

  “Are you going to leave us here?” The woman who had complained earlier was indignant.

  “Somebody will pick you up, don’t worry. You can’t come with me, they’ll think you’re involved.”

  “Then leave me behind, too,” protested the driver, who was already at the wheel.

  “Why the hell did you take the driver?” Lituma yawned. “Wasn’t Mercedes enough company for you?”

  “I don’t know how to drive, and neither does my wife,” Carreño explained. “Just get us out of here, and step on it.”

  Part Two

  6

  “Well, I think I’m ready to go now,” Corporal Lituma said, estimating that he would reach Naccos before dark if he left immediately.

  “Absolutely not, my friend.” The tall blond engineer, who had been so pleasant to him since his arrival in La Esperanza, interrupted, raising two cordial hands. “You might still be on the road at nightfall, and I don’t recommend that. You’ll have supper with us and sleep here, and first thing tomorrow Francisco López will take you back to Naccos in the jeep.”

  The dark-haired engineer, the one they called Shorty, also insisted, and Lituma did not need much urging to spend another night at the mine. First, because it was certainly imprudent to travel through these desolate places in the dark, and second, because it would allow him more time to see and listen to the gringo who was visiting La Esperanza, an explorer, or something like that. He had been fascinated from the first. Lituma had never seen such long hair, so wild a beard, except in pictures of the prophets and apostles, or on half-naked madmen or beggars wandering the streets of Lima. Yet there was nothing crazy about this man; he was a scholar. But unassuming and friendly, with the air of someone who lived in the clouds, had lost his way on earth, and was totally indifferent to, or unaware of, the danger he had faced when the terrucos attacked the mine. The engineers called him the Prof, and sometimes Red.

  As he took statements, prepared an inventory of what the attackers had stolen, and filled out the necessary forms for the insurance company, Lituma heard the engineers, especially the blond one, tease the Prof unmercifully about the horrible things the terrucos would have done to him if they had learned that an agent of the C.I.A. was right there under their noses, hiding in the water tank. He, in turn, expanded on the theme. As far as horrible things were concerned, he could give a few lessons to the terrucos, mere novices who only knew how to kill people with bullets or knives, or by crushing their skulls, which was child’s play compared to the techniques employed by the ancient Peruvians, who had achieved the heights of refinement. Even more than the ancient Mexicans, despite an international conspiracy of historians to conceal the Peruvian contribution to the art of human sacrifice. Everyone knew that Aztec priests stood at the top of the pyramids and tore out the hearts of the victims of the Flower Wars, but how many people had heard about the religious passion of the Chancas and Huancas for human viscera, about the delicate surgery in which they removed their victims’ livers and brains and kidneys and ate them in their ceremonies, washing it all down with good corn chicha? The engineers joked and so did he, and Lituma pretended to concentrate on writing the documents but did not miss a word of their conversation. And he would have given anything to sit for a while and listen to the banter and have a chance to examine the man’s outlandish appearance.

  Was he a gringo? His light eyes and fair hair and beard streaked with abundant gray made him look like one. So did the rough red-and-white checked jacket he wore with his jeans and cowboy shirt and mountain climber’s boots. No Peruvian dressed this way. But he spoke absolutely perfect Spanish and used many words that Lituma had not heard before although he was sure they existed in books. Son of a bitch, he was a real brain. Lituma would enjoy himself tonight.

  In the good times, the engineers told him, La Esperanza had employed over a hundred miners, but now there were barely thirty working the tunnels. And at the rate things were going, what with all the troubles and falling metal prices, it might have to close down, like other mines in Cerro de Pasco and Junín. They kept it open out of defiance more than anything else, since it was no longer profitable. Their camp was like the one in Naccos: very small, with wooden barracks and a couple of more solidly built houses where the office was located and where the engineers slept when they were at the mine. The foreman lived in one wing (he was not there now because he had taken the wounded man to Huancayo), and they gave Lituma a room in that building. It had a bed, a kerosene lamp, and a washbasin. Through the window he could see the two water towers, located between the mine entrance and the barracks, two large tanks secured on stone pilings, each with an iron ladder. One had been emptied for an annual cleaning, and that was where the engineers and the professor had gone to hide when they heard the terrucos. They kept out of sight, trembling with cold and fear—or did they joke in whispers there, too?—for the three hours it had taken the attackers to shoot it out with the half-dozen security men, forcing them to run (the dead man and the wounded one had belonged to the group led by Francisco López); then they looted explosives, fuses, medicines, boots, and clothing from the storeroom and infirmary, and harangued the miners, whom they forced out of the barracks and assembled in the nearby open space lit by a
few acetylene lamps.

  “Do you know what I’ll remember about this adventure, Corporal?” asked the blond engineer, whom Shorty called Bali. “It won’t be how frightened I was, or everything they stole, or even the poor boy they killed, but the fact that none of the miners betrayed us.”

  They were sitting at a long table, beginning their meal. Appetizing aromas mingled with the smoke from their cigarettes.

  “If even one had pointed a finger or nodded his head toward the water tank,” Shorty agreed, “they’d have given us a revolutionary trial and we’d be in paradise by now, isn’t that right, Bali?”

  “You and I would be in hell, Shorty. But the Prof would certainly have gone straight to heaven. Because, believe it or not, Corporal, Red here hasn’t committed his first sin yet.”

  “I wouldn’t pull a dirty trick like that,” said the professor, and Lituma tried to detect a single foreign-sounding syllable in his accent. “I would have gone with the two of you and shared your flames—the ones that burn, not the ones you used to be in love with.”

  He cooked while the two engineers, Francisco López, and the corporal each had a glass of aromatic lean pisco that filled Lituma’s veins with delicious warmth and his head with an excited sense of well-being. The professor had prepared a real banquet: a soup of dried potatoes and beans with chunks of chicken meat, and breaded steak with white rice. Delicious! With the food they had cold beer that made Lituma very happy. He hadn’t eaten this well for months, not since he had been in Piura. He was having such a good time that from the moment he sat down at the table with them he almost forgot about the disappearances in Naccos and the nightly laments and romantic confessions of Tomasito, the two topics, he realized now, that had occupied all his thoughts lately.

  “And do you know why I’ll always remember the loyalty of those thirty miners, Corporal?” Bali insisted. “Because they taught Shorty and me a lesson. We thought they were in cahoots with the terrucos. And now, you see, we’re here thanks to their silence.”