Death in the Andes

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  “I’m not here as a Civil Guard but as an ordinary customer,” he said. “This camp’s closed down, so let’s not have any trouble. Let’s have a drink instead.”

  He raised his glass and the drunk docilely imitated him, solemnly raising his empty hand: “To your health, Corporal.”

  “That woman with Tomasito now, I knew her when she was a kid,” said Lituma, his mouth slack. “She’s even better now than she was in Piura. If Josefino or La Chunga could see her, they wouldn’t believe how good-looking she is.”

  “You’re a pair of liars,” said the drunk, in a rage again, pounding the bar and bringing his face close to the cantinero in an antagonistic way. “I tell you right to your face. You can scare everybody else but you don’t scare me.”

  Dionisio took absolutely no offense. His expression, somewhere between excited and peaceable, did not change, but he stopped imitating a bear. In his hand he held the bottle of pisco with which he had periodically been filling Lituma’s glass. He very calmly filled another glass and handed it to the drunk with a friendly gesture.

  “What you need is something good to drink, compadre. Beer is for people who don’t know what’s good, who like to bloat and belch. Go on, try it, smell the grape.”

  “This Mercedes can’t be Meche,” Lituma thought. He had made a mistake, the alcohol had confused him. Through a kind of fog he saw the drunk obey, taking the glass that Dionisio handed him, inhaling the fragrance and sipping it slowly, his eyes half closed. He seemed to calm down, but as soon as he emptied the glass he became angry again.

  “A pair of liars, but I could call you something worse,” he bellowed, and again he brought his menacing face close to the impassive cantinero. “So, nothing was going to happen? Everything happened! The huayco came, the highway shut down, we all got fired. All the horrible things, and we’re worse off than before. You can’t mess with people and then just sit back and watch the game from a box seat.”

  He was breathing heavily, and his expression changed. He opened and closed his eyes and looked around suspiciously; was he worried at having said what he said? Lituma observed the cantinero. Dionisio impassively filled the glasses again.

  Señora Adriana came out from behind the bar and took the drunk by the hand. “Come on, let’s dance, so you won’t be so mad anymore. Don’t you know getting mad is bad for your health?”

  The song on the radio could barely be heard through the static and continual interference. The man began to dance a bolero, hanging on to Doña Adriana like a monkey. Through the persistent fog Lituma saw that as the drunk pressed against her he ran his hands over her buttocks and rubbed his mouth and nose along her neck.

  “Where are the others?” he asked. “Those guys who were just drinking beer over there.”

  “They left about ten minutes ago,” Dionisio said. “Didn’t you hear the door slam?”

  “Don’t you care if they manhandle your wife like that right under your nose?”

  Dionisio shrugged. “Drunks don’t know what they’re doing.” He laughed excitedly, inhaling from the glass he held in his hand. “Besides, what difference does it make? We’ll give him ten minutes of happiness. Look how he’s enjoying himself. Aren’t you jealous?”

  The man had stopped dancing and was almost on top of Señora Adriana. His feet did not move, his hands ran over her arms, shoulders, back, breasts, his lips searched for her mouth. With a bored, slightly disgusted expression, she let him do as he pleased.

  “He’s like an animal.” Lituma spat on the floor. “How could I be jealous of something like that?”

  “Animals are happier than you and me, Corporal, sir.” Dionisio laughed and became a bear again. “They live to eat, sleep, and fuck. They don’t think, they don’t have worries like us, and that’s our misfortune. He’s paying a visit to his animal now, just see if he isn’t happy.”

  The corporal moved a little closer to the cantinero and took him by the arm. “What were those horrible things?” he said, stressing each syllable. “The things they did so nothing would happen, so everything that happened wouldn’t happen. What were they?”

  “Ask him, Corporal, sir,” answered Dionisio, making slow, clumsy movements, as if obeying the commands of a trainer. “If you believe what a drunk says, then you can let him tell you all about it. Satisfy your curiosity once and for all. Make him talk, beat it out of him.”

  Lituma closed his eyes. Everything was spinning inside, and the whirlwind was going to swallow up Tomasito and Mechita too, embracing at the very moment they loved each other most.

  “I don’t care anymore,” he stammered. “It’s over, case closed. I have a new post. I’ll go to the Upper Marañón and forget about the sierra. I’m glad the apus sent the huayco down on Naccos. I’m glad they stopped work on the highway. Thanks to the apus, I can get out of here. I’ve never been so miserable in my life as I was here.”

  “Well, well, the pisco’s bringing up the truth,” said the cantinero approvingly. “Like it does to everybody, Corporal, sir. At this rate, you’ll pay a visit to your animal, too. What’ll it be, I wonder. A lizard? A hog?”

  The drunk had begun to shout, and Lituma turned around to look. What he saw sickened him. The man, bundled into his jacket-prison, had opened his fly and held his sex in both hands. He showed it, dark and erect, to Doña Adriana, and shouted with a thickened tongue: “Worship it, lady. Get down on your knees, put your hands together, and say: ‘You’re my god.’ Don’t play shy with me.”

  Lituma was shaken by a fit of laughter. But then he felt like vomiting, and doubts about Mercedes still whirled in his head. Was she or wasn’t she that girl in Piura? Son of a bitch, it was too much of a coincidence. Did that fool say something about horrible things?

  Señora Adriana turned and went back to the bar. Here she was again, leaning her elbows on the counter, looking with absolute indifference at the drunk with the open fly, who stood in the middle of the empty room, contemplating his sex with a defeated expression.

  “You were talking about horrible things, Corporal, sir,” said Dionisio. “There’s one. Have you ever seen anything more horrible than that little black prick?”

  He guffawed, and Señora Adriana laughed, too. Lituma did the same, to be polite, because he had no desire to laugh. Any second now, he would begin retching and puking.

  “I’m taking this asshole out of here,” he said. “He isn’t funny anymore, and he won’t leave you alone for the rest of the night.”

  “Don’t worry about me, I’m used to it,” said Dionisio. “It’s all part of the job.”

  “How much do I owe you?” asked the corporal, reaching for his wallet.

  “Tonight it’s on the house.” Dionisio stopped his hand. “Didn’t I tell you I was liquidating the stock?”

  “Thanks very much, then.”

  Lituma walked over to the drunk. He took his arm, and with no violence began to move him toward the door. “You and I are going outside for a little fresh air, compadre.”

  The man put up no resistance. He quickly closed up his fly.

  “Sure, Corporal,” he said in a choked voice. “People understand each other when they talk.”

  An icy darkness waited for them outside. There was no rain, and the wind was not blowing as on other nights, but the temperature had plummeted since the afternoon, and Lituma could hear the blaster’s teeth chattering, could feel him shivering as he huddled into his straitjacket clothing.

  “I guess you’re sleeping in the barracks the huayco left standing,” he said, supporting him by the elbow. “I’ll walk with you, compadre. Let’s hold on to each other. In this fog and with all the potholes, we could crack open our skulls.”

  They moved slowly, staggering, stumbling, in darkness that the myriad stars and the pale half-moon failed to lighten. After a few steps, Lituma felt the man double over, clutching his stomach.

  “Do you want to puke? Go on, you’ll feel better. Go on, try, get rid of that shit. I’ll help you.”


  The man leaned over, shuddering as he heaved, and Lituma stood behind him, pressing on his stomach with both hands, as he had done so often with the Invincibles back in Piura, when they left La Chunga’s bar good and drunk.

  “You’re poking me in the ass,” the blaster protested suddenly in a faint voice.

  “You’d like that.” Lituma laughed. “You dumb bastard, I don’t like men.”

  “Neither do I,” bellowed the other, between heaves. “But in Naccos you become a faggot, and even worse.”

  Lituma felt his heart pounding. Something was eating at this guy and he wanted to spit that out, too. He wanted to get it off his chest, tell somebody about it.

  The blaster finally straightened up with a sigh of relief. “I feel better now.” He spat and stretched his arms. “It’s fucking cold out here.”

  “It’s enough to freeze your brains,” Lituma agreed. “Let’s get moving.”

  They linked arms again and began to walk, cursing whenever they tripped over a rock or sank into mud. At last the barracks loomed in front of them, denser than the darkness that surrounded it. The wind could be heard whistling around the hilltops, but down here everything was quiet and peaceful. The effects of the alcohol had worn off, and Lituma felt clearheaded and lucid. He had even forgotten about Mercedes and Tomasito making love up there in the post, and about Meche from so many years ago in the little bar on the sandy ground near the Piura Stadium. A decision sputtered inside his head, ready to explode: “I’ve got to get it out of him.”

  “Okay, let’s smoke a cigarette, compadre,” he said. “Before we go to sleep.”

  “Are you going to stay here?” The blaster seemed to have sobered up too.

  “I don’t feel like climbing all the way up there now. Besides, three’s a crowd, and I don’t want to interrupt the happy couple. There must be a spare bed in here.”

  “A cot, you mean. They already took away the mattresses.”

  Lituma heard snoring from the far end of the barracks. The man dropped into the first bunk on the right, next to the door. With the help of a match, the corporal found his bearings: there were two bare wooden cots next to the one occupied by the blaster. He sat down on the closer one, took out his pack, and lit two cigarettes. He handed one to the laborer and said in a friendly voice: “Nothing like the last smoke when you’re in bed, waiting to fall asleep.”

  “I may be drunk, but I’m not an idiot,” said the man. The corporal saw the end of his cigarette glow more brightly in the dark, and a mouthful of smoke blew right into his face. “Why are you staying here? What do you want from me?”

  “I want to know what happened to those three men,” said Lituma, very softly, surprised at his own boldness. Wasn’t he risking everything? “I’m not going to arrest anybody. I’m not sending any reports to headquarters in Huancayo. Nothing to do with the service. I just want to know, compadre. I swear. What happened to Casimiro Huarcaya, Pedrito Tinoco, Medardo Llantac, alias Demetrio Chanca? Tell me while we smoke this last cigarette.”

  “Not on your life,” the man rasped, breathing heavily. He moved in the cot, and it occurred to Lituma that now he would jump up and run out of the barracks and hide with Dionisio and Doña Adriana. “Not even if you kill me. Not even if you pour gasoline on me and set me on fire. You can torture me the way you do the terrucos, if you want. But I won’t talk.”

  “I won’t touch a hair on your head, compadre,” said Lituma, very slowly, exaggerating his amiability. “You tell me, and I’ll go away. You leave Naccos tomorrow and so do I. We each go our own separate ways. We’ll never see each other again. After you tell me we’ll both feel better. You’ll get rid of what’s eating you, and so will I, it’s been gnawing at me all this time. I don’t know your name, and I don’t want to know. I only want you to tell me what happened. So we can both sleep at night, compadre.”

  There was a long silence, broken by sporadic snores from the rear of the barracks. Occasionally, Lituma saw the tip of the blaster’s cigarette flare, and a cloud of smoke would rise and sometimes tickle the inside of his nose. He felt calm. He was absolutely certain the guy was going to talk.

  “You sacrificed them to the apus, didn’t you?”

  “The apus?” asked the man, moving in the cot. His restlessness affected the corporal, who felt an urgent itch traveling over various parts of his body.

  “The spirits of the mountains,” explained Lituma. “The amarus, the mukis, the gods, the devils, whatever they’re called. The ones that live inside the hills and make bad things happen. Did you sacrifice them so there wouldn’t be a huayco? So the terrucos wouldn’t come to kill anybody or take people away? So the pishtacos wouldn’t dry out any laborers? Was that the reason?”

  “I don’t know Quechua,” the man said hoarsely. “I never heard that word before. Apu?”

  “Wasn’t that the reason, compadre?” Lituma insisted.

  “Medardo was my paisano, I’m from Andamarca, too,” said the man. “He used to be the mayor. That’s what fucked up Medardo.”

  “The foreman is the one you feel bad about?” asked Lituma. “I guess the others matter less than your paisano. The one that gets me is the little mute, Pedrito Tinoco. Were you good friends, you and Demetrio, I mean, Medardo Llantac?”

  “We knew each other. He lived with his wife up there on the slope. Scared to death the terrucos would find out he was here. That time in Andamarca he got away by the skin of his teeth. Do you know how? He hid in a grave. We talked sometimes. These Ayacuchans and Abanquinos and Huancavelicans were always on him, telling him: ‘Sooner or later, they’ll get you.’ Telling him: ‘You living in Naccos makes it dangerous for all of us. Go on, get out of here.’”

  “Is that why you sacrificed the foreman? To get in good with the terrucos?”

  “Not just for that,” the blaster protested in great agitation. He smoked and exhaled steadily, and it was as if his drunkenness had returned. “Not just for that, damn it.”

  “Why else?”

  “Those motherfuckers said he’d already been convicted, that sooner or later they’d come and execute him. And since we needed somebody, better somebody who was on their list and would die soon anyway.”

  “You needed human blood, isn’t that what you mean?”

  “But it was a big lie, they cheated us,” the man said angrily. “Didn’t we lose our jobs? And do you know what they’re still saying?”

  “What are they saying?”

  “That we didn’t give them all our recognition and that’s why they were offended. According to those motherfuckers, we would’ve had to do even more things. Understand?”

  “Sure I do,” whispered Lituma. “What could be more horrible than killing the albino, the foreman, the little mute, for some apus nobody ever saw, when nobody even knows if they exist?”

  “Killing was the least of it,” shouted the man in his bed, and Lituma thought whoever was sleeping at the back of the barracks would wake up and tell them to shut up. Or sneak over and close the blaster’s mouth for him. And because he’d heard what he’d heard, they’d take him to the abandoned mine and throw him down the shaft. “Aren’t there killings everywhere? Killing is the least of it. Isn’t killing just routine, like pissing or taking a shit? That isn’t what fucked people up. Not just me, a lot of the ones who left already, too. It was the other thing.”

  “The other thing?” Lituma felt cold.

  “The taste in your mouth,” whispered the blaster, and his voice broke. “It won’t go away, no matter how you rinse it out. I can taste it now. On my tongue, on my teeth. In my throat. I can even feel it in my belly. As if I’d just finished chewing.”

  Lituma felt the cigarette burning his fingers, and he dropped it. He stamped out the sparks. He understood what the man was saying, and he did not want to know any more.

  “So, that too, on top of everything else,” he murmured, and he sat with his mouth open, panting.

  “It doesn’t go away even when I sleep,” declared the
blaster. “Only when I drink. That’s why I drink so much. But it’s no good for me, it’s bad for my ulcers. I’m shitting blood again.”

  Lituma tried to take another cigarette, but his hands shook so much he dropped the pack. He looked for it, groping around the damp floor covered with gravel and matchsticks.

  “Everybody took communion. I didn’t want to, but I took communion, too,” the laborer said in a rush. “That’s what’s fucking me up. The stuff I swallowed.”

  Lituma finally found the pack. He took out two cigarettes, put them in his mouth, and then had to wait until his hand could hold a match and light them. He handed one to the man, not saying anything. He saw him take a drag, another foul-smelling mouthful of smoke blew in his face, he felt the itch in his nose.

  “And now I’m even scared to go to sleep,” said the blaster. “I turned into a coward. I never was one before. But can anybody fight his dreams? If I don’t drink, I have nightmares.”

  “Do you see yourself eating your paisano? Is that what you dream?”

  “I’m hardly ever in the dreams,” explained the blaster, with absolute docility. “Just them. Cutting off their balls, slicing them, eating them like some kind of delicacy.” He retched, and Lituma heard him hunch over. “But when I’m in the dream too, it’s worse. Those two come and tear mine off with their hands and eat them right in front of me. I’d rather drink than dream that. But what about my ulcer? You tell me if this is any kind of life, damn it.”

  Lituma stood up abruptly. “I hope you get over it, compadre,” he said, feeling dizzy. He had to lean against the bunk for a minute. “I hope you find work where you’re going. I guess it won’t be easy. I don’t think it’ll be easy for you to forget this, either. You know something?”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry I tried so hard to find out what happened to them. I’d be better off just suspecting. I’ll go now and let you sleep. Even if I have to spend the night outside so I won’t bother Tomasito. I don’t want to sleep next to you or near those guys snoring back there. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and see your face and have a normal conversation with you. Son of a bitch, I’m going to breathe a little air.”