Death in the Andes (12 page)

When it seemed to be over—her mouth was dry and her throat burned—Señora d'Harcourt felt very tired.

“Are you going to kill me?” she asked, hearing her voice break for the first time.

The one in the leather jacket looked into her eyes without blinking.

“This is war, and you are a lackey of our class enemy,” he explained, staring at her with blank eyes, delivering his monologue in an expressionless voice. “You don't even realize that you are a tool of imperialism and the bourgeois state. Even worse, you permit yourself the luxury of a clear conscience, seeing yourself as Peru's Good Samaritan. Your case is typical.”

“Can you explain that to me?” she said. “In all sincerity, I don't understand. What am I a typical case of?”

“The intellectual who betrays the people,” he said with the same serene, icy confidence. “The intellectual who serves bourgeois power and the ruling class. What you do here has nothing to do with the environment. It has to do with your class and with power. You come here with bureaucrats, the newspapers provide publicity, and the government wins a battle. Who said that this was liberated territory? That a part of the New Democracy had been established in this zone? A lie. There's the proof. Look at the photographs. A bourgeois peace reigns in the Andes. You don't know this either, but a new nation is being born here. With a good deal of blood and suffering. We can show no mercy to such powerful enemies.”

“May I at least intercede on behalf of Cañas?” Señora d'Harcourt stammered. “He's young, almost the same age as you. I've never known a more idealistic Peruvian, one who works with so much…”

“The session is over,” said the young man in the jacket as he rose to his feet.

When they walked outside, the sun was setting behind the hills and the nursery of seedlings was disappearing in a great fire whose flames heated the air and made their cheeks burn. Señora d'Harcourt saw the driver climbing into the jeep. A short while later, he drove off in the direction of Huancavelica.

“At least they let him go,” said the engineer, who stood beside her. “I'm glad, he's a decent guy.”

“I'm so sorry, Señor Cañas,” she murmured. “I feel so guilty about you. I don't know how to beg your…”

“Señora, it is a great honor for me,” he said in a firm voice. “I mean, being with you at the end. They've taken the two technicians over there, and since they hold a lower rank they'll shoot them in the head. You and I, however, are people of privilege. They just explained it to me. A question of symbols, apparently. You're a believer, aren't you? I'm not, so please pray for me. Can we stand together? I'll bear up better if I can hold your hand. Let's try, all right? Move closer, señora.”

“And what were you saying in your sleep, Tomasito?” Lituma asked.

When the boy opened his eyes with a start, the sun was shining into the room, which seemed smaller and shabbier than it had the night before. Mercedes, combed and dressed, sat looking at him from a corner of the bed with narrowed, inquisitive eyes. A little mocking smile floated across her face.

“What time is it?” he asked, stretching.

“I've been watching you sleep for hours.” Mercedes opened her mouth and laughed.

“Go on, cut it out,” said the boy, feeling uncomfortable. “At least today you woke up in a good mood.”

“I wasn't just watching you sleep; I was listening, too.” “Her teeth were as white as a little mouse's, they gleamed in Mercedes's dark face, Corporal.” “You talked and talked. I thought you were just pretending to be asleep. But I came over and you were dead to the world.”

“What the hell were you saying, Tomasito?” Lituma insisted.

“You can't imagine the beautiful fuck I was having, Corporal.”

“You learned pretty fast, you figured things out pretty quick.” Mercedes laughed again, and he, to hide his confusion, pretended to yawn. “You kept saying the pretty things you told me last night.”

“Now it was time for flirting,” Lituma remarked with amusement.

“Well, when you're asleep you can say anything,” Carreño said defensively.

Mercedes became serious and looked straight into his eyes. She put out her hand, burying her fingers in his hair, and Tomás felt her stroking it the way she had the night before.

“Do you really feel those things for me? Those things you said all night and kept saying when you were asleep?”

“She had such an open way of talking about intimate things, you never saw anything like it,” Tomás murmured with emotion. “It really shocked me, Corporal.”

“You thought it was sweeter than honey, you liar,” Lituma corrected him. “My paisana had you wrapped around her little finger.”

“Or were you just hot for me, and now that I gave you what you wanted, are you cooling down?” Mercedes added, devouring him with her eyes.

“Talking in broad daylight about the things you whisper into someone's ear in the dark, I don't know, Corporal. I swear, it almost made me angry. But the feeling left as soon as she started to play with my hair.”

“I know you don't like me to talk about what happened,” said Mercedes, becoming serious again. “But I still don't get it, how you could see me only a couple of times and not even say a word to me and then fall in love like that. Nobody ever said those things to me, hour after hour, even when he was finished. Nobody ever got down on his knees and kissed my feet, like you did.”

“You got down on your knees and kissed her feet?” Lituma was astonished. “That's not love, that's worship.”

“My face is burning, honey, I don't know what to do with myself,” the boy joked.

He looked for the towel that he remembered leaving at the foot of the bed the night before. It was on the floor. He picked it up, wrapped it around his waist, and got out of bed. As he passed Mercedes, he bent down to kiss her.

With his mouth on her hair, he whispered: “What I told you is what I feel. What I feel for you.”

“A hard-on is what you felt,” Lituma grew animated. “Did you fall into bed again?”

“I just got my period, so don't get all excited,” said Mercedes.

“It'll be hard for me to get used to the way you talk,” Carreño said, laughing and letting her go. “Do you think I'll ever get used to it, or do I have to change you?”

She patted him on the chest.

“Go on, get dressed, let's get some breakfast. Aren't you hungry after everything you did last night?”

“I once went to bed with a whore who had her period, at the Green House in Piura,” Lituma recalled. “She only charged me half. The Invincibles drove me crazy, saying it would give me syphilis.”

Carreño was laughing as he left the room. The shower and sink were dry, but there was a washbasin filled with water, and he gave himself a sponge bath. He dressed, and they went down to the restaurant. The tables were crowded now, and a good many faces turned to look at them. It was afternoon, and people were having lunch. They sat at the only free table. The boy who waited on them said it was too late for breakfast. They decided to be on their way. They paid for the night, and the manager told them that the bus and jitney offices were near the Plaza de Armas. Before going there, they stopped at a pharmacy to buy sanitary napkins for Mercedes. And in the market they bought alpaca sweaters for the cold in the Cordillera.

“It was lucky Hog paid me in advance,” said Tomás. “Imagine if we didn't have a cent in our pockets.”

“Didn't that dealer have a name?” asked Lituma. “Why do you always call him the man, Hog, the boss?”

“Nobody knew his name, Corporal. I don't even think my godfather knew.”

They had cheese sandwiches in a small café and went to the offices to make their inquiries. They decided to take a car that was leaving at five and would reach the capital at noon the next day. The guards at the checkpoints along the highway would be less vigilant at night. It was a little after one. They lingered on the Plaza de Armas, where the heat seemed less intense in the shade of the great trees. Carreño had his shoes shined. The vast square swarmed with shoeshine boys, peddlers, street photographers, and tramps who basked in the sun or slept on the benches. There was a heavy traffic of trucks loaded with fruit arriving from the jungle or leaving for the sierra and the coast.

“And now what's going to happen when we get to Lima?” Mercedes asked.

“We'll live together.”

“So you decided everything all by yourself.”

“Well, if you want, we'll get married.”

“That's called moving fast,” Lituma interrupted. “Were you really serious about getting married?”

“In church, with a veil and a white dress?” asked Mercedes, intrigued.

“Whatever you want. If you have family in Piura, I'll go there with my mother to ask for your hand. Because I don't have a father. Anything you want, honey.”

“Sometimes I envy you.” Lituma sighed. “It must be fantastic to fall in love like that.”

“Now I know it's true.” Mercedes leaned against him, and the boy put his arm around her shoulders. “You really are crazy about me, Carreñito.”

“More than you'll ever know,” he whispered in her ear. “I'd kill another thousand Hogs if I had to. We'll get out of this, you'll see. Lima's a big place. Once we get there, they'll never catch us. But something else is worrying me. You already know how I feel. But what about you? Are you in love with me, even a little?”

“No, no I'm not,” Mercedes answered immediately. “I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I can't say what isn't true.”

“And she started in about how she didn't like to lie”—Tomasito grew sad—“and how she wasn't one of those girls who fall in love one two three. We were in the middle of that when all of a sudden, out of the blue, there was Fats Iscariote standing in front of us.”

“Have you gone crazy? What are you doing here? You think this is any time to be smooching in public with the girlfriend of the man you just bumped off, you stupid—”

“Calm down, Fats, take it easy,” Carreño said.

“He was absolutely right,” Lituma acknowledged. “They must've been looking for you in Tingo María, in Lima, everywhere. And you were just living it up.”

“We only have one life and we have to live it, Corporal,” said Tomás. “And since the night before, I was living it to the hilt with my sweetheart. What did I care about Hog, or if they were after me, or would send me to jail? Nobody could take that happiness away from me.”

Iscariote's eyes bulged, and the basket of tamales in his hand shook with his rage. “You can't be this dumb, Carreño.”

“You're right, Fats. Don't get so upset. Do you want to know something? I'm really happy to see you. I thought I'd never see you again.”

Iscariote wore a tie and jacket, but his shirt was too tight, and he tugged at the collar so much he seemed determined to pull it off. His bloated face gleamed with perspiration, and he needed a shave. He looked around in alarm. The shoeshine boys observed him with curiosity, and a tramp lying on a bench and sucking a lemon stretched out his hand, begging for money. Iscariote dropped to the bench next to Mercedes but stood up immediately, as if he had received an electric shock.

“Everybody's looking at us.” He pointed at the Hotel de Turistas. “We're better off inside, room 27. Just go up without asking for me. I stepped out for a minute to buy tamales.”

He strode away, not looking back. They waited a few minutes, took a turn around the square, and followed him. In the Hotel de Turistas, a woman mopping the lobby floor showed them where the staircase was. Room 27 was next to the stairs, and Carreño knocked and then pushed the door open.

“He was fat, he ate like a pig, and he was the dealer's bodyguard,” Lituma concluded. “That's all you've told me about Iscariote.”

“He had some kind of connection to the police,” said his adjutant. “My godfather introduced us, and I never knew much about his life. He didn't work full-time for Hog. Just occasional jobs, like me.”

“Lock it,” the fat man ordered but did not stop chewing. He had taken off his jacket and was sitting on the bed, holding the little basket between his legs and eating tamales with his hands. His handkerchief was tucked like a napkin into his collar. Tomás sat next to him, and Mercedes took the only chair in the room. The leafy tops of the trees on the square, and the old gazebo with its faded balustrade, were visible through the window. Not saying a word, Iscariote offered them the basket; there were two tamales left. They declined.

“They used to taste better than this,” said Iscariote, stuffing half a tamale into his mouth. “I'd like to know what you're doing in Huánuco, Carreñito.”

“We're leaving this afternoon, Fats.” Tomás patted him on the knee. “They may not be very good, but you sure can put them away.”