Conversation in the Cathedral (22 page)

“What did that streetcar workers’ strike have to do with your leaving home?” Carlitos asked.

He crossed the playing area, then another room with only one table being used, then a courtyard overflowing with garbage cans. In the back, beside a fig tree, there was a small closed door. Two knocks, he waited, then two more, and it opened at once.

“Odría doesn’t realize that by allowing that kind of fawning he’s becoming the laughingstock of Lima,” Señora Zoila said. “If he’s noble, what can we be, then?”

“The Apristas haven’t got here yet,” Héctor said. “Come in, the comrades are here already.”

“Up till then our work had been on the student level,” Santiago said. “Collections for students in jail, discussions at the centers, the
distribution
of fliers, and Cahuide leaflets. That streetcar strike let us go on to greater things.”

He went in and Héctor closed the door. The room was older and dirtier than the ones used for billiards. Four pool tables had been pushed up against the wall to make more space. The delegates from Cahuide were spread about the room.

“What fault is it of Odría’s if someone writes an article saying that he’s noble?” Don Fermín asked. “Sharp people will think of anything to make a little money. Even invent family trees!”

Washington and Half-breed Martínez were standing and talking near the door, Solórzano was sitting on a table looking through a magazine, Aída and Jacobo had almost disappeared into the shadows of a corner, The Bird had made herself comfortable on the floor, and Héctor was peeping into the courtyard through the cracks in the door.

“The streetcar workers’ strike wasn’t political, but for a pay raise,” Santiago said. “The union sent a letter to the San Marcos Federation asking for the students’ support. In the section we thought it was our great opportunity.”

“The Apristas were told to come one at a time, but they don’t give a damn about security,” Washington said. “They’ll come in a gang the way they always do.”

“Then call that fellow up and have him check our titles too,” Señora Zoila said. “Odría noble, that’s all we needed.”

They arrived a few minutes later, in a group, just as Washington had feared, five of the twenty-odd Aprista delegates: Santos Vivero, Arévalo, Ochoa, Huamán and Saldívar. They mixed in with the Cahuide people, without taking a vote it was decided that Saldívar would run the meeting. His thin face, his bony hands, his graying hair gave him a responsible look. As always, before starting, they swapped jokes, sarcastic remarks.

“In the section we agreed to try to have a strike at San Marcos in support of the streetcar workers,” Santiago said.

“I can see now why you’re so worried about security,” Santos Vivero told Washington. “Because you’re all the redtails left in the country and if the cops come and arrest us, Communism will disappear in Peru. The five of us, on the other hand, are just one drop in the broad sea of Peruvian Aprismo.”

“Anyone who falls into it won’t drown in water but in a sea of bourgeois snobs,” Washington said.

Héctor had remained at his observation post by the door; they were all speaking in low voices, there was a continuous murmur, a fluffy sound, and suddenly a laugh would arise, an exclamation.

“The delegates from the section couldn’t decide a strike, we only had eight votes in the Federation,” Santiago said. “But with the Apristas we could. We had a meeting with them in a pool parlor. It started there, Carlitos.”

“I doubt that these guys will support the strike,” Aída whispered to Santiago. “They’re divided. Everything depends on Santos Vivero, if he agrees the rest will follow him. Like sheep, you know, whatever the boss says is fine.”

“It was the first big argument in Cahuide,” Santiago said. “I was against the sympathy strike; the one who headed those in favor was Jacobo.”

“All right, companions.” Saldívar clapped his hands twice. “Come closer, we’re going to begin.”

“It wasn’t just to go against Jacobo,” Santiago said. “I didn’t think we would get the support of the students, I thought it would be a failure. But I was in the minority and the idea carried.”

“Companions must apply to you people.” Washington laughed. “We’re all in the same place, but don’t get us mixed up, Saldívar.”

“Those meetings with the Apristas were like friendly soccer matches,” Santiago said. “They began with embraces and sometimes ended up with punches.”

“All right, companions and comrades, then,” Saldívar said. “Come closer or I’m going to the movies.”

A circle was formed around him, the laughs and murmurs died out. Adopting a sudden funereal gravity, Saldívar summed up the reasons for the meeting: tonight at the Federation they would discuss the petition for support of the streetcar workers, companions, to decide if we could bring off a motion together, comrades. Jacobo raised his hand.

“In the section we would rehearse those meetings like a ballet,”
Santiago
said. “Taking turns, each one developing a different argument, always knocking any contrary opinion down.”

His tie was hanging loose, his hair was uncombed, he was speaking in a low voice: the strike was a magnificent occasion to take over the students’ awareness. His hands hanging beside his body: to develop the student-worker alliance. Looking at Saldívar very seriously: to initiate a movement that could be extended to demands like the freeing of
imprisoned
students and political amnesty. He stopped speaking and Huamán raised his hand.

“I’d been against the idea of a strike for the same reasons as those expressed by Huamán, an Aprista,” Santiago said. “But since the section had agreed on a strike, it was up to me to defend it against Huamán. That’s called democratic centralism, Carlitos.”

Huamán was small and mannered, it had taken us three years to rebuild the centers and the Federation of San Marcos after the
repression
, his gestures were elegant, how could we start a strike for reasons that lay outside the university which might be rejected by our power base? and he spoke with one hand on his lapel and the other fluttering about like a butterfly, if the base rejected the strike we would lose the confidence of the students, and his voice was artificial, florid, shrill at times, and furthermore, repression would come and the centers and the Federation would be dismantled before they’d been able to operate.

“I know Party discipline has to be like that,” Santiago said. “I know that if it wasn’t there’d be chaos. I’m not defending myself, Carlitos.”

“Don’t get bogged down in details, Ochoa,” Saldívar said. “Stick to the point under discussion.”

“Exactly, precisely,” Ochoa said. “I ask: is the Federation of San Marcos strong enough to make a frontal action against the dictatorship?”

“Say what you’ve got to say, we haven’t got much time,” Héctor said.

“And if it isn’t strong enough and goes on strike,” Ochoa said, “what will the attitude of the Federation be? That’s my question.”

“Why don’t you get a job running the Kolynos program, ‘The Twenty Thousand Soles Question’?” Washington asked.

“Would it or wouldn’t it be an act of provocation?” Ochoa said imperturbably. “I ask a question and I give a constructive answer: yes, it would be. What? A provocation.”

“It was in the middle of those meetings that all of a sudden I felt I’d never be a revolutionary, a real militant,” Santiago said. “All of a
sudden
, anguish, nausea, a feeling of a horrible waste of time.”

“The young romantic didn’t want discussions,” Carlitos said. “He wanted epic actions, bombs, shooting, attacks on a military post. All stuff out of novels, Zavalita.”

“I know it bothers you having to speak in defense of the strike,” Aída said. “But you’ve got one consolation, all the Apristas are against it. And without them the Federation will reject our motion.”

“They should have invented a pill, a suppository to work against doubts, Ambrosio,” Santiago says. “Just think how beautiful, you stick it in and there you are: I believe.”

He raised his hand and he began to speak before Saldívar recognized him: the strike would consolidate the centers, it would fire up the
delegates
, the student base would give their support because hadn’t they shown their support for them by electing them? He kept his hands in his pockets and dug in his nails.

“Just the same as when I made the examination of my conscience on Thursdays before confession,” Santiago said. “Had I dreamed about nude women because I’d wanted to dream about them or because the devil had wanted it and I couldn’t stop him? Were they there in the dark as intruders or as invited guests?”

“You’re wrong, you did have the making of a militant,” Carlitos said. “If I had to defend ideas that were contrary to my own, all that would come out would be brays, grunts or peeps.”

“What are you doing on
La
Crónica?
” Santiago asked. “What are we doing each one of these days, Carlitos?”

Santos Vivero raised his hand, he’d listened to the speeches with an expression of soft uneasiness, and before he spoke, he closed his eyes and coughed as if he still had his doubts.

“The omelet was flipped at the last minute,” Santiago said. “It looked as if the Apristas were against it, that there wouldn’t be any strike. Maybe everything would have been different, then, I wouldn’t have gone to work at
La
Crónica
, Carlitos.”

He thought, companions and comrades, that the fundamental thing at this time was not the struggle for university reform, but the struggle against the dictatorship. And an effective way of fighting for civil
liberties
, the release of prisoners, the return of exiles, the legalization of parties was, companions and comrades, by forging the worker-student alliance, or, as a great philosopher had said, the one between manual and mental workers.

“If you quote Haya de la Torre again, I’ll read you the Communist Manifesto,” Washington said. “I’ve got it right here.”

“You’re like an old whore thinking back about her youth, Zavalita,” Carlitos said. “We’re different that way too. What happened to me as a boy has been erased for me and I’m sure that the most important thing is going to happen to me tomorrow. You seem to have stopped living when you were eighteen years old.”

“Don’t interrupt him, he might change his mind,” Héctor whispered. “Can’t you see he’s in favor of the strike?”

Yes, it could be a good opportunity because the companions on the streetcars were showing courage and fight, and their union wasn’t full of yellow dogs. The delegates shouldn’t follow their electorate blindly, they should show them the direction: wake them up, companions and comrades, push them into action.

“After Santos Vivero, the Apristas began to talk again and we talked again,” Santiago said. “We left the pool parlor in agreement and that night the Federation approved an indefinite strike of sympathy with the streetcar workers. I was arrested exactly ten days later, Carlitos.”

“Your baptism of fire,” Carlitos said. “Or rather, your death
certificate
, Zavalita.”

“M
AYBE IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER
if you’d stayed at the house, not gone to Pucallpa,” Santiago says.

“Yes, a lot better,” Ambrosio says. “But who could have known, son.”

See how pretty he talks, Trifulcio shouted. There was scattered
applause
in the square, horn-blowing, a few hurrahs. From the steps of the platform Trifulcio saw the crowd curling like the surface of the sea in a rainstorm. His hands were smarting, but he kept on clapping.

“First, who sent you to shout Long live APRA by the Colombian Embassy?” Ludovico asked. “Second, who are your buddies? And third, where are your buddies? Out with it, Trinidad López.”

“And, while we’re on it,” Santiago says, “why did you leave the house?”

“Take a seat, Landa, we stood long enough during the Te Deum,” Don Fermín said. “Take a seat, Don Emilio.”

“I was getting tired of working for other people,” Ambrosio says. “I wanted to try it on my own, son.”

Sometimes he shouted Long live Don Emilio Arévalo, sometimes Long live General Odría, sometimes Arévalo-Odría. From the platform they made signs to him saying don’t interrupt while he’s speaking,
cursing
under their breath, but Trifulcio didn’t obey: he was the first to start clapping, the last to stop.

“I feel like a hanged man in this stiff shirt,” Senator Landa said. “I wasn’t meant to wear full dress. I’m just a country boy, what the hell.”

“Come on, Trinidad López,” Hipólito said. “Who sent you, who are they, and where are they. Out with it.”

“I thought my old man had fired you,” Santiago says.

“Now I know why you didn’t accept Odría’s offer of the senate seat from Lima, Fermín,” Senator Arévalo said. “So you wouldn’t have to wear a full dress suit and a high hat.”

“What an idea, just the opposite,” Ambrosio says. “He asked me to stay on with him and I refused. See how wrong you’ve been, son?”

Sometimes he would go to the railing of the platform, face the crowd with his hands in the air, three cheers for Emilio Arévalo! and he himself would roar hurrah! three cheers for General Odría! and in a stentorian voice, hip, hip, hurrah!

“Parliament is fine for people who have nothing to do,” Don Fermín said. “For you people, landowners.”

“I’m all excited now, Trinidad López,” Hipólito said. “Now I really am excited, Trinidad.”

“I only got into this mess because the President insisted that I head up the ticket in Chiclayo,” Senator Landa said. “But I’m sorry already. I won’t be able to look after Olave. This goddamned stiff shirt.”

“How did you find out that the old man died?” Santiago asks.

“Stop your fooling, the senate seat has made you ten years younger,” Don Fermín said. “And you’ve got no reason to complain, in elections like these a person is glad to be a candidate.”

“In the newspapers, son,” Ambrosio says. “You can’t imagine how sorry I was. Because your papa was a great man.”

The square was boiling with songs, murmuring and shouts now. But when the voice of Don Emilio Arévalo came out through the microphone, it turned off the noise: it fell onto the square from the roof of the City Hall, the belfry, the palm trees, the park in the middle. Trifulcio had even set up a loudspeaker on the Hermitage of the Holy Woman.