Useful fools, p.11
Useful Fools, page 11
Alonso wanted to speak, but his feet backed him away, leaving Rodolfo’s mother alone, clinging to the coffin and weeping. A woman approached—Alonso recognized her as one of Rodolfo’s aunts—and from the wall beside Rodolfo, Dr. Vargas rose. She waved a hand at Alonso. Come, the hand said. Sit with him.
Unable to refuse, Alonso sat at Rodolfo’s side as Dr. Vargas returned to her post beside Señora Domitila. The three women clustered by the coffin. Waiting.
“I’m sorry,” Alonso muttered.
Rodolfo nodded.
They sat for a long time. Outside the chapel, dawn brightened to morning. An occasional truck rumbled past. Voices. Life. Finally Dr. Vargas sat down once more, her hand on Rodolfo’s shoulder.
“You should go,” she murmured. “Your uncle will want to see you.”
Rodolfo cleared his throat and turned to Alonso, wraithlike in his grief. “You coming?”
“Where?”
“The prison.”
Dr. Vargas touched Alonso’s elbow. “Things will make more sense there.”
To the prison? Alonso stiffened. More sense? Was there a why for any of this? For his mother, for Mariela?
You’ll never know, he thought. If you don’t go, you’ll never know.
Suddenly feeling tired, Alonso nodded. And then he stood.
They waited in line for an hour, outside a high perimeter wall topped by razor wire. Most of the visitors were women. Wives and girlfriends and mothers, laden with baskets of food. Alonso bounced a little, nervous. Rodolfo stood mute and still. The strip-search was terrifying, the guards’ fingers as cold and hard as their eyes. A guard in a beige uniform handed them prison passes without even looking at them.
Pulling his sweatshirt over his head, Alonso stepped from the guardhouse onto the prison grounds. A sidewalk led between freestanding cellblocks. Crazily curved buildings, four and five stories high, the barred windows pocking them with square holes. The prison had about a dozen cellblocks, some unpainted cement, others painted red or dirty yellow. The paint stopped halfway up the facade, as if it had run out in mid-job. Everything reeked of sweat and fear. Of piss and shit. Of rotting food and hot oil that’s been used a thousand times till it stinks like poison. The sky was a narrow avenue of gray, light-years away.
“Come on,” Rodolfo said.
Alonso followed him between the cellblocks. A hand reached through the bars, fingers outstretched. “Papito,” the man murmured. He had a scar on his right cheek, an old scar like a thick white worm. His tongue slipped out, passing slowly over his lips. “Mmm.”
Rodolfo grabbed Alonso’s shirt and pulled him to the center of the sidewalk. Gasping, Alonso bumped his head into a bucket. Hung from a string, it seemed to have dropped from the sky. From a window on the fourth floor, a prisoner cried out. “A piece of bread, pal!” The man jiggled the string, making the bucket dance. “Bread! Put it in the bucket!”
Rodolfo shoved him forward. “Don’t stop,” he said. “Don’t look at them.”
“¡Carajo!” Alonso swore. “Don’t they even feed these guys?” It was a horror movie, not a prison.
Rodolfo shrugged. “If you call rice water food.” He quickened his pace.
Alonso tried not to look, but it was impossible. They were everywhere. Men in dirty T-shirts and torn pants. Men crowding the bars, men hooting at the boys, men lying on bare cement floors. Men shouting, laughing, fighting, crying, begging.
“There.” Rodolfo pointed. “Pavilion 4.”
Pavilion 4, the high-security Senderista cellblock, was set apart from the rest, surrounded by a chain-link fence. A few meters inside the fence, a gate with iron bars led into the cellblock itself. Guards with machine guns stood by the gate.
Alonso and Rodolfo stepped up to the fence and flashed the passes they’d gotten in the guardhouse. A cop let them in and led them across the cracked cement patio. Beside the gate leaned a sergeant, one black-booted foot jacked up against the wall. He was picking his teeth, scraping a thumbnail along his gums. The boys waited, holding out their passes, and finally he spat. He looked at the slips of paper, then at the boys, then at the passes again. Alonso overcame an urge to start bouncing.
Behind the gate, just inside the cellblock, stood several men in red sweaters, holding wooden staffs. Senderistas, Alonso thought. One of them, a short, hefty man, muttered something to the sergeant, who handed him the passes. The Senderista glanced at the passes and then at the boys, and then he nodded. The sergeant nodded, too, and one of the cops unlocked the gate.
I’m here, Alonso thought.
He had come, almost in a daze, his throat full of what had happened to Mariela. Cloudy and aching and confused. But as the gate clanged shut behind him, he felt a moment of panic. He thought of his mother and tried to explain. It’s because of Mariela. And Dr. Vargas. She saved Gustavo’s life.
But that wasn’t all, and his mother would know it. She always knew.
I want to know, he told her. I want to know why.
Rodolfo shook hands with the hefty Senderista in the red sweater. “Buenos días, comrade.”
“Buenos días,” the Senderista said. He shook Alonso’s hand. “Morning assembly is about to start.”
Ahead of them lay a broad lobby. Red banners hung like tapestries all around, and on a far wall a painted army of workers and campesinos seemed to march out of a mural. They carried red flags with hammers and sickles, had popping muscles and square jaws. Leading them strode a man in a gray suit, a stout man in spectacles. He held a book in one hand.
Alonso walked to the middle of the lobby. “Isn’t that . . . ?”
For the first time that morning, Rodolfo smiled. “Chairman Gonzalo.”
Above the mural were carefully lettered words. WELCOME TO THE SHINING TRENCH OF COMBAT.
“How could they paint that? This is a prison!”
Rodolfo’s smile spread into a grin.
“I don’t get it.”
Rodolfo pointed back to the entrance, through the black bars to the stink and cries and grasping fingers. “The old Peru.” He pointed at the mural. “The People’s War.” Finally he pointed at the ground. “The New Peru. Right here. Right now.”
“Oh, come on, Rodolfo. Don’t be an idiot.”
“In here, the Party’s in charge,” Rodolfo insisted. “The guys in red sweaters? They’re all EGP. People’s Guerrilla Army. The comrades can’t get out of the cellblock, but the cops can’t get in.”
Alonso snorted. “Yeah, right, wooden sticks against machine guns.”
“The comrades can defend themselves, ’mano,” Rodolfo said darkly. “Like I said, they’re EGP.” He jutted his chin at the short Senderista who’d shaken their hands. “Who you think’s gonna fight better, Comrade Arturo or some fat slob of a cop?” Rodolfo spat in contempt. Then he cocked his head at the bubbly puddle on the floor. He smeared his foot over it, rubbing carefully till it was gone.
“I don’t believe it,” Alonso said.
“Look.” Rodolfo pointed at the red banners and flags. Some had hammers and sickles, others cryptic initials, as if the Senderistas spoke in code. “You think the cops would leave those up if they could get in here and take them down?”
Alonso read from a gold-lettered banner. “‘Whoever has an army has power. War decides everything.’”
“Come on,” Rodolfo said. He led Alonso through a corridor lined with cells. Halfway down the hall, a doorway opened onto a crowded exercise yard. Men, women, and children waited in silence around two closely ranked lines of prisoners. Alonso could hear them all breathing, like one colossal body with a hundred heads.
Rodolfo pointed at four gigantic heads painted on the brick walls of the courtyard. “The Four Swords of Communism,” he whispered. He pointed to each portrait in turn. “Marx. Lenin. Chairman Mao. Chairman Gonzalo.”
“Shhh!” A woman froze them with a disapproving glare.
The prisoners in the courtyard threw back their shoulders and began to sing.
Workers, peasants, break your chains.
Raise the flag of the People’s War.
The crowd started to sing and Rodolfo joined in, his voice high and clear.
Everything is an illusion, everything but power.
Rifles in hand, we storm heaven’s tower.
A shiver crept along Alonso’s scalp. Trapped by the high walls, the anthem rang like church bells.
The song ended, and a prisoner stepped forward. “Long live Chairman Gonzalo, leader of the Party of the Revolution,” the prisoner shouted. “For his masterful leadership and his position as the continuation of Marx, Lenin, and Chairman Mao Tse-tung!” He was out of breath when he finally finished. The two lines of prisoners took up the chant and shouted it back, pumping their fists in the air. When they were finished another man began to shout, and once again his comrades chanted back at him.
The chants dragged on and on. Everyone seemed to want a turn. Alonso was yawning when the prisoners finally broke ranks and the visitors surged toward them. A moment of chaos ensued, a confused tangle of outstretched arms. Then, with embraces and cries of delight, the mass sorted itself out into families.
“This way,” Rodolfo said, pushing through the crowd. At the edge of the exercise yard, a man in wire-framed glasses sat at a table. Chairman Mao ballooned, fat-faced and solemn, on the wall behind him.
Rodolfo pulled two bags of rice from his backpack. He handed them to the man, who tossed them into a basket beside the table. Then, with a smile, the man wrote Rodolfo’s name on a list. Rodolfo stepped away and others approached. An old lady in a black dress handed over a bag of sugar. Two women hefted a sack of potatoes. A blushing little boy placed a pouch of powdered milk on the table.
They all gave something. And they all looked poor. Like maybe that powdered milk was all they had.
Rodolfo went off to find his uncle. Señor Ernesto was standing in the middle of the courtyard, talking to a young man. When he saw Rodolfo he broke off and held open his arms.
He looked just like Rodolfo’s mother, broad-chested and moon-faced, but thinner than Alonso remembered. He hugged Rodolfo for a long time. Then he pushed his nephew back, gripping Rodolfo’s shoulders. “We carry our lives in our fingertips, hijo. ¿Ya?”
Rodolfo nodded. “Our lives belong to the Party,” he replied in a husky whisper.
“Is your mother okay?”
Rodolfo shrugged. “Comrade Micaela is with her.”
Alonso looked away, blinking. The Senderistas already knew about Mariela. Even here in prison, they knew. The Party has a thousand eyes and a thousand ears. That’s what they always said.
Señor Ernesto shook Alonso’s hand. “It’s good to see you again, Alonso.”
“I’m sorry about Mariela,” Alonso said. He tried to remember what his mother had taught him, what you were supposed to say. My most sincere . . . Something like that. The neighbors in Salvador had said it to him, the day of the funeral.
Sincere hadn’t lasted very long. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
Rodolfo’s uncle nodded, gripping Alonso’s hand. “Alonso, Comrade Felipe would like to meet you.” Señor Ernesto spoke as if Alonso should know who Comrade Felipe was. Rodolfo whistled softly.
Señor Ernesto explained. The highest-ranking Party member ever taken alive. Captured after a gun battle that left him lame. The political-military commander of the cadres in the Shining Trench of Combat.
Buffeted by the crowd, Alonso listened in a stupor.
“He’s our leader, Alonso,” Señor Ernesto said. “It’s an honor. Rodolfo hasn’t even met him yet.”
“He knows Chairman Gonzalo,” Rodolfo said. “Personally.” He shook his head, incredulous.
“Why does he want to see me?” Alonso asked.
“I guess he’ll tell you that,” Señor Ernesto replied. “Comrade Victor will take you.”
The young man Señor Ernesto had been talking to stepped forward. He gestured for Alonso to follow.
Alonso ignored him. “Rodolfo . . .” This wasn’t part of the deal.
Rodolfo gave him a slight smile. Alonso shook his head, but Rodolfo tipped his head toward the young man. Go on, he was saying. Please.
“Go on, Alonso,” Señor Ernesto barked. “He’s waiting for you!”
Dazed, Alonso turned to follow the young man. People backed up to let them pass. Comrade Victor stepped into the cellblock and Alonso followed.
What am I doing? He could hear his feet, that squishy sneaker noise padding down the long corridor. His mind returned to his mother. I need to know, he told her. I need to know why.
The doors to the cells were open, and he slowed down to look. If his mother’s murderers ever got caught, this was where they’d end up.
He saw bare cement rooms, each with four or five pallets on the floor and a plastic bucket in the corner. The occasional portrait of Chairman Gonzalo. Red flags on the walls. One man sat on a pallet, reading a little red book like the one Rodolfo had given Alonso for his birthday.
Alonso thought of Dr. Vargas, wearing those pink pajamas as she saved Gustavo’s life.
Comrade Victor’s footsteps receded down the corridor. Alonso paused at the open door of another cell. Stripped to the waist, a man was doing pushups on the floor. His lean arms pumped like pistons as his body rose and fell. Dozens of angry red circles puckered the skin on his back. Scars, like the holes burning cigarettes leave on a tablecloth.
Interrogation, Alonso thought. He thought of Mariela. Pregnant. Strapped to a table. Screaming. Slammed by a wave of nausea, he stumbled to the next cell. He grabbed cold iron and stood, hanging from the bars, till the nausea passed.
Comrade Victor’s footsteps stopped. He turned, waiting for Alonso.
Alonso walked slowly to the end of the corridor.
Comrade Victor tapped his fingernails on the bars of a cell. “Comrade.” He spoke in a low, almost reverential voice. “It’s the Ríos boy.”
The Ríos boy. His mother’s name, not his father’s. To the Senderistas, he was his mother’s son.
“Send him in,” came the quiet reply.
Comrade Victor nodded to Alonso.
The cell was large, with a big barred window and a view of the exercise yard. It had a single bed, not four or five floor pallets like the other cells. A table and two chairs stood by the wall. Beside the window, a man sat in an upholstered easy chair. Five-star luxury.
The man in the chair spoke again, in the same quiet voice. “That will be all, comrade. Thank you.”
The young man backed silently from the cell and the man in the chair stood up. His face was skeletal, carved into jaw, cheekbones, brows. As if prison were shaving him down to bone. The sunken gray eyes were cool as they surveyed Alonso.
Alonso met them, red-faced. When his feet betrayed him, rocking him back on his heels, he willed them into stillness. I am not afraid, he thought. He thinks I am but I’m not. I just want a gun.
He imagined the weight of it, his fingers curled around the cold metal.
Comrade Felipe held out his hand. “Buenos días, Alonso. Welcome.”
Baffled, Alonso didn’t move. The hand was a skeleton’s hand, bones with a bit of sinew. The gray eyes held a speculative look. Nothing would surprise them, but they were waiting to see what Alonso would do.
Alonso stuck out his own hand and Comrade Felipe shook it firmly before limping to the table. Wincing, he lowered himself into one of the wooden chairs and gestured for Alonso to sit in the other.
Alonso perched at the edge of his chair, feet jiggling.
“Alonso, it’s good to meet you. I was very glad to learn you’d come to visit our Shining Trench of Combat.” The thin lips curled up. A slight, ironic smile.
“I came for Rodolfo. And because Dr. Vargas saved my brother’s life.”
Comrade Felipe nodded. “You felt you owed the Party a debt of gratitude.”
Gratitude! Unsure of how to respond, Alonso looked out the window. A little band, drummers wearing ponchos and a man with a wooden pan flute, played a marching tune.
“That must be a confusing thing to feel,” Comrade Felipe went on. “A brother saved, a mother executed. It’s a difficult equation to balance out.”
“I can balance it fine,” Alonso snapped. “I’d like to kill the bastards who shot my mother.”
Comrade Felipe tapped his fingers on the tabletop. “You should save your rage for the revisionist scum who used your mother. They’re the ones who signed her death warrant.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Alonso, do you know why the Party executed your mother?” The word he used was ajusticiar, an execution in the cause of justice.
“Because . . .” Alonso shook his head. “She said Sendero wanted her to resign. She wouldn’t let them use the Cesip.”
“The Party needed her help in convincing the Mothers’ Club.”
“She was afraid the government would shut them down.”
Comrade Felipe shrugged. “We all have to make sacrifices, Alonso. What matters is that we gave your mother several chances.” He shook his head regretfully. “She was a daughter of the People, but sadly misled.”
“By who?”
Comrade Felipe sighed and shifted his bad leg. “Bourgeois reformists. Revisionist scum.” He grimaced, as if a cockroach had scuttled across the floor. “They convinced her there was a peaceful path for the People’s struggle, a path that didn’t lead through war. All lies. As long as hunger, misery, and exploitation exist, war is inevitable.” He looked closely at Alonso. “Forgive me for saying this, Alonso, but your mother was an opportunist.”
Alonso jumped to his feet and slammed his fist on the table. “Don’t insult my mother!” he shouted. “Don’t EVER insult her!”
Footsteps came running down the hall. Comrade Felipe held up a hand. His gaze never left Alonso’s. “Sit down,” he said softly. “And never, ever shout in here.” He spoke slowly, each word crisp, a command. “Sit down.”
Alonso glared back at those cold gray eyes. “Don’t insult her,” he repeated sullenly. He sat.
