Useful fools, p.3
Useful Fools, page 3
Even the word was hard. Endometriosis.
Blood and pain, Mamá once told her. Like childbirth, without the joy. Sometimes it drove Mamá right over the edge. Sent her crying to the bedroom until Papá came home and gave her a shot to stop the hurting.
“Have you heard that new song?” she asked. “You know, about blowing up the electrical towers?” She sang, “Un terrorista, dos terroristas . . .”
“You never know,” Alonso persisted. Babies were unpredictable things. Or mothers were. He wasn’t sure if Gustavo had been planned or not.
“No,” Rosa said. “I do know.”
“No, really,” he insisted. “Your mother might change her mind and—”
“Alonso, she can’t!”
“What? She can’t?” Alonso was quiet for a few steps. “Oh.”
Rosa gave a little sigh of relief.
“I always wondered,” he said. “I mean, your father’s crazy about kids.”
“It’s not my mother’s fault,” Rosa snapped.
Startled, Alonso grabbed her hand. “Rosa, I didn’t mean it that way.”
She tried to pull free, but he wouldn’t let go. “She just can’t, okay?”
“Okay.” Alonso brushed a curl from her temple. “I’m sorry.” He started walking again, pulling her with him up the hill.
His palm was dry, his fingers wedged into the little V’s between hers. They fit there, perfectly. Rosa took a deep breath, and they walked in silence up the hill.
They climbed for over a kilometer, past estera huts and wooden shanties. The roofs were plastic, the doors plywood or corrugated metal. Finally Alonso spoke, his voice light. “You know what I used to want to be when I grew up?”
“What?”
“You really want to know?” Theatrically, he looked around, as if someone might be eavesdropping. Then he lowered his voice. “A superhero.”
“A superhero?” Rosa pictured Alonso in skintight red spandex and burst out laughing. “Going around saving people?”
He nodded, making fun of himself, trying to keep her smiling. “Zapping the bad guys. Changing the world.” He squeezed her hand. “That was when I was a kid. Now I want to be a doctor.”
“Right. And go around saving people.” She smiled. “Change the world.”
Her eyes met his. Green eyes, flecked with gold. Her lips parted and Alonso’s heart gave another great thump. But then his mouth opened, and words tumbled out, and he looked away, hot and confused. “Rodolfo’s house is around here somewhere,” he mumbled. Across the street, a dozen teenaged boys stood in a tight circle. “Let’s ask them.” He heard Rosa sigh as they crossed the street.
Within the ring of teenagers, two boys were fighting. They grappled and broke apart, fists swinging. Then, with a great heave, the larger boy threw the smaller one down. The boy’s head thudded against the ground and his attacker jumped him and started to punch. Blood surged from the little boy’s nose.
“Stop!” Rosa cried.
Alonso rocked slightly on his heels. “Hey, that’s enough, no?” Releasing her hand, he pushed through the jeering mob and pried the boys apart, grabbing the larger boy by the shirt collar.
Freed, the smaller boy scrambled to his feet and turned in a slow and wary pirouette. From beneath a dusty black forelock, he scanned the circle of boys. They moved inward, tightening the noose.
“Hey!” A tall boy, his head shaved in a black crewcut, stepped forward. “Why are you butting in?”
Alonso turned. “The little guy lost,” he said. “Let him go.”
“He’s a terrorista de mierda,” muttered the fighter in his grip. Alonso shook him, and the boy snarled. “He is! A terrorist piece of shit!”
Rosa was so surprised that she laughed. “A terrorista? He’s only nine or ten!”
“He’s from Ayacucho,” one of the boys said.
“That doesn’t make him a terrorist,” Rosa replied.
“Oh, you’re an expert?” The crewcut boy sneered. “Don’t you know Sendero Luminoso comes from Ayacucho?” He looked her up and down, his gaze lingering on her imported sneakers, her jeans with their brand name sticking out like an expensive price tag. Then he spat. “Pituca.”
Pituca. Rich, white, and spoiled. The other boys stared at her. A few hissed.
“Take it easy,” Alonso warned.
Crewcut wheeled on him. “And what are you? Her butler? Or maybe you’re getting yourself some white meat?” The boys laughed.
“Come on, Alonso,” Rosa snapped. “Let’s go.”
“Come on, Alonso.” In a wicked falsetto, the boy mimicked her, then leaned closer, eyebrows raised. “You like dark meat, mamita? Let me give you some.”
Alonso released his captive and shoved Crewcut. “Back off,” he growled.
Lowering his head like a ram, the little boy from Ayacucho suddenly butted free of the circle and ran. The other boys swarmed Alonso, shouting and jostling. Red-faced, Alonso shoved back at them, one after another.
Rosa felt Crewcut watching her as waves of boys slammed against Alonso. What should she say? What if she made things worse? The shoving turned into a scuffle, and her fists clenched. What should she do? Punch someone?
Alonso stumbled. He felt himself going down and grabbed a boy’s shirt. He pulled himself upright and was shoved into another boy’s arms. There were too many of them. Crewcut grinned and reached for Rosa.
Just then another boy, slim, with dark curls and caramel-brown skin, slipped around her. With a quick, deft twist, left foot out and right hand shoving, he sent Crewcut flying. He seized Alonso’s arm and dragged him backward till they stood shoulder to shoulder.
Alonso felt an exultant surge. There were two of them now.
“These are my friends,” Rodolfo snapped. “You got a problem?”
“Some friends.” Crewcut stood up, smacking the dust from his clothes. “A pituca and a terrorista.”
“Watch your mouth,” Rodolfo said sharply. “Don’t you know the Party has a thousand eyes and a thousand ears?”
The boys gaped, the smaller ones flowing away like waves down the sand. Crewcut eyed Rodolfo. “You want to watch your own mouth, amigo.” Lips pursed, he sent a loud kiss in Rosa’s direction, then swaggered away.
Rosa’s knees were trembling, but Alonso laughed and threw his arms around Rodolfo. “¡Hermano! My brother!” He thumped Rodolfo on the back. “Perfect timing!”
Rodolfo shook off Alonso’s hand and gave Rosa a peck on the cheek. “You know better than to get into fights. What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Sightseeing.” Alonso grinned. “What do you think? We came to see you!”
Rodolfo shrugged. “Come on. I was gonna get a drink.” He led them to a cement hut, where a wooden board nailed to the windowsill served as a counter. “Inka Kola,” he muttered. The woman inside passed out three bottles of soda.
They sat on a bench by a brick wall, beneath a scrawled red slogan. Long Live the Armed Struggle. Alonso tipped his bottle above his mouth and took a swig. “How’ve you been, hermano?”
“Okay.” Rodolfo shrugged again. “You?”
“Pretty good. School, you know. Soccer up at the parish. We miss you on the team. And at Mass.”
“You still an altar boy?” Rodolfo laughed, short and hard. “And still a superhero, no?”
Alonso lowered his bottle and stared.
“Caramba, Alonso.” Rodolfo didn’t try to mask his scorn. “Getting into a fight like that. Those guys would have massacred you, and God knows what they’d have done to Rosa.”
“So what did you want us to do?” Alonso retorted. “Call the police?”
“Only if you’ve got a gun.” Rodolfo wasn’t smiling. “Take out a few cops. Now that’d be worth the trouble.”
“Stop, Rodolfo,” Rosa said. “You sound like a terrorist.”
“Yeah? And how many terrorists have you met?” Rodolfo glared at her. “’Cuz I’ve met plenty, and they were all wearing uniforms.”
“Oh, come on.” Rosa frowned. “I don’t like cops, but Sendero’s worse.”
“What do you know? Did the cops ever break down your door at two in the morning?” At her shocked expression Rodolfo laughed bitterly. “No, I guess that doesn’t happen in places like Miraflores.”
“You’re kidding!” Alonso burst out. “When did that happen?”
“In February,” Rodolfo snapped. “You think I’d joke about it? Eight of them, in ski masks. They broke down the door and started beating the crap out of everybody. Even my mother.”
He was snarling like a hurt dog, dangerous. But Rosa suddenly saw him as he’d looked ten years ago, the day she’d met him. A tousle-haired shantytown kid, with skinny arms and dark curls and a black eye his father had given him. “Rodolfo,” she breathed. She touched the bony ridge of his forearm.
Rodolfo blinked, staring down at her hand. “The cops hauled them all off in the back of a pickup truck. My mother, my uncle. Mariela.” He looked up at Alonso. “You shoulda heard the kids. They went nuts!”
Alonso drew his brows together. “What about your neighbors?”
“My neighbors?” Rodolfo sounded bitter. “There’s nobody like your mother around here, Alonso.”
“But your mother . . . Is she . . . ?” Rosa didn’t want to see the picture in her mind. Rodolfo’s mother hauled away, screaming, by men in ski masks.
This didn’t happen to your friends. You read about it in the newspaper. Doors beaten down in the middle of the night. Pistols and nightsticks. A new name on the long list of the disappeared.
She tried again. “Your mamá. Is she . . . ?”
“She came home with a black eye. And Mariela . . .” Rodolfo slammed his soda bottle on the bench. “Mariela came home pregnant.” He jerked his arm free of Rosa’s hand. “So don’t tell me about cops, Rosa. ’Cuz you don’t know shit!”
Mariela. Alonso felt the world tilt around him. Mariela. “Is she all right?”
Rodolfo snorted. “Oh, sure, she’s fine. What do you think, Alonso?”
Rosa felt dizzy, a little sick. Mariela. A slender girl with a cascade of black hair, round-faced like Rodolfo’s mother. She must be about nineteen now. Dragged from a cell and raped by a cop.
“My uncle’s in prison,” Rodolfo said. “With the political prisoners.”
“With the terrorists?”
“They’re not terrorists!” Rodolfo shoved Alonso’s chest, lightly. “You know who’s taking care of my sister? A doctor from the Party. She didn’t even know Mariela, and she isn’t charging us anything!” His voice grew quiet and he cocked his head. “You know what the Party does to rapists?”
The two boys stared at each other.
“Okay, hermano.” Alonso shook his friend’s shoulder gently. “Okay. But don’t you get involved.”
“I’m not stupid, Alonso.” Rodolfo stood up. “But they’re the only ones doing shit to change things.”
“You can change things without killing anybody,” Alonso said. “Look at Rosa’s father.”
Rodolfo laughed. “If you think that, you’re dumber than I thought.”
“Rodolfo—” Alonso began.
“Aw, shit, ’mano, just forget it!” Suddenly, Rodolfo was wheeling on his heel. “I gotta go. See ya some other time, okay?”
Alonso reached for him. “Hermano, we came here to see you—”
Rodolfo dodged. “I got stuff to do.” He paused, his eyes on Alonso, pleading. “I gotta go, okay?”
A thin figure in loose jeans, he was in the road for just a moment. Then he turned down a narrow path between some shacks and disappeared.
THREE
Alonso lay in his bed, watching the bedroom grow pale with the dawn. Gustavo wheezed by his side. Across the room, the girls’ hair traced black and feathery veins against a white pillowcase. The neighbor’s rooster crowed—kikirikiki!—and somewhere outside a radio switched on. Electric guitars chimed as a band belted out a música chicha hit. I’m small, but I get up early, I’m poor, so I get up early. . . .
Alonso stretched his toes, looked out the window at a milky gray sky, and muttered a little prayer for sunshine. Today was the Cesip anniversary, the big party, and Rosa was coming. She hadn’t been able to come to the clinic last Saturday, but she’d be here today, she’d promised. Alonso yawned and swung his feet over the side of the bed.
To work, to work, if you’re poor you get up early. . . .
From the kitchen came the low murmur of his parents’ voices. A spoon clinked, stirring sugar into coffee. Still yawning, Alonso pulled on his jeans.
The kitchen was warm, and smelled of morning. Of steaming coffee and bread fresh off the baker’s cart. Alonso kissed his father, who was already dressed in his brown security guard uniform. He kissed his mother, and she wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Mamá!”
“Brush your hair before you get the porridge,” she said. “You’re all spiky.”
Alonso padded across the cement floor and out to the backyard, a dusty rectangle three meters deep. His mother had been up early, watering the plants. Droplets of water still clung to the tomatoes. The cement patio, where they stored the water barrels and laundry basins, was brown with damp.
Alonso dipped a jug into a barrel and filled a basin. He steeled himself, staring into the tiny orange pool. He imagined himself a cliff diver, plunging into the sea. Then he held his breath, shut his eyes, and dunked. Sputtering and gasping, he surfaced and grabbed a towel.
Someday there’d be running water and hot showers, someday, someday, someday. He toweled off, brushed his hair, and ran inside.
His father was dipping his bread, sopping up the last of his coffee. His mother held out a coin for the porridge. Alonso grabbed a pot and headed for the comedor to pick up their breakfast rations. In the living room, his parents’ bed was already made.
“Put on a sweater,” his mother called softly.
“Ay, woman, let the boy be,” his father mumbled.
Alonso was closing the front door when he saw the note. A folded sheet of blue-lined paper, wedged against the little panel of glass. He wriggled it out and shook it open.
Magdalena Rios: The Party Unleashes the People’s wrath on corrupt revisionist scum who castrate the revolutionary potential of the People. You have betrayed the People. You will be annihilated. Long live the People’s War! Long live the Guiding Thought of Chairman Gonzalo!
Alonso didn’t get it, at first. What? he thought. And, Why? Then he read the note again and his fingers grew cold.
The door opened. “Alonso, what is it?”
Alonso dropped the pot and handed his father the note.
It took his father a long time to read it. Lips moving, eyes narrowed. All those long words and Senderista slogans. Alonso waited. When his father folded the note and went back inside, Alonso slipped in behind him.
His mother was still in the kitchen, rinsing coffee cups in the basin. She frowned a little when she saw them, and Alonso’s father gave her the note.
Her hands began to shake as she read. She crossed herself, kissed her thumb. Alonso stepped forward, but his father pushed him aside.
“Little dove,” he murmured. He sat her down, holding her arms as though she might fall over. “We have to tell the police.”
She shook her head. “If we take one side, the other will come after us.”
Alonso leaned against the wall, his heart thudding. That wasn’t his mother’s voice, shaking that way.
“But Magda . . .” Alonso’s father sank on his heels. “Magda, this is a death threat.”
The kitchen was silent. Alonso could hear another chicha band, wailing from the neighbor’s radio.
“Magda, please.”
“They’re just trying to frighten me.” Chin rising, she tossed her hair back. “This isn’t the first note.”
“What?”
She turned to Alonso. “Go get the porridge, Alonso.”
Alonso didn’t move.
“There was another note?” Alonso’s father shook her arm. “When? What did it say?”
“A few days ago.” Her mouth snapped shut. “It said I had to resign.”
“Then you have to.”
“I knew you’d say that!” She twisted her arm from his hand. “And you know that as soon as I’m out the Mothers’ Club will do exactly what Sendero wants. Turn the Cesip into a People’s Hospital. And then the government will shut us down.” Her voice turned brittle. “All the better for the revolution, no? The Cesip just cushions our misery. Isn’t that what the comrades say?”
Alonso’s father slid backward onto a chair. “Ay, Magda,” he murmured. “Why do you have to be so stubborn?”
Suddenly she was shrieking. “How can you even ask me that? I lost two children before we had the Cesip!” Both hands flew to her mouth, covering it. Tears spilled silently down her cheeks.
Next door, the neighbor’s rooster crowed.
“Magda.” Alonso’s father leaned toward her, his voice low. “Babies die. That’s just the way it is. You still have four children to raise.”
With one careful finger, she wiped the tears from beneath her eyes. “Ay, Tomás.” She took his hand. “Please. We can handle this. We can organize a neighborhood watch. Pablo’s getting me a bodyguard—”
“Pablo?” Alonso’s father sounded bewildered. “You told Pablo about the other note?” He stood with a sudden upward jerk. “You told him and not me?”
“I was going to tell you . . .” She broke off. “It’s not like that!”
“No?” Savagely, he swung around and shoved past Alonso. The front door slammed. Gustavo began to wail.
“¡Ay, carajo!”
Alonso stared. His mother never cursed. “Carajo, Alonso,” she snapped. “Do something about your brother!”
She snatched the note and carried it over to the little propane stove. Alonso stepped uncertainly toward Gustavo’s cries, watching as his mother struck a match and held the paper to the flame.
That’s evidence, he thought.
The note flamed and fell, curling to black on the enamel surface of the stove. Alonso turned and ran for the front door. His father was fifty meters away, striding past the Cesip. “Papá!” Alonso sprinted down the road. “Papá, what are you doing?”
