The Time of the Hero

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  “It’s ten-thirty,” Vallano said. “I hope the last bus hasn’t left.”

  “It’s only ten-twenty,” Arróspide said. “We’ve got plenty of time.”

  The streetcar was crowded, and both of them had to stand up. On Sundays the Academy buses went to Bellavista to look for the cadets.

  “Do you see what I see?” Vallano asked. “Two Dogs. They’ve got their arms over their shoulders to hide their insignias, the wise guys.”

  “Excuse me,” Arróspide said as he bulled his way to the seats where the two Dogs were. The streetcar had already gone by the 2nd of May and was passing through the invisible little Indian farms.

  “Well, well, Cadets,” Vallano said.

  The two boys pretended they were not aware they had been spoken to. Arróspide tapped one of them on the head.

  “We’re tired,” Vallano said. “Get up.”

  The two cadets obeyed him.

  “What did you do yesterday?” Arróspide asked.

  “Not too much,” Vallano said. “There was a fiesta on Saturday that ended up as a wake. It was somebody’s birthday, I think. When I showed up there was a hell of a fight going on. The wife opened the door for me and screamed, ‘Get a doctor and a priest!’ so I left like a shot. It was quite some rumpus. Oh, yes, I went to Huatica Street. By the way, I’ve got something to tell the section about the Poet.”

  “What?” Arróspide asked.

  “I’ll tell you when we’re all together. It’s a honey of a story.”

  But he could not keep it until they got to the barracks. The last bus from the Academy was going down Palmeras Avenue toward the cliffs of La Perla. Vallano, who was sitting on his bag, said, “Hey, this looks like the section’s private bus. We’re almost all here.”

  “That’s right, little Negress,” the Jaguar said. “Watch out, we might rape you.”

  “You know something?” Vallano said.

  “What?” the Jaguar asked him. “Have they raped you already?”

  “Listen to me,” Vallano said. “It’s about the Poet.”

  “What’s the matter?” Alberto asked. He was squeezed into a back corner.

  “Oh, so you’re here. All the worse for you. I went to see Golden Toes on Saturday night and she told me you paid her to jack you off.”

  “Bah!” the Jaguar said. “I’d’ve done it for you free.”

  There was some polite, reluctant laughter.

  “When Golden Toes and Vallano are in bed it must be something like coffee with milk,” Arróspide said.

  “And with the Poet on top of them it’d be a Negro sandwich, a hotdog,” the Jaguar added.

  “Everybody out!” the noncom Pezoa shouted. The bus had stopped at the gate to the Academy and all the cadets jumped out. As he was about to enter, Alberto remembered he had not hidden his cigarettes. He took a step backward, and at that moment he noticed there were only two soldiers in the doorway of the guardhouse. He was even more surprised to see there were no officers around.

  “Have the lieutenants dropped dead?” Vallano asked.

  “I hope God hears your prayer,” Arróspide said.

  Alberto went into the barracks. It was in darkness, but the open door to the latrine let out a thin light by which the cadets undressed at their lockers.

  “Fernández,” someone said.

  “Hi,” Alberto said. “What’s the matter?”

  The Slave was standing beside him in his pajamas, his face twisted and strange.

  “You haven’t heard?”

  “No. What’s up?”

  “They know the chemistry exam was stolen. There was a broken window. The colonel was here yesterday. He was shouting at the officers in the mess hall and they’ve all gone wild. And those of us who were on guard Friday night…”

  “Yes,” Alberto said, “what?”

  “Confined to the grounds until they know who did it.”

  “Shit!” Alberto said. “Goddamn him!”

  5

  One day I thought, I’ve never been alone with her. Why don’t I go and wait for her when she gets out of school? But I didn’t have the nerve. What was I going to say to her? And where would I get the money for the fare? Tere went to have lunch on weekdays with some relatives who lived near her school in Lima. I’d thought of going to the school at noon to walk her to her relatives’ house so we could be together a little while. The year before, a guy gave me fifteen reales to pass out handbills, but you couldn’t do it in half a second. I spent hours wondering how to get the money. Then I thought of asking Skinny Higueras to lend me a sol. He always invited me to have a cup of coffee or a shot of pisco and a cigarette, so a sol couldn’t mean very much to him. That same afternoon, when I met him in the plaza in Bellavista, I asked him for it. “Why, sure, man,” he told me, “that’s what friends are for.” I promised him I’d pay it back on my birthday, and he laughed and said, “Of course. Pay me when you can. Here.” When I had the sol in my pocket I felt so happy that I couldn’t sleep that night and the next day I kept yawning in my classes every few minutes. Three days later I told my mother, “I’m going to have lunch in Chucuito. I’ve got a friend there.” I asked the teacher at school to let me leave half an hour early, and since I was one of the best students he said it was all right.

  The streetcar was almost empty, so I couldn’t sneak in free, but they only charged me half fare. I got out at the 2nd of May Plaza. One time when we were going down Alfonso Ugarte Avenue to visit my godfather, my mother told me, “See that big building, that’s where Teresita goes to school.” I never forgot it and I knew if I saw it again I’d recognize it, but I could never find Alfonso Ugarte Avenue and I remember I was on Colmena and when I realized it I ran back and that was when I found that big black building near the Bolognesi Plaza. They were just getting out, there was a crowd of students, big and little, and I felt too embarrassed. I turned around and went down to the corner and stood in the entrance to a store, half hiding behind the window while I watched for her. It was winter but I was sweating. When I finally saw her at a distance, the first thing I did was go into the store because I lost my nerve. But then I came out again and saw her walking away toward the Bolognesi Plaza. She was all alone, but even so I didn’t go up to her. When she was out of sight I went back to the 2nd of May and got on the streetcar swearing at myself. I still had fifty centavos but I didn’t buy anything to eat. I was in a bad mood all day and when we studied together in the afternoon I hardly said anything. She asked me what was wrong and I only blushed.

  The next day it occurred to me during class that I ought to go there again and wait for her, so I went to the teacher and asked him if I could leave early again. “All right,” he said, “but I want you to tell your mother that if you keep leaving early it will interfere with your studies.” I knew the way now, so I got to her school before it let out. When they finally appeared, I was feeling the same as I did the day before, but this time I said to myself, I’m going to go up to her, I’m going to go up to her. She was one of the last ones out, and she was all alone. I waited until she was a little way off and then I started walking along behind her. I walked faster when she got to the Bolognesi Plaza, then I caught up with her. I said, “Hi, Tere.” She was somewhat surprised, I could tell it from her eyes, but she said, “Hi, what are you doing here?” in a very natural way, and I didn’t know what to invent so I just said, “I got out of school before you did and I thought I’d come and meet you. Why do you ask?” “Nothing,” she said, “I was just wondering.” I asked her if she was going to her relatives’ house and she said she was. “And you?” she added. “I don’t know,” I said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll walk you there.” “Good,” she said, “it isn’t very far.” Her aunt and uncle lived on Arica Avenue. We hardly said anything on the way. She answered everything I said but without looking at me. When we got to the corner she said, “My aunt and uncle live in the next block, you’d better leave me here.” I smiled at her and she reached out her hand. “So long,” I
said. “Are we going to study this afternoon?” “Yes, of course,” she said, “I’ve got an awful lot of work to do.” And then, a moment later: “Thanks for coming.”

  “La Perlita” was at the far end of the field, between the mess hall and the classroom building, against the back wall of the Academy. It was a small concrete building with a big open window that served as a counter. Day and night you could see the frightening face of the half-breed Paulino: slanted Japanese eyes, thick Negro lips, copper-colored Indian skin, high cheekbones, lank black hair. At the counter Paulino sold coffee and hot chocolate and soft drinks, cookies and apstries and candies; in the back, which is to say the enclosed but almost roofless hide-out against the back wall, the ideal place to jump over before the patrols began, he sold pisco and cigarettes at double the regular price. Paulino slept on a straw mattress next to the wall, and at night the ants walked around on his body as if it were a village square. Under the mattress there was a board covering the hole Paulino had dug with his hands as a hiding place for the packs of cigarettes and bottles of pisco he sold to the cadets.

  On Saturdays and Sundays after lunch, the cadets who had been confined to the grounds went out to the hide-out, arriving in small groups so as not to arouse suspicion. They sprawled around on the ground, waiting for Paulino to open his cache, and passed the time by squashing the ants with flat stones. The half-breed was both generous and malicious: he would give them cigarettes and pisco on credit but first they had to beg for it and entertain him. Paulino’s hide-out was so small it could not hold more than twenty cadets. When there were no places left, the latecomers sat in the field and threw stones at the vicuña until some of the others came out. Those from the Third rarely had a chance to get in on these parties because the cadets from the Fourth and Fifth either chased them away or used them as lookouts. The parties lasted for hours, beginning at lunch and ending at dinner time. On Sundays the cadets who were confined to the grounds found it somewhat easier to accept the fact they could not go out on pass, but on Saturdays they were still hopeful and made all kinds of plans for getting out through some convincing lie to the Officer of the Day or some reckless stunt such as jumping over the front wall in broad daylight. But only one or two of the dozens who were confined each week managed to get out. The rest of them wandered through the empty patios of the Academy, buried themselves in their bunks, stared with vacant eyes as they tried to overcome their deadly boredom by imagining they were outside. Those who had money went to Paulino’s hide-out to smoke, drink pisco, and be eaten by the ants.

  Mass was said on Sunday mornings after breakfast. The chaplain of the Academy was a blond, cheerful priest who delivered patriotic sermons in which he spoke of the immaculate lives of the great and their love for God and Peru, and sang the praises of discipline and order, and compared the military with the missionaries, the heroes with the martyrs, and the army with the church. The cadets admired the chaplain because they considered him an honest man: they had often seen him in street clothes barging around in the worst parts of Callao with alcohol on his breath and a lewd look in his eyes.

  He had also forgotten that on the next morning he had lain in bed with his eyes closed for a long time after he woke up. When the door opened he felt the same terror run through him. He held his breath. He was sure it was his father coming to beat him. But it was his mother. Her expression was very serious, and she looked at him intently. “Where is he?” he asked. “He’s gone, it’s after ten.” He took a deep breath and sat up. The room was full of light. He could hear the noises from the street, the clattering streetcar, the auto horns. He felt weak, as if he were convalescing from a long and dangerous illness. He hoped his mother would say something about what had happened. But no: she simply walked here and there, pretending to straighten up the room, moving a chair, fiddling with the curtain. “Let’s go back to Chiclayo,” he said. His mother went over to him and began to caress him. Her long fingers stroked his hair, then moved down to his shoulder: it was a warm, satisfying feeling, and it reminded him of earlier days. And the voice he heard now was the same tender voice he had known in his earliest childhood. He ignored what she was trying to tell him, the words were superfluous, the tenderness was all in their music. But his mother told him, “We can’t ever go back to Chiclayo. You’ve got to live with your papa from now on.” He turned to look at her, sure she would break down with remorse, but his mother was perfectly calm, was even smiling. “I’d rather live with Aunt Adelina than with him!” he shouted. His mother, without changing her expression, attempted to calm him. “The trouble is,” she said in a quiet voice, “you didn’t know him before, and he didn’t know you. But everything’s going to change. You’ll see. When you get to know each other, you’ll love him and he’ll love you, the way it is in every family.” “But he hit me last night,” he said hoarsely. “He punched me, as if I was big. I don’t want to live with him.” His mother continued to stroke his head, but now that touch was not a caress to him but an intolerable pressure. “He’s got a bad disposition,” his mother said, “but he’s really got a good heart. You have to know how to treat him. You’re a little to blame too. You don’t do anything to try and win him over. He’s very angry about what happened last night. You’re still too little, you don’t understand. You’ll see I’m right, you’ll understand later on. When he comes back today, ask him to forgive you for having gone into the room. You have to make up to him. It’s the only way of keeping him happy.” He could feel his heart throbbing heavily, like one of those big toads that infested the orchard at the house in Chiclayo and that looked like a gland with eyes, like a bellows filling and emptying. Then he understood: She’s on his side, she’s his accomplice. He decided to be as cautious as possible now that he could not trust his mother. At noon, when he heard the outside door open, he went downstairs to meet his father. Without looking at him he said, “Excuse me about last night.”

  “What else did she tell you?” the Slave asked.

  “Nothing,” Alberto said. “You’ve been repeating the same question all week. Can’t you talk about anything else?”

  “I’m sorry,” the Slave said. “But today’s Saturday. She’s going to think I’m a liar.”

  “Why should she think that? You’ve written to her. And besides, what do you care what she thinks?”

  “I’m really in love with her,” the Slave said. “I don’t want her to get the wrong idea about me.”

  “Take my advice and think about something else,” Alberto said. “You can’t tell how long you’ll be confined to the grounds. Maybe for weeks. It isn’t smart to keep thinking about a woman.”

  “I’m not like you,” the Slave said humbly. “I don’t have any will power. I’d like to forget her but all I do is think about her. If I don’t get a pass next Saturday I’ll go crazy. Listen, did she ask you anything about me?”

  “Damn it,” Alberto said, “I only saw her for five minutes in the doorway of her house. How many times do I have to tell you I didn’t talk about anything with her? I didn’t even have a chance to get a good look at her face.”

  “Then why don’t you want to write her a letter for me?”

  “Because I don’t,” Alberto said. “I don’t feel like it.”

  “That’s kind of funny,” the Slave said, “because you write letters for everybody else. Why not for me?”

  “I’ve never met the other girls,” Alberto said. “And besides, I don’t want to write letters. I don’t need the money. Why would I need it if I’m going to be locked in here for God knows how many weeks?”

  “Next Saturday I’m going to get out somehow,” the Slave said. “Even if I have to jump over the wall.”

  “Okay,” Alberto said. “But let’s go to Paulino’s. I’m fed up and I want to get drunk.”

  “You go,” the Slave said. “I’m going to stay in the barracks.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “No. But I don’t like them to make fun of me.”

  “Nobody’s go
ing to make fun of you,” Alberto said, “we’re just going to get drunk. Just sock the first guy that makes a wisecrack and that’s that. Come on, let’s get going.”

  The barracks had slowly been emptying. After lunch, the ten cadets in the section who were confined to the grounds had stretched out on their bunks to smoke. Then the Boa persuaded some of them to go to “La Perlita.” A while later, Vallano and a few of the rest went to join a card game that had been started by some of the cadets in the second section. Alberto and the Slave stood up, closed their lockers and went out. The patios, the parade ground and the field were all deserted. They walked toward “La Perlita,” their hands in their pockets, without speaking. It was a gray, windless day. Suddenly they heard a laugh. A few yards off in the weeds they discovered a cadet with his cap down over his eyes.

  “You didn’t see me, Cadets,” he said with a grin. “I could’ve killed both of you.”

  “Don’t you know enough to salute your superiors?” Alberto asked. “Attention, goddamn it!”

  The boy leaped to his feet and saluted. His expression was very solemn.

  “Are there many guys at Paulino’s?” Alberto asked.

  “Not too many, Cadet. Maybe ten.”

  “You can lie down again,” the Slave said.

  “Do you smoke, Dog?” Alberto asked.

  “Yes, Cadet. But I haven’t got any cigarettes. Frisk me if you want. I haven’t had a pass for two weeks.”