The Time of the Hero

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  “Are you crazy?” the Jaguar asked. “Since when have the officers protected me?”

  “Not you. They’re protecting themselves. They don’t want any trouble. They’re a bunch of shits. They don’t give a damn about what happened to the Slave.”

  “You’re right,” the Jaguar said, nodding. “I heard they wouldn’t even let his parents see him when he was in the infirmary. Just think what it must be like to be dying and only see lieutenants and doctors. They stink, all of them.”

  “You didn’t care if he died either,” Alberto said. “You just wanted to get revenge because he told on Cava.”

  “What?” the Jaguar said, stopping dead and looking at Alberto. “What’s that?”

  “What’s what?”

  “The Slave accused the peasant?” His eyes were glowing.

  “Don’t be a shit,” Alberto said. “Don’t be a phoney.”

  “I’m not a phoney,” the Jaguar said. “I didn’t know he squealed on Cava. It’s a good thing he’s dead. All the squealers ought to be dead.”

  Alberto could not see well with one eye bandaged, and could not judge the distance. He reached out to grab him by the front of his shirt, but his hand closed on empty air.

  “Swear to me you didn’t know the Slave accused Cava. Swear it in the name of your mother. Tell me she can drop dead if you did know. Swear it.”

  “My mother’s dead already,” the Jaguar said. “But I didn’t know.”

  “Swear it, if you’re a man.”

  “I swear I didn’t know.”

  “I thought you knew,” Alberto said. “I thought you killed the Slave on account of it. If you really didn’t know I was wrong. Excuse me, Jaguar.”

  “It’s kind of late to be sorry,” the Jaguar said. “But from now on, don’t squeal on anybody. There’s nothing worse than a squealer.”

  8

  After lunch, the cadets returned to the barracks like a river in flood. Alberto could hear them coming: they crossed the empty field with a rustle of trodden grass, then clattered across the parade ground, and suddenly the patio was a wild torrent of sound, from the hundreds of boots that hammered on the pavement. The noise became more and more frenetic until the double door swung wide open and familiar figures surged into the barracks. As they entered, Alberto heard them pronouncing his own name and the Jaguar’s. The tide of cadets divided into two currents, one of them racing toward his bunk, the other toward the far end where the Jaguar was. Vallano was at the head of the group that came over to him; they were all gesturing and their eyes were bright with curiosity. He felt dazed by so many stares and such a babble of questions. For a moment he had the impression they were going to lynch him. He tried to smile, but it was pointless: they could not see it as the bandages almost covered his face. They called him Dracula, the Monster, Frankenstein, Rita Hayworth. Then there were more questions. He decided to talk in a hoarse, weak voice, as if the bandages were suffocating him. “I had an accident,” he murmured. “I just got out of the hospital this morning.” “It looks to me as if you’re going to be uglier than ever,” Vallano said in a friendly voice, and another predicted, “You’re going to lose an eye, and then we won’t call you the Poet, we’ll call you One-Eye.” They stopped asking him questions, no one wanted the details of the accident, they engaged in a tacit contest to invent ridiculous and brutal nicknames for him. “I got hit by a car,” Alberto said. “It knocked me down on 2nd of May Avenue.” But now the group around him was growing restless; some of them went to their bunks, others came up closer and laughed at his bandages. Suddenly someone shouted, “I bet it’s all a lie. The Jaguar and the Poet had a fight.” A roar of laughter shook the barracks. Alberto felt grateful to the attendant at the infirmary: the bandage covering his face was a perfect mask, no one could read the truth from his features. He was sitting on his bunk watching Vallano, who was in front of him, and Arróspide and Montes. He could only see them rather cloudily, and had to guess what the rest of them were doing; but he heard them making wisecracks about the Jaguar and himself. “What’ve you done to the Poet, Jaguar?” one of them asked. “Poet,” another asked, “do you fight with your fingernails like a woman?” Alberto tried to make out the Jaguar’s voice in the hubbub, but he could not hear him. He could not see him either, because the bunks, the lockers and the bodies of his comrades were in the way. The jokes continued, with Vallano’s voice standing out, a venomous, treacherous hiss. The Negro was inspired, and shot off burst after burst of sarcasm and humor.

  Suddenly the Jaguar’s voice dominated the barracks. “That’s enough! Leave him alone!” The loud talk died down at once, and there were only a few mocking snickers, furtive, timid. With his one free eye, which dizzily opened and closed, Alberto watched the cadet who moved near Vallano’s bunk, who leaned his arms on the upper bunk and pulled himself up and then climbed onto a locker. After that, Alberto could only see his long legs, with blue socks falling down over chocolate-colored boots. The other cadets had not noticed anything yet; the hidden snickers continued. When he heard Arróspide’s thundering words, Alberto did not think that anything unusual was happening, but his body understood better: it grew tense, and his shoulder pressed so hard against the wall that it ached. Arróspide repeated his bellow: “Stop, Jaguar! Don’t shout, Jaguar. One moment.” There was complete silence now, the whole section had turned to look at the brigadier, but Alberto could not see his face: the bandages made it hard to raise his head, and his blinking cyclops eye saw only that motionless pair of boots, then the darkness behind its lid, then the boots again. Arróspide went on saying angrily, “Stop there, Jaguar! One moment, Jaguar.” Alberto heard a rustle of bodies as the cadets who were lying on their bunks sat up and craned their necks toward Vallano’s locker.

  “What’s the matter?” the Jaguar asked at last. “What’s up, Arróspide. What’s on your mind?”

  Alberto, without moving, watched the cadets nearest to him. Their eyes were like pendulums, swinging back and forth from one end of the barracks to the other, from Arróspide to the Jaguar.

  “We’re going to talk,” Arróspide yelled. “We’re got lots to say to you. In the first place, don’t shout. Do you understand, Jaguar? Lots of things have happened in the barracks since Gamboa sent you to the guardhouse.”

  “I don’t like to have people speak to me in that tone,” the Jaguar said, calmly but in a low voice. If the other cadets had not remained silent, his words could scarcely have been heard. “If you want to talk to me, get down off that locker and come here. Like a gentleman.”

  “I’m not a gentleman,” Arróspide screamed.

  He’s furious, Alberto thought. He’s dying of rage. He doesn’t want to fight with the Jaguar, what he wants is to shame him in front of everybody.

  “Yes, you’re a gentleman,” the Jaguar said. “Of course you are. Everybody from Miraflores is a gentleman.”

  “Right now I’m talking to you as a brigadier, Jaguar. Don’t try to start a fight, don’t be a coward, Jaguar. Afterward, anything you want. But right now we’re going to talk. Strange things have been happening, do you hear me? They’d hardly put you in the guardhouse and do you know what happened? The lieutenants and noncoms suddenly went wild. They came to the barracks, opened all the lockers, took out the cards, the bottles, the dice. Then a steady stream of orders and confinements. Almost the whole section is going to have to wait a long time to get passes, Jaguar.”

  “So?” the Jaguar said. “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “You’re still asking?”

  “Yes,” the Jaguar said quietly. “I’m still asking.”

  “You told Curly and the Boa that if you got screwed, you’d fuck the whole section. And that’s what you’ve done, Jaguar. Do you know what you are? You’re a squealer. You’ve screwed all of us. You’re a traitor, a coward. I’m speaking for the rest when I tell you you don’t even deserve to have us beat you up. You’re a shit, Jaguar. Don’t think anybody’s afraid of you. Did you hear me?” />
  Alberto hitched over a little on his bunk and then leaned his head back. In that way he could see him: Arróspide, up there on the locker, looked taller than ever; his hair was disheveled, and his long arms and legs accentuated his thinness. He was standing with his feet apart, his eyes wide open and hysterical, his fists clenched. What was the Jaguar waiting for? Once again, Alberto could only see things through a sort of mist, because his eyelid twitched without stopping.

  “You’re trying to say I’m a squealer?” the Jaguar asked. “Is that it? Go ahead, Arróspide. Is that what you’re trying to say, that I’m a squealer?”

  “I’ve already said it,” Arróspide shouted. “And I’m not the only one. Everybody says so, the whole barracks, Jaguar. You’re a squealer.”

  Suddenly Alberto heard a rapid pounding of boots: someone was running through the middle of the barracks, among the lockers and the motionless cadets. The figure stopped within his range of vision. It was the Boa.

  “Get down, you fairy,” the Boa shouted. “Get down, get down.”

  He was standing in front of the locker, and his head with its shock of hair was swaying like a tuft of plumes a few inches from Arróspide’s boots. I know what’s going to happen, Alberto thought. He’s going to grab his feet and dump him on the floor. But the Boa did not raise his hands, he merely challenged him: “Get down, get down.”

  “Go away, Boa,” Arróspide said without looking at him. “I’m not talking to you. Go away. Don’t forget that you suspected the Jaguar too.”

  “Jaguar,” the Boa said, glaring at Arróspide out of his inflamed little eyes, “don’t believe what he says. I doubted you for a moment but not any more. Tell him it’s all a lie and you’re going to kill him. Get down from there, Arróspide, if you’re a man.”

  He’s his friend, Alberto thought. I never dared to stand up for the Slave like that.

  “You’re a squealer, Jaguar,” Arróspide repeated. “And I’ll say it again. You’re a dirty squealer.”

  “He’s just making it up, Jaguar,” the Boa said. “Don’t believe him. Nobody thinks you’re a squealer. Nobody’d dare. Tell him it’s a lie and break his jaw.”

  “Cut it out, Boa,” the Jaguar said. His voice remained calm and measured. “I don’t need anybody to defend me.”

  “Cadets,” Arróspide shouted, pointing at the Jaguar, “there’s the one that squealed. Look at him. He doesn’t even dare deny it. He’s a squealer and a coward. Did you hear me, Jaguar? I said you’re a squealer and a coward.”

  What’s he waiting for? Alberto wondered. A few moments before, his whole face had begun to throb with pain under the bandages, but he scarcely noticed it. He was resigned to what he was sure would happen, and waited impatiently for the Jaguar to toss his name out into the barracks the way you toss a scrap of meat to the dogs. Then everyone would turn to him, surprised and infuriated.

  But the Jaguar said, in an ironic voice, “Who goes along with that Miraflores gentleman? Don’t be cowards, damn it, I want to know who else is against me.”

  “Nobody, Jaguar,” the Boa shouted. “Don’t pay any attention to him. Can’t you see he’s a damned queer?”

  “Everybody,” Arróspide said. “Look at their faces and you can tell it, Jaguar. Everybody hates you.”

  “All I can see is a bunch of cowards,” the Jaguar said. “That’s all. Just cowards and fairies.”

  He doesn’t dare, Alberto thought. He’s afraid to accuse me.

  “Squealer!” Arróspide shouted. “Squealer! Squealer!”

  “We’ll see,” the Jaguar said. “I’m tired of all these cowards. Why doesn’t anybody else start shouting? Don’t be scared.”

  “Start shouting,” Arróspide said. “Tell him what he is to his face. Tell him.”

  They won’t, Alberto thought. They wouldn’t dare. Arróspide chanted, “Squealer! Squealer!” frenetically, and from various parts of the barracks, anonymous allies joined him, repeating the word in low voices and almost without opening their mouths. The chant spread as it did in their French classes, and Alberto began to distinguish some of the voices that stood out in the chorus: Vallano’s thin piping, the songlike voice of Quiñones, others. The chant was loud and general now. He sat up and looked around him. Their mouths were opening and closing in unison. He was fascinated by the spectacle, and suddenly he was no longer afraid that his name would explode in the barracks, that the hatred which the cadets were directing at the Jaguar would be turned toward him. His own mouth, from the mask of the bandages, started whispering, “Squealer, squealer.” He closed his eye, because it was now like a burning abscess, and did not see what happened until the brawl was almost at its height. The pushing, the shoving, the collisions. The lockers rattled, the bunks creaked, the curses broke up the rhythm of the chant. And yet it had not been the Jaguar who started it. He learned afterward that it was the Boa: he had seized Arróspide by the ankles and tumbled him to the floor. It was only then that the Jaguar had acted, running up from the far end of the barracks. No one tried to stop him, but they all kept up the chant, shouting it even louder as he ran past them. They let him reach the Boa and Arróspide, who were struggling on the floor halfway under Montes’ bunk; they even stayed still when the Jaguar, without leaning over, began to kick the brigadier, savagely, as if he were no more than a bag of sand. Then Alberto was aware of confused shouting, a sudden charge: the cadets ran from all sides to the center of the barracks. He had dropped back on his bunk, to keep from being hit, with his arms over his face as a shield. By peering between his arms with his free eye, he could see the cadets surround the Jaguar, drag him away from Arróspide and the Boa, then crash him to the floor in the middle of the aisle. The noise and commotion grew wilder, but Alberto made out the faces of Vallano and Mesa, Valdivia and Romero, and heard them egging each other on: “Hit him hard!” “Dirty squealer!” “Beat the shit out of him!” “He thinks he’s tough, the bastard!” They’re going to kill him, he thought. And the Boa too. But a moment later it was all over. There was the blast of a whistle, the noncom in the patio roared that the last three out in each section would be written down, and the tumult stopped as if by magic. Alberto ran out of the barracks and was one of the first to get into the formation. He turned around and tried to locate Arróspide, the Jaguar and the Boa, but they were not there. Someone said, “They’ve gone to the latrine. It’s better they don’t comeout here till they’ve washed their faces. And the hell with any more fighting.”

  Lt. Gamboa left his room, and paused for a moment in the hallway to wipe his forehead with his handkerchief. He had just finished writing a letter to his wife, and now he was going to the guardhouse to give it to the Officer of the Day so that it would be sent out with the rest of the mail. When he reached the parade ground, he turned, almost without thinking, toward “La Perlita.” As he crossed the open field he could see Paulino opening rolls with his dirty fingers: he would put sausage meat in them and sell them during recess. Gamboa wondered why he had not taken any measures against Paulino, despite the fact that his report had mentioned the half-breed’s illegal sale of liquor and cigarettes. Was Paulino the real owner of “La Perlita,” or merely a front? But he was bored by these thoughts. He looked at his watch: in two hours he would be off duty and would have twenty-four hours of freedom. Where should he go? He was not interested in the idea of shutting himself up in his solitary house in Barranco; he would be worried and restless. He could visit some of his relatives, they were always happy to see him and scolded him for not coming more often. At night, perhaps he would go to the movies: there was always a war or gangster picture in the movie houses in Barranco. When he was a cadet, he and Rosa went to the movies every Sunday afternoon and evening, and sometimes they sat through the picture twice. He used to make fun of her because the Mexican melodramas frightened her and she grasped his hand in the darkness, as if seeking protection; but actually that sudden contact thrilled him. It was hard to believe that eight years had gone by since then. Until a few w
eeks ago, he had never remembered the past, spending his off hours in making plans for the future. Thus far he had realized his objectives, and no one had taken away the post he obtained when he graduated from the Military School. Why was it, he wondered, that ever since these recent problems arose, he thought constantly, and with a certain bitterness, of his youth?

  “What’ll you have, Lieutenant?” Paulino asked with a respectful nod.

  “A cola.”

  The warm sweet drink almost made him gag. Had it been worth the while to spend so many hours learning those dust-dry pages by heart? To give the same importance to his study of the rules and regulations as he gave to strategy, logistics and military geography? Justice is constituted of order and discipline, he recited to himself with a wry smile, and these are the indispensable instruments of a rational collective life. Order and discipline are obtained by accommodating the facts to the laws. Capt. Montero had made them memorize the regulations, even the introductions. They used to call him the Lawyer because he was forever citing them. A good teacher, Gamboa thought. And a fine officer. Is he still rotting away in that garrison at Borja? When he left the Military School at Chorrillos, Gamboa imitated Capt. Montero in everything. His first assignment was at Ayacucho, and almost at once he had a reputation for keeping strictly to the book. The officers nicknamed him the Judge, the troops nicknamed him the Whip. They all made jokes about his strictness, but he knew that at heart they respected and even admired him. His company was the best trained, the best disciplined. It was not even necessary to punish the soldiers under his command: after telling them exactly what he expected of them, and reminding them of it from time to time, he never had any trouble. It was as easy to impose discipline on others as it was to impose it on himself. And he thought it would be the same in the Military Academy. Now he was full of doubts. How could he maintain his blind faith in authority after what had happened? Perhaps it would be more sensible to go along with the rest. Capt. Garrido was surely right when he said that the regulations had to be interpreted according to the situation at hand, and that above all you had to keep an eye on your own security, your career. He remembered that incident with the corporal, shortly after he came to the Leoncio Prado. The corporal was an insolent peasant who laughed in his face while he bawled him out. Gamboa slapped him hard, and the corporal said, “If I were a cadet, you wouldn’t have hit me, Sir.” He wasn’t so stupid after all, Gamboa thought.