Conversation in the Cathedral

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  “Not crazy, just a little strange,” Don Fermín said. “Now that we’re alone, Skinny, you can talk frankly to me. Is something bothering you?”

  “That one just might belong to the Party,” Jacobo said. “His interpretation of what’s going on in Bolivia was very Marxist.”

  “Nothing, papa,” Santiago said. “Nothing’s wrong with me, I give you my word.”

  “Pancras had a son in Huacho years and years ago and his woman ran off on him one day and he never saw her again,” Ambrosio says. “Ever since then he’s been trying to find that son. He doesn’t want to die without knowing if he turned out as ugly as he is.”

  “That one doesn’t come over to sound us out but to be with you,” Santiago said. “He only talks to you, and all those little smiles. You’ve made a conquest, Aída.”

  “What a dirty mind you’ve got, you’re such a bourgeois,” Aída said.

  “I can understand it because I’ve spent days too thinking about Amalita Hortensia,” Ambrosio says. “Wondering what she’s like, who she looks like.”

  “Do you think that only happens to the bourgeoisie?” Santiago asked. “That revolutionaries don’t ever think about women?”

  “There you are, now you’re mad because I called you a bourgeois,” Aída said. “Don’t be so sensitive, don’t be so bourgeois. Agh, I let it slip again.”

  “Let’s go have some coffee,” Jacobo said. “Come on, Moscow gold is paying for it.”

  Were they solitary rebels, were they active in some underground organization, could one of them be an informer? They didn’t go around together, they rarely appeared at the same time, they didn’t know each other or they made people think they didn’t know each other. Sometimes it was as if they were going to reveal something important, but they would stop on the threshold of revelation, and their hints and allusions, their threadbare suits and their calculated manners aroused restlessness in them, doubts, an admiration held back by mistrust or fear. Their casual faces began to appear in the cafés where they went after class, was he a messenger, was he exploring the terrain? their humble silhouettes as they sat down at the tables where they were, then let’s show them that there was no reason to pretend with them, and there, outside San Marcos, there are two informers in our class Aída said, instead of waiting for a trap, we found them out and they couldn’t deny it Jacobo said, the dialogues began to be less ethereal, they excused themselves alleging that as lawyers they would go up the ladder, Santiago said, sometimes taking on a boldly political tone, the fools didn’t even know how to lie Aída said. The chats would begin with some anecdote, the dangerous ones were not the ones who let themselves be found out said Washington, or joke or story or inquiry, but the small-fry informers who don’t appear on police lists, and then, timid, accidental, the questions came, what was the atmosphere like in the first year? was there restlessness, were the kids concerned about problems? was there a majority interested in setting up the Federated Centers again? more and more sibylline, serpentine, what did they think of the Bolivian revolution? the conversation would slip, and Guatemala, what did they think about that? toward the international situation. Animated, excited, they gave their opinions without lowering their voices, let the informers hear them, let them arrest them, and Aída became stimulated, she was the most enthusiastic he thinks, she let herself be won over by her own emotions, the most daring he thinks, the first boldly to shift the conversation from Bolivia and Guatemala to Peru: we were living under a military dictatorship, and her nighttime eyes glowed, even if the Bolivian revolution was only liberal, and her nose grew thinner, even if Guatemala hadn’t even gotten as far as a democratic-bourgeois revolution, and her temples throbbed more rapidly, they were better off than Peru, and a lock of her hair danced, governed by a stinking general, and it bounced on her forehead as she spoke, and by a pack of thieves, and her small fists pounded on the table. Uncomfortable, restless, alarmed, the furtive shadows interrupted Aída, changed the subject, or got up and left.

  “Your papa said that San Marcos was bad for you,” Ambrosio says. “That you stopped loving him because of the university.”

  “You gave Washington a hard time,” Jacobo said. “If he belongs to the Party he has to be careful. Don’t talk so strongly about Odría in front of him, you could get him in trouble.”

  “Did my father tell you that I’d stopped loving him?” Santiago asks.

  “Do you think Washington left because of that?” Aída asked.

  “It was the thing he was most worried about in life,” Ambrosio says. “Finding out why you’d stopped loving him, son.”

  He was in the third year of Law, he was a white and jovial little Andean who spoke without taking on the solemn, esoteric, archepiscopal air of the others, he was the first one whose name they learned: Washington. Always dressed in light gray, always with his merry canine teeth showing, with his jokes he imposed on the conversation in El Palermo, in the café-poolroom, or in the courtyard of Economics a personal climate which didn’t come out in the hermetic or stereotyped dialogues they had with the others. But in spite of his communicative appearance, he also knew how to be impenetrable. He’d been the first to change from a furtive shadow into a being of flesh and blood. Into an acquaintance, he thinks, almost into a friend.

  “Why did he think that?” Santiago asks. “What else did my father tell you?”

  “Why don’t we organize a study group?” Washington asked casually.

  They stopped thinking, breathing, their eyes fastened on him.

  “A study group?” Aída asked very slowly. “To study what?”

  “Not me, son,” Ambrosio says. “He’d be talking to your mama, your brother and sister, friends, and I’d listen to them while I was driving the car.”

  “Marxism,” Washington said in a natural way. “They don’t teach it at the university and it might be useful to us as a part of our general culture, don’t you think?”

  “You knew my father better than I,” Santiago says. “Tell me what other things he used to say about me.”

  “It would be most interesting,” Jacobo said. “Let’s organize the group.”

  “How could I know him better than you,” Ambrosio says. “What a thing to say, child.”

  “The problem is getting hold of books,” Aída said. “In secondhand bookstores the only thing you can find is some back number of Cultura Soviética.”

  “I know he talked to you about me,” Santiago says. “But never mind, don’t tell me anything if you don’t want to.”

  “You can get them, but we have to be careful,” Washington said. “Studying Marxism is enough to make yourself liable to be put on file as a Communist. Well, you people know that better than I.”

  That was how the Marxist study groups had been born, that was how they’d begun, without noticing it, to become active, to sink into the prestigious, yearned-for underground status. That was how they had discovered the tumble-down bookstore on the Jirón Chota and the old Spaniard with dark glasses and a snowy goatee who had copies of Siglo XX and Lautaro in his back room, that was how they had bought, thumbed through avidly that book which brought the discussions of the group to a fever pitch for many weeks, that book with answers for everything: Elements of Philosophy, he thinks. He thinks: Georges Politzer. That was how they had met Héctor, another furtive shadow until then, and had found out that the skinny, laconic giraffe was studying Economics and earned his living as a radio announcer. They’d decided to meet twice a week, they’d discussed the place for a long time, they’d finally chosen Héctor’s boardinghouse on Jesús María where they would go from then on and for months, every Thursday and Saturday afternoon, feeling themselves followed and spied on, looking suspiciously about the neighborhood before going in. They would get there around three, Héctor’s room was old and large, with two wide windows that faced the street, on the third floor of the boardinghouse run by a deaf woman who would come up sometimes to roar at them do you want some tea? Aída installed herself on
the bed, the negation of negation he thinks, Héctor on the floor, the qualitative leaps he thinks, Santiago in the only chair, the unity of opposites he thinks, Jacobo on a windowsill, Marx put the dialectics that Hegel had standing on its head back on its feet he thinks, and Washington always standing. He thinks: in order to grow and he laughed. Every time a different person would review a chapter from Politzer’s book, the reviews were followed by discussions, they met for two, three, or even four hours, they left by twos, leaving the room full of smoke and ardor. Later on the three of them would meet again and in some park, some street, some café, could Washington belong to the Party? Aída asked, they kept on talking, could Héctor be in the Party? Jacobo asked, supposing so, could the Party exist? Santiago asked, how was self-criticism done? and fervently arguing. That was how they had used the first year, that was how he’d spent the summer, not going to the beach a single time he thinks, that was how he’d begun the second year.

  Had it been that second year, Zavalita, when you saw that it wasn’t enough to learn about Marxism, that you had to believe? What had probably fucked you up was that lack of faith, Zavalita. A lack of faith in God, child? In order to believe in anything, Ambrosio. The idea of God, the idea of a “pure spirit” who created the universe didn’t make sense, Politzer said, a God outside space and time was something that could not exist. You were going around with a face that wasn’t your usual face, Santiago. You had to take part in idealistic mysticism and consequently not admit any scientific control, Politzer said, in order to believe in a God who existed outside time, that is, who didn’t exist in any given moment, and who existed outside space, that is, who didn’t exist in any given place. The worst thing was to have doubts, Ambrosio, and the wonderful thing was to close your eyes and say God exists or God doesn’t exist and believe it. He’d realized that sometimes he was playing tricks in the group, Aída: he said I believe or I agree and deep down he had doubts. Materialists, supported by the conclusions of science, Politzer said, affirmed that matter existed in space and in a given moment (in time). Clenching your fists, grinding your teeth, Ambrosio, APRA is the solution, religion is the solution, Communism is the solution, and believing it. Then life would become organized all by itself and you wouldn’t feel empty anymore, Ambrosio. He didn’t believe in priests, son, and he hadn’t gone to mass since he was a child, but he did believe in religion and in God, didn’t everybody have to believe in something? Consequently the universe could not have been created, Politzer concluded, since it had been necessary for God to be able to create the world in a moment which had never been a moment (since time did not exist for God) and it would have been necessary too for the world to have come out of nothingness: and did that worry you so much, Zavalita? Aída would ask. And Jacobo: if it was necessary in any case to start believing in something, it was better to believe that God doesn’t exist than that he does. Santiago also preferred that, Aída, he wanted to be convinced that what Politzer said was right, Jacobo. What got him all upset was having doubts, Aída, not being able to be sure, Jacobo. Petit-bourgeois agnosticism, Zavalita, disguised idealism, Zavalita. Didn’t Aída have any doubts, did Jacobo believe right down to the last letter what Politzer was saying? Doubts were fatal, Aída said, they paralyze you and you can’t do anything, and Jacobo spending your life digging around, would that be right? torturing yourself, would that be a lie? instead of acting? The world would never change, Zavalita. In order to act you have to believe in something, Aída said, and believing in God hasn’t helped change anything, and Jacobo: better to believe in Marxism, which can change things, Zavalita. Inculcate the workers with methodical doubt? Washington said, peasants with the quadruple root of the principle of sufficient reason? Héctor said. He thinks: you thought not, Zavalita. Closing your eyes, Marxism rests on science, clenching your fists, religion on ignorance, sinking your feet into the earth, God doesn’t exist, grinding your teeth, the motive force of history was the class struggle, hardening your muscles, when it freed itself of bourgeois exploitation, breathing deeply, the proletariat would free humanity, and attacking: and set up a world without classes. You couldn’t, Zavalita, he thinks. He thinks: you were, you are, you always will be, you’ll die a petit bourgeois. Were nursing bottles, private school, family, neighborhood stronger? he thinks. You used to go to mass, to confession and communion on first Fridays, you prayed and even then a lie, I don’t believe. You went to the deaf woman’s boardinghouse, quantitative changes, as they accumulated, produced a qualitative change, and you yes yes, the greatest materialist thinker before Marx was Diderot, yes yes, and suddenly the little worm: a lie, I don’t believe.

  “No one should notice, that was the main thing,” Santiago says. “I don’t write poetry, I believe in God, I don’t believe in God. Always lying, always faking.”

  “Maybe you’d better not have any more to drink, son,” Ambrosio says.

  “In prep school, at home, in the neighborhood, in the study group, in the Party, at La Crónica,” Santiago says. “My whole life spent doing things without believing, my whole life spent pretending.”

  “I’m glad papa threw your Communist book into the garbage, ha-ha,” Teté said.

  “And my whole life spent wanting to believe in something,” Santiago says. “And my whole life a lie, I don’t believe in anything.”

  Had it been a lack of faith, Zavalita, couldn’t it have been timidity? In the box of old newspapers in the garage behind the new copy of Politzer piling up were The Chief Task of Our Times, he thinks, books read and discussed in the group, The Origins of Family, Society and State, he thinks, poorly bound books with small print, The Class Struggle in France, he thinks, that came off on your fingers. Previously observed, studied, investigated, and brought into the group were Martínez the Indian, who was studying Ethnology, and later on Solórzano from Medicine, and then an almost albino girl whom they nicknamed The Bird. Héctor’s room became too small, the eyes of the deaf woman becoming alarmed at the chronic invasion, so they decided to rotate. Aída offered her place, The Bird hers, and then they met alternately on Jesús María, in a small red-brick house on Rímac, in an apartment on Petit Thouars with fleur-de-lis wallpaper. An effusive and gray-haired giant received them the first time they met at Aída’s house, I’d like to introduce you to my father, and while he shook their hands he looked at them with melancholy. He’d been a printer and a union leader, he’d been imprisoned during the days of Sánchez Cerro, he’d almost died of a heart attack. Now he worked by day at a press, and at night he was a proofreader at El Comercio, and was no longer involved in politics. And did he know that they were coming here to study Marxism? yes he knew, and didn’t it bother him? of course not, he thought it was fine.

  “It must be great to have a relationship like a friend with your old man,” Santiago said.

  “The poor man has been my father, my friend and my mother too,” Aída said. “Ever since my real mother died.”

  “In order for me to get along with my old man I have to hide what I think,” Santiago said. “He never agrees with me.”

  “How could he, being a bourgeois gentleman,” Aída said.

  As the group grew, from the quantitative accumulation to the qualitative leap he thinks, it changed from a center of study into a political discussion group. Going from analyzing Mariátegui’s essays to refuting the editorials in La Prensa, from historical materialism to the atrocities committed by Cayo Bermúdez, from the bourgeois shift of APRA to poisonous gossip against the subtle enemy: the Trotskyites. They had identified three of them, had spent hours, weeks, months guessing who they were, checking them out, spying on them and abominating them: intellectual, disturbing, they strolled through the courtyards of San Marcos, their mouths full of quotations and provocations, cataclysmic, heterodox. Were there many of them? Not many but quite dangerous Washington said, did they work with the police? Solórzano asked, probably and in any case it was the same thing Héctor said, because dividing, confusing, deviating and intoxicating was wors
e than informing Jacobo said. In order to fool the Trotskyites, to avoid informers, they had agreed not to hang around together at the university, not to stop and chat when they met in the hallways. There was unity in the group, complicity, even solidarity, he thinks. He thinks: friendship only among the three of us. Were the others bothered by that little island they constituted, that tenacious triumvirate? They continued going to class together, to libraries and cafés, strolling through the courtyards, seeing each other alone after meetings of the group. They chatted, discussed, walked, they went to the movies and Miracle in Milan had excited them, the white dove at the end was the dove of peace, the music was the Internationale, Vittorio de Sica must have been a Communist, and when a Russian film was announced at some neighborhood theater, with great hopes they fervently rushed over, even though they knew that they would probably be watching some old movie with interminable ballet scenes.

  “A shudder?” Ambrosio asks. “A cramp in the belly?”

  “The same as when I was a kid, at night,” Santiago says. “I used to wake up in the dark, I’m going to die. I couldn’t move, not even light the lamp or cry out. I stayed there all huddled up, sweating, shaking.”

  “There’s someone in Economics who might want to join,” Washington said. “The problem is that there are so many of us in the group already.”

  “But where does it come from, son?” Ambrosio asks.

  It appeared, there it was, tiny and glacial, gelatinous. It would twist delicately at the mouth of his stomach, secrete that liquid that wet the palms of his hands, make his heart beat faster, and go away with a shudder.

  “Yes, it’s not wise for so many of us to meet,” Héctor said. “The best thing would be to divide up into two groups.”

  “Yes, let’s split up, I was the one most convinced, it hadn’t even occurred to me,” Santiago says. “Weeks later I woke up repeating like an idiot, it can’t be, it can’t be.”