Death in the Andes

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  When the shooting began, he thought it was thunder, another storm approaching. But he saw the sheer terror in the eyes of the creatures closest to him, and he saw how they went mad, stampeding, running into each other, falling, getting in each other’s way, blinded and stupefied by panic, unable to decide whether they should flee to open country or return to the caves, and he saw the first ones whimper and fall, bleeding, their haunches opened, their bones splintered, their muzzles eyes ears torn apart by bullets. Some fell and stood up and fell again, and others were petrified, their necks craning as if they were trying to rise up and escape through the air. Some of the females bent down to lick their dying calves. He, too, was paralyzed, looking around, trying to understand, tilting his head from one side to the other, his eyes staring, his mouth hanging open, his ears tortured by the shooting and the whimpering that was worse than when the females gave birth.

  “Be sure not to hit him!” the boy-man bellowed from time to time. “Careful, careful!”

  They not only shot them, but some ran to cut off the ones that attempted to escape, surrounding them, cornering them, finishing them off with rifle butts and knives. At last Pedro Tinoco reacted. He began to jump, to roar with his chest and stomach, to wave his arms like propellers. He advanced, retreated, put himself between their weapons and the vicuñas, pleading with his hands and his shouts and the shock in his eyes. They did not appear to see him. They went on shooting and chasing the ones that had managed to get away and were running through the straw toward the ravine. When he reached the boy-man, he knelt and tried to kiss his hand, but the boy-man shoved him away in a rage.

  “Don’t do that,” he berated him. “Stop it, get out of the way.”

  “It’s orders from the high command,” said another, who was not angry. “This is war. You can’t understand, mute, you have no idea.”

  “Cry for your brothers and sisters, cry for those who suffer,” advised a girl, consoling him. “For those who’ve been murdered and tortured, for the ones who’ve gone to prison, the martyrs, the ones who sacrificed themselves.”

  He went from one to the other, trying to kiss their hands, pleading with them, going down on his knees. Some moved him away gently, others with repugnance.

  “Have a little pride, have some dignity,” they said. “Think about yourself instead of the vicuñas.”

  They were shooting them, chasing them, killing off the wounded and dying. It seemed to Pedro Tinoco that night would never come. One of them blew up two calves lying quiet next to their mother, sent them flying with a stick of dynamite. The air was filled with the smell of gunpowder. Pedro Tinoco no longer had the strength to cry. He sprawled on the ground, his mouth open, looking at one, looking at another, trying to understand. After a while, the boy with the cruel expression came over to him.

  “We don’t like doing this,” he said, modulating his voice and putting a hand on the mute’s shoulder. “It’s orders from the high command. This reserve belongs to the enemy. Ours and yours. A reserve devised by imperialists. In their world strategy, this is the role they’ve assigned us: Peruvians raise vicuñas. So their scientists can study them, so their tourists can take pictures of them. As far as they’re concerned, you’re worth less than these animals.”

  “You should leave this place, little father,” one of the girls said in Quechua, embracing him. “Police will come, soldiers will come. They’ll kick you and cut off your manhood before they put a bullet in your head. Go away, far away.”

  “Maybe then you’ll understand what you don’t understand now,” the boy-man explained again as he smoked a cigarette, looking at the dead vicuñas. “This is war, nobody can say it’s not their business. It’s everybody’s business, even mutes and deaf people and half-wits. A war to put an end to señores. So nobody has to kneel or kiss anybody’s hands or feet.”

  They stayed there for the rest of the afternoon and the entire night. Pedrito Tinoco saw them cook a meal, post sentries on the slopes that faced the road. And he heard them sleep, wrapped in their ponchos and shawls, leaning against each other in the caves on the hillside, like the vicuñas. The next morning, when they left, telling him again that he should leave if he didn’t want the soldiers to kill him, he was still in the same spot, mouth hanging open, body wet with dew, unable to understand this new, immeasurable mystery, surrounded by dead vicuñas on which birds of prey and carrion eaters were feasting.

  “How old are you?” the woman suddenly asked him.

  “I wonder about that, too,” exclaimed Lituma. “You never told me. How old are you, Tomasito?”

  Carreño, who had begun to doze, was wide awake now. The truck was not jolting them quite as much, but the motor kept roaring as if it would explode on the next uphill curve. They were ascending into the Cordillera, with stands of tall vegetation to the right and on the left the almost bare rock of slopes, with the Huallaga River thundering at their base. They were sitting in the back of an ancient truck that had no canvas to protect them if it rained, surrounded by sacks and crates of mangoes, lucumas, cherimozas, maracuyas, which were draped in sheets of plastic. But in the two or three hours it had taken to drive away from the jungle and climb into the Andes on the way to Huánuco, the storm had not broken. The night turned colder with the altitude. The sky teemed with stars.

  “Oh God, before they come and kill us, let me fuck a woman just one more time,” Lituma pleaded. “Son of a bitch, since I came to Naccos I’ve been living like a eunuch. And your stories about the Piuran get me hot, Tomasito.”

  “Still wet behind the ears, I’ll bet,” she added after a pause, as if talking to herself. “So even if you carry a gun and go around with gangsters, you don’t know anything at all, Carreño. That’s your name, isn’t it? The fat man called you Carreñito.”

  “The women I knew were scared babies, but she had so much nerve,” the adjutant said excitedly. “Even after what happened in Tingo María, she had her self-control back in no time. Faster than I did, I can tell you. She was the one who talked the truck driver into taking us to Huánuco, and for half of what he had asked. Just argued with him like his equal.”

  “I’m sorry to change the subject, but I have a feeling they’ll attack tonight, Tomasito,” said Lituma. “Like I could see them climbing down the hill right now. Do you hear something outside? Should we get up and have a look?”

  “I’m twenty-three,” he said. “I know everything I need to know.”

  “But you don’t know that men sometimes need to play games to get their kicks,” she replied, somewhat defiantly. “Do you want me to tell you something that’ll turn your stomach, Carreñito?”

  “Don’t worry, Corporal. I have good ears, and I swear nobody’s on the hill.”

  The boy and the woman sat side by side among sacks of fruit. The aroma of the mangoes grew more intense as the night deepened. The motor’s spasmodic roar had drowned out the hum of the insects, the rustling of the leaves, the singing of the river.

  “The truck jolted so much it threw us against each other,” the adjutant recalled. “Every time I felt her body, I trembled.”

  “So nowadays they call it trembling?” Lituma joked. “It used to be known as getting horny. You’re right, there’s nothing out there, it’s just my nerves. You know, I was getting a hard-on listening to you, and that sound put it right back to sleep.”

  “He wasn’t even really hitting me,” the woman murmured, and Carreño gave a start. He thought she was smiling, because he could see the gleam of her teeth. “He cursed, and I begged and cried, and you thought he was beating me. Didn’t you know it was just to get excited, to get him excited? You’re such a baby, Carreñito.”

  “Shut up or I’ll throw you off the truck,” he interrupted, filled with indignation.

  “You should’ve said, ‘Shut up or I’ll kick your ass,’ ‘Shut up or I’ll beat you to a pulp,’” said Lituma. “That would’ve been pretty funny, Tomasito.”

  “That’s what she said, Corporal. And we both bu
rst out laughing. And then neither of us could stop. We’d get serious for a minute and then begin laughing again.”

  “Yes, it would’ve been funny if I hit you,” the boy acknowledged. “And I admit, I want to sometimes when you start putting me down for trying to help you. Let me tell you something. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me now.”

  “And what about me?” she replied. “At least you pulled that dumb trick because you wanted to, but you got me into this mess and didn’t even ask my opinion. They’re going to look for us, maybe they’ll kill us. And nobody’s going to believe what really happened. They’ll say that you work for the police and I was your accomplice.”

  “Didn’t she know you were in the Civil Guard?” Lituma asked in surprise.

  “And I don’t even know your name,” the boy recalled.

  There was a sudden silence, as if the motor had been turned off, but it immediately began to roar and boil again. Tomás thought those little lights up there were an airplane.

  “Mercedes.”

  “Is that your real name?”

  “I only have one,” she said angrily. “And in case you were wondering, I’m not a whore. I was his girlfriend. He took me out of a show I was working in.”

  “At the Vacilón, a club in downtown Lima,” the guard explained. “She wasn’t the only one. Hog had a string of girlfriends. Iscariote introduced him to five at least.”

  “What a life.” Lituma sighed. “Five at the same time! A change of woman every day, every night, like underwear or shirts. And here we are, Tomasito, starving to death.”

  “My back was aching,” his adjutant went on, absorbed in his memories. “There was no way to persuade the driver to let us ride in the cab. He was afraid we’d attack him. We were covered with bruises. And I was eaten up by doubts when I thought about what Mercedes had said. Could it be true, was all her crying just an act to get him excited? What do you think, Corporal?”

  “I don’t know what to say, Tomasito. It probably was an act. He pretended to beat her, she pretended to cry, then he got hot and got off. I’ve heard about guys like that.”

  “What a pig, a real pig,” his adjutant growled. “He deserved to die, damn it.”

  “And in spite of everything you fell in love with Mercedes. Love’s really complicated, Tomasito.”

  “Don’t I know it,” murmured the guard. “If it wasn’t for love I wouldn’t be in the damn barrens waiting for some motherfucking fanatics to decide to come and kill us.”

  “Did you hear something? I’m going to have a look around, just in case.” Lituma listened intently. He stood, holding his revolver, and went to the door of the shack. He peered in all directions and came back to his cot, laughing. “No, it’s not them. I thought I saw the mute taking a shit in the moonlight.”

  What would happen to him now? Better not think about it. Just get to Lima and then he’d see. Could he face his godfather after this? It would be a bitter pill to swallow. He had always behaved like a gentleman and this is how you repay him. That’s called being a real asshole, Carreño. Yes, but he didn’t care. He felt better now, bouncing around with each jolt of the truck and touching her sometimes; much better than back in Tingo María, shaking, sweating, choking, leaning against the walls of that house, listening to his filthy shit. All those moans, pleas, blows, threats, just an act, just a lie? False. Or, unexpectedly, true.

  “I didn’t regret a thing, Corporal, and that’s the truth,” Tomás declared. “Whatever happened to me would happen. Because I was already crazy about her, just like you guessed.”

  The motion and the sweet aroma of the mangoes made them both drowsy. Mercedes tried to rest her head against a sack, but the bouncing of the truck made that impossible. Carreño heard her grumble, saw her bury her face in her hands as she shifted again and again in an effort to find a comfortable position.

  “Let’s make a deal,” he heard her say at last, trying to be casual. “You lean on my shoulder for a while, and then I’ll lean on you. If we don’t get some sleep, we’ll be dead on our feet by the time we get to Huánuco.”

  “Well now, things are getting interesting,” remarked Lituma. “Tell me once and for all about the first time you fucked her, Tomasito.”

  “Right then and there I stretched out my arm and made a little place for her,” Tomás said joyfully. “I felt her body coming close to mine, I felt her head resting on my shoulder.”

  “And, of course, you got a hard-on,” said Lituma.

  The boy didn’t take the hint this time, either.

  “I put my arm around her, I rested my hand on her,” he explained. “Mercedes was sweating. So was I. Her hair brushed my face, tickled my nose. I felt the curve of her hip right next to mine. When she spoke, her lips touched my chest, and I could feel her warm breath right through my shirt.”

  “Son of a bitch, the one who’s getting a hard-on here is me,” said Lituma. “So what do I do now, Tomasito? Jerk off?”

  “Go out and take a leak, Corporal. The cold will make it go down.”

  “Are you religious? A good Catholic? Can’t you accept that a man and a woman do certain things? Was it sin or something that made you kill him, Carreñito?”

  “I felt happy having her so close,” his adjutant admitted. “I kept my mouth closed tight, stayed very still, listened to the truck struggling up the Cordillera, and that’s how I could stand how much I wanted to kiss her.”

  “Don’t get angry because I asked,” Mercedes insisted. “It’s just that I’m trying to understand why you killed him, and nothing comes to me.”

  “Go to sleep and don’t think about it,” the boy said. “Like me. I don’t remember anymore. I’ve forgotten about Hog and Tingo María. And don’t bring religion into it.”

  It was the dead of night over the great peaks of the Andes, which seemed to grow higher with each curve in the road. But down in the jungle they were leaving behind, day was breaking in a thin bluish-white streak along the horizon.

  “Did you hear that? Did you?” Lituma sat up abruptly in his cot. “Grab your revolver, Tomasito. I’ll swear those are footsteps coming up the hill.”

  3

  “Maybe they got rid of Casimiro Huarcaya because they thought he was a pishtaco,” said Dionisio the cantinero. “He spread the rumor himself. I don’t know how many times I heard him bellow like a wild boar, right there where you’re standing: ‘I’m a pishtaco and so what? One of these days I’ll slice up your fat and suck out your blood. All of you.’ Maybe he was a little high, but everybody knows drunks tell the truth. The whole cantina heard him. By the way, are there any pishtacos in Piura, Corporal, sir?”

  Lituma raised the glass of anisette that the cantinero had just poured, said “Cheers” to his adjutant, and drank it in one swallow. The sweet-tasting warmth went down to his belly and raised his spirits, which had been dragging on the ground all day.

  “Personally, I’ve never heard of pishtacos in Piura. Now, spirit-chasers are a different story. I knew one in Catacaos. He would go to houses where there were souls in torment and talk to them and get them to leave. Of course, a spirit-chaser isn’t much compared to a pishtaco.”

  The cantina was in the very center of the camp, surrounded by the barracks where the laborers slept. It had a low ceiling, benches and crates that served as chairs and tables, a dirt floor, and pictures of naked women tacked to the plank walls. The place was always crowded at night, but it was still early—the sun had just set—and in addition to Lituma and Tomás there were only four other men, all wrapped in scarves, and two wearing hard hats; they were sitting at a table and drinking beer. The corporal and the guard each carried his second glass of anisette to the adjoining table.

  “I can see that what I said about the pishtaco hasn’t convinced you.” Dionisio laughed.

  He was a fat, flabby man with a sooty face that looked as if it had been streaked with coal, and greasy, kinky hair. He was stuffed like a sausage into a blue sweater that he never took off, and hi
s eyes were always bloodshot and burning, for he drank along with his customers. Though he never became completely drunk. At least Lituma had never seen him in the state of total intoxication that so many laborers reached on Saturday nights. He usually played Radio Junín at top volume, but tonight he hadn’t turned on the radio yet.

  “Do you believe in pishtacos?” Lituma asked the men at the next table. Four faces, half hidden by shawls, turned toward him. They all seemed made from the same mold—skin burned by hot sun and cutting cold, evasive, inexpressive eyes, noses and lips livid with harsh weather, unruly hair—and it was difficult for him to tell them apart.

  “Who knows?” one of them answered at last. “Maybe.”

  “I do,” one of the men in a hard hat said after a moment. “They must exist if so many people talk about them.”

  Lituma narrowed his eyes. He could see him. A stranger. Half gringo. At first glance you didn’t know what he was because he looked just like everybody else in this world. He lived in caves and committed his crimes at night. Lurking along the roads, behind boulders, hiding among haystacks or under bridges, waiting for solitary travelers. He would approach with cunning, pretending to be a friend. His powder made from the bones of the dead was all ready, and at the first careless moment he threw it in his victims’ faces. Then he could suck out their fat. Afterward he let them go, emptied, nothing but skin and bone, doomed to waste away in a few hours or days. These were the benign ones. They needed human fat to make church bells sing more sweetly and tractors run more smoothly, and now, lately, to give to the government to help pay off the foreign debt. The evil ones were worse. They not only slit their victims’ throats but butchered them like cattle, or sheep, or hogs, and ate them. Bled them drop by drop and got drunk on the blood. Son of a bitch, the serruchos believed this stuff. Did that witch Doña Adriana really kill a pishtaco?