But the worst misfortunes always come from the spirits who turn away their faces. The ones who ask for more than people can give. They’re up there, stone with the stones, waiting until misfortune makes the laborers open their minds to them. But you like to get angry when I explain it to you. What’s the point of asking if you cover your ears and don’t want to understand? You should follow my husband’s advice instead: keep drinking till you’re drunk, when you’re drunk everything becomes better than it really is, and then the terrucos disappear, and the pishtacos, and everything that makes you angry and scared.
“But why me?” Mercedes suddenly asked again.
“I’m sorry, Tomasito,” Lituma interrupted in the darkness. “That article in the Lima newspaper about people stealing children’s eyes really got to me. I’m not up to hearing about your love life tonight. Let’s talk about the eye-thieves instead. Or about Dionisio and the witch. I can’t get them out of my head, either.”
“No way, Corporal,” Tomás replied from his cot. “The nights belong to Mercedes and nobody else, unless I’m on duty. I spend enough time during the day worrying myself sick about everything that’s going on. You can have the pishtacos, and I’ll stick to my sweetie.”
“Why didn’t they stop you, too, or both of us at least?” Mercedes repeated.
The question had been on her lips ever since their escape from the police. Carreño had given her all the answers: maybe there was a record of her name because they connected her with Hog, who had been in the police files for a long time; maybe they found some mistake or a suspicious mark on her voter’s identification; or maybe they called her for the same reason they could have called any other passenger, just to get some money out of her. Why worry about it anymore? The worst was over. Wasn’t she free? Hadn’t they crossed half the sierra with no problems? They’d get to Lima safe and sound in just a couple of hours. As if to emphasize Carreño’s words, the engineer sounded the train whistle, and the strident blast rebounded and echoed along the bare hills around them.
“The paper didn’t talk about pishtacos but eye-cutters, or eye-robbers,” Lituma said. “But you’re right, Tomasito, they’re like the serrucho pishtacos. What I can’t get through my head is that even in Lima people are beginning to believe this stuff. How can that be? It’s the capital of Peru!”
“You think I’m listening, but I’m not here,” whispered Tomasito. “I’m in the sierra train, going down, down to Desamparados, with my arms around my sweetheart.”
“Convince me,” she said softly, huddling against him. “Convince me it was just a coincidence that they called me. I don’t want to go to jail. A woman I know was sent to Chorrillos. I went to visit her. I’ll kill myself before I go to jail.”
The boy held her tight and soothed her. They were sitting very close together on a seat meant for one passenger. The car was crowded, people were standing, carrying bundles, packages, even chickens, and at each station more passengers got on. Soon you wouldn’t be able to breathe. Just as well they were coming into the Matucana station.
Tomás pressed his mouth against Mercedes’s thick hair. “I swear nothing will ever happen to you,” he promised. “I’ll always save you, like I did last night.”
He kissed her and saw that she was closing her eyes. Through the window he could see occasional villages on the hilltops and slopes, and painted advertisements began to appear on the stones along the tracks. It was a leaden afternoon, with low clouds threatening a rain that never fell. Well, typical Lima weather.
“Something serious is happening in this country, Tomasito,” Lituma interrupted again. “How can a whole district in Lima get so crazy they believe a story like that? Gringos putting five-year-old kids in luxury cars and cutting out their eyes with ultrasonic scalpels. Sure, maybe a few crazy women say those things. Lima has its Doña Adrianas, too. But a whole district believing it and people keeping their children home from school and looking for foreigners to lynch: it’s incredible, isn’t it?”
“The only eyes I care about belong to my Mercedes,” whispered the guard. “As big as stars and the color of brown sugar.”
He felt no misgivings now. He had while they were crossing the Andes at the mercy of the man behind the wheel, and to keep him from turning them in, Carreño let him see the pistol from time to time. But they had gotten along pretty well on the trip. The driver swallowed, or pretended to swallow, the story that Carreño and Mercedes were running away from a jealous husband who had reported her to the police. He had stopped twice to buy food and drinks, and suggested they take the train in Cerro de Pasco. As payment for his services, Carreño left the two submachine guns with him.
“If you want, you can return them, like a good citizen. Or sell them. You’ll get a pile of money for those toys.”
“I’ll toss a coin and decide,” said the driver, and he wished them a happy honeymoon. “I’ll wait a couple of hours before I go to the police.”
“The paper said that last month people went crazy like this in Chiclayo, and in Ferraftafe, too,” Lituma continued. “They said a woman saw four gringos in white robes taking a boy away; they found the body of another boy in a ditch, and his eyes were missing and the eye-robbers had left fifty dollars in his pocket. They formed patrols, just like in Ayacucho when there were rumors about the pishtaco invasion. Lima, Chiclayo, Ferreñafe, they’re all catching the serrucho superstition. No different from Naccos. It’s like an epidemic, isn’t it?”
“To tell you the truth, Corporal, I don’t give a damn. Because right now I’m happy.”
The train pulled into the Desamparados station at about six. It was growing dark, but the lights had not been turned on yet and the waiting room on the upper level was in shadow when Carreño and Mercedes walked through. There were no police in sight, and none at the exit except for the ones standing guard at the iron fence around the Government Palace.
“We’d better go our separate ways now, Carreñito,” said Mercedes when they were on the street.
“You plan to go home? They’ll be watching it, just like they’ll be watching my place. We’d better hide a few days at my mother’s house.”
They took a taxi, and after giving an address in Breña, the boy leaned over and whispered in Mercedes’s ear: “So, you want to get rid of me?”
“I want things to be very clear,” she said in a low voice, so the driver could not hear. “I can’t change what happened, that’s water under the bridge. But I fought hard for my independence. So don’t get any ideas. I’m not going to give it all up for a Civil Guard.”
“An ex-Civil Guard,” the boy interrupted.
“We’ll only stay together until we’re out of the mess you got us into. Okay, Carreñito?”
“I can’t help seeing Dionisio and the witch in all this,” said Lituma. “It’s like those two savages were turning out to be right, not civilized people. Knowing how to read and write, wearing a tie and a jacket, finishing school, living in the city—it’s not enough anymore. Only witches can understand what’s going on. Do you know what Dionisio said this afternoon in the cantina? That to be a wise man you have to be the child of incest. Every time that pervert opens his mouth he gives me the shivers. How about you?”
“Right now I have the shivers, too, but a different kind, Corporal. Because I’m about to start my roller-coaster honeymoon.”
As they were driving down Avenida Arica in Breña, the dim streetlights came on. The taxi circled La Salle Academy, went along a narrow alley, and was about to turn where the boy had indicated when Carreño said: “Just keep going straight. I changed my mind. Take us to Barrios Altos instead.”
Mercedes turned, looking at him in surprise, and saw that Carreño was holding the revolver.
“Peru is being overrun by devils and lunatics, and all you can do is go on and on about that woman. What they say is true, Tomasito: nobody’s as self-centered as a man in love.”
“Some guy was under the streetlight in front of the house, and I didn’t
like it,” the boy explained. “Maybe I’m just on edge, but we can’t take any chances.”
In Barrios Altos, he had the driver stop at the old-age home, and he waited for the taxi to drive away before taking Mercedes by the arm, pulling her along for a few blocks until they reached a shack, with bars at the doors and windows, built out from the ground floor of a faded three-story building. The door opened right away. A woman in bathrobe and slippers, with a scarf tied around her head, looked them up and down, showing no joy.
“Things must be pretty bad for you to come around,” she said to Carreño by way of greeting. “You haven’t been here in a dog’s age.”
“Yes, Aunt Alicia, they’re pretty bad right now,” Tomás acknowledged as he kissed the woman on the forehead. “That little room you rent out, is it empty by any chance?”
The woman examined Mercedes from head to toe and responded with a grudging nod.
“Can you rent it to me for a few days, Aunt Alicia?”
She moved aside to let them in.
“It was vacated yesterday,” she said. Mercedes murmured “Good evening” as she passed, and the woman mumbled something in reply.
She preceded them down a narrow hallway with photographs on the walls, opened a door, and turned on the light. The room had a single bed covered with a pink spread, and a trunk that took up half the space. There was a small bare window, and a wooden crucifix hung on the wall at the head of the bed.
“There’s no supper, and it’s too late for me to go out and buy anything,” the woman declared. “Tomorrow I can fix you lunch. Yes, even though it’s a single and there are two of you…”
“I’ll pay for a double,” the boy agreed. “What’s fair is fair.”
She nodded and closed the door behind her as she left.
“That’s some story about what a little saint you were,” Mercedes commented. “You brought women here, didn’t you? That bitch didn’t even blink when she saw me.”
“Anybody would think you were jealous,” he teased.
“Jealous?”
“I know you’re not,” said Carreño. “I just wanted to see if a joke would get rid of that scared look on your face. I never brought anybody here. Alicia isn’t even my aunt. Everybody calls her that. This used to be my neighborhood. Come on, we’ll wash up and go out to eat.”
“In other words, according to that pervert, wise men are the children of a brother and sister, or a father and daughter, something barbaric like that,” Lituma rambled on. “I hear things in Naccos that I never heard in Piura. Dionisio must be a child of incest. I don’t know why I’m so interested in him and the witch. They’re the ones who really run things here. You and I don’t even count. I try to find out about them from the laborers and the foremen and the comuneros, but I can’t shake anything loose. Besides, I don’t know if they’re pulling my leg. Do you know what the Huancayan who drives the steamroller said about Dionisio? That his last name in Quechua was—”
“Eater of Raw Meat,” his adjutant interrupted. “Damn it, Corporal, now are you going to tell me that his mother was killed by lightning?”
“These things are important, Tomasito,” Lituma grumbled. “For understanding his idiosyncrasies.”
Mercedes had sat down on the bed and was looking at Carreño in a way that seemed kindly to the boy.
“I don’t want to deceive you,” she told him again, in a friendly voice, trying not to hurt him. “I don’t feel about you the way you feel about me. It’s better for me to tell you, isn’t it? I’m not going to live with you, I’m not going to be your wife. Get that into your head, Carreñito. We’ll only stay together until we’re out of this mess.”
“That’s plenty of time for you to fall in love with me,” he purred, stroking her hair. “Anyway, you couldn’t leave now even if you wanted to. Who else besides me can get you out of this? I mean, who else besides my godfather can get us out of this?”
They washed in a bathroom so tiny it seemed like a toy, and then went out. Carreño took her arm and with a sure step led her along shadowy streets filled with gangs of boys smoking on every corner, until they came to a Chinese restaurant that had private booths behind grease-stained screens. The place was full of smoke, the smell of frying, and rock music blaring on the radio. They sat down near the street door, and to go with several dishes they would share, Carreñito ordered cold beer. Over the music they could hear curses and an African drum rhythm.
“They once gambled for me in a dice game. I want you to know that, Carreñito.” Mercedes stared at him, not smiling. She had deep circles under her eyes and looked haggard: her eyes did not sparkle the way they had in Tingo María and Huánuco. “I’ve had rotten luck since the day I was born, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.”
“They gambled for her in a crap game?” Lituma showed interest for the first time that night. “Tell me about that, Tomasito.”
“Just what I said,” she replied grimly. “The worst kind of drunks and tramps. Shooting dice. That’s what I got away from, that’s where I come from. I pulled myself up on my own, nobody helped me. And I was doing okay until you came along. You pushed me back into the hole, Carreñito.”
“Well, Corporal, I finally made you forget about pishtacos and eye-robbers, Doña Adriana and Dionisio.”
“You know, years ago I saw the same kind of thing, and I never forgot it,” Lituma replied. “Did they gamble for her back in Piura?”
“She didn’t say where or how. Just that it happened, and it really pissed me off. Gambling for her, like she was a thing! My sweetheart!”
“Didn’t she say if it was in a little bar owned by a babe they called La Chunga, over by the Piura Stadium?”
“She wouldn’t tell me anything else. Just that, just to show me how much she’d come up in the world compared to where she started out. And how I pushed her down again when I killed Hog.”
“It’s really funny,” said Lituma. “In that bar I saw one of my friends, one of the Invincibles I told you about, sell the girl he was with to La Chunga so he could go on playing poker. Suppose the Piuran in both our stories is the same woman? Are you sure the love of your life is named Mercedes and not Meche?”
“Well, Meche can be a nickname for Mercedes, Corporal.”
“And that’s another reason I have a hard time with the idea of hiding out,” she said. “I got away from all that. I want to go home. Take a bath in my own bathroom, I always keep it nice and clean. Change my clothes, get rid of this grime, it’s been on me for five days.”
She was about to say something else, but just then the waiter came with their food and Mercedes stopped talking. When he asked if they wanted forks or chopsticks, Carreño said chopsticks.
“I’ll teach you to eat like the Chinese, sweetheart. It’s real easy. When you learn how, you can use the sticks just like a knife and fork.”
“Everything was going fine for me,” she said as they ate. “I was saving up to go to the United States. A friend of mine in Miami said she’d find me a job. And now I’m back where I started, without a pot to piss in.”
“Meche, Mercedes, you’re right, that’s a real coincidence,” said Tomasito. “They could be the same person, why not. It’s enough to make you believe in miracles. Or pishtacos. Only now you have to tell me…”
“Don’t worry, I never fucked Meche, Tomasito. Unfortunately. She was the best-looking broad in Piura, I swear.”
“If you want to go to the United States, we’ll go,” the boy promised. “I know how to get in without a visa, through Mexico. A guy I know is making a fortune doing that.”
“So how much does a Civil Guard earn?” she said with a commiserating look. “Not much more than what I pay my cleaning girl, I bet.”
“Maybe even less.” He laughed. “Why do you think I have to do my little extras and take care of hogs while they live like kings with their women in Tingo María?”
For a time they ate in silence, and finished the bottle of beer. Then they ordered
ice cream, and the boy lit a cigarette. He blew smoke rings toward the ceiling.
“The funny thing is, you seem happy,” she said.
“I am happy,” he said, blowing her a kiss. “Want to know why?”
Mercedes smiled in spite of herself. “I know what you’re going to say.” And she looked at him with that expression—Carreño couldn’t tell if it was pity or disdain—and added, “Even if you have fucked up my life, I can’t stay mad at you.”
“That’s something,” he said joyfully. “It starts off like that, and you end up falling in love.”
She laughed, more willingly now.
“Have you been in love before?”
“Never like now,” the boy stated unequivocally. “Nobody ever made me feel like this. Well, I never met a woman as beautiful as you, either.”
“It could be Mechita, life is full of coincidences. Do you have a picture of her?”
“We didn’t even have time to have our picture taken together,” the guard lamented. “You don’t know how sorry I am about that. It would’ve been terrific to look at her, too, not just remember her.”
“I only met him a couple of weeks before I went away with him. At a club in Barranco. He came to see me in the show. He took me back to his house, in Chacarilla del Estanque. What a house! He gave me presents. He wanted to set me up in an apartment. Everything. Anything I wanted if I didn’t see other men. That’s how I got to make the damn trip to Pucallpa. Come spend the weekend with me, you’ll get to see the jungle. And I went. And, just my luck, I went to Tingo María, too.”
The boy became very serious. “And did Hog hit you every time you went to bed with him?”
He immediately regretted his words.
“Are you checking up on me?” she said angrily. “Do you really think you’re my boyfriend, or my husband?”
“I guess we’re having our first quarrel,” said the boy, trying to smooth things over. “It happens to every couple. We won’t talk about it anymore. Are you happy now?”