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How could she be a Communist without even knowing whether a Communist Party existed in Peru? Odrí a had probably put them all in jail, had probably deported or murdered them. But if she passed her orals and got into San Marcos, Aí da would find out in the university, she would get in contact with those who were left and study Marxism and join the Party. She looked at me with a challenge, he thinks, come on, argue with me, her voice was quite soft and her eyes insolent, tell me that they’re atheists, burning, come on, deny what I say, intelligent, and you, he thinks, listened to her, startled and surprised: all that existed, Zavalita. He thinks: did I fall in love then and there?

“A girl in my class at San Marcos, ” Santiago says. “She talked politics, she believed in the revolution. ”

“Oh, Lord, you didn’t fall in love with an Aprista, did you, son? ” Ambrosio asks.

“The Apristas didn’t believe in the revolution anymore, ” Santiago says. “She was a Communist. ”

“The devil you say, ” Ambrosio says. “The hell you say. ”

New candidates were arriving on Padre Jeró nimo, coming in the entranceway, the courtyard, running to the lists tacked up on a bulletin board, eagerly checking their grades. A busy murmur floated about the place.

“You’ve been looking at me as if I were some kind of ogre, ” Aí da said.

“What a thing to think, I respect all ideas, and besides, you can believe it or not, I’ve got …” Santiago fell silent, searched for words, stammered, “advanced ideas too. ”

“Well, I’m happy for you, ” Aí da said. “Are we going to have the orals today? With so much waiting I’m terribly confused, I can’t remember anything I’ve studied. ”

“We can review a little, if you want, ” Santiago said. “What are you most scared of? ”

“World history, ” Aí da said. “Yes, let’s ask each other questions. But while we’re walking. I can study better that way than sitting down, what about you? ”

They went through the entranceway with wine-colored floor tiles and classrooms along the sides, where did she live? he wondered, there was a small courtyard with fewer people in back. He closed his eyes, he could see the narrow little house, clean, with austere furniture, and he could see the streets around it, and the faces—strong, dignified, serious, sober? —of the men who came along the sidewalks in overalls and gray jackets, and he could hear their conversations—all for one and one for all, spare, clandestine? —and he thought workers, and he thought Communists and he decided I’m not a Bustamantist, I’m not an Aprista, I’m a Communist. But what was the difference? He couldn’t ask her, she’ll think I’m an idiot, he’d have to worm it out of her. She must have spent the whole summer like that, her fierce little eyes fastened on the questions, pacing back and forth in a tiny little room. There probably wasn’t much light, in order to take notes she probably sat at a little table lighted by a lamp with no shade or by candles, she probably moved her lips slowly, closing her eyes, she would get up and, as she walked, repeat names, dates, nocturnal and dedicated, was her father a worker, her mother a maid? He thinks: poor Zavalita. They walked very slowly, the dynasties of the pharaohs, asking each other questions in a low voice, Babylonia and Nineveh, could she have heard Communism talked about in her home? the causes of World War I, what would she think when she found out that his old man was an Odrí ist? the Battle of the Marne, she probably wouldn’t want to meet you anymore, Zavalita: I hate you, papa. We asked each other questions but we didn’t ask each other anything, he thinks. He thinks: we were getting to be friends. Could she have studied at a national high school? Yes, in a central school, what about him? at Santa Marí a, ah, a school for rich boys. There were all kinds, it was an awful school, it wasn’t his fault if his folks had sent him there, he’d rather have gone to Guadalupe and Aí da began to laugh: don’t blush, she wasn’t prejudiced, what happened at Verdun. He thinks: we expected great things at the university. They were in the Party, they went to the press together, they hid in a union hall together, they put them in jail together and they exiled them together: it was a battle, not a treaty, silly boy, and he of course, how foolish, and now she who was Cromwell. We expected great things of ourselves he thinks.

“When you got into San Marcos and they shaved your head, Missy Teté and young Sparky hollered pumpkin head at you, ” Ambrosio says. “Your papa was so happy that you’d passed the exams, son. ”

She talked about books and she wore skirts, she knew about politics and she wasn’t a man, the Mascot, the Chick, the Squirrel all faded away, Zavalita, the pretty little idiots from Miraflores melted away, disappeared. Discovering that one of them at least was good for something else, he thinks. Not just to be climbed on top of, not just to make him masturbate thinking about them, not just to fall in love with. He thinks: for something else. She was going into Law and Education too, you were going into Law and Letters.

“Are you supposed to be a vamp, a clown, or what? ” Santiago asked. “Where are you going all prettied up and with all that makeup on? ”

“What’s your major in Letters going to be? ” Aí da asked. “Philosophy? ”

“Wherever I feel like and what business is it of yours? ” Teté asked. “Who said anything to you and what right have you got to talk to me? ”

“Literature, I think, ” Santiago said. “But I’m still not sure. ”

“Everybody who goes into Literature wants to be a poet, ” Aí da said. “You too? ”

“Stop your fighting, ” Señ ora Zoila said. “You’re like a cat and a dog, that’s enough. ”

“I had a notebook of poems hidden away, ” Santiago says. “No one was to see it, no one was to know about it. You see? I was a pure boy. ”

“Don’t blush because I asked you if you wanted to be a poet. ” Aí da laughed. “Don’t be so bourgeois. ”

“They drove you crazy too by calling you Superbrain, ” Ambrosio says. “All the fights you people had, child. ”

“You can go change that dress and wash your face, ” Santiago said. “You’re not going out, Teté. ”

“And what’s wrong with Teté ’s going to the movies? ” Señ ora Zoila asked. “Since when have you been so strict with your sister here, you, the liberal, the priest-eater? ”

“She’s not going to the movies, she’s going dancing at the Sunset with that damned Pepe Yá ñ ez, ” Santiago said. “I caught her making her plans by phone this morning. ”

“To the Sunset with Pepe Yá ñ ez? ” Sparky asked. “With that half-breed? ”

“It’s not that I want to be a poet, just that I like literature, ” Santiago said.

“Are you out of your mind, Teté? ” Don Fermí n asked. “Is all this true, Teté? ”

“All lies, lies. ” Teté trembled and singed Santiago with her eyes. “Damn you, you imbecile, I hate you, go drop dead. ”

“So do I, ” Aí da said. “In Education I’m going to take Literature and Spanish. ”

“Do you think you can fool your parents like that, you little devil? ” Señ ora Zoila said. “And what do you mean by telling your brother to drop dead? Have you gone crazy? ”

“You’re not old enough for nightclubs, child, ” Don Fermí n said. “You won’t be going out tonight, tomorrow, or Sunday. ”

“I’m going to take Pepe Yá ñ ez apart, ” Sparky said. “I’ll kill him, papa. ”

Teté was shouting and weeping now, she’d spilled her cup of tea, why don’t you drop dead, and Señ ora Zoila you’re acting crazy, crazy, such a great big man and such a great big coward, and Señ ora Zoila you’re staining the tablecloth, instead of gossiping like a woman go write your fairy poetry. She got up from the table and left the dining room still shouting your fairy gossip poetry and go drop dead, damn you. They heard her go up the stairs, slam her door. Santiago stirred the spoon in the empty cup as if he had just put some sugar in it.

“Is it true what Teté says? ” Don Fermí n smiled. “Do you write poetry, Skinny? ”

“He keeps it hidden in a little notebook behind the encyclopedia, Teté and I have read it all, ” Sparky said. “Love poetry, and about the Incas too. Don’t be ashamed, Superbrain. Look at his expression, papa. ”

“You’re barely literate, so it must have been hard for you to have read anything, ” Santiago said.

“You’re not the only person in the world who knows how to read, ” Señ ora Zoila said. “Don’t be so stuck-up. ”

“Go write your fairy poetry, Superbrain, ” Sparky said.

“What have the pair of you learned, why did we send you to the best school in Lima? ” Señ ora Zoila sighed. “You insult each other like truck-drivers right in front of us. ”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were writing poetry? ” Don Fermí n asked. “You have to show me some, Skinny. ”

“Sparky and Teté ’s lies, ” Santiago babbled. “Don’t pay any attention to them, papa. ”

There was the examining board, there were three of them, a fearful silence had come over the place. Boys and girls watched the three men cross through the entranceway led by a beadle, watched them disappear into a classroom. Let me get in, let her get in. The buzzing started up again, thicker and louder than before. Aí da and Santiago went back to the rear courtyard.

“You’re going to pass with high marks, ” Santiago said. “You know all the answers right down to the last comma. ”

“Don’t you believe it, there’s a lot I just barely know, ” Aí da said. “You’re the one who’s going to get in. ”

“I spent all summer cramming, ” Santiago said. “If they flunk me, I’ll blow my brains out. ”

“And I’m against suicide, ” Aí da said. “Killing yourself is a sign of cowardice. ”

“Priests’ tales, ” Santiago said. “It takes a lot of courage to kill yourself. ”

“I don’t care about priests, ” Aí da said, and her little eyes think: come on, come on, I dare you. “I don’t believe in God, I’m an atheist. ”

“I’m an atheist too, ” Santiago said immediately. “Naturally. ”

They started walking again, the questions, sometimes they became distracted, they forgot about the questions and they began to chat, to argue: they agreed, disagreed, joked, time was flying and suddenly Zavala, Santiago! Hurry up, Aí da smiled at him, and hoped he got an easy question. He passed between two rows of candidates, went into the examination room, and you can’t remember anything else, Zavalita, what question you got or the examiners’ faces or what you answered: just that you were happy when you came out.

“You remember the girl you liked and the rest is all erased, ” Ambrosio says. “That’s natural, son. ”

You liked everything about the day, he thinks. The place that was falling apart from old age, the shoe-polish, earthen, or malarial faces of the candidates, the atmosphere that bubbled with apprehension, the things that Aí da was saying. How did you feel, Zavalita? He thinks: like on the day I had my first communion.

“You came because it was Santiago making it, ” Teté pouted. “You didn’t come to mine, I don’t love you anymore. ”

“Come here, give me a kiss, ” Don Fermí n said. “I came because Skinny took first place, if you’d have gotten good marks I would have come to your first communion too. I love all three of you the same. ”

“You say that, but it’s not true, ” Sparky complained. “You didn’t come to my first communion either. ”

“With all this jealousy, Skinny’s day will be ruined, stop the nonsense, ” Don Fermí n said. “Come on, get in the car. ”

“To Herradura beach to have milk shakes and hot dogs, papa, ” Santiago said.

“To the Ferris wheel they’ve set up in the Campo de Marte, papa, ” Sparky said.

“We’re going to Herradura, ” Don Fermí n said. “Skinny’s the one who made his first communion, we have to give him what he wants. ”

He ran out of the classroom, but before he got to Aí da, did you get your grade right there, were the questions long or short? he had to hold off the candidates’ attack, and Aí da received him with a smile: from his face you could see he’d passed, wonderful, now he wouldn’t have to blow his brains out.

“Before I picked the ball with the question, I thought, I’ll sell my soul for an easy one, ” Santiago said. “So if the devil does exist, I’m going to go to hell. But the end justifies the means. ”

“Neither the soul nor the devil exists”—I challenge you, I dare you. “And if you think that the end justifies the means, then you’re a Nazi. ”

“She had a negative answer for everything, she had an opinion about everything, she argued as if she wanted to start a fight, ” Santiago says.

“A pushy girl, the ones you say white to and they say black, black and they say white, ” Ambrosio says. “Tricks to get a man all heated up, but which have their effect. ”

“Of course I’ll wait for you, ” Santiago said. “Do you want me to go over some questions with you for a little while? ”

Persian history, Charlemagne, the Aztecs, Charlotte Corday, the external factors of the disappearance of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the birth and death of Danton: hoping she would have an easy question, hoping she would pass. They went back to the first courtyard, sat down on a bench. A newsboy came in hawking the evening papers, the boy who was next to them bought El Comercio and a moment later said bastards, that was too much. They turned to look at him and he showed them a headline and the picture of a man with a mustache. Had they put him in jail, exiled him, or killed him, and who was the man? There was Jacobo, Zavalita: blond, thin, his blue eyes furious, his finger pointing to the picture in the newspaper, his drawling voice protesting, Peru was going from bad to worse, a strange Andean trace in that milky face, where you stuck your finger, pus came out, as Gonzá lez Prada had said, seen on occasion and from a distance on the streets of Miraflores.

“Another one of those? ” Ambrosio asks. “Lord, San Marcos was a nest of subversives, boy. ”

Another exact model of one of those, he thinks, in revolt against his skin, against his class, against himself, against Peru. He thinks: is he still pure, is he happy?

“There weren’t so many, Ambrosio. It was only by chance that the three of us came together that first day. ”

“You never brought those friends from San Marcos home, ” Ambrosio says. “On the other hand, young Popeye and his schoolmates were always having tea at your place. ”

Were you ashamed, Zavalita? he thinks: that Jacobo, Hé ctor, Soló rzano didn’t visit your home and the people you lived with, didn’t meet your old lady and listen to your old man, that Aí da didn’t hear Teté ’s delightful idiocies? He thinks: or that your old man and old lady shouldn’t know who you hung around with, that Sparky and Teté shouldn’t see Martí nez’ toothless half-breed face? That first day you began to kill off the old folks, Popeye, Miraflores, he thinks. You were breaking away, Zavalita, entering another world: was it then, was it then that you shut it off? He thinks: breaking with what, entering what world?

“They heard me talking about Odrí a and they left. ” Jacobo pointed to a group of candidates going off and he looked at them with a curiosity that had no irony. “Are you people afraid too? ”

“Afraid? ” Aí da straightened up immediately on the bench. “I say that Odrí a is a dictator and a murderer and I’ll say it here, in the street, anywhere. ”

Pure, like the girls in Quo Vadis, he thinks, impatient to go down into the catacombs and come out into the arena and throw herself into the lions’ claws and fangs. Jacobo was listening to her disconcertedly, she’d forgotten about the exam, a dictator who’d risen to power at bayonet point, she was raising her voice and waving her arms and Jacobo was nodding and looking at her sympathetically and he’d suppressed parties and the freedom of the press and now all worked up and had ordered the army to massacre the people of Arequipa and now bewitched and had jailed, deported and tortured so many people that no one even knew how many, and Santiago was looking at Aí da and Jacobo and suddenly, he thinks, you felt tortured, exiled, betrayed, Zavalita, and he interrupted her: Odrí a was the worst tyrant in the history of Peru.

“Well, I don’t know if he’s the worst or not, ” Aí da said, pausing for breath. “But he’s one of the worst, that’s for sure. ”

“Give him time and you’ll see, ” Santiago insisted, with drive. “He’ll be the worst. ”

“Except for that of the proletariat, all dictatorships are the same, ” Jacobo said. “Historically. ”

“Do you know the difference between Aprismo and Communism? ” Santiago asks.

“We can’t give him time to become the worst, ” Aí da said. “We have to overthrow him before that. ”

“Well, there are a lot of Apristas and only a few Communists, ” Ambrosio says. “What other difference is there? ”

“I don’t think those people there went off because you were going after Odrí a, but because they’re studying, ” Santiago said. “Everybody has to be a radical at San Marcos. ”

He looked at you as if he’d spotted a small pair of wings on your back, he thinks, San Marcos wasn’t what it used to be anymore, like a good but backward child, Zavalita. You didn’t know, you didn’t even understand the vocabulary, you had to learn what Aprismo, what Fascism, what Communism were, and why San Marcos wasn’t what it used to be: because since Odrí a’s coup the student leaders had been persecuted and the federated centers disbanded and because the classes were full of informers enrolled as students and Santiago frivolously interrupted him: did Jacobo live in Miraflores? He seemed to have seen him around there at some time, and Jacobo blushed and unwillingly said yes and Aí da started to laugh: so the two of them were from Miraflores, so the two of them were nice little boys. But Jacobo, he thinks, didn’t like kidding. His blue eyes pedagogically fastened on her, his voice patient, Andean, smooth, he explained that it didn’t matter where one lived, but what one thought and did, Aí da that was right, but she hadn’t been serious, she was joking about that nice boys business, and Santiago would read, study, learn Marxism the way he had: oh, Zavalita. The beadle shouted a last name and Jacobo stood up: they were calling him. He went slowly toward the classroom, as confident and calm as he had spoken, intelligent, right? and Santiago looked at Aí da, very intelligent, and besides, he knew so much about politics and Santiago decided I’m going to know even more.

“Can it be true that there are plainclothesmen among the students? ” Aí da asked.

“If we find one in our class we’ll beat him up, ” Santiago said.

“You’re already talking like a student, what chance have you got? ” Aí da said. “Let’s review some more. ”

But they’d barely started the questions and their circular walk again when Jacobo came out of the classroom, slow and thin in his frayed blue suit, and he came over to them, smiling and disappointed, the exams were a farce, Aí da had nothing to worry about, the chairman of the board, a chemist, knew less about letters than you or I. You had to answer with assurance, he only flunked those who seemed unsure. He’d made a bad impression on me, he thinks, but when they called Aí da and they went with her to the classroom and returned to the bench and talked alone, you liked him, Zavalita. You lost your jealousy, he thinks, I began to admire him. He’d finished high school two years ago, he didn’t enter San Marcos the year before because of an attack of typhoid, he gave opinions like a person chopping with an ax. You felt dizzy, imperialism, idealism, like a cannibal seeing skycrapers, materialism, social consciousness, confused, immoral. When he got better he used to come in the afternoon to walk around the Faculty of Letters, he went to read at the National Library, and he knew everything and had answers for everything and talked about everything, he thinks, except about himself. What school had he gone to, was his family Jewish, did he have any brothers and sisters, what street did he live on? He didn’t grow impatient with the questions, he was abundant and impersonal with his explanations, Aprismo meant reform and Communism revolution. Did he ever come to esteem you and hate you, he thinks, to envy you the way you did him? He was going to study Law and History and you listened to him dazzled, Zavalita: you studied together, went to the underground press together, you conspired, worked, prepared the revolution together. What did he think of you, he thinks, what could he be thinking of you now? Aí da came back to the bench with her eyes sparkling: an A, she was tired of talking to them. They congratulated her, smoked, went out onto the street. The cars were passing along Padre Jeró nimo with their headlights on, and a glorious breeze cooled their faces as they went along Azá ngaro, talkative, excited, toward the Parque Universitario. Aí da was thirsty, Jacobo hungry, why didn’t they stop and have something? Santiago proposed, they good idea, he it was on him and Aí da agh what a bourgeois. We didn’t go to that dive on Colmena to have pork rind and biscuits but to tell each other about our plans, he thinks, to become friends arguing until our voices gave out. Never again such exaltation, such generosity. He thinks: such friendship.

“At noon and at night this place is packed, ” Jacobo said. “The students come here after class. ”

“I’ve got to tell you something right off. ” Santiago clenched his fists under the table and swallowed. “My father’s in the government. ”

There was a silence, the exchange of looks between Jacobo and Aí da seemed eternal, Santiago could hear the seconds pass and bit his tongue: I hate you, papa.

“It occurred to me that you might be a relative of that Zavala, ” Aí da said, finally, with an afflicted smile of condolence. “But what difference does that make, your father’s one thing and you’re another. ”

“The best revolutionaries come out of the bourgeoisie, ” Jacobo raised their morale, soberly. “They broke with their class and were converted to the ideology of the working class. ”

He gave some examples and, emotional, he thinks, thankful, Santiago told them about his fights over religion with the priests at school, the political arguments with his father and his friends in the neighborhood, and Jacobo started to look through the books that were on the table: Man’s Fate was interesting but a little romantic and Out of the Night wasn’t worth reading, the author was an antiCommunist.

“Only at the end of the book, ” Santiago protested, “only because the Party refused to help him rescue his wife from the Nazis. ”

“Worse yet, ” Jacobo explained. “He was a renegade and a sentimentalist. ”

“If a person is sentimental, can’t she be a revolutionary? ” Aí da asked, saddened.

Jacobo reflected a few seconds and shrugged his shoulders: maybe it’s possible in some cases.

“But renegades are the worst there is, look at APRA, ” he added. “A person is a revolutionary right down the line or he isn’t at all. ”

“Are you a Communist? ” Aí da asked, as if she were asking what time is it, and Jacobo lost his calm for an instant: his cheeks flushed, he looked around, he gained time by coughing.

“A sympathizer, ” he said, cautiously. “The Party is outlawed and it’s not easy to get in contact. Besides, in order to be a Communist you’ve got to do a lot of studying. ”

“I’m a sympathizer too, ” Aí da said, enchanted. “What luck that we met. ”

“So am I, ” Santiago said. “I don’t know much about Marxism, but I’d like to know more. But where, how? ”

Jacobo looked at them one by one, into their eyes, slowly and deeply, as if calculating their sincerity or discretion, and he took another look around and leaned toward them: there was a secondhand bookstore, here downtown. He’d discovered it the other day, he went in to look around and he was thumbing through some books when he came across some numbers, very old, very interesting, of a magazine that he thinks was called Cultura Sovié tica. Forbidden books, forbidden magazines and Santiago could see shelves overflowing with pamphlets that weren’t sold in bookstores, volumes that the police had taken out of libraries. In the shadow of walls gnawed by dampness, through cobwebs and mildew, they consulted the explosive books, argued and took notes, on nights which were as dark as the mouth of a wolf, in the light of improvised candelabras they made ré sumé s, exchanged ideas, read, taught each other, broke with the bourgeoisie, armed themselves with the ideology of the working class.

“Aren’t there any more magazines in that bookstore? ” Santiago asked.

“There probably are, ” Jacobo said. “If you want, we can go together and see. What about tomorrow? ”

“We could go to an art gallery and a museum too, ” Aí da said.

“Yes, indeed, I haven’t been to any museum in Lima so far, ” Jacobo said.

“Me either, ” said Santiago. “Let’s take advantage of these days before classes start and visit them all. ”

“We can go to the museums in the morning and in the afternoon go through secondhand bookstores, ” Jacobo said. “I know a lot of them and sometimes you find some good things. ”

“Revolution, books, museums, ” Santiago says. “Do you see what it is to be pure? ”

“I thought that being pure was living without fucking, son, ” Ambrosio says.

“And the movies too one of these afternoons to see a good picture, ” Aí da said. “And if Santiago the bourgeois wants to treat us, let him treat us. ”

“I’m never going to treat you again, not even to a glass of water, ” Santiago said. “Where shall we go tomorrow, and at what time? ”

“Well, Skinny, ” Don Fermí n said. “Was the oral very hard, do you think you passed, Skinny? ”

“Ten o’clock on the Plaza San Martí n, ” Jacobo said. “At the express bus stop. ”

“I think so, papa, ” Santiago said. “Now you can give up your hopes that someday I’ll go to the Catholic University. ”

“I ought to box your ears for being sassy, ” Don Fermí n said. “So you passed, so you’re a full-fledged university man. Come here, Skinny, let me give you a hug. ”

You didn’t sleep, he thinks, I’m sure that Aí da didn’t sleep either, that Jacobo didn’t sleep either. All the doors open, he thinks, at what moment and why did they begin to close?

“You’ve had your own way, you got into San Marcos, ” Señ ora Zoila said. “You must be happy, I imagine. ”

“Very happy, mama, ” Santiago said. “Especially because I won’t have to associate with proper people ever again. You can’t imagine how happy I am. ”

“If you want to become a peasant half-breed, why don’t you get a job as a servant instead? ” Sparky said. “Go around barefoot, don’t bathe, breed lice, Superbrain. ”

“The important thing is that Skinny has gotten into the university, ” Don Fermí n said. “The Catholic University would have been better, but a person who wants to study can study anywhere. ”

“The Catholic University isn’t any better than San Marcos, papa, ” Santiago said. “It’s a priests’ school. And I don’t want to learn anything from priests. I hate priests. ”

“And you’ll go straight to hell, imbecile, ” Teté said. “And you let him raise his voice to you like that, papa. ”

“I’m sorry you’ve got those prejudices, papa, ” Santiago said.

“They’re not prejudices, I don’t care whether your classmates are white, black, or yellow, ” Don Fermí n said. “I want you to study, not waste your time and be left without a career like Sparky. ”

“Superbrain raises his voice to you and you give it to me, ” Sparky said. “That’s just fine, papa. ”

“Politics isn’t a waste of time, ” Santiago said. “Or are the military the only ones who have the right to be in politics here? ”

“First the priests and now the army, the two same little tunes, ” Sparky said. “Change the subject, Superbrain, you’re like a broken record. ”

“How prompt you are, ” Aí da said. “You were talking to yourself, that’s amusing. ”