Authors: Mario Vargas Llosa
“No, not that,” Captain Pantoja coughs, blushes, stammers, drinks. “I don’t want to fail in my duty. Besides, I promise you that that specialist and I…really.”
“All the officers know it and they like it that you’ve got a girlfriend,” Captain Mendoza licks the foam from his mustache, lights a cigarette, drinks, asks for more beer. “But nobody gets this system of yours. A guy can understand you’re not pleased with the troops throwing themselves at your woman. So why this ridiculous formality? Ten lays are the same as a hundred, pal.”
“Ten is what the regulation calls for,” Captain Pantoja sees the first soldiers leaving the tents, the second and third shifts entering, swallows saliva. “How am I going to break it? I made it myself.”
“Always the same, with an electronic brain; you can’t,” Captain Mendoza throws his head back, half closes his eyes, laughs nostalgically. “I still remember you were the only cadet in Chorrillos who’d shine his shoes to go out and muddy them up on maneuvers.”
“The truth is that ever since Father Beltrán requested his discharge, the Corps of Military Chaplains has left a lot to be desired,” General Scavino receives complaints, attends to recommendations, hears masses, presents trophies, mounts horses, goes bowling. “But in the last analysis, Tiger, it’s a general phenomenon throughout the Amazon; the barracks couldn’t be exempt from the disease. Anyway, don’t worry. We’re taking a firm hand in the matter. Thirty days at hard labor for carrying a prayer card of the boy martyr or of Santa Ignacia, forty-five for a photo of Brother Francisco.”
“I’m in Lagunas on account of last week’s incident, Alberto,” Captain Pantoja sees the fourth shift leave, the fifth, the sixth entering. “Sure I read your dispatch. But it seemed serious enough to me to come and get the lay of the land.”
“It wasn’t worth the effort,” Captain Mendoza loosens his belt, asks for a cheese sandwich, eats, drinks. “What’s going on is very simple. It’s a madhouse in these little towns every time a convoy of specialists approaches. The idea alone makes the spurs on all the cocks in the neighborhood get hard. And once in a while, they do some crazy things.”
“To trespass on a military post is a little too crazy,” Captain Pantoja sees Freckle collecting the pictures and magazines from the soldiers. “Maybe there wasn’t a patrol?”
“Reinforced, like now, because it’s always the same when a convoy comes,” Captain Mendoza pulls him outside, shows him the fences, the sentinels with bayonets, the clusters of civilians. “Come on, let’s go so you see for yourself. Get it? All the town’s stiff dicks jammed together around the camp. Look over there. See ’em? Sitting in the trees, pouring themselves outta their eyes. What d’ya want, chum? It even happened to you, who seemed out of it.”
“Didn’t those crazy people from the Ark have something to do with the affair?” Captain Pantoja sees the seventh shift leave, the eighth enter, the ninth, the tenth and he mutters at last. “Don’t repeat the dispatch to me, Alberto, tell me what really happened.”
“Eight guys from Lagunas entered the post and tried to kidnap a pair of specialists,” General Scavino drums on the radio apparatus. “No, I’m not talking about the ‘brothers’ but the Special Service, the other jungle disaster. Do you realize where we’re heading, Tiger?”
“It won’t happen again, pal,” Captain Mendoza pays the bill, puts on his kepi, sunglasses, lets Panta go out first. “Now, since the day before the convoy’s arrival, I’ve doubled the patrol and placed sentries along the entire perimeter. The base gets into combat condition, so the soldiers can screw in peace. Hell, how funny it all is!”
“Calm down and lower your voice,” Tiger Collazos compares reports, orders inquiries, rereads letters. “Don’t get hysterical, Scavino. I know all about it, I’ve got Mendoza’s dispatch right in front of me. The troops rescued the specialists and that was that. Well, that’s no reason to commit suicide. An incident just like any other. The ‘brothers’ do worse things, right?”
“It’s just this isn’t the first incident of the kind that’s occurred, Alberto,” Captain Pantoja sees the Brazilian leaving a tent, sees her crossing the clearing, sees her climbing onto the
Eve
. “There’s constant interference from the civilian element. In every town spouting cocks pop up when the convoy appears.”
“A terrible fight broke out between soldiers and civilians over that pair of women,” General Scavino receives calls, visits the jail, interrogates men under arrest, has insomnia, takes tranquilizers, writes, calls. “Did you hear correctly? Between sol-diers and ci-vilians. The kidnappers managed to get them off the post and the fight was right in the middle of town. There are four wounded men. Something really serious can happen at any moment, Tiger, on account of that damned Service.”
“With good reason, pal,” Captain Mendoza points to the onlookers, to the specialists who are leaving the tents and returning to the dock, flanked by guards. “These women look like angels fallen from heaven to these hicks who never even saw Iquitos. The soldiers are to blame too. They go telling stories in town, putting ideas in the other guys’ heads. They’ve been ordered not to talk about it, but they don’t understand.”
“It annoys me this is happening now, when I’m almost ready with a project to expand the Service and give it more class,” Captain Pantoja stuffs his hands into his pockets, walks crestfallen, kicking pebbles. “Something really ambitious; it’s taken me a lot of days of thinking and figuring. And my plan might even solve the problem of these civilian stiff dicks, pal.”
“But you’d triple the other one for me, Pantoja, the one of the priests and the pious women in Iquitos who are wearing out Scavino’s patience,” Tiger Collazos calls his orderly, orders him to buy cigarettes, tips him, asks for a light. “No, too much. Fifty specialists are enough. We can’t recruit more, at least for the time being.”
“With an operational corps of one hundred specialists and three boats sailing in a regular fashion on the rivers of the Amazon”—Captain Pantoja contemplates the preparations for the
Eve
’s departure—“no one would be able to forecast the arrival of the convoys at the utilization centers.”
“You’re losing your mind,” General Victoria flicks a lighter and brings it close to Tiger Collazos’ face. “The Army would have to give up buying weapons in order to contract more prostitutes. There’s no budget can support the fantasies of that greedy climber.”
“Study the plan I sent you, General, sir,” Captain Pantoja types with two fingers, makes calculations, outlines synoptic tables, spends rough nights, erases, adds, insists. “We could create a system of unmethodical, irregular rotation. The convoy’s arrival would always be unexpected, there’d never be occasion for incidents. Only the heads of the units would know the arrival dates.”
“And to think it took so much work to make him accept the assignment of creating the Special Service,” Colonel López López searches his office for an ashtray and places it next to Tiger Collazos. “Now he’s in his element. He moves among whores like a fish in water.”
“That’s right, the only way of effectively controlling that system would be from the air,” Captain Pantoja puts memoranda into code, prepares a thermos of coffee, multiplies, divides, scratches his head, dispatches addenda. “Another plane would be needed. And at least one more officer at the quartermaster’s. A second lieutenant would be enough, General, sir.”
“He’s got a screw loose, no doubt about it,” General Scavino reads
El Oriente
, listens to
The Voice of Sinchi
, receives anonymous letters, gets to the movies late and leaves before the film is over. “If you give him his way this time and approve that project, I’m warning you I’ll request my discharge, like Beltrán. Between the fanatics of the Ark and Pantoja’s specialists, I’m going to be done in. I’m getting by only on my Valium, Tiger.”
“I regret giving you bad news, General, sir,” Colonel Augusto Valdés leaves on an expedition, invades a deserted town, curses, helps unnail, orders boys to return on a forced march. “Last night in the village of Frailecillos, two hours upriver from my garrison, they crucified the subofficer Avelino Miranda. He was on furlough, dressed as a civilian, and it’s possible they didn’t recognize his military rank. No, he’s not dead yet but the doctors say it’s a matter of hours. The entire village, thirty or forty people. Yes, they’ve gone into the mountains.”
“Calm down, Scavino, the thing can’t be that bad,” General Victoria listens and makes jokes about the specialists in the Army Club, pacifying his mother about the crucifixion in the jungle. “Are those yokels really so stirred up about Pantoja’s girls?”
“Stirred up, General, sir?” General Scavino takes his pulse, looks at his tongue, doodles crosses on the blotter. “This morning the bishop showed up here, with his staff of priests and nuns.”
“I have the painful duty to inform you that if the so-called Special Service does not vanish, I shall excommunicate all those who work in it or make use of it,” the bishop enters the office, nods, does not smile, does not sit down, wipes his ring and proffers it. “The minimal limits of decency and decorum have already been violated, General Scavino. Captain Pantoja’s own mother has come to me, bewailing her tragedy.”
“I share that judgment completely and His Eminence knows it,” General Scavino rises, genuflects, kisses the ring, speaks softly, offers soft drinks, bids farewell to his visitors in the street. “If it had been up to me, that Service would never have come into being. I ask a little patience from all of you. As for Pantoja, don’t mention him to me, Monsignor. What tragedy? There’s no tragedy. The son of that woman who is crying over him has a large share of the blame for what is happening. At least he could have organized the thing in a mediocre, defective way. But that idiot has converted the Special Service into the most efficient unit of the armed forces.”
“No way of getting around it, Panta,” Captain Mendoza climbs aboard, snoops around the command bridge, looks at the compass, works the rudder. “You’re the Einstein of fucking.”
“Yes, naturally; I’ve sent several search parties to hunt down the fanatics,” Colonel Augusto Valdés goes to the infirmary, cheers up the victim, stabs little flags into a map, dictates instructions, wishes good luck to the officers who are leaving. “With orders to bring me the entire village to give an explanation. It hasn’t been necessary, General, sir. My men are indignant; Subofficer Avelino Miranda was always very much loved by the troops.”
“Sooner or later Tiger will end up accepting my plan,” Captain Pantoja shows the compartments on board the
Eve
to Captain Mendoza, the hold, the engines, spits and rubs it in with his foot. “The growth of the Service is inevitable. With three small boats, two planes, an operational corps of one hundred specialists and two adjunct officers, I’ll do wonders, Alberto.”
“In Chorrillos we thought your vocation was to be a computer, not an Army man,” Captain Mendoza goes down the unloading ramp, returns to the post with Panta by the arm, asks have you already prepared the statistical report for me, Private? “Now I see we were wrong. Your dream is to be the Great Pimp of Peru.”
“You
are
wrong. Ever since I was born I’ve only wanted to be a soldier, but a soldier-administrator, which is every bit as important as an artilleryman or infantryman. This is the Army right here,” Captain Pantoja examines the rustic office, the kerosene lamp, the mosquito nets, the grass growing in the cracks between the floorboards, touches his chest. “You laugh and so does Bacacorzo. I guarantee you someday you’ll be surprised. We’ll function throughout the country, with a flotilla of boats, buses and hundreds of specialists.”
“I’ve put the most energetic officers at the head of the search parties,” Colonel Augusto Valdés follows and directs by radio the deployment of the expedition, changes the positions of the little flags on the map, talks with the doctors. “With the anger they’ve got eating at them, the soldiers’ll have to be restrained. Otherwise they’ll lynch the fanatics on the road. As for Subofficer Miranda, it looks like he’ll be saved, General. Saved, but he’ll be without an arm and a little lame.”
“It’ll be necessary to create a new branch of the Army,” Captain Mendoza receives the statistical report, rereads it, corrects it, points to his fly. “Artillery, Cavalry, Engineers Corps, Quartermaster…and Military Lays? Army Brothels?”
“It’ll have to be a more discreet name,” Captain Pantoja laughs, glimpses through the screen door the trumpeter announcing mess, the soldiers entering the wooden building. “But why not, someday? Who knows?”
“Look, the screwing is over with and there are your chicks singing ‘The Mexican Hat Dance,’” Captain Mendoza points toward the
Eve
, to the whistling siren, to the specialists leaning on the rail, to Subofficer Rodríguez, who has climbed up to the command bridge. “Every time I hear your hymn, I shit from laughing so hard, pal. Going back to Iquitos right away?”
“Right away,” Pantoja hugs Mendoza, climbs aboard the
Eve
in two strides, shuts the cabin door, falls on the bunk. “On my ear, on my neck, on my nipples. Scratch, nibble, bite.”
“Oh, Panta, how tiresome you are,” the Brazilian refuses, stamps her foot, draws the curtain, sighs looking at the ceiling, furiously throws her clothes on the floor. “Can’t you see I’m tired, I just finished working? And I know already what comes later, the big jealous scene.”
“Shush! Shut your beak. You know how, a little higher,” Panta bends, stretches, rocks, coos, swoons, melts. “Right there, ohhh, so good.”
“But I’ve got one thing to tell you, Panta,” the Brazilian climbs up on the bunk, squats, lies down, catches fire, cools off. “I’m fed up with you making me lose money with your kink of making them give me only ten.”
“Phewww,” Pantita calms down, sweats, swallows mouthfuls of air. “Can’t you even keep quiet for just this minute?”
“You’re to blame for me losing money and I’ve got to look after my interests,” the Brazilian moves away, washes, dresses, opens the porthole, sticks out her head and inhales. “These things you like wear out with the years. And afterwards? All the others had twenty today, twice as many as me.”