certain guards beggars belief. As though he’d guessed what the sergeant was thinking, Shorty Soldevilla added, in a grave tone of voice: “Because I’m not like you are, sergeant. I don’t like this whole bit. The only reason I wear the uniform is that it keeps food in my belly.”
“If it were up to me, you wouldn’t be wearing it,” the sergeant muttered. “The only ones I’d allow to stay in the corps would be the ones that believed in it a hundred percent.”
“That would just about empty out the Guardia Civil,” Shorty retorted.
“It’s better to be alone than in bad company,” said the sergeant, laughing.
Shorty laughed, too. They were walking along in the dark, through the vacant lot around the Guadalupe Commission Merchants’ depot, where the street urchins kept shooting out the bulbs of the lampposts with their slingshots. The sound of the sea could be heard in the distance, and from time to time the engine of a taxi going down the Avenida Argentina.
“You’d like all of us to be heroes,” Shorty burst out all of a sudden. “To give our hearts and our souls and our lives to defend all these shits.” He pointed toward El Callao, Lima, the world in general. “And do you think the bastards are grateful? Haven’t you heard the things they yell after us in the streets? Is there anybody who respects us? People have nothing but contempt for us, sergeant.”
“This is where we part company,” Lituma said, as they reached the Avenida Manco Cápac. “Don’t leave your sector. And don’t let things get you down so. You can’t wait to leave the corps, but the day they hand you your discharge, you’re going to suffer like a dog. That’s how it was with Tits Antezana. He used to come round to the commissariat to see us and his eyes would fill with tears. ‘I’ve lost my family,’ he used to say.”
From behind his back, he heard Shorty’s voice mutter: “A family without any women—what kind of a family is that?”
Maybe Shorty was right, Sergeant Lituma thought, as he walked down the deserted avenue in the middle of the night. It was true: people didn’t like the police, and never gave them a second thought, unless they were afraid of something all of a sudden. But so what? He didn’t knock himself out so that people would like him or respect him. I couldn’t care less about people, he thought. Why was it, then, that he didn’t have the same attitude toward the Guardia Civil as his buddies, just doing his job without killing himself, making the best of things, goofing off at every opportunity or pocketing a bribe, a few dirty coins here and there, if there weren’t any of his higher-ups around to see? Why, Lituma? He thought: Because you like being in the Guardia Civil. Because you like your work—the way other people like soccer or horse racing. The idea came to him that the next time some soccer nut asked him: “What team do you root for, Lituma, the Sports Boys or Chalaco?” he’d answer: “I root for the Guardia Civil.” He laughed in the fog, the mist, the dark, pleased with his little joke, and at that point he heard the noise. He gave a start, raised his hand to his gun belt, and stopped dead in his tracks. He’d been so taken by surprise by the noise that he’d almost been frightened. But only almost , he thought, because you didn’t feel afraid and you never will, you don’t even know what fear is, Lituma. On his left was the vacant lot, and on his right, the dock of the first of the warehouses in the port district. It had come from there: a very loud noise, crates and drums falling down and bringing others crashing down with them. But now everything was quiet again, and the only sound was the slapping of the waves in the distance and the wind whistling as it hit the tin roofs and caught in the barbed-wire fences of the port terminal. A cat that was chasing a rat and knocked over a crate, which knocked over another one, and then everything came tumbling down, he
“If it were up to me, you wouldn’t be wearing it,” the sergeant muttered. “The only ones I’d allow to stay in the corps would be the ones that believed in it a hundred percent.”
“That would just about empty out the Guardia Civil,” Shorty retorted.
“It’s better to be alone than in bad company,” said the sergeant, laughing.
Shorty laughed, too. They were walking along in the dark, through the vacant lot around the Guadalupe Commission Merchants’ depot, where the street urchins kept shooting out the bulbs of the lampposts with their slingshots. The sound of the sea could be heard in the distance, and from time to time the engine of a taxi going down the Avenida Argentina.
“You’d like all of us to be heroes,” Shorty burst out all of a sudden. “To give our hearts and our souls and our lives to defend all these shits.” He pointed toward El Callao, Lima, the world in general. “And do you think the bastards are grateful? Haven’t you heard the things they yell after us in the streets? Is there anybody who respects us? People have nothing but contempt for us, sergeant.”
“This is where we part company,” Lituma said, as they reached the Avenida Manco Cápac. “Don’t leave your sector. And don’t let things get you down so. You can’t wait to leave the corps, but the day they hand you your discharge, you’re going to suffer like a dog. That’s how it was with Tits Antezana. He used to come round to the commissariat to see us and his eyes would fill with tears. ‘I’ve lost my family,’ he used to say.”
From behind his back, he heard Shorty’s voice mutter: “A family without any women—what kind of a family is that?”
Maybe Shorty was right, Sergeant Lituma thought, as he walked down the deserted avenue in the middle of the night. It was true: people didn’t like the police, and never gave them a second thought, unless they were afraid of something all of a sudden. But so what? He didn’t knock himself out so that people would like him or respect him. I couldn’t care less about people, he thought. Why was it, then, that he didn’t have the same attitude toward the Guardia Civil as his buddies, just doing his job without killing himself, making the best of things, goofing off at every opportunity or pocketing a bribe, a few dirty coins here and there, if there weren’t any of his higher-ups around to see? Why, Lituma? He thought: Because you like being in the Guardia Civil. Because you like your work—the way other people like soccer or horse racing. The idea came to him that the next time some soccer nut asked him: “What team do you root for, Lituma, the Sports Boys or Chalaco?” he’d answer: “I root for the Guardia Civil.” He laughed in the fog, the mist, the dark, pleased with his little joke, and at that point he heard the noise. He gave a start, raised his hand to his gun belt, and stopped dead in his tracks. He’d been so taken by surprise by the noise that he’d almost been frightened. But only almost , he thought, because you didn’t feel afraid and you never will, you don’t even know what fear is, Lituma. On his left was the vacant lot, and on his right, the dock of the first of the warehouses in the port district. It had come from there: a very loud noise, crates and drums falling down and bringing others crashing down with them. But now everything was quiet again, and the only sound was the slapping of the waves in the distance and the wind whistling as it hit the tin roofs and caught in the barbed-wire fences of the port terminal. A cat that was chasing a rat and knocked over a crate, which knocked over another one, and then everything came tumbling down, he
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