The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta by Mario Vargas Llosa

if there’s as much make-believe in history as in novels. For example, the things we were talking about. So much has been said about revolutionary priests, about Marxist infiltration in the Church … But no one comes up with the obvious answer.”
    â€œWhich is?”
    â€œThe despair and anger you feel at having to see hunger and sickness day and night, the feeling of impotence in the face of so much injustice,” said Mayta, always choosing his words carefully so as not to offend. The nun noticed that he barely moved his lips as he spoke. “Above all, realize that the people who can do something never will. Politicians, the rich, the ones in the driver’s seat, the ones with power.”
    â€œBut why would you lose your faith because of that?” asked Vallejos’s sister, astonished. “I would think it would make it stronger, that it would …”
    Mayta went on, his tone hardening: “No matter how strong your faith is, there comes a moment when you say, That’s it . It just can’t be possible that the remedy for so much iniquity is the promise of eternal life. That’s how it was, Mother. Seeing that hell was right here in the streets of Lima. Especially over in El Montón. Ever been to El Montón?”
    Another shack city, one of the first, no worse, no more miserable than this one where Juanita and María live. Things have gotten much worse since that time when Mayta confessed to the nun; the shacks have proliferated, and in addition to misery and unemployment, there is murder now. Was it really the spectacle of Montón that fifty years ago transformed the devout little boy that Mayta was into a rebel? Contact with that world has not had the same effect, in any case, on Juanita and María. Neither gives the impression of being desperate, outraged, or even resigned, and at least as far as I can see, living with iniquity has not convinced them that the solution is assassination and bombs. They went on being nuns, right? Would the shots fade into echoes in the Lurín desert?
    â€œNo.” Vallejos aimed, fired, and the noise wasn’t as loud as Mayta thought it would be. His palms were sweaty with expectation. “No, they weren’t for me, I lied to you. The books, well, in fact I bring them all to Jauja so the joeboys can read them. I have faith in you, Mayta. I’m going to tell you something I wouldn’t even tell the person I love most in the world, my sister.”
    As he spoke, he put the sub-machine gun in Mayta’s hands. He showed him how to brace it, how to take off the safety, how to aim, squeeze the trigger, load and unload.
    â€œA big mistake. Never talk about things like that,” Mayta admonished him, his voice shaken by the jolt he had felt in his body as he heard the burst of fire and realized from the vibration in his wrists that it was he who had fired. Off in the distance, the sand extended, yellowish, ocher, bluish, indifferent. “It’s a simple matter of security. Nothing to do with you, but with the others, don’t you understand? Anyone can do whatever he likes with his life. But no one should endanger his comrades, the revolution, just to show a friend he trusts him. And suppose I worked for the cops?”
    â€œThat’s not your style. Even if you wanted, you couldn’t be a squealer.” Vallejos laughed. “What do you think? Easy, huh?”
    â€œYou know, it’s really easy,” Mayta agreed, touching the muzzle and burning his fingers. “Don’t tell me any more about the joeboys. I don’t need proof of your friendship, jerk-off.”
    A hot breeze had come up and the salt flats looked as if they were being bombarded with grains of sand. It was true that the second lieutenant had chosen the perfect place—who would hear the shots in this solitude? He shouldn’t think he knew all he had to know. The main thing was not loading, unloading, aiming, and