MAMista. Len Deighton
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for many people in Tepilo the slums – and their rebel townships – did not exist. That side of town was not on the route to any of the good beaches or the swanky nightclubs. Even the people who had to drive that way used the elevated freeway that took them high above the barriada. Providing they kept the window closed, they didn’t even notice the stench that arose from it.
But Lucas didn’t keep his window closed. He looked down and saw the beggars and the diseased, the cripples and the starving. There were hollow-faced skeletons wrapped in rags and hungry babies that never stopped crying. Sprayed on the rusty iron sheets, and broken pieces of dockyard crates, were revolutionary slogans. Here and there flew a home-made flag, spared from precious cloth to signal their anger. It was too bewildering. Lucas looked away. On each side of him Cadillacs and Bentleys, Fords and Fiats raced past, no one sparing a glance for that netherworld.
When they reached the water the people strolling along Ocean Boulevard did not seem to worry about the people of the barriada. Neither did the shopkeepers in the cramped little alleys of Esmeralda where ramshackle slum tenements had been artfully transformed into a chic shopping district. Here the latest in Japanese video cameras, genuine furs of almost extinct carnivores and gold and enamel bracelets – ‘replicas of pre-historic Indian designs’ – could be bought tax-free for US dollars, Marks or Yen.
The cab stopped and Lucas got out at the statue of President Ramírez, ‘indomitable founder of Spanish Guiana’s freedom’. There was a smell of damaged fruit and vegetables. The market square was empty except for men rolling up the sun-blinds and stacking away the market stalls, and a couple of nuns picking through a heap of discarded produce.
The address he wanted was a callejón crowded with shoppers and tourists. Some had been taking photographs of the vegetable market. Some were coming and going between the much photographed statue and Tepilo’s notorious ‘sailor’s alley’, a dark little sidestreet of tiny bars, loud music and bright neon signs that had become a place where prostitutes plied their trade. Here were men, women and small children catering to all tastes. Other tourists were looking for the ‘silver alley’ where it was said noble families offered priceless antiques for discreet and immediate cash sale. Some wanted to see the military checkpoint that marked the extreme edge of the villa miseria that the guerrilleros were said to control.
Lucas made his way along the crowded alley, pushing through the pimps, beggars and salesmen who grabbed at his sleeve and jacket. The archway at number fifty-eight bore a painted sign, Gran Hotel Madrid. Lucas stepped over the outstretched legs of a sleeping doorkeeper. On the wall a sign made from shiny stick-on letters said ‘privado’. Lucas went past the sign and into a cobbled courtyard at the rear of an old three-storeyed building.
The sunlight in the courtyard was coloured green by a tree that reached higher than the roof. Around the courtyard fretwork wooden balconies jutted out at each level. Numbered doors indicated a collection of small dwellings. Everywhere there were big pots from which rubbery plants and glossy flowers came crawling up the rainwater pipes and hanging over the balconies. One would think a town perched on the edge of the jungle would have enough greenery without potted plants, thought Lucas. At ground level a black woman was emptying a pail of soapy water into the open drain. She stared at Lucas. This was not a hotel, nor a whorehouse, she told him. Lucas nodded amiably and she told him it was forbidden to take photographs here. He smiled. She stood arms akimbo and watched him ascend the narrow staircase to the third floor. She was still looking at him after he’d rung the doorbell and looked down over the balcony. He raised his hat.
From inside came the sound of a heavy bolt being drawn. The door opened a little and a man’s face appeared in the gap. It was not welcoming.
‘My name is Ralph Lucas.’
The man said nothing. Without haste he opened the door to allow Lucas inside, where Lucas noted the smell of cooking and, from somewhere nearby, the sound of a radio tuned to Spanish pop music. When the door was closed and bolted again, the hall became dark. Now the only light came from the dim bulb in a tiny plastic conch shell fixed to the ceiling.
The man pushed past Lucas, opened another door, and led the way into a room that faced the front of the building. It was bright and sunny, its window providing a view of the rooftops and the cathedral. The room was furnished like a study. There were shelves of books and a desk upon which pens, inks, pencils and a large sheet of pink blotting paper were neatly arranged. In the corner a small refrigerator whirred loudly. Propped in the corner alongside it stood a folding canvas bed. Lucas regarded the bed with interest and decided it was where he would probably sleep that night.
Another man was there: a slim tanned fellow, about twenty, with long wavy hair and steel-rimmed glasses. He wore jeans and scuffed tennis shoes. He seemed ill at ease and was toying with a glass of beer. Lucas guessed him to be another foreign visitor.
The man who had let him in was powerfully built, dark-skinned and about forty years old. He was wearing white trousers, now somewhat wrinkled, and a red-checked shirt. His face was marked with the sort of scars that prize fighters – and street fighters – sometimes flaunt. Such men often had the same large lumpy hands that this man had, but they seldom had fingernails missing.
Lucas guessed that he was a communist of the old style. The party liked men like this: battered Goliaths, diligent, humourless men who would provide bed and board to mysterious foreigners because some local party secretary – the girl no doubt – said it was for the cause.
While rummaging in the refrigerator, the elder man said his name was Chori and, still without turning, introduced the younger man as Angel Paz. Angel of Peace: it sounded an unlikely name to Lucas, but some parents liked weird names. So Lucas nodded to Angel Paz and gladly accepted the cold beer that Chori poured.
There was an awkward silence. The arrival of Lucas had interrupted them. Lucas could see that some sort of relationship existed between these two incongruous individuals. They were not homosexuals, he decided: perhaps it was a political secret. Communists needed secret conspiracy as fish need water.
‘Here we have no middle-class intelligentsia,’ said Chori, as if taking up a conversation that had been interrupted. ‘Or at least, very few.’ He waved his hands impatiently. ‘We are a workers’ movement. It is the workers who bring the revolution to the Indians and farmers in the south.’ He looked at Lucas as if inviting him to join the conversation.
Angel said, ‘Historically that is bad. Marx said there must be a middle-class intelligentsia to theorize and support the instinctive revolutionary movement that the workers initiate.’
‘Huh!’ said Chori.
Angel Paz did not continue with his lecture. He decided that it was too earnest, and too intellectual, for comrades such as Chori. But he thought none the less of him for that. Nothing could upset Angel Paz today. He couldn’t remember ever being so happy. Today Tepilo was his home. This smelly broken-down little town was the place he’d been looking for all his life. Here were simple people who needed help if they were ever to throw off the shackles of the fascists who ruled them.
The successful planting of the bomb, and more specially the impression he’d made on Chori with his technical abilities, gave Angel Paz a glow of contentment. What did it matter that Chori seemed to have no interest in political theory? When they got to the south, where the MAMista army leaders were by now planning an assault upon the northern towns, Angel Paz would have a chance to make known his strategic views. Thanks to his uncle Arturo – and his sleazy drug-dealing in Los Angeles – Paz had arrived here at exactly the right moment. So Arturo thought Karl Marx was dead. Well, Karl Marx and Lenin too would rise from the grave and smite all such capitalist racketeers with a terrible fury.
Lucas – who was not in the mood for any sort of intense political discussion – took off his Madras jacket. It was limp with the wet heat. He hung it over a chair. Then he stood at the open window and concentrated upon his beer. The sun was sinking but the heat had not dropped much. These tiny apartments, without air-conditioning or even electric fans, trapped the humid air and held it even after the evening breeze was cooling the streets.
‘This is good American beer,’ said Chori, seemingly relieved to escape from