Tweety's Balls (1964) - "VLADIMIRO MONTESINOS PRESIDENT OF PERU" A novel by Daniel Gutiérrez Híjar

 

Sergeant Instructor Mauricio Huapaya calculated that his chicken sandwich would be ready by now, so he entrusted the ball to Cadet Borja. "Enough training for today," he said. He was giving them half an hour to play a little soccer game.

Cadets Borja and Castillo drew lots to see who would pick first. In front of them, their comrades waited attentively for the result. Some wanted to be chosen by Borja, an expert at controlling the ball; and others trusted that Castillo would pick them. No one was like him when it came to cleverly using his team's strengths to undermine the rival's weaknesses.

As in all soccer games, the winners would be rewarded with money. "A buck a head," said Borja after placing his cap at the side of the field. The coins piled up in the garment.

"Tweety! You playing?"

Tweety was the name of a yellow, big-headed canary that was part of the cast of a very popular cartoon show on television. Tweety was also Cadet Vladimiro Montesinos Torres. Or, rather, Vladimiro was Tweety. The round head, somewhat large for his lanky body, and the short, hooked nose, typical of the Torres family, were enough for the nickname to fit him perfectly. Vladimiro, however, did not agree. He hated being called that. His only outlet was to ruminate his discontent in silence. He had set himself the strategy of not drawing attention in that place, within that group of comrades whom, also in silence, and very much to himself, he called asses.

After the gossip that had arisen that first year when he broke his countryman's ass during that infernal welcome, the most sensible thing was never to be the centre of anything again. He had learned that Peruvians forgot the misdeeds of their executioners and, after a time, treated them like old friends. There was the example of President Manuel Prado. In 1942, people lined up to throw tomatoes at him, and, in 1956, they elected him president again. It was all a matter of letting time run its course, like water in an irrigation ditch, to return afterward as if nothing had happened. Now, almost no one remembered Julián's beating, but, damn it, they had come out with that nonsense of calling him Tweety.

If he raised his head at the mere mention of his nickname, the asses would keep calling him that. So, he remained submerged in the reading of the chivalric novel he had taken from the library. It was Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart.

"Montesinos," said Castillo this time. "We need one more, you playing?"

Vladimiro peeked over the book. "Pass, but thanks," he said, making a courteous gesture with his hand.

"Why the hell are you asking him," said Borja, "that idiot never plays. If it weren't because training is mandatory, he wouldn't do that either. He doesn't like doing sports or hanging out with us. He only likes to be glued to his books; that's why he's got that big head."

"It wasn't a bad idea to try," said Castillo, always conciliatory.

"One of these days I'm going to beat the shit out of him; let's see if that takes the stuck-up out of him," said Borja.

Major Víctor Ligurie passed by one side of the field. He was wearing civilian clothes: suit and tie. He carried a briefcase in his hand. The warm Chorrillos sun glinted on the lenses of his dark glasses. He was walking toward the vacant lot that served as a parking area.

Besides being a military man, he was a lawyer, and he was in charge of teaching the courses in Military Law and Leadership and Command. The cadets feared him outside the classroom and inside it. But for Vladimiro, Ligurie represented an escape, a hope: a military man could also become a lawyer.

Ligurie wasn't just another little professor at the School; he was also the legal advisor to General Nicolás Lindley, who a year ago had been the president of the Military Junta that governed Peru between 1962 and 1963. Now, the country was led by El Hombre del Manguerazo, a bold architect who had tried to be president eight years ago and who, thanks to the military men who scared the population out of voting for the Aprista leader Haya de la Torre, had triumphed, though narrowly, in the last elections of 1963. Fernando Belaúnde, the brand-new president—who, in 1956, during a courageous public protest, had his forehead split open by the fierce stream of sewage from the water cannon of the riot-control truck nicknamed Rochabús, in honor of Temístocles Rocha, the Ica politician who suggested the acquisition of such trucks to the dictator Odría—had just rewarded General Lindley's services by sending him to Spain as ambassador plenipotentiary.

Castillo, a natural leader, wanted to show the herd that even Major Ligurie could stop to greet him. He put a hand to his brow like a visor and called out in a commanding voice: "Major Ligurie!" The military man kept walking, even though the shout was heard by many people dozens of meters beyond.

Borja wasn't discouraged by Castillo's defeat and, on the contrary, saw his opportunity to impress the cadets. He stood at attention martially and shouted: "Good afternoon to you, Major." Ligurie ignored him too.

No one dared mock Borja's and Castillo's fateful snubs. They limited themselves to following with their eyes Ligurie's hurried, firm steps. He was beginning to grow small and was a few meters from turning a corner. Some of the cadets, watching him move away, wished him dead. Hopefully he'd crash into a truck. Hopefully he'd roll down the stairs of the teachers' room. Many had suffered the harshness of the ruler strikes Ligurie joyfully dealt out when his questions weren't answered or when the answers weren't to his full satisfaction. As if Military Law were the only course the cadets studied at the School, Ligurie ordered tons of reading, and, for untrained eyes, the three hours of study lodged between six and nine at night, retreat time, were always too short.

 

The bouncing of the ball against the cement slab and the little dribbling moves with which Borja showed off indicated that the game had to begin. There was a bet to win. Eyes began to abandon the walking figure of Ligurie when they saw that a cadet was catching up to the major and very brazenly cutting him off.

"Isn't that Tweety?" said Castillo.

In unison, the cadets turned their heads toward the bench where Montesinos had been reading. He was no longer there. It was him, then, who was saying God knows what to Ligurie. The dozens of eyes were now a single, throbbing question: What could that idiot Montesinos possibly be talking about with Ligurie without Ligurie losing patience and destroying his ass with ruler strikes?

***

"Military discipline is born of law, and law from the will of the State; but that will does not guarantee that the law is respected," Vladimiro machine-gunned.

"What?" said Ligurie. "Stand at attention first, damn it. Haven't they taught you to respect the insignia, cadet?"

Vladimiro stood at attention and returned with his barrage: "Major, the will of the State does not guarantee compliance with the law."

As if he had before him a bug of absurd constitution crawling because it carried remnants of shit between its legs, Ligurie narrowed his eyes.

"You left us the assignment of investigating why laws are respected. My conclusion is that compliance with the law doesn't depend on whether it comes from the popular will deposited in its governors."

"So why do we respect the law, according to you?" His eyes like jumping marbles and the little dimples in his cheeks anticipated the arrival of some foolishness typical of the bootlicking cadets he'd had the misfortune of meeting in his few years as a teacher.

"In his defense speech Pro Milone, Cicero said that, among weapons, the laws fall silent; or, put another way, he who rides, commands."

"Don't distort things, cadet. Cicero was referring to the fact that, in times of war, armed violence suspended or silenced the law."

"Correct," said Vladimiro, raising his index finger, "and tell me if I'm right or not, but don't we in Peru live in a perpetual state of war? Only weapons dictate what is law and what isn't. Weapons dictated that APRA couldn't be government and they took command themselves. That's how we got Prado, who turned on them by making a pact with the Apristas, and now we have Belaúnde, who has the Apristas hanging off his balls like crabs."

The cadet perceived an approving gesture behind the major's spectacles. "I expect to see your complete report tomorrow, cadet..."

"Montesinos, Major," Vladimiro completed.

"Cadet Montesinos," Ligurie said in farewell, adjusting his shirt collar, preparing to resume his walk toward his dark Ford Fairlane, a car that was the centre of Cadet Vladimiro's mental masturbations.

 

But there was more to come. As if that subtle pat on the back had been little, Montesinos added: "And when weapons guarantee the law, its letter is unquestionable, because if the inventory says a major was allocated one hundred twenty gallons of gasoline per month, then there are one hundred twenty gallons of gasoline, even though, in reality, the major only uses eighty. Where did the difference go?"

In a fraction of a second, Major Ligurie's composure melted like ice cream under the sun: those were the exact numbers of his monthly fuel allocation and of the theft he systematically perpetrated without anyone having discovered it, basically because it was a widespread, disguised, and accepted practice in the institution. How had this little shit of a cadet come to find out about his kickbacks?

Ligurie quickly recovered his composure, but it was already too late: Vladimiro, with his trained eye, had caught his instantaneous discomfort, which—you didn't have to be a genius to add two and two and get four—was the acceptance of his implication in the siphoning of State resources.

Shouldn't a man of arms be taught to hide and control his emotions? Wasn't that key in a war?

"What the hell are you talking about, cadet?" Ligurie stumbled, his face still red, but his gesture once again martial and impregnable.

Cadet Montesinos's intentions were far from ratting out or cheap blackmail. He had only wanted to show Ligurie that it wasn't necessary to belong to the top fifth of the class to find out things reserved for a few. So, he tried to steer the conversation back.

"In this little chivalric novel," said Vladimiro, showing him the Lancelot in whose pages a bus ticket indicated that few pages remained to be read, "the events revolve around courtly love; that is, relating to the court of a kingdom. Courtly love demands that the relationship between a knight and his lady be secret and clandestine. These two elements were a sine qua non condition for protecting the lovers. The loyalty of Lancelot, the protagonist of the story, is manifested in the absolute obedience he shows to Guinevere, his beloved, including enduring humiliations."

"Where are you going with that crap, cadet?" said Ligurie. He was sweating.

"To the fact that the army is my Guinevere, Major," said Montesinos, bringing a hand to his forehead, "above all you and my superiors. I owe you eternal loyalty and silence—I'd even say, dog-like."

Ligurie's scrutinizing gaze pierced through the smoked spectacles. Could this boy be trusted? After some eternal seconds, he said: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

"Wittgenstein," Vladimiro recognized. The Austrian philosopher had said that language served only to describe the material things of this world; topics like ethics, religion, or the valuation of the systematic theft of gasoline were beyond its reach.

The major brought a martial hand to his forehead. A complicit wink seemed to flash from the depths of that penetrating gaze. He turned around and continued his now brief march toward his car.

Vladimiro had achieved his objective; one of the most feared teachers of the institution and one of those with the most connections to power had just made him part of the shit that greased and propelled the state machinery.

To achieve certain feats two things were necessary: courage and words. If you shrank before a hard look, you were screwed. If you weren't capable of speaking with persuasion, likewise.

The weapon a cadet chose—in Montesinos's case, artillery, by Arequipa tradition—was no guarantee of anything; having balls and knowledge, and the art of transmitting it with conviction, was.

Approaching the slab, he saw the asses' faces undermined by astonishment: Ligurie had stood at attention before him as if he were his superior. And he hadn't destroyed his ass! Who was this Tweety?