Legacy of Terror

By Tito Vertiz

In 1979, a young German woman goes in search of her fianc, a young anthropologist studying the ruins of the Inca empire. She travels to Peru looking for him among the mysterious valleys and pueblos of the Andes.
In the course of her adventures, she becomes involved in social struggles and romance with a young Peruvian mestizo, and her life is changed dramatically by events that took place during the horrors unleashed by the communist revolutionaries known as Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path). Her life becomes connected to the lives of many others through the shared suffering and the consequences of a period of terrorism that paralyzed all of Peru, among these a young North American philanthropist and a female television reporter in Lima, who help her bring her life into balance after such events.
She returns to Germany to raise two boys, one her own and the other an adopted son, who returns as an adult to seek his Peruvian roots. In his quest, he discovers surprising changes, consequences of the war of terror between the guerrillas of the Shining Path and the Peruvian Army that left traces on so many innocent children.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palibrio
• Release date: Oct 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781506509495

Tito Vertiz

José Vertiz usa el nombre de “Tito” para escribir. Nació en la ciudad del Callao. Realizó estudios de arquitectura en la Universidad de New York, culminó su bachillerato en terapia familiar y servicios humanos en la Universidad de Nebraska, EEUU, además de haber cursado estudios en la Universidad de Florida. Trabajó como terapista en las prisiones de Florida. Actualmente está jubilado y vive en Perú. Además de la escritura, se dedica a la pintura en óleo; algunas de sus pinturas están en exhibición en EEUU. Tiene publicados los libros: “Salvar un alma”, “carrusel familiar”, “verdad o mentira”, y “herencia del terror”.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Tito Vertiz.

Cover design by Jose E. Vertiz

Translated by Fors Miner Gregg

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015917614

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-5065-0951-8

             Softcover     978-1-5065-0950-1

             Ebook          978-1-5065-0949-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Rev. date: 29/10/2015

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ÍNDICE

An Introduction by the Translator

DEDICATION

INTRODUCTION

PART I

THE TERROR

CHAPTER I: Ismael

CHAPTER II: Helga

CHAPTER III: High Society

CHAPTER IV: The Cruise

CHAPTER V: Robert

CHAPTER VI: They Killed the Gringo!

CHAPTER VII: Arrival in Peru

CHAPTER VIII: Ismael and Padre David

CHAPTER IX: Elena: Going After the Story

CHAPTER X: Padre David: The Bitter Truth

CHAPTER XI: The Road to Ayacucho

CHAPTER XII: Ismael: Into the Wilds

CHAPTER XIII: This Is News!

CHAPTER XIV: Ismael in a Cage

CHAPTER XV: Bad News Travels Fast

CHAPTER XVI: Indifference and Redemption

CHAPTER XVII: Dreaded Confirmation

CHAPTER XVIII: A Strange Encounter

CHAPTER XIX: La Loretana

CHAPTER XX: Faith

CHAPTER XXI: Manhood and Childhood

CHAPTER XXII: In the Kitchen with La Conce

CHAPTER XXIII: Abandoned Pueblo

CHAPTER XXIV: A Rescue

CHAPTER XXV: Time to Flee

CHAPTER XXVI: Life and Death in the Cave

CHAPTER XXVII: The News Must Get Out

CHAPTER XXVIII: A Done Deal

CHAPTER XXIX: Roberto and Elena

CHAPTER XXX: Love

CHAPTER XXXI: The Doctor’s Diagnosis

CHAPTER XXXII: They Can’t Keep Up!

CHAPTER XXXIII: Elena Asks for a Favor

CHAPTER XXXIV: Something Has Happened to Ismael!

CHAPTER XXXV: Elena’s Spy

CHAPTER XXXVI: The Sorrow

CHAPTER XXXVII: Elena’s Accident

CHAPTER XXXVIII: Intolerance

PART II

THE LEGACY

CHAPTER XXXIX: No Place Like Home

CHAPTER XL: Return

CHAPTER XLI: Welcome Home

CHAPTER XLII: Rodrigo’s Family

CHAPTER XLIII: Ismael José

CHAPTER XLIV: Hail the Hero

CHAPTER XLV: In the Doctor’s Hands

CHAPTER XLVI: Our Lady of Sorrows

CHAPTER XLVII: A Place for the Cholo

CHAPTER XLVIII: Legacy of Madness

CHAPTER XLIX: Legacy of Terror

CHAPTER L: Legacy of Loss

CHAPTER LI: Legacy of Justice

CHAPTER LII: Crows Circling

CHAPTER LIII: Rosario

CHAPTER LIV: Understanding

CHAPTER LV: It Doesn’t Matter, I’m Happy Here

EPILOGUE

AN INTRODUCTION

BY THE TRANSLATOR

Much has been written during the past five hundred years about the majestic, enchanting, marvelous, contradictory, magical country of Peru. Any interested reader will find a wealth of material about a country rich in every subject: from archaeology and anthropology to astronomy; from architecture, art and literature, to music and dance. And no one who has been to Peru, or listened in on any conversation between Peruvians, could forget gastronomy! Peru’s cuisine rivals that found anywhere, at any price range. It presents an amazing and delicious variety of foods, blending traditional, native ingredients with typical Spanish-imported recipes, as well as a surprising Asian contribution. Food is untranslatable. It must be experienced! Other than my personal experience, which has been wonderful – amazing, amusing, breathtaking, confounding, enlightening, exciting, irritating, surprising, and welcoming – there is little that I could add that hasn’t been written. But for the casual reader – who has likely skipped this introduction – or who may have scant knowledge of the country, a little basic information is in order. A general picture of Peru’s geography will be especially important, as that geography is so intimately involved in the plot. At 496,224 square miles, (twice the land area of Texas,) Peru is the third largest country in South America. Everywhere in the country, and in its literature especially, the three major geographic areas of Peru – Costa, Sierra, Selva – are themselves considered actors, each with its own peculiar flavor, history and character.

La Costa, the Pacific Coast, is largely desert dotted by oases north to south. The Costa, and especially Lima, home to a third of the nation’s population, is representative of the Western world with its modernity, progress, and centralized government, which, unfortunately, is often indifferent to the plight of what it so glibly terms the third world.

La Selva, the Jungle in the north and east of the country covers nearly 60 percent of the total land area of Peru. The selva, where the Amazon River begins, is known for its tropical heat, an endless variety of fruit, and a vast cornucopia of plants used in the country’s well-established traditional medicine. It’s also known for the wamth and friendliness of the largely native population.

The Sierra, the serrated knife-edge of the Andean Cordillera which cuts the country in two from north to south, is the main setting of this novel. Tensions between it and the Costa are seen vividly. To visit the pueblos in the Sierra today is to enter another world and another time. The high altitude and dry climate with thin oxygen and extremely intense sunlight is beautiful beyond description. Here is the place where the Inca empire located the navel of the world, Cusco. The evidence of the native people’s former greatness is everywhere. The colonial architecture of the Spanish – and sometimes modern architecture as well – was built on top of the incredibly sophisticated and durable architecture of the Incas. Millions of people continue their ancient customs, wear their distinctive clothing, and speak one of several dialects of Quechua – recognized since 1975 as one of the three official languages of Peru. While the modern tourist industry provides a livelihood for many locals, bringing nearly three million visitors per year to Peru, the friendliness of the natives can sometimes mask a distrust of foreigners. However, in my travels I found many people willing to talk at length with this gringo. Even in the small communities, where their only interest in outsiders was in selling their handicrafts, I met with great surprise and delighted welcome when I attempted a few basic phrases in Quechua. Nonetheless, there still exists a profound sense, in the Sierra, of the consequences of the Conquest, and there is a sort of sadness along with resentment for what the Spanish did here that can still be noticed. A single day touring the Sacred Valley of Cusco will give one an understanding of how such a group as Sendero Luminoso could take hold there.

Sendero Luminoso was founded in the 1960’s by Abimael Guzmán a professor of philosophy at the university in Ayacucho, the city which is the central setting of this novel. The name of the group came from a maxim of José Carlos Mariátegui, founder of the original Peruvian Communist Party in the 1920’s: "Marxism-Leninism will open the Shining Path to revolution." In 1980, the group eschewed the first elections allowed in more than a decade by the then military regime, and instead began conducting guerrilla warfare in the highlands of the Ayacucho region, beginning a time of terrorism that has marked Peru down to the present time.

Sendero Luminoso continues to be a force in Peru, though thankfully their activities have devolved somewhat from the harsh communist ideologies that unleashed such bloody atrocities of 30 or 40 years ago. During the time of this translation (July-September, 2015), several senderista leaders were arrested and brought to Lima for trial. Talk in the street on the subject invariably turned to criticism of the central government which often uses promises of clearing out the criminal activities of the senderistas as a political platform to garner votes during election, but which actually does little. These days, sendero activities are involved with supplying the cocaine trade, perverting the ancient and noble cultivation of coca leaf, an important medicinal plant, used for millennia, Its many recognized health benefits have helped native peoples in selva and sierra to survive and thrive.

One of the themes of this novel is racism and prejudice. As a fair-skinned Caucasian, I often found myself the object of curious stares as I walked in the city, or rode public transport with the majority brown-skinned, dark-haired population of Peru (a demographic survey finds 45% indian, 36% mestizo and 15% white.) I rarely experienced any sort of animosity directed toward me, but definitely was made aware of the consciousness of race, and class that most often has been divided along color lines – a legacy of Colonialism. If anything good can be said to have come from the terrorism caused by Sendero Luminoso, it was to force la costa to become aware of la sierra. The result has been that such terms as cholo and serrano, formerly often used derogatorily by the whiter costeños is now heard in a friendlier context – often with the –ito attached. In modern Peru, people of the Sierra and the Selva are more fully involved in the politics and the economy. Things have changed and continue to change. One always hopes for the best.

To translate is to betray. So says a French proverb. Much debate takes place in scholarly halls about the difference between translating and interpreting. The translation of the bible from its original languages, and the many differing interpretations of its words, is a prime example of such debate. The situational gag is almost universal: a character animatedly speaks a paragraph of words, and the interpreter translates Yes. Even such banalities as hello and goodbye, please, thank you and you’re welcome are not always a matter of simple substitution, as they may represent very different social exchanges from one culture to another. The task of the translator is to understand what the original speaker or writer said and, not just repeat those words in another language, but to take the sense and context of the words used and use words in the other language to give the same sense, meaning and feeling. In my opinion, translating is always a matter of interpretation.

Telling a story, writing a book – this is an art. An author develops a plot, creates characters, situations and scenes and interprets them, using language, so that the reader is able to imagine something like what the writer has in mind. I like to think that translating is an art as well – for the same reasons. Many choices go into making a translation, choices that will affect both author and reader. An author writes because he wants his story to reach people. People read for entertainment, to learn, and to be transported temporarily to another place or time. The responsibility of connecting writer and reader across languages and cultures means the translator has to consider all these interests. Sometimes, depending on the nature of the story told, the translator has the option of recasting it in a different setting. That is, taking the plot of a story and resetting the location and characters into the new circumstances. This allows the translator to take such things as landmarks, street slang and customs completely out of the way, and reinvent the story for another cultural context. Many modern stories are based on classic myths, reworked in such a fashion.

The novel in hand is set in Peru. The events and places it describes are unique to this place. It couldn’t be set anywhere else. Some of the principle characters are non-Peruvians, but many of the characters they interact with, are representative of typical characters in the Peruvian landscape. In attempting to give the North American reader a feel for what such people are like, I’ve occasionally presented their words in a sort of dialect that might conjure a similar type of person within the North American cultural experience. But I’ve limited the use of this, because relying too heavily on such a trick, would indeed be a betrayal and, I think, cheat the reader of much of the essence of the experience.

The Spanish language – Castellano, as they prefer to call it in Peru – is part of the character of the landscape in this translation. Spanish is a very ‘flowery’ language. Ordinary, everyday sentences can seem either romantically poetic, or overly formal, to the average English speaker’s sense. And speakers of Spanish will seldom limit themselves to one word when three will do. Adjectives and synonyms abound. As the Bob Dylan song Spanish is the Loving Tongue (based on Cowboy Poet Charles Badger Clark’s 1907 poem A Border Affair) highlights, there is a sweetness to Spanish speech that is unmatched in few other languages. Words like ‘love’ and ‘beauty’ and ‘heart’ and ‘soul’ are commonplace. One of the most charming speech habits, found especially in the great former colonies of Peru and Mexico, is the use of the diminutive; the ‘-ito or -ita’ ending on words. This ending makes the word a smaller version. Thus casa = house; casita = little house, etc. But more importantly, the diminutive indicates the affection the speaker feels about the thing he or she is naming, and/or the affection felt for the person addressed. I’ve tried to leave as much of that in place as possible, hoping to make the text understandable while retaining as much of its original charm and the feeling of being in Peru.

One more important historical note about the use of the diminutive: in the former colonies, the original inhabitants, and their mestizo descendants had a medieval feudal system imposed on them by the Spanish conquistadores who lorded it over these ‘serfs’. This ‘diminutive of humility’, as we might call it, is still in evidence – and seen often in this novel – highlighting class consciousness. It is used more or less automatically by campesinos, servants, or anyone who might have reason to believe themselves to be lower on the social scale than the person they are addressing. Peru is a much more democratic society today than it was forty years ago, not to mention four hundred years ago, but linguistic habits die hard, and especially in areas of the sierra, this particular use of the diminutive can still be heard.

In the final analysis, some things are simply untranslatable. In those cases, with the agreement of the author, I’ve included footnotes to help explain. It’s my hope that, rather than being a distraction, they’ll augment the story and make it more enjoyable.

A translator’s greatest success comes when the reader has been absorbed into the story, forgetting for a while that the setting and the characters are ‘foreign’, and being able, momentarily, to identify with their stories. For in the end, all human stories are our stories, and they unite us in a shared legacy: a legacy of promise, and a legacy of hope.

Fors Miner Gregg

Lima, Sept. 2015.

"There is no place for hell in a world whose loveliness can yet be so intense and so inclusive it is but a step from there to Heaven."

– From the book Return to Love

by Mariane Williamson

DEDICATION

For all those who have suffered and continue to suffer from emotional blackmail – whether of affection, hatred, indifference or the traditions one clings to – making us believe we are loved, when it is only to avoid the emotional loneliness that corrodes the soul and makes us believe in some imagined reality: all we really want is a pure and unconditional love, a love that liberates the soul and makes us free to truly be the humans that were made in the image of God.

INTRODUCTION

The unknown beginning of an emotional break – begun with the marvels of romantic love – goes about innocently entrapping us in imaginary webs and passing desires that have nothing to do with the true reality of love. There are so many degrees of love that it is necessary to learn to differentiate between them, to know what true, pure, divine love is. The world is full of this divine love; it’s there waiting to show itself when we need it most.

What I have written in this document are merely characters, events and situations of fiction. Any similarity to reality is purely coincidental. This is a novel of happenings in Peru during a time of great sorrow and uncertainty. It describes what it was like to live under the powerful threat of fear; the fear of dying at the hands of people who needed love but whose minds were lost in dark places because of differing ideals. The characters are products of my imagination, but are based on stories told to me by people who actually lived, caught between the threats of terrorists and of the armed forces, but who believed that with love they could survive the evil circumstances which forced them to face such heartbreaking times.

PART I

THE TERROR

CHAPTER I

Ismael

He ran, tired by now from climbing up and down the mountainsides. The thin air made it difficult, but he was used to the altitude, and the cold. The distance between the Andean community of Putis and the house he was running to, was through a nearly desolate landscape, practically along the mountain ridge. The view offered by the geography was of a singular beauty. Falling beside a large hut was a thin cascade of water surrounded by vegetation which, in contrast to the otherwise arid parcel, made the place more beautiful.

Señor Erick, Señor Erick! shouted the young indio¹ entering the shack and searching quickly for the owner of the cabin – really nothing more than a mud-and-straw hut, glorified with paint and a few potted plants arranged giving it a degree of sophistication different from the other shacks in the small community. Looking into the two large rooms of this cabin, he could see that the Mr. Erick he was calling was not inside the house, so he returned quickly to the dusty street to look for him, inquiring of the few indígenas who walked about sleepily among the houses. There weren’t many inhabitants in this community and nearly all of them were related to each other. They lived off the seed they sowed and the small amount of money they got from selling, in the city of Ayacucho, the wool from the alpacas they raised. Everything in this village was tranquil and silent; the only sound to be heard was that of the waterfall which made the afternoons drowsy and the nights magical.

After a brief search the young fellow realized that the man he was seeking was nowhere around. He sat down on the ground at the entrance of the hut, holding a letter in his hand.

What’s the matter, boy? asked a dumpy woman, whose leathery, wrinkled face showed the rawness of the Andean cordillera.² She struck at his legs with a branch from some tree. What are you doing in the gringo’s³ house? she demanded as she continued hitting him in the legs with her stick.

"Ay, señora! That hurts…"

"What do you want in the gringo’s house?" she asked again continuing to torment his legs with the stick.

"Nada, nada, He said, almost tearfully, showing her the letter in his hand. The mail came for the gringo," he said, beginning to get angry.

I know you! You’re from Putis… the son of the butcher lady.

After a short silence between them, the woman demanded in a bossy voice "Give the letter to me; I’ll give it to the gringo when he comes back."

No. I’d better wait right here and give it to him myself.

Well, then stay outside the house. Sit right here and don’t move. I’m waiting for him, too she said, sitting herself down next to the young man who was rubbing his legs after the repeated whacks given him by the woman with her tapia⁴ tree rod. The woman took out some coca leaves that she had wrapped in a colorful handkerchief and put a few in her mouth. Turning without a word, she offered some to him. He took a few leaves and began to chew them in silence. They sat there together a good while without exchanging a single word, until evening began to show itself among the peaks and the dry low-temperature chill erased the heat of the sun as it left the day behind.

Ismael noticed that the woman was looking at him very intently, and her attitude made him uncomfortable. Finally, she spoke, turning her head toward him: "Oye! We’d better wait inside, the freeze is coming. The gringo patrón⁵ should be along soon enough. Come on, gettee up!"

She rose slowly, arranging the multiple skirts she wore according to the custom of the women of the sierra and entered the hut which had no door and was simply covered with a sort of petate⁶. Pulling this aside she disappeared into the opening at his back.

The young man remained where he was, paying no attention to the woman who had left his side. When she left, the warmth from her body went with her. Feeling the cold of the approaching nighttime, he quickly got up and entered the hut.

The woman had already found some candles, and lighting them, she distributed them carefully around the room revealing a small cot with a few blankets on top, some maps on the walls and a long table with several annotated books scattered across it. The muchacho⁷ approached the table and looked without understanding at the writings and the maps there. The woman found a few covers that were carefully folded and stacked on the floor, and wrapping herself in one of them said Oye! You’d better wrap up, too! I’m telling you: my bones are telling me tonight is going to be a cold one! And taking out her colorful little bag, removed some more leaves and stuck them in her mouth, though this time she didn’t offer any to him who was already feeling the cold she predicted. He quickly found a blanket, wrapped it around himself, and stretched out close to the woman who had already laid herself down comfortably on the floor, taking up a great amount of room. After a little while the dark of night descended as the candles extinguished themselves with faint flashes as if signaling adiós. The night took complete control of the room, and the only sounds to be heard were those of nocturnal creatures that came out in search of sustenance.

The sun dazzled him when a ray of light struck his face, clearly highlighting the Andean features mixed with traces of another race; his dark eyes, adorned with long lashes, shone brightly with an expression of kindness and his short beard gave him an air of distinction. It was the face of a youth that reflected the handsomeness of his mestizo⁸ race.

He stretched and rubbed his eyes. "Acacau!⁹ Ay, mamita! I slept like I was rode hard and put up wet!" Receiving no response or any comment at all, he looked around and could see that the cot had not been used, and stranger still, the woman was no longer in the room.

He got up hurriedly, shaking out his pants and the poncho, worn by time and poverty. He went outside quickly. The sun was shining brightly as it does in the heights of the cordillera. Squinting, he looked around for the woman. He didn’t see her, but only a few indias emerging from their huts, moving with the sway of their customary skirts and their peculiar manner of walking. He searched the pockets of his worn out pants and realized that the envelope which he had so dutifully brought for the gringo, and wanted to deliver personally, was missing. For him, this gringo was his teacher. He admired him. He had met him while doing a job moving dirt for the expedition that the German gringo and his companion, some blanquiñoso¹⁰ from the coast, had given him. They had come to dig up some old ruins – he didn’t know what they were or who had lived there – but it seemed those two were very interested in them. He enjoyed hearing the gringo speak Castellano¹¹ with his strange accent, and it made him laugh whenever he tried to speak Quechua. The priest in the pueblo had tried to explain to him that they were looking for bones and artifacts of people who had lived many years before in those parts. His mother, who was an indígena like the one he had met the night before, raised chickens and sold beef. Whenever he would go home she would always say: "it’s not a good idea to play around digging up dead people. A curse will fall on the people of the pueblo for disturbing the dead."

"Carajo!"¹² he shouted impatiently. That crazy old woman stole the letter! He searched his pockets again, cursing the woman he had slept next to during the night. He looked inside and outside the cabin until he found the envelope on the floor, badly creased, right in the spot where he had slept. He didn’t know how to feel. He said to himself What the… well, you old witch, I’m sorry… He picked the letter up off the floor, and going out the open door of the hut with a sigh he wondered "Where are you gringo? And what do I do with your letter? Should I wait for you out here? Go back to town?"

He knew his mother wouldn’t look for him. She was accustomed to his disappearing in the mountains for days at a time. For him, the mountains felt like a living part of his own existence. He would walk for long hours, lost among the narrow valleys which he considered the most beautiful things he knew; he would eat plants and roots that he had discovered by watching the birds and other animals eat, and drink the cold, crystalline water from the rivulets that flowed down from the gradually melting snowcapped peaks.

He was a very observant person of his surroundings, but he had a hard time concentrating on his mother’s work. He had also tried his hand at herding sheep and goats, leading them to open ground to graze, along with his friend, Manco, who faithfully helped his father with the flock. But he wasn’t the right person for that responsibility, either. It made him tired having to constantly watch the flock and not being active. He soon left that occupation also, to the disappointment of his childhood friend. Now nothing pleased him, except the few occasions he would go to talk and learn to read with Padre David, who didn’t scold him and would always give him good advice. When he reached fifteen years of age, Padre David told him he was a man now and that he shouldn’t play with his penis. But he had already played with it many times and couldn’t see anything wrong with that. Seated on the ground beside the doorway he continued asking himself do I wait for him? Should I leave the letter on his cot?

While he was pondering what to do, a man appeared, driving some llamas whose ears were adorned with multicolored ribbons. This man stood looking at him and after a short silence said very slowly "what are you waiting for? The gringo isn’t coming back. Didn’t you know he’s dead? His friend, too, so… run on back home, sonny. They killed that nice gringo; the ones who call themselves ‘liberators of the land’. At least that’s what I think. He said this slowly, without any sentiment. Puis,¹³ I’m just coming down from up in the hills. That’s what they told me. There’s bad people up there. It seems like they want to kill everybody who isn’t like them."

Ismael got to his feet immediately. "What are you saying? What do you mean dead? He’s a good gringo. I don’t like his friend, but the nice gringo… it can’t be. Ay, patróncito! What are you saying?"

He paced back and forth not knowing what to do. He looked at the letter in his hand and said and what do I do with this? What do I do?

"Puis…, puis…" said the man who had brought the unfortunate news. He shrugged his shoulders and continued his slow walk, disappearing mysteriously in the same way he had arrived.

"Ay, acao! moaned the young man, continuing to pace to and fro in front of the hut. What should I do? What should I do?… Ah, I know. I’ll go back to Putis. Padre David will tell me what I should do. Also, I should talk with Manco. He’s been my best friend for years. He might know what I should do with the letter. Manco knew the gringo, too, since we both worked carting dirt for the nice German.

CHAPTER II

Helga

The ship drew further and further away from the coastline slowly disappearing like a mirage in the distance. The faint thrum of powerful engines could be heard as they labored to push the large barque, making dark sounds like messages translated by the machinery interpreting the fears and concerns of the young passenger who leaned against one of the pilings of this floating city. She felt like an orphan must feel as she left her homeland behind. "It was my decision," she thought. She was leaving behind her customs and the people who fed her soul with their cares and loves and even their discrepancies, inconformities and arguments, people with whom she felt very close ties. How could she explain to them