Confesiones a un Árbol: Pablo Silva Villacorta and I

PABLO SILVA VILLACORTA AND I

Pablo Silva Villacorta
(July 7, 1918 – February 14, 1979)

Valentine’s Day 1979 was not a happy date for me. That day, in Chimbote, Don Pablo Silva Villacorta died in my arms from a heart attack at the age of sixty.

Around ten o’clock that night, he, Hilda Martino, and I had left the headquarters of the APRA Party and were heading to the Bahía Cinema for the late showing. Upon reaching the intersection of Bolognesi and Carlos de los Heros streets (where the cinema was located), Oscar Torres Soto, an APRA militant, appeared and started an argument with Don Pablo.

In the heat of the argument, he suffered a sudden heart attack. Oscar Torres retreated. Hilda Martino and I rushed him to the San Carlos Clinic, but the doctors confirmed that Don Pablo was dead on arrival.

I had met him in 1977. Time and again, I saw him at the party headquarters. He was of medium height and weight, with a large head and immense eyes. He usually wore a dark blue suit, a light-colored shirt, and a tie with red details. He was well-mannered and easy to talk to, and he kept his distance from the group of leaders in charge of the Party in Chimbote.

I was sixteen years old and had begun to frequent the Casa del Pueblo. Only a handful of people came to the headquarters in those days. The following year, elections for the Constituent Assembly were called, and the Party headquarters filled with people and activity.

Don Pablo had written a book on APRA doctrine. I read it in early 1978. I remember typing extracts from his book at home and posting them on the Party’s bulletin board. He was a journalist, head of public relations for the Chamber of Commerce, president of the Federated Center of Journalists of Chimbote, and he also hosted the radio news program “La Voz de Chimbote.”

That same year, I was elected regional undersecretary-general for the APRA youth. Shortly after, the secretary-general resigned, and I was left in charge of the youth wing. I then began inviting him to give talks to the young members, and that is how we became friends.

One of those nights, after the talk had ended, we were walking together toward the main door. Halfway there, he took my arm, stopped me, and looked into my eyes. I saw his eyes looking even larger through his thick glasses. And then he said: “You know? I have a plan for the Party.” And I, with the insolence of my seventeen years, replied: “That’s great, because I have one too!”

We talked nearly all night and shared a vision for our local movement: to establish a progressive line, replace the old leadership in power, and return the Party to its grassroots. At the break of dawn, we sealed our pact with a handshake.

Soon after, I became his personal secretary. One of those days, as we left a shop on the sixth block of Leoncio Prado Street, he said: “I need a new voice for my radio program.” I replied: “You already have it...” He looked at me with skepticism and asked me to read aloud one of the documents he was holding. There, in full view of the passersby at the Modelo Market, I read it. Don Pablo put his hand on my shoulder and said: “You start tonight.”

During the day, we met at the Chamber of Commerce, and at night, at his home in the El Trapecio housing development. It was there that I met his three young sons: Pablo, Víctor, and Jorge, aged nine, eight, and six. Don Pablo was a widower, and his children were cared for by the Salazar sisters, who lived in the house next door.

October 27th, 28th, and 29th, 1978, were important days for us. The III Regional Convention of the APRA Party was held. We didn't have our political group ready yet, but we went to test our strength against the sector led by the veteran leaders Alberto “Zorro” Romero Leguía and Augusto Saavedra Sánchez. I was accompanied by two lifelong friends: Bernardo Cabellos Sabino and Julio César Sifuentes Arias. The forces within the convention were evenly matched, but our main demand was approved: new elections to change the regional leadership.

The radio news program La Voz de Chimbote was a hit. Hilda Martino, a twenty-four-year-old woman who taught shorthand and typing at the party headquarters, joined Don Pablo’s voice and mine. The program’s editorials, written by Don Pablo and read by me, were broadcast the following day by other stations in the city.

Meanwhile, the election campaign for the new Party leadership had begun. Don Pablo and I brainstormed names for our ticket. The first person we visited was Alejandro Ponce Rodríguez, a teacher who then kept a low profile and had led the teachers' union in Chimbote in 1972. Alongside him, the core of our group was formed: Víctor Galarreta Vásquez, Hernán Mantilla Rodríguez, Adelina Wong Torres, Abraham Torres Barreto, and Víctor Hugo Villanueva. I wasn’t yet old enough to run, but when Don Pablo scribbled the first draft of his list, he told me: “I’m going to put you in the communications sub-secretariat.” I replied: “I’m not eighteen yet.” He looked at me over his glasses and pronounced: “You are more mature than many old men... just don’t go around telling people your age.” And he wrote my name on the list.

It wasn’t all politics during the nightly meetings at Don Pablo’s house. There was also bohemia. He enjoyed his drinks, and I was starting to enjoy them too. Jorge Vásquez Hanada, a lifelong childhood friend, would come to El Trapecio with us. “Go to Teacher López’s store and get two beers,” Don Pablo would say. And between drinks, we would sing his favorite tango, Cuesta Abajo, while in the empty kitchen, my friend Jorge worked miracles to prepare a chicken soup without the chicken.

The election campaign led by Pablo Silva Villacorta was spectacular. He introduced a new dynamic to the elections. He left the central headquarters to the opposition group and headed to the barrios of Chimbote. He mobilized them, filled them with energy, and turned them into an overwhelming force. At that point, no one doubted he would win the elections and that, once elected secretary-general, he would be a victorious candidate for mayor of Chimbote. The first Barrio he visited was mine, and in my backyard, we held a large assembly under a massive trellis of tumbo vines.

Lilian La Bella was one of the Salazar sisters. That’s what I called her. I saw her in the evenings, and sometimes in the morning when I stayed over at Don Pablo’s house. She had a peaceful beauty, and I liked her from the first moment I saw her. I hadn't made a move yet, until one day Don Pablo told me: “You’re making her wait too long.” So, I didn’t make her wait any longer, and we began our romance.

Initially, there were only two groups in the election campaign: Don Pablo’s and the veteran sector that controlled the board. But soon a third appeared: “The Professionals.” We called them that because they were mostly doctors from the Social Security Hospital, led by its director, Dr. Raúl Alvarado Araujo. This group also included teachers Julio Geldres Aguilar and Fernando Bazán Blas.

My relationship with Lilian La Bella was brief but beautiful. She would attend the assemblies at the central headquarters and say nothing, simply accompanying me with her smile. Between one assembly and the next, we would slip away for a few moments to the Chimbote boardwalk. The starry sky, the murmur of the waves, and a languid streetlamp were accomplices to our tender moments of love. Until one day Lilian La Bella left, leaving behind only the musicality of her name to be evoked with pleasant melancholy.

There was something in common between “The Professionals” and us: we both wanted to change the old leadership, but we shared a mutual distrust. However, there was an attempt to merge the two tickets. One morning, a meeting was arranged at the Social Security Hospital director’s office. Don Pablo and I went on our behalf. In the taxi, we mapped out a plan: to force the other group to withdraw several names, Don Pablo would “decline” his candidacy, but I would oppose it. At noon, we entered the director's office. For the first time, I stepped into an office with a plush carpeting and air conditioning. We were received by about twenty administrators and professionals dressed in white. The meeting was brief; the merger didn't happen, and each group went its own way.

That was where we stood when Valentine’s Day 1979 arrived. In the morning, Don Pablo and I were at the Chamber of Commerce; in the afternoon, we visited some Barrios; at 6:30 p.m., we were at the radio station; at 7:05 p.m., we went to the APRA Party and stayed there until 10:00 p.m.; at 10:15 p.m., we arrived at the Bahía Cinema, and a few minutes later, a heart attack ended his life.

His biography remained unfinished, but while he was among us, he poured out his genius, his charisma, and his talent as a communicator. Among his pending tasks, he left a manuscript of approximately fifty-six pages that he had been working on. It remains in the hands of his descendants to ensure that this document one day sees the light of day.

The night Pablo Silva Villacorta died in my arms, I was eighteen years old. Thirty-three years have passed before I felt ready to write these lines. This is my tribute to the old master, and it is also a small contribution to keeping his memory alive.

New Hampshire, USA

April, 2012