Of Love and Shadows (20 page)

“I will try it,” said Francisco.

“If you go, I'm going, too,” Irene declared.

That night Digna timidly eased herself into the bed that Irene had improvised for her, and with dazed eyes spent the hours staring at the ceiling. The next day, after Irene had packed a bundle of provisions for Pradelio, the three of them set off for Los Riscos. Francisco suggested that such a huge backpack might hamper their climb, but when Irene looked at him mockingly, he did not insist.

On the way, Digna told them everything she knew about the ominous disappearance of Evangelina, starting from the instant the lieutenant had dragged her to the jeep that unforgettable Sunday night. Her daughter's cries had floated across the fields, informing every shadow, until a vicious slap had sealed her lips and stilled her kicking. At Headquarters, the corporal of the guard saw them arrive, but had not dared ask any questions about the prisoner, and was reduced to looking the other way. At the very last moment, after Lieutenant Ramírez had hit the girl so hard she could not stand, and was practically carrying her to his office, the sergeant felt so bad he worked up his courage and asked his superior to go easy on her because the girl was sick and she was the sister of a man in the squad. His superior cut him off short, however, and slammed the door, catching a piece of the girl's white petticoat that fluttered there like a wounded dove. For a while he heard sobs; then, silence.

Sergeant Faustino Rivera had thought that night would never end. His heart was so heavy he could not go to bed. He passed some time talking with the corporal of the guard; he made a few rounds to be sure that everything was in order, and then went and sat beneath the eaves of the stables and smoked his strong black cigarettes; he felt the spring breeze carrying the distant perfume of the flowering hawthorns, and smelled the stronger scent of fresh horse manure. It was a still, transparent, starry night. Rivera had no clear idea of what he was waiting for, but he sat there until he could see the earliest signs of dawn, perceptible to those who are born close to nature and accustomed to rising early. At exactly three minutes after four—as he told Digna Ranquileo, and later repeated, defying any threats to seal his lips—he watched as Lieutenant Juan de Dios Ramírez left the building carrying something in his arms. In spite of distance and darkness, Rivera had no doubt that it was Evangelina. Ramirez was stumbling slightly, but not from drunkenness, since he never drank on duty. The girl's hair was almost brushing the ground, and as Ramírez staggered along the path to the parking lot, it actually dragged in the gravel. From where he sat, Sergeant Rivera could hear the officer's ragged breathing, and guessed that it was not from the effort, because the slim body of the prisoner would weigh very little in the arms of a big, muscular man used to heavy exercise. He was puffing like a bellows because he was nervous. Rivera watched the officer lay the girl down on the cement platform used for unloading bales and provisions. The searchlight that circled all night in the tower to warn of possible attacks kept sweeping the scene, illuminating Evangelina's childlike face. Her eyes were closed, but she may have been alive; the sergeant thought he heard her moaning. Lieutenant Ramírez walked to a white truck, climbed into the driver's seat, turned on the motor, and slowly backed toward the platform where he had left the girl. He got out, picked her up, and loaded her into the rear of the vehicle just at the moment the light flashed past. Before Ramírez pulled up the canvas, Faustino Rivera had seen Evangelina, lying on her side, her face covered by her hair and her bare toes protruding through the fringe of a poncho. Then Ramírez had trotted back to the building, disappeared through a kitchen door, and a minute later returned carrying a pick and shovel, which he placed in the back of the truck beside the girl. He climbed back into the truck and drove to the exit gate. The guard on duty recognized his chief, saluted smartly, and opened the heavy gates. The vehicle drove off down the highway, heading north.

Sergeant Faustino Rivera waited, consulting his watch between cigarettes, squatting in the shadow of the stables. Occasionally he stood up to stretch his legs and once, overcome by sleep, he nodded off, leaning against the wall. From his position he could see the guardhouse where Corporal Ignacio Bravo was whiling away his boredom masturbating, unaware of any witness. Just before dawn the temperature dropped and the cold dispelled Rivera's drowsiness. It was six o'clock and dawn was tinting the horizon when the truck returned.

Sergeant Faustino Rivera wrote all that he had observed in the greasy notebook he always carried with him. He had a mania for jotting down everything that happened, whether important or trivial; he could never have imagined that this habit would cost him his life several weeks later. From his hiding place, he watched his superior officer adjust his cartridge belt and holster, get out of the vehicle, and walk to the building. The sergeant ran to the truck and felt the tools, noting the fresh dirt adhering to the blades. He could not swear to what that might mean, or to the officer's activities during his absence; he made that very clear to Digna Ranquileo. But anyone could guess.

The car driven by Francisco Leal stopped before the Ranquileo home. It was not a school day, and all the children came running out to greet their mother and the visitors. Mamita Encarnación, with her pouter-pigeon bosom, dark bun pierced with hairpins, stocky legs marbled with varicose veins, followed close behind, a formidable old woman who had intrepidly sailed through the disasters of life.

“Come in and rest, I'll fix you some tea,” she said.

*  *  *

Jacinto took them to Pradelio. He was the only person who knew his brother's hiding place, and he understood that he had to guard that secret, even at the cost of his own life. They saddled the Ranquileos' two horses; Irene and the boy rode the mare, and Francisco rode the other, hard-mouthed and skittish. It had been years since he had been on a horse, and he felt uneasy. Thanks to a childhood friend at whose farm he had learned to ride, Francisco was a good rider, though he had no style. Irene, on the other hand, was a regular Amazon because, during the good years, her parents had given her a pony.

They rode toward the cordillera, up a narrow, lonely path. Normally, no one ever passed that way, and weeds had almost obscured the trail. After they had ridden a way, Jacinto told them they could go no farther with the horses; they would have to climb now, looking for ledges of rock to find a foothold. They tied the horses to some trees and continued the climb on foot, helping one another up the steep slopes. Francisco felt as if he were hauling a cannon in his backpack. He was at the point of asking Irene to carry it for a while, since she had been so stubborn about bringing it, but he took pity when he saw her gasping with fatigue. The palms of her hands were raw from the rocks, her pants were torn at the knee, she was sweating, and every few feet she asked how much farther they had to go. The boy's answer was always the same: Just up there, around that bend. Weary and thirsty, they continued for what seemed hours beneath a pitiless sun, until Irene said she could not go a step farther.

“Going up isn't so bad. Wait till you have to come down,” Jacinto observed.

They looked down, and Irene shrieked. They had climbed like goats up a sheer gorge, clinging to any underbrush that had sprouted in the rugged terrain. Far below, they saw the dark splotches of the trees where they had tied the horses.

“I'll never be able to get down. I feel dizzy,” whimpered Irene, leaning forward, seduced by the precipice plunging below her.

“You came up—you'll be able to go down,” said Francisco, supporting her. “Hang on,
señorita
, it's just up there, around that bend.”

Then Irene pictured herself wobbling on a mountaintop, moaning with terror, and her sense of the absurd came to her rescue. She drew a deep breath, took her friend by the hand, and announced that she was ready to go on. Planning to retrieve it later, they discarded the knapsack with the provisions, and Francisco, liberated from the crippling weight, was able to help Irene. Twenty minutes later, they came to a cleft in the cliff where suddenly there were shadows cast by tall brush and the comfort of a miserly stream of water winding down through the rock. They realized that Pradelio had chosen this refuge because of the spring, for he could never have survived in these arid mountains without it. They knelt down and splashed water over their faces, their hair, their clothing. When Francisco looked up, the first thing he saw were cracked boots, then green pants and a sun-reddened, naked torso. Last of all, he saw the dark face of Pradelio del Carmen Ranquileo, who was looming over him, pointing his service revolver at them. He had grown a beard, and his hair, matted from dust and sweat, looked like some sort of exotic seaweed.

“Mama sent them. They've come to help you,” said Jacinto.

Ranquileo lowered the revolver and helped Irene to her feet. Through an entrance hidden behind brush and rocks, he led them to a shady, cool cave. There Francisco and Irene stretched out flat on the ground while the boy took his brother to look for the jettisoned backpack. In spite of his extreme youth and frail body, Jacinto seemed as energetic as he had when they started out. For long minutes Irene and Francisco were alone. Irene fell immediately asleep. Her hair was damp and her skin burned. An insect crawled up her neck toward her cheek, but she did not feel it. Francisco moved his hand to brush it away, and touched her face, soft and warm as a summer peach. He admired the harmony of her features, the lights in her hair, her body abandoned to sleep. He wanted to touch her, to bend near her and feel her breath, to cradle her in his arms and protect her from the premonitions that had tormented her since the beginning of this adventure, but he too was overwhelmed with fatigue, and he slept. They did not hear the Ranquileo brothers return, and when one of them touched his shoulder, he waked with a start.

Pradelio was a giant. His enormous frame was inexplicable in a family of short people. Sitting in the cave, reverently opening the knapsack and extracting his treasures, caressing a package of cigarettes in anticipation of the pleasure of the tobacco, he looked out of scale with his surroundings. He had grown thin; his cheeks were sunken and dark circles rimmed his eyes, aging him prematurely. His skin had been cured by the mountain sun; his lips were cracked, his raw shoulders blistered and peeling. Huddled in this small chamber carved from living rock, he looked like a buccaneer who had been blown far off his course. He used his hands carefully, two great paws with gnawed and filthy fingernails, as if he was afraid he would destroy everything he touched. Uncomfortable in his body, he appeared to have shot up suddenly, without time to get used to his own dimensions; incapable of calculating the length and weight of his extremities, he bumped around the world, eternally searching for ways to move and stand. He had lived in this confining lair for many days, eating rabbits and mice he hunted with stones. His only visitor was Jacinto, the link between his solitary confinement and the land of the living. He spent his hours hunting, never using his gun, because the revolver must be saved for emergencies. He had fashioned a sling for hunting birds and rodents, and hunger had refined his marksmanship. A rank smell from one corner of the cave marked the place where he had piled the feathers and skins of his victims, to avoid leaving any traces outside. To ease his boredom, he had only a few cowboy novels his mother had sent him; he made them last as long as possible, for they were his only diversion through the long days. He felt like the survivor of a cataclysm, so lonely and desperate that at times he longed for the walls of his barracks cell.

“You shouldn't have deserted,” said Irene, trying to shake off the inertia that had sunk into her soul.

“If they catch me, they'll shoot me. I have to leave the country,
señorita.
”

“Turn yourself in, they won't shoot you.”

“No, I'm fucked whatever I do.”

Francisco explained the difficulty of obtaining asylum. After so many years of dictatorship, now no one left the country by that route. He suggested that Pradelio should hide for a time, while he, Francisco, tried to arrange false documents for him; with new documents he could go to a different province and begin a new life. Irene thought she must have misunderstood; she could not imagine that her friend knew anything about counterfeit papers. Pradelio spread his arms in a gesture of hopelessness, and they realized it would be impossible for a man who stood out like a giant cypress, and whose face was unmistakably that of a fugitive, to escape the notice of the police.

“Tell us why you deserted,” Irene insisted.

“Because of Evangelina, my sister.”

And then, little by little, searching for words from the still waters of his habitual silence, interrupting their flow with long pauses, he told them his story. What the giant did not say, Irene asked by looking into his eyes, and what his eyes did not tell she could guess from his deep flush, from the gleam of his tears, from the trembling of his huge hands.

*  *  *

When the rumors began to fly about Evangelina and her strange sickness, attracting the nosy and dirtying her good name, putting her in the same class with the
locos
in the insane asylum, Pradelio Ranquileo had lost sleep. Of all the members of his family, Evangelina, from his earliest memory, was the one he loved most, and that love had grown with time. Nothing had ever touched his heart like helping that tiny, frail little thing take her first steps—she, with her blond hair, so different from all the other Ranquileos. When she was born, he was still a boy, too tall and too strong for his age, used to doing a grown man's work and to taking over his absent father's responsibilities. He was a stranger to either pleasure or tenderness. Digna spent her life pregnant or nursing the newest baby, which did not keep her from working the land and doing the household chores, but she needed someone to lean on. She had turned to her oldest son, giving him authority over the other children. In many ways Pradelio was the man of the house. He took on that role while still very young, and even when his father came home, he did not completely relinquish it. Once when his father was drunk and was getting rough with Digna, he had stood up to him—and that was what finally made him a man. The boy had been asleep, but was awakened by the sound of muffled sobs; he leaped out of bed and peered through the curtain that separated the corner where his parents slept. He saw Hipólito with uplifted hand, and his mother huddled on the floor, covering her mouth with her hands to keep from waking the children with her moans. Pradelio had witnessed similar scenes before, and in his heart even believed that a man has the right to keep his wife and children in line, but that night had been more than he could stand and he had gone blind with rage. Without thinking, he rushed at his father, beating him and cursing him until Digna begged him to stop, because a hand raised against your parents will turn to stone. The next day, Hipólito awakened with his body covered with bruises. His son ached from his exertion, but none of his arms or legs were petrified, in spite of what the old proverb said. And that was the last time Hipólito had lifted a hand against any member of his family.