Red April (22 page)

Before the platform went out, Judge Briceño, one of the eight stewards of the procession, came up to him:

“You look tired, Señor Prosecutor,” he said with a rat's smile. “Did you have a long night? I hear you're having more of a social life lately …”

“It is just … I just did not sleep well.”

He felt his temples throbbing. Judge Briceño seemed very happy.

“I suppose you've dreamed about Captain Pacheco. Recently, I don't know why, that gentleman has taken an immense dislike to you, if you don't mind my saying so.”

“I cannot imagine why, Judge.”

“It's inexplicable, isn't it? Well, I want to indicate my pleasure at your sharing this procession with us. It's always a good idea for colleagues to share, isn't it? Keeping things all to oneself isn't very nice.”

The prosecutor did not even feel like understanding the subtext of what the judge was saying.

“Of course,” was all he replied.

“And now I'll leave you with your thoughts,” said the judge as he left.

The prosecutor took part in the procession mechanically, like an automaton, stopping at the fourteen stations required to pray the Via Crucis, intoning from memory the sacred songs in Quechua and Spanish. No one had died that day. He used the prayers to ask for an end to the murders, only two were more than enough for one week, he asked that there not be more, that the prediction of the return of Sendero not be more than that—a prediction. At no moment during the procession, however, could he stop thinking about blows, blows, blows …

you heer? its like a pownding.

its time for you to free yourself. its time for you to fly. they had you too long cownting hours, days, seconds. you had to wate. you have to wate for important things. but you dont have to no more.

did you see the proseshun of the meeting today? it was bewtiful. all the faithful were upset, yes, sad, yes, they felt deth close by. today he died. the nazareen. the sisters of saint clare spent too days dressing him and preparing him, cutting his hair and beerd that grew since last yeer. he dies every yeer.

come heer, closer, thats it, good. you know something? i bin lisening to you all this time. yes. i herd your voise. talking with all those peepel, with the comrades, with the watch dogs of the empire. your voise reeched me. your watch dogs are stupid, they sleep when you toss them a peese of meet. so today is your day. i lisened to you all this time, did you lisen to me? you must of herd me. i talk in your dreems, at the edge of your mind, at the doors to eden. like this sownd, can you heer it now?

they made him meet his mother. the nazareen. she was in black. oh what pane she felt. i felt it with her. there were coruses of men. they sang. yes. they sang for you. veronica was there too, wiping away the blud and swet of the nazareen so he wood die cleen. you wood have liked it. what a shame you coodnt go. then veronica went to saint john to tell him she had bin with jesus. the hoor. she showed him the hankerchif. and everybody sang.

you like this? shore you like it. you were born for this. dont
complane. we all have a cross to bare. it can hurt a little. everything that matters is gotten with a little pane. history is washed only with blud. yes. you tawt me that. im a good student, rite? were all good students because a lot of us are wateing to wake up. youll leed us. i chose you, yes, so youll cross the river of blud.

christ has a tunic of red and gold. they say too angels made it in a nite and then ran away. too angels like us, rite? too angels making christ in their image and likeness, in ours, so that every yeer he can walk the rode to calvary.

no. dont resist. this is your place. you erned it. we fouwt a lot to give it to you. now do you remember me? no? this isnt the first time we seen eech other. and it wont be the last. we saw eech other before, when we were alive. maybe were still alive now. these days i cant reely tell the difrense. you smell good did I tell you? you smell of prarie and the lords day. happy lords day.

my voise was small before, like a little streem. littel by littel its bin growing, like a grate flud. it did that by itself, its bin taking up more room in my memory, it took the place of the others. there are no more voises now. now theres only me and the eckos. yes. eckos of faraway times. but i talk lowder. like now see? your voise isnt herd. only mine is herd and the sownd of the nails, do you heer, going thru wood, going thru flesh, going thru time.

yes. now you heer them.

On Wednesday, the nineteenth day of April, 2000, when it was close to midnight, in the act of making the rounds on the night shift in Cell Block E for terrorists in the maximum security prison of Huamanga, police officer Wilder Orozco Pariona verified the absence of the inmate Hernán Durango González, alias Comrade Alonso, from his respective cell. The appropriate guards in the penitentiary having been alerted, Colonel Olazábal summoned the inmates to form in rows in the courtyard of the abovementioned cell block, where the thesis of Officer Orozco was confirmed in practice in the sense that the convicted terrorist had proceeded to escape the prison during the night.

The police garrison at the prison, which affirms that the escape lacked viability and that it has not discovered tunnels or other practical means of escape for the inmate, immediately proceeded to comb the area surrounding the prison to discover some clue regarding the unknown whereabouts of the above-cited inmate, with almost no results during the first hours of the search.

In the early-morning hours of Thursday, the twentieth day of April, as a police patrol was returning to the maximum security prison following a search operation in which the fugitive had not been captured, the duly constituted authorities in this regard declare having seen a bonfire on one of the hills adjacent to the perimeter of the prison, on the slope that faces away from the penal institution, so that in practical terms the fire was not visible from the prison. Considering that the presence of fire was unusual in proximity to the aforesaid penal institution, the patrol
resolved to approach for purposes of investigation as well as prevention of sinister possibilities pertaining to the forest.

Having reached the slopes of the aforementioned hill, the police officers state that they were surprised by what appeared to be a human figure of considerable proportions at the foot of the bonfire. However, despite reiterated calls by the patrol, the supposed person did not turn around or give any sign of responding to their calls, appearing instead to have lingered there in thought. Because the darkness did not permit them to distinguish the features or political or criminal affiliation of the abovementioned person, the members of the National Police affirm that they drew their respective weapons in order to proceed to make an approach to the person, who displayed no sign of attempting to flee or of being surprised at their appearance.

Having reached the foot of the bonfire, in the act of requesting the person to stand on his feet with his hands behind his head, which corresponds to procedures employed for reasons of security in searching suspects, the officers declare that they discovered that the object in question, which they had taken for a person, lacked all signs of life and was identified instead as a corpse, whose considerable proportions seem to have been due to the fact that it was resting in a cruciform arrangement on a tree two and a half meters high, to whose branches the upper extremities had been nailed at the wrists.

Similarly, one of the lower extremities had been attached to the lower portion of the trunk by the same method, it having been verified that the other extremity was not found in the same circumstances due to the fact that it was totally missing from the body, from which it had in fact been torn off. The cadaver, by all accounts, displayed a crown tightly encircling its forehead, consisting of approximately a meter and a half of barbed wire, rolled around the head and tightened on it under conditions in which it pierced the skin of the entire cranial perimeter. A cut on the left side, at the height of the heart, was still bleeding.

The officers who effected the discovery have required psychological treatment subsequent to this action. Nevertheless, early the next morning, other police officers, such as Wilder Orozco Pariona and Colonel Olazábal himself, identified the deceased as the fugitive Hernán Durango González, alias Comrade Alonso, and lamented the outcome of his unfortunate escape.

The prosecutor raised his head from the typewriter. This time, he did not even check the syntax of his report. It seemed to him that it was simply a useless piece of paper. The data were not enough. The narrated facts had nothing to do with the murder but with its discovery. It was as if in order to describe a fishing run, one learned how the fish is served at the lunch table. It had nothing to do with what was really important. In reality, none of his reports had anything to do with what was important. He thought the relevant information was precisely what the report did not contain: who did it, why, what was going through his head. A truly useful report ought to be written knowing each detail in the lives of those involved: their pasts, their memories, their habits, even their most irrelevant conversations, the perversions that crossed their minds at the moment of execution, everything that no one could know. A real report, he concluded, could be written only by God, at least by someone with a thousand eyes and a thousand ears who could know everything. But if there were people like that, he thought, reports would not be necessary.

That morning, for the first time, he had been present at the place where the crucified corpse was located. At the top of the tree, like a placard saying INRI, was a note written in the corpse's blood:

KILLED FOR BEING A RAT
Sendero Luminoso

Impossible to know if it was the same writing as on the earlier note. One does not write the same with a pencil as with the tip of a knife. In fact, although being present at the place where the body was discovered had seemed more professional, he did not know more about this body than he had about the previous ones. Nearby were the tracks of a truck, but this was the road to the prison. Almost all the vehicles that drove there were trucks carrying food, inmates, or relief guards.

He returned to the city at six in the morning, when the Masses were over and workers were beginning to decorate the churches with loaves of bread, grapes, and lambs. Ayacucho smelled of the aromatic herbs that the faithful were boiling on braziers.

After writing his report, he went to see the pathologist.

“I can't tell you it's a pleasure to see you more and more frequently,” was Dr. Posadas's greeting as he handed him a mask. The prosecutor was going to tell him that the smell of death filled the obstetrics ward, but he decided to say nothing. It was not his problem. He already had enough problems.

The body, which had been taken down from his cross, lay on the usual table, uncovered. The holes in his forearms and only leg permitted a view of the surface of the table underneath. The crown had been fitted tightly to his forehead.

“Spare me the sordid details, Doctor. What's new?”

“More sordid details, Señor Prosecutor. That's the only thing that's ever new here.”

The doctor said this with a half smile as he lit a cigarette. He never seemed overwhelmed; on the contrary, he looked almost happy. The prosecutor wondered if the doctor liked his work, if he scrutinized the bodies with real pleasure in what he did.

“Again it looks like the action of a cell. One man on his own couldn't have staged that whole show in so short a time.”

“Of course. Then we are talking about a few men.”

“It could have been only two. And a woman, usually.”

“A woman?”

“A strange thing about the terrorists. They organized into groups of men led by women. I don't know if they're still doing it, one never knows with them. But apparently the women were always the strongest ideologically. And the most bloodthirsty. The men were errand boys, so to speak. They were good for confrontations and technical jobs. But if you had to give a coup de grâce, the woman in charge took care of that.”

“A woman couldn't do this.”

“No. But she could order it.”

The prosecutor collapsed into a chair. He looked exhausted. He said:

“I don't even know if it makes sense to look very hard at the body. Now there are other incomprehensible details. The escape, for example. How did Durango disappear from a maximum security prison without anyone seeing him?”

The doctor took out a chocolate and began eating it. Now he held the chocolate in one hand and the cigarette in the other.

“Is that what's bothering you? If you guarantee your discretion, I'll give you an answer: Colonel Olazábal is a cretin who thinks of nothing but a promotion. They must have bribed him. For a long time he hasn't cared who he works for.”

It was the last straw. Now the best allies of the terrorists were the police. But there was still something that did not fit:

“And Durango escaped in order to die?”

“Maybe they're the ones who killed him.”

“If you had seen the faces of the police when they found the body, you would not say that.”