Red April (24 page)

Carrión looked at him as if he were his son, his heir, with more tenderness than pride.

“I was once like you, Chacaltana. I thought we could stop this. But it's stronger than the two of us. This is the history of a country. Spare yourself the disappointment.”

Chacaltana was no longer a boy. But perhaps he felt strong in spite of everything. He felt he was coming closer, that his life, after all, would have some meaning, even if that meaning were found in death. It was an idea that no longer seemed contradictory to him. He held Carrión's gaze and said:

“I have to stay. That is also stronger than me. You are still an authority. Sign the security order. I will take care of everything else.”

The commander took a blank sheet of letterhead out of his desk and signed it.

“Dictate whatever you want to say to my secretary. It's the last favor I'll do for you, little Chacaltita. I'll ask for one in return: take care of yourself, please.”

Chacaltana took his leave of the commander with a military salute. He thought about embracing him but did not dare. In any case, he would have liked to. It would have been like embracing a father. Commander Carrión had been anything but a good man, but at least, perhaps, his final gestures had redeemed him through fear. Perhaps that was the only way to really be redeemed.

Twenty minutes later, he went to police headquarters with the signed order. The usual sergeant was at the door.

“Good afternoon, Señor Prosecutor. Unfortunately, Captain Pacheco has told me to say that for the moment he isn't in, but that if … Señor Prosecutor. Señor Prosecutor!”

Chacaltana went directly to Pacheco's office and opened the door. Inside were the captain and Judge Briceño. The sergeant at the door pulled at the prosecutor's arm as he spoke to the captain.

“Excuse me, Señor! I informed the prosecutor that you were absent, but …”

“Shut up, you imbecile!” replied Pacheco. “And get out. Come in, Señor Prosecutor. Since you have lost your manners, at least have a seat.”

Without sitting down, the prosecutor placed the paper on his desk.

“I have an order from Commander Carrión to double security, effective immediately.”

“From whom?” asked the captain, looking as if he did not recognize the name.

“Commander Carrión, who has made clear to me his concern regarding …”

“I'm afraid he hasn't heard what happened,” intervened Judge Briceño. The captain smiled. “It's understandable. It's clear you're too distracted by your own matters. The commander is no longer in command here.”

They seemed pleased by the news. Perhaps they had just been celebrating it. The prosecutor replied:

“His retirement is not yet in effect, Señor Judge.”

“When people die,” answered the judge, “one doesn't wait for their death to be in effect. They just die, Prosecutor Chacaltana.”

Chacaltana looked from one to the other. Then he said:

“The order is in response to the need for extreme security measures …”

“In the absence of the commander, I decide what security measures are needed,” said Pacheco. “And I'm not going to deprive my men of their time off without a good reason. Unless you have a judicial order. Why don't you ask Judge Briceño for one? Ah, I forgot, it's a holiday, the judge isn't working!” He became serious. “Neither are we.”

“You do not understand. There is a killer on the loose!”

“A killer?” asked the judge. “We don't know about any killer. There's no record of any complaint of murder in the judicial district. I don't know if you've been whispering about something with your commander, but we don't know anything. If you want institutions to function, you have to transmit your information to them, Señor Chacaltana. If not, what can we do?”

Chacaltana hesitated. Then he recovered his confidence:

“You two will be complicit if you do not carry out the order.”

“Excuse me,” a falsely offended Briceño replied. “Are you accusing
us of something? If that is so, say it clearly, please. You could be guilty of contempt or insubordination. What are you calling us?”

He made a gesture of taking notes as he waited for Chacaltana's response. The police captain continued smiling, with a smile like that of the president looking at him from his photograph on the wall. The prosecutor thought they were in this office together, law and order. And he understood that it made no sense to continue to insist.

“Nothing, Señor Judge. This … must have been a misunderstanding.”

“Of course, a misunderstanding,” Captain Pacheco confirmed.

The prosecutor noticed that both were looking in his eyes, penetratingly, as if trying to find out something else, something lodged in the interior of his optic nerve, perhaps. Briceño said:

“Now that things are clearer, you ought to sit down. Perhaps we're still in time to chat about the future. The captain and I in fact were coordinating plans with regard to the absence of Commander Carrión. Perhaps you should join our working group.”

A month earlier, perhaps, the invitation would have flattered him. He would have visited Edith to celebrate his entrance into the circles of Ayacuchan power. He would have enthusiastically participated in the meetings of the working group, turning in reports and suggesting reforms to streamline administrative processes. But the offer was late, as if it had come to him from another time in his life. He realized that he felt like a mature man now, perhaps for the first time in his life, an adult who would make decisions consulting only with himself. He looked at both functionaries and could not contain a small smile that barely played at the corners of his mouth, a smile of superiority, of self-sufficiency.

“I see that you like the idea,” said Briceño. On the other side of the desk, Captain Pacheco seemed to limit his function to smiling and celebrating each of the judge's ingenious, arrogant
phrases. The prosecutor first shook his head while continuing to smile. Then he pronounced his decision:

“No, no … I think it would be better if I did not.”

To the surprise of the other two, he walked to the exit and left the office, slamming the door behind him. He imagined the judge and the captain laughing inside, celebrating death with Holy Week, preparing to drain the city's blood like two vampires. Carrión the cat was out of combat. The mice were beginning to play even before he left the city.

It was already dark outside. There were no processions that day, and the tourists filled the streets in a disorderly way, not going anywhere in particular. Drunks were piling up at the corners of the Plaza Mayor. Chacaltana could not watch over the whole city by himself. He could not have a thousand eyes and a thousand ears; he was not even very good at writing a report. He realized he had not eaten lunch. He needed to sleep. He decided not to look for anyone, not to see anyone, to go directly to his house. He returned home, greeted his mother, fixed some chicken soup, and went to bed. He was sad and tired, tired of not being able to do anything. He thought that tonight there would be another dead body and he was the only one who knew it. Then he became aware that it might be his turn to be the victim. With the tranquility of someone making preparations for supper, he got up and locked the door and the windows of his house. He even put a padlock on his mother's window, begging Señora Saldívar de Chacaltana's pardon for the inconvenience and assuring her it was a temporary measure. He pushed the sofa and an armchair against the door to the house, and the bureau and armoires against the windows. He went back to bed, making certain he had his weapon close by. As he tried to fall asleep, he thought about Edith. Better not to look for her. He would only put her in danger. Everyone I talk to dies, he thought. It occurred to him to masturbate with the memory of her smooth breasts that tasted of
trout. He did not have time for that. In spite of his fear, he felt his eyelids closing.

At two in the morning, he was assailed by a new nightmare. It had to do with fire and a church. Blows on a bleeding body in a temple. He saw a white man with a Limenian accent hitting a woman. He saw her blood staining the baptismal font, the white cloths of the altar, the chalice, the chasuble. And then the explosion, the fire devouring both of them. But the man did not stop hitting the woman, kicking her on the ground, shouting at her. He tried to get closer to defend her and went through the flames. The shouts seemed familiar. The man's voice especially, he knew it in some corner of his memory that he had allowed to be consumed by flames. He was closer and closer to the aggressor. In the dream he did not have the weapon but was sure he could bring down the savage with his own hands. Now the blood did not seem to stain the church but to flood it. The pool was growing beneath his feet, it reached his knees, his waist, and interfered with his movement toward the violent man, who had not stopped beating the woman as he began to drown in the red liquid. Once at his side, he took the man by the shoulder and wheeled him around to face him. It was like turning around a mirror. It was his own face held up by the aggressor's shoulders.

He woke with a start, sweating. He went to the bathroom to wash his face. He looked at himself in the mirror. He felt old. He thought about what he had said that morning in the confessional. Everybody I talk to dies. He felt a palpitation. He tried to go back to sleep but could not. He got up, dressed, and moved the furniture away from the door, scratching the floor. He went out. One hundred meters later, he turned and went back to his house. Silently, so his mother would not hear him, he went to his night table. He took out the pistol, hung it under his jacket, and went out again to the Church of the Heart of Christ.

you been talking abowt me, fadder?

you been talking abowt me to god?

talk to him about me. tell him to make me a plase. ill make him lissen to you. yes, hell lissen to you. youll be able to put your bald hed on his lap and lick his legs. hell let you touch him, run your hand down his back. youll like it. open your mowth, fadder, like that. let me see your holey tung. let me see your wite teeth. i like wite things, pure things. i have a treet fore you. taste the body of christ.

thats it, much better. now your nice and calm, you know? its better to stay calm. now everythings coming to an end. now its over, now. payshuns. all things have to have an end so they can begin again. you, me, well all have an end. yes. mines close too. but yours is allreddy here. ha. son of the devil.

your dirty, you know? dirty like the beggers in the sity. todays the day to wash you. ill leeve you spotless. oh, youll like it. dont say nothing, fadder, dont talk with your mowth full. its dirty. thats better. do you see how your getting cleen, fadder? your all full of sin. we all remember you here because of that. the bodys you berned remember you for that. did you forget abowt that? did you forget abowt there bodys disapeering into your oven? abowt there ashes?

they didnt forget abowt you. there they are, with god, like youll be, and they think abowt you every day. they cant live again, there bodys arent there anymore. its better. now they have life forever, dont they? true life. now youll meet with them, because your
cleen, now you can see them. you and they will talk, yes. world withowt end.

move a little. the holey water has too touch you everywhere. its like a baptisim, unnerstand? a sacramint. a baptisim of fire for you. we lerned that with you. fire cleens. if not, whats the point?

do you heer something? seems like you have a visiter. did you invite another begger to wash him? your charitabel. your good. hoo is it? ah, now i know hoo it is. yes. we seen each other before. he came soon. have you been talking too him about me, fadder? thats good, im not mad at you. well make him one of ours, yes? well love him a lot with our tungs of fire. well wash away his impuritys too, fadder. we have a lot to share.

It was 2:30 in the morning when the prosecutor reached the parish house. There were still some tourists on the street with their Ayacuchan girlfriends, all high but not as noisy now. Some were fighting among themselves or perhaps shouting at the hometown boyfriends, abandoned for the celebration. The faithful had gone to sleep in preparation for the next few nights, the most important ones of the festivities. Prosecutor Chacaltana did not even notice them. He walked resolutely, becoming accustomed with each step to the weight of the pistol at his side, and more and more certain as he approached the door. Before he rang the bell, he wondered how he would justify a visit at this hour. Then he told himself that the priest would understand his concern perfectly, that perhaps he was waiting for him. Without hesitating he rang the bell.

He waited for a moment. He thought he heard something inside, perhaps a voice. He replied by saying who it was.

“I only came to see if everything is all right,” he added.

No one answered, and he heard no other sound. The noise of a dull thud attracted his attention. It had come not from inside the house but from beside it. He wondered if he should stay in the doorway or look for its cause. He remembered that just above the basement a narrow window opened onto the alleyway. He wondered if a person could get out of the house that way. He rang the bell again, with the same result as before. The noise died away, and a few seconds later it began again. The prosecutor walked toward the alleyway that separated the house from the church.
He saw no one from the corner, but now a faint groaning came from behind an angle of the church. He caressed the pistol and walked closer. He stopped before he went to the other side of the angle, hugging the wall. Now the echo of a constant scraping and the bang of trash cans joined the groaning, as if someone were pushing the cans against the wall. He realized that his hand was clutching the butt of the pistol though he had not opened the sheath. He did so with his fingers, not moving from where he stood. It seemed to him that what he heard was the agitated respiration of two people, probably agitated because they were dragging a body. He asked himself if they were armed. Considering that these were terrorist assassins, he told himself they were. He was confused. In a gunfight, he was bound to lose. Perhaps the best thing would be only to see who they were without letting himself be seen, and then to pursue them in the light of day. Or perhaps he should drop the case and visit Judge Briceño to take part in his working group and buy a Datsun someday. He thought it was too late for that. After all, the killer was following him and almost seemed to be playing hide-and-seek with him. He thought, this is a case I cannot drop. Perhaps I will not be able to drop it even if I solve it. Solve it. Until a month ago, his function was simply to submit reports, not to solve things. He inhaled deeply, trying not to make noise. Holding his breath, he looked on the other side of the angle. In a corner, behind the trash cans, two shadows were moving in an agitated way. Their backs were to him. The prosecutor thought he could take advantage of the opportunity to apprehend them officially in the name of the law. He was aware that he did not have the legal authority to arrest anyone. As he was making his decision, he took a step forward and kicked a beer can, which noisily hit the stone wall. The two shadows stopped panting and moving. They whispered a few words. The prosecutor discovered that in fact only one figure had his back to him, a tall blonde who murmured in a foreign accent and held the other one, a woman, against the wall as she wrapped her
legs around him. The prosecutor moved his hand away from the weapon. He could not suppress a choked sigh of relief as he leaned against the wall. His eyes met those of the other two. The man had remained motionless, not knowing what to do. It was the girl who said: