Red April (9 page)

“They said for all the men to get out! Only the men!”

The prosecutor did not understand what was going on. He tried to catch a glimpse of something in the darkness outside. The interior lights of the bus allowed him to make out only some
hooded silhouettes and the projection of bayonets slung over their shoulders.

He had a rapid memory of the last time he had visited Ayacucho to see his mother before he came back to live there. It had been in the early eighties, when he was a recent appointee to the ministry. Before it reached the city, his bus had been stopped by a terrorist group that had asked all the passengers for their identification. The military men wearing civilian clothes ate their papers. The prosecutor also swallowed his identity card from the Ministry of Justice. The terrorists had taken all the electoral identification cards from the bus and then torn them up in front of the owners:

“You no longer have documents,” they shouted, “you can't vote, you're not citizens! Long Live the People's War! Long Live the Communist Party of Peru! Long Live President Gonzalo!”

They made everyone repeat their slogans and left after stealing the little the passengers had with them. They wore balaclavas and carried weapons. Like those who had stopped the bus now.

At the door, the driver called again for the men. Two others who had been asleep walked to the door, rubbing their eyes. The prosecutor wondered if he ought to swallow his identification as an election inspector. But the document was encased in plastic. It was impossible to chew. He hid it under his seat and stood up. He walked to the door. When he climbed down, a man in a black balaclava began to shove him and drag him to the line that the others were forming. The rain fell like a whip against his face. He verified with relief that the man pushing him wore the green uniform of the army. He tried to identify himself:

“I am Associate District Prosecutor Félix … !”

The other man responded with a shove. When his turn came, a sergeant faced him, also hidden behind his balaclava. Between the mask, the rain, the fear, and his dreadful Spanish, he could hardly be heard when he shouted:

“shhhhwmmmmyrccccrrrt!”

Accustomed to roundups, the prosecutor took out his national ID. The other man scrutinized it carefully and looked the functionary in the face. It was difficult to read the expression in his eyes. He returned the document and shouted again:

“shhhhwmmmmmyyrrrrccccrt!”

The prosecutor showed him his military identification. The other man nodded and returned it to him. The first man pushed him back to the bus. The prosecutor climbed in, feeling calmer, thinking that his safety was guaranteed day and night by the armed forces.

The bus started moving again and Félix Chacaltana Saldívar retrieved his election identification and went back to sleep. He woke in the light of dawn with the image of a river running down the slopes of the hill the vehicle was descending. As the rain clouds dispersed, the sky recovered its comforting brightness.

The bus stopped at seven in the morning. The prosecutor climbed down and picked up his suitcase from among the sacks of potatoes and cages of animals. There was no terminal. The bus had stopped only to drop him off. The town was two hours away. It was the same length of time until the public offices opened. The prosecutor was supposed to go to the National Office for Electoral Processes and to the National Police. He thought he would arrive in time to have breakfast. He walked along a dusty road, his baggage on his back. He crossed the river and two hills that turned out to be higher than they had seemed at first. He would stop periodically to make certain his suit was not wrinkling or becoming covered with dust.

Finally he reached a valley. In the distance he could see Yawarmayo. As he walked toward it, he thought he saw someone at the entrance to the village. He thought the appropriate authorities were waiting for him. He waved his hand. The person did not return his greeting. When he came to the edge of the village, no one
was there. No business was open. No certainty that there was a single restaurant or a single person. Not even a piece of asphalt. Only streetlights in the distance, still on in spite of the daylight.

The streetlights seemed to be decorated with wreaths or some kind of colored decoration. He thought it was probably a remnant of Carnival or an ornament for Holy Week. He dusted off his trousers and readjusted the hanger with his suit, his file, and his sports bag. He continued walking.

Only when he stood at the foot of the streetlights could he see up close what hung from them. Dogs. Some strangled, others beheaded, some slit open, their internal organs dribbling from their bellies. He dropped the bag. A chill ran down his spine. The dogs wore signs that said: “This is how traitors die,” or “Death to turncoats.”

The prosecutor felt dizzy. He had to lean against a wall. He felt alone in the middle of the street where, he noticed again, no one else was walking this morning.

He was still there half an hour later. He had failed to find an open door. He did not know what to do, where to go. Until the first shadows appeared on the street. They belonged to police, walking heavily and carrying ladders to take down the dogs. They leaned their ladders against the streetlights and removed the animals following an established order, more bored than repelled, as if accustomed to a routine of canine corpses. Félix Chacaltana thought about the commander's words. Don't look for horses where there are only dogs.

The detail, as far as Chacaltana could tell, consisted of five skinny men with puffy eyes. None could have been more than nineteen. None looked at him. He walked up to one, who was holding a ladder:

“Good morning. I am looking for Lieutenant Aramayo.”

The policeman gave him a suspicious look. The prosecutor showed him his identification. A dog fell down, almost on his
head. A cloud of flies followed it. Behind him, the prosecutor heard a commanding voice:

“Damn it, Yupanqui. Don't throw around the dogs that spatter. Motherfucker …”

The prosecutor deduced it was the voice he was looking for. He turned and saw an officer of about fifty whose belly overflowed the khaki shirt of his uniform.

“Lieutenant Aramayo?”

“What?”

“I am the election inspec …”

“Shit, Gonza! With your hands! Like a man!”

Two lampposts further on, a policeman was trying to push the dog with a wire to see if it would fall without his needing to touch it. With a resigned face, he let go of the wire and continued untying the animal with both hands. The prosecutor tried to make himself heard:

“I have come with regard to observing the election.”

The lieutenant seemed to have just noticed the visitor. He looked him up and down with a distrustful expression.

“To do what?”

“To obser …”

“Papers. I want to see your papers.”

He showed him his identification card. The lieutenant studied it on both sides. He asked:

“Who sent you?”

“The National Office of Pro …”

“Who sent you, Chacaltana?”

“Commander Carrión, Señor.”

The policeman's eyes lost their contempt.

“Come have breakfast with me. And you, Yupanqui! I want to see this all cleaned up within the hour.”

The local police station had only one floor, divided into two separate spaces. In one, waiting on a desk, were two tamales, a little
cheese, bread, and café con leche. The mattresses where the police had spent the night were still on the floor. The lieutenant divided everything in half and invited the prosecutor to sit down. Once again, Chacaltana was not hungry. But the lieutenant ate like a horse.

“This … Is it normal?” asked the prosecutor.

“What? The tamales?”

“The dogs.”

“Well, that depends, Señor Prosecutor. What's normal for you?” he asked, swallowing a piece of bread he had dipped into the milk.

“I did not know that … Sendero was still operating in the area.”

The lieutenant's laugh went down the wrong way when he took a swallow from the cup.

“Operating? Ha, ha. Yes, a little. More like fucking us up.”

“I have come to attend to the subject of the elections. You know that observers will be coming and …”

“It would be fine, damn it, if somebody would observe something around here.”

He laughed again, displaying a piece of half-chewed tamale. The prosecutor interrupted. Recently he had not really been able to know exactly what his conversations were about. He tended to lose the thread. He tried to recapitulate:

“And how long ago did you verify this outbreak?”

“What outbreak? This isn't an outbreak, Chacaltana. This has been going on for twenty years.”

“Ah.”

“They offered me a transfer to Lima and the rank of captain if I agreed to suck the dick of some commander in the capital. But I refused. So they sent me here to fuck me over. Here where you see me, Señor Prosecutor, the most honest thing in this shit village is me. Are you going to eat that?”

“No, you go ahead.”

The lieutenant finished off the second tamale in almost one mouthful. The prosecutor continued to obtain information:

“And haven't you asked for reinforcements?”

“Reinforcements? Of course. We also asked for a swimming pool and a couple of whores. And here we are.”

The lieutenant lit a cigarette and belched. The prosecutor thought this was how he had concluded the conversation regarding the subject of Sendero.

“Well. With respect to the electoral program, I have been reviewing the law. I wonder if the tables have been prepared for the prisoners to vote and the …”

“The prisoners? You want us to let out the prisoners? Forget about them. They don't vote.”

“But the electoral law specifies that …”

“Ha, ha. You tell Commander Carrión that you want to take the lousy terrorists out of their cells. You'll see where your electoral law gets you.”

“Permit me to read to you what it says in this regard in this brochure; I have a copy for you …”

The lieutenant did not even look at the brochure. He stared into the visitor's eyes and adopted an attitude of seriousness and resolve.

“No, permit me to tell you what you're going to do. In the first place, I don't want you to go around attracting attention. No official vehicles or distinctive markings: absolutely no jackets, uniforms, or insignias. You'll make yourself a target and I'll be blamed for it. The last inspector who came through here thought he was a real tough guy. He came in making a lot of noise. He drove a car with polarized glass and two bodyguards. The damn terrorists saw polarized glass and said, ‘Whoever's inside that car has to be important.’ Seventy bullet holes from FAL rifles in the body of the car. And hand grenades. The bodyguards, dead. The inspector, seriously wounded, I think he lost an eye. He never came back here, the dumb prick.”

Félix Chacaltana Saldívar could not think of anything to say. He looked at the remains of the tamales, a piece of chicken skin hanging from one of them. He sat looking at the lieutenant as he finished his cigarette. The lieutenant did not say anything else either. In any case, the prosecutor put the brochure on the table for him before he stood up.

“Well,” said Chacaltana, “having made the necessary introductions, it is time to look for a place to stay.”

“Find Yupanqui, the guy taking care of the dogs. He's a prick, but he'll help you.”

Once more the prosecutor put his bag and the hanger with his suit on his back. When he was almost at the door he heard the police officer's voice again:

“Listen, Chacaltana, do you know … I mean, are you aware of where they've sent you?”

“This is the village of Yawarmayo, isn't it?”

The lieutenant smiled and exhaled the last mouthful of smoke.

“No, Chacaltana. This is hell. In the name of the National Police, I bid you welcome.”

He found Yupanqui a few streets away. He had just finished putting all the dogs in large black bags meant for humans, which the rest of the men dragged away to incinerate outside the village. Yupanqui explained to the prosecutor that there were no hotels in the village, but he could stay in a private house, where they were always glad to take in a visitor. He took him the length of the village to a house that was a little larger than the rest. When they reached the entrance, he shouted:

“Teodoroooo!”

And he pounded on the door while he continued to shout. At times he would turn to the prosecutor with an apologetic smile. When Chacaltana was about to suggest that perhaps no one was in the house, the door opened, revealing a man with his wife and three children. It was as if they were all petrified, looking at the visitor. The policeman said something to them in Quechua. The
man responded. The policeman raised his voice. The man shook his head vehemently. Then the entire family responded by shouting, all at the same time, but the policeman shouted back and took out his club. The prosecutor thought he was going to hit them, but he did nothing more than shake the weapon in the air in a menacing way. In the middle of the argument, he turned to Chacaltana and said in Spanish:

“Do you have dough?”

“What?”

“I said do you have money? Any amount.”

The prosecutor took two one-sol coins from his pocket. When they saw the coins, the members of the family suddenly fell silent. The policeman gave them the coins and indicated to Chacaltana with a gesture to put his things down on the floor. Then he left. A place to stay had been arranged.

Chacaltana remained standing, facing his hosts. There was no place to sit. Only a pot on a pile of burned wood and some weavings on the floor.

“Good morning,” he said, “I hope I am not causing you any inconvenience.”

The others looked at him and said nothing.

“May I leave my things here? They are not in the way? … Would you happen to know where the National Office of Electoral Processes is located? No?”

He tried to think of where he could hang his suit. A cross hung from the only nail in the house, and he did not want to take that down, out of respect for the family. He folded the suit as carefully as he could and left it in a corner, on top of the bag. Then he said good-bye respectfully and went out to proceed with his labors. No one said good-bye to him.