The Uncomfortable Dead (4 page)

But August is one of those people who believes the Zapatistas are never wrong, so he claimed the problem was that the salsa brand he used was Herdez and “El Sup actually told me it had to be La Costeña.”

In any case, begging the pardon of Pepe Carvalho and Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, the fare in this novel is not going to be all that good. And now that I have discussed eating, give me a second so I can go to the john.

Elías and the Case of the Woodpecker

A dummy, because aside from being a woodpecker, the bird was a dummy, like you’re gonna see from what I’m gonna tell you.

Okay, the thing is, they sent me on an Investigation Commission to the Morelia
caracol
(you remember that’s what they call the autonomous municipalities) in the Tzots Choj region, and the thing, or rather the
case,
was a man who had been deceased by some guys who said they weren’t the ones who deceased him. The Good Governance Board from those parts had sent a request for assistance to the EZLN Staff Headquarters. El Sup wasn’t there but they told him over the radio, and then they told me that he told them to send me. The local officer in charge at La Realidad gave me some money for the trip, some toast, a ball of
pozol,
and some papers. I read one of them:

WRIT OF REMOVAL

Nich Teel Community, Olga Isabel Autonomous Zapatista Rebel Municipality, Chiapas, June 25, 2004.

I,
Pedro Sántis Estrada, Autonomous Municipal Honor and Justice Commission, 9:25 p.m., do hereby submit the following description of the removal of the body:

1. That the deceased is Francisco Hernández Solís, thirty-eight years of age, joined in common law marriage, father of nine.

2.
That on the 25th day of June of 2004, the deceased left home to work at his milpa at 6 a.m. in the so-called Ba Wits, at a distance of five kilometers from his home.

3.
That at 13:00 hours (1:00 in the afternoon) he was returning, together with his younger brother Santiago Hernández Solís, twenty-one years of age, accompanied by his son Pedro Hernández, ten years of age, and when he was
300
meters from his milpa, Francisco Hernández Solís was ambushed and shot from a distance of two meters, four shots having been fired from a .22 caliber automatic weapon.

4.
That two of the shots entered the same hole on the right side of his chest, another more to the center, and yet another in the right buttock.

5. That from the place where he was ambushed he ran forty-eight meters, shouting the names of the ones who shot him, and he was able to show his comrade the places in his body where the bullets had entered, and there he dropped dead: on his back, facing south, his eyes open, with his right hand on his chest and his left hand and his feet stiff.

Personal Information: The deceased, Francisco Hernández Solís, was carrying half a sack of corn, a machete, a sharpening file in his belt, a backpack, and wearing a white-striped shirt, white denim pants, black belt, and rubber boots; he had straight black hair, thick eyebrows, dark eyes, large nose, black mustache, round face with a dark complexion, large ears, and he was 1.6 meters tall.

THIS WRIT OF REMOVAL IS HEREBY CLOSED
ON
THE AFOREMENTIONED DATE.

Pedro Sántis Estrada
Honor and Justice Commission

So I left for the Moisés Gandhi community, where I was met by the Tzots Choj Good Governance Board. Soon as I got to Morelia, which is where the
caracol
is, I got together with the autonomous authorities of the Ernesto Che Guevara and Olga Isabel ZARCs (Zapatista Autonomous Rebel Communities).

They reported that on the day of the murder, they arrested two people who had quarreled with the deceased, and that the quarrels were about a parcel of land, a coffee plantation, and firewood. That the quarrels had started long before. That the two individuals arrested, the alleged perpetrators, were named Sebastián Pérez Moreno and Fausto Pérez Gómez. That those were the names the deceased had shouted when he wasn’t yet deceased. That they claimed it wasn’t them, that is, that the arrested alleged perpetrators claimed it wasn’t them that were the killers of the deceased. That they had gone to work in their coffee plantation on their own property. That they were carrying hunting weapons in case they ran across some animal. That they saw a woodpecker out in the bush. That they fired four shots at it and missed. That later they went home because of the heat. That it was there they found out about the deceased.

I asked them to take me to the place where everything happened. They took me, but it was already late so we just had some coffee and bread. They put me up in the community school. The next day, real early, we went to the place. I looked around where the deceased was killed—that is, I examined the terrain. Just bush on one side and pasture on the other. There were a few hills and tall trees close to the coffee plantations. I followed the steps of the deceased to the place where he finally died. I also checked out the whole way where the alleged perpetrators claim they walked.

Something wasn’t right and I couldn’t find what I was looking for, so I kept on looking without really knowing what I was looking for, but thinking that when I did find it, I’d know. We had some
pozol
when it was getting late. I asked the guys with me if on the day of the tragedy it rained. Yeah, they said, it rained a whole lot, the whole damn day, matter of fact, didn’t stop till night. I stood there thinking it over for a long time. Then I saw that I was not going to find what it was I was looking for—that is, that I was looking
not
to find what I was looking for. The other guys said my head wasn’t right just then, and I said they got that right.

So we headed back. I went to see the authorities and told them that I didn’t find what I went to find and that’s why the alleged perpetrators wasn’t alleged no more, cause they did it. The authorities also said my head wasn’t quite right. Bout that time I was figgering I should get myself a bunch of cards saying,
You got that right,
so I wouldn’t have to be saying it all the time. But since I didn’t have the cards saying
You got that right,
I told the authorities that they got that right, but that the thing was, I didn’t find the woodpecker. And so what? says the authorities. It probably went deceased like the deceased. So I told them that the woodpecker was a dummy who went out pecking when it was raining, in an
acahual
where there was no trees to peck at, and it just hung around when they fired four shots at it—or maybe there wasn’t no woodpecker. So how about there wasn’t no woodpecker? the authorities say. So how about that? I says. So without any real knowledge of the fact, but sposing there was no woodpecker, then what were they shooting at? So I says that’s what I says, but without that lawyer talk, and it’s real clear that they was telling a lie, I said again. So how about there’s someone else in this business? I says again. So they says they’re gonna check it out, and I says I’m going for a swim in the river because I picked up a bunch of burrs in the
acahual.
Goddamn burrs get into everything, I thought, but didn’t say it out loud. So I went to the co-op store for some cigarettes. What kind? the guy says. Gratos, I says. Ya want them with menthol? he says. Do I look like I want candy? I says. And later that night, they came to tell me that the authorities arrested another suspect by the name of Pascual Pérez Silvano, sixteen years of age, single, living with his family. That he came clean on the facts. That they were already taking the statement from the accused. And later they brought me the …

PRELIMINARY PUBLIC STATEMENT

Pascual Pérez Silvano states clearly that his actions were done together with the other perpetrators. At the crossroads he ran into Fausto and Sebastián, who were carrying .22 caliber weapons and a 16-gauge pump action, and he was invited to go hunting but didn’t accept because he had to pick up some corn.

“In the end
I
agreed to go with them and we took the road to Corostik, then the road to Mustaja, and down to Xaxajatik, and
I
was already tired and we hadn’t found anything.
I
told them
I
couldn’t go on walking and Sebastián told me I’m not a man if I can’t keep walking, so we kept walking until we got to a place where there were no roads, and I decided to stay there and he started telling me that if you say something ahead of time I’ll shoot you. I just stayed back about fifteen meters and they reached the road to the milpa, and I didn’t see where they went and started firing their weapons. I ran off cause I was afraid and I didn’t know what they were gonna do. There was a few shots
—
if they had told me I wouldn’t a gone with them. Then I ran off alone back down the same path we found, but I didn’t see Fausto and Sebastián. I had to search around awhile to find the path that goes to my milpa to pick the corn, but I was so scared I couldn’t fill my sack, and I came home as soon as I could, and I didn’t tell my family. After a while, when they began talking about how somebody got killed on the road and that it was Señor Francisco Hernández Solís, I got to thinking that it was them that did the shooting on the road, cause I didn’t know nothing about it, I didn’t even see what they shot at. So people started getting ready to go see him, and far as I know he didn’t do anything.”

Fausto and Sebastián couldn’t say nothing, they were just looking in their friend’s eye because of the statement Pascual Pérez Silvano had given. And finally they admitted that it was them that were responsible for the murder of Francisco Hernández Solís.

THERE BEING
NO
OTHER BUSINESS, THE PRESENT PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION REPORT IS CONCLUDED.

Pedro Sántis Estrada
Honor and Justice Commission

The next day they told me I was going back to La Realidad. They thanked me and gave me travel money, some toast, and
pozol
to eat along the way.

It was raining. The cigarettes got all wet. Right there in Cuxuljá I caught a ride to Altamirano and from there to Las Margaritas. I got to La Realidad real late, it was night already. At Max’s house they had tamales, coffee, and plantains. Max gave me some more cigarettes. And then it rained again. I holed up at a store called Don Durito. I couldn’t sleep much. I was full of burrs everywhere.

Elías and the Broken Calendar Club

Okay, now I can tell you how it was that Elías met the Broken Calendar Club.

One night there was a small riot in the hut where the campamentistas were staying. What happened was that Juin Hélène, the French woman, has trouble sleeping, and from her hammock she saw something moving in the thatch. She lit her lamp up and it turned out to be a snake. Of course she started screaming and of course we all woke up, and then there was generalized panic, but disguised as a cross between an ecological debate and group therapy. The first thing we discussed was if we should kill it or not. The snake, not Juin Hélène. Danna May made a naturalistic case against killing it, calling attention to the danger of altering biodiversity; Vittorio Francesco Augusto Luiggi argued to kill it for culinary reasons, extolling the gastronomical benefits of snake meat—and he had read in a communiqué from El Sup how roast snake tastes like fish. Juin Hélène was in favor of altering the biological balance by killing it, and I don’t much like fish, so the overwhelming majority of the jury came back with the verdict of a death sentence.

Course, the first problem was getting it down out of the thatch, and the second problem was killing it. Danna May said we should find a chair and that Vittorio Francesco Augusto Luiggi should climb up there and knock it down with a soup ladle. With a perfect Mexican accent, he answered by asking if she was out of her freakin mind.

So that was the state of things when Elías walked in, got quickly informed on the situation, went out, and came back with a long pole that he used to knock the snake on the floor, then whipped out his machete and sliced its head off.

“It was a nauyaca,” he explained, and he took both pieces and carried them off somewhere.

Awhile later he came back and asked if we were going to go out and when. We said that we were and that it would be on Sunday. Danna May had to withdraw money from the bank, Juin Hélène was returning to France, Vittorio Francesco Augusto Luiggi had to buy a few things, and I had to renew my tourist visa.

We all had to go into Mexico City. Elías asked if he could come with us. We said yeah, sure, of course, that we would be honored, and so on.

“That’s real nice of you.”

We asked where he was heading and what for.

“I’m going into Mexico City to buy some medicine, but don’t go publishing it,” he answered, fading into the shadows of the night.

After the nauyaca scare nobody could sleep, so we convened a special meeting of the Broken Calendar Club. Subject? Elías’s trip.

June Outlaw said that Elías was not going in for medicine at all; that he was going to buy tickets for the jazz festival in Mexico City and that El Sup was going disguised as a saxophone, and after that he was going to do some table-dancing at a “girls only” club to raise money for the cause. May Clandestine alleged that it was something else, that Elías was going to find the address of a hospital where they do gender-reassignment surgery because El Sup was a lesbian, which means he likes women, but the women don’t pay him any mind so he was going to become a woman so that they would.

Me, July Secret, I figured that Elías was going to find out when the Gay Pride Parade was being held so that El Sup could participate and come out of the jungle and the closet in one fell swoop. Forbidden August was just listening quietly, and when we had all finished arguing, he spoke. “You don’t know a damn thing,” he said disdainfully. “El Sup is as macho as Pedro Infante and Lando Buzzanca rolled into one, and he listens to music like the
son
and the
huapango.
Besides, if you read the papers you would know that Elías is going to see about that Wal-Mart thing in Teotihuacán.”

We just stared at him, not understanding a thing, until finally he sighed and stooped to explain: “Wal-Mart opened a store in Teotihuacan so they could steal the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon. They’re going to steal them stone by stone. For every stone they take away they’re gonna substitute a fake one, but made out of sheetrock. The genuine stones get packed in the used cardboard cartons. That’s why if you’re moving or doing something like storing books, records, clothing, or humanitarian aid, and you go ask them for some cartons, they always say they don’t have any. The first one they’re going to take is the Pyramid of the Moon, so that on March 21 the original Pyramid of the Sun will still be there and they’ll have a whole year to dismantle it without anyone finding out.”