Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord

  His first reaction was confusion and surprise because it was like being in the midst of a sudden whirlwind. His second reaction was that he could not breathe, and he started up upon his feet with his hands to his throat. He could see nothing in the rush of flame, and at first could feel nothing, partly because of his affliction, partly because of his incomprehension, and partly because the flame at first burned the superfluity of vapour rather than his flesh.

  But that was only at first. When the searing bit him like a thousand piranhas his consciousness transformed itself into a single unrelenting scream. Demented with agony and asphyxia he whirled and ran in his column of flame while, unheard and unseen, El Jerarca and his company of lackeys cheered and clapped, wiped their eyes in merriment, and made the kind of remarks that passed with them for wit.

  El Chiquitin was following Lazaro with the can, getting as near as he dared, and renewing the inferno before dashing backwards.

  Even if his eyes had not melted in their unlidded sockets, Lazaro would still not have been able to see anything through the miasmas of his incendiarisation. He ran without direction, twisting and flailing, whirling and falling. He was shrieking and ululating in his agonies until finally the flames closed his throat. When he had fallen to the ground, had ceased convulsing, and had in the reverie of his death become whole and handsome once more, blissful in Raimunda’s embrace, a hawkhead parrot circled the corral once, and flew east.

  When they had gathered around the charred and seeping corpse El Jerarca said, ‘Look boys, it was a woman. She had tits.’

  But El Chiquitin pointed and said, ‘And a polla. It was someone who was a man as well, boss.’

  El Guacamayo pondered the remains and flashed his gold-toothed smile. ‘Perfect cure, boss, not a trace of leprosy now.’

  But El Jerarca took the fact that it was an hermaphrodite to be a bad omen, and he said curtly, ‘It stinks. Take the meat away.’

  ‘Where to, boss?’

  ‘Vivo’s garden, where else?’

  ‘What was it he was shouting when he was dancing?’ inquired El Guacamayo, ‘I didn’t quite catch it.’

  El Chiquitin replied ‘It sounded something like “Raimunda”, but it couldn’t have been. A freak like that couldn’t have had a woman.’

  54 The Ring

  RAMON CAME INTO the house without knocking and went into Dionisio’s room. Dionisio was sitting in his rocking-chair in a dream, and as Ramon entered he turned his head and smiled. Ramon bent down and fondled the jaguars’ ears, and then straightened up.

  ‘Hola, Anaximenes,’ exclaimed the visitor, waving a bottle, ‘look, I have some Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon.’

  Dionisio stood up and embraced his friend, saying, ‘Ramon, you must stop spending money that you don’t have.’

  ‘It is worth it, my friend, just to see you smile for once, and in any case, I bought it with the money that I get from the mad women for the rent of the goatfield, so it is money I owe to you.’

  Dionisio went to fetch a corkscrew and came back with it. Ramon said, ‘I see that you have shaved for once. Does this mean that I no longer have to come round here and do it for you? Does this mean that I no longer have to tie you down and cut your hair? You know I was enjoying pretending to be your mother, but it was wearing thin.’

  ‘Tell me, cabron,’ said Dionisio, ‘how is it that you always have two days’ stubble? Don’t you have to shave in order to do that? And yet I never see you clean shaved.’

  ‘A mystery, Heraclitus,’ he replied, winking and tapping the side of his nose. Then he became serious and said, ‘Listen, I have very bad news. About Anica. I am not supposed to tell you this because only relatives should be informed, but I have received a police report from the capital, and I have seen Señor Moreno before coming here.’

  Dionisio went pale, and the glass in his hand shook a little. ‘I don’t want to talk about her any more, Ramon.’

  ‘Well, don’t talk then. Just listen. There is no way to be gentle about this, my friend, and I know that you have never stopped loving her, and so let us forget all the crap, OK?’ Ramon looked at the floor, and then glanced up. ‘The fact is that she is dead, and that it was plainly a coca killing. I am very sorry. I loved her as well in my own way, as everyone did. She was the best woman in this town.’

  Dionisio could only repeat, ‘A coca killing? How is that?’

  ‘I am telling you no details, friend, because they would make you sick. But the body was in a bad state and it took a long time to fit it to a description of a missing person. Apparently Anica was registered missing by the warden of her residence, but nothing was done until this body turned up.’

  Ramon and Dionisio looked at one another in silence, and then Dionisio gazed blankly out of the window. ‘I got into the habit of thinking that she was dead,’ he said.

  ‘Do you remember her green earring in the shape of a triangle?’ asked Ramon, and Dionisio nodded. ‘Well, they found it inside her body, and that was about all that was identifiable. I am very sorry.’

  Dionisio passed his hand over his eyes, and then said, ‘Why?’

  Ramon sighed. ‘I saw Señor Moreno just now, and he was so upset that he told me things that were unwise to tell me. You know, Dio’, he was supplying all the weapons to El Jerarca, and the most surprising thing is that it all seems to have been legal. Anyway, so Señor Moreno knew that they were wanting to assassinate you, and he was scared that she would get caught in the crossfire, so he did a deal, which was that El Jerarca would scare Anica away from you by pretending that if she didn’t leave you, her father and all the family would be killed. And in return, Señor Moreno would give him a discount on a shipment. And so they threatened Anica and she left you to save her family. You know, Dio’, she still loved you and everything she told you was bullshit, but she only did it because she had to. Something else, Dio’, she got herself pregnant on purpose so that she could have your child, and she refused when her father told her to get rid of it. Do you want me to carry on?’

  Dionisio nodded, saying, ‘I shall feel all this later, when I have thought about it, but carry on.’

  ‘This is the hard bit, Dio’. It appears that she saw you one more time after her time was up, and El Jerarca didn’t like it. Obviously he wasn’t going to kill off his arms supplier, and so he let his men take Anica, and I am afraid that the child inside her died at the same time. You were going to have a little daughter, Dio’, just as you wanted.’

  ‘And so it was me that killed her. In fact it was because of me.’

  Ramon shook his head. ‘The big irony, Dio’, is that if she had stayed with you she would have been completely safe because El Jerarca is terrified of you. You know, he thinks you are a brujo. If anyone killed her, it was her own father, and he thought that he was protecting her, so it was all done out of love. I think you should understand that. But I also think that El Jerarca knew that the only way he could destroy you was by destroying what mattered to you the most.’

  ‘He was right, Ramon, that is what he did.’ Dionisio drank some wine, and then after a long time he said, ‘But I will tell you one thing, and that is that you have given me back all the faith that I had in her, and you have turned all the hate back into the love that it was before. Thank you for telling me, Ramon, because it was hard to live with all that hate.’

  Ramon smiled and said, ‘Well, that at least is something,’ and Dionisio said, ‘Anica went to a wise woman once, the one that lives near Madame Rosa’s. I told her it was all rubbish, but you know that woman told her that the last year of her life would be the happiest.’

  ‘I think it was,’ replied the policeman, ‘and it was because of you.’ Then he stood up saying, ‘I nearly forgot, I have something else.’

  He undid the flap of his holster and pulled out his automatic. He held it barrel downwards and shook it. Out came a long slim cigar, and he handed it to Dionisio saying, ‘It’s for you, I find they get less damaged if I carry them like this. Listen, you h
ad better enjoy it, because it is a real Havana, OK?’

  Dionisio’s eyes were watering, and his lip was quivering, but he managed to say, ‘You know that proverb that this country is a beggar sitting on a pile of gold?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If everyone in this country was as good as you, Ramon, it would be a paradise.’

  Ramon smiled self-deprecatingly. ‘You’re not so bad yourself, Parmenides,’ he said. ‘You know, I keep thinking about these cats. I don’t think they are real jaguars. They look to me like very overgrown black domestic cats, you know, the stocky short-haired ones.’

  Dionisio looked at them and thought about it. ‘But Ramon, that is what black jaguars look like anyway.’

  It was many weeks later, and Dionisio was driving up into the sierra because he wanted to take the cats for a long walk along the andenes that the Indians had once built for agriculture. He had accelerated through under the bridge where all the addicts congregate, and was rounding a bend when he saw that a jeep had broken down, and two men were looking under the bonnet.

  El Chiquitin and El Guacamayo had been returning to base when their fanbelt had broken, and they were in the process of trying to change it when Dionisio stopped his car, got out with his two cats, and offered to help. The two assassins straightened up when he addressed them, and terror instantly struck them to the heart.

  Dionisio noticed immediately that El Chiquitin was wearing Anica’s mother’s engagement ring on his little finger.

  Police Statement

  Ipasueño Police: statement of Officer, Ramon Dario.

  Copy to the Alcaldia.

  Today the bodies of Eduardo Carriego (a.k.a. ‘El Guacamayo’) aged 27, and Evaristo Mallea aged 34, (a.k.a. ‘El Chiquitin’) were discovered on the road to Santa Maria Virgen. The full statements of those who found the bodies are appended. We await the coroner’s report, but preliminary investigations suggest that the wounds on the bodies were caused by wild beasts. The throats were torn out and there were tracks of claws in fours, like those of a cat.

  Nonetheless, the case is not in this way completely explained. Attacks by wild jaguars upon humans are almost unknown, there are no known wild jaguars in this area, and the dimensions of the wounds suggest animals larger than jaguars. It is impossible that the wounds could have been caused by any smaller animal, such as a puma.

  These two men were widely known to be assassins in the employ of Pablo Ecobandodo, and it is suggested that this is a ‘coca killing’ simulated to appear as the attack of wild beasts. This is further suggested by the curious fact that the tongues of the two victims appear to have been pulled through the apertures in their necks.

  Signed: Ramon Dario, Ipasueño Police.

  Ramon put a copy of this report under Dionisio’s door, and scrawled across the bottom, ‘Congratulations. You will notice that I say nothing about tame jaguars.’

  55 Ramon

  DIONISIO AROSE FROM his bed, went to the window to see what kind of day it was, and went to the telephone to ring the police.

  He got no wrong numbers for a change, and a voice on the other end of the line said, ‘Police.’

  ‘Agustin, is that you? This is Dionisio from the Calle de la Constitucion. Listen, the bastards have got Ramon. Yes, I am sure that it is Ramon. Yes, it is a Colombian cravate. Okay, Agustin, me too. I will keep away the vultures. No, I will not shoot them. Okay.’

  Dionisio put on only a shirt with a tail so long that it came down to his knees, and ran downstairs hoping that it was not Ramon. He emerged from the door and the first thing that he noticed was that the pajaro that had always sung at dawn was not singing. He approached the body of his dearest friend who had broken open so many bottles in the spirit of consolation and reassurance, and felt that once again he had been disembowelled.

  Ramon was wearing no shoes, and his feet had been burned. Blood still seeped from the roasted flesh spotted with charcoal, and he saw from the dirt amongst the blistered pulp that Ramon had been made to walk before he had had his throat cut and his tongue pulled through. He had been killed with such contempt that his automatic had been replaced in his holster to signify a policeman’s lack of power. Dionisio took the automatic and left it inside the door.

  He bent down and brushed away some of the ants that were crawling over Ramon’s face and going in and out of his mouth. He looked at his watch and wondered how long it would be before Agustin arrived. He bent forward and kissed Ramon on the cheek as comrades do. He ran his finger over the lips that had spoken so many kindly words of comfort and so many learned jests. ‘Old friend,’ he said.

  He saw a piece of paper folded in Ramon’s shirt pocket, and took it out and unfolded it. ‘A birthday present,’ it read. Dionisio reflected for a moment before remembering that today it was the birthday of El Jerarca who was holding in the Barrio Jerarca a seven-day carnival complete with the blessings of the tame priests, three brass bands, and a Morenado dance group from the region of the mines.

  ‘So he closed your path, too, old friend.’ He realised that he had not written a coca letter for months, and wondered at the cacique’s malice that he should after all this time still be finding ways of spiting the one man who in all his fruitless life had made him see himself as he truly was.

  When Agustin arrived, looking older and filling out his uniform with more virility than when he had first come here to take away a cravate, Dionisio saw that despite his professional pulling on of the yellow kitchen gloves, his eyes were already full of tears.

  The young policeman looked down upon the body of the one man who at all times had guaranteed the morale of the station and filled it with the wit of his ironic cynicism. He gestured at the broken corpse with its atrocious signs of torture, and with his lips struggling for the words he said to Dionisio, as if explaining something, ‘He taught me everything.’

  Dionisio stroked Ramon’s hair into place, and stood up. He and Agustin looked down again in silence, and then Dionisio said ‘Are you the duty officer this week?’ Agustin wiped his eyes with his sleeve and nodded. ‘Then you must do me a favour.’

  Agustin nodded again because his throat was too swollen with the unshed tears for him to be able to speak.

  ‘Make sure that there are no policemen at the carnival, and if anyone comes to give any eye-witness accounts, take their statements and then use them to light cigarettes. If you have to make any investigations, ensure that you only interview people who saw nothing.’

  Agustin nodded for the last time and pointed at Ramon’s body. ‘The bastards tortured him. He knew all the details of what they were doing.’ He paused ‘And he was a friend of yours.’

  ‘This is another death of mine,’ Dionisio said. He saw that Agustin could hold his tears no longer, and put one hand on his shoulder. As he began to shake with sobs, Dionisio put his arm about his neck and hugged him like a child. They stood together wrapped in each other’s embrace, and Dionisio discovered that he still had no tears. He could not cry for his friend. ‘Soon,’ he said, rocking the young colleague of Ramon who was still weeping, ‘I will do something that Ramon would have given his life to see. I have sworn it, and it is as good as already done.’

  After Agustin and Dionisio had tenderly lifted the body into the back of the van that had collected so many corpses in differing states of decomposition that it reeked permanently of vultures and detergent, Dionisio watched it drive away and then went back inside, picking up Ramon’s automatic on the way. He sat down and fell into a state of perfect stillness, and then he got up and went to his pile of paper ruled with staves. It was then that he composed in the space of one hour and without revisions his Requiem Angelico. He originally scored the Angelic Requiem for keyboard, quenas, and mandolas, and even in that form its effect upon the mourners at the funeral of Ramon Dario was unprecedented. Even the guard of honour of policemen outside the church in full-dress uniform felt tears spring to their eyes, not because the piece was sad, but because of its saudade preceding its trium
phant serenity. All who have heard it since have pointed out that the place where one feels the breeze of the wings of angels in one’s face and the numinous chill of the praeternatural running up and down the spine and making the hairs of the body shiver at the roots, is the very place where the nostalgic and loving melody of the first half suddenly rises up into the hymn of glory of the second half that in truth does sound like the choirs of heaven greeting the dawn of a new creation. The piece became known across the whole of Hispano-America, and was eventually brought to Europe by an anthropological musicologist who innocently assumed that it was traditional, and who himself later settled in Cochadebajo de los Gatos.

  Having composed this love-song to true friendship, Dionisio took Ramon’s automatic and felt how heavy it was in the hand. He summoned the cats and set off with them down the hill to the camp of Las Locas.

  On the way a harassed man in spectacles with a notebook and pockets full of pens that did not work spotted him from afar with his unmistakable jaguars, and tagged after him for a week plaguing him with questions that he did not even hear because his mind was filled with only one purpose.

  This gentleman was Narciso Almeida, a famously intrepid reporter of La Prensa, who for four years at the risk of his own life had been covering the country’s internal cocaine war and recounting its horrors to the intelligent and the powerful of the nation. He had been sent on the fairly routine assignment of finding out why it was that one of the most celebrated campaigners against the coca caudillos had for so long lapsed into silence, but he became instead the man who, more than any other, became responsible, because of a single sensational article, for disseminating the fantastical myth of Dionisio Vivo.

  Part Three

  56 Extraordinary Events In Ipasueño