He crouched down, felt around, and finally located his boot. It was full of dirt. He cleaned it the best he could and put it on. He decided to go down now and not wait for daylight. With this moon, if he took his time, he’d get there. He was serene and happy. As if he had passed a test, he thought, as if these damn mountains, this damn sierra, had finally accepted him. Before starting out, he pressed his mouth against the rock that had sheltered him, and whispered, like a serrucho: “Thank you for saving my life, mamay, apu, pachamama, or whoever the fuck you are.”
“Tell us the story about you and the pishtaco, Doña Adriana,” that’s what they say as soon as they have their first drink, because there’s nothing they like as much as the death of a throat-slitter. “The one you helped to kill, was he the same one who dried out your cousin Sebastián?” No, it was another one. It happened much earlier. I still had all my teeth then, and no wrinkles. I know there are a lot of versions, I’ve heard them all, and since it happened so long ago I’ve forgotten a few details. I was young then and hadn’t left my village yet. I must be very old now.
Quenka is far away, on the other side of the Mantaro, near Parcasbamba. When the river swelled with the rains and swallowed up the land, the village turned into an island, hugging the top of the hill, the flooded fields all around it. A pretty village, Quenka, prosperous, and the crops grew on the plain and along the slopes. Everything grew there: potatoes, beans, barley, corn, chilis. Pepper trees, eucalyptus, and willows protected us from whirlwinds. Even the poorest campesinos had a few hens, a pig, some sheep, a flock of llamas that they grazed in the uplands. I had a quiet, easy life. I was the most popular of my sisters, and my father, who was the most important man in Quenka, rented out three of his fields and worked two of them, and he owned the general store that sold liquor, medicines, tools, and the mill where everybody came to grind their grain. Lots of times my father was in charge of the fiestas, and then he went all out and brought in a priest and hired bands of musicians and dancers from Huancayo. Until the pishtaco came.
How did we know he had come? Because of the change in the peddler Salcedo. For years he had brought remedies, clothes, and tools for my father’s store. He was from the coast. He drove around in a noisy truck that was covered with dents; the motor and the clanking let us know he was coming long before any of us in Quenka could see him. Everybody knew him, but this time we hardly recognized him. He had grown taller and huskier, until he was like a giant. Now he had a beard the color of a cockroach and bloodshot, bulging eyes. People gathered round to greet him and he looked at us like he wanted to devour us with those eyes. Men and women both. And me, too. A look I’ll never forget, it made everybody suspicious.
He was dressed in black, with knee-high boots and a poncho so big that when it fluttered in the wind it looked like Salcedo was going to fly. He unloaded the truck, and went to sleep, like he did all the other times, in the back room of our store. He wasn’t a talker anymore, telling us news from outside and being friendly with people. He was quiet, inside himself, and hardly said a word. He looked at us with those sharp eyes that made the men uneasy and scared the girls.
He left one morning at dawn after spending two or three days in Quenka and getting my father’s order. The next day, one of the boys who tended flocks in the uplands came down to the village to tell us that the truck had gone off the highway, that it went over the side on a curve on the road to Parcasbamba. You could see it from the edge of the cliff, smashed to pieces at the bottom of the ravine.
With my father leading them, a group of neighbors made their way down there. They spread out in a circle and found the four tires, the springs, the dented metal sides, the chassis, parts of the motor. But not a sign of Salcedo’s corpse. They searched the canyon wall, thinking he had fallen out when the truck went over the side. Not a trace. And no blood on the wreckage or on the rocks nearby. Could he have jumped clear when he realized he was going off the road? “That must be it,” they said. “He jumped out and another truck picked him up and he’s probably in Parcasbamba or in Huancayo now, getting over his scare.”
But the truth was that he’d stayed in Quenka, he’d gone to live in some old caves on the same mountain where his truck went over the side, those caves that are like a wasps’ nest and have paintings by the ancient ones on the walls. That was when he began to do his pishtaco evil. He would lurk at night on the roads, on a bridge, behind a tree, appear to a lone shepherd, or travelers, or mule drivers, or migrants, or people taking their crops to market or coming back from a fair. He would come out of nowhere, with no warning, in the dark, eyes flashing. His enormous body was wrapped in the flying poncho, and it paralyzed them with terror. Then it was no problem for him to take them back to his cave with its dark, freezing tunnels, where he kept his surgical instruments. He slit them from ass to mouth and hung them up and roasted them alive over pans that collected their fat. He skinned them and made masks out of their faces and cut them into little pieces and crushed their bones to make his hypnotic powder. Several people disappeared.
Then, one day, he showed himself to Don Santiago Calancha, a cattle seller who was coming back to Quenka from a wedding in Parcasbamba. Instead of taking him to his cave, he talked to him. If Calancha wanted to save his own life and the rest of his family, he had to give him one of his daughters to be his cook. And Salcedo told him exactly the entrance to the cave where he should leave the girl.
It goes without saying that Calancha swore he would obey but didn’t follow the pishtaco’s instructions. He barricaded himself inside his shack with his machete and a pile of stones, ready to face Salcedo if he came to steal his daughter. Nothing happened the first day, or the second, or for the first two weeks. But during the third week, in the middle of a rainstorm, lightning struck Calancha’s roof and the house caught fire. He and his wife and his three daughters were all burned to a crisp. I saw their skeletons. Yes, Dionisio’s mother died exactly the same way. I didn’t see that, maybe it’s just talk. The people of Quenka went out to watch the fire, and drenched and sad, they heard laughter along with the whistling of the wind and the boom of thunder. It came from the caves where Salcedo lived.
And so the next time the pishtaco asked for a girl to be his cook, the Quenkans held a meeting and decided to do what he asked. The first one who went to work for him in his cave was my oldest sister. My family, and many other families, walked with her to the entrance the pishtaco had said she should come to. They sang to her and prayed for her and a lot of people were crying when they said goodbye.
He didn’t dry her like he did my cousin Sebastián, though my father used to say maybe it would’ve been better if he had cut out her fat. He kept her alive but turned her into a pishtaco’s slut. First he abused her, throwing her down on the damp ground in the cave and drilling her with his tool. My sister’s howling on her wedding night could be heard in every house in Quenka. Then she lost her will and only lived to serve her lord and master. She loved to cook the potato mush he liked, and she dried and salted the strips of flesh from his victims for the dishes of charqui they ate with corn, and helped him hang his victims from hooks that Salcedo had fastened into the stone so the fat would drip into copper pans.
My sister was the first of several girls who went into the cave to cook for him and be his helpers. From that time on, Quenka submitted to his authority. We brought him offerings of food and left them at the entrance to the cave, and sometimes we left a girl he had asked for. We resigned ourselves to having neighbors disappear every once in a while when the pishtaco Salcedo carried them off to renew his supply of fat.
And then did a brave prince come? No prince, but a dark-skinned horse trainer. Anybody who knows the story can cover his ears or leave. Does it seem like you’re living through it yourselves? Does it give you courage? Does it make you see that for great evils there are always great remedies?
Big-nosed Timoteo heard what was happening in Quenka and made a special trip from Ayacucho to go into the caves and face th
e pishtaco. Timoteo Fajardo, that was his name. I knew him. He was my first husband, though we never did get married. “Can an ordinary mortal face a creature of the devil?” people would ask him. My father also tried to talk him out of it, when Timoteo respectfully told him about his plan to go into the pishtaco’s cave and tear off his head and free us from his tyranny. But Timoteo stood firm. I’ve never known anybody so fearless. He was a good-looking man, even though he had such a big nose. He could make his nostrils flare like two mouths. That was his good fortune. “I can do it,” he said, full of confidence. “I know the recipe for sneaking up on him: a clove of garlic, a pinch of salt, a crust of dry bread, a little ball of burro shit. And, just before I go into the cave, a virgin peeing over my heart.”
I was the right one. I was young, intact, and when I listened to him, he seemed so brave, so sure of himself, that without asking my father’s permission I offered to help him. But there was one problem. How would he find his way out of the tunnels after he killed Salcedo? The caves were so big, so complicated, that nobody had ever explored all of them. They turned, went up, went down, wound around, spreading out and twisting together like the roots of a eucalyptus tree. And, besides the bats, some had poison gases that no human could breathe and survive.
How would Timoteo Fajardo get out after he killed the pishtaco? His huge nose gave me the idea. I fixed a thick stew, nice and spicy, with that green chili that loosens the most stubborn bowels. He ate the whole pot and held everything in until his belly almost burst. And then he went into the cave. It was late afternoon and the sun was still shining, but after he took a few steps, Timoteo found himself in darkness. Every so often he would stop, pull down his trousers, squat, and leave a pile. At first he walked just trusting to luck, covering his eyes with his arm because the bats swooped down from the roof and beat at his face with their heavy wings. He felt the threads of spiderwebs on his skin. And for a long time he kept walking, stopping to empty his belly, then walking some more. Until he saw a light, and he followed that until he came to the pishtaco’s home.
The giant was sleeping, lying on the ground with the three girls who cooked for him. In the light of some lamps that burned human fat, and almost fainting from the stink, he saw human remains hanging from bloody hooks, the fat dripping into bubbling pots. He didn’t waste any time, but lifted his machete and with one blow cut off the head of the throat-slitter and shook his whores awake. When they opened their eyes and saw their master with his head cut off, they went wild and started screaming. Timoteo calmed them down and brought them to their senses: he had rescued them from slavery and now they could live a normal life again. Then the four of them started back, guided by the stinking trail he had left on the way in; his hunting dog’s nose could follow it without any hesitation.
That’s the story of the giant Salcedo. A tale of blood, corpses, and shit, like every story about the pishtacos.
“Go on, enjoy yourself, tell me about your trials and tribulations, Tomasito,” Lituma urged. “You’re lucky; lately I have trouble sleeping because of those damn disappearances.”
“Those two weeks in Lima were my honeymoon,” said his adjutant. “And nothing but one scare after another; every calamity you can think of happened to us. We even thought they were trying to kill us. But the fear added a little spice to our love, and we did it every night, two, even three times in a row. It was wonderful, fantastic, Corporal.”
“Mercedes finally started to love you?”
“At night, I was sure of it. My beautiful Piuran was pure honey in bed. But in the light of day her mood changed. She was always reminding me that I had fucked up her life, that she would never be my wife.”
Two days after they rented the room at Aunt Alicia’s in Barrios Altos, Mercedes decided to withdraw her savings from the Banco Popular branch on Plaza de la Victoria where she had her account. She went in alone. Carreño waited for her on the corner and had his shoes shined. She took a long time. When she finally appeared in the doorway of the bank, a short man whose scarred face revealed his black and Indian ancestry dropped the paper he was reading as he leaned against a lamppost, took a few calm steps, and suddenly rushed her. They struggled, and he tried to grab the handbag that Mercedes held on to with both hands as she kicked at him and screamed. Some passersby stopped and watched but did not dare intervene. When Carreño raced over to them, revolver in hand, the thief let her go and ran off as if the devil were after him. They hurried down Manco Capac Avenue and hailed a taxi. Mercedes was more angry than frightened; although the man did not get her money, he had torn her voter’s identification.
“And why do you think the guy wasn’t just an ordinary thief? Isn’t Lima full of muggers?”
“Because of what happened afterward,” said the boy. “This was our first piece of bad luck. There were two more, and they were even worse. I began to see Hog’s hand rising from the grave to take his revenge. ‘Don’t you feel that the danger is bringing us even closer, sweetheart?’ I would say to her.”
“How can you talk about love at a time like this, you little fool.” Mercedes was furious. “Can’t you see I’ve lost the only ID I have? Talk to your godfather once and for all and get him to help us.”
But Carreño’s efforts to get in touch with him were useless. He was not permitted to call him at the office, and his home phone was always busy. The operator said it was not out of order, so perhaps it was off the hook intentionally. Iscariote’s wife told him that Fats was not back from the jungle yet. And Carreño’s mother, whom he asked to go to his room in Rfmac, gave him more bad news.
“The door was kicked in, everything was pulled out and thrown around, my bed was burned and had a pile of shit on it; what a scare for my old lady. Like they were planning to set fire to my room and for some reason didn’t and decided to shit on my bed instead,” said Tomás. “Could that be another coincidence, Corporal?”
“The pile of shit proves they were thieves,” replied Lituma. “A lot of them think that if they want to stay out of the slammer, after they clean out a house they have to take a shit in it. Didn’t you know that?”
“When I told her about my room, Mercedes began to cry.” Tomasito sighed. “I could feel her trembling in my arms, and I was more in love with her than ever, Corporal. Don’t worry, sweetheart, please don’t cry.”
“They’re after us, they’re looking for us,” Mercedes wailed, the tears running down her cheeks. “It can’t be a coincidence, first the bank and now your room. It’s Hog’s men, they’re looking for us, they’re going to kill us.”
But the vandals and arsonists had not discovered the hiding place, under some bricks behind the toilet, where Carreño kept his dollars.
“Dollars?” Lituma said in surprise. “You had money saved?”
“Believe it or not, almost four thousand dollars. Not from my Civil Guard salary, of course. From the little jobs my godfather gave me to do. Bodyguard for a couple of days, taking a package somewhere, watching a house, simple stuff like that. Every sol I made I changed into dollars over on Ocoña Boulevard and put in my hiding place. Thinking about my future. Now Mercedes was my future.”
“Damn, that godfather of yours is like God, Tomasito. If we ever get out of Naccos alive, introduce me to him, please. I’d like to see a big shot’s face before I die. I’ve only seen them in movies or in the papers.”
“Quit dreaming, this won’t get us to the States,” said Mercedes, making calculations.
“I’ll get all the money we need, honey. Believe me. I’ll get you out of this safe and sound and take you to Miami, you’ll see. And when we’re there, looking at the skyscrapers and the blue beaches and the latest cars, will you say: ‘Carreñito, I love you with all my heart’?”
“This is no time for jokes. Don’t be such an idiot! Can’t you see they’re looking for us, that they want revenge?”
“At least I made you laugh.” And the boy laughed, too. “I like it when you laugh, you have dimples that make my heart beat fast
er. As soon as my old lady brings us the money, we’ll buy you a dress, okay?”
“You can’t fuck for the first time at the age of twenty-three, Tomasito, it’s too late,” Lituma philosophized. “Excuse me for saying so. Having a woman is what scrambled your brains and made you softheaded.”
“You never met her, you never held my Mercedes naked in your arms.” Carreño sighed. “I just waited for night to come to be in paradise with my sweetheart.”
“When you say things like that, I have an idea you don’t really feel them, that you’re kidding around or making a joke,” said Mercedes. “Do you really feel that way?”
“What do I have to do to make you believe me?”
“I don’t know, Carreñito. I don’t know what to make of it, telling me those things all the time. When you’re excited and become so affectionate, that’s one thing. But you go on and on, all day.”
“Boy, you sure were crazy about her,” remarked Lituma.
Carreño and his mother arranged to meet at nightfall on the Alameda de los Descalzos. Tomás took Mercedes with him. He had the taxi drop them off across from the Plaza de Acho, and they walked toward the Alameda. They circled the block several times before approaching the church where she was waiting for them. She was small and bent and wore the habit of Our Lord of Miracles. She embraced and kissed her son for a long while in silence, and when he introduced Mercedes, she extended a small, cold hand. They went to a broken bench on the avenue to talk, and sat in near-darkness, since the closest streetlight was shattered. From among her skirts the woman removed a packet wrapped in newspaper containing the dollars he had saved, and handed it to Carreño. She did not ask Mercedes any questions or look at her even once. The boy took out a handful of bills and put them in his mother’s pocket, not saying anything. Her face showed neither fear nor surprise.
“Did you hear anything from my godfather?” Tomás asked her.