Colombiano

  Caraquemada handed the cédula to Ratón and nodded. The Motorola radio was on high volume as Ratón called through my father’s details to their superior – yes, the prisoner’s identity was confirmed, but the prisoner was refusing to co-operate. After a delay, a woman’s voice responded: ‘By order of Comandante Santiago of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia … ¡Ajustícialo!’

  I stood frozen with shock, believing I’d heard incorrectly.

  Picking at his fingernails using my father’s cédula, Ratón repeated the order as though he were relaying a weather forecast. ‘Execute him.’

  ‘The prisoner will kneel,’ ordered Caraquemada.

  ‘No! Stop!’ I yelled. ‘It’s me you want.’

  ‘Shut your fucking trap, Pedro!’ snapped Papá. ‘I said take your mother inside.’

  Papá had never spoken to me like that. His white knuckles wrapped around his pocket Bible and his mouth would barely open. ‘Please. Not in front of my family.’

  Caraquemada nodded to the blond bodyguard. ‘Take them inside.’

  Two female guerrilleras bundled Mamá into the house. Sobbing, she offered no resistance. But when the blond boy motioned for me to follow, I backed away. He lunged for me, but I ducked out of his grasp.

  ‘Come here, you little bastardo!’ he hissed.

  ‘The prisoner will kneel,’ Caraquemada repeated, trying to shove my father down by the shoulder.

  Papá raised his chin. ‘I’ll remain standing.’

  Seeing Caraquemada draw his pistol, I dived forward desperately, aiming to grab it. But the blond boy crash-tackled me. Overpowered, I was pinned flat on my stomach with his knee grinding my cheek into the ground. I thrashed beneath him, scratching at his arms to make him get off. But he was too strong. And with my head immobilised, I was forced to watch every excruciating moment.

  Still clutching his pocket Bible, Papá began reciting the Lord’s Prayer.

  ‘Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name …’

  The first time Caraquemada circled Papá, he paused to swat a fly. Then he continued with the stiff, legalistic language communists used to demonstrate they were fair.

  ‘Mario Gutiérrez, you are hereby accused of the offence of material collaboration with the army of the Oligarchy, the natural enemy of the people. You have confessed your crime against the people’s revolution, and therefore, by the power vested in me by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, you are hereby sentenced to the maximum penalty.’

  ‘Please, no!’ I begged. ‘He’s done nothing wrong!’

  On the second circle around, Caraquemada’s good eye narrowed as he chose a spot at the base of Papá’s skull. Papá ceased his prayers, looked at me and yelled, ‘Close your eyes, Pedro!’

  But I couldn’t tear my gaze away. Unable to move, I begged God to intervene and save Papá.

  On the third time around, Caraquemada raised the pistol and touched his finger to the trigger.

  Papá cried out, ‘Look after your mother.’

  ‘No. No. No!’ I screamed, bucking desperately from the ground. But Caraquemada fired. I heard the hollow pop of the pistol and watched my father’s head jerk suddenly. Then he teetered on his feet for an impossibly long time before tilting forward slowly like a tree dealt its final axe-blow.

  ‘Let’s move out!’ ordered Caraquemada, turning away.

  How strange, I thought, that Papá did not try to break his fall. His knees buckled and I heard Mamá wailing as she dashed from the house, and then a terrible crack as Papá’s skull struck the hard, dry earth.

  9

  ‘WAIT!’ CALLED THE blond boy. ‘What do I do with this one?’

  I was still writhing beneath him, struggling with all my might to free myself so I could reach Papá. Tears blurred my vision.

  After what seemed an eternity, Zorrillo returned. ‘Feisty little bastard, aren’t you?’ he said, stroking his rifle along my cheek. ‘How old are you?’

  I barely heard him. Papá’s blood was seeping slowly into the dirt. I had to get to him.

  ‘How old?’ he repeated, digging his rifle tip hard into my cheek, grinding it against my teeth until I tasted blood.

  Unable to contain my rage, I spat blood onto his pants. ‘Fifteen.’

  Zorrillo’s eyes turned murderous. However, to kill me he required authorisation from the Secretariado. Snatching Ratón’s radio handset, he spoke into the microphone.

  ‘The son’s here too … Pedro Juan Gutiérrez González … Fifteen years old … No, comandante … No concrete proof.’

  The faint order came from Santiago’s radio operator. ‘Let the boy live!’

  Crouching, Zorrillo asked with counterfeit concern, ‘And what will you do now that your Papá is gone? Fifteen’s too young to join the imperialist army.’

  ‘You heard my father. Take his place on the farm and look after my mother, you hijo de puta.’

  Somewhere behind me, Mamá gasped.

  Infuriated, Zorrillo raised his rifle butt as though to smash my face, but then appeared to change his mind. Standing, he crossed to the edge of our yard and dragged his heel through the dirt, carving a line across the entrance to our gate.

  ‘The traitor Gutiérrez’s property is hereby declared off limits,’ he proclaimed smugly.

  We were banned from our farm. Just like that! Hearing the prohibition, I should have stopped there. But I simply heard Papá called traitor and it sent me wild.

  ‘Traitor? You can’t betray something you don’t believe in. Papá thinks you’re fucking scum, hijo de puta.’

  Mamá cried out, ‘Pedro! No!’

  ‘Furthermore,’ declared Zorrillo, ‘the traitor Gutiérrez’s body is to be left untouched where it lies, as an example to all other sapos.’

  ‘No!’ Mamá screamed. ‘No. You can’t!’

  Zorrillo looked from Mamá to me. ‘We know your names. We know where you …’ he paused to smirk, ‘used to live. We have people everywhere watching. There’s nowhere in this country we won’t find you. The penalty for defiance is death.’ He fired his rifle into the air. ‘¡Viva la revolución!’

  The blond boy lifted his knee and I scrambled to Papá.

  At first, I couldn’t find the bullet hole in the tangle of hair and blood. And when I finally did find it, it seemed impossible that a wound that small could have done any major damage. Cradling his head, I turned Papá over. His eyes were open but they had no life.

  ‘Mamá, phone an ambulance!’

  Mamá dropped to her knees beside Papá. Tears were streaming down her face. She cupped her hand tenderly against Papá’s cheek. ‘Oh, Mario,’ she sobbed, her voice catching. ‘No! Oh, God, no.’

  ‘Go and phone an ambulance,’ I pleaded. ‘Quickly!’

  Mamá squeezed my hand. ‘It’s too late, Pedro. He’s gone.’

  ‘Call one, please,’ I kept begging. ‘Mamá, please.’

  ‘It’s okay, Pedro. Everything is going to be okay,’ she whispered, even though it wasn’t. She threw one arm over my shoulder and the other across Papá’s chest. Pressing her cheek against his nose, she pulled us into a family huddle.

  I must have been in shock. I could not shake the feeling of bright white disbelief. This hadn’t happened and wasn’t happening.

  My heart pounded against Papá’s rib cage. Warm blood from the back of his head leaked onto my hand. And although my ears rang from the gunshot, I could hear Mamá’s breathing and my own, but not Papá’s.

  Gradually, Mamá’s breathing thickened into loud sobs. She began rocking, moving me with her. I don’t know how long I stayed like that, rocking with Mamá on our grief-struck seesaw. Moments passed in slow motion, as though happening underwater.

  Finally, I resurfaced and stood. I had blood all over my white school shirt and, as I strode towards the house, wiped more of it from my hand.

  ‘Where are you going?’ demanded Mamá, looking up.

  ‘To phone the police and an ambulance.’

&nbsp
; ‘But you can’t go inside!’ She eyed the paddock the Guerrilla had crossed and the mountain trail they’d taken. She was frightened. They might still be watching.

  ‘Mamá, we need to get help!’ I looked around. The Mazda was up on blocks at the mechanic’s, but my pushbike was against the fence. ‘I’ll go to Old Man Domino’s.’

  ‘You can’t leave me here! Let’s walk down together.’

  ‘Someone has to stay with Papá. I’ll be five minutes, I swear.’

  ‘Pedro!’

  I couldn’t waste any more time. Pedalling like a crazed Olympian, I yelled over my shoulder, ‘I promise you they’re gone, Mamá.’

  But what I meant was: They’re getting away. And I promise you they won’t.

  10

  I SKIDDED MY bike to a halt and hurled it down in the front yard of Old Man Domino, our half-crazy eighty-year-old neighbour. Normally, he spent weekdays in the plaza drinking aguardiente, playing checkers and feeding the pigeons. But today he was home early, drunk in his rocking chair.

  ‘What’s happened?’ he demanded, eyeing the blood on my shirt as I stumbled up the steps to his porch. He set aside his solo checkers game.

  ‘I need the police,’ I gasped.

  His wife, Gloria, appeared at the door, a wet plate and dishcloth in her hands. ‘Pedro! Are you hurt?’

  ‘Please,’ I begged urgently, ‘I need to use your phone.’

  ‘It’s on the wall in the kitchen.’ She stepped aside quickly so I could enter. ‘First door on your right.’

  The house was immaculately tidy and smelled of lavender. I yanked the phone off the receiver and punched in 123 – the emergency number. I asked for the Llorona police station. From there, the police could get to our finca in less than five minutes.

  ‘I want to report a murder,’ I said when I was finally patched through.

  ‘How many people killed?’ asked a squeaky voice.

  ‘One.’ I gave my name and instructions on how to get to our farm. ‘Please hurry!’ I urged him. ‘And can you inform the army? And order an ambulance?’

  I called the army base myself, just in case, but the phone rang out. Next, I rang Uncle Leo at his hardware store and told him what had happened.

  ‘¡Dios mío! Is your mother okay? Put her on.’

  ‘She’s with Papá. I’m at our neighbour’s house.’

  ‘You left her alone?’

  ‘They banned us from burying Papá. They banned us from entering our property. I came here to phone the police. I can’t get through to the army so I need you to go to Colonel Buitrago.’

  ‘Pedro, listen! Get your mother out of there. I’ll go to the barracks and then I’m on my way.’

  When I went out to the porch, Gloria was sitting beside her husband in her identical rocker. They were holding hands and pretending they hadn’t overheard. But the window right above them was open and their eyes were wide.

  ‘Anything we can do, young man?’ asked Old Man Domino.

  ‘Thank you. You’ve helped enough already.’

  I waited for a few minutes on the porch, pacing back and forth, expecting sirens and flashing lights. I cursed the police. Officially, thirty-two policemen with an armoury of assault rifles were charged with defending our town against the Guerrilla. Instead, they spent their time picking up schoolkids for truancy or taking statements about unpaid debts, lost cédulas and missing chickens.

  Gloria looked sad. ‘Sorry we can’t drive you. We sold our truck last year.’

  Old Man Domino wiped his board of pieces. ‘Sons of bitches!’

  Some people whispered that Old Man Domino was a communist sympathiser, but I knew as I mounted my bicycle that he wasn’t. And I began pedalling downhill, away from our finca and away from my promise to Mamá.

  11

  ABOVE THE ROOF of the Llorona police station stood a five-metre high pole that had once flown the national flag but now supported the apex of thick black netting designed to deflect Guerrilla mortars. The station’s brick walls were bullet-pocked from an attack five years earlier and covered with recently painted red graffiti proclaiming, THE GUERRILLA IS COMING.

  Inside the dimly lit entrance, a young man sat behind an old wooden desk, typing.

  ‘I need to see your station commander. Now!’

  ‘I’m the only one here,’ he squeaked. His pimple-covered face looked barely eighteen. His armband read AUXILIAR, indicating a national service conscript still in training. ‘You’re the Pedro González who phoned?’

  I nodded. ‘Where are the others? How far away is the patrol?’ With every passing minute, Papá’s murderers were getting further away.

  He shrugged, still focused on his typing. ‘I’ve radioed them three times.’

  Behind him, I saw two dormitories that contained sixteen double bunks stripped of mattresses. After the Guerrilla mortar attack three weeks earlier they must have taken to sleeping at the larger garrison in Garbanzos.

  I banged my fist on his desk. ‘My father’s been shot and you sit there typing!’ I swiped the machine from his desk. It crashed onto the floor, keys clanking. ‘Where’s the patrol?’

  When he jumped up angrily and went to the door, I noticed his belt didn’t even have a pistol, only the wooden baton they issued to trainees. Leaning out the doorway, he looked up the street in the direction the patrol would come from. Then he looked the other way, towards our finca, where a Guerrilla attack would come from.

  ‘How many were there?’

  ‘Fifty. Maybe more. Three commanders.’

  He radioed this new information through immediately, but he was shaking and pale, and I realised he was scared. Suddenly I felt sorry for him. It wasn’t his fault that his superiors made him stay on his own while they remained in Garbanzos hiding behind the army.

  But it was obvious the police weren’t coming and I didn’t trust Uncle Leo to bring the army. I couldn’t sit idle so I set off north on my bike towards the Garbanzos army barracks.

  Hearing the colectivo approaching, I dumped my bicycle against the church wall. I half-expected Palillo to be on board on his way to our geography exam, but when I got on the bus I found that he wasn’t.

  I stood near the door, watching oncoming traffic for the army, police or Uncle Leo’s blue Ford, ready to jump off. We lurched and braked between pick-ups and drop-offs. As I listened to the gears grinding, speakers blaring vallenato and the swoosh of the doors brushing open and closed for each passenger, my impatience mounted.

  ‘Please, hurry!’ I urged the driver. ‘I’ll pay for all the empty seats. They killed my father.’

  I didn’t say who’d killed him. But judging from the passengers’ suddenly-blank expressions, they guessed. Waving away my offer, the driver accelerated to a hundred and arrived at Garbanzos plaza in eleven minutes – record time.

  As I alighted, I glanced up at the faces pressed against the colectivo windows. No one had spoken after my announcement, but in small towns, bad news spreads quicker than measles through a kindergarten. Once the passengers dispersed, everyone would find out. I figured that was a good thing. Villagers liked and respected my father; people would step in and help. However, I figured wrongly. Only one thing travels faster than bad news: fear.

  12

  THE ARMY’S XVIII Battalion in Garbanzos occupied an entire block opposite my high school, Colegio Santa Lucía. Each day, Palillo and I passed its three-metre brick wall topped with razor wire, gazing up at fierce, helmeted soldiers who peered grimly out of its eight observation towers. But now I found myself running up to the guard at the gates.

  ‘I need to speak to Colonel Buitrago. It’s an emergency.’

  ‘The colonel’s not available,’ the soldier responded.

  ‘Please! The Guerrilla just killed my father.’

  He nodded that he already knew. ‘I shouldn’t say this to you, but the colonel and most of our men are away on a mission. They’ve been gone three days. It might be another three before they return. I’m sorry.’
r />   ‘They can’t all be on the mission. And they must have left a truck?’

  The soldier looked like he really wanted to help. ‘We’re all doing double shifts to keep the barracks protected. I’d help you myself, but I can’t leave my post. Would you like to go inside and make a statement?’

  Why bother making a statement in Colombia? So the authorities could frame it and hang it on the wall to remind themselves of the job they weren’t doing?

  Storming off, I yelled back at the soldier, ‘What if it was your father?’

  He signalled for me to return.

  ‘Here’s Colonel Buitrago’s personal cell phone number. If you can get through, maybe he can override the stay-on-base order.’

  Sprinting to the Telecom cabins in Garbanzos plaza, I tried Buitrago. It went straight to voicemail.

  ‘Colonel, it’s me, Pedro González. The Guerrilla killed my father. I know which way they went. You have to get here immediately. Please!’

  Realising the colonel would have no way of contacting me, I rang back and left the phone number of the Telecom cabin. No return call. Five minutes later, I left a third, much angrier message for Colonel Buitrago. I yelled into the phone, letting fly with words Papá didn’t approve of.

  ‘You’re supposed to be protecting our fucking town. You’re supposed to be Papá’s fucking friend. But you’re an hijo de puta and a fucking coward!’

  After that, I sat on the sidewalk of Avenida Bolivar in Garbanzos plaza with my head in my hands, and I felt like crying. I did cry, in fact, and I didn’t care who saw me. By then, everyone must have known. But no one stopped to speak to me. No one did anything to help. Everyone went on with their food shopping, their lifting of boxes and their buying of lotería tickets as though nothing had happened.

  Papá was dead and I was surrounded by the indifferent and cowardly. Papá would have done anything for any one of these people. For a friend, a fellow parishioner, a complete stranger, or even someone he disapproved of like Humberto Díaz. But no one was doing anything to help him. I cried until I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder.