“I suppose you are informed about the bodies in the Los Riscos mine,” she said finally, seeking a direct approach to the subject.
“Affirmative, señorita.”
“They say that one of the bodies is Evangelina Ranquileo.”
The sergeant poured himself another glass of wine and devoured another slab of pig. Irene sensed that the situation was under control, because if Faustino Rivera had not wanted to talk, he would have refused the interview. The fact that he was there was proof enough of his readiness to cooperate. She gave him time to wolf down a few more mouthfuls, then began to use her tricks as an interviewer and her wiles as a woman to loosen his tongue.
“Anyone who stirs up trouble is asking to get it right in the fucking ass, begging your pardon, señorita. That’s our mission, and we’re proud to carry it out. Civilians get out of hand at the slightest excuse. You can’t trust them for a minute, and when you deal with them you have to come down with a heavy hand, as Lieutenant Ramírez always says. On the other hand, the killing should be legal—otherwise, it’s nothing less than slaughter.”
“And wasn’t it just that, Sergeant?”
No, he didn’t agree; that’s what traitors to the nation were calling it; those were Soviet lies to discredit the General’s government. The worst thing you could do was pay attention to those rumors; a few bodies in some mine doesn’t mean that every man who wears a uniform is a murderer. He couldn’t deny that there were fanatics around, but it wasn’t fair to put the blame on everyone, and besides it’s better to have a little abuse than to push the armed forces back in their barracks and leave the country in the hands of the politicians.
“Do you know what would happen the minute the General fell from power, God forbid? The Marxists would rise up and slit the throats of every soldier, along with their wives and children. We’re marked men. They would kill us all. That’s the thanks we get for doing our duty.”
Irene listened without interrupting, but after a moment her patience ran out and she decided to challenge him, once and for all.
“Listen, Sergeant, stop beating about the bush. Why not tell me what’s really on your mind?”
Then, as if he had been waiting for that signal, the dam burst and the sergeant told Irene everything he had told Pradelio Ranquileo earlier concerning the fate of his sister, and he told her his suspicions, which he had never formulated aloud. He went back to that fateful early morning when Lieutenant Juan de Dios Ramírez had returned to the compound after driving away with the prisoner. A bullet was missing from his revolver that day. You had to inform the corporal of the guard when service weapons were fired; they kept a record in a special armaments log. For the first months following the military coup, the sergeant explained, the registers were all fouled up, because no one could keep track of the numbers of munitions fired by rifles, carbines, and revolvers issued at Headquarters, but once things had got back to normal, they returned to the old system. That’s why when the lieutenant had to give an explanation, he said he had killed a rabid dog. He had also entered in the Duty Log that the girl was released at seven in the morning, leaving under her own will.
“But that isn’t true, señorita, and I have it all written down in my notebook,” the sergeant added through a mouthful of food, handing her a small notebook with filthy, tattered covers. “Look, it’s all there. I wrote down we would be meeting today, and I wrote about our conversation a couple of weeks ago, you remember? I don’t forget anything—it’s all spelled out there.”
Irene had an impression of great weight as she took the notebook. She stared at it, horrified, feeling a strong sense of foreboding. She wanted to ask Rivera to destroy the book, but she put the idea out of her mind, forcing herself to act rationally. Frequently during the last few days, she had had inexplicable impulses that made her doubt her sanity.
The sergeant told her that Lieutenant Ramírez had signed his statement and had ordered Corporal Ignacio Bravo to do the same. Nothing was said about the lieutenant’s having carted off Evangelina Ranquileo during the night, nor had his men asked him about it; they knew his foul disposition all too well, and didn’t want to end up in solitary confinement like Pradelio.
“He was a good man, Ranquileo,” said the sergeant.
“Was?”
“They say he’s dead.”
Irene Beltrán swallowed a gasp of dismay. That was a real setback to her plans. Her next move had been to find Pradelio Ranquileo and convince him to appear in court. Because his desire to avenge his sister outweighed his fear of the consequences, he might be the only witness to what had happened at Los Riscos who was prepared to accuse the lieutenant and describe the murders. The sergeant repeated a rumor he had heard that Pradelio had fallen into a ravine in the mountains, although the truth was, he wasn’t sure; no one had seen the body. By the time he began the second bottle of wine, Rivera had cast discretion to the winds and had begun to string together his suspicions: The good of the nation comes first, but that isn’t threatened here and justice should be done, I say, even though they threaten me and ruin my career and I end up plowing dirt like my brothers. I’ve decided to see it through to the end, I’ll go to the court, I’ll swear on the flag and the Bible, I’ll tell the truth to the newspapers. That’s why I wrote everything down in my notebook: the day, the hour, all the details. I always carry it beneath my undershirt, I like to feel it next to my heart. I even sleep with it, because once someone tried to steal it. Those notes are worth their weight in gold, señorita. They’re evidence that other people want to sweep under the rug, but like I told you, I forget nothing. I’ll show my book to the judge, if I have to, because Pradelio and Evangelina deserve justice. They were my kin.
The sergeant says he can imagine what happened the night of Evangelina’s disappearance as clear as if he was seeing it in a movie: Lieutenant Ramírez is driving down the highway, whistling—he always whistles when he’s nervous; he would be thinking about the road, although he knows the area well and knows that at this hour he won’t be meeting any other vehicles. He’s a careful driver. He figures that four or five minutes after leaving the gate and flicking a salute to Corporal Ignacio Bravo standing guard at the gate, he will reach the main highway and turn north. A few miles farther along he will turn off toward the mine on a terrible dirt road filled with potholes; that’s why when he got back the truck was filthy and the wheels were caked with mud. Rivera imagines his lieutenant choosing a place as close as possible to the mine to stop. He doesn’t turn off the headlights because he needs both hands free and the flashlight will be a nuisance. He goes around to the back, removes the canvas, and sees the girl lying there. He must have smiled that twisted grin his men all know and fear. He lifts Evangelina’s hair from her face and gazes approvingly at her profile, her neck, her shoulders, her schoolgirl breasts. In spite of the bruises and blood, she looks beautiful to him, like any young girl beneath the stars. He feels a familiar warmth between his legs and starts to breathe heavy; he laughs slyly. What a brute I am, he mutters.
“You’ll forgive my frankness, señorita,” Faustino Rivera interrupts himself, sucking the bones of his feast.
Lieutenant Juan de Dios Ramírez touches the girl’s breast and perhaps finds she is still breathing. So much the better for him, and so much the worse for her. The sergeant seems to be seeing with his own eyes as his superior, damn him to hell, removes his revolver and lays it on the toolbox beside the flashlight, unbuckles his belt and opens his trousers and throws himself on the girl with unnecessary violence, because he meets no resistance. He enters her in haste, squeezing her against the metal floor of the truck, pressing, scratching, biting the girl crushed beneath the weight of his hundred and eighty pounds, his military belt, his heavy boots, recovering the macho pride she snatched from him that day on the patio of her house. Sergeant Rivera can’t stand to think of this scene, because he has a daughter just Evangelina’s age. When the lieutenant is thro
ugh with his prisoner, he must have lain on her until he notices she isn’t moving at all, that she isn’t moaning, that her eyes are staring at the sky in amazement at her own death. Then he must have adjusted his clothes, taken her by the feet, and dragged her out on the ground. He looks for the flashlight and his revolver; in the circle of light, he holds the barrel of the revolver to her head, and after releasing the safety, fires at point-blank range, remembering that long-ago morning when with a similar gesture he administered the coup de grâce to his first victim. With the shovel and pick he opens the entrance to the mine, brings the poncho-wrapped body, forces it through the opening any which way, drags it into the tunnel on the right, which he blocks with rubble and stones, and then crawls out the opening. Before he leaves, he closes the mine entrance, and with his foot he rakes dirt over the dark stains and bits of soft matter spattered on the ground at the site of the shooting; next he carefully searches the area until he finds the cartridge casing, which he puts in his shirt pocket for the accounting to the munitions records, all according to regulations. That must have been the moment he invented the story of the mad dog. He folds the canvas, tosses it in the rear of the truck, picks up the tools, returns his revolver to the holster, and gives a last look around to be sure he hasn’t left any trace of his activities. He climbs into the vehicle and drives back to Headquarters. He is whistling.
“Like I told you, señorita, he always whistles when he’s nervous,” Sergeant Rivera concluded. “I admit I don’t have any proof of what I’ve told you, but I swear on the memory of my sainted mother, may she rest in peace, that that’s more or less the way things happened.”
“Whose are the other bodies in the mine? Who killed them?”
“I don’t know. Ask the farmers around here. Many have disappeared. Go see the Flores family. . . .”
“Are you sure you will have the nerve to repeat in a court of law everything you told me today?”
“Yes. I’m sure. The ballistics expert and the autopsy on Evangelina will prove I’m right.”
Irene paid the bill, surreptitiously tucked the tape recorder into her shoulder bag, and bade her guest goodbye. As she shook his hand, she felt the same irrational fear she had felt holding his notebook. She could not look him in the eye.
Sergeant Faustino Rivera did not ever give his statement to the judge, because that same night he was run over by a white truck that immediately sped away from the scene. The sergeant was killed instantly. The only eyewitness, Corporal Ignacio Bravo, testified that everything had happened so quickly he did not have time to get a look at the license plate or the driver. The notebook was never found.
* * *
Irene went to look for the Floreses’ house. It was made of wood and sheets of zinc, like all the others around it. The property was part of a cooperative of poor farmers who had been given a few acres of land during the reform; later the few acres had been taken from them, leaving them once more with their small family plots. The long road that crossed through the valley joining the pieces of land had been laid out by the farmers using the labor of the entire community—even old people and children, who had contributed by carrying rocks. That was the road the military vehicles used when they had come to search the houses, one by one. They had lined up the men in an endless row, selected one from every five at random, and shot them as a warning; they also shot the cattle and set fire to the pastures, leaving behind a trail of blood and destruction. There were few small children now because many homes had been without a man for years. The occasional births were celebrated with emotion, and the children were given the names of the dead, so that no one would ever forget them.
When she found the house, it was so desolate and dismal that Irene thought it was abandoned. She called for a few moments without hearing even the barking of a dog. She was about to turn and leave when among some trees she saw a gray woman, barely visible against the landscape, who told her that Señora Flores and her daughter were at the market, where they sold vegetables.
A few steps from the plaza in Los Riscos rose the market in an explosion of noise and color. Irene searched among the pyramids of fruit—peaches, melons, watermelons—and wandered through labyrinths of fresh vegetables, mountains of potatoes and young corn, counters of spurs, stirrups, harness, and straw hats, rows of red and black pottery, cages of hens and rabbits—all amid an uproar of hawking and haggling. Deeper inside the market were other stalls: cold meats, fish, seafood, cheeses—an unleashing of smells and tastes. She walked slowly back and forth, absorbing everything with her eyes, sniffing the fragrances of earth and sea, stopping to taste one of the first grapes, a ripe strawberry, a fresh clam lying in its mother-of-pearl shell, a smooth pastry baked by the same hands that sold it. Fascinated, Irene thought that nothing terrible could befall a world where such abundance flowered. But then she came upon Evangelina Flores, and remembered why she was there.
The girl’s resemblance to Digna Ranquileo was so strong that Irene immediately felt at ease with her, as if she had known her before, and respected her. Like her mother and her brothers and sisters, she had glossy dark hair, light skin, and large, very dark eyes. Short-legged, robust, energetic, and healthy, she moved with vitality and spoke with assurance and simplicity, accentuating her words with expansive gestures of her hands. She was unlike her real mother in her jovial nature and the poise that allowed her to express opinions without fear. She seemed older, much more mature and developed than the other Evangelina, the one who had mistakenly assumed her fate, and died in her place. Far from burdening her with resignation, the accumulated suffering of her fifteen years had given her vigor. When she smiled, her coarse features were transformed and her face shone. She was gentle and affectionate with her adoptive mother, whom she treated with a protective air, as if she wanted to shield her from new sorrows. Together they looked after the tiny stall where they sold their produce.
Sitting on a wicker stool, Evangelina told Irene their story. Her family had been punished more than others, because shortly after the first raid, the law had come back and descended on them again. In the years following, the surviving children had found out how useless it was to search for the ones who had been taken away, how dangerous it was even to talk about them. But the girl was indomitable. When she heard of the discovery of the bodies in Los Riscos mine, she had hoped to hear some news of her missing father and brothers; that is why she was willing to talk with a journalist who was a complete stranger to her. Her mother, in contrast, was withdrawn and silent, observing Irene with distrust.
“The Floreses aren’t my own parents, but they brought me up. I love them as if they were my own,” the girl explained.
She could tell Irene the very day their misfortunes began. It was a day in October, five years ago, when a jeep from Headquarters drove down the road of the cooperative and stopped in front of their house. They had come to arrest Antonio Flores. Pradelio Ranquileo had been assigned to carry out the order. He beat on the door, flushing with shame because he was bound to that family by bonds of destiny that were as strong as blood ties. Respectfully, he explained that this was a routine questioning; he allowed the prisoner to put on a jacket and walk to the vehicle on his own. Señora Flores and her children could see the owner of Los Aromos Vineyard sitting beside the driver’s seat, and were surprised; they had never had any problems with him, not even during the stormy days of the Agrarian Reform, and they could not imagine the reason for his denunciation. After Antonio Flores had been taken away, neighbors came to console the family, and the house swelled with people. There were plenty of witnesses, then, when a half hour later a truck filled with armed guardsmen braked to a halt. Men jumped out, yelling as if they were in combat, and arrested the four oldest brothers. Beaten, half-dazed, they were pushed and dragged to the vehicle, and the last the others saw of them was a cloud of dust disappearing down the road. Everyone who had watched what happened stood stunned by the show of brutality, because none of the b
rothers had ever been involved in politics and their only sin was to have joined the Farmers Union. One of them did not even live at home; he was a construction worker in the city, and happened to be visiting his parents that day. Their friends decided it was all a mistake and sat down to wait for the young men to be brought home. They could identify the guardsmen; they knew them by name, since they had been born in the region and all attended the same school. Pradelio Ranquileo was not part of the second group and they speculated that he had been left at Headquarters to guard Antonio Flores. They went to him later when he was off duty but found out nothing; they could not get a word out of the Ranquileos’ oldest son.
“Our life had been peaceful up to then. We were hardworking people and had everything we needed. My father had a good horse, and was saving to buy a tractor. But then the law came down on us and everything changed,” said Evangelina Flores.
“Bad luck runs in the blood,” murmured Señora Flores, thinking of the accursed mine where maybe six of her family lay rotting.
They looked for them. For months they made the obligatory pilgrimage of anyone following the trail of desaparecidos. They went from place to place, asking futile questions, and received nothing but the advice to consider the men dead and sign the legal papers; that way they would be entitled to an orphan’s and a widow’s pension. You can find another husband, señora, you’re still good-looking, they told her. The legal formalities were long and drawn out, vexing, and expensive. The process ate up all their savings and put them into debt. Papers were lost in offices in the capital, and with the passing of time they saw their hopes fading like the lines of an old drawing. The children who were still alive had to quit school and look for work on neighboring farms; they were not hired, though, because they were marked. Each of them had tied up his bundle of miserable belongings and set off looking for a place where no one knew his misfortune. The family was scattered to the winds, and as the years went by, only the switched daughter still lived with Señora Flores. Evangelina had been ten when her adoptive father and brothers were arrested. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw them being dragged away, bleeding. Her hair fell out, she grew thin, she walked in her sleep, and when she was awake she seemed to drift in an idiot haze that earned her the gibes of other schoolchildren. Thinking it would be best to get her away from that house of bad memories, Señora Flores had sent Evangelina to another town to live with an uncle, a prosperous dealer in firewood and charcoal, who could offer her a better life. The child, though, missed her mother’s love, and only grew worse, so they brought her back home. For a long time nothing could console her, but when she had her first menstruation, at twelve, she suddenly threw off her melancholy and woke up one morning transformed into a woman. It had been her idea to sell the horse and put up a vegetable stall in the Los Riscos market; and hers, too, the decision not to go on sending food, clothing, and money through the military to their missing relatives, for in all those years there was not a single bit of evidence that they were still alive. The girl worked ten hours a day selling and transporting vegetables and fruit; in the remaining six, before falling into bed exhausted, she studied the notebooks her teacher had prepared as a special favor. She had not wept again, and she began to speak of her father and brothers in the past tense, to accustom her mother little by little to the idea of never seeing them again.