All of the other inmates made their escape, but Antonio felt compelled to honor something above and beyond those events. He remained behind, stretched out on his bed, together with an old man who refused to leave because his sentence was nearly over and he didn’t want to endanger his release with new infractions.
When his new custodians arrived, they found him there, meekly waiting, just as he had been the day when he held out his hands to be handcuffed after confessing to the murder. At that time, Ramos was an army private who met Antonio when he worked for him in the prison kitchen. Even then, Ramos found it hard to believe that Antonio had taken a man’s life.
His behavior had always been impeccable, the only exception being when he was involved in a violent incident when he was trying to prevent a killing behind bars.
Lieutenant Ramos had had frequent conversations with inmate 33455, whom he called by his first name. The reason for the murder was a constant topic, since Ramos had trouble squaring Antonio’s character with the facts in his case. He had always been sceptical about prisoners’ claims of innocence. They rarely accepted any guilt, and in most cases claimed to be victims themselves. They were in prison because of a miscarriage of justice, or some unfortunate coincidence or error. At other times they refused to talk about what sent them to prison just to show that they were tough and thick-skinned. But when Antonio assured him that he had no reason to feel repentant, he believed him.
At the time he began to attend the therapy sessions for men convicted of homicide, Ramos realized immediately that Antonio was an exception. The group was very diverse, and the personalities varied widely. There were morally depraved persons, others given to uncontrolled aggression, and those who were the victims of circumstances, like the man who came home drunk and found his wife with a lover, or a man driven to despair by a blackmailer, or one who had been humiliated in front of his woman, or a peasant who could not stand by when authorities came to evict his parents from their home and burn it to the ground.
Antonio clearly did not fit into the therapy group, although he adapted to it and the others ended up calling him “the secretary” because his handwriting was good and he agreed to write letters and petitions for them. Antonio’s conviction was based on a common situation, a dispute over a woman, yet he continued to be devoted to his wife and children.
So when on that morning Ramos heard Antonio insist that he was innocent, it was like the confirmation of an old suspicion. But there was no easy way to deal with it. Or was it possible that Antonio was simply echoing the protests of his fellow inmates, who all swore that they were unjustly convicted?
Antonio scarcely offered any support for his claim of innocence. All he did was tell Ramos that if he examined the case against him carefully he would soon see where the truth lay.
The officer asked to hear Antonio’s version. In response, Antonio alluded vaguely to how he had gone to the Vasallos’ celebration and how, after a stupid argument, he had decided to get his horse and leave. It was when he had already started for home that he heard the gunshot.
The account seemed too simple to be believed. Moreover, there was no explanation for his ten-year-long silence. Antonio said that he became confused when he was arrested and saw no way of defending himself, that he was very young and the authorities refused to listen to him, that everything happened so quickly and so he resigned himself to his fate. But now, he said, with so much time gone by and his children now of an age to begin asking questions, he wanted to take steps toward allowing the truth to be known.
Nonetheless, Ramos sensed that the man was lying, or that at least he was offering an incomplete account. He promised Antonio that he would see that the investigation was reopened according to regulations. They took him to the prison’s administrative office; there also he had to answer questions. He kept to his story without adding or eliminating details, as if it all was a memorized statement. He made a formal declaration. The decision was that in two weeks he would be returned to “the scene of the events.” An official investigator was named who began making the first new inquiries. Time elapsed and the faulty memory of witnesses complicated the process.
The death of Pancho Vasallo was now recalled in a series of personal anecdotes, some of them obviously contradictory. It was very hard to find dependable witnesses, and equally difficult to locate family members, since they had in many cases moved away, and in any event were not interested in digging up the past. The only unassailable fact was that no one would be able to bring Pancho Vasallo back.
The victim’s immediate family members were no longer in the area. Amalia Vasallo had married and lived abroad and Celso Vasallo could not be found. The death of his father had left him shaken. All of his plans had been destroyed with that one shot and he had thereafter wandered about aimlessly with no permanent home.
The judge from the old trial was now retired and spent his time raising fighting cocks outside town. He remembered the case very well. With one sentence he gave his final judgment: “Let the hearing go ahead, but I don’t know what’s going to change.”
The letter of the law had been observed.
Now, as the train approached, Antonio was thinking ahead to the moment of his arrival. He imagined different ways in which it might occur. The idea of being able to spend a few hours in his town filled him with happiness.
Ramos had promised him that before the new hearing he would take him first to his home and find something else to do while he spent a few hours with his family.
Lulled by the movement of the train, Antonio’s thoughts turned back to the fatal evening. The party had gotten into full swing and the dancers were swaying to the rhythm of the music when he arrived dressed in his Sunday best, a fancy cigar lit up and his spirit lifted by a few strong drinks under his belt. The musicians were warmed up and playing at their best, performing a sultry melody:
Antonio glanced into the dance hall and saw her immediately. She was off in a corner, talking with Lorenzo, a foreman from the Vasallo ranch, El Paraiso. He knew that that rancher had his eye on Amalia, but he didn’t particularly care, or at least that was what he told himself. He was going to turn away and ignore the couple, but then it appeared to him that the girl was being harassed and that called for some action. So he made his way across the dance floor, now feeling quarrelsome from the effects of the alcohol.
The rancher was trying to get Amalia to agree to something and she was attempting to turn away when Antonio reached them, now openly aggressive like a prize gamecock. But the girl ignored him also.
Belen, who was a kind of watchdog for the Vasallo family, saw what was happening and went to look for the old man. He gave him the message, adding his own interpretation and saying that it was a family issue that needed to be addressed. He asked Vasallo for permission to intervene, but the old man said that it was his matter to attend to personally.
Rumor had it that the two men had both enjoyed Amalia’s favor, but that she had ended things with both of them. The discussion had become heated when Pancho Vasallo arrived. He dealt with the situation in his own way: He slapped Amalia across the face and ordered the two men to leave the party. Lorenzo withdrew immediately. Antonio cursed the old man and said that his treatment of him left an account to be settled.