“They came to the Church of Jesús del Río.”
“And that’s where their troubles began.”
7
“Eight years before calamity struck Hilaria Ocampo, in 1814 (when Pasto was besieged by General Nariño, whom the Pastusos defeated), the Dozen Devout carried the statue of Our Blessed Lady of Mercy out of the church for the first time, accompanied by the rest of the women from Pasto, paraded her on high through the thick of the fighting, and took her fearlessly into the fiercest clashes, shouting to her ‘don’t ignore us, don’t wash your hands of us,’ entreating her with prayers and even insults to take their side, tugging at her cloak, her rosary, slapping her knees, tickling her plaster feet as if to wake her, pleading that she too should fight, that it was high time, come down on our side, Most Holy Mother of Mercy, be true and be strong like us.”
“And she did come down on their side.”
“But things didn’t happen quite like that: General Antonio Nariño, that authentic independence leader, later betrayed not just by his men but by destiny, saw through his spyglass a long line of soldiers advancing on him from the very heart of the city; they weren’t soldiers, but a horde of women: it was a procession from San Agustín to the Church of Mercy, headed up by the statue of the Virgin, but the Virgin never went round the most intense areas of fighting, like they say she did.”
“But eight years after Nariño, when Black Christmas happened, the widow Hilaria and her granddaughter found the statue of Our Blessed Lady of Mercy in the Church of Jesús del Río, at rest on her platform, facing the doors, as if about to go out by herself but never leaving: the Dozen Devout lay strangled around her, and there was no-one else in the church.”
“Or so it seemed.”
“The murderers had tried to set the church on fire, and had given up. If the killers were gone, the grandmother reasoned, that would be the best place to hide, among the twelve dead women, at Our Blessed Lady’s discretion: to go back out onto the street would be tempting fate. A few candles still flickered from the walls, all was devastating silence, the silence of ruins, but at length they heard a whimper. No-one could be seen in the half-light, among the charred confession boxes; it smelt of smouldering. But they heard the whimper again, and discovered its source: someone had to be concealed under Our Lady’s cloak. They heard several horsemen pass the doors at a gallop without slowing down, and were just about to get under the cloak themselves when sudden footsteps rang out behind them: it was one of the murderous Rifles. By the dim light of the candles, in the warm glow of confessionals, like red-hot coals, the grandmother saw that the soldier was very young, that he was alone, and that he was coming towards them bent on killing; they heard him shout, calling out to his companions: ‘There are some here.’ The grandmother intercepted the murderer, confronted him, took Fátima by the arm and handed her over, purposefully, with a gentle shove: ‘Here,’ she said, ‘for you. For the love of God, protect this child, she is yours alone.’ The soldier opened his reddened, shining eyes very wide. His shirt was stained with blood, the sleeve torn, and he had a straw hat tied around his neck. He looked at Fátima in disbelief; it seemed to him the beautiful but peculiar girl was yawning in his direction, as if she were going to swallow him up, so he stopped pointing his bayonet, received the yawning Fátima, and clasped her to him; she felt his mouth glued to her neck, smelled gun-powder and sweat, and saw the face streaked with soot in which his eyes shone with an almost atrocious innocence, but in a flash she also saw her grandmother, behind the soldier, heard her say with absolute calm: ‘Close your eyes tight, Fátima.’ She opened them again when her grandmother was pushing her towards the Virgin, after she heard the scream like a stuck pig; the one who had been taken by surprise was on his back, arms and legs flailing, one hand clutching at his throat, which was gushing blood; the grandmother was putting the eucalyptus spear away in her bodice.”
“And they got in under the Virgin’s blue cloak, with the rest of the Hidden Thirty, those elderly women who used to accompany the Devout.”
“And they weren’t quite thirty women, as the story has it: the priest Elías Trujillo was in there too and Ninfo Zambrano’s four children, all boys.”
“But they were discovered because of that same recurring whimper: it was one of the boys. The liberators pulled the hidden out one by one, and one by one slit their throats. Fátima felt as though she were under a stone: her grandmother would not let her move. Purely by the grace of Our Blessed Lady of Mercy the killers did not realize that there were still two survivors, squashed up together, in a corner of the platform, beneath the Virgin’s violet cape. It was not altogether a blessing: the massacre lasted three days. They had to eat candlewax and drink holy water from the baptismal font. It was not a blessing: at the end of the third day Hilaria Ocampo and Fátima Hurtado emerged to join in the universal grief, to inhabit the phantasmal city like phantoms themselves and to accept, like the rest of the survivors, the new order established by Bolívar.”
“That’s to say, to accept another barbaric act: the decrees.”
“The decrees and Bolívar’s trap.”
“Bolívar had arrived in Pasto on the second of January, 1823, nine days after his Christmas of Death, and immediately began: he issued a decree confiscating goods, and imposed a contribution of thirty thousand pesos and three thousand head of cattle and two and a half thousand horses, which the sacked city of Pasto could not pay. Property belonging to Pastusos was parcelled out to republican officers. In addition, contravening the constitution itself, which abolished the exacting of tribute-money from Indians, he commanded the Indians in Pasto to pay it (with taxes backdated), just as they had been previously paying the Spanish king. How was the rebellion not going to continue, starting with the Indians? What kind of Liberator was this, who only gave orders for ruination?”
“Bolívar would leave Pasto on the fourteenth of January. But he was still in the city when he set up his trap and gave his grand last order to General Salom. And what did Salom do? Carried it out to the letter. O’Leary sums it up: ‘Salom carried out his assignment in a manner that did little honour to him or to the government, albeit they were dealing with men who ignored the most basic rules of honour. Feigning compassion for the fate of the vanquished Pastusos, he issued an edict calling them to assemble in the city’s public square, to swear loyalty to the Constitution and to receive assurances of the government’s protection from that moment on. Hundreds of Pastusos, obeying the call, or perhaps fearing a worse punishment, converged on the designated place, where they had read to them the law stating the duties of the magistrates and the rights of the citizens. Under the law, both property and person were amply protected and the responsibility of the magistrates was clearly defined. The law was read, in the presence of all those in attendance, and documents of guarantee were distributed as evidence of the government’s good faith. But in direct violation of the agreement, a picket of soldiers was stationed in the square and took one thousand Pastusos as prisoners, who were immediately sent to Quito. Many of them perished on the journey or at a later date, refusing to take food and declaring in unmistakeable terms their hatred for the laws and the name of Colombia. Many, on arrival in Guayaquil, ended their lives by throwing themselves into the river; others mutinied aboard the ships conveying them to Peru and suffered the death penalty.’”