“Are you serious?”
The priest did not seem to be listening carefully. He appeared lost in his own thoughts.
“It was me,” said the prosecutor.
The priest turned pale. He seemed to stop breathing. As if to recuperate, he sighed deeply and turned toward the nuns at the door. With a gesture he told them to continue on their way. They seemed disappointed but submissive. Then, Quiroz took the prosecutor to a confessional and each of them took his place. The prosecutor kneeled when he heard the confessor's screen move and said:
“I don't know how to do this, Father. I haven't confessed for a long time.”
The priest quickly whispered some formulas that Chacaltana could not make out. Then he said:
“Just tell me. We're not going to give you an intensive course on the sacraments now.”
The prosecutor swallowed. He looked at the Baroque images in the church, the red candles at each altar, before he said:
“All the people I talk to die, Father. I'm afraid. It's … it's as if I were signing their death sentences when I leave them.”
“My son,” said the priest. Suddenly Chacaltana had stopped being Señor Prosecutor. “Perhaps … perhaps you are carrying too much … These deaths aren't your fault.”
“I'm afraid. I don't sleep well. This … all of this is as if I had already seen it. There's something in all this that has already happened, something that speaks of me. Do you understand? You don't understand, do you?”
“My son, the terrorist madness knows nothing of reasons or feelings. If you allow yourself to be morally destroyed by them, you're letting them win. That's what they want. For you to collapse. Then their work will be easier.”
Tears escaped again from the prosecutor's eyes:
“I've seen things … Things you cannot imagine. They …”—he had just noticed how hard it was for him to say it—“they tear off limbs … They cut off arms and legs …”
“Don't underestimate me, my son. I also fought. I know what you know. I know them.”
“Why, Father? Why can't they simply kill? Why does it have to be like this?”
“There is a reason beyond barbarism.” The priest's paternal warmth was congealing into a serious, dry tone. “In the Andes there is the myth of Inkarri, the Incan King. It seems to have emerged during colonial times, after the indigenous rebellion of Tupac Amaru. After suppressing the rebellion, the Spanish army tortured Tupac Amaru, they beat him until he was almost dead …”—blows, blows, blows, thought the prosecutor—“then they attached his limbs to horses until he was pulled to pieces.”
The images of Tupac Amaru quartered followed one another in the mind of the prosecutor as if he had experienced them. His mother had told him the story once, in Cuzco, the city that the chief had besieged and where he had been killed. The prosecutor's mother was Cuzcan. The priest continued:
“The Andean campesinos believe that the parts of Tupac Amaru were buried in different places throughout the empire so that his body would never join together again. According to them, those parts are growing until they can rejoin. And when they find the head, the Inca will rise again and a cycle will be closed. The empire will rise again and crush those who bled it. The earth and the sun will swallow the God the Spaniards brought in from outside. At times, when I see the Indians so submissive, so ready to accept anything, I wonder if on the inside they aren't thinking that the moment will arrive, and that someday our roles will be reversed.”
“What does Sendero Luminoso have to do with that?”
“A great deal. Sendero presented itself as the resurgence. And it was always conscious of the value of symbols. They killed a woman and blew up her body with explosives to shatter her into pieces. In this way, her parts will never unite again. Her resurrection was made impossible.”
“Against whom are we fighting, Father? They're everywhere and at the same time they're not. They're invisible. It's like fighting ghosts.”
“It's like fighting the gods we don't see. Perhaps we're fighting the dead.”
They remained in silence for a few minutes. Suddenly, Quiroz seemed to remember something:
“When did they kill the last one?”
“Last night, almost at dawn, after the procession of the Meeting.” The prosecutor felt relieved at having spoken with the priest, but exhausted, as if he had lost all his breath in the conversation. He sighed. “There was no special security. We had deployed it for Palm Sunday, and even Monday, but more could not be justified.”
The priest thought for a moment and said:
“There's … another Andean myth that perhaps you ought to know about. In general, beginning on the night of Holy Wednesday, the Indians abandon themselves to the most … sinful celebrations. Torrents of alcohol flow, and a good deal of sex, and usually there are violent incidents. It goes on until Resurrection Sunday.”
“Until the Sunday of Glory.”
The priest was annoyed:
“It's called Resurrection Sunday. Only the ignorant and the blasphemous call it the Sunday of Glory.”
“Forgive me. And why do they do that?”
“It's another Andean superstition. Starting on Holy Wednesday, the day of Christ's Calvary, God is dead. He no longer sees. He no longer condemns. There are three days for sinning.”
When he heard this Chacaltana understood he had no time to lose. He would have to reactivate security. It was as if he had recovered consciousness after a long mystic interval. The priest, too, had things to do. When he left the confessional, Chacaltana shook his hand with sincere gratitude:
“Thank you very much, Father. I feel much better. And you have given me many useful clues. I have spo …” He stopped himself. Then he decided to say it. “I have spoken with people who do not trust you very much. But there are others who have expressed their appreciation of your person.”
The priest smiled as he walked to the door. The prosecutor noticed that he was the only figure who smiled in that church.
“I won't ask you to tell me who has spoken ill of me, but I would like to know who has spoken favorably.”
The prosecutor felt he was trustworthy. He thought it would not be a bad thing to tell him. Just the opposite.
“Edith Ayala. The woman in the restaurant on the square.”
The priest gave him a big smile.
“Of course I know her! She would come here frequently. Poor girl, she has suffered a great deal on account of her parents.”
“Her parents?”
“Don't you know?”
“She does not talk about them very much.”
“It's understandable. Her parents were terrorists. They died in an attack on a police barracks. The two of them together.”
The prosecutor remembered his conversation with Edith: How did they die? On account of the terrorists. On account of. Not killed by the terrorists but in their name. As he was saying good-bye to the priest, he tried to forget he had heard that. He had more urgent things to think about. He hurried to headquarters, past people visiting churches and enjoying typical food at the stalls in the Plaza Mayor. He thought that any one of them could be a member of the Senderista renascence. He reached headquarters and went in as far as Carrión's waiting room. His secretary looked nervous.
“May I go in?” he asked.
She looked at him in anguish.
“He doesn't want to see anybody. He's been locked in there since Friday. He hasn't even gone out to eat. We bring him food, but he hardly touches it.”
“Perhaps I can do something.”
“Try, please. Maybe he'll listen to you. If I attempt to announce you, he won't answer the intercom.”
Prosecutor Chacaltana opened the door of the office. It was dark inside, and it smelled. The curtains were closed and two full plates of food were rotting beneath the worktable. The commander was sitting at his desk, dark circles under his eyes, gaunt, looking as if he had not bathed in months. He did not greet him.