“You two will be complicit if you do not carry out the order.”
“Excuse me,” a falsely offended Briceño replied. “Are you accusing us of something? If that is so, say it clearly, please. You could be guilty of contempt or insubordination. What are you calling us?”
He made a gesture of taking notes as he waited for Chacaltana's response. The police captain continued smiling, with a smile like that of the president looking at him from his photograph on the wall. The prosecutor thought they were in this office together, law and order. And he understood that it made no sense to continue to insist.
“Nothing, Señor Judge. This … must have been a misunderstanding.”
“Of course, a misunderstanding,” Captain Pacheco confirmed.
The prosecutor noticed that both were looking in his eyes, penetratingly, as if trying to find out something else, something lodged in the interior of his optic nerve, perhaps. Briceño said:
“Now that things are clearer, you ought to sit down. Perhaps we're still in time to chat about the future. The captain and I in fact were coordinating plans with regard to the absence of Commander Carrión. Perhaps you should join our working group.”
A month earlier, perhaps, the invitation would have flattered him. He would have visited Edith to celebrate his entrance into the circles of Ayacuchan power. He would have enthusiastically participated in the meetings of the working group, turning in reports and suggesting reforms to streamline administrative processes. But the offer was late, as if it had come to him from another time in his life. He realized that he felt like a mature man now, perhaps for the first time in his life, an adult who would make decisions consulting only with himself. He looked at both functionaries and could not contain a small smile that barely played at the corners of his mouth, a smile of superiority, of self-sufficiency.
“I see that you like the idea,” said Briceño. On the other side of the desk, Captain Pacheco seemed to limit his function to smiling and celebrating each of the judge's ingenious, arrogant phrases. The prosecutor first shook his head while continuing to smile. Then he pronounced his decision:
“No, no … I think it would be better if I did not.”
To the surprise of the other two, he walked to the exit and left the office, slamming the door behind him. He imagined the judge and the captain laughing inside, celebrating death with Holy Week, preparing to drain the city's blood like two vampires. Carrión the cat was out of combat. The mice were beginning to play even before he left the city.
It was already dark outside. There were no processions that day, and the tourists filled the streets in a disorderly way, not going anywhere in particular. Drunks were piling up at the corners of the Plaza Mayor. Chacaltana could not watch over the whole city by himself. He could not have a thousand eyes and a thousand ears; he was not even very good at writing a report. He realized he had not eaten lunch. He needed to sleep. He decided not to look for anyone, not to see anyone, to go directly to his house. He returned home, greeted his mother, fixed some chicken soup, and went to bed. He was sad and tired, tired of not being able to do anything. He thought that tonight there would be another dead body and he was the only one who knew it. Then he became aware that it might be his turn to be the victim. With the tranquility of someone making preparations for supper, he got up and locked the door and the windows of his house. He even put a padlock on his mother's window, begging Señora Saldívar de Chacaltana's pardon for the inconvenience and assuring her it was a temporary measure. He pushed the sofa and an armchair against the door to the house, and the bureau and armoires against the windows. He went back to bed, making certain he had his weapon close by. As he tried to fall asleep, he thought about Edith. Better not to look for her. He would only put her in danger. Everyone I talk to dies, he thought. It occurred to him to masturbate with the memory of her smooth breasts that tasted of trout. He did not have time for that. In spite of his fear, he felt his eyelids closing.
At two in the morning, he was assailed by a new nightmare. It had to do with fire and a church. Blows on a bleeding body in a temple. He saw a white man with a Limenian accent hitting a woman. He saw her blood staining the baptismal font, the white cloths of the altar, the chalice, the chasuble. And then the explosion, the fire devouring both of them. But the man did not stop hitting the woman, kicking her on the ground, shouting at her. He tried to get closer to defend her and went through the flames. The shouts seemed familiar. The man's voice especially, he knew it in some corner of his memory that he had allowed to be consumed by flames. He was closer and closer to the aggressor. In the dream he did not have the weapon but was sure he could bring down the savage with his own hands. Now the blood did not seem to stain the church but to flood it. The pool was growing beneath his feet, it reached his knees, his waist, and interfered with his movement toward the violent man, who had not stopped beating the woman as he began to drown in the red liquid. Once at his side, he took the man by the shoulder and wheeled him around to face him. It was like turning around a mirror. It was his own face held up by the aggressor's shoulders.
He woke with a start, sweating. He went to the bathroom to wash his face. He looked at himself in the mirror. He felt old. He thought about what he had said that morning in the confessional. Everybody I talk to dies. He felt a palpitation. He tried to go back to sleep but could not. He got up, dressed, and moved the furniture away from the door, scratching the floor. He went out. One hundred meters later, he turned and went back to his house. Silently, so his mother would not hear him, he went to his night table. He took out the pistol, hung it under his jacket, and went out again to the Church of the Heart of Christ.
Friday, April 21
you been talking abowt me, fadder?
you been talking abowt me to god?
talk to him about me. tell him to make me a plase. ill make him lissen to you. yes, hell lissen to you. youll be able to put your bald hed on his lap and lick his legs. hell let you touch him, run your hand down his back. youll like it. open your mowth, fadder, like that. let me see your holey tung. let me see your wite teeth. i like wite things, pure things. i have a treet fore you. taste the body of christ.
thats it, much better. now your nice and calm, you know? its better to stay calm. now everythings coming to an end. now its over, now. payshuns. all things have to have an end so they can begin again. you, me, well all have an end. yes. mines close too. but yours is allreddy here. ha. son of the devil.
your dirty, you know? dirty like the beggers in the sity. todays the day to wash you. ill leeve you spotless. oh, youll like it. dont say nothing, fadder, dont talk with your mowth full. its dirty. thats better. do you see how your getting cleen, fadder? your all full of sin. we all remember you here because of that. the bodys you berned remember you for that. did you forget abowt that? did you forget abowt there bodys disapeering into your oven? abowt there ashes?
they didnt forget abowt you. there they are, with god, like youll be, and they think abowt you every day. they cant live again, there bodys arent there anymore. its better. now they have life forever, dont they? true life. now youll meet with them, because your cleen, now you can see them. you and they will talk, yes. world withowt end.
move a little. the holey water has too touch you everywhere. its like a baptisim, unnerstand? a sacramint. a baptisim of fire for you. we lerned that with you. fire cleens. if not, whats the point?
do you heer something? seems like you have a visiter. did you invite another begger to wash him? your charitabel. your good. hoo is it? ah, now i know hoo it is. yes. we seen each other before. he came soon. have you been talking too him about me, fadder? thats good, im not mad at you. well make him one of ours, yes? well love him a lot with our tungs of fire. well wash away his impuritys too, fadder. we have a lot to share.