Another:
— In the hand.
And they’d point to the stretch of stairs Don Manuel had been mounting the moment he received the gunshots.
And one young pupil, pale with excitement, descended the stairs with his gaze.
The next day, in the square, I encountered the cacique.
Leaning against a lamppost, he straightened himself upon seeing me, staring so intently his eyes seemed to bulge with a wrath he wished to vent on me.
I stood still, not daring to walk any farther.
He had a magnetism like a serpent’s, which fascinated me, his smile contorted into a kind of evil sensuality. He had killed a man: that’s what gave him prestige.
The spilt blood could be read in his eyes like a sign, lending his spirit tension, pleasure, and guilt, somewhere between satisfaction and horror.
Bent over, as if about to pounce, he watched me closely. Maybe he took pleasure in scaring me, as he did the woman who walked past at that moment; he jumped at her with a cry, and she ran away, terrified.
He didn’t laugh. He was like a dog that barks and growls by instinct.
And thus he bared his teeth at me, and began to growl. And he held up his hands as if they were claws. He was attuned to my movements, my glances, my fears. Ready to pounce. Offering me a glimpse of the revolver tucked under his belt, over the white shirt with a black ribbon at his neck. Dressed elegantly, as if for Sunday.
In his crocodile shoes, he stood between two policemen with rifles who also watched me while they checked the side streets as if sifting the air, making sure someone they hadn’t seen wasn’t approaching unawares. Their ponchos smelled of wet wool, their hats nearly covered their foreheads. They wore new shoes, which appeared to be either too tight or not the right size, judging by the fidgety way they were standing.
It looked like the cacique had deliberately placed himself at the center of the square to attract attention, perhaps as a gesture of defiance, or to assert his solitary tyranny.
All of a sudden, as if spitting out his voice, he said to me, “Where are you going, you pip-squeak son of a bitch?”
My breath was cut short.
“Okay, now that you’ve seen me, scram. Otherwise I’ll geld you.”
And I took flight, turning to look at him, his face still contorted and unsmiling, gazing around with a crazed look, still flanked by the two police officers, who laughed, yelling threats and insults at me.
One week later, on a Wednesday afternoon, they killed him.
It was near the railway station, as he was returning to the village on horseback after having paid a visit to one of his lovers.
Riding across the plain, he’d run into a man called El Chimal, with whom he had quarreled, or thought he had quarreled, since the man was an inhabitant of the village, and the village, his enemy.
As was his custom, he started to draw his gun, albeit lazily and with scant conviction, assuming the man, since he came towards him, was going to attack. El Chimal had his gun ready beneath his poncho and was already taking aim. He shot him in the face and kept firing although the rest of the shots were lost in the air.
When the cacique fell to the ground his feet got caught in the stirrups and his horse dragged him along for fifty feet. That was how far El Chimal had to go to rip out the gold teeth and trade his donkey for the other’s chestnut horse. Then he took off.
That night soldiers from another village arrived in Contepec looking for El Chimal. But they didn’t find him. After two days they left, figuring he was gone for good, but before heading out, on orders from the governor, they galloped through the streets shooting at all the houses.
Once they’d left, the villagers threw the cacique’s body into a well and covered it with stones.
The morning they buried the cacique like that, Arturo and I went to see Juan at his house.
At the post office we saw his father hunched over a desk overflowing with papers and seals; he would hold everything close to his face to read it, as if his glasses weren’t strong enough or didn’t have prescription lenses. When we knocked on the door, Juan’s youngest sister, Anita, let us in without saying if he was home or not. We looked for him in the patio, in his room, in the kitchen. With a sleepy expression and without a word, she watched us come and go. When finally we asked her whether Juan was home, she replied in a voice scarcely audible due to shyness that he’d gone out and would be home later.
So we leaned against a column in the porch surrounding the patio and watched Anita in her yellow apron as she laid out little cups and saucers on a small table and sat an old, faded doll in a chair, oblivious to our presence, as if we were no longer there.
All of a sudden Arturo poked me with his elbow to point out that Anita, who was bending over to talk to her doll, didn’t have any panties on.
And he went over to her right away, touching her from behind with his hand. She didn’t move or say anything, only stirred a little spoon in a cup. Arturo murmured something in her ear, making her blush and stop what she was doing. He then grabbed her hand and led her to the bathroom; she followed meekly.
As they passed by he told me to keep an eye open in case someone should come. I remained there, my gaze wandering over the sunny corridor, where a solitary hen was pecking at corn or staring at the wall. They’d left the door open. Anita was on all fours with her backside in the air, while he was behind her, panting.
When he noticed me watching he said it was my turn and stood up with his trousers at his ankles like empty sacks. She looked at me with a bovine expression, waiting patiently on her knees.
I shook my head. Again I was left to keep watch in the corridor, now with two hens strutting about. He sat her on his legs and later pinned her against a wall; she followed instructions.
Finally Arturo grew tired, or bored, and came to me, saying we should go. As we went down the corridor he gave one of the hens a kick. Anita was left sitting on the toilet seat peeing, with a sad, distant look on her face, as if she didn’t realize what she’d just done with Arturo, and that we were now leaving.
Across from the post office, on a bench, an old man was singing in a shrill voice of moans and wailing:
Trees cry for rain
And mountains for wind …
Strumming at his guitar:
And so my eyes cry
For you, darling beloved.
As Arturo walked away I went up to listen to the old man, and noticed that while singing all that moved were his hands and his lips; he was sitting so stiffly, he looked sculpted.
His face red and pockmarked, he resembled an ancient idol, carved out of mud, time, and suffering:
In front of me there is an angel
Looking at me with your eyes
I want to speak but cannot,
My heart sighs.
When I thought he’d finished his song, I asked him where he came from and what he was singing but he didn’t answer or even look at me and continued:
Come see, and come see,
Come see, and we shall see
The love that we two share
Come, let us be united.
Suddenly he fell silent and began to listen alertly.
That’s when I realized he was blind.
An old woman was approaching between the plots of grass, walking so slowly she never finished arriving, so short were her steps and so frequent her stops to rest.
From up close, leaning on her cane she looked weary, poor, and troubled. She turned to me as if to speak, but it seemed her voice would never emerge as her lips fretted over the word about to be uttered.