The boy put together everything he knew, and what he understood of life. He answered:
“He’s my father.”
Then he fired. A single shot. Into emptiness.
El Gurre responded instinctively. The machine-gun burst lifted the child up off the floor and hurled him at the wall, in a mess of lead, bone, and blood. Like a bird shot in mid-flight, Tito thought.
Salinas threw himself to the floor. He ended up beside Roca.
For a moment the two men looked at each other. From Roca’s throat came a dull, horrible howl. Salinas pulled away, sliding along the floor. He rolled onto his back to get Roca’s eyes off him. He began to tremble all over. There was a heavy silence.
Only that horrible howl. Salinas raised himself up on his elbows and looked at the far end of the room. The child’s body was leaning against the wall, tattered by the machine-gun volley, ripped open with wounds. His gun had flown into a corner.
Salinas saw that the child’s head was upside down, and in his open mouth he saw the little white teeth, a neat white row. Then Salinas let go, falling onto his back. His eyes stared at the ceiling, with its line of beams. Dark wood. Old. He was trembling all over. He couldn’t keep his hands still, his legs, anything.
Tito took two steps toward him.
El Gurre restrained him with a nod.
Roca gave a grim cry, a death cry.
Salinas said softly: “Make him stop.”
His teeth were chattering madly, and as he spoke he was trying to stop them.
El Gurre searched his eyes to understand what he wanted.
Salinas’s eyes were fixed on the ceiling. A line of dark wood beams. Old.
“Make him stop,” he repeated.
El Gurre took a step forward.
Roca howled, lying in his own blood, his mouth hideously wide.
El Gurre stuck the barrel of the gun in his throat.
Roca kept on howling, against the warm metal of the barrel.
El Gurre fired. A short burst. Dry. The last of his war.
“Make him stop,” Salinas said again.
Nina heard a silence that frightened her. Then she joined her hands and stuck them between her legs. She curled up even tighter, bringing her knees toward her head. She thought that now it would all be over. Her father would come to get her and they would go and have supper. She thought that they would not speak again of that night, and that soon they would forget about it: she thought this because she was a child and couldn’t know.
“The girl,” said El Gurre.
He held Salinas by the arm, to make him stand up. He said to him softly:
“The girl.”
Salinas’s gaze was blank.
“What girl?”
“Roca’s daughter. If the boy was here she probably is, too.”
Salinas muttered something. Then he shoved El Gurre away.
He pulled himself up, holding on to the table. His shoes were soaked in Roca’s blood.
El Gurre nodded at Tito, then directed him toward the kitchen. When Tito passed the boy on the floor he bent down for an instant and closed his eyes. Not like a father. Like someone who turns off the light as he is leaving a room.
Tito thought of his own father’s eyes. One day some men had knocked on the door of his house. Tito had never seen them before. But they said they had a message for him. Then they handed him a canvas sack. He opened it and inside were the eyes of his father. Take care which side you stand on, kid, they said.
And they went away.
Tito saw a drawn curtain on the other side of the room. He released the safety of his pistol and advanced. He parted the curtain. Behind it was a small room. Everything was in disarray.
Chairs overturned, trunks, tools, and some baskets of half-rotted fruit. There was a strong smell of food gone bad. And of dampness. On the floor the dust was strange: it looked as if someone had dragged his feet through it. Or something else.
He heard El Gurre on the other side of the house beating the walls with his machine gun, looking for hidden doors. Salinas must have still been there, holding on to the table, shaking. Tito moved one of the fruit baskets. He made out on the floor the line of a trapdoor. He hit the floor hard with one boot, to hear what noise it made. He moved two more baskets. It was a small trapdoor, carefully cut out. Tito looked up. Through a small window he saw the darkness outside. He hadn’t even realized that it was night. He thought it was time to go, get away from there. Then he knelt on the floor, and lifted the trapdoor. There was a girl inside, curled up on her side, her hands hidden between her thighs, her head bent forward slightly, toward her knees. Her eyes were open.
Tito pointed his gun at her.
“Salinas!” he shouted.
The child turned her head and looked at him. She had dark eyes, oddly shaped. She looked at him without expression. Her lips were half closed and she was breathing calmly. She was an animal in its den. Tito felt returning to him a sensation he had felt a thousand times, finding that exact position, between the warmth of sheets or under the afternoon sun of childhood. Knees folded, hands between the legs, feet balanced. Head bent forward slightly, closing the circle. How lovely it was, he thought. The child’s skin was white, and the outline of her lips perfect. Her legs stuck out from under a short red skirt, as if in a drawing. It was all so orderly. It was all so complete.
Exact.
The girl turned her head back, to its former position. She bent it forward slightly, closing the circle. Tito realized that no one had answered, beyond the curtain. Time had surely passed, and yet no one had answered. He could hear El Gurre banging with his gun against the walls of the house. A muted meticulous sound. Outside it was dark. He lowered the trapdoor. Slowly.
He remained there, on his knees, to see if through the cracks in the floor he could see the child. He would have liked to think.
But he couldn’t. Every so often he was too tired to think. He got up. He put the baskets back. He felt his heart banging against his temples.
They went out into the night like drunks. El Gurre supported Salinas, pushing him forward. Tito walked behind them.
Somewhere, the old Mercedes was waiting for them. They went a dozen yards or so, without exchanging a word. Then Salinas said something to El Gurre and El Gurre went back, toward the farmhouse. He didn’t seem very certain, but he went back.
Salinas leaned on Tito and told him to keep walking. They skirted the woodpile and left the road to take a path that led through the fields. There was a deep silence, and for that reason Tito was unable to say the sentence that he had in mind and had decided to say: There is still a child in there. He was tired, and there was too much silence. Salinas stopped. He was shaking and it was an enormous effort to walk. Tito said something softly, then he turned and looked back. He saw El Gurre running toward them. Behind him he saw the farmhouse rip the darkness, ablaze with the fire that was devouring it. The flames shot up and a cloud of black smoke rose slowly in the night. Tito moved away from Salinas and stood petrified, watching. El Gurre joined them and without stopping said Let’s go, kid. But Tito didn’t move.