Of Love and Shadows (16 page)

But Irene was prepared, if necessary, to move heaven and earth to find the girl. Later, looking back on those days, she asked herself what had propelled her into the world of shadows. She had suspected from the beginning that she held the end of a long thread in her hands that when tugged would unravel an unending snarl of horrors. Intuitively, she knew that Evangelina, the saint of the dubious miracles, was the borderline between her orderly world and a dark unknown region. Irene concluded that it was not only her natural and professional curiosity that had driven her forward, but something akin to vertigo. She had peered into a bottomless well and had not been able to resist the temptation of the abyss.

Lieutenant Juan de Dios Ramírez received her in his office without delay. He did not seem as burly as he had when she had met him on that fateful Sunday at the Ranquileo home, and she deduced that the size of a man must depend on his attitude. Ramírez was almost amiable. He was wearing his tunic unbelted, he was bareheaded, and he carried no weapons. His hands were puffy, red, streaked with chilblains, the cross of the poor. It was unlikely that he would have forgotten Irene—one glimpse of her, with her wild hair and bizarre clothes, was enough to make anyone remember her; she made no attempt, therefore, to deceive the officer, and without preamble declared her interest in Evangelina Ranquileo.

“She was detained for a brief routine questioning,” the officer responded. “She spent the night here and was released early the next morning.”

Ramírez dried the sweat from his brow. It was hot in the office.

“Did you put her out in the street without any clothes?”

“Citizen Ranquileo was wearing shoes and a poncho.”

“You dragged her from her bed in the middle of the night. She is a minor, why wasn't she returned to her parents?”

“I don't have to discuss police procedures with you,” the lieutenant replied curtly.

“Would you rather discuss them with my fiancé, Army Captain Gustavo Morante?”

“What kind of idea is that! I report only to my superior officer.”

But Ramírez hesitated. The principle of the brotherhood of the armed services was firmly instilled in his bones: the sacred interests of the nation, and the even more sacred interests of the uniform, rose above petty rivalries among the individual branches. They must all defend themselves against the insidious cancer that was growing and spreading in the very bosom of the public: that was why civilians were never to be trusted—as a precaution, and as strategy for loyally protecting comrades-in-arms. The armed forces must be monolithic; that had been repeated to him a thousand times over. He was also influenced by the young woman's social class. He was accustomed to respecting the supreme authority of money and power, and she must have plenty of both if she dared question him with such assurance, treating him as if he were her servant. He got out the Duty Log and showed it to her. There was the entry for Evangelina Ranquileo Sánchez, fifteen, held for the purpose of making a statement in regard to an unauthorized gathering on the property of her family, and in regard to a physical assault on the person of officer Juan de Dios Ramírez. At the foot of the page Irene saw an additional entry: Owing to an attack of hysteria, it was decided to cancel the interrogation. Signed, Corporal of the Guard, Ignacio Bravo.

“I'd say she's probably taken off for the capital. She wanted to find a job as a servant, like her older sister,” said Ramírez.

“Without money and half naked, Lieutenant? Don't you find that a little strange?”

“The kid was half nuts.”

“May I speak with her brother, Pradelio Ranquileo?”

“No. He's been transferred to a different military command.”

“Where?”

“That is confidential information. We are in a declared State of Emergency.”

Irene realized that she would not learn anything more by following this line of questioning, and as it was still early she drove to the village with the idea of questioning people there. She wanted to find out what they thought of the military in general and of Lieutenant Ramírez in particular. On hearing her questions, however, people turned their heads without answering and scurried away as quickly as possible. Years of authoritarian regime had established discretion as the basis for survival. While a mechanic patched one of the tires of her car, Irene went into an inn near the plaza. Signs of spring were everywhere: in the nuptial flight of the thrushes, the self-satisfied strutting of hens followed by a string of chicks, the quivering of young girls beneath their cotton dresses. A pregnant cat wandered into the inn and, with dignity, curled up beneath Irene's table.

At various times in her life, Irene had experienced strong intuitions. She believed she could read the signs of the future, and imagined that the power of the mind could determine certain events. That is how she explained the appearance of Sergeant Faustino Rivera at the very place she had chosen to eat. When she told this to Francisco later, he expounded a simpler theory: the inn was the only restaurant in Los Riscos and the sergeant was thirsty. Rivera was sweating as Irene watched him enter, walk to the counter, and order a beer; she immediately recognized the Indian features—the high cheekbones, oblique eyes, taut skin, and large, even teeth. He was in uniform, and was carrying his cap in his hand. She remembered what little she'd heard about him from the mouth of Digna Ranquileo, and decided to use it to her advantage.

“Are you Sergeant Rivera?” she asked.

“At your service, ma'am.”

“The son of Manuel Rivera, the one with the harelip?”

“The same. What can I do for you?”

From that moment the conversation flowed freely. Irene invited Rivera to drink his beer at her table, and as soon as he was seated with another beer in his hand, he was putty in her hands. By the third glass, it was evident that the soldier did not carry his alcohol well, and Irene directed the conversation to the channels that interested her. She began by flattering him, saying that he had been born to occupy posts of responsibility, anyone could see that; she herself had noticed it in the Ranquileos' house when he had controlled the situation with the authority and cool head of a true leader; he had been energetic, efficient, not at all like that officer Ramírez.

“Is your lieutenant always so reckless? I mean, that shooting! It scared me to death.”

“He didn't used to be like that. He isn't a bad man, I swear it,” replied the sergeant.

He knew him, he said, like the palm of his hand, because he had served under his command for years. Just out of Officers' School Ramírez had all the virtues of a good military man: he was trim, uncompromising, trustworthy. He knew all the rules and regulations by heart; he had no patience for imperfection; he demanded a serious attitude on the part of his subordinates; he reviewed the shine on their boots and pulled on their buttons to see that they were firmly attached; and he was obsessive about hygiene. He personally checked the cleaning of the latrines, and each week he lined up his men in the nude to examine them for venereal diseases and lice. He inspected their private parts with a magnifying glass, and any infected men had to undergo drastic remedies and infinite humiliation.

“But he didn't do it out of meanness,
señorita.
He wanted to teach us to be decent. I think in those days the lieutenant had a good heart.”

*  *  *

Rivera remembered the first execution as clearly as if he were seeing it today. It had happened five years ago, a few days after the military takeover. It was still cold, and it had rained all night; the skies had opened and washed the world, leaving the barracks bright and clean and smelling of moss and moisture. By dawn, the rain had stopped, but everything was softened in the haze of its memory, and small pools of water glittered among the cobbles like slivers of glass. The firing squad was assembled at the far end of the patio, and two strides before them, deathly pale, stood Lieutenant Ramírez. The prisoner was brought in between two guards, who were holding him up by the arms because he couldn't stand on his own two feet. At first Rivera hadn't realized what bad shape he was in; he'd thought the man was a coward, like others who, after running around out there committing their subversive acts and fucking up the whole country, swooned when the time came to pay for their sins; but then he got a better look and saw that this was the guy whose legs they'd crushed. The guards had to support him between them to keep his feet from bumping over the cobblestones. Faustino Rivera looked at his superior and read his thoughts. During nights of guard duty, they had talked man to man, forgetting differences in rank and analyzing the reasons for the military uprising and its consequences. The country had been divided by anti-patriotic politicians who were weakening the nation and turning it into easy prey for enemies from the outside, Lieutenant Ramírez had said. It is the first duty of a soldier to protect the nation's security; that's why they'd seized power, to make the nation strong again, and, in passing, to do away with their internal enemies. Rivera rejected the idea of torture; he considered it the worst of the dirty war they were all engulfed in; it wasn't a part of his profession; it hadn't been a part of his training; it turned his stomach. It was one thing to rough up some hoodlum a little in the course of a routine interrogation, but it was something else again to torture a prisoner systematically. Why did the bastards clam up? Why didn't they talk in their first interrogation and save themselves all that pointless suffering? In the end they either confessed or they died, like this fellow they were getting ready to execute.

“Detail! Attennnn . . . !”

“Lieutenant,” whispered Faustino Rivera, then only a corporal first class.

“Position the prisoner against the wall, Corporal!”

“But, Lieutenant, he can't stand up.”

“Then sit him down!”

“Where, Lieutenant?”

“Well, bring a chair, goddammit,” and the lieutenant's voice had cracked.

Faustino Rivera turned to the man at his left, repeated the order, and the man departed. Why don't they pitch the prisoner on the ground and shoot him like a dog before it gets light and we can see everybody's face? Why drag it out like this? the corporal thought, uneasy because the patio was getting lighter by the second. The prisoner raised his eyes and looked at each of them with the astounded expression of the dying; he paused when he came to Faustino. He undoubtedly recognized him, because once they'd played soccer on the same field, and there
he
was now standing in the middle of icy pools of water, holding a rifle in his hands that weighed a ton, while the prisoner lay on the ground waiting. At this point the chair arrived and the lieutenant ordered them to tie the prisoner to the chairback because he was swaying like a scarecrow. The corporal stepped toward him with a kerchief.

“I don't want a blindfold, soldier,” said the prisoner, and the corporal hung his head, ashamed, wishing the officer would get on with it and give the order to fire, wishing this war would hurry up and get over, wishing that things would get back to normal and he could walk down the street in peace, greeting all his countrymen alike.

“Reaaaaady! Aiii . . . !” commanded the lieutenant.

Finally, thought the corporal. The man who was about to die closed his eyes for an instant but opened them again to look toward the sky. He was no longer afraid. The lieutenant hesitated. He'd been pale as a ghost ever since he'd heard about the execution. An old voice from his childhood had been pounding in his brain, the voice of some teacher or his confessor in the school for priests, perhaps: All men are brothers. But that isn't true; any man who goes around spreading violence is no brother of mine, and the nation comes first, everything else isn't worth shit; and if we don't kill them, they'll kill us. That's what the Colonels say: Kill or be killed, this is war, these things have to be done, pull up your pants and don't tremble, don't think, don't feel, and above all don't look at the man's face, because if you do, you're fucked good and proper.

“Fire!”

The volley jolted the skies and echoed and re-echoed in the icy patio. A startled pigeon flew away. The smell of gunpowder and the noise seemed to linger for an eternity, but slowly the silence returned. The lieutenant opened his eyes: the prisoner was sitting straight and serene in his chair, looking at him. There was fresh blood on the shapeless mass of his pants legs, but he was alive, and his face was ethereal in the dawn light. He was alive, and waiting.

“What's going on here, Corporal?” the officer asked in a low voice.

“They shot at his legs, Lieutenant,” replied Faustino Rivera. “All the boys are from around here. They know each other, they're not going to kill a friend.”

“So what happens now?”

“Now it's up to you, Lieutenant.”

Mute, the officer finally understood. The firing squad stood watching the dew evaporating off the cobbles. The prisoner, too, was waiting at the far end of the patio, unhurriedly bleeding to death.

“Didn't they tell you, Lieutenant? Everyone knows.”

No. No, they had not told him. In Officers' School they had prepared him to fight against neighboring nations, against any son of a bitch who invaded their sovereign territory. They had also trained him to wage war against common criminals, to pursue them mercilessly, hunt them down like dogs, so that decent men, women, and children could walk the streets with a light heart. That was his mission. But no one had told him he would have to beat a bound man to a pulp to make him talk, they had not taught him anything about that; and now the world was spinning backward and he had to walk over and administer the coup de grâce to that poor bastard who was not even complaining. No. No one had told him.

Surreptitiously the corporal nudged the lieutenant's arm, so the squad would not see their leader's vacillation.