Authors: Santiago Roncagliolo
“I'm sorry, really. I'll send you the report as soon as possible …”
“In any event, I am interested in knowing if any missing persons were reported in the past few months in the municipality of Quinua.”
His question resonated uncomfortably with the group. The army officer, who was observing the prosecutor with an ironic look, decided to intervene:
“With Carnival alone ninety percent of faithful husbands must have disappeared.”
Everyone laughed except Associate District Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar, who insisted:
“I need that datum to complete my report. If you could forward that to me as soon as …”
He noticed that they had stopped laughing. The army officer looked at the prosecutor in surprise. The police captain was obliged to make introductions. First he introduced the civilian, Carlos Martín Eléspuru, of the Intelligence Service. Then Commander Alejandro Carrión Villanueva.
“Yes. I have sent you several reports,” the prosecutor said in greeting.
The prosecutor did not believe a military man could be concerned with promotions, but perhaps he could facilitate the process. His presence might serve to motivate the police officer to act efficiently with regard to the case. The captain would not refuse to do what was required in the presence of a military man. But the commander looked seriously at the prosecutor.
“Information regarding disappearances is classified,” he said.
“If you want that information you'll have to ask me for it. I won't give it to you, but send in your request.”
“It is just that if there is a missing person, it could be the dead man we found.”
The commander seemed irritated by this civilian's impertinence. Eléspuru remained silent. The commander picked up another glass that the waiter brought on a tray. The rose-colored liquid gleamed. Suddenly, a smile appeared on his face:
“Ah! You're the one investigating the case of the cuckold!”
New laughter from everyone except Félix Chacaltana Saldívar.
“The cuckold, Señor?”
The commander took a good-humored sip of his drink.
“The man burned in Quinua. The cuckold must have been pretty angry, don't you think?”
“I am afraid it is too soon to know what happened, Señor.”
“Please, Chacaltana. Three days of Carnival and a man dies. Jealousy. A fight over broads. It happens every year.”
“No family member has claimed the body.”
“Because they never talk. Or haven't you noticed that yet? The campesinos always avoid coming forward, they hide.”
“That is precisely the reason they would not kill this way, Commander. Not so violently.”
“Oh, no? You'd have to see me after a three-day drunk.”
The prosecutor pondered the legal basis for that reply. While he was thinking, the commander seemed to forget him. He joined in the laughter of the other two and continued talking. He said something about the mayor's wife. They laughed. When Chacaltana had begun to seem like a decoration on the national pavilion, he decided to respond to the commander.
“Excuse me, Señor. But I am afraid your reasoning lacks juridical foundation …”
The commander broke off speaking. The man in the sky-blue tie looked uncomfortable. Captain Pacheco began to talk about how attractive the Lenten festivities were turning out. He spoke
in a very loud voice. The commander did not stop looking at the prosecutor, who felt totally convinced of his argument. Yes. He was doing it well. Perhaps when the commander had confirmed his professional zeal, he would consider some kind of recommendation for him. The commander said:
“And what do you suggest?”
The police officer closed his mouth again. The prosecutor saw his opportunity to emphasize the gravity of the case and display his powers of deduction:
“I would not presume to discount a Senderista attack.”
He had said it. The silence that followed his words seemed to reach the entire ballroom, the entire city. The prosecutor imagined that with this information they would take the case more seriously. It was a matter of the highest security. Civil law and the Ministry of Justice would collaborate for the common goal of achieving a country with a future. The commander seemed to reflect on his attitude. After a long while, he interrupted the silence with a laugh. Pacheco hesitated for a moment, but then he began to laugh too. And then the man in the sky-blue tie, Eléspuru. After them, the rest of the ballroom and the universe began to laugh just a little and then very loudly, until the air thundered.
“You're paranoid, Señor Prosecutor. There is no Sendero Luminoso here anymore.”
And he turned away to end the conversation. With the pride of an archivist, the prosecutor countered:
“It has been twenty years since the first attack …”
The commander gestured with his hand as if he were brushing away the prosecutor's words.
“Bullshit! We finished them off.”
“That first attack was carried out during an election …”
The military man began to lose patience:
“Are you arguing with me, Chacaltana? Are you calling me a liar?”
“No, but …”
“You aren't one of those politicized prosecutors, are you? You aren't an Aprista or a Communist, are you? Do you want to sabotage the elections? Is that what you want?”
In the face of the unexpected turn in the conversation, the prosecutor opened his eyes very wide and was quick to clarify matters.
“Not at all. If there is a boycott against the elections, rest assured I shall open an investigation as soon as I receive a formal complaint, Commander.”
The commander looked at the prosecutor in disbelief. He thought he was an impossible man. Then he laughed again. This time he laughed slowly, paternally.
“You're pathetic, little Chacaltita. But I understand you. You haven't been here very long, have you? You don't know these half-breeds. Haven't you seen them hitting one another at the fertility fiesta? They're violent people.”
The prosecutor had been at that fiesta several times. He remembered the blows. Men and women, it did not matter. All of them hitting in the face, where it bleeds the most. They believed their blood would irrigate the earth. He remembered the bloody noses and black eyes. The prosecutor usually classified the fiestas as “consensual violence for reasons of religious belief.” Many strange things were done for reasons of religious belief.
“And the Turupukllay?” the commander continued. “What do you think of that? Isn't that bloody?”
The prosecutor thought about the fiesta of the Turupukllay. The Incan condor tied by his claws to the back of a Spanish bull. The bull bucking violently as it bleeds to death, shaking the enormous, frightened vulture that attacks the bull's head with its beak and tears open its back. The condor tries to break free, the bull tries to strike it and knock it off. The condor tends to win the fight, a flayed and wounded victor.
“That is a folkloric celebration,” he said timidly. “It is not terror …”
“Terror? Aha, I understand. And the Uchuraccay massacre, do you remember?”
Chacaltana remembered. He had the feeling it was a very recent memory. But it was almost twenty years old. The corpses, the pieces of their bodies covered with earth, the interminable interrogations in Quechua, pounded at his memory. He felt relieved that things had changed. He did not want to say anything. They seemed distant words that it was better to keep distant.
“I'll remind you about Uchuraccay,” the commander continued. “The campesinos didn't ask those journalists anything. They couldn't, they didn't even speak Spanish. The journalists were outsiders, they were suspicious. They lynched them right away, dragged them through the village, stabbed them. They were so battered they couldn't let them go back. They killed them one by one and hid their bodies the best they could. They thought nobody would notice. What's your opinion of the campesinos? Do you think they're good? Innocent? That all they do is run through the fields with feathers in their hair? Don't be naive, Chacaltana. Don't see horses where there are only dogs.”
Chacaltana had turned pale. He tried to articulate a reply:
“I only … I thought it was a possibility …”
“You think too much, Chacaltana. Get one thing into your head: in this country there is no terrorism, by orders from the top. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Señor.”
“Don't forget it.”
“No, Señor.”
“I want to see your report when you finish with this case. Keep me apprised of what you find out. Perhaps it's still not the right time to cede responsibility to civil jurisdiction.”
The commander turned his back and left. Félix Chacaltana Saldívar, Associate District Prosecutor, could not obtain the required police report that afternoon.
On Monday the 13th, Prosecutor Chacaltana woke with a start
at 6:45 a.m. He was perspiring. He had had a nightmare. He had dreamed about fire. A huge blaze that spread through the city and then the fields until it destroyed everything. In the dream, he was in his bed and began to feel that it was raining inside his bedroom. When he got up, he discovered that it was raining blood, that every millimeter of his room was oozing warm red liquid. He tried to escape but the house was flooded, and he could not move through the dense liquid.
When he began to drown and taste the blood in his mouth and lungs, he woke up. He went to the bathroom. There was no water, but the prosecutor had a barrel in reserve for these occasions, which allowed him to wash his private parts and wet his head. He opened it with a trembling hand. It was a relief to verify that there was nothing but water in the barrel. He washed, then combed his hair back as his mother had taught him to do when he was a boy, as he had combed his hair every day of his life. Immediately afterward he went to his mother's room and opened the window. He let in the air and greeted her. Then he took a picture of Señora Saldívar de Chacaltana to have breakfast with him. He chose a photograph that showed him at the age of five, hugging her. She was smiling.
While he ate his breakfast of bread and cheese and
mate
, he told the picture about his plans for the day and all the documents he hoped to complete. He did not forget that he would have lunch at El Huamanguino to pay his debt to the girl at the counter. For the rest of the morning at the office, the words the commander had said to him the day before resounded in his head. A fight over broads. If the commander said it was a fight over broads, it was a fight over broads. The commander had fought so much that he would know. Yet in the prosecutor's opinion, something did not fit. But Chacaltana was a serious, honest bureaucrat. He was not supposed to have an opinion. Besides, the commander had asked him for his reports. He would read them personally. It was a great opportunity. He thought about Cecilia, his ex-wife. Perhaps this
would show her what he was worth. He did not really care about her anymore; it was simply a question of pride. He could be somebody.
Without warning, when it was almost time for lunch, the commander's words began to mix in his head with images from the pathologist's table until he could not concentrate on what he was doing. In a mental flash he saw the face of the dead man wreathed in smoke, the slit up to his shoulder, his black hair. Violence. Jealousy. The word “terrorist” formed in his mind again. It took him back to electric pylons exploding. Ambulance sirens. He thought about his mother to fill his mind with another image. But he succeeded only in evoking the image of fire.
To distract himself, he decided to go out exactly at lunchtime and not fifteen minutes later, as he usually did. He left the Office of the Prosecutor and went to the previously mentioned restaurant. The same girl as the last time was working behind the counter, but now she wore black slacks and low-heeled shoes. The blouse was the same. Pink. With embroidery. This time she wore her hair pulled back in a bun.
“How nice that you came back. Your table's ready.”
Now he had a table, as if he were a regular customer. It was the only place in the world other than his house where he had a table. It was the same one as the last time, beside the door. In fact, the table was already set. Again the restaurant was empty. She announced:
“Today we have deep-fried guinea pig.”
The prosecutor nodded his agreement. While she went to the kitchen, he looked at the television on the wall. On the screen, a woman was hitting a man, the two of them surrounded by an audience that cheered the hair-pulling and biting. The prosecutor found out that she was his fiancée and that he had deceived her with her sister, her cousin, and her great-aunt. He did not want to see any more. Twelve minutes later, the girl came out of the kitchen. She served him the guinea pig and an Inca beer. The Associate
District Prosecutor brought the flatware to the plate and saw the rodent's face. Its mouth was open and it had long, aggressive front teeth. It seemed to Félix Chacaltana that the guinea pig wanted to eat him. He put down the knife and fork.
“It's not that hot,” the girl said defensively.
“Thank you. It is just that … I was thinking.”
“You think a lot, don't you?”
You think too much, Chacaltana.
“No, it is … I just work.”
“And what were you thinking about? If you don't mind my asking.”
She laughed as if she had asked a very naughty question. Associate District Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar tried to think up a convincing lie.
“A dead man,” he said.
His mother had already told him he did not know how to lie. The girl did not seem surprised. She began to wash some dishes.
“There are a lot of them around here,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I talk to them.”
“Are you serious?”
“With my papa and mama. I go to see them in the cemetery and talk to them, I bring them flowers.”
“Of course. I do the same thing. With my mother. Her memory is always with me.”
Suddenly, he felt comfortable in this place. As if he were home. She turned around. She did not stop washing but gestured toward the guinea pig with her nose.
“Aren't you going to eat?”
“Yes … Yes. Right away.”
He tried to pick up a piece of meat with the fork. The bones were mixed up with the skin. The best thing was to eat with his hands. Touch it. And bite it. On the screen, the same man was still being hit, now by two women at the same time.