The Almanac of the Dead: A Novel (60 page)

TACHO HAD OBSERVED WHITE PEOPLE all his life. He had learned to follow Menardo’s moods and ignore whatever Menardo might say because Menardo was a yellow monkey who imitated real white men.

Tacho knew Iliana had warned Menardo many times about telling his dreams to an Indian. Tacho had been overjoyed the day Iliana took her fall. The marble stairs were imitations of the temple staircases the Indians had built. Tacho laughed all the more when the boss had married Alegría. Tacho had smelled Alegría, and he had correctly guessed the day Menardo’s new wife had gone back to fucking the Cuban, Bartolomeo. Tacho knows about the Cuban from his people living in the mountains.

Only Tacho and a few others knew about the macaw spirit beings that followed him, always roosting in nearby trees until they located Tacho again. The big blue-and-yellow birds had cruel beaks and claws. They followed Tacho wherever he went, and for a long time the big parrots refused to talk to him. Tacho stole cake from Menardo’s kitchen, and one of the blue-and-yellow birds had spoken to Tacho. The bird addressed Tacho as Wacah. Tacho was reluctant to hear any more and left the birds in the tree outside. Birds and animals that were too friendly toward humans might be sorcerer’s animals, not real animals. The blue-and-yellow macaws shrieked Tacho’s new name over and over from dawn to dusk:

“Wacah! Wacah! Wacah! Wacah! Big changes are coming!” For a long time after that, Tacho had hurried past the tree into the garage to avoid the two spirit macaws. But they had stayed high at the top of the tree and ignored Tacho, or Wacah. They refused to leave. The macaws kept reading off lists of orders, things that Tacho-Wacah must do. Tacho bribed the birds with candy, and then for two or three nights Tacho had beautiful dreams.

All Menardo’s dreams had contained the terror of a doomed man,
and always the dreams were of ambush on the highway, dreams in which the cars and guards usually accompanying the Mercedes were suddenly gone. No matter how deadly the omens in the dreams, Tacho told Menardo there was nothing to fear; Tacho lied to Menardo every chance he got. Tacho watches the gradual changes in the yellow monkey. The change that the vest brought to the master and mistress’s bedroom is quite extensive and funny. They no longer fuck because Señor prefers to cower in his vest.

For weeks the vest keeps Menardo’s dreams simple and blissful. Then one night Menardo dreams of an asphalt highway in the moonlight where the white lines give way to a giant silver rattlesnake warming itself on the pavement. Menardo screams at Tacho, but he can’t brake. The car tires explode as they tear into the huge snake, hurling bloody chunks of reptile skin and flesh against the car windshield. Tacho says no need to worry, the giant snake is from the Bible, and it is good luck for Christians to kill serpents. But after the dream, Menardo can no longer eat red meat. He is haunted by a smear of reptilian tissue across glass. The sight of reptile scales makes Menardo’s skin crawl. Menardo proceeds with plans to experiment with the vest. If Tacho is going to assist in the test, Menardo wants him to understand a little. Menardo opens the brochure and points at a series of pictures of white men without shirts.

“Look! See?” Menardo’s fat brown forefinger slides over the white man’s left nipple. “The big dark spot! Right there!”

Tacho looked, then nodded slowly.

“A criminal shot him with a .38 special, but the vest saved him!” Menardo pats his own chest over his pajamas.

Tacho is cautious. “This very same vest?”

Menardo is suddenly impatient. “No, not
this
one, but one just like it. So today,” he says with a flourish, “today, my friend, we are going to perform a scientific test!” Today they are
compadres.
This will be their secret. Their secret alone.

Tacho is careful to take side streets to avoid the route of Menardo’s fatal dream. Although Menardo had talked excitedly about the tests and actual cases reported in the illustrated brochure, Tacho is not sure he understands.

THE VIDEO CAMERAS and equipment had been gifts of the United States government. Their U.S. friends were concerned about the growing political unrest in Mexico. Their U.S. friends only asked to receive duplicate tapes of the interrogations. Menardo had always envied the police chief’s extensive knowledge of electronic technology. The chief had made a point of inviting them all into the conference room to review police interrogations on video. The chief said he needed their suggestions. While the others stared at the hundreds of tiny switches and lights on the panel, the chief had waved a thick instruction manual at them, saying it was so simple and easy, even an Indian could do it. Then the chief had laughed, and they had all laughed because none of them acknowledged any Indian ancestors.

The police chief needed the suggestions of El Grupo. They could not continue these interrogations with such stupid questions for the suspects. For example,
Question:
Do you know why you are here?
Answer:
No.
Question:
You are lying! This was to be an anti-subversive campaign. On the video monitor the young whore’s hard, upturned breasts filled the screen in freeze-frame. He watched the ten minutes of videotape over and over, listening to the questions the junior officers had asked. Of course they were asking her how many other girls were working as she was, and whom the girls were working for. Halfhearted questions. Girls such as her did not last long on the streets. Personally, the chief thought it was better for the girls when they got taken over by a pimp.

Communism was responsible for all the young girls, and yes, young boys, lining the streets downtown, and the parking lots outside tourist hotels. The chief had always felt his work was indispensable. They lived such a great distance from the Federal District. If the police chief was not constantly vigilant, the agitators from the South would stir up trouble. The police chief began writing furiously, hitting the pause switch on the videotape deck, rolling close-ups of females’ organs across the TV screen. The chief had sent his aide away before he had noticed the
colors on the screen were all wrong—all yellows, greens, oranges, and browns and blues where they should have been rose-pink or bloodred. Still, the chief had been inspired by the whipping the junior officers gave the whore with the belts of their uniforms.

The police chief complained to Vico, his wife’s brother: the Argentine interfered and often interrupted interrogations. The Argentine had persuaded them to use lipstick and makeup on the genitals so they might show up better on the video screen. All the Argentine talked about was “visual impact” or “erotic value.” Making a little on the side selling the tapes—that was one thing, so long as police work was not hindered. The chief was delighted to make money from the filthy perversions of thousands hopelessly addicted to the films of torture and dismemberment. But a short time later the police chief had an idea. The videos Vico sold to the Argentine pornographic film company were only copies. With the originals, the chief’s idea was to educate the people about the consequences of political extremism. He wanted the people to see the punishment that awaited all agitators and communists. Stern messages could be interwoven in the interrogator’s questions, something perhaps like this:
Interrogator:
Why are you performing traitorous acts against God Almighty and the sovereign nation of Mexico?
Whack!
with the rubber hose across the soles of the feet.

But the Argentine cameraman did not want to be delayed while new questions were drafted for the interrogators to use. Vico was no better than the Argentine. They both only cared about a “quality product.” Vico was blunt. They didn’t use the sound track except for the prisoner’s cries or the torturer’s grunts and the sound of breaking bone. The chief canceled all interrogations and videotaping by the police until the official list of interrogation questions had been completed.

The chief purposely stayed away until his interrogation questions were completed. He prided himself on the perfection he demanded in all he undertook. But in the ten days the chief was absent, the Argentine had completely taken over. It probably was the first time the Argentine had been surrounded with such yokels. The chief despised the junior officers and their kowtowing to the Argentine. So during the ten days he had been away, they had become grinning idiots in officers’ uniforms. Whatever the Argentine told them, they did without question.

The chief looked at the report by Dr. Guzman. The Argentine had made a mess of everything. The prisoners were covered with welts, bruises, and burns. “The videos sell for more money that way,” the
subordinate answered when the police chief had questioned him about the medical report.

It all gave the chief a dizzy, unbalanced feeling. Suddenly everything about the way the chief had understood his assignment, even his own life—all of it seemed to go up in steam, evaporate. None of them understood what the bruises and burns might prove to the outside agitators or international commissions.

The light-headedness came again when the first images blinked on the video monitor screen. It was far worse than anything the chief could have dreamed. The Argentine had turned the basement of police headquarters into a movie studio. They were out of uniform. Dressed in civilian clothing. The chief tried to keep his composure. By whose order had the junior officers performed interrogations out of uniform? But even before he could speak, Vico and the Argentine were at his side. A junior officer stopped the videotape. Vico whispered in the chief’s ear. Vico urged the chief to remain calm. The money involved here was considerable.

“Look at the laws of supply and demand,” Vico continued, and the chief was wondering if his brother-in-law was on some kind of dope because his talk just seemed to be getting faster and faster. For years there had been no shortage of “raw material” in Argentina. But recently there had been a drastic interruption. A change in government, so to speak. The chief nodded. Vico put his hand on the chief’s arm. They were supplying half the world. Think of it! Vico raved on and on. But somehow in stepping back from the idiot Vico, the chief had inadvertently nodded his head in the direction of the officers by the video machine. The idiots had assumed the gesture was their signal to start the video again. On the video monitor he could again see his men. He could not believe it. Things had been changed. The interrogation room had been decorated with colored paper and paper flowers as if for a party, but in the center of the room on a tinfoil “throne” sat the prisoner. The prisoner’s eyes had been taped with the silver tape the Argentine used to bundle cords on video equipment. But the chief had not been prepared for masks on their faces. The interrogators wore carnival masks—the wolf, the rat, the vampire, and the pig. In this video they wanted no trace of the police. This they had done for a special video called
Carnival of Torment.
How quickly they had lost sight of their true purpose. Of course, they wanted to make money, but what had been most important to the chief was the message, the warning that
must be sent. The chief kept a notebook beside his bed. Every night he woke at least twice for his bladder, and while he was up, sudden ideas came to him. The videos could carry warnings to more than leftwingers and subversives. Thieves and criminals of all types, molesters of children and small animals, traitors, spies of enemy nations—all would receive warnings. This is waiting for you, the warnings would say. This is what’s waiting for anyone out there who dares violate the law.

But not this! This circus was a crime! A beast feast! This was perversion that had involved his own junior officers. The video was still rolling; now the images on the screen were silhouettes and the prisoner’s nipples and vulva were spotlighted. On the screen they thrust a cattle prod inside the vagina. The junior officers were laughing.

The chief did not feel well, but blamed the odor of his coat. The odor of cleaning solvent made the chief ill. His wife had become less attentive in recent years. She no longer looked after the household and the hired help after the children were grown. She spent all her time with the women’s club. Playing canasta and drinking gin with the governor’s wife and the others. The chief would make a note as soon as he reached his office: “warnings to loose women” would be the theme of their next interrogation session.