The Killer's Tears (13 page)

The police car caught up with him half an hour later.

He was standing still, facing what looked like emptiness. The policemen approached him as slowly as pigeon hunters so as not to frighten him. They could see only his back, shaking with spasms. They did not understand. They did not see that Paolo was laughing as he stood there. The policemen did not see the three children who played barefoot in the moss, capering and leapfrogging to amuse their friend. And yet the children were having such fun! It was
wonderful to see them, with their Dutch blond hair and their lace clothing swirling in the fresh air.

“No!” Paolo shouted when he felt the hands of the policemen grab him.

Right away, the three children stopped playing. They waved goodbye to Paolo and vanished instantly.

Paolo tried to fight. He brandished Angel's knife above his head, but one of the policemen grabbed his arm. Paolo was not strong enough. His fingers let go of the smooth handle, and the knife fell on a stone, where the blade broke.

“We don't want to harm you,” the chief officer declared before ordering his men to take Paolo away.

In the car, the three surviving policemen shifted the body of Officer Lopez to make room for Paolo near the window at the back. The dead man was losing blood on the seat and his head kept falling onto the side of the child, terrifying him.

The policemen never uttered a word.

They did not apologize.

Their small dark eyes were fixed on the bumpy road.

They did not notice that next to them the child was drowning in his sorrow. After all, they considered themselves knights of law and order, fighting evil in the world. It never occurred to them that things were not so simple.

A voice full of static came through the dashboard speaker: Angel Allegria had just been arrested by another squad, twenty kilometers north.

And so it was that the four men mandated by the authorities destroyed the shaky happiness that a child thought was his. They had shown that they were powerful, more powerful than the yellow sweet.

For them, the day was an achievement.

PAOLO SAW ANGEL for the last time a few weeks later at the Puerto Natales jail. The windowless room was painted light green and oozed fear, solitude, and boredom.

At first, they were unable to speak. Neither one of them knew words strong enough to express what was in his heart.

The corrections officer finally touched Angel's shoulder. “You don't have much time. Speak up.”

Angel gave a start, looking fearfully at the guard from the corner of his eye. In just a few weeks, jail had done its work: the fear of blows had made him obedient; and because his mind was no longer in control of his body, he had given up the fight. Paolo did not recognize the man, once so
strong and unwavering, who had carried him for hours along the cliffs.

They looked at each other again, a long time, their throats tight.

“Come on, time's up,” said the officer.

Angel leaned slightly toward Paolo as a mother would lean above a crib. It was all over and yet he felt he had not begun.

“Do you remember?” he whispered at last. “When we lived in your house, I asked you to remember what day you were born?”

Paolo nodded. He remembered everything, each moment, each word, each leg of their journey, vividly.

“You answered me it was the day I arrived,” Angel went on.

“Time's up!” the guard said again, grabbing Angel's arm firmly.

Angel's hands were handcuffed behind his back and already the guard was pulling him away.

“Do you remember, Paolo?” Angel shouted, his feet slipping on the tiles.

“Yes!” Paolo shouted.

Angel was crying.

“Well, me too!” the murderer yelled. “Me too, I was born that day! I was born the day I saw you! Do you understand, Paolo?”

The guard pulled on the handcuffs and Angel disappeared behind a reinforced door, which closed like a jaw
on its prey. Paolo knew that he would never see Angel again. He jumped up, knocking over his chair, and ran to the door.

“I understand!” he shouted behind the door. “Angel! I understand!”

A voice answered, muffled by the thickness of the walls. Were these words expressing sentiments of love? Just in case, Paolo shouted as loudly as he could.

“Me too! Me too!”

And then there was only the clatter of keys, the locking of bolts, the awful grating of jail iron. His hands glued to the door, Paolo did not move. He thought that if he did he would turn to dust, that he would disintegrate like a piece of chalk. He could visualize the walls separating him from Angel. How many of them were there? Dozens, no doubt, each one thicker than the last, green and cold like snakes.

A woman came into the room and put her hand on Paolo's hair.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

Paolo shook his head.

“Do you want to eat something?”

“No, I want my father.”

The woman crouched in front of him. She sighed. “Your father is dead, you know.”

“Angel.”

“Angel is not your father.”

“He loves me.”

“I don't think so. He has done you a lot of harm.”

The woman believed that Paolo was traumatized
because of the years spent with the murderer. She had read papers written by experts in psychiatry that explained how an attachment could develop between victims and their abusers, and how this often formed a binding link. She had read a lot of things, but she knew nothing about the feelings Paolo and Angel shared.

Soon after, the town of Puerto Natales inaugurated its new Court of Justice with much fanfare. It was a very tall, impressive building, with lots of steps leading to a huge entrance guarded on each side by a statue that was half lioness, half woman. The recently elected mayor was dedicating the court to his voters, vowing to uphold his campaign promises of a larger police force and less leniency for criminals.

In an immense marble hall in the center of the building, the mayor was about to unveil a surprise.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” he exclaimed as he got ready to pull on a tarpaulin. “You'll understand the meaning of my mission when you see what I am about to reveal. You'll understand how determined I am to make an example of our city as a sanctuary of security for us and our children.”

The mayor felt very sure of himself: what was simpler than setting apart good from evil, good people from bad people, honest people from dishonest ones?

He pulled on the tarpaulin. The cloth fell away like the
sail of a boat that sagged for lack of wind. A chorus of
ohs
erupted from the onlookers.

“This guillotine,” explained the mayor, satisfied with the effect it had produced, “has been built entirely in Puerto Natales, with the trees of our forests, felled by our best lumberjacks. Its wood has been cut in one of the city sawmills. Its parts have been assembled in one of our factories. A guillotine one hundred percent Chilean! It is for you! Let it be the symbol of our intransigence!”

The crowd burst into applause.

Ricardo Murga had died at the right moment after all. He would never know what his last tree had been used for, or the unusual metamorphosis it had gone through.

Inside the jail, Angel was awaiting trial.

His cell smelled of urine and mildew. Once a day, he was entitled to a ten-minute walk. The sadness of the place and of his life as a whole weighed on his mind all the time. He could not think. They had laughed at him when he had asked for access to the library, since his file said he was illiterate. No one guessed that he had learned to read just by listening to Paolo's lessons with Luis. No one knew how much the years spent with the child had changed him; and no one would have believed it anyway.

To keep his hands busy, he engraved his name on the walls of his cell with a tiny piece of wire torn from the
box spring of his bed.
Angel Allegria. Angel Allegria. Angel Allegria
. It was the only thing he could write, the name that life had given him and that sounded so ironic to his ears.

On his birthday, he started to draw a cake and candles. A fine dust of plaster remained suspended in the air like sparkles, and they stuck to his eyes and brought up tears.

His trial took place the following day.

In the courtroom, he looked for Paolo among the crowd. The child was not there. Angel felt both relieved and hurt, but he hid his grief and sat silently in the box for the accused.

A few people spoke. His entire life was stripped apart, fact after fact, offense after offense, crime after crime, until nothing, or almost nothing, was left untold. At the end of the trial, he was just an empty shell.

Only a few hours later, his sentence was read: Angel Allegria was condemned to death.

He was taken back to his cell, where he lay down on the narrow bed. His life was behind him. The only things he had left were the memories of the years of wind, solitude, and happiness with Paolo. But now that he was far from the child, he feared for him, his health, well-being, and future. And no one was willing to give him any news.

Looking at the ceiling, he wished they would execute him as soon as possible and put an end to the worries churning in his head. He called for a corrections officer.

“I want to die,” he said.

The guard laughed. “You're in luck.”

“Kill me, then.”

The guard shook his head. He explained that convicts on death row were not executed that simply. It would take time. The lawyers, the judge, the clerks had to file a lot of paperwork and go through complicated administrative procedures. It would take weeks, perhaps months. Heads were not savagely cut: it was done by state-of-the-art equipment.

Paolo had been put in the care of a family in Puerto Natales. He attended school and was well fed. He did not cause any problems to the decent foster parents in charge of his education. He was calm. Very calm.

Unknown to everyone, he kept a box under his bed in which he had placed the yellow lucky charm. It had become sticky, flat, and dirty after remaining so long in his pocket. The sweet was the only tangible memory he had of his life with Angel. He had lost all the other gifts: the fox; Delia's painting; Luis's money; the record, which he had left at Ricardo's; and even the knife. All these gifts were like little Tom Thumb's bread crumbs: they had been scattered along the way, only to be gathered up by others—especially the money.

At night, questions plagued his mind.

Where was Luis?

What had become of Ricardo's house?

Were the children still coming to dance on the grass?

Was the lovely lamb of Punta Arenas still alive?

And the Belgian alpinist?

And the nice lady at the bank?

There was no one to answer these questions.

One day Paolo inquired whether he could visit Angel in jail. He was told that it was not possible. Children were not allowed to visit prisoners on death row. Besides, he was not to love this man, this murderer, anymore. It was not normal.

So Paolo shut himself in his room. He did not understand the meaning of all this. He took his head in his hands and waited. By dint of waiting, he hoped his heart would wear out and stop beating. What other way was there to stop loving someone?