‘You people have balls,’ commented the officer.
‘That reminds me, our leader is a woman, Remedios, and she wants to be in charge, since this is our struggle more than it is yours.’
Felipe raised his eyebrows and smiled in the aristocratic manner that seems to be universal amongst the officer of élite corps around the world. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘we will fix bayonets and charge when we see you advance. My men have never had any genuine practice in it, and I cannot see the people down there lasting for very much longer in any case.’
As he crossed back to his own lines with bullets streaking past his head, Dionisio could think only of the time when he had gone reluctantly with Anica to a bar in Valledupar. With them had been her brother, whom he had hated on sight for his good looks, his self-confidence, and the mere fact that he was a successful young officer in the proudest regiment of the Army. Dionisio loathed the Army because of his national service; he hated the obsession with details, hierarchy and formality. To him it was a hideous expense in a country starved of the means of life. He remembered with a wry smile how, in a couple of hours, he had become so close to Felipe that afterwards Anica had complained of not having been able to get herself heard all evening. The memory of that occasion warmed him, but the picture of Anica toying with her glass as the two men discussed democracy also opened up an incurable wound in his heart. He knew suddenly why it was that he took no precautions against the bullets.
‘The officer is under your orders,’ he said briefly to Remedios, and he went to call all the cats together, determined not to repeat his previous mistake of succumbing to his principled humanity.
The Spanish soldiers under the leadership of the Conde Xavier de Estremadura, the lover of Remedios, and Fulgencia Astiz at the head of the women, emerged from the city and crossed the drawbridge. They separated into two columns, since the Conde had refused to be commanded by a woman. She had disdainfully riposted with a remark to the effect that she would do anything rather than rely upon a man. Despite their altercation, they were now beginning their advance upon the enemy, from the very side from which an attack had been originally expected, but which had now become the enemy’s rear. But they covered barely more than a hundred metres, for two reasons.
In the first place they came upon those who had fled towards the city in order to escape the inferno of crossfire at the far end of the valley. Cowardice on the part of the enemy had never entered into the strategic calculations of the council of war, and for a minute Fulgencia was both outraged by it and nonplussed. But it was not long before the Spanish soldiers were poking their rusted rapiers into crevices and hiding holes, and the women were heartlessly firing into the backs of those who were fleeing once more for their own lines, or attempting to scale the unsupported mud of the andenes in their attempt to escape.
In the second place, a cloud billowed down from the peak above the city, and another swelled simultaneously from the valley to the south. Down they rolled, obscuring everything, leaving freezing droplets of condensation upon the barrels of the guns, and enveloping the world in a grey and sodden twilight. ‘Shit!’ yelled a voice that was plainly Hectoro’s, and another that was Misael’s said, ‘Do not worry, it will lift in a minute. It always does.’
‘Cease fire,’ shouted Remedios redundantly, since everybody had already stopped shooting at what they could not see.
But it would not lift. Instead it rained. A conspiracy of vapour funnelled cloud upon cloud in a stack that could be clearly seen from the dappled sunlight of the jungle by Carmen as she stabbed the soil with her planting stick of quebracha, and dropped three grains of maize in each hole; one for the gods, one for the birds, and one to eat. The combatants beneath this incontinent deluge shivered and suffered, wrapping their ponchos about their bodies, pulling down the brims of their hats, but becoming more soaked than if they had dived into a lake stark naked. Remedios stood in the relentless downpour, shaking her fist at the mountains whose unpredictability she had previously loved, her face streaming with tears of fury and frustration. It was the first time she had wept since she had found her own brother dead amongst soldiers that she herself had helped to massacre, and only the third time since, as a tiny girl, she had seen her own parents butchered during La Violencia.
‘I knew it would rain,’ came Misael’s voice. ‘My ankle was hurting.’
‘You should have said so, cabrón,’ came the voice of Pedro.
At the very centre of the impenetrable fog a tiny bright light coalesced and grew. It pulsed, diminished, and abruptly exploded to a great yellow fire that seemed to fill the space above the valley. It flashed to a brilliant silver incandescence, and slowly sobered to a steady golden glow. The head of Don Salvador the False Priest filled the vibrating emptiness of the light, and a murmer of awe rose above the leaden plashing of the rain. Father Garcia fell to his knees, as by instinct did all the others who saw, and the countenance of Don Salvador broke slowly into a glorious and ironic smile. It seemed for a second that the effulgent smile was on the point of transforming itself into Don Salvador’s unmistakable laugh, but it settled back and illuminated his kindly face more even than the natural light of the vision itself.
By the time that the vision imploded upon itself and disappeared inside its own infinitesimal point of origin, the women had retreated to the shelter of the city, Dionisio’s carefully marshalled cats had absconded to the caves, and the battle was already won, even though it rained pitilessly for another two hours and no one could see further than the contents of their own imagination.
65 The Pit
‘IT WAS THE best thing I ever saw, when you came to attention in front of Remedios, saluted, and asked permission to stand down your men,’ said Dionisio.
‘It was entirely right,’ answered Colonel Felipe Moreno. ‘I hope she did not think it was sarcasm.’
‘Certainly not,’ said Dionisio, bringing over another tiny cup of thick black coffee. ‘She could see that you were perfectly serious. Here is your tinto.’
‘Thank you. These jaguars are quite remarkable,’ observed the officer. ‘I have never seen anything like them. I would expect to have my throat torn out by creatures like these, and yet not only are they as tame as kittens, but you have hundreds of them here. How do you feed them?’
‘These two like to eat chocolate. They remind me of Anica in that respect.’ He leaned down and tickled the whiskers of one of his cats, so that sleepily it pushed him away with one paw.
‘I think the best thing was when that infernal rain lifted, and we saw all those bastards floundering in the mud,’ said Felipe, chuckling. ‘I was so surprised.’
Dionisio laughed at the memory. ‘In retrospect, I suppose it was perfectly obvious that the terraces would slide down the first time it rained. It was absolute folly to suppose that one could remove all the walls to make fortifications without causing that to happen. The odd thing is that none of us had anticipated it either. To tell you the truth, we were all very disappointed that it was the mud that defeated them. It gave us no chance to satisfy ourselves by winning through our own efforts.’
‘There can be no doubt that we would have wiped them out. They were facing assault on three fronts, and were already defeated. Are you serious that you want to keep the prisoners? I would be quite happy to take them away and deliver them to the civil authorities.’
‘The ones that Hectoro has not shot. Yes, we are serious. We are going to make them rebuild the terraces, and that will give us the satisfaction. After that, who knows? It will depend upon the council. Hectoro will want to execute them himself with his revolver, the Conde will want to slit their noses with his own sword, and perhaps Don Emmanuel will want to make them listen to some of his jokes.’ Dionisio became suddenly serious. ‘Felipe, why did it take the Army so long to deal with them?’
The officer sighed, puffed out his cheeks, raised his eyes to the heavens, and shook his head. ‘That is a sore point,’ he said. ‘First of all the whole thing
had to be processed through the bureaucracy of the Interior Ministry, who wanted the police to do it. Then it went through the Defence Ministry. Then it went back again. It appears that at that point your father, General Sosa, kicked a great many backsides, and passed the task on to my divisional commander, who organised it, having to bear in mind all the requirements of the unrest in Medio-Magdalena. Are you getting the picture? I was told, “They started in the Incarama Park. Now get on with it.” I had no logistical support and no other information. We had to follow our own noses, cadging supplies from garrisons along the way whose quartermasters were the very epitome of obstreperousness and ignorance. All quartermasters are like that, so it was no surprise. Dionisio, we have done a forced march of several hundred kilometres through places that do not exist on maps, without vehicles. We picked up the tracks of the enemy numerous times, but they never seemed to be following a plan. They were zigzagging about, backtracking, going sideways, and God knows what. We always missed them. We saw plenty of what they did, mind you, and the stories I can tell you, you would not believe. It was horrific, and that was precisely what kept us going. We spent hours looking at maps trying to predict where they would go next, and we performed outflanking movements by the dozen, but they never behaved in a predictable way that could be called rational. Then one day we came across a priest. His name was Father Belibasta, and he was leading a group of people who had had their eyes put out by the so-called “crusaders”. It was he who told me that the destination of the crusade was Cochadebajo de los Gatos, and I said, “Where the hell is that?” He told me it was in the mountains behind Ipasueño. Of course I was born in Ipasueño, and I had visions of my father being blinded, or worse. We marched to Ipasueño and found nothing, so at the police station we asked the way to here, and they sent us to Santa Maria Virgen, where for once the people were glad to see the Army. One of the villagers came with us, and we came upon the enemy as night was falling on the day when you yourselves were up on that ridge waiting to attack. We deployed under cover of darkness, and from there you know what happened.’
Dionisio whistled. ‘Quite an epic, Felipe. I had been seething with fury that the Army were doing nothing. Was the policeman at Ipasueño called Agustin? He is an old friend of mine.’
‘I did not ask his name. He told me that he would arrest me if I farted in Ipasueño.’
‘That sounds like Agustin.’ Dionisio hesitated, and then asked, ‘Did you see anything unusual in the sky during the rainstorm?’
The Colonel shook his head. ‘Should I have done? I could see not even the end of my own nose.’
‘I was just wondering, that is all.’
‘Shall we go and see how things are going with Mgr Rechin Anquilar?’
The two men left Dionisio’s house, and ambled through the streets of Cochadebajo de los Gatos. The town was a shambles of empty bottles, vomit, half-eaten empanadas, abandoned and dented musical instruments, and the sprawling bodies of those too overwhelmed with alcohol to move. Felipe surveyed the desolation, and bent down to pick up some bright red underwear, which he conscientiously hung upon a nail outside the door of a house. ‘That was one hell of a fiesta,’ he said. ‘None of my men have ever known anything like it. A whole week of victory celebration!’
‘Your men have become very popular,’ replied Dionisio, ‘possibly because they are very tall and polite.’
‘We take no rabble in the Portachuelo Guards,’ said Felipe, proudly.
They passed the axle-pole in the plaza, which now sported Misael’s sombrero at the very top, endowing it with a raffish appearance, and left the city by the drawbridge. Just outside the walls, on the other side of the moat, had been dug a deep and muddy pit. On either side of it a heavy beam had been set upright, joined by a cross-beam, from which there hung a large bag knotted from a fishing net. In the bag there seeped and putrefied some of the bodies of the crusaders who had been killed in the battle. The stench was already nauseating, and the contents of the net, with its tangle of limbs, its gallery of colourless eyes and distorted grins, its gaping of suppurating wounds, was obscenely aflutter with the quarrels and avarice of the motheaten buzzards and vultures that adorned it.
Down in the pit, stark naked and gibbering, Mgr Rechin Anquilar fluttered his hands and wiped futilely at the loathsome effluent of bird dung and dripping decomposition that oozed upon his body from above, streaking him from head to toe with its varicoloured, clinging, and odious slime.
Felipe held a handkerchief over his nose and read once more the sign that someone had pinned to one of the uprights. It read simply: ‘El Inocente’.
‘I know that this is poetic justice,’ said Felipe, ‘but it still seems barbarous to me.’
‘Do not concern yourself,’ said Dionisio. ‘The stench is already so bad that soon the city will not be able to stand it any longer. The point is that if a man wishes to wallow in death, he should be made to wallow in it properly.’
Felipe looked down pityingly upon the erstwhile warlord, who was at that moment searching for fallen maggots in the grey sink of the pit, and cramming them into his mouth with accompanying sighs and grunts that were hideously reminiscent of a gourmet’s delight over a fine new sauce. ‘By the time that you get him out, he will be completely mad.’
‘He already was,’ replied Dionisio. ‘He is no madder than Father Garcia, but Garcia’s madness is not pernicious or poisonous. This was a madness that seems to have been attained by following a line of perfect reason from a dubious premise, which makes him responsible for what he did, don’t you think? Also, he was in love with death, and if you look at him now, you will see that he is perfectly content.
It was true. The Monsignor was consuming his maggots with all the absorption of an ape cracking its own lice. ‘I sentence you to perpetual happiness,’ said Felipe, mimicking the sombre tones of a judge.
The sun began to set above the mountains, casting the world suddenly into chilliness and twilight with the speed of its descent. Violet, yellow, and crimson rays began to spread across the sky, sparkling upon the reflecting snows of the peaks. Felipe looked down once more, and the gashes upon the Monsignor’s head reminded him of a question that he had meant to ask. ‘Dionisio, how do you explain the eagle? Remember? When he was trying to ride away on that great black horse, and he had managed to get away from the mud. I was just about to shoot at him when the eagle came down suddenly and attacked him so that he fell from his saddle. Why would an eagle do that? How come it was so big?’
Dionisio thought of Aurelio, and replied, ‘I have no idea. A quirk of fate perhaps? Maybe the eagle had a chick near by.’
‘Maybe.’
‘We had better go back to the city,’ said Dionisio. ‘It becomes dark here very suddenly, and it has gone cold.’
‘Will you give me this man?’ The voice came from behind them, and they turned with surprise. In the semi-darkness they saw the silhouette of a vast man, a monk, immensely tall and upright, with a girth so great that no one would have known how to embrace him. The gentle light of the sunset glowed upon his hairless pate, and his solemn face was set in folds that gave him the air, not of grossness, but of modesty and gentleness. ‘This man is, so to speak, a child of mine, and I would like to take him.’
Felipe looked at Dionisio and said, ‘I for one think that he has suffered enough.’
‘I should put it to the council, but if you take him, then everyone will think that somehow he managed to climb out. He would die naked in the mountains, anyway, and no one would regret his escape.’
Felipe put his hand on Dionisio’s shoulder and said very sincerely, ‘Legally I should take this man away and have him tried, and to tell the truth, I would have taken him with me when I leave with my men, whether you had liked it or not. But I have been thinking of the repercussions. There would be riots and demonstrations by the ultraconservatives in his defence, and that would lead to a backlash, and then we would once again have all the fanatics running about shooting each other, and w
e would be back where we started, with La Violencia. It would be better if this were lost to history, if it disappeared unaccountably.’
‘You are right, Felipe,’ said Dionisio eventually. ‘The important thing is peace.’ He addressed the vast man: ‘Take him, but first tell me your name.’
‘I am Thomas, and I promise that this man will go naked forever.’
The two friends watched as the monk unbound the long chord about his belly and lowered it into the pit. They heard him calling to the Monsignor, ‘Take hold and I will haul you up, my son.’ They saw the slippery scramble out of the pit, and the solicitous way in which the monk took his charge to the river to wash away the traces of the quagmire of death. They heard the whining protests of Monsignor Rechin Anquilar, struggling and flailing, demanding to be returned to his hole beneath the corpses, as he was carried bodily away beneath one arm of the striding colossus of a monk.
It was because of this that only two people in the city were surprised to hear in the morning that El Inocente had died of exposure in his pit, sometime during the coldest night that any of them could remember.
Epilogue
1
‘O no,’ I said, ‘You cannot both be pregnant again. The house is just not big enough, and one of the cats has had another litter. I can’t believe it. When am I supposed to do my music?’
‘At the same time as you always do,’ said Lena, putting on her sly smile that utterly disarms me, ‘in the evening, sitting on the doorstep.’
‘You can borrow Antoine’s tractor and build on another wing,’ said Ena. ‘You know he still comes to listen to you playing the guitar. I caught him sitting behind the wall. He can pay you for the entertainment by helping you.’