Of Love and Shadows (30 page)

“I suppose you are informed about the bodies in the Los Riscos mine,” she said finally, seeking a direct approach to the subject.

“Affirmative,
señorita.
”

“They say that one of the bodies is Evangelina Ranquileo.”

The sergeant poured himself another glass of wine and devoured another slab of pig. Irene sensed that the situation was under control, because if Faustino Rivera had not wanted to talk, he would have refused the interview. The fact that he was there was proof enough of his readiness to cooperate. She gave him time to wolf down a few more mouthfuls, then began to use her tricks as an interviewer and her wiles as a woman to loosen his tongue.

“Anyone who stirs up trouble is asking to get it right in the fucking ass, begging your pardon,
señorita.
That's our mission, and we're proud to carry it out. Civilians get out of hand at the slightest excuse. You can't trust them for a minute, and when you deal with them you have to come down with a heavy hand, as Lieutenant Ramírez always says. On the other hand, the killing should be legal—otherwise, it's nothing less than slaughter.”

“And wasn't it just that, Sergeant?”

No, he didn't agree; that's what traitors to the nation were calling it; those were Soviet lies to discredit the General's government. The worst thing you could do was pay attention to those rumors; a few bodies in some mine doesn't mean that every man who wears a uniform is a murderer. He couldn't deny that there were fanatics around, but it wasn't fair to put the blame on everyone, and besides it's better to have a little abuse than to push the armed forces back in their barracks and leave the country in the hands of the politicians.

“Do you know what would happen the minute the General fell from power, God forbid? The Marxists would rise up and slit the throats of every soldier, along with their wives and children. We're marked men. They would kill us all. That's the thanks we get for doing our duty.”

Irene listened without interrupting, but after a moment her patience ran out and she decided to challenge him, once and for all.

“Listen, Sergeant, stop beating about the bush. Why not tell me what's really on your mind?”

Then, as if he had been waiting for that signal, the dam burst and the sergeant told Irene everything he had told Pradelio Ranquileo earlier concerning the fate of his sister, and he told her his suspicions, which he had never formulated aloud. He went back to that fateful early morning when Lieutenant Juan de Dios Ramírez had returned to the compound after driving away with the prisoner. A bullet was missing from his revolver that day. You had to inform the corporal of the guard when service weapons were fired; they kept a record in a special armaments log. For the first months following the military coup, the sergeant explained, the registers were all fouled up, because no one could keep track of the numbers of munitions fired by rifles, carbines, and revolvers issued at Headquarters, but once things had got back to normal, they returned to the old system. That's why when the lieutenant had to give an explanation, he said he had killed a rabid dog. He had also entered in the Duty Log that the girl was released at seven in the morning, leaving under her own will.

“But that isn't true,
señorita
, and I have it all written down in my notebook,” the sergeant added through a mouthful of food, handing her a small notebook with filthy, tattered covers. “Look, it's all there. I wrote down we would be meeting today, and I wrote about our conversation a couple of weeks ago, you remember? I don't forget anything—it's all spelled out there.”

Irene had an impression of great weight as she took the notebook. She stared at it, horrified, feeling a strong sense of foreboding. She wanted to ask Rivera to destroy the book, but she put the idea out of her mind, forcing herself to act rationally. Frequently during the last few days, she had had inexplicable impulses that made her doubt her sanity.

The sergeant told her that Lieutenant Ramírez had signed his statement and had ordered Corporal Ignacio Bravo to do the same. Nothing was said about the lieutenant's having carted off Evangelina Ranquileo during the night, nor had his men asked him about it; they knew his foul disposition all too well, and didn't want to end up in solitary confinement like Pradelio.

“He was a good man, Ranquileo,” said the sergeant.

“Was?”

“They say he's dead.”

Irene Beltrán swallowed a gasp of dismay. That was a real setback to her plans. Her next move had been to find Pradelio Ranquileo and convince him to appear in court. Because his desire to avenge his sister outweighed his fear of the consequences, he might be the only witness to what had happened at Los Riscos who was prepared to accuse the lieutenant and describe the murders. The sergeant repeated a rumor he had heard that Pradelio had fallen into a ravine in the mountains, although the truth was, he wasn't sure; no one had seen the body. By the time he began the second bottle of wine, Rivera had cast discretion to the winds and had begun to string together his suspicions: The good of the nation comes first, but that isn't threatened here and justice should be done, I say, even though they threaten me and ruin my career and I end up plowing dirt like my brothers. I've decided to see it through to the end, I'll go to the court, I'll swear on the flag and the Bible, I'll tell the truth to the newspapers. That's why I wrote everything down in my notebook: the day, the hour, all the details. I always carry it beneath my undershirt, I like to feel it next to my heart. I even sleep with it, because once someone tried to steal it. Those notes are worth their weight in gold,
señorita.
They're evidence that other people want to sweep under the rug, but like I told you, I forget nothing. I'll show my book to the judge, if I have to, because Pradelio and Evangelina deserve justice. They were my kin.

The sergeant says he can imagine what happened the night of Evangelina's disappearance as clear as if he was seeing it in a movie: Lieutenant Ramírez is driving down the highway, whistling—he always whistles when he's nervous; he would be thinking about the road, although he knows the area well and knows that at this hour he won't be meeting any other vehicles. He's a careful driver. He figures that four or five minutes after leaving the gate and flicking a salute to Corporal Ignacio Bravo standing guard at the gate, he will reach the main highway and turn north. A few miles farther along he will turn off toward the mine on a terrible dirt road filled with potholes; that's why when he got back the truck was filthy and the wheels were caked with mud. Rivera imagines his lieutenant choosing a place as close as possible to the mine to stop. He doesn't turn off the headlights because he needs both hands free and the flashlight will be a nuisance. He goes around to the back, removes the canvas, and sees the girl lying there. He must have smiled that twisted grin his men all know and fear. He lifts Evangelina's hair from her face and gazes approvingly at her profile, her neck, her shoulders, her schoolgirl breasts. In spite of the bruises and blood, she looks beautiful to him, like any young girl beneath the stars. He feels a familiar warmth between his legs and starts to breathe heavy; he laughs slyly. What a brute I am, he mutters.

“You'll forgive my frankness,
señorita
,” Faustino Rivera interrupts himself, sucking the bones of his feast.

Lieutenant Juan de Dios Ramírez touches the girl's breast and perhaps finds she is still breathing. So much the better for him, and so much the worse for her. The sergeant seems to be seeing with his own eyes as his superior, damn him to hell, removes his revolver and lays it on the toolbox beside the flashlight, unbuckles his belt and opens his trousers and throws himself on the girl with unnecessary violence, because he meets no resistance. He enters her in haste, squeezing her against the metal floor of the truck, pressing, scratching, biting the girl crushed beneath the weight of his hundred and eighty pounds, his military belt, his heavy boots, recovering the macho pride she snatched from him that day on the patio of her house. Sergeant Rivera can't stand to think of this scene, because he has a daughter just Evangelina's age. When the lieutenant is through with his prisoner, he must have lain on her until he notices she isn't moving at all, that she isn't moaning, that her eyes are staring at the sky in amazement at her own death. Then he must have adjusted his clothes, taken her by the feet, and dragged her out on the ground. He looks for the flashlight and his revolver; in the circle of light, he holds the barrel of the revolver to her head, and after releasing the safety, fires at point-blank range, remembering that long-ago morning when with a similar gesture he administered the coup de grâce to his first victim. With the shovel and pick he opens the entrance to the mine, brings the poncho-wrapped body, forces it through the opening any which way, drags it into the tunnel on the right, which he blocks with rubble and stones, and then crawls out the opening. Before he leaves, he closes the mine entrance, and with his foot he rakes dirt over the dark stains and bits of soft matter spattered on the ground at the site of the shooting; next he carefully searches the area until he finds the cartridge casing, which he puts in his shirt pocket for the accounting to the munitions records, all according to regulations. That must have been the moment he invented the story of the mad dog. He folds the canvas, tosses it in the rear of the truck, picks up the tools, returns his revolver to the holster, and gives a last look around to be sure he hasn't left any trace of his activities. He climbs into the vehicle and drives back to Headquarters. He is whistling.

“Like I told you,
señorita
, he always whistles when he's nervous,” Sergeant Rivera concluded. “I admit I don't have any proof of what I've told you, but I swear on the memory of my sainted mother, may she rest in peace, that that's more or less the way things happened.”

“Whose are the other bodies in the mine? Who killed them?”

“I don't know. Ask the farmers around here. Many have disappeared. Go see the Flores family. . . .”

“Are you sure you will have the nerve to repeat in a court of law everything you told me today?”

“Yes. I'm sure. The ballistics expert and the autopsy on Evangelina will prove I'm right.”

Irene paid the bill, surreptitiously tucked the tape recorder into her shoulder bag, and bade her guest goodbye. As she shook his hand, she felt the same irrational fear she had felt holding his notebook. She could not look him in the eye.

Sergeant Faustino Rivera did not ever give his statement to the judge, because that same night he was run over by a white truck that immediately sped away from the scene. The sergeant was killed instantly. The only eyewitness, Corporal Ignacio Bravo, testified that everything had happened so quickly he did not have time to get a look at the license plate or the driver. The notebook was never found.

*  *  *

Irene went to look for the Floreses' house. It was made of wood and sheets of zinc, like all the others around it. The property was part of a cooperative of poor farmers who had been given a few acres of land during the reform; later the few acres had been taken from them, leaving them once more with their small family plots. The long road that crossed through the valley joining the pieces of land had been laid out by the farmers using the labor of the entire community—even old people and children, who had contributed by carrying rocks. That was the road the military vehicles used when they had come to search the houses, one by one. They had lined up the men in an endless row, selected one from every five at random, and shot them as a warning; they also shot the cattle and set fire to the pastures, leaving behind a trail of blood and destruction. There were few small children now because many homes had been without a man for years. The occasional births were celebrated with emotion, and the children were given the names of the dead, so that no one would ever forget them.

When she found the house, it was so desolate and dismal that Irene thought it was abandoned. She called for a few moments without hearing even the barking of a dog. She was about to turn and leave when among some trees she saw a gray woman, barely visible against the landscape, who told her that
Señora
Flores and her daughter were at the market, where they sold vegetables.

A few steps from the plaza in Los Riscos rose the market in an explosion of noise and color. Irene searched among the pyramids of fruit—peaches, melons, watermelons—and wandered through labyrinths of fresh vegetables, mountains of potatoes and young corn, counters of spurs, stirrups, harness, and straw hats, rows of red and black pottery, cages of hens and rabbits—all amid an uproar of hawking and haggling. Deeper inside the market were other stalls: cold meats, fish, seafood, cheeses—an unleashing of smells and tastes. She walked slowly back and forth, absorbing everything with her eyes, sniffing the fragrances of earth and sea, stopping to taste one of the first grapes, a ripe strawberry, a fresh clam lying in its mother-of-pearl shell, a smooth pastry baked by the same hands that sold it. Fascinated, Irene thought that nothing terrible could befall a world where such abundance flowered. But then she came upon Evangelina Flores, and remembered why she was there.

The girl's resemblance to Digna Ranquileo was so strong that Irene immediately felt at ease with her, as if she had known her before, and respected her. Like her mother and her brothers and sisters, she had glossy dark hair, light skin, and large, very dark eyes. Short-legged, robust, energetic, and healthy, she moved with vitality and spoke with assurance and simplicity, accentuating her words with expansive gestures of her hands. She was unlike her real mother in her jovial nature and the poise that allowed her to express opinions without fear. She seemed older, much more mature and developed than the other Evangelina, the one who had mistakenly assumed her fate, and died in her place. Far from burdening her with resignation, the accumulated suffering of her fifteen years had given her vigor. When she smiled, her coarse features were transformed and her face shone. She was gentle and affectionate with her adoptive mother, whom she treated with a protective air, as if she wanted to shield her from new sorrows. Together they looked after the tiny stall where they sold their produce.