The Killer's Tears (5 page)

“Neither have I,” Luis answered.

He knew only the wealthy areas of Valparaiso, the restaurants, the theaters, the bookstores. Not the fairs.

“Is that really what you want?” Angel asked. His heart pounded in his chest. Lately, it had been giving him trouble. It would swell inordinately or rattle like a monkey wanting to escape its cage. All this activity in his chest upset and baffled him. “Is it really what you want?” he insisted.

“It is,” said Paolo.

“Yes,” added Luis.

Angel shivered. Paolo's words sounded like a knell on
an autumn Sunday. Everything he feared was happening, and he did not see how he could prevent it. If he had had the courage, he would have killed everyone, himself in-cluded, to stop time and avoid the suffering he saw coming. But he turned pale at the very idea of taking out his knife. This tool was now good only to peel potatoes.

The next day, they gathered their sparse clothes, and Paolo hooked the shutter of the window. Then he closed the door.

It was a windless, rainless, and sunless morning. The clouds formed a thick, still mass that seemed to crush the earth. Paolo took a last tour of the garden, walked down the path, stroked the mound of dirt with his hand, mur-mured something, then turned south. Of common accord, Luis and Angel had decided to take that direction. North was not to their liking. North meant Valparaiso and the friends waiting for unlikely letters; north meant Temuco, the police, an unpleasant past from which it was better to keep a distance. For Paolo, any direction was fine. He was leaving his past here, in the center of everything on this desolate land.

“Let's go,” he said.

Luis took his bag, just in case. Angel took his knife, just in case. And Paolo took a handful of dirt, which he put in his pocket.

THE FIRST PERSON they met was an alpinist. A Belgian alpinist in search of mountains.

“You're in the right place,” Luis told him.

“I prepared my trip carefully,” the Belgian explained.

He had rented a donkey in Puerto Natales, and had loaded its back with bags containing enough provisions and gear to face the toughness of the mountain for at least fif teen days.

“Want to see?”

He proudly exhibited his survival kit, his dehydrated soups, his thermal containers; then he started to unpack his
brand-new climbing equipment, which consisted of cross belts, ropes, pegs, shoes, thermal blankets, and more.

“I've been dreaming about this for ten years.” He laughed, his face gleaming. “So, you can imagine, I had plenty of time to do my shopping.”

He stopped laughing when he realized that his listeners did not seem in the mood to chat. The stouter man, in particular, made him uncomfortable. But the man was Chilean! And everyone had praised the hospitality, the easygoing way and generosity of Chileans.

“I have to continue on the road,” he said as he started to pack his belongings in a hurry.

In doing so, he turned his back on Angel.

The second person they met was a horseman, a farmer of the Pampas, proud and haughty, who had a dozen fat lambs in his herd.

“Hello!” Angel shouted.

The farmer brought his horse to a halt and whistled to his dog. The lambs, in turn, stopped to nibble on the short grass.

“We are going to Punta Arenas,” Angel explained to the rider. “Is this the right way?”

The farmer gave a hard look at the strange party before him. He nodded.

“Is it still far?” Paolo asked.

“Very far,” the farmer answered. “I'm headed that way.”

Angel told him that they were having a problem with their donkey. “It's limping. Would you be kind enough to take a look? It's the left hind leg.”

The farmer was knowledgeable in matters of horses. He came down from his mount, entrusted the bridle to Paolo, and leaned over to examine the leg of the donkey.

In doing so, he turned his back on Angel.

“It wasn't nice to do that,” Luis said after a long silence.

He was sitting behind Angel on the horse's back. Around them, heavy clouds were darkening the sky.

Luis shook his head. “No, really, it wasn't—”

Angel pulled on the bridle of the horse abruptly, bringing it to a stop, and Luis couldn't finish his sentence.

“If you want to walk to Punta Arenas, nobody is keeping you,” Angel said. “You can get off.”

Luis didn't reply. Although he disapproved of the way Angel had plundered the two travelers, he was glad to spare himself the effort of a long walk. But, still, robbery was robbery.

“What is Paolo going to think?” he whispered in Angel's ear. “You're not setting a good example for the child.”

Angel shrugged. For once, he had not killed anyone. He had just put the tip of his knife on the napes of the two men to scare them. What was wrong with that? Moreover, he
had bound them neatly, thanks to the brand-new equip-ment of the Belgian. His only remorse was for the farmer's dog; it had been too aggressive and had to be destroyed. Paolo had run after the sheep, which had been scared off by the gunfire, but had been unable to catch even one.

“It could have turned ugly,” Luis continued. “If the farmer had gotten hold of his rifle—”

“But he didn't. So stop whining. You're getting on my nerves.”

Luis kept quiet. The rifle was swinging in its sheath against the side of the horse, and at any moment, Angel could reach for it. Luis exhaled a long and resigned sigh. While Angel guided the horse over the difficult path, he thought about the alpinist's threats. “I will complain to my embassy! I will find you!” the Belgian had shouted. But by now his furious rantings had long been covered by the gusts of wind sweeping the plain.

“Maybe we'll be sorry we spared them,” Angel muttered as he thought about the same thing.

Luis felt a long shiver run down his back. Angel did not seem to be joking. Did that mean he was the kind of man for whom life had no value? Luis couldn't believe that he was riding in the company of a murderer, especially after having seen Angel cry. Nevertheless, he decided to be on his guard.

Next to them, Paolo was riding on the donkey. He kept his back straight, his gaze fixed in front of him. The posture of the farmer had impressed Paolo and he was trying to imitate
him. He rode silently, allowing himself to daydream about the landscape, the wind, the comfort of the evening shelter to come, and the smell of soup filling the air. Nothing that Angel had done earlier had shocked him. He was unaware of the laws and commandments of morality; no one had taught him that robbing and roping people was not done. For the first time in his life, he was expecting something from the future. He looked forward to the fair, the city, the cows and the sheep. In front of him, Chile seemed to have spread a ceremonial red carpet. When he reached Punta Arenas, proud and straight on his mount, he was sure it would be a triumph.

IT TOOK THEM three days to reach the city. Three days to go across changing landscapes, mountains, turbulent streams; three days to endure the cold weather; three days to develop painful saddle sores; three silent days during which each one of them lived like a hermit crab, locked in his own shell.

When they finally reached Punta Arenas, they were so exhausted, they could hardly stay on their mounts. They swayed, sagged, and grimaced with pain at the least jerk of their horse and donkey. Their arrival in Punta Arenas was far from triumphal.

Being penniless, they went straight to the bank to with draw Luis's money.

“You should wait for us outside,” Luis suggested to Angel.

“Why?”

“To keep an eye on the animals.”

“I'm no stable boy,” Angel grumbled.

Luis passed his fingers through Paolo's hair.

“Listen … I really think it would be better if I went in with the child only. It looks more respectable.”

Angel frowned, gritting his teeth.

“It's a bank, damn it!” Luis blew up. “A place under electronic surveillance!”

Angel glanced suspiciously at the building. It was gray, cubelike and without charm. A camera above the entrance kept an eye on patrons like a sentry. Angel thought about his knife and about all he had done with it. Would it show? Would the camera see through him and guess what he really was?

“All right,” he said, “but Paolo stays with me.”

“No, he'll come with me.”

“He'll stay outside!”

“He'll come with me!”

“He'll stay out!”

Paolo took Luis's hand. “I've never been inside a bank,” he said.

Angel felt his heart shrink to the size of a raisin. He wondered what game Luis was playing. What did he mean that it looked more respectable to go into the bank with a child? Was he going to say to the teller that Paolo was his
son? Was he going to ask the child to call him Papa? Was he going to rob Angel of the child's love and tenderness, of the strange happiness that gave meaning to his existence?

Luis knelt in front of the child and tried to fix his hair. He pulled up the collar of his shirt and brushed the sleeves of his coat. The dust made Paolo sneeze. Luis gave him his handkerchief, a square piece of linen as white as snow.

“Hmmm,” he said, getting up. “It'll be okay.”

Finally, Angel let them both enter the bank, hand in hand. He remained alone, bareheaded, under the newly falling rain.

Inside the bank, Paolo took off the gloves he had found among the alpinist's belongings, and soon the warmth of the place made him mellow. People were coming and going, and waiting patiently in lines in front of the tellers' booths. There were city men in dark suits, seamen in yellow slickers, men from the Pampas in leather coats, and women. It had been a very, very long time since Paolo had seen a woman—since the death of his mother—and he was looking at them with intense curiosity. Some of the bank employees wore skirts and high-heeled shoes. Paolo noticed that Luis was also looking at the women, that he was watching them with great attention.

They entered the line facing the withdrawal counter. After so much time spent in the desolate house, and after three days on the road, being in a bank was strange. You couldn't hear the rain or wind, only the sound of voices, the
clatter of machines, and the ringing of phones. Behind the tinted windows, the outside world seemed unreal. Paolo had never walked on a carpeted floor before, and he wanted to remove his shoes to feel the softness under his feet. Compared to his world of rocks, dirt, and wind, the bank was like a calm, padded, civilized universe. It was as if he had crossed time and space and arrived on another planet. Yet he was not afraid. Luis's presence reassured him: Luis, at least, knew city ways and could be trusted.

When they reached the counter, Paolo went on tiptoe to see what was behind it. A gray-haired woman smiled kindly at him, then asked Luis what he wanted. Luis opened his bag and took out his wallet. He showed his identity card to the woman. She turned to her computer, smiled again, and asked Luis to fill out a form. Meanwhile, Paolo admired the potted plants, the clock on the wall, the filing cabinets from which employees removed papers they distributed to clients. Here, no one was chasing snakes, no knife was to be seen, and no chicken was being plucked. There was even a water fountain with plastic cups. Paolo observed people as they said “hello” or “goodbye” or “how are you” to one another. Everything seemed so simple and pleasant.

Then the teller handed a bundle of brand-new bills to Luis over the counter.

“Would your son like a sweet?” she asked.

“Do you want one, Paolo?” said Luis.

Paolo nodded. He did not know what a sweet was but
was ready to take anything this nice lady wanted to give him. She held out a basket. He looked at the different-colored wrappers and chose a yellow one.

The lady smiled again. “I prefer the yellow ones too!” she said, giving Paolo a warm and tender grandmotherly look.

It was time to go. Reluctantly Paolo buttoned his coat and pulled his head down into his shoulders. On his way out, he squeezed the sweet—now his talisman—determined to keep it all his life. The yellow paper, like a small piece of sun fallen from the sky, could only bring him luck.