Among the Lost

by Emiliano Monge

  ‘Don’t leave him alone even for a second … and I need you to keep an eye on everything he does,’ Epitafio says, urging the giant to move faster, then, gesturing towards Sepelio, who is standing in the doorway of the rickety building, pleased that they have finished loading the crates brought by Señor Hoyo, and the godless who have been walking now for many days, Epitafio adds: ‘Is that clear?’ In the distance they hear the mewling of the cats and, farther still, the cries and calls of the forests encircling El Teronaque.

  ‘Is that clear?’ Epitafio says again, because he has had no response and because he sees Sepelio turn in the doorway and come towards them. ‘It’s clear … You don’t want me to leave his side … You want me to keep an eye on everything he does,’ Mausoleo says. ‘You’re sick of having him around … You don’t want him—’ Epitafio cuts him short in case Sepelio might overhear: ‘Right, go get in the truck … We’ll be setting off any minute now!’

  ‘I was waiting for you,’ Sepelio explains, interrupting Epitafio and Mausoleo, and when the giant turns and sees Sepelio standing half a metre away, he immediately understands why HewhosolovesEstela forced him to shut the fuck up. In the distance, the mewling of the cats rises to a shrill screech, punctuated now and then by a menacing growl, while from somewhere high up in the darkness comes the cry of the great bird who has come back to El Teronaque.

  As they reach the truck, Epitafio looks up for a moment and, catching a glimpse of the wheeling birds tracing concentric circles in the sky, mutters: ‘I’ve never seen them around here.’ Then he tears his eyes from the heavens and looks at Mausoleo and Sepelio, who are staring up at the sky, and snaps: ‘What the fuck are you looking at? Why are you still here? … Why aren’t you in the truck?’ Sepelio and Mausoleo obediently bow their heads, go around the back of the Minos and clamber into the cab of the truck in which are caged those blinded to all hope, the tongue-tied victims who utter disjointed words.

  Behind our backs … plastic ropes … huge, ancient, dark … sharpened pincers … Our eyes are blindfolded … Our limbs shackled … Cold down our backs … No one screams … Whimpers, only whimpers … Chains and tubes … The hum of an engine … lulling us … starting over … neck taut.

  When they are finally ready Epitafio, too, climbs into the cab, hands Mausoleo a bag of food, slams the door, then, surveying his kingdom through the windscreen, opens his door again, pops his head out and shouts: ‘I don’t want anyone using shortwave!’ Then he slams the door a second time, wonders whether he has everything he needs, checks his pockets and realises he does not have his phone: ‘Shit … where the fuck can I have left it?’

  If I don’t go and find it, how can I call you? HewhosolovesEstela thinks, and, opening the cab door once again — to the surprise of Sepelio and Mausoleo — he jumps down into the courtyard of El Teronaque: I really need to call you now … I need to know whether you’ve made it past El Cañada … Even if I know you won’t pick up. As surprised as Sepelio and Mausoleo, those who lie shackled, chained in the back of the truck, watch Epitafio cross the yard and listen to his words: ‘At least I noticed it was missing before we left … I want to talk to you as soon as we’re on the road!’

  Meanwhile, in the rear-view mirror attached to the passenger door, Sepelio watches the strange wanderings of HewhosolovesEstela, and seeing him get into his Cheyenne thinks: What the fuck is wrong with him? … What the hell is he doing? Then he looks away from the mirror, slowly turns his head, stares into the eyes of the giant and, speaking to Mausoleo for the first time, says: ‘Don’t put your faith in luck … Don’t go thinking that everything is down to luck.’

  More puzzled than startled, Mausoleo ignores the words addressed to him and gestures to the rear-view mirror, drawing Sepelio’s attention back to the dark reflection: Epitafio has emerged from the Cheyenne and is heading back to the building that was once a slaughterhouse.

  Where the fuck can I have left it? HewhosolovesEstela wonders as he passes the place where the cats and the birds he has never seen before are feeding on the corpses of the dead. ‘Fucking disgusting,’ Epitafio mutters, while silently repeating to himself … I know you won’t pick up.

  ‘Where the fuck could I have put it?’ HewhosolovesEstela says again, standing before the door of the building that towers over El Teronaque, still thinking to himself: If I don’t talk to you, you’ll only get angrier, then he breaks off as he spots the telephone: See, I knew I’d find it! As he picks it up, Epitafio has misgivings: ‘When did I come over and set it down here?’ While in his mind he carries on: Maybe it’s this thing you wanted to tell me … ‘Maybe that’s why you’re so angry.’

  This time, it is the looming figure of a man, clutching his weapon, carrying a torch and a can of petrol across the courtyard, that reminds Epitafio that he is speaking out loud and makes him fall silent, makes him forget Estela for a moment and hurry back to the truck from where Sepelio and Mausoleo are still watching him in the rear-view mirror and where the nameless, in the dark, cold, pestilential abyss of metal, are still loosening their tongues.

  More waiting … bound … The freezing cold … hand, arms, strained … Hanging here … feet barely … We hear nothing … a sob … a whimper … skin taut … muscles cramped … Sometimes a trickle … thick waterproofs … Someone pissing … The smell of shit … The smell of fear.

  As he approaches the container, whose hulking shadow hides him from the prying eyes of the men clutching their weapons and the ghostly presence of the man carrying the can of petrol, a torch and a rifle, Epitafio heads towards the centre of the courtyard, where he stops, dials Estela’s number and, realising he has been connected directly to her voicemail, growls: ‘Fucking mountains … Just my fucking luck … Shit!’ Then he hangs up, slips the telephone into his pocket and heads back to the truck.

  Opening the door and slamming it behind him, Epitafio climbs into the cab of the Minos without a word to Sepelio or Mausoleo, who are watching him stoically. Epitafio fumbles for his keyring, slides a key into the ignition and, turning it, he stares into the wing mirror at the reflection of El Teronaque: in the distance, the man carrying the petrol can shoos the ten cats and the birds from their feast, douses the bodies with petrol and, bringing the flame closer, sets them alight.

  While the corpses blaze like firebrands on the tezontle, Epitafio shifts into first gear, spins the steering wheel and, easing the accelerator, drives forward in the present even as his memory reverses into the past: this image of two corpses blazing in the shadowy darkness has brought him back to the days when his parents left, when he watched through the window as his father set fire to the men who had arrived at their house earlier.

  Leaving behind him the van, the three motorbikes, the building that was once a slaughterhouse and the two lines of men witnessing his departure, Epitafio reaches the road that runs through El Teronaque, and he asks Mausoleo to pass him a sandwich, which he wolfs down, and as he picks up speed, heading towards the jungle, so he plunges deeper and deeper into his past: when the fire eventually guttered out, his father came back into the house, kissed him and his brothers, and left, taking their mother with him.

  They shouldn’t have left without us, HewhosolovesEstela thinks, shifting gears as the Minos moves further from El Teronaque, while in his mind he is reliving the day following the abandonment, when three men arrived at the house and each took one of the brothers home with them. You should have taken us with you, Epitafio thinks silently, pushing the huge truck to move faster. Sepelio and Mausoleo are still staring into the wing mirror, where the human torches are now no more than tiny embers.

  On its own, the hulking Minos glides through the forest to the screech of bats and the singing of cicadas, and from time to time there comes the howl of coyotes, the bark of dogs no one has ever tamed, from time to time peacocks shriek. From this point, no vehicle will follow Epitafio, who prefers to deal singlehandedly with the delivery of the creatures whose che
sts and throats are swollen with a pent-up commotion, and, as he changes gears again, Epitafio feels his memories gnaw at him: You should have come back … You should have taken me from El Paraíso … found my brothers … brought us all together.

  I never saw them again … It was their fault we never saw each other again, Epitafio thinks as he approaches the junction where the dirt track meets the tarmacked road, and, as he slows, not realising he is shouting at the top of his lungs, he says: ‘It’s your fucking fault that I never saw my brothers again!’ Startled, Mausoleo and Sepelio, who have remained silent until now, turn to stare at Epitafio.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Sepelio says as Epitafio turns the Minos on to the tarmac. Only then does HewhosolovesEstela realise that he has spoken aloud and, with a roar, he dismisses the past and this story he does not want the two men sharing the cab to know: ‘What do you care? I talk about whatever I feel like …’

  ‘And obviously you do whatever you feel like … otherwise why did you take the turning here?’ Sepelio asks, whipping his head around.

  ‘I’ll turn where I like!’ Epitafio snaps, speeding up again as he moves away from the crossroads.

  ‘You promised we weren’t going to your house,’ Sepelio says, leaning forward. He can guess what is going on.

  ‘If I want to go by my house, we’re going by my house and you can shut up!’ Epitafio barks, and the void left in his mind by the memory of his brothers is filled by the woman Father Nicho married him to, and the child she gave birth to there in El Paraíso.

  ‘You never keep your promises.’

  ‘I didn’t make you any fucking promises,’ HewhosolovesEstela bellows as his memories begin to unsettle him: every time he pictures the woman he was wedded to by Father Nicho, a voice from deep down rips him apart: Estela, will our day come some day?

  ‘We’re going to be late … If we go by your place, we won’t get there on time,’ Sepelio says, turning to face Epitafio. ‘We agreed we would make the delivery at a specific time.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit if we’re late … I don’t give a shit what we agreed,’ Epitafio says, thumping the steering wheel as he hears the voice from within him: Estela … I can’t go on waiting … We can’t go on like this!

  ‘You know that they’re waiting for us … You’re going to fuck up the deal,’ Sepelio says, punching the dashboard.

  ‘I don’t care what they’re doing,’ HewhosolovesEstela snarls, and then, allowing the voice inside him to merge with his own voice, he says: ‘If you’re not going to shut up … If you’re determined to keep on talking … Call Estela!’

  ‘What?’ Sepelio sounds surprised.

  ‘Call Estela right now … Talk to her, ask her where she is … She’s pissed off with me … If I call her, I know she won’t pick up.’

  ‘You really want me to call?’

  ‘I really want you to call her.’

  ‘What the hell am I supposed to ask her?’ Sepelio asks, fumbling for his phone and trying hard not to laugh.

  ‘Ask her if she’s pregnant … moron,’ Epitafio yells, and as he shifts gears and urges the truck even faster, he thinks: How can I have put up with this arsehole for so long?

  ‘Whether she’s pregnant?’ Sepelio says as he pretends to type Estela’s number into his phone.

  ‘What the fuck? … Why would I want you to ask her that?’ Epitafio says, shaking his head in exasperation: he’ll believe anything, this fuckwit.

  ‘No answer,’ Sepelio says, glancing again at Epitafio and thinking: This idiot really thinks I’m going to call her.

  ‘Hang up and try again!’

  ‘I’m trying again … but no one is picking up,’ Sepelio says, turning towards the window where his smile is reflected as a sneer.

  ‘Why the fuck won’t she answer?’ Epitafio roars. He’s losing control as he begins to wonder: What if something happened to you at La Cañada?

  ‘You want me to try again?’ Sepelio says, controlling his mounting excitement and, as he turns turning back towards Epitafio, his eyes meet those of Mausoleo: the giant has realised he is only pretending to dial.

  ‘Do I want you to try?’ Epitafio splutters, but, rather than respond, he continues to fume silently: Nothing can have happened to you … You’re probably passing the checkpoint right now … The reason you can’t answer is that you’ve just reached the checkpoint … What time did you set off from El Paraíso?

  ‘You want me to or not?’ Sepelio taunts, his eyes still locked on the giant.

  ‘El Paraíso … Call El Paraíso,’ Epitafio orders. ‘Ask them what time Estela left.’

  ‘El Paraíso?’ Sepelio says, his excitement still mounting, and, tearing his eyes from those of the giant, he turns back to the window.

  ‘Ask them how long it takes to reach El Cañada … That’s probably why she’s not answering.’

  ‘I’m calling them,’ Sepelio interrupts Epitafio and this time, though he is revelling in the moment, he is not lying to anyone.

  ‘Hello … Father? … Father Nicho?’

  ‘Sepelio … is that you?’

  ‘Yes … it’s Sepelio.’

  ‘I thought you said this wasn’t a good time to call,’ Father Nicho says.

  ‘I’m not calling for myself … Epitafio asked me to phone,’ Sepelio says, weighing each word.

  ‘Is he there with you?’

  ‘He’s asking me to ask you how long it takes to get to El Cañada?’

  ‘How long it takes to get to El Cañada … He wants to … Has he mentioned whether he’s talked to Estela … whether she told him that I told her—?’

  ‘From El Paraíso to La Cañada,’ Sepelio interrupts Father Nicho. ‘That’s all he wants to know.’

  ‘Then he hasn’t spoken to her … or at least not about whether he and I talked earlier …?’

  ‘He’s trying to work out whether she would have arrived yet … whether she would have reached El Cañada.’

  ‘Give her a chance and she’d fuck me over, the bitch.’

  ‘It’s just that he’s worried,’ Sepelio stifles a laugh.

  ‘Worried? … Isn’t that sweet … What a decent man.’

  ‘So you don’t think she would have got there yet?’ Sepelio says, his throat tightening to contain the laughter swelling in his belly.

  ‘That’s right … Tell him she won’t be there yet … that there’s no need to hurry … that she told me she was going to call him as soon as she passed the checkpoint.’

  ‘Is that what she said?’ Sepelio signs as Epitafio says, ‘What did she say?’

  ‘By the way, I talked to your men,’ says Father Nicho.

  ‘So she said she’d phone as soon as she makes it to the far side of El Cañada?’ Sepelio’s words are not intended for the man on the other end of the line, but for Epitafio.

  ‘I was surprised you’ve got them on such a tight leash … They don’t want to speak to anyone but you,’ says the priest. ‘Carry on like that and you’ll do well … but you should tell them to talk to me if I call … Tell them I’m in charge … that you understand that it’s important that they understand it, too … not like that moron Epitafio.’

  ‘You’re right … I’ll tell them right now … Tell him, I mean … that there’s no hurry … that nothing has happened … that she’s on her way to El Cañada … that there are problems getting a signal out there.’

  ‘It’s something that cretin Epitafio should never have forgotten … He thinks he’s really someone … I know you understand … You’ll tell your men who really runs the show … in Lago Seco … in La Carpa … every-fucking-where,’ Father Nicho says. ‘And give Epitafio my regards … Tell him there’ll soon be a new boss in town.’

  ‘I’ll tell him … you send your regards,’ Sepelio says and as he does so Epitafio says he also sends his regards.<
br />
  ‘Make sure everything goes to plan.’

  ‘Epitafio sends his regards,’ Sepelio says.

  ‘We’ll talk later.’

  Through the window, beyond the reflection of his eager face, Sepelio watches the mantle of darkness rob space of its perspective and the earth of its contours, and, slipping his phone into his pocket, he thinks to himself: I have to keep very calm now … I can’t do anything to raise his suspicion … Nothing out of place … No clue that anything is wrong. Then, turning his face and returning his attention to the inside of the cab, he glances briefly at Epitafio and asks: ‘Are you feeling a bit more reassured?’

  ‘I will be when she calls,’ HewhosolovesEstela explains, though he does feel a little calmer: his agitation has abated and his mind has returned fully to the present moment. Gazing out at the darkness through the windscreen of the huge Minos, Epitafio is thinking that it is not much farther to his house, and that once there, he will have to move fast or they will arrive too late to sell the nameless. Those soulless creatures caged in the back of the Minos, who, only moments earlier, began to unravel the knots of their lives.

  I don’t know who began but suddenly a man started to talk … and it was as though talking about the past meant we were no longer caged here … ‘This was my third attempt’ … he said and he suddenly began to speak … ‘I come from Kino … from very far away … I left four children there … I left my parrot and my dog … My wife went on ahead … two years ago … I have not heard from her.’

  As he shifts gears and accelerates a little faster, Epitafio reaches out his arm and asks someone to give him the pack of cigarettes on the dashboard, and Mausoleo obediently leans forward and does so. Sepelio takes out a box of matches, strikes one and proffers the tiny flickering flame to HewhosolovesEstela, leaning past the face of the giant, who turns in surprise towards Epitafio, hearing him cough as he exhales a lungful of the smoke that will gradually fill the whole cab.