Among the Lost

by Emiliano Monge

  Gazing through the windscreen at Sepelio dancing in the doorway, and seeing Epitafio suddenly appear, Mausoleo attempts to envelop these men with the contempt he feels brimming over, but once again he fails. The giant tries to curse the things these men have done to him only to find his efforts are in vain as he feels his body fill with a strange combination of laughter and tears: What the hell is happening?

  Without a thought or a worry for the man watching them from the truck, Epitafio and Sepelio continue their slanging match: ‘I’m going to count to three and you better pretty soon won’t be in seriously if you seriously one of these days different!’ Osaria, for her part, gets up from the armchair and shrieks her pain for all the world to hear: a muffled howl that cleaves the space, a howl that Epitafio and Sepelio do not hear, but one that sends a shudder through Mausoleo and the nameless who have crossed the border and who have not yet silenced their quivering tongues or their dislocated throats.

  I lived in my uncle’s house … My parents had left … My brothers lived there with me … My cousins and my aunts had left for Oklahoma … I left my hillside and my coffee plants … to take to the roads … I did not say anything to anyone … not even to my wife … I was scared … I didn’t know … but now I understand … this is fear.

  Suddenly noticing the murmuring voices, like a drone of insects, of those caged in the back of the Minos, Mausoleo manages to regain control of his body and, withdrawing his attention from the two men still arguing, tries to look at himself in the mirror. It is only now, as he studies his reflection, that the giant finally finds an outlet for the contempt that fills him to overflowing: I am going to get them out of there … I don’t care what they do to me afterwards.

  Still shouting and hurling abuse, Epitafio and Sepelio do not notice the man climb out of the cab and go around the back of the metal container in which the godless hang, their hands bound, who, hearing the creak of the giant as he levers open the heavy doors, once again feel their voices fettered and their souls crushed.

  The grating of the heavy bolts as Mausoleo lifts them cleaves time and space, but does not reach the ears of Osaria, still weeping in her living room, nor the ears of the two men still arguing in the doorway of the house: ‘It’s always more thanno seriously I don’t want she’s not to blamejust go back to the fucking trucknot leaving her think you are telling me what to do?’

  Tired of yelling, Epitafio takes the single step separating him from Sepelio and shoves him with such force that he almost knocks him down. Miraculously managing to remain standing, Sepelio feels the urge to lash out, but, determined not to endanger his plans, he manages to control his temper, just as Epitafio realises what Sepelio has just said: ‘Why are you suddenly worried about Osaria? … When did you start to care about her?’

  Unclenching his fists, thinks: You’ve got a plan, don’t go jeopardising it in a fit of anger … Think about what you stand to gain if it comes off … about the pain this fucker will feel, takes a deep breath and tries to calm himself, even as he feels something inside his chest crack: it is the egg from which a bird will soon take flight, then, feeling the ground beneath his feet crumble and slip, he says: ‘What the fuck are you talking about? … I just want us to get the hell out of here!’

  ‘Well then get back to the trailer … Wait there until I’m done here,’ Epitafio orders, then stepping back inside his house, he mutters: ‘Why do I have to say everything a hundred times?’ Taking a second deep breath, Sepelio fights back his fury and, glimpsing the figure of Osaria sprawled in the shadowy house, he silently vows: I’ll make sure this never happens to you again! Then he turns, looks at the truck and, feeling the bird inside his chest emerge from its shell and open its eyes, Sepelio stalks off: he has decided where to vent the rage that only a moment ago he was forced to choke down.

  Inside the house, the pain that Osaria has managed to contain as she slumps into the armchair with her head thrown back becomes a scream when, out of the corner of her eye, she sees the looming figure of Epitafio. But before HewhosolovesEstela can say anything, and before Osaria can get to her feet, a silhouette appears out of the gloom and mutters something unintelligible.

  ‘What are you doing out of bed?’ Epitafio asks, picking up the little boy and, surprised by the weight, prompts: ‘Did the television wake you?’ Try as he might, the child cannot say a word. Epitafio hugs him as the shadowy world that envelops him every time he is in this house relaxes and, surrendering to the hug, he takes the child back to his bedroom, whispering words he knows without knowing why: the same words his mother whispered to him every night.

  Still holding the child — he weighs a little less every day and his skin bears the marks of Father Nicho’s branding iron — Epitafio sees that the window is open and the dark world that envelops him tightens around him again: ‘Why do I always have to tell everyone the same things over and over? Stupid bitch … Couldn’t you at least remember to close this window?’ HewhosolovesEstela mutters as he closes it and pulls the curtain. The last thing he sees before the curtain blocks out the world is Sepelio walking towards the trailer.

  Circling the container, Sepelio comes to the rear doors and what he sees there, in the gap that separates his impotence from his rage, leaves him dumbstruck: Mausoleo has managed to open the doors. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Sepelio says and the words numb the soul of the giant who did not hear him approach and does not know how to answer, when, now standing two metres away, Sepelio repeats: ‘What were you planning to do with them? … What are you doing in there?’

  Beyond the giant’s hulking frame, Sepelio’s words rip through the container like a hurricane: ‘What the fuck are you thinking, opening this? … What were you going to do with them?’ Each drop of this acid rain is a needle stabbing the ribs, his arms, the bellies, the legs and the faces of the godless who once again swallow their tongues.

  Sepelio feels a wave of despair as the bird within his chest seems about to come to a standstill, and, just before the giant can emerge from the silence in which he is immured, Sepelio says: ‘So you wanted to have a little fun yourself?’ Bowing his head and focussing on the space between two crates, Mausoleo once more struggles to speak, but although his lips part and his tongue attempts to give form to the air spewing from his throat, no sound emerges: ‘Don’t just stand there … Come over here and help me up!’

  Meanwhile, in the house, Epitafio tucks into bed the child he long ago learned to love unconditionally, then he returns to the living room where Osaria is still sobbing, and there, in this prison where his dreams have long since been caged, he asks: ‘Why does my son weigh so little? How can you treat a child like this when he is your own flesh and blood?’ he says to the trembling Osaria and, catching her unawares, headbutts her full in the face.

  Before Osaria has crumpled to the floor, Epitafio has hurled himself on her and, sitting astride her belly, gives free reign to his fury. But then, suddenly, in her bruised and battered features, Epitafio sees the face of Estela and stops: It’s your fault I couldn’t take her call earlier! It’s your fault I couldn’t hear her voice and she could not hear mine up in the mountains, HewhosolovesEstela seethes, and, imagining Estela as she drives the Ford Lobo along the mountain road, the self-same road taken by the eight men who crossed El Infierno, he redoubles his blows.

  ‘I couldn’t answer her call and she’s going to think that what she has to tell me doesn’t matter … that I don’t give a shit about her!’ Epitafio roars, spitting at Osaria and, lashing out again, finds everything that he is feeling, everything he has been feeling for some time, is now pouring from his mouth and every word is true: ‘Because of you she’s going to think that I don’t care … that I don’t love her … because of you she’s always thought that I don’t love her when she is the only person I love … Hear that? Estela is the only one I love!’

  With both hands gripping Osaria’s throat and his knees pressed into her breasts, Epitaf
io stops, looks down at his hands, stares at the wife forced on him by Father Nicho, his eyes filled with disgust, and then rummages through his pockets, searching for the telephone he dropped in the toilet. I’ll use a different phone … I’ll keep calling her until she picks up, until she says what she has to say! HewhosolovesEstela decides, glancing around for the house phone.

  You won’t even answer the call if you find out I’ve been in this house today, Epitafio thinks and sets down the telephone he has just found. I need his phone … I need Sepelio to lend me his phone, HewhosolovesEstela says, hurrying towards the doorway from where, across the unkempt garden, he can just make out the colossal shadow of the container truck as Sepelio clambers inside.

  ‘Pass me that bar,’ Sepelio says, nodding to the heavy bolt used to secure the doors, but the giant cannot make his feet obey him. ‘That bar over there!’ Sepelio repeats, pointing to a metal rod. Convinced that Mausoleo does not know which bar he means, Sepelio explains: ‘That one there, next to the doors!’ He does not know that what has left the giant petrified is the shame that he will not do what he promised: ‘Fucking hell … What’s the matter with you? Pass me the bar!’

  Embracing humiliation, just as, earlier, in the building that once was a slaughterhouse, he embraced cowardice and disgrace, Mausoleo accepts that he will recue no one and, in accepting the mark of contempt that covered his face a moment earlier, he manages to lift his feet from the floor. Leaning towards the door of the container, the giant picks up the bolt and, walking over, hands it to Sepelio, who says: ‘You and I are going to have a little fun … If we have to hang around here, we might as well get our own back.’

  Slipping past the stack of crates left by Señor Hoyo, Sepelio reaches the far side of the container, where one half of one half of the timeless creatures hang from the ropes binding their hands. He toys with the iron bar and says: ‘Why is everyone so quiet?’ Then he pounds the sides of the container, not suspecting that the thunderous din of metal will embolden Mausoleo, just as the laughter of the men clutching their weapons did earlier, in the building that towers over El Teronaque. ‘Why don’t you say something? Why won’t any of you answer me?’

  ‘Don’t you realise who’s talking to you?’ Mausoleo roars and, moving towards the shapeless forms, he shoves them hard, setting them swinging, as he did earlier in the garden that Epitafio is about to cross. The giant’s eyes, like two glass beads, are suddenly filled with self-assurance and excitement as he listens to the men and women whose fears can no longer be expressed in words but only in brief whimpers, deep cries and lamentations like howls of pain.

  Hearing the echo of screams and cries from the doorway of his house — he did not go immediately, but went to leave a gift for his son and say goodbye — Epitafio guesses what is happening in the container and, walking as far as the untended lawn, wonders: Why is it that no one ever does what I tell them to? ‘Why can’t they do what they are supposed to?’ he says aloud and feels the dark enveloping world tighten around him.

  ‘You’re supposed to be waiting in the cab!’ HewhosolovesEstela bellows, but his voice does not reach the container where Sepelio has just brought down the heavy metal bar on a crate on which is stencilled the word: FRAGILE! ‘Fragile,’ Sepelio reads and, laughing, he approaches the soulless creatures who have come from other lands and he, too, begins to shove and swing them: ‘Maybe you want me to force you to talk?

  ‘Or maybe you’d prefer Mausoleo to break the silence?’ Sepelio says. ‘For the champion here to force you to talk?’ Laughing and shoving the body he has been rocking towards the giant as it struggles and sobs, Sepelio announces: ‘Choose your punchbag, show me how hard you can hit!’

  Mausoleo hesitates for a moment and locks eyes with Sepelio, who growls: ‘Hit them or I’ll hit you with the bar!’ as he turns back to the crates, pick ups the bolt and swings it against the sides of the container. The booming sound thunders through the shadowy night and rolls across the garden Epitafio is crossing in the opposite direction.

  ‘What the hell are they up to?’ HewhosolovesEstela wonders aloud, while silently repeating to himself the words he has been practising since he left his house: I need you to lend me your phone. ‘I need Sepelio to give me his phone,’ he says, as his footsteps quicken and a thread of ideas urges him on: I’m going to call you right now … My life is finally going to begin.

  I will never set foot in this house again … I don’t care what Father Nicho says … I am finished with all that, Epitafio promises as he approaches the container. I’ll never be separated from you again … Never again be afraid of the woman I love, HewhosolovesEstela vows, smiling into the light that will come and banish the darkness that has enveloped him, and glancing at the trailer that is now only three or four metres away … ‘What the fuck is all that banging? … What the hell are you doing in there?’

  Despite their power, and the fact that Epitafio is just outside the doors, his words do not penetrate the container in which Mausoleo is pummelling the nameless, while Sepelio viciously rocks the soulless, sneering: ‘What’s wrong, don’t you like being rocked? … You’d think one of you might say thank you.’

  Leaning against the back wall of the container and speaking softly as he watches Mausoleo mercilessly beat the swinging bodies, Sepelio says: ‘Have you seen how happy canaries are in their cage? They rock and swing, they even sing … Maybe that’s why you don’t talk … Maybe you’d prefer to sing … What if we all sing together?’

  Sepelio’s words crumble as the figure of Epitafio suddenly looms in the door of the container. ‘What the hell is going on here? … Who told you you could get in the trailer?’ HewhosolovesEstela says, all the while thinking to himself: I’ll tell you all these things and you’ll see, you won’t be angry any more … I’ve decided to listen to you … I want us to be together!

  ‘What are you two doing in here? You’re supposed to be ready and waiting in the cab,’ Epitafio says stepping into the container and startling Mausoleo and Sepelio, who assumed their boss would bawl them out for beating the shadowless, not simply for being in the container. ‘Get out right now and get these doors closed,’ HewhosolovesEstela orders, jumping down again from the Minos, then, turning back to Sepelio and Mausoleo and shouting: ‘Put on the bolt and the padlocks.

  ‘We’re leaving right now!’ Epitafio says after a moment, as he thinks: His phone … That little shit has to give me his phone. ‘We’ve already wasted too much time. We need to get moving if we’re going to sell them!’ HewhosolovesEstela explains, then, glaring at Sepelio, he orders: ‘You, give me your phone. I need to call Estela right now.

  ‘What’s with that look …? I’m telling you to give me your phone,’ Epitafio says again, thinking: You’re going to be happier than you’ve ever been! While Mausoleo is padlocking the container doors, Sepelio feels the black bird inside his chest cower, but, bringing his hand to his pocket, refuses to allow it to fold its wings: before handing Epitafio the mobile, he keys in a number he remembers for Estela: one he knows she has not used in a very long time.

  ‘It’s ringing,’ Sepelio says, proffering the device to this man who is still his boss, as Epitafio snaps: ‘Now get in the cab … I’ll be there in a minute.’ Seeing Mausoleo and Sepelio obey him, HewhosolovesEstela brings the phone to his ear and, for the first time in many years, he feels his soul dilate and smiles at the image of Estela: this woman who even now is speeding the Ford Lobo through the sierra and speeding her mind with another two lines of coke.

  To his disappointment, Epitafio once again hears: The number you have dialled is currently switched off or is out of signal range. Shaking his head and feeling the joy drain from him, HewhosolovesEstela waits for the beep and leaves a voicemail: ‘I don’t care what you wanted to tell me this morning … It doesn’t matter, because I’ve decided … I’m done with all this … I want the two of us to be together … All I want is to be with you!’ Then, not allowing h
imself to be discouraged by this setback, he adds: ‘Call me on Sepelio’s phone … Mine just died,’ and he hangs up and heads towards the cab where Sepelio and Mausoleo are waiting.

  Before he climbs the steps, before he even opens the door, Epitafio surveys the garden, this house and these swings that he will never have to see again, and as he does so he pictures Estela’s smile: he cannot know that the phone on which he has just left a message is not Estela’s. Controlling his emotions as best he can, HewhosolovesEstela climbs into the cab: ‘We’ve wasted enough time … We need to get a move on … We still have to sell these bastards.’

  As the headlights he has just switched on illuminate the space that until now has been his exile, Epitafio revs the engine of the trailer truck, shifts into first gear, turns the steering wheel left and drives away from this place, drives away from his past: the only thing he will miss about this place is the child now fast asleep in bed next to the cap Epitafio left on his pillow.

  Picking up speed, Epitafio widens the gap between himself and this place where he has lived and the gap between the present and the past. The sudden burst of speed causes the Minos to judder and jolt, lulling the bodiless creatures and bringing a curious sense of peace to the timeless ones still strung up by their bound hands: the tongueless ones, who, seventeen hours ago, were led into the clearing known as El Ojo de Hierba by the sons of the jungle.

  The same two boys who, having bought fried chicken on the plaza in Tonée, are at this moment selling off the contents of the sacks they filled in the clearing at El Tiradero. Objects now being bought by those who have just crossed the wall that bisects the wastelands.