The Killer's Tears

by Anne-Laure Bondoux

  PRAISE FOR THE KILLER'S TEARS

  A Mildred L. Batchelder Honor Book (for an outstanding children's book originally published in a foreign language)

  An ALA Notable Book

  An ALA YALSA Best Book for Young Adults

  An NCSS-CBC Notable Social Studies

  Trade Book for Young People

  ★ “A haunting, provocative blend of allegory, gritty social commentary, and magic realism that, like David Almond's work, defies definition. … This novel is filled with challenging ideas and potent language that will pull readers in new directions.”

  —Booklist, Starred

  ★ “Bondoux's evocative and beautifully translated story reaches into the icy soul of a murderer and chronicles the warming effect of a needy and innocent boy. … An affecting fable-like style and absorbing narrative sustain this unusual story to its redemptive conclusion.”

  —Publishers Weekly, Starred

  “Gripping. … With sure-handed artistry, Bondoux persuades readers that the murderer and his ‘son’ belong together.”

  —The Horn Book Magazine

  “I am filled with admiration. The Killer's Tears is a marvelous, haunting novel by a true writer.”

  —David Almond, author of Kit's Wilderness, a Michael L. Printz Award winner, and Skellig, a Michael L. Printz Honor Book

  CHAPTER ONE

  NO ONE EVER arrived here by chance. Here was nearly the end of the world, close to the southernmost tip of Chile, which resembles lace in the cold Pacific waters.

  On this land, everything was so tough, desolate, and abused by the wind that even the stones seemed in pain. Yet just before the desert and the sea, a narrow, gray-walled structure emerged from the ground: the Poloverdo farm.

  Travelers who reached this point were surprised to find a house. They would walk down the path and knock on the door to ask for a night's lodging. Most times, the traveler was a scientist, either a geologist with a box of stones, or an astronomer in quest of a dark night. Sometimes it was a poet. Other times simply an adventurer looking for spots yet undiscovered and far from the beaten path.

  So rare were such visits that each one seemed like a big event. The Poloverdo woman would pour a drink from a chipped pitcher with shaky hands. The Poloverdo man would force himself to say two words to the stranger so as not to seem too boorish. But he was still a boor, and his wife unfailingly poured the wine outside the glass. All the while the wind would hiss through the disjointed window, sounding like the howling of wolves.

  When the visitor departed, the man and the woman would close their door with a sigh of relief. Their solitude resumed its course on the desolate moor, among the rocks and the violent elements.

  The Poloverdos had a child. A boy, who was born out of their bedroom routine, without particular love, and who grew like all the rest on this land, that is to say not very well. He spent his days hunting for snakes. He had dirt under his nails, his ears had been so beaten down by storms that they looked like flaps, his skin was yellow and dry, and his teeth were as white as pieces of salt. His name was Paolo. Paolo Poloverdo.

  Paolo was the one who saw the man arrive on the path, one warm January day. And he was the one who ran to warn his parents that a stranger was coming. Except that this time, it was not a geologist, or an adventurer, and even less a poet. It was Angel Allegria. A vagrant, a crook, a mur-derer. And he was not arriving by chance at this house at the end of the world. The Poloverdo woman took her pitcher. Her eyes met those of Angel Allegria—small eyes, deeply set, as if pushed into their sockets by blows; eyes that betrayed a brutal wickedness. She shook more than usual. Her man sat on the bench facing the vagrant.

  “Will you stay here long?” he asked.

  “Yes,” answered the other. He dipped his lips in the wine.

  Outside, rain clouds were coming up from the sea. Paolo had gone out of the house. He was waiting for the first drops to fall, his face turned to the sky and his mouth open. Like all the creatures on this land, he was always thirsty. The poets who had come to visit had compared him to a seed planted in the bedrock, condemned never to bloom.

  While the first drops came crashing down onto the dust and onto Paolo's tongue, Angel Allegria took out his knife and planted it in the man's throat, then in the woman's. On the table, the wine and the blood mingled, forever reddening the deep grooves of the wood.

  This was not Angel's first crime. Death was commonplace where he came from. It put an end to debts, drunken disputes, women's deceptions, neighbors' betrayals, or simply ended the monotony of a dull day. This time it put an end to two weeks of wandering. Angel was tired of sleeping outdoors, of fleeing south a little more each morning. He had heard that this house was the last one before the desert and the sea, the ideal refuge for a hunted man. It was here that he wanted to sleep.

  When Paolo came back, soaked to the bones, he discov-ered his parents lying on the ground, and he understood. Angel was waiting for him, knife in hand.

  “Come here,” Angel told him.

  Paolo did not move. He stared at the sullied blade, at the hand holding the knife, at the arm that did not shake. The rain drummed on the metallic roof, as if announcing a trapeze artist's somersault at the circus.

  “How old are you?” Angel asked.

  “I don't know,” Paolo answered.

  “Can you make soup?”

  Angel had a firm grip on the handle of his knife, and yet remained undecided. The child, very small, very dirty, very wet, stood in front of him, and he could not imagine put ting an end to his life. An unexpected twist of his con-science, maybe a little pity, held back his arm.

  “I've never killed a child,” he said.

  “Neither have I,” said Paolo.

  The answer made Angel smile.

  “Can you make soup, or not?” he asked again.

  “I think so.”

  “Make me some soup, then.”

  Angel put his knife away. He was sparing the child, and with some relief told himself that he did not need to kill him. The little one would not prevent him from sleeping here; besides, it would be convenient to send the boy to fetch water at the well rather than go himself.

  Paolo headed for the back of the house, entered a dark recess where his mother kept some meager supplies, and soon came out with a few potatoes, a leek, a turnip, and a piece of dried-up lard. He knew how to make soup, although he had never made any. He had watched his mother so often that the recipe was imprinted in his mind. To make a fire, he only had to imitate his father's gestures. It was easy.

  Once the soup was ready, he turned to Angel Allegria.

  “Serve me,” said the killer.

  Paolo went to fetch one of his father's iron bowls, the largest one, and put it on the table, far from the blood and wine stain. He poured the soup into it.

  “Eat with me,” Angel ordered.

  Paolo went to fetch another bowl, the smallest and most dented one, his own. He helped himself and sat on the bench, facing the man, who was already slurping his soup. The rain had stopped. It was not cold in the house, thanks to the fire that crackled in the fireplace. Behind the win-dow, night was coming like an ocean wave about to engulf the house and drown the world. Paolo lit a candle.

  “Come on, eat,” Angel told him.

  The soup smelled good. But the eyes of the child wan-dered and stared at the lifeless bodies stretched on the ground. He put his hands around the bowl but was unable to bring it to his mouth. The killer turned and looked at the two corpses.

  “Is that why you've lost your appetite?” he asked.

  Paolo nodded. Angel Allegria got up from his bench, sighing.

  “Well then.” He went to rummage in the recess and found a shovel. “Come,” he said, �
��I need you to hold the light.”

  Paolo took the storm lantern, lit it, and went into the night with the man. He saw him pull his parents' bodies along the rocks.

  “The soil is hard,” Paolo warned.

  Worse than hard. It took Angel two hours to dig a hole hardly large enough for the man and woman. The shovel knocked against the stones and the roots. The handle burned his hands. Finally, he succeeded in putting the corpses in the hole; he covered it, packed the ground on the knoll, and, out of habit, wiped his forehead. Yet the wind coming from the sea had dried his skin: he had hardly per-spired.

  “Are you happy now?” he asked the child, roughly.

  Paolo held the lamp up to his face and looked at the grave. For a brief moment he wanted to bury himself in the ground, to sleep, but he knew that he did not have the right to do so, since he was not dead. He understood that on this desolate land, only the dead were entitled to peace. The others, the living, had no choice but to clench their teeth and endure life. This was the gift that Angel had just given to Paolo: a life. But what kind of life?

  “Come,” the man said. “There is nothing more to see, and the soup will be cold.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  ANGEL ALLEGRIA WAS a wanted man. The police of Talcahuano, Temuco, and Puerto Natales were looking for him. In these three cities, he had robbed old ladies, swin-dled young people, and killed those who resisted him. His victims had no face, and he himself never had occasion to look in a mirror. His world seethed with silhouettes, with threatening shadows that he brushed aside as if chasing away swarms of flies.

  When young, he had seen his father die. As for his mother, he had hardly known her. Early on, he had learned to fend for himself, following the harsh rules of the streets to survive.

  The only things he had ever possessed were his knife, his physical strength, and the stolen money that quickly slipped through his fingers. Once or twice he thought he was in love with a woman but none had been able to soften his fiery temper. These affairs had ended like everything else, in bitterness, in shouts of accusations, and in angry stomps down fire escapes. Angel Allegria was not a respectable person, especially not one fit to bring up a child.

  Nevertheless, here he was living with Paolo, in this house cornered by the winds, the rains, the snows, and the skies. Paolo, young and ignorant, did not have a choice. The murderer had installed himself in his house and he had to put up with him.

  Both of them tended to the vegetable garden, to the chickens and the goats. Paolo kept making soup and hunting for snakes, although less than before because Angel did not like him to search between the stones. “You're going to get bitten,” he would say, “and you will be sorry.”

  What really puzzled Angel was the age of the child. Paolo's small body wasn't a reliable indicator. He appeared to be five, but could as well have been eight or ten years old.

  “Try to remember when you were born,” Angel would say.

  “I was born the day you arrived,” the child would answer.

  “Not at all!”

  “I don't remember anything before that day.”

  What was Angel supposed to think? Had he, through the hazard of circumstance, become the child's father? After all, why not? He was almost thirty-five years old and, so far, had never done anything good in his life. To be a father, well, that was something meaningful.

  “Call me Papa,” he said one day.

  “No.”

  “It's an order.”

  Paolo shook his head. “My father lies here, under this,” he answered, showing the mound.

  Angel turned away. The grave, which lay in the middle of the path leading to the vegetable garden, had begun to torment him. Its silent presence was a constant reminder of his past misdeeds. It was proof of his cruelty, stupid actions, and helplessness. Paolo put wildflowers there sometimes. His eyes remained dry but they tried to probe through the depth of the soil like the drills of an oil digger. All the questions that the child did not ask, and all the answers also, were buried there. Angel always felt a little jealous to see him stop in front of the mound.

  “We could flatten it,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “To open the path.”

  “The path is large enough.”

  Angel looked around him. It was true. How could this pile of dirt be in the way, considering the vast and desertlike stretch of land surrounding it? He did not dare talk about it again. It was agreed: the grave would remain as it was.

  “But you and I, we could leave,” Angel suggested.

  “Go if you want,” said Paolo. “Me, I live here.”

  “I live here too. And anyway, I can't leave. I'd be arrested by the police.”

  A full year went by and no one came to the Poloverdo house. You would have believed that word had spread among the geologists, the adventurers, and the stargazers to avoid the place; that they knew what a brutal owner they would find there. So solitude closed its arms around the desolate house, cradling it with its empty voice to lull it to sleep.

  When the rain damaged the metallic roof, Angel climbed to repair it.

  When the snow covered the vegetable garden, Angel held Paolo close to him at night to keep warm.

  When the winds howled under the window and door, Angel repaired them to keep the draft out.

  He wondered why, in the past, he had ever felt the need to steal, kill, and cheat, when it seemed so easy to live without bothering anyone, simply fighting the seasons and the roughness of life, with the presence of the child as his only joy.

  “In town, people live on top of each other,” he said to Paolo. “That's why they're so nervous.”

  “Is it why you became a killer?” the child asked.

  “I don't know.”

  “Why didn't you kill me?”

  “Maybe you didn't make me nervous.”

  Then, as the summer began to whiten the metallic roof and the snakes hid in the shade of the rocks, a traveler was seen approaching the house. Angel was coming back from the well, carrying plastic containers that made his arms ache. The man signaled to him. Angel glanced toward the garden where the child was hoeing, waiting for the water. He felt a pain in his stomach. The old mistrust was creeping back. From the distance, the man seemed young and strong, and probably was, since you had to be in good health to walk up to this spot. Who was he?

  “Hello!” said the stranger. “I'm looking for the Poloverdo farm. Is this it?”

  Angel went on the path, the containers banging against his thighs. Already, the fear of danger made the hair on his arms stand on end. Over in the garden, Paolo had stopped hoeing: he had heard the man call.

  “You are Mr. Poloverdo?” the stranger asked.

  “What do you want?” Angel put the containers down in front of the stranger's feet.

  Although they were stained with mud and dust, Angel could see that the man's walking shoes were new. The qual ity of his clothing indicated that he was rich. He was tall, well built, jovial and sure of himself. Anyone but Angel would have found him pleasant.

  “My name is Luis Secunda,” the man said, holding out his hand.

  Angel did not bother to shake it. He folded his arms across his chest. If he had to kill this man, he preferred to avoid any preliminary contact. In the meantime, Paolo had joined them and the stranger smiled at him broadly.

  “I realize that I am disturbing you. …”

  “That's right,” said Angel.

  “It's okay,” said Paolo. “Would you like a drink?”

  The child made the offer spontaneously, without thinking. He went to open the door to the house.

  “Come in,” he said.

  “Hurry!” Angel grumbled. “Don't let the heat in.”

  They quickly entered the darkness of the small house. Angel kicked a chicken that ran off cackling.

  “You're not badly off here,” the stranger remarked. “You're right to live away from everything. The city …”

  Out of habit, the child had taken out
his mother's chipped pitcher to pour a glass of goat's milk for his guest.

  “… the city is hell,” the stranger went on.

  He drank the goat's milk in one gulp. Angel sat down on the bench facing him and watched him surreptitiously. His knife was in the drawer, within easy reach. Under the stranger's elbows, in the grooves of the table, traces of Paolo's parents' blood still remained. Now the stranger had a white mustache above his lip from the cream of the milk. Inwardly, Angel was fuming at Paolo: a glass of milk! He knew how precious it was here!

  “I'm looking for a special place,” the stranger explained. “A place … how can I put it?… a place like this one.”

  “You mean like this house?” Paolo asked, surprised.

  “Like this house. Like this path. Like the rocks.” The stranger got up and went to the window. “Like this sky and those low bushes, over there. A place exactly like this one.”

  He turned to look at the man and the child; he was smiling.

  “Like this place, hmmm …,” Angel muttered. “But not this one.”

  The stranger came back and sat down again. The more Angel looked at him, the more he was sure of the inevitable end: he was going to kill this man. By disturbing their peace, the intruder had sealed his fate and put an end to the truce. The hellish cycle was about to start again; already Angel felt a tingling in his fingers.

  “I know that I am intruding,” Luis Secunda continued awkwardly, “but—”

  “Would you like some more milk?” Paolo interrupted.

  He poured another glass of milk while Angel continued to fume, his fists clenched under the table. The drawer was not far. It wouldn't take much effort.

  “I'm willing to pay you,” the stranger went on. “Money is not a problem for me. I have more than I need. And I'm willing to work. If you agreed, I could rent out part of your land and build a shack. I don't want to take advantage of your hospitality. I would go to the far end of the path, where you would hardly see me.”

  Paolo had put the empty pitcher down on the table and was looking at Angel. He sensed that a tragedy was about to happen if he did not intervene. He liked the stranger. He did not want him to die. He also did not feel like helping Angel dig a new hole. The drought of these last weeks had made the soil more compact and denser than granite. It was difficult enough to dig the furrows in the garden. When he saw that Angel was opening the drawer, he cried out: