The Dead Girls

by Jorge Ibargüengoitia

  The Brave Man carries out the final phase of the action. He enters the bakery, splashes gasoline on the floor, steps outside, lights a match, and throws it on the wet boards. The gasoline catches fire with a dull clap and flames leap through the doors. A couple of women have come to buy bread and stand outside the shop gaping in fascination. Serafina, returning to the car, hustles them on their way, snapping at them, “What do you want? This is none of your business! Go home!”

  Everybody back in the car, Ladder turns it around, making a more than usually elaborate maneuver, and drives uncertainly through the streets until finally, recognizing the road leading out of town, he speeds up, leaving Tuxpana Falls as they entered, to a chorus of barking dogs.

  2

  The fire damage to the bakery was estimated at thirty-five hundred pesos. Forty-eight regulation-caliber shells were found on the floor by the police. All the bullets were lodged in the walls. One grazed the skin of the shoulder and right arm of the clerk, señorita Eurdemia Aldaco, who had been in the rear of the bakery. She and the baker, Simón Corona, the only persons on the premises at the time of the incident, suffered minor burns.

  The official on duty at the local office of the Department of Justice arrived at the first aid station, where the victims were being attended, at 8:30 P.M., and asked the doctor if they were in a condition to be interrogated, to which he answered that the woman had been given a sedative but that the man was conscious. The agent found Simón Corona in a room lying on a cot, bandaged, and put questions to him.

  Q: Describe the incident as it happened.

  A: He was sitting behind the counter waiting for señorita Aldaco to finish adding up the day’s sales when he heard a voice saying to him, “Don’t you remember me anymore, Simón Corona . . .” and so forth.

  Q: If he suspected anybody who might be responsible for the assault?

  A: He did not suspect anybody. He knew exactly who the person responsible was because he saw her right in front of him with a pistol in her hand, and that it was señora Serafina Baladro who lives at . . . an address in the city of Pedrones, state of Plan de Abajo, appears here on the record.

  Q: What could have been the motive behind the said party’s action?

  A: He was embarrassed to admit it, but he had lived with señora Baladro on several occasions in the past—“We would be together for a time and then we would separate for a time because she was difficult to get along with”—until he left her for good during a trip they made to Acapulco because he realized then that she did not deserve his love. She was so resentful over his leaving her that she hunted for him for over three years until she finally located him.

  Q: If he knew the other parties who took part in the assault?

  A: He did not, but could give a description of one of them since he saw him up close while he was selling him half a dozen crullers a few moments before the incident—“He was not short but not tall and he was not young or old.”

  Q: If he had any idea how the attackers had obtained a regulation automatic rifle and .45 caliber pistol?

  A: He did not, but that during the times they lived together he noticed that she had connections with the army.

  * * *

  The deposition having been taken and the record prepared and signed, the official went through the regular procedures prescribed by law, which consisted of notifying his superiors, naming suspects, and requesting the attorney general of the state of Mezcala to request the attorney general of the state of Plan de Abajo to request the representative of the Department of Justice of Pedrones to order the chief of police of that city to arrest señora Serafina Baladro for questioning.

  * * *

  Two weeks passed and the inhabitants of Tuxpana Falls were beginning to forget the incident when the official received the following wire:

  “Recall declarant for questioning and determine if a clandestine burial was carried out by him in 1960 together with the accused, Serafina Baladro.”

  At his second session with the Department of Justice representative, Simón Corona wished to have several points clarified before making any statement: Whether it was compulsory or optional for him to give the information? (“Did you come here of your own free will or were you ordered to come?” “Of my own free will.” “Then, it is optional.”) Whether Serafina Baladro had been arrested? (“It says here ‘the accused,’ which means she is already in jail or going to be.”) Whether it would lengthen her sentence if he answered “yes” to the question? (“Probably.”)

  Satisfied with the replies, Simón Corona told the official the story of Ernestina, Helda, or Elena. The verbatim record was read back to him, the declarant found it accurate and signed at the bottom. That signature cost him six years in prison.

  II

  The Case of Ernestina, Helda, or Elena

  1

  Following is the case of Ernestine, Helda, or Elena as told by Simón Corona while in prison:

  I saw her through the trees in the square walking in my direction but didn’t want to believe it. That woman in black carrying the patent leather purse couldn’t be Serafina. She looked like her and was dressed like her but it couldn’t be her. Whether it was or not, I felt my knees begin to tremble. Could it be possible that I am still in love with her? I asked myself.

  I was leaning against a pole next to the ice cream stand in the square waiting for it to be twelve o’clock, the hour I had to see somebody in the Treasury office about a tax matter. The woman kept coming through the trees and the closer she got the more she looked like Serafina. No, it can’t be her, I said to myself again just to calm my nerves. She is living in another town. There is no reason for her to come to Pajares. She was getting closer and closer, thinking, she told me later, that the man by the ice cream stand couldn’t be me. When I was finally able to make out those high cheekbones, the slanty black eyes, and that hair pulled back tight, it was too late. It was Serafina, all right, and she had me cornered.

  She came straight over to where I was, opened her mouth as if she was going to smile—I just caught a glimpse of that broken tooth of hers—and slapped me in the face.

  I didn’t move. She turned and walked away. I looked around to see if anybody had witnessed my shame. The only one there was the ice cream man who turned the other way and got very busy scraping out a can. If he had laughed I would have broken his jaw, but he didn’t and all I could do was go off in the opposite direction from the way Serafina went.

  It was the same as happened to me other times. She would do something nasty to me and I was the one who ended up feeling guilty about it. I put that slap out of my mind like other things she did two years before, like her getting mixed up with that traveling salesman, and the sock under the bed. All I had on my mind was one thing: I could not live without Serafina. I had left her, but I didn’t care about anything in this world except her taking me back.

  I walked through the crooked streets of that town with the sun beating down, the flies pestering me—it being June—and saying to myself, She still loves you. That slap in the face proves it.

  I regretted that I didn’t get down on my knees the minute I recognized her and beg her to forgive me for leaving her. I would have liked to have said to her, Take me back! Instead, I just stood there without opening my mouth and when she walked away I didn’t follow her. I was sure that this time I had lost her forever—and I couldn’t bear it.

  That was what was going through my mind as I came to a corner. I turned my head to look up the street before crossing and there she was again, a long block away, walking slowly like a person with nothing to do, killing time. Serafina must have been around thirty-eight then, but seeing her like that at a distance she looked like a young girl to me. She stopped in front of a shop window for a while, crossed the street, bumped into a man carrying a big bundle and, just as I was making up my mind that it would be better for me to go my way before she saw me, she saw me.

  Once again, I did nothing but stand there until she came up to me. �
��What are you doing in Pajares?” she asked.

  I told her the truth—that I had to see about a tax matter.

  “That’s what I am here for, too,” she told me.

  It seemed as though our meeting on that strange street in a strange town at such an hour of the day was the most natural thing in the world; as if we hadn’t separated two years before after a tremendous quarrel; as if we hadn’t come together again just twenty minutes before with a slap in my face. Our relationship was always like that. I never knew what to expect from her.

  I looked at my watch. It was after twelve. I was about to suggest that we go together to see the man about the taxes when she said, “Take me to a hotel.”

  Her lips were painted a strange color, a sort of violet.

  We stayed in the Commerce Hotel until after eight o’clock that night. When we checked out we were hungry, so we went to a restaurant on the square. Serafina said she was in a hurry to get back to Pedrones, and the woman I was living with at the time must have been worried waiting for me in Tuxpana Falls, but when we finished eating, instead of saying goodbye and each of us going our own way to take care of our own responsibilities, we went back to the hotel and stayed until the following day.

  If I had gone home the next morning, that meeting with Serafina would have been just another of the many things that have happened to me in my life that I can hardly remember anymore and would have no reason to be telling about. But I didn’t go home. When I opened my eyes I thought of the woman I was living with and realized how upset she must be, probably imagining I was lying by the side of the road somewhere covered with blood. This made me feel even less like seeing her. I put on my shirt, went to the window and looked out at the laurel trees in the square and the birds singing. Then I glanced over at the bed, at Serafina asleep, and felt like waking her up.

  I waited for her to shower and dress, and when she was sitting in front of the mirror fixing her braid, I could see that her reflection looked different from her face, something I had noticed before. A strong feeling rose up inside of me as I recalled happier times and I said to her, “I’ll drive you to Pedrones.”

  But she was not going to Pedrones. Whatever her hurry had been, it didn’t matter anymore. She was going to San Pedro de las Corrientes to have dinner with her sister Arcángela. Since I didn’t want to leave her, I said, “I’ll drive you to San Pedro, then.”

  I owned a 1955 Ford at the time, which I had put in a garage there in Pajares to be repaired. If, when I called for it the mechanic had said to me, as I fully expected, “It’s not ready, come back in the afternoon,” I would have walked Serafina to the bus depot, we would have said goodbye then and there, and my life would have been entirely different. But the car was ready, it started up as soon as I put my foot on the gas pedal—and here I am with a six-year sentence ahead of me.

  To get from Pajares to San Pedro de las Corrientes you take a steep grade where no matter how good your eyesight is you can’t see anything but rocks all around. But when you reach the top you come to a view that is something else again. To the left you can make out the whole Guardalobos Valley, one of the most fertile spots in the whole state of Plan de Abajo. Not a piece of ground goes uncultivated in this valley—where there isn’t alfalfa growing, there’s strawberries, and what isn’t a cornfield is a wheat field. Even the huisaches that grow along the sides of the road are green and beautiful. I always did like that valley, but felt even more so about it that particular morning because I was so happy to have Serafina sitting next to me, relaxed, her hand resting on my leg. I felt as though I didn’t have a care in the world and I said to her, “Don’t you feel your heart swell when you see that?”

  But, while I was looking in one direction she was looking in the other—toward the Güemes Mountains—which was why she misunderstood and thought I meant that what made my heart swell was the statue of Christ that stood on the peak looking west, as though, the people say, he was trying to embrace the whole state of Mezcala. She took her hand off my leg and said, “You never stop bellyaching about going back to that lousy hometown of yours, do you?”

  That’s how it always was with Serafina; I would try to say something nice and she would come back with something mean. I didn’t let it bother me this time, though, because I knew very well what it was she held against me. Each of the times I left her I went back to Tuxpana Falls, which is in the heart of Mezcala. That is why she always had it in for the town. You couldn’t even mention the name of the place in front of her, or even say that it had good guavas. That morning it was as though I had said “Tuxpana Falls” to her because she got moody and said to me, “You think I am not good enough for you because I run a whorehouse.”

  That annoyed me and I answered her, “I never left you on account of the whorehouse and I wasn’t looking at that statue. I was looking in the opposite direction. Besides, what is the point of throwing things up to me that can’t be helped, when you know that all you are going to accomplish is to spoil such a pretty day?”

  I guess I must have gotten through to her. She put her hand back on my leg and didn’t say anything more.

  I should have thrown her out of the car when she made that nasty remark. Both of us would have been a lot better off.

  We bought avocados in Huamantla and sat down under an acacia tree to eat them. It was very quiet; the only sound was of turtledoves cooing. From where we were you could see the dark soil around the dam and teams of oxen plowing. With all that calm around us we forgot our quarrels—and even that we had both come to Pajares to take care of some business and hadn’t accomplished anything. Serafina said, “If only life could be like this all the time!” or something of the kind.

  Before going back to the car, we went into the ruins of an old textile mill out of curiosity, and there under the caved-in roof in that empty building she wanted me to have her once more, and I did. We continued our trip after that and arrived at San Pedro de las Corrientes at two o’clock in the afternoon.

  Serafina invited me to have dinner with her sister but, frankly, I did not feel like having to face Arcángela. I knew that her opinion of me had never been very high and I imagined that after I left her sister in 1958 it must have reached a new low. And so, I decided that the adventure would end at the door of the México Lindo.

  “I’ll say goodbye and God bless you here in the car,” I said to Serafina.

  But fate had written a different story. As I turned the corner of the street where the cabaret was, the first thing I saw was doña Arcángela standing on the sidewalk. It looked as though she was in mourning. In spite of the heat, she wore a shawl over her head and there was a girl on either side of her. The three of them were looking in my direction as though they had been waiting for me.

  I had no choice now but to do just exactly what I didn’t want to: Stop the car, turn off the motor, get out, and greet her. When she saw me opening the door, she gave me a look out of those little pig’s eyes of hers as if to say, “This is all we needed!” But it passed quickly, and she stretched out her arms and said affectionately, “Simón! How nice to see you!”

  After that she hugged me and even gave me a kiss. That was just when I should have gotten suspicious, but I didn’t, even though I noticed that this demonstration of affection took her sister as much by surprise as it did me. I explained to her that I was only passing through, but it did no good—it was just dinnertime, there was a hot meal all fixed, and she was so glad to see me again. She insisted on my driving the car into the patio through the gate next to the cabaret. “That way you won’t have to worry about boys doing any mischief to it.”

  As I was driving in she began to discuss some matter with Serafina that seemed to be very serious. When I got out of the car, I noticed something unusual for that time of the day—most of the girls were standing around in the outside corridor leaning over the wall talking to one another or looking down at me.

  While we were walking into the dining room, doña Arcángela took me by the arm a
nd said, “I am glad to see you back. The men my sister has had since you left have been a disaster.”

  I wanted to explain that I was not “back,” but only passing through, but she never gave me a chance. She sat me down at the table, put out a bottle of very special—according to her—tequila, told the girls with her to bring me the limes and salt, and then left the room with Serafina.

  The Baladro sisters went out one door and the girls out the other, leaving me alone in the dining room for nearly an hour sitting at the table with that bottle in front of me. I took a swig from it every now and then as nobody ever brought me a glass. When the door finally opened and Arcángela and Serafina came in, I got up and said to them, “I’m leaving. If I am going to have to sit here by myself and go hungry, I might just as well be riding in my car.”

  “Simón,” Serafina said to me then, “my sister has a very serious problem.”

  She explained that one of the girls who worked in the México Lindo had died the night before and they didn’t know what to do with the body.

  “Hold a wake and then take her to the cemetery,” was my advice.

  Arcángela then pointed out that the deceased had died in an act of violence and could not be buried in a regular cemetery without informing the authorities.

  “And I can’t permit that,” she finally said, “because it would cause trouble for me.”

  There was no other way out but to take the body and dump it where nobody would see. But then came the second part of the problem: Ladder, the only taxi driver the Baladros trusted, couldn’t be located.

  “That’s why I am so upset,” said Arcángela, drying the tears she seemed to be shedding.

  And so I answered, “Don’t worry, Arcángela, I’ll take the body in my car and drop it wherever you tell me to.”

  As soon as the words were out, I regretted I ever opened my mouth, but it was too late. The truth of the matter is that it had been too late all along. For things to have turned out differently, it would have been necessary for me not to have gone to Pajares the day before about the tax matter. Not five minutes earlier I was just a hungry man sitting and waiting to be served some food and now here I was obligated to take a dead body over to the mountain.