The Dead Girls

by Jorge Ibargüengoitia

  Detective Guillomar made several trips to San Pedro de las Corrientes and had talks with Humberto Paredes. It is even possible that the agent pretended that he wanted to sell a poppy crop or buy opium. Or, perhaps, he made no pretense at all and simply admitted who he was. There is a strong probability that the ten thousand pesos Humberto withdrew from the bank on December 1 found their way into Detective Guillomar’s pocket. Apparently, Humberto had his last opportunity to escape in the days that followed, but did not take advantage of it.

  She says that, worn out by his persistence, she consented to go to the resort at El Farallón Lake with him on the condition that they make the trip by bus and not in his car, but when it turned out that all the seats had been sold they went in the car after all, and that Humberto treated her with consideration, making no attempt to take advantage of her. The snapshot of them that survives was taken there by a photographer. They spent a wonderful day. When they returned to San Pedro de las Corrientes, as he was opening the door of the car for her, her two brothers passed by. Conchita says that for a moment she was afraid that they were going to confront Humberto—she had been forbidden to go out with him—but they went on their way without even turning around, as though they had not noticed anything. This is what she thought, but when she got home, they were there, waiting for her, in a rage. They reprimanded her severely and warned her not to see him again.

  “He is a dead man if he ever comes near you again,” one of her brothers said to her.

  Later, Conchita saw them take pistols out of a drawer and oil them.

  On December 7, federal agent Pacheco arrived in Pedrones, met Guillomar, and delivered instructions to him to make the arrest.

  She says that on the morning of the eighth, her saint’s day, a stranger knocked on the door—probably Ticho, from the description—and delivered a gift-wrapped package sent by Humberto Paredes. Conchita refused to accept it. She had decided that it would be wiser not to see Humberto anymore because of her brothers.

  Detectives Guillomar and Pacheco were on the point of arresting Humberto Paredes as he was coming out of El Galeón bar with a group of mariachis at seven o’clock in the evening. They did not do so because of the possibility that the musicians were his friends and might put up resistance. They decided to wait and followed at a distance as they climbed the Sanctuary hill.

  She says that when she heard the mariachis playing “Heartless Woman” she felt distraught. She knew the piece was being played for her and that Humberto had brought the serenade. She would have liked to go out and warn Humberto to go away, that her brothers were home and had guns, but she could not leave the house because she had to entertain some visitors who had come to congratulate her. She says that the mariachis played several pieces—“Perfidy,” among others—and that the visitors asked her snidely, “Who do you suppose the serenade could be for, Conchita?”

  She says that she saw her brothers leave the living room and go out to the patio. That shortly after the mariachis finished playing the final piece, she looked out the window and saw them walking down the hill without Humberto and that then she heard a knock on the door and, not being able to stand it any longer, decided to go out and see what was happening. As she was walking downstairs she heard the shots. (It appears that the Zamora brothers, lurking behind some flowerpots, opened the door by pulling on the cord attached to the bolt, and shot the person standing on the threshold, who was Humberto.)

  Detectives Guillomar and Pacheco followed the man they were going to arrest at a distance as he went down the hill and along Allende Street. When they saw him enter the México Lindo they alerted the policeman, Segoviano, who was standing on the corner.

  VIII

  The Bad Night

  1

  One of the girls leaves the cabaret to notify the mother. The moment she is out of the room the scene freezes like a tableau on a stage. Everybody stares spellbound at the corpse, some moving only to obtain a better vantage point. There is absolute silence.

  Suddenly a whistle blast is heard. It is Segoviano, the policeman, making known his presence on the corner. The trance is instantly shattered. Fascinated and respectful contemplation turns into panic. The sound of the whistle reminds the clientele of the existence of the police and impels them toward the exit. Stampeding, they tear the doors off their hinges, breaking out the frames; they reach the street and disperse, the more circumspect walking rapidly without turning their heads until they reach the square. The tumult over, Segoviano enters the cabaret, finding only the girls, the waiters, and the corpse inside. He blows another blast on his whistle and barks, “Nobody move! Lock all the doors!”

  What follows lies between pathos and tedium. While the police doctor and the authorities are being awaited, the mother, who was in her room doing accounts, enters the cabaret to see what is going on—she was told of something terrible having happened, but they did not dare to say what—and on recognizing the dead body on the floor as that of her son she emits strange shrieks, inarticulate guttural cries, the like of which no one had ever heard before or will hear again. She does not approach the body, does not take it in her arms, or contemplate it wracked with sobs, as might be expected, but moves backward away from it, sits on the edge of a chair and, with her hands resting on her knees, closes her eyes and howls.

  The Department of Justice representative asks questions for the record: “Where were you when you heard the shots?” “I did not hear any shots.” “Then how did you know anything out of the ordinary was happening?” “I saw a dead body on the floor” and so forth and so on.

  It is late when the police doctor appears, wearing a hat and muffler—he has a cold—sets his satchel on the floor and takes the corpse’s pulse. He then goes to the telephone, calls for an ambulance, picks up the satchel, and goes home.

  The women light candles and set them around Humberto. They cover his face—he is lying on his back—with a blue silk kerchief. The ambulance attendants arrive with a stretcher, put the body on it—knocking over two of the candles—and carry it out. There is a large crowd on the street despite the lateness of the hour. The agent carries on with his questioning: “And what did you see?”

  2

  Humberto Paredes’s wake was held in absentia. While his body lay in the municipal hospital on a slab waiting to be autopsied, the weeping women, dressed in black, gathered in the dining room, put the table in a corner, lighted candles, knelt, and recited prayers led by the Skeleton, who had been devout as a girl. Arcángela did not attend the wake. She spent the night alone in her room in the dark, quiet and half-dazed, thanks to a potion of boiled lettuce leaves the Skeleton had given her to drink. Captain Bedoya, who was notified by Serafina, arrived in San Pedro de las Corrientes on the last Scarlet Arrow bus, entered the dining room in the middle of the Lord’s Prayer, removed his cap, and kneeling on one knee, crossed himself, something he rarely did, being an atheist. After an interval, realizing that the deceased was not there, he sat down.

  At ten o’clock the following morning, Serafina, accompanied by Captain Bedoya and licenciado Rendón, requested permission from the mayor’s office to remove her nephew’s body from the municipal hospital. The mayor, a friend of hers, broke the news to her: An order had arrived to close the México Lindo. Serafina was thunderstruck, but Captain Bedoya and licenciado Rendón, between them, succeeded in convincing her that what the mayor had said could not be correct because it would be a violation of the state constitution.

  The inspector arrived with the official notice at four o’clock in the afternoon, just as the undertakers were removing the coffin from the house. Permission to Arcángela to operate the México Lindo was canceled indefinitely for violation of the health regulations of the state of Mezcala: The dimensions of the windows in the men’s toilets were eighteen inches square instead of a minimum of twenty, as provided by law. The owner was given twenty-four hours to vacate the premises.

  When Arcángela signed at the bottom of the document in acknowledgment
of its receipt, she was not aware of what she was doing. Grief had left her deranged. Licenciado Rendón was notified of this turn of events by Serafina and he promised to obtain a stay.

  During the funeral procession, the hearse broke down. The cemetery chaplain, Father Grajales, refused to pronounce the customary oration because he considered the deceased a sinner who had never given any indication of repentance. Arcángela fainted at the moment the gravediggers threw the first shovelful of earth into the grave.

  3

  When the mourners returned from the cemetery at six o’clock in the evening, they met licenciado Rendón, who informed them that no judge in town was willing to grant a stay. Upon entering the México Lindo, they saw that Judge Torres had set up a temporary office in the cabaret. A notary public and two stenographers were with him. The judge separated the girls from the Baladro sisters and had them go into the cabaret and sit on chairs he had purposely placed on the far side of the room where they were to wait their turn and come one by one to the other end where he, the notary public, and the stenographers were. The judge asked his questions in a low voice and instructed each girl to answer in a low voice also so as not to influence the others or give them time to prepare answers. After having replied to the judge’s questions, each one left the cabaret.

  The questions the judge asked the girls were: For how long had they been practicing prostitution; how long while working for the Baladro sisters; if they had been mistreated; and if they had exercised the profession voluntarily or under coercion by another person.

  The twenty-six who replied said that they had not been mistreated and that they practiced prostitution voluntarily. The questioning was carried on in such a way as to encourage the girls to tell the truth. This is a point of interest, in view of the fact that fourteen months later, various of those who had been questioned stated exactly the opposite.

  The original record of this testimony may be examined in the files of the San Pedro de las Corrientes courthouse.

  (Three irregularities concerning the death of Humberto Paredes Baladro are evident in the records: The official document prepared by the attorney general’s office gives the impression that the deceased died as a consequence of a shooting inside the México Lindo, despite the fact that nobody present stated that he had heard shots; the Zamora brothers were never brought to trial; federal agents Guillomar and Pacheco admitted having followed the person they had orders to arrest down the hill, but did not say that they could see that he was dying. There is no indication that the authorities found any evidence in the México Lindo or the house on Los Bridones Street to show that Humberto Paredes Baladro was involved in the drug traffic.)

  4

  That night, in the dining room, Serafina discussed with Captain Bedoya what would have to be done the following day in order to vacate the house. Arcángela, apparently, took no part in this conversation.

  Captain Bedoya asserts that in view of the fact that all the houses belonging to the sisters were now closed, he advised Serafina to dismiss the employees and devote herself to some other activity.

  He says that Serafina refused to take his advice for two reasons: First, because a judge was now involved and he would unquestionably compel her to give each dismissed girl separation pay; second, licenciado Rendón was going to take legal steps to revoke the closure order since he considered that shutting the México Lindo was unjustified and certainly not final, and had promised her that in two months’ time—or three, at the most—she and her sister would be reopening.

  After dismissing the idea of getting rid of the girls, Serafina and the captain discussed what to do with them until the México Lindo was back in operation. They considered various possibilities, from that of putting up the twenty-six women at a hotel, which was rejected because of the expense, to that of distributing them among various whorehouses of the region, which Serafina vetoed because of the risk that the hospitable brothel keepers might refuse to return them later on. The solution finally adopted was illegal but very simple: to move out of one closed-down whorehouse into another closed-down whorehouse. They decided to take the girls to the Casino del Danzón, which had fifteen rooms and all the conveniences, where they could spend two or three months without anybody being the wiser. The seals would not have to be broken because they could enter the building by crossing over from the roof of the house next door, which belonged to señora Aurora Benavides, a kindhearted lady who would be incapable of refusing the Baladros a favor.

  5

  Aurora Bautista relates that Serafina called the girls together in the hall and said to them: “We will all be leaving this place tonight. Take with you only what you are wearing. Leave everything else in your rooms. We will be returning in two months.”

  No matter how much the girls insisted, she refused to say where she was taking them.

  Captain Bedoya says that it was Ladder’s idea that he, Bedoya, should sit next to the window in the car wearing his uniform cap with its three bars to impress the highway police in case the sight of five cars loaded with women passing one after another should attract attention and they were stopped.

  Aurora Bautista states that she was sitting in the car next to Ladder outside the México Lindo when the captain came over, opened the door, and sat on top of her.

  Captain Bedoya reports that the trip was uncomfortable but uneventful; however, that when they reached Concepción and got to Independence Street, they had to knock on the door of number 83 for nearly an hour before señora Benavides woke up and let them in.

  Aurora Bautista says that she saw Serafina give Captain Bedoya money from her purse, which he distributed among the taxi drivers, warning them: “Forget everything you saw tonight. If you don’t, then you better remember this, too.” And he put his hand on the butt of the pistol hanging from his belt.

  Captain Bedoya says that it was one of the most precarious moments of his life when he had to make the leap from one roof to the other holding Arcángela by the hand, because she was refusing to jump. They nearly plummeted to the ground together.

  Aurora Bautista says that when they got to the Casino del Danzón there was no electricity, they had no candles, and nobody had brought any food. They went to sleep in the dark, two in a bed. The next morning, Ticho jumped across to the other roof and went to the market. They finally ate at two o’clock in the afternoon.

  6

  That day, December 10, 1962, señora Aurora Benavides and señora Serafina Baladro made an oral agreement in accordance with which the former would permit Eustiquio Natera (Ticho) to break through the wall between the vestibule of her house and the dining room of the Baladro house so as to permit persons in number 85 Independence Street to have access to number 83 without having to jump across the roofs. In consideration for this favor, señora Baladro agreed to pay señora Benavides the sum of two hundred pesos on the first day of each month.

  Another agreement was also made on that date in accordance with which señora Benavides would permit the said Eustiquio Natera to connect a wire to her electrical service in order to pass current to the house next door. Twenty pesos.

  Both agreements were kept by the two parties for the thirteen months that elapsed between the time they were entered into and the day Captain Teódulo Cueto found the bodies buried in the yard.

  IX

  The Secret Life

  1

  All the buildings of any importance in Concepción are located around the square: the town hall, the courthouse, the police department, and the Gómez Hotel. Thirty-eight laurel trees grow in the square and are considered by many to be the town’s most attractive feature; the churches, everybody agrees, are nothing at all. A gardener prunes these trees five times a year to maintain their perfectly cylindrical form, in imitation of the ones in Constitution Gardens in Cuévano, the state capital.

  Concepción, which consists of only forty-two square blocks, is small. One cannot walk more than four blocks in any direction without coming to garbage dumps. The telephon
e directory lists twenty-eight subscribers in Concepción, of whom eleven are named Gómez.

  A person standing on any of the streets that face east or south sees in perspective the adobe walls, the dirt roadway, and, against the horizon, the alfalfa fields. If, on the other hand, he looks west or north, he sees the hazy blue profile of the Güemes Mountains over the flat rooftops. Whoever strolls about town will note that all the doors are the same, of mesquite wood, and all the windows, of iron, are different, having been forged by a local blacksmith who took pride in never repeating a design.

  Apart from the laurel trees and the windows, there is nothing that distinguishes the town. It does not even produce the candied fruits that are sold there. They are brought in from Murángato.

  There are four two-story buildings in Concepción: the town hall, the Gómez Hotel, the Casino del Danzón, and señora Benavides’s house. The first two were built at the same time and inaugurated in 1910 during the Independence Centennial. Fifty years went by without a single inhabitant of Concepción having felt the need for a second floor, until the Baladro sisters arrived and built the Casino del Danzón. When its construction was at the halfway point, señora Benavides decided to add another story to her house, not because she needed more space—she is a widow and lives alone—but because she could not tolerate the idea of anybody in the same block having a house taller than hers.

  Independence Street is the second block from the edge of town. On the corner nearest the Casino del Danzón there are a tortilla-dough mill and a butcher shop. Across the street and closer to it there is a small general store. The proprietors of these three businesses were aware that the girls had returned. None of them notified the police.

  2

  The neighbors noted signs of habitation in the Casino del Danzón between December 10, 1962 and the middle of January, 1964.