It’s a long way.”
“Tell me what you want and go.”
“What I want?”
17
“What do you want, Salinas?”
Salinas smiled.
“What did you say?”
“The war is over.”
Salinas stood over Manuel Roca.
“The winner decides when a war is over.”
Manuel Roca shook his head.
“You read too many novels, Salinas. The war is over, that’s it, get it?”
“Not yours. Not mine, Doctor.”
Then Manuel Roca began to shout that they had better not touch him, they would all end up in jail, they would be caught and spend the rest of their lives rotting in prison. He shouted at the boy: did he like the idea of growing old behind bars counting the hours and giving blow jobs to some repellent killer. The boy looked at him without responding. Then Manuel Roca shouted at him that he was an imbecile, they were duping him, screwing up his life. But the boy said nothing. Salinas smiled. He looked at El Gurre and smiled. He seemed to be enjoying himself.
Finally he became serious. He placed himself in front of 18
Manuel Roca and told him to be quiet, once and for all. He put a hand inside his jacket and took out a pistol. Then he told Roca that he needn’t worry about them, no one would ever know anything.
“You will disappear into a void, and no one will say a word.
Your friends have abandoned you, Roca. And mine are very busy. To kill you will be a favor to everyone. You’re screwed, Doctor.”
“You’re mad.”
“What are you saying?”
“You’re mad.”
“Say it again, Doctor. I like hearing you talk about madmen.”
“Go fuck yourself, Salinas.”
Salinas released the safety on the pistol.
“Now listen to me, Doctor. Do you know how many times I fired a shot in four years of war? Twice. I don’t like to shoot, I don’t like weapons, I’ve never wanted to carry one, I don’t enjoy killing, I fought my war sitting at a desk, Salinas the Rat, you remember? That’s what your friends called me, I screwed them 19
one by one, I deciphered their coded messages and put my spies on them, they despised me and I screwed them, it went like that for four years, but the truth is that I fired only twice. Once was at night, I shot into the darkness at no one, the other was the last day of the war, I shot my brother
listen carefully, we went into that hospital before the army arrived, we wanted to go in and kill all of you, but we didn’t find you, you had fled, right? You saw which way the wind was blowing, so you took off your jailers’ shirts and ran, leaving everything behind, just as it was, beds all over the place, sick people everywhere, even in the corridors, but what I remember most was that you couldn’t hear a complaint, not a sound, nothing. I will never forget it, there was an absolute silence. Every night of my life I will hear it, an absolute silence, those were our friends in the beds, and we were going to free them, we were saving them, but when we arrived they welcomed us in silence, because they didn’t even have the strength to cry, and, to tell the truth, they no longer had the desire to live. They didn’t want to be saved, this is the truth, you had reduced them to a state where they wanted only to die, 20
as soon as possible, they didn’t want to be saved, they wanted to be killed
I found my brother in a bed among the
others, down in the chapel, he looked at me as if I were a distant mirage. I tried to speak to him but he didn’t answer, I couldn’t tell if he recognized me, I bent over him, I begged him to answer me, I asked him to say something. His eyes were wide open, his breath was very slow, it was like a long death agony, I was leaning over him when I heard his voice say Please, very slowly, with a superhuman effort, a voice that seemed to come from Hell, it had nothing to do with his voice, my brother had a ringing voice, when he spoke it was like laughter, but this was something entirely different, he said slowly Please and then after a while he said Kill me, his eyes had no expression, none, they were like the eyes of someone else, his body was motionless, there was only that very slow breath going up and down I said that I would take him away from there, that it was all over and I would take care of everything, but he seemed to have sunk back into his inferno, returning to where he’d come from, he had said what he wanted to say and then 21
had gone back to his nightmare, what could I do? I tried to think how I could take him away, I looked around for help, I wanted to take him away from there, I was sure of it, and yet I couldn’t move, I couldn’t manage to move, I don’t know how much time passed, what I remember is that at some point I turned and a few feet away I saw El Blanco, he was standing beside a bed, with the machine gun on his shoulder, and what he was doing was crushing a pillow over the face of a boy, the one lying on the bed
El Blanco was crying and
crushing the pillow, in the silence of the chapel only his sobs could be heard, the boy wasn’t moving, he didn’t make a sound, he was going silently, but El Blanco was sobbing, like a child, then he took away the pillow and with his fingers closed the boy’s eyes, and then he looked at me, I was looking at him and he looked at me, I wanted to say What are you doing?, but nothing came out of me, and at that moment someone appeared and said that the army was coming, that we had to get out of there, I felt lost, I didn’t want to be found there, I heard the others running along the corridors. I took the pillow from under my brother’s 22
head, gently, I looked for a while at those frightened eyes, I placed the pillow on his face, and I began to press it, bending over my brother, I pressed my hands down on the pillow, and I felt the bones of my brother’s face, there under my hands. One cannot ask a man to do such a thing, they couldn’t ask it of me, I tried to resist but at a certain point I stopped, I pulled the pillow away, my brother was still breathing, but it was like something digging up air from the depths of hell, it was terrible, the eyes unmoving, and that rattle. He looked at me and I realized that I was screaming, I heard my voice screaming, but as if from a distance, like a dim and fading lament, I couldn’t help it, I was still screaming when I noticed El Blanco, he was beside me, he didn’t say anything but he was offering me a gun, while I was crying, and they were all fleeing, we two were inside, he offered me the gun, I took it, and placed the barrel against my brother’s forehead and, still screaming, I fired.
Look at me, Roca. I
said look at me. In the whole war I fired twice, the first time it was night, and at no one, the second time at close range, and it was my brother.
23
I want to tell you something. I will shoot one time more, and that will be the last.
Then Roca began to shout again.
“I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.”
“You had nothing to do with it?”
“I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE HOSPITAL.”
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SAYING?”
“I DID WHAT THEY TOLD ME TO DO.”
“YOU . . . ”
“I WASN’T THERE WHEN—”
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SAYING—”
“I SWEAR IT, I—”
“THAT WAS YOUR HOSPITAL, YOU BASTARD . . . ”
“MY HOSPITAL?”
“THAT WAS YOUR HOSPITAL, YOU WERE THE DOCTOR WHO
WAS TAKING CARE OF THEM, YOU KILLED THEM, YOU BROKE
THEM, THEY WERE SENT TO YOU AND YOU BROKE THEM . . . ”
“I NEVER—”
“SHUT UP!”
“I SWEAR TO YOU, SALINAS—”
24
“SHUT UP!”
“I NEVER—”
“SHUT UP!”
Salinas placed the gun against one of Roca’s knees. Then he fired. The knee exploded like a piece of fruit. Roca fell back and curled on the ground, shrieking with pain. Salinas was standing over him, he aimed the gun at him and went on shouting.
“I’LL KILL YOU, UNDERSTAND? I’LL KILL YOU, I’M GOING TO
; KILL YOU.”
El Gurre took a step forward. The boy, at the door, stared in silence. Salinas was shouting, his cream-colored suit was spattered with blood, he was shouting in a strange, harsh voice, as if he were crying. Or as if he were no longer capable of breathing. He was shouting that he would murder him. Then they all heard an impossible voice say something softly.
“Go away.”
They turned and saw a child, standing on the other side of the room. He was holding a rifle and had it pointed at them. He said again, softly:
“Go away.”
25
Nina heard the hoarse voice of her father, who was groaning in pain, and then the voice of her brother. She thought that when she came out of there she would go to her brother and would tell him that he had a lovely voice, because it truly seemed lovely to her, so clean and infinitely childlike, the voice she had heard murmur quietly:
“Go away.”
“WHO THE HELL . . . ”
“It’s the son, Salinas.”
“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN?”
“It’s Roca’s son,” El Gurre said.
Salinas cursed, he began shouting that there wasn’t supposed to be anyone there, THERE WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE ANYONE
HERE, WHAT’S THIS NONSENSE, YOU SAID THERE WASN’T
ANYONE, he was shouting and didn’t know where to point the gun, he looked at El Gurre, and then at Tito, and finally he looked at the child with the rifle and shouted at him that he was a stupid fuck, and that he would never get out of there alive if he didn’t put that damn gun down immediately.
The boy remained silent and he kept the gun raised.
26
Then Salinas stopped shouting. His voice came out calm and fierce. He said to the boy that now he knew what sort of a man his father was, now he knew that he was an assassin, that he had murdered dozens of people, sometimes he poisoned them little by little, with his medicine, but others he killed by cutting open their chests and then leaving them to die. He said to the child that with his own eyes he had seen boys come from that hospital with their brains blown out. They could hardly walk, they couldn’t speak—they were like idiots. He said that his father was called the Hyena, and that it was his friends who called him the Hyena, and they laughed when they said it. Roca was gasping on the floor. He began to murmur quietly, “Help,” as if from far away—help, help, help—a litany. He felt death approaching.
Salinas didn’t even look at him. He went on talking to the child.
The child was listening, not moving. At the end Salinas said to him that things were like that, and that it was too late to do anything, even with a gun in your hand. He looked him in the eyes, with an infinite weariness, and asked if he understood who that man was, if he truly understood. With one hand he indicated Roca. He wanted to know if the boy understood who he was.
27
The boy put together everything he knew, and what he understood of life. He answered:
“He’s my father.”
Then he fired. A single shot. Into emptiness.
El Gurre responded instinctively. The machine-gun burst lifted the child up off the floor and hurled him at the wall, in a mess of lead, bone, and blood. Like a bird shot in mid-flight, Tito thought.
Salinas threw himself to the floor. He ended up beside Roca.
For a moment the two men looked at each other. From Roca’s throat came a dull, horrible howl. Salinas pulled away, sliding along the floor. He rolled onto his back to get Roca’s eyes off him. He began to tremble all over. There was a heavy silence.
Only that horrible howl. Salinas raised himself up on his elbows and looked at the far end of the room. The child’s body was leaning against the wall, tattered by the machine-gun volley, ripped open with wounds. His gun had flown into a corner.
Salinas saw that the child’s head was upside down, and in his open mouth he saw the little white teeth, a neat white row. Then Salinas let go, falling onto his back. His eyes stared at the 28
ceiling, with its line of beams. Dark wood. Old. He was trembling all over. He couldn’t keep his hands still, his legs, anything.
Tito took two steps toward him.
El Gurre restrained him with a nod.
Roca gave a grim cry, a death cry.
Salinas said softly: “Make him stop.”
His teeth were chattering madly, and as he spoke he was trying to stop them.
El Gurre searched his eyes to understand what he wanted.
Salinas’s eyes were fixed on the ceiling. A line of dark wood beams. Old.
“Make him stop,” he repeated.
El Gurre took a step forward.
Roca howled, lying in his own blood, his mouth hideously wide.
El Gurre stuck the barrel of the gun in his throat.
Roca kept on howling, against the warm metal of the barrel.
El Gurre fired. A short burst. Dry. The last of his war.
“Make him stop,” Salinas said again.
29
Nina heard a silence that frightened her. Then she joined her hands and stuck them between her legs. She curled up even tighter, bringing her knees toward her head. She thought that now it would all be over. Her father would come to get her and they would go and have supper. She thought that they would not speak again of that night, and that soon they would forget about it: she thought this because she was a child and couldn’t know.
“The girl,” said El Gurre.
He held Salinas by the arm, to make him stand up. He said to him softly:
“The girl.”
Salinas’s gaze was blank.
“What girl?”
“Roca’s daughter. If the boy was here she probably is, too.”
Salinas muttered something. Then he shoved El Gurre away.
He pulled himself up, holding on to the table. His shoes were soaked in Roca’s blood.
El Gurre nodded at Tito, then directed him toward the kitchen. When Tito passed the boy on the floor he bent down for an instant and closed his eyes. Not like a father. Like someone who turns off the light as he is leaving a room.
30
Tito thought of his own father’s eyes. One day some men had knocked on the door of his house. Tito had never seen them before. But they said they had a message for him. Then they handed him a canvas sack. He opened it and inside were the eyes of his father. Take care which side you stand on, kid, they said.
And they went away.
Tito saw a drawn curtain on the other side of the room. He released the safety of his pistol and advanced. He parted the curtain. Behind it was a small room. Everything was in disarray.
Chairs overturned, trunks, tools, and some baskets of half-rotted fruit. There was a strong smell of food gone bad. And of dampness. On the floor the dust was strange: it looked as if someone had dragged his feet through it. Or something else.
He heard El Gurre on the other side of the house beating the walls with his machine gun, looking for hidden doors. Salinas must have still been there, holding on to the table, shaking. Tito moved one of the fruit baskets. He made out on the floor the line of a trapdoor. He hit the floor hard with one boot, to hear what noise it made. He moved two more baskets. It was a small trapdoor, carefully cut out. Tito looked up. Through a small window he saw the darkness outside. He hadn’t even realized 31
that it was night. He thought it was time to go, get away from there. Then he knelt on the floor, and lifted the trapdoor. There was a girl inside, curled up on her side, her hands hidden between her thighs, her head bent forward slightly, toward her knees. Her eyes were open.
Tito pointed his gun at her.
“Salinas!” he shouted.
The child turned her head and looked at him. She had dark eyes, oddly shaped. She looked at him without expression. Her lips were half closed and she was breathing calmly. She was an animal in its den. Tito felt returning to him a sensation he had felt a thousand times, finding that exact position, between the warmth of sheets or under the afternoon sun
of childhood. Knees folded, hands between the legs, feet balanced. Head bent forward slightly, closing the circle. How lovely it was, he thought. The child’s skin was white, and the outline of her lips perfect. Her legs stuck out from under a short red skirt, as if in a drawing. It was all so orderly. It was all so complete.
Exact.
The girl turned her head back, to its former position. She bent 32
it forward slightly, closing the circle. Tito realized that no one had answered, beyond the curtain. Time had surely passed, and yet no one had answered. He could hear El Gurre banging with his gun against the walls of the house. A muted meticulous sound. Outside it was dark. He lowered the trapdoor. Slowly.
He remained there, on his knees, to see if through the cracks in the floor he could see the child. He would have liked to think.
But he couldn’t. Every so often he was too tired to think. He got up. He put the baskets back. He felt his heart banging against his temples.
They went out into the night like drunks. El Gurre supported Salinas, pushing him forward. Tito walked behind them.
Somewhere, the old Mercedes was waiting for them. They went a dozen yards or so, without exchanging a word. Then Salinas said something to El Gurre and El Gurre went back, toward the farmhouse. He didn’t seem very certain, but he went back.
Salinas leaned on Tito and told him to keep walking. They skirted the woodpile and left the road to take a path that led through the fields. There was a deep silence, and for that reason Tito was unable to say the sentence that he had in mind and had 33
decided to say: There is still a child in there. He was tired, and there was too much silence. Salinas stopped. He was shaking and it was an enormous effort to walk. Tito said something softly, then he turned and looked back. He saw El Gurre running toward them. Behind him he saw the farmhouse rip the darkness, ablaze with the fire that was devouring it. The flames shot up and a cloud of black smoke rose slowly in the night. Tito moved away from Salinas and stood petrified, watching. El Gurre joined them and without stopping said Let’s go, kid. But Tito didn’t move.
“What the hell did you do?” he said.
El Gurre was trying to drag Salinas away. He said again that they had to go. Then Tito grabbed him by the neck and began to shout in his face WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?
Without Blood Page 2
