Body of Truth

by David L Lindsey

  “Don’t do anything to her, Macabeo,” Cage snapped. Haydon looked up. Cage’s eyes were fixed on Lena’s face too. “Don’t wash her. Don’t even by God touch her. Nothing!”

  “Para servirle.” The Guatemalan bowed quickly, orientally obedient and alert to the disturbed tone in Cage’s voice.

  “Bloody nothing!” Cage hissed, turning on Nestor. ¡Nada!

  Nestor blinked.

  “Put her in the…goddamned locker and leave her the hell alone.”

  Nestor reached stiffly back into the shadows, his bewildered eyes locked on Cage as he turned off the water to the hose in a surreptitious movement meant to elude Cage’s wrath. They all stood there and listened to the water in the lavage trough burble to the low end and suck down the drain with a loud, nasty gasp.

  No one moved.

  Suddenly Haydon turned around, and his eyes met Lita’s gaze. She was studying him, dark eyes looking from the round face of a brown angel with a familiar, knowing intelligence. He moved around the end of the empty autopsy table and walked out of the dank little chamber, out of the muggy morgue-ish air, through the low, narrow corridor, through the musty parlor, and out into the courtyard, hating to leave Lena behind with death’s monkeys, alone when the lights went out in a strange country, afraid for all he knew, even in death.

  At the sound of Haydon’s footsteps on the cobblestones, Cerberus moaned again from all his dark corners. Christ, what a surreal country. Haydon took several deep breaths as if to cleanse his lungs of all the death he had inhaled in the past hour. He looked up past the high walls of the courtyard, but the sky was starless, only a gray, drifting firmament.

  He heard footsteps coming from the doorway behind him, light steps coming almost to him before stopping. Knowing who it was, he turned around. Lita reached out and handed him a pack of cigarettes and a red Bic lighter. He took a cigarette and lighted it and handed them back to her. The smoke was acrid, but chased the stench of the mortuary from his nostrils. He inhaled deeply several times, and the smoke hung reluctantly above his head, waiting in the still darkness. In Guatemala, vapors did not dissipate easily. They lingered, unconvinced that they had been genuinely severed from that which had brought them into being.

  Lita stood with him in silence, holding the cigarettes and the manila folder. She looked at him a moment.

  “This girl,” she said, “is a friend, a good friend?”

  Haydon shook his head. “No. I had never met her.” He paused, “I know her mother.”

  “Ahhh,” Lita said, probably misunderstanding the situation, Haydon thought.

  “Cage,” she said, pronouncing his name with a soft g. “I think he is very angry…of this thing. He has much pain of this thing,” she said, the hand holding the cigarettes coming up to her heart. “This is the way of many peoples in Guatemala…a long time dying.” She was silent a moment. “Lo siento mucho,” she said softly. I am very sorry.

  CHAPTER 16

  “I’ll tell you some of what I understand and some of what I don’t understand,” Cage said, smoking and driving the van back through the gloomy calles and avenidas toward Haydon’s hotel. “You know we had the national elections here not long ago. The U.S. government, which has tried to control this country one way or another since the 1950s, has made a big deal about this election being the first time in Guatemalan history that the power of government has been transferred from one elected civilian to another elected civilian. Democracy, right? Well, that’s State Department rhetorical bullshit. Saying it’s so doesn’t make it so. But all the folks back in the States who want to believe that democracy is making progress in Latin America can settle back in their overstuffed chairs with a self-satisfied belch and watch the ball game without worrying about it…because the State Department says democracy’s on a roll in Latin America.”

  Cage tossed his cigarette out the window of the van. “The facts on the ground are a hell of a lot different.” He held up his thumb. “One: the army controls everything.” He held up his forefinger. “Two: there’s a tiny wealthy elite that holds most of the arable land and largely controls the economic fortunes of the country. Three: the military upholds this inequitable situation, and between the military and this mercantile elite there is an easy romance. But overall they complement each other and both want to see the status quo remain just that. Sometimes the military gets out of hand, but in general there’s a kind of grisly checks-and-balances thing between money and repressive violence. Four: the big losers are 90 percent of the population. Five: none of this is about to change. The civilian “government” is a real farce. The minute they make noises like they’re going to do something substantive, like demilitarization, agrarian reform, land redistribution, any move toward real civilian control of the country, bodies of legislators and politicians and judges and businessmen—or the bodies of their family members—start turning up like dead flies. Suddenly all the high-sounding words and idealism vanishes in an atmosphere of raw fear. ‘Democratization’ is still just a U.S. fantasy.”

  Cage had finally made his way back to the Avenida La Reforma, not far from Campo de Marte, the main military headquarters in the city, a fortress with parapets and high walls and armed guards. It was painted gray with white trim, as neat as a Disney film set.

  “The Indians,” Cage said, “they don’t have shit. Nothing to lose. So you’re seeing more and more organizing there, specially in some areas where they’re refusing to participate in the civil-defense patrols, areas where they’re trying to organize for labor reforms, for decent wages—just last month the wealthy landowners raised hell because the legislature was ‘threatening’ to raise the minimum wage of fieldworkers to two dollars a day. They said that would bankrupt them.” He shook his head. “And people get killed over shit like this.”

  He drove a moment in silence, glancing up at his rearview mirror.

  “I got this communication after I left you at the steak house tonight. ‘Go to the Cementerio General…you will know which one to take to Macabeo’s.’ Shit. I had a feeling right then. So I went and found Lena. I read the report. But I didn’t get her. Instead I went to get you. I wanted you to see all this, because I’m not sure how this is going to play from here.”

  The meaning wasn’t altogether clear to Haydon, but Cage could make it clear—when he wanted to. And would—when he wanted to. Right now Haydon had to listen. He had to remember everything, because the time would come when he would have to make connections, and he had better be able to do it.

  “In 1988 and 1989 there were three failed coup attempts to overthrow Vinicio Cerezo, the former presidential flimflam artist. Each attempt was initiated by a faction of the military made up of disgruntled hard-liners and was thwarted by a faction of the military loyal to the high command. After the third attempt, however, the high command and the president decided to give in to some of the hard-liners’ demands, actually they gave in to most of them. Among these was increased military control of the police forces. So now you’ve got a national police force whose detectives—agents—are thoroughly infiltrated by military intelligence and who have become, in effect, an arm of the military. The major players in the police force are the agents of the Department for Criminal Investigations—the DIC. Within the military itself, the major players are the guys in military intelligence—G-2. A huge percentage of the death-squad work is done by these two groups.”

  Cage went into his guayabera for another cigarette, guiding the van with his elbows as he lighted it. He had slowed the van considerably to give himself time to tell his story. He blew a blue stream of smoke out the window and got his hands back on the steering wheel.

  “Now in her work with USAID, Lena had been spending some time in a little town called Soloma, which is roughly in the middle of the departamento of Huehuetenango and not too far from a village called Yajaucú, which is right on the Huehue border with the departamento of El Quiché. Two things are directly across the border from Yajaucú in Quiché. One: a major ‘area of
conflict’ known as the Ixil Triangle where for years the Guatemalan military has conducted a scorched-earth policy against the guerrillas. There are hundreds of military posts, military garrisons, military bases, airstrips, supply and ammunition depots. Within this ravaged territory they also have set up bleak ‘model villages’ and ‘reeducation centers’…that is, prison camps. A very grim situation with all the atrocities associated with this kind of thing where the native population is considered a lower form of animal life.

  “The second thing that is in this area is a region of jungle known by the army as an ‘area of refuge.’ Basically that means an area that the army doesn’t control, so they assume that the guerrillas take refuge there. Mostly it’s occupied by a pitiful but plucky bunch of Indians from eight or nine different ethnic groups who have formed what they call ‘communities in resistance.’ Basically, these are people who simply refuse to give up everything and go live in the tin-roofed hovels of the model villages where they have to ask the army’s permission to inhale or even piss on the weeds. These areas are periodically subjected to army sweeps, raids in which any village they find is destroyed. Usually these raids are preceded by strategic, quick-bombing raids by helicopters or Pilatus PC-7s, or A-37s. Those who aren’t killed flee deeper into the jungle. When they return to their villages—if they return—there’s nothing left but smoke and ashes.

  “I have access to reports,” he said. He had gone past the Residencial Reforma, which was across the broad esplanade on the other side of the boulevard, and was driving slowly toward the oval Parque Independencia, giving himself time to finish what he had to say. “I see things from a honeycomb of intelligence offices located in the National Palace and in its annex offices. One of them, the Presidential Intelligence Agency, works the G-2. They’ve been tracking Lena from the moment she arrived here from Houston three months ago. I don’t know why, but they don’t have to have much of a reason. They’ve developed quite a dossier. The thing is, I just came across this material a week or two before Jim Fossler showed up down here, and I only got the first two months of their reports. I don’t know what’s happened more recently.

  “I started running some other traps. The DIG had stuff on her movements here in the capital. And the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency had a flag on her. The Israeli advisors picked up on her. And others. The big zero was the CIA. They just gave me a big dumb look like they didn’t know what the hell I was talking about.

  “Then suddenly there was a change—and this is very unusual—I began to get frozen out on these inquiries. That’s never happened to me before. This business is all about money. The CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Israelis, all of them pay for their information. All except the National Security Agency, which just listens in on everybody’s business whenever they want to. But with all the rest it’s money. You can just kiss off loyalties, high ideals, patriotism, stuff like that. It’s money. You buy information, the more sensitive the product, the higher the price. It’s not a complicated kind of a system.”

  They circled the Parque Independencia and headed back down the boulevard. Cage’s van the only vehicle rounding the oval in the smoky light of the small morning hours.

  “My contacts have always been excellent, my payout very high, my product superior. But they began to freeze me out on Lena. I couldn’t get shit on her. It just shut off. All I know is that while she was working for AID up there in Huehue, she was taking time off and making trips across the Rio Quisil, across the border into El Quiché into the area of refuge. These intelligence people could trace her in and then they had to stop, but they were never able to pick her up coming out. She’d just disappear and then show up in Huehuetenango or Santa Cruz Del Quiché or back here in Guatemala City or wherever and go on about her business. And when she was here in the capital the DIC had a hell of a time keeping up with her. She’d shake her surveillance more than half the time.”

  Cage paused to consult his own thoughts as they passed the Camino Real. On the other side of the avenue a single pair of headlights approached from far off, near the Plazuela Reina Barrios. Cage showed no interest in them.

  “I have to tell you,” he said, “I was surprised at what I was finding out, but I really admired her. The girl was good. Only thing is, I don’t know what the hell she was doing. Whatever it was, she got killed for it.”

  They were now at the gates of Haydon’s hotel, and Cage pulled off the street. Cage reached back to Lita and got the manila folder and handed it to Haydon.

  “Better look at this,” he said. “Don’t tell anybody about tonight. It’s all right if you mention to Janet that we’ve talked—it might even work to your advantage—but not about any of this. Keep it general. I’ll be in touch.”

  It was a familiar phrase that hadn’t proved to be highly reliable in the past, but Haydon was taking what he could get. Cage put the van in gear, and Haydon looked back at Lita, who was staring at him with dark, unreadable eyes. He looked at Cage again, but instead of opening the van door to get out he said, “I thought you only sold information.”

  Cage had one hand on the van’s gearshift, and they were looking at each other.

  “I do what I have to do,” Cage said. He didn’t sound the least bit apologetic.

  “Taking Lena’s body to Macabeo’s for Pittner was something you had to do.”

  “Damn right it was.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Lena’s beyond giving a shit, and I’m not. Because the reality is Pittner’s still in control of a lot of history here.”

  “Why did he want you to do it? Why not one of his salaried people?”

  “I didn’t ask him.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  “Why did you want me along?”

  “You’ll know when it’s time to know,” Cage said. “You’d better get out.”

  As Cage drove away, Haydon once again pushed the button on the right side of the gates. When they opened, he pushed his way through and quickly walked across the silent courtyard. At the front desk the same night clerk already had Haydon’s key pulled from its pigeonhole against the wall, and the blank expression in his eyes when they met Haydon’s said he didn’t want to be engaged in any kind of dialogue.

  As soon as Haydon got to his room he removed his clothes and, even as late as it was, went straight to the shower. He bathed quickly, got out, put on his pajamas and got into bed with the manila folder.

  The police report from Huehuetenango was several pages, but only because the police clerk had double-spaced it. The text itself was brief. A group of Ixil Indian women had brought Lena’s body to the military commissioner in Soloma from Yajaucú, a small village on the Rio Quisil, a tributary of the larger Rio Ixcán, which roared into Guatemala from Mexico not many kilometers to the north. Because they came from so close to the Quiché border, near an area of refuge, the women had put their own lives in considerable danger by emerging from that country with a dead white woman whom, incidentally, they said they had found in their milpa where they had gone early that morning to work.

  Though Soloma was only a dusty little town that lies in what once was probably the bed of a lake and surrounded by the Cuchumatanes, it was a designated cabecera municipal, a district headquarters. The men who were the local authorities there had obligations. An investigation was made into Lena’s death by the local military commissioner—who neither slept nor dreamed without permission from the nearby garrison commandante—and it was determined that the guerrillas had killed her and “violated” her. If Lena had been an Indian, she would have been buried there, but no one wanted the responsibility of burying a white woman, so they “requisitioned” a place for her on a truck loaded with cassava and other vegetables destined for the departmental capital of Huehuetenango.

  No doubt eager to be rid of the responsibility of this ghastly cargo foisted upon him, the truck driver drove at night over the dangerously crooked and precipitous dirt roads that
crossed the Cuchumatanes to Huehuetenango. Still receiving special treatment, the “XX,” as Lena and every other unidentified body was known, was taken to the main hospital, where an autopsy was performed by Dr. Aris Grajeda, a visiting physician from Guatemala City. He was told by the truck driver that the XX’s mother wanted her in Guatemala. Dr. Grajeda agreed to see that she got to the capital. She was put into a heavy plastic bag along with several chunks of ice from the hospital commissary and loaded into Dr. Grajeda’s van. End of report.

  There was a separate document attached to the first, written by the precinct chief of the Gabinete de Identificación in Zona 6 in Guatemala City: The unidentified female was delivered to them “anonymously” on Sunday night, accompanied by the attached report, which was found in an envelope inside the plastic bag with her. She was photographed, and her picture was placed in the book of the dead. Her body was sent to the morgue at the Cementerio General that same night.

  CHAPTER 17

  Haydon slept until nine o’clock the next morning, when even his disconnected dreams about what he had seen and heard and smelled and felt since he had arrived in Guatemala City the night before could no longer ignore the roar of traffic that poured in through the two windows above his bed. Sometime during the still, quiet hours before daybreak a chill had crept into the old house, and he had groped around at the foot of the bed and pulled up the covers he had thrown off as he went to sleep. Now, as the morning began to warm again, he pushed back the covers once more and rolled over, his limbs feeling thick and heavy, his stiff neck making it difficult for him to find a comfortable position now that he was conscious. Even though he had showered the night before, he got up from the bed and pulled off his pajamas and stepped into the shower again. He felt as if he wouldn’t be able to think straight if he didn’t.