Red April

Monday, April 10 / Friday, April 14

On the eighth day of March, 1990, on the occasion of a Senderista assault in which the electrical installations of the region were blown up, a detachment of armed forces appeared at the domicile of the Mayta Carazo family, located at Calle Sucre 14 in the municipality of Quinua, to carry out the appropriate inquiries with regard to Edwin Mayta Carazo, twenty-three years old, suspected of terrorism.

For reasons of security the detachment, led by Lieutenant Alfredo Cáceres Salazar of the Army of Peru, exercised its prerogatives and broke into the aforementioned residence with no prior warning, its members hooded and armed with antisubversive H&K combat rifles, at which time they discovered in the interior the family composed of the abovementioned suspect, his brother Justino, and the mother of both men, Señora Nélida Carazo widow of Mayta, who were spending the night at that site.

After the detachment entered the site, the two Mayta men, who offered no resistance, were subdued with the butts of the weapons for the sake of greater security, while Nélida Carazo widow of Mayta was removed from the area of operations by two troops who, according to their statement, proceeded to place her against an exterior wall of the property at gunpoint, under orders that she not shout or attract the attention of the neighbors. The request of the troops seems to have been heeded, since none of the residents of Calle Sucre has confirmed the version of the family, the majority of the residents stating that they were absent from the location, having left for various reasons related to work from midnight until three in the morning, the hours in which these events were recorded.

By order of Lieutenant Cáceres Salazar, the troops proceeded to inspect the domicile in search of explosives or Senderista propaganda. After examining the interior of the property and removing the appropriate pieces of furniture without success, they interrogated both suspects, who denied having knowledge of any terrorist activity. Lieutenant Cáceres maintained, however, that terrorists who do not appear to be terrorists are those who present the greatest danger to national security, and consequently proceeded to seize the possessions of the family and arrest the suspect Edwin Mayta Carazo, leaving his brother at large in consideration of the fact that in the course of the interrogation the femur of his left leg had been fractured.

At the same time, the mother of both men, Nélida Carazo widow of Mayta, attempted to enter the house and join her offspring, at which point the troops of the Army of Peru found themselves obliged to detain her to prevent her from interfering with the official duties of the authorities. Subsequently, as indicated by the relevant medical certificate, Nélida Carazo suffered a fractured jaw with complications in the parietal osseous structure.

The operation having been concluded, the suspect Edwin Mayta Carazo was driven in a military vehicle to the military base of Vischongo, several hours distant from the location of his domicile, where the required interrogation was carried out.

The detainee denied repeatedly the existence of any connection to Sendero Luminoso, which convinced Lieutenant Cáceres Salazar even more firmly of the aforesaid detainee's involvement in the abovementioned assaults because, as he has stated, it is characteristic of terrorists to always deny their participation in these events. As a consequence, and in order to increase the cooperation of the detainee, he put into effect an investigative technique that consists of tying the suspect's hands behind his back and letting him hang suspended from the ceiling by the wrists until the pain permits him to proceed to confess his criminal acts.

Subsequently, since the detainee insisted on denying his culpability, the military troops then undertook another technique of inquiry designated by the name “submarine,” which practically submerges the head of the suspect in a basin of water several times until he is close to drowning, causing his receptivity to the questions of the authorities to increase significantly. According to the statement of the authorities, the detainee continued to deny his participation in Sendero Luminoso. Despite the efforts of the authorities, cooperation on the part of the aforementioned suspect was not achieved.

Finally, in the face of the repeated denials of Edwin Mayta Carazo, Lieutenant Cáceres Salazar decided to give him his freedom, leading to the aforesaid detainee's release from prison the following day as indicated in the daily records of the military base at Vischongo.

The whereabouts of Edwin Mayta Carazo have been unknown since that day. His family denies having seen him again, as do his friends and acquaintances, all of which reinforces the thesis that he has become clandestine as a member of a terrorist group, in all probability Sendero Luminoso, despite the fact that terrorism was eradicated and continues to be eradicated at the present time, April, 2000.

In an oral declaration to this official, his brother Justino admitted that Edwin engaged in dangerous acts, the nature of which he did not specify. As a consequence, this Office of the Prosecutor recommends the appearance in person in the shortest feasible time of Edwin Mayta Carazo, Justino Mayta Carazo, and Lieutenant of the Army of Peru Alfredo Cáceres Salazar to make their statements to the court.

Associate District Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar read the report for the tenth time. This time he did not throw it in the wastebasket. But he did hesitate. He was concerned. The syntax was not bad, though perhaps too direct, showing little respect for traditional forms. For example, the ages of those involved were missing, since he had not been able to verify them in every case. But the prosecutor was concerned above all that it would be inadmissible to reopen the case, and as Captain Pacheco had told him, the police would not be the competent body to handle a problem of terrorism.

He thought again of Justino's words: My brother's the one. He does everything. Perhaps the prosecutor should have let those words go without thinking more about the matter, perhaps he should have closed his eyes, should have forgotten. Forgetting is always good. But the entire subject of Yawarmayo was a buzzing that vibrated in his ears, the back of his neck, his stomach.

Besides, he did not do anything all day. Since his return from Yawarmayo, he had turned into a ghost at the Ministry of Justice. No one had assigned him work, not even an indictment, not even a memorandum. His pending assignments had been transferred to other offices during his trip. The Provincial Prosecutor had given him no explanation. His colleagues claimed not to know anything. For his part, Judge Briceño called him aside to congratulate him in a complicitous way for being Commander Carrión's new protégé. He said that was the best way to buy a Datsun. The prosecutor thanked him for his congratulations without really understanding them, and hours later, in the bathroom, he heard the same judge at the urinal telling someone that Carrión had ordered the prosecutor isolated because he no longer had any confidence in him. “That prick is fucked,” the judge concluded. More than the ordinary intrigues of the Judiciary, what bothered Prosecutor Chacaltana was the feeling of emptiness. For twenty years he had been busy writing every morning and now, suddenly, he felt useless, as if his office were an ice bubble isolating him from the world. He was bored.

He spent the rest of Monday trying to toss a wad of paper into a wastebasket. From time to time, like a flash of lightning, memories of Yawarmayo and Justino came to him. My brother's the one. He does everything. What brother? What does he do?

He did not want to have lunch with Edith, at least for as long as he had no sign of support or promotion from his superiors. When he said good-bye, he had told her that he would invite her to the gala affairs of his superiors. He would not go back now and say he could invite her only to an empty office. He felt he had let her down, that she would feel disappointed by him. He had lunch in his office, some rice and chicken he had brought from home in a thermos, and the rest of the afternoon was devoted to his wad of paper. That night he slept badly.

Tuesday passed in exactly the same way. Along with his nightmares he suffered sweating and nausea.

On Wednesday the 12th, at 9:35, spurred by the need to do something, he decided to look for Justino's name in the archives of the Office of the Prosecutor. Perhaps he would find something useful or at least give the impression of doing something useful. He had learned that really working was not as important as letting it be seen that one was working. In Lima, where there was more competition, Prosecutor Chacaltana would remain in his office until ten at night even if he had nothing to do in order to avoid the impression that he was going home too early. In Ayacucho, functionaries left earlier than that, but gossip circulates more quickly in small cities.

The archive was in an enormous windowless room filled with papers and boxes, and the prosecutor spent the entire morning there meticulously searching through records of the 1980s and old, dusty documents for the family name Mayta Carazo. It did not appear in the archives filed according to name. And it was not among the files of those detained or interrogated with regard to either terrorism or common crimes. When he was about to give up, the prosecutor decided to look through the dismissed or discontinued cases. He found the complaint filed by Edwin's mother after his disappearance. This must be the same woman who opened the door for him in Quinua on the day he was attacked. The charges had been withdrawn the day following the complaint without the signature of the complainant.

With the information contained in the complaint, he could check Edwin Mayta Carazo's background in the section called “rejected complaints.” Finally, he found a clue: Justino's brother had once been accused of being a member of a cell operating near Huanta, but nothing had ever been proved. After some electric towers were blown up, a resident denounced two other members of that same cell. Then, the army began to look for Edwin to make the relevant inquiries.

Along with the information on Edwin were the names of the other members of the cell. Two of them, a man and a woman, were listed as “whereabouts unknown.” The third, Hernán Durango González, alias Comrade Alonso, was serving a life sentence in the Huamanga maximum security prison.

The prosecutor became aware that never in his life had he spoken to a terrorist. He wondered if it would be valid for the investigation, if he could accept as evidence the statements of a criminal who had committed treason. Then he realized it did not matter. There was no evidence because there would be no trial or judgment. The subject of the corpse in Quinua was a closed case.

That afternoon, after eating lunch at a stand on the street, he went to the prison. He thought that if he at least closed the case for himself, his nightmares would end.

The Huamanga maximum security prison, with a capacity for three hundred prisoners, housed 974 criminals, 252 of them accused of terrorism or treason. As he approached it on foot, the prosecutor looked at the walls ten meters high and the watch towers at the corners. There was nothing and no one within a radius of three kilometers, so that any movement in the surrounding area could be detected before it got too close to the compound. In order to go in it was necessary to show one's national identity document at the gate and have one's name entered into the visitors' book. After the first checkpoint, a long corridor led to another sentry post.

“Today isn't a visiting day,” the second guard said dryly.

The prosecutor showed his identification. The guard did not even look at it.

“Today isn't a visiting day,” he repeated.

The prosecutor wanted to avoid unnecessary arguments. He thanked him for his kindness, picked up his document, and proceeded to retrace his steps. He was already outside when he remembered that he had nothing to do in his office. He thought about his wad of paper. And his nightmares. He turned around and showed his identification to the first guard, who wrote his name again in the visitors' book without saying anything. He walked down the corridor again until he reached the second checkpoint.

“Call the functionary of the National Penal Institute. I am on official business,” he said with self-assurance.

The guard grunted, as if annoyed that someone would disturb the peace of his Wednesday. Then he stated:

“There is no functionary.”

“Excuse me, but this is a penal institution, and there has to be a functionary from the …”

“Colonel Olazábal is in charge here. If you want to talk to him, you have to send a fax to the General Administration of Police requesting an interview.”

The police. Chacaltana knew that in many penitentiaries there were police instead of functionaries because the Institute could not manage all the prisons and had no troops at its disposal. He felt frustrated as he left again, thinking that perhaps he could also send a written request to the National Penal Institute asking for an official introduction. Then he reconsidered: his case was closed, and the system of inter-institutional message delivery had not proved to be very efficient. In spite of his confidence in institutions, he understood that no one would give him an appointment. But he also understood suddenly that he himself was also an institutional authority. He was already outside the prison when, resolute and sure of himself, he turned, showed his national identity document once more to the silent guard at the entrance, and appeared again before the second guard, who seemed drowsy as he grumbled something, perhaps his surprise at seeing one human being so many times in a single day at his post.

“Call Colonel Olazábal,” the prosecutor demanded. “I will talk to him.”

“He's busy. I already told you that you have to send a fax to …”

“Then give me your name and badge number, because I will mention you in the fax.”

Suddenly, the policeman seemed to regain consciousness. He no longer looked drowsy.

“Excuse me?” he asked slyly.

“Give me your information. I will make a note of it here and inform Colonel Olazábal of your negligence in assisting in investigations ordered by your superiors.”

The guard was not grumbling now. Instead, he grew pale and leaned to one side to hide his badge:

“Well no, Chief,” he said, and the prosecutor noted that he had called him “Chief” and that his voice was gentler now, “that isn't really true, I have my orders and I follow them. It isn't my intention to neglect …”

“I am not interested in your stories, Corporal. I told you to give me your information or I will communicate with Colonel Olazábal. It is up to you.”

The prosecutor asked himself if he could be accused of lack of respect for authority, insubordination, and treason. He told himself he could. But suddenly he felt he was doing something different, perhaps something important, at least for himself, for his dreams. The guard looked at him with hatred, rose to his feet, and left his box. He returned fifteen minutes later. With a gesture he ordered the prosecutor to follow him.

Between the entrance building and the cell blocks there was a second ten-meter-high wall, topped by barbed wire and separated from the exterior wall by a no-man's-land, a gray, arid area eight meters wide where anything that moved would be shot.

To Associate District Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar, the no-man's-land seemed like a first inkling of hell: the prisoners locked behind the grating in the cell blocks, their empty stares that had not seen anything but those walls for ten years, the police playing cards and wiping the sweat from their necks with the braid on their uniforms, knowing it was not a good place for promotions and eventually spitting out their frustration at the prison bars. For sixteen prisoners serving life sentences in Cell Block E, that enclosed, desertlike strip of land was simply the last piece of relatively free terrain they saw, so they would never forget that they would never walk there again.

They climbed to the second floor of the entrance building. Standing at the top of the stairs, a tall white officer, almost completely bald though still a young man, was waiting for them. He had on a short-sleeved shirt and wore no kepi. The entrance guard gave him a military salute. He called him Colonel Olazábal. The colonel asked him to leave them alone.

“We haven't been informed of any inspection,” he said disagreeably.

The prosecutor attempted to justify himself:

“I am not here for a formal inspection. This is only a personal interview.”

“I'll reply only with my superior present.”

“It is not with you but with the inmate Hernán Durango González.”

“I cannot allow unscheduled interviews without orders.”

The prosecutor felt he was confronting the final wall before he could see his suspect. He observed the pistol in the officer's belt. He thought that he had a weapon too. A double-edged one. He said:

“Call Commander Carrión, please. He will tell you what you want to know. But he will not like anyone questioning his authority.”

Then, it was as if the colonel had stumbled. His eyes opened wide, his entire body became rigid except for his face, which he tried to stretch into a smile. The prosecutor continued:

“I am working on an investigation for the General Staff regarding …”

“You don't need to tell me,” the colonel interrupted. “Our doors are always open for the commander.”

Suddenly everything moved faster. The officer left him with a corporal who would take him to his prisoner. With him as an escort, Prosecutor Chacaltana crossed the no-man's-land and entered the cell blocks. They turned to the right. In the long corridor of Cell Block E they passed faces filled with stony, silent curiosity. They reached a central courtyard. Between the barred windows were worktables for handicrafts and manual labor. Some of the prisoners were putting together fishing rods or making weights.

“Did you come to review our sentences?” asked one of the inmates.

“Quiet, damn it,” said the corporal. And then he shouted into the air: “Hernán Durango González!”

The prosecutor saw the prisoners' eyes all fixed on him, on this man in a suit and tie who could be anybody, perhaps a lawyer. The prosecutor took charge of the situation. He felt pity. He said to the prisoner:

“I will try to have your case reviewed, Señor. Write down your information for me and I …”

The policeman laughed. He said to the prosecutor:

“You're going to have this motherfucker's case reviewed? It's already been reviewed. He killed twenty-six people, six of them children. All in cold blood. Review it again if you want.”

The prisoner did not respond. He seemed annoyed. Another prisoner approached from the other side, thin, dark, with icy eyes. He said he was Hernán Durango González. He preferred to be called Comrade Alonso. The corporal handcuffed the terrorist and led him and the prosecutor to an office in the entrance tower, where they could have a private interview. While the prosecutor was thinking about what to say, the prisoner spoke first:

“If you're going to ask me for information in exchange for benefits, forget it. I won't betray my comrades.”

The prosecutor had expected this direct challenge, the first effort at intimidation. He had read about it in countless manuals on the antisubversive war. He had also read the response. The scorn:

“Your comrades? Your comrades no longer exist. They have all been arrested. The war is over. Don't you watch TV?”

Hernán Durango González fixed his eyes on the prosecutor's. He seemed to be engaged in a staring contest, waiting for the prosecutor to look away. The terrorist's gaze was difficult to endure. No. He could not lower his eyes. He tried to conceal the shudder that ran down his spine. He had been told that confessed terrorists attempt to impose themselves in interrogations, that one needs a good deal of personality or a couple of blows from a rifle butt to tame them. He tried to look up, to not be deflected from the subject:

“I have come to ask you about a person you knew: Edwin Mayta Carazo.”

The terrorist seemed surprised.

“Edwin?”

“Do you remember him?”

Durango seemed to recover and try to gain ground.

“I won't talk.”

“He was arrested ten years ago. After he was freed, he became clandestine.”

“Freed?” In spite of the smile formed by his mouth, the terrorist maintained a gaze as steely as a bullet. “He was arrested by Dog Cáceres. Cáceres didn't free suspects. He got rid of them.”

The prosecutor remembered that he should not debate, that he should not be provoked into an argument. He had been told that terrorists argued only to confuse, lied as a distraction, shielded themselves behind the worst falsehoods. The prosecutor took a deep breath:

“That is what is recorded in our files.”

“And are Cáceres's murders recorded in your files? And when he said better a hundred dead half-breeds than one live terrorist?”

“I have not come to talk about …”

“Do you know how Lieutenant Cáceres trained his men? He made them kill dogs and eat their intestines. The soldier who refused would be treated like a dog. That's how Cáceres got his name. Where's that in your files?”

The prosecutor remembered the dogs in Yawarmayo. He tried to move the memory out of his head, as if he were brushing away a mosquito.

“Señor Durango, for now I will ask the questions.”

“Ah, right. I forgot who it is you work for.”

The prosecutor wanted a glass of water. He realized there was nothing in the office where they were, no water, no bathroom, no decorations, only two chairs and a desk that was clear except for a small Peruvian flag. He decided to continue:

“According to the information at my disposal, it is not clear if Edwin in fact was part of Sendero Luminoso or if he was innocent …”

“And you? Are you innocent? And your superiors? Are they innocent?”

“I am referring to the question of whether he committed acts of terrorism …”

“Of course. If you kill with homemade bombs it's called terrorism, and if you kill with machine guns and hunger it's called defense. It's a play on words, isn't it? Do you know what the difference is? We don't care. But your people piss with fear without a machine gun in their hands.”

Almost twenty years earlier, in his last visit to Ayacucho, the prosecutor had flown over the area surrounding Huanta in a military helicopter as the guest of a captain who was a friend of his. In the middle of the flight over the mountains, a man came out of the scrub carrying a red flag. He was alone. And he ran in front of the helicopter displaying the flag. The soldier on board had a Star machine gun. He fired. The pilot changed the route to follow the flag. The man on the ground ran as fast as he could, pursued by bursts of machine-gun fire that tried to catch him before he returned to the underbrush. But when the man with the flag reached some bushes that could have hidden him, he kept on, he continued running through the clearings with his flag like red spittle in the face of the military. He did not hide and went on for hundreds of meters, scorning the natural hiding places along the way and followed by the dust raised by the bullets coming closer and closer to his heels. After five minutes of pursuit, the bullets hit him, first in the legs and then, when he had fallen, in the back and chest as he dedicated his final movements to keeping the flag in the air. The shooter congratulated himself as if he had shot down a bird, and continued firing as he shouted insults at the man down below who would never hear them now.

“Why did he do that?” the prosecutor asked on that occasion. “Why did he let himself be killed that way?”

“To show that he doesn't care about dying,” the pilot replied.

Then the helicopter turned back toward the place where the flag had appeared, and riddled the underbrush, the trees, the bends in the river, the plants with bullets. The prosecutor asked again:

“And why are you shooting now at nothing?”

“To see if we hit any of the kids who saw him. That's part of their training. Sendero is full of thirteen-year-old children who get excited when they see these things. Each dead man with a flag like the one we've seen produces ten to twelve assassins ready to do the same thing.”

He remembered that episode for a moment before he collected his thoughts and answered Hernán Durango González:

“I will not permit you to compare the troops of the armed forces to …”

“There is no comparison. They're the watchdogs for their masters.”

“You people are defeated. You no longer exist.”

“Are you in the habit of talking to people who don't exist?”

The prosecutor thought about his mother. He hesitated.

“You … You are defeated. And let me remind you that you are a prisoner.”

“We're there, Señor Prosecutor. We're hunkered down. This prairie will catch fire, as it has for centuries, when a spark ignites it.”

It will catch fire. The phrase made Prosecutor Chacaltana nervous. He repeated to himself that he should not engage in discussions or justify himself. He replied:

“I have come simply to ask you about Edwin Mayta Carazo. Not to listen to your speeches.”

The terrorist seemed to relax his gaze for a moment. He looked out the window. The windows in the offices had fewer bars than the ones in the cells. He spoke:

“You ought to visit maximum security prisons once in a while, Señor Prosecutor. Is this the first time you've come to one?”

“Well … yes. I previously did not have cases of this …”

“You ought to visit the cells. You'd see interesting things. Maybe it would rid you of that mania for distinguishing between terrorists and innocents, as if this were heads or tails.”

The prosecutor did not want to say what he said. But he could not avoid it.

“I am afraid I do not understand.”

“There's a man in prison for distributing Senderista propaganda, but he's illiterate. Innocent or guilty?”

The prosecutor mentally shuffled through the legal code searching for an answer as he stammered:

“Well, in a technical sense, perhaps …”

“Another's in prison for throwing a bomb at a school. But he's retarded. Innocent or guilty? And those who killed under threat of death? According to the law they are innocent. But then, Señor Prosecutor, we all are. Here we all kill under threat of death. That's what the people's war is about.”

There were too many questions together. The prosecutor's capacity for looking into regulations collapsed.

“I have limited myself to asking what you know about a suspect.”

“And I've limited myself to telling you, Señor Prosecutor.”

A silence like a tombstone fell between them. The prosecutor could not think of anything else to ask. He was confused. Perhaps he should not have come to the prison. He was not obtaining any useful information. He had already been warned that to interrogate a Senderista you need cunning, balls, and a club. The prosecutor was very thirsty. When he was about to end the interview, the terrorist asked:

“Now you tell me. How is your mamacita?”

Félix Chacaltana felt each muscle in his body contracting in a heavy, gray nausea. Durango had expressionless eyes, the contemptuous eyes the prosecutor had seen in every dirty terrorist who had been arrested.

“What?”

“I know you keep her memory alive. She died, didn't she?” Durango continued.

“I …”

“You were very little, weren't you?”

“How do you know that?” the prosecutor asked, perhaps only to reverse the roles in their encounter. Suddenly, it had seemed that he was the one being interrogated.

“The party has a thousand eyes and a thousand ears,” said Durango, smiling with inexpressive eyes fixed on those of the prosecutor. “They're the eyes and ears of the people. It's impossible to lock up and kill all the people, somebody's always there. Like God. Remember that.”

Associate District Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar felt faint when he left the office, and he had a lump in his throat. Suddenly he felt more than ever that the case of the dead man in Quinua had something to do with him more concretely than he had imagined. He went into a bathroom in the guard building and washed his face. Since there was no toilet paper, he dried himself with his handkerchief while he smoothed the rebellious hairs in his combed-straight-back hairdo. He took a breath. He tried to relax a little. He opened the door and came face-to-face with Colonel Olazábal. He was startled. Olazábal, however, seemed attentive.

“How did it go? Did you get the information you wanted?”

“Yes, more or less …”

“You can come back whenever you like.”

“No … I don't think that will be necessary.”

He hoped it would not be necessary.

“Can I offer you something to drink? Coffee? Mate?”

“No, thank you. I think I ought to be going now.”

“I hope you'll give my regards to Commander Carrión.”

“Yes, of course.”

The prosecutor began to walk down to the exit. The police colonel was close behind him.

“And communicate to him my desire to support all his initiatives.”

“I will do that, yes.”

“Señor Prosecutor …”

“Yes?”

Associate District Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar felt he should stop and face him. It was very difficult for him to do so. He wanted to leave. He was a little sorry he had insisted on the investigation. There are things better left alone and forgotten. There are things that are conjured up when you mention them, words that should not be said. Or thought.

“Do you think … Señor Prosecutor … that you could speak to Commander Carrión about something?”

“Tell me what it is. I will let him know.”

“I've been in a maximum security prison for ten years now. Within the chain of command, I ought to have a better position in the police region. I'd like at least to change my fate. Could you have the commander approve my transfer?”

Now the prosecutor felt that the look on the colonel's face came from a place light years away from his problems. He promised to do what he could and left the building, walking as quickly as he could, almost running, although he maintained the dignity appropriate to an official of his rank. As he crossed the plain that separated the prison from the city, he felt he was being watched. He turned. There was nobody for three kilometers around.

When he returned to the Office of the Prosecutor, he wrote his report.

Now, as the sun was setting, he continued his meticulous revision of the document, asking himself if it was worth sounding the alarm or if there was no alarm to sound or if talking about it would cost him his rank and his job. He understood the reasoning of Lieutenant of the Army of Peru Alfredo Cáceres Salazar and his investigative methodology, but it was not clear to him that Edwin Mayta was a terrorist. Perhaps he was merely thinking too much about the entire case. Perhaps Justino had simply lost his mind after his brother's arrest and thought the prosecutor had something to do with it. In any case, the prosecutor recapitulated, the whole problem is limited to one corpse and has already been resolved, there are plenty of corpses in Ayacucho and it is better not to poke your finger into any in particular because pus is gushing out of all of them. There was no terrorist threat. Terrorism was finished. The rest was nonsense propounded by the terrorists themselves in order to confuse people. He put the report in a drawer, under the pencils and forms for requesting supplies. Then he looked at his watch. It was time to go. He gathered his things and left punctually. He felt strangely nervous. Out on the street the tourists arriving for Holy Week were beginning to give a livelier image to the city. Most came from Lima but there were even some gringos, Spaniards, perhaps a Frenchman or two, the kind who travel through the Andes with backpacks. Prosecutor Chacaltana decided to stop at the restaurant and see Edith and relax a little. Perhaps it was also time to apologize for his absence. He had begun in a very impetuous way with her and then had disappeared. That was not how gentlemen behaved.

In the restaurant, for a change, she was alone. The prosecutor sat in his usual place, but Edith did not seem to be in a very good mood.

“Where have you been eating lunch?” she said. “You don't come here anymore.”

“I just have a lot of work. But that does not mean I don't want to.”

“Sure, now it seems you're too important to come here. We have stewed tripe. Do you want some?” she asked without enthusiasm, as if he were just another customer in a crowded restaurant. He thought the best thing would be to agree and improve the mood of his hostess. Fifteen minutes later she put the plate down on the table and went to one side, her back turned, to wash glasses. An American sitcom was on television. Two blond girls fought nonsensically over a tall, good-looking boy who did not know which one to choose.

“I even bought a dress for the parties you invited me to,” Edith said.

With a gesture she indicated one of the chairs, where a pink lace dress was hanging, covered with embroidered arabesques and decorations. She had kept it there for days to show to the prosecutor when he came in. By now it even smelled of the kitchen. The prosecutor thought it was pretty. And he felt guilty for having made her spend her money. He was not hungry. His eyes moved back and forth between his plate and the young woman, and he did not know where to rest them. He wanted to say that he was very busy, that it was not always possible for him to have lunch, given all his meetings, dinners, and work-related travel. Finally he said:

“I'm not important.”

“What did you say?” She stopped and turned around. Her straight hair hung loose over her shoulders, her neck, her forehead.

“I'm not … important at all, Edith. I don't have a car. And I won't have one. They won't invite me to the parties for high-placed officials. In fact, I don't think I'm very good at those parties. When I try to speak no one listens. Perhaps it's because I never understand what's going on at parties … I don't think I even understand what's going on in this city or this country. Recently I've thought I don't understand anything about anything. And not understanding frightens me.”

It embarrassed him to tell a woman that he was afraid. But the words had left his mouth automatically, like a burst of bullets from a Star machine gun in a helicopter flying overhead. He had not been able to control them. That, perhaps, was what frightened him most. Knowing there was something he could not control, something inside him, terrified him more than what he could not control on the outside, what depended on whispers in bathrooms, on galas, on offices decorated with flags, on parades. He had lowered his eyes to his untouched plate, so that only the scent of Edith's cheap shampoo made him aware that she had approached him and almost touched him.

“Nobody understands anything here,” she said. “But nobody admits it, either. You have to be brave to say that.”

“I'm a coward, Edith. I always have been.”

Suddenly the prosecutor felt warmth on his hand, an agreeable, protective feeling he had not experienced for a long time. It took him a few seconds to move his eyes away from the tripe and discover it was Edith's hand that had interlaced fingers with his. They remained silent for several minutes while the tourists made more and more noise as they searched for bars where they could spend the evening. Two Limenians came into the restaurant.

“Do you sell beer?”

“We're closing,” she replied.

The prosecutor wanted to tell her not to stop working because of him. The tourist business would be very good for the restaurant, and in any event, his problem was not that serious. In fact, he was not even sure what “his problem” was, and it was not worthwhile for her to worry so much about it. But the pressure of those slim fingers on his and the odor of tripe coming from that small woman seemed to have sealed his lips. When the tourists left, Edith locked the door, put the prosecutor's plate in the refrigerator, and went out with him. They walked in silence to the prosecutor's house. Chacaltana remembered what it was like to walk down the street with a woman beside him, the feeling of four legs walking in rhythm, not like guards marching but with a free step, calm and slow. From time to time they smiled for no reason.

“During Holy Week I'll work at the restaurant in the mornings too,” she said. “There'll be lots of tourists. You can come for breakfast if you want. Because you eat in the mornings, don't you?”

“Call me Félix.”

“I have a small farm with my cousins in Huanta. I work here now because the harvest is over. I'll come back next year.”

“Every year.”

“Every year. Time is like that here. Everything is repeated over and over again. Planting, harvesting …”

“Maybe life can change. When somebody disappears, nothing is the same anymore. When somebody falls in love, nothing is the same either. Some things are forever.”

“I hope so.”

When they were in his house, the prosecutor offered her a mate. They sat in the living room to talk. The prosecutor wondered if her impulsive visit to the house was a sign she would end up in his bed. Then he realized he did not really want to go to bed with Edith, at least not that night. That night he felt like talking to her, being lulled by her voice and her patience, perhaps embracing her. That was all. At least, that was what he thought.

“How did your parents die?”

“It was the terrorists,” she replied.

“It was a horrible time, wasn't it?”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

Nobody wanted to talk about it. Not the military, or the police, or civilians. The memory of the war had been buried along with its dead. The prosecutor thought the memory of the eighties was like the silent earth in cemeteries. The only thing everyone shares, the only thing no one talks about.

“Do you go to visit your parents often?”

“I go all the time. I feel alone without them. I've always felt alone.”

“I still see my mother.”

She smiled without understanding. He decided to show her what he had never shown anyone. Perhaps she would understand. He took her hand and led her to the back room. When he opened the door, her eyes lit up. The interior looked like a room from twenty years ago, the room of a señora with its mirror, its furniture of old wood, even the old-fashioned creams and colognes used by grandmothers. She walked around the room, touching everything gently, as if acknowledging the presence of his mother through touch.

“This was her room?”

“My house burned down when I was a boy. When I came back, I reconstructed her bedroom here just as I remembered it. It was pretty, wasn't it?”

She did not answer. He asked himself if she would understand. He had never shown the bedroom to anyone. Perhaps it was a mistake to let her see it. It was like undressing in public.

“She … is my strongest memory of Ayacucho,” he said.

“It's as if she were still alive.”

“She is … in a way.”

Edith looked at the photographs.

“And your father?”

Prosecutor Chacaltana shook his head. He smiled as she admired the fabric of the sheets and the aroma of damp wood.

“It's important to remember,” she said. “They remember us.”

A warm breath emanated from the interior of the bedroom. The prosecutor knew that his mother liked this girl and welcomed her into her embrace, as if she were a new daughter. He approached the bed and kissed her. It was a gentle kiss, barely a brush of their lips. She did not resist. He repeated the gesture slowly, trying to grow accustomed again to the touch of someone else's skin. He took her hand and led her to the living room. It seemed disrespectful to kiss her in the bedroom. They lay down on the sofa in the living room and continued kissing gently, exploring each other. After a few minutes, he slipped his hand under Edith's blouse. She let him do so, embracing him. He lifted her blouse and lowered his head. He kissed her navel, her belly, and moved up until he was licking her breasts. They were small breasts, just like her, barely rising from her recumbent body. He felt a remote heat that had almost been banished from his memory. He continued moving up to her throat. Now she let him do what he liked without responding. The prosecutor noticed that he had an erection. He tried to move his hand below her waist. She stopped him firmly. Edith's eyes were half-closed but attentive. Perspiration beaded in the space between her upper lip and her nose, like a liquid mustache. She was trembling.

“I'm sorry.” The prosecutor withdrew.

“I don't want you to think badly of me afterward,” she said.

He sat up. He was aware he ought to respect her and he did not know what to do. Solitude is dangerous. It accumulates until it becomes uncontrollable and explodes. He thought that in the end he would ruin everything. He wanted to offer her a mate. Perhaps an alcoholic drink would be better, but he did not have any. He spent several minutes trying to say something before too much time went by. He managed to articulate:

“It's just that with you I feel less absurd. You're one of the things I don't understand, but the only one I like not understanding.”

She smiled and kissed him. He accepted the kiss and returned many more but avoided touching her too much.

The next morning, the prosecutor felt revitalized, happy: for the first time in a long while he had not had nightmares. As he crossed the parade of confraternities going to the Church of the Magdalena to prepare the vestments of the holy images for Friday, he felt that the city was recovering its life as they passed by. He reached the office earlier than usual, with a picture of his mother and an ID photo of Edith that she had given him the night before, toward the end, as he walked her home. He placed both images in a picture frame on his desk and opened the windows to air out the office. He happily greeted the embittered secretary of the Provincial Prosecutor and sat down to do some work.

There was no work to do.

Determined not to waste time, he took out the report on Edwin Mayta Carazo that he had put in the drawer and looked at it again. All in all, it did not say anything so terrible. A detachment of troops had carried out its normal routine duties ten years ago and then released the suspect. And that was all. Perhaps it might prove useful in subsequent investigations: everything indicated that this Edwin was part of the group harassing the police outpost in Yawarmayo. It seemed correct to have written it although there was no open case. Its effect had been positive and had eased his dreams, as he had hoped. He thought about his ex-wife. He realized her memory was beginning to disappear, to fade into oblivion. One needs a present in order not to have to think about the past. The prosecutor had one. That day it seemed to him that Ayacucho had one, that the city needed only a little more air, a little more light.

As he hummed an old huayno that he recalled hearing his mother sing, he put the report back in its drawer and turned the key twice. He spent the rest of Thursday playing with the wad of paper, feeling that an enormous weight had lifted from his shoulders. When he left the office, the bands were beginning to play. In the churches they were burning broom while men walked through the streets with bulls that shot off fireworks. Fire bulls. Chacaltana smiled. For the first time in days, fire seemed to be an omen of celebration and joy.

On Friday the 14th, at 5:30 a.m., the Associate District Prosecutor opened his eyes to the sound of excessively loud pounding at the door. He recognized the difference between blows from fists and blows from rifle butts. These were the latter. Without opening the door, he announced that he would dress and come out, but the soldiers insisted on coming in. With nothing to fear, the Associate District Prosecutor opened the door. There were three of them. Two were armed with FAL rifles. The third, an army lieutenant, carried a pistol at his waist. They were not aiming their weapons at him, but they indicated they were in a hurry. Commander Carrión's orders.

The prosecutor barely had time to wash a little and go with them. They had him climb into a jeep, flanked by the two soldiers. He saw that their rifles did not have the safeties on. He preferred not to say anything. The jeep drove out of the city and went up Acuchimay Hill, heading for Huanta. The prosecutor saw dawn break near the Christ of Acuchimay, while he imagined at his back the city topped with tiles and surrounded by dry hills, even though the last rains of the season were still falling. Christ protected the city spread out at his feet. The prosecutor wondered if he would protect him too. He wanted to know where they were taking him.

“Are we going to Huanta?”

“You are not authorized to speak, Señor Prosecutor.”

He was not authorized to speak. Like the inmate at the Huamanga prison.

“Is it because of what happened at the prison? I used Commander Carrión's name to get in but … I know I committed an irregularity, but I believe he will understand … It was an official investigation …”

“Señor Prosecutor.”

“What is it?”

“Be quiet.”

He obeyed. Perhaps that had been his most imprudent act. A beginner's mistake. Certainly the commander would understand that. Perhaps he had simply read his report and sent for him to congratulate him. Yes. That was most likely. He had once called him “my trustworthy man.”

They turned left onto an unpaved road and crossed a rocky terreplein that made the jeep bounce. They drove for another half hour until they stopped in front of a military reserve. After showing identification, they continued driving until the rough ground did not allow them to go on. They got out, holding the prosecutor by the arm. They walked, almost climbed the slope of a cliff where the prosecutor slipped several times and the soldiers picked him up with very little delicacy. The prosecutor knew there were no barracks nearby. He did not understand where they were taking him. When they reached the top of the hill, the prosecutor could see what was on the other side. An enormous hole ten meters across, hidden by the hills. A military cordon surrounded the wide pit. He knew without having to ask what was inside. On one side, directing the military detachment, was Commander Carrión. Someone told him the prosecutor was arriving. The commander looked very serious. The prosecutor tried to smile as pleasantly as he could.

“Good morning, Commander. I was surprised by your summons …”

“Come over here, Señor Prosecutor,” was all the commander would say. “Look at this.”

The prosecutor looked up at the hole. His feet refused to move. He heard a rifle being cocked behind him. He took a few steps, very slowly, before he felt the shove that hurried him toward the excavation. Behind his feet he heard a pair of military boots advancing. He approached the huge hole and stopped a meter from the edge. He felt another shove. He was sweating. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. He dared to turn around. The commander was about twenty meters from him. He motioned for him to look in. Around him, the soldiers had moved out toward the hills that surrounded the hole, as if not to see. The prosecutor felt another shove. He wondered if it was a hand or the barrel of an FAL. He turned to see the face of the soldier who had come with him. The soldier was pale and muttered:

“Turn around, damn it.”

The prosecutor looked at the sky. The sky was clear, just a few black clouds in a corner, probably heading for Ceja de Selva. He looked down at the ground again. Slowly, he advanced a step and stretched his neck, looking into the circular blackness of the excavation.

The spectacle inside disconcerted him. At first he thought he saw only boxes, old ruined boxes, surrounded by cloth rotted by time and earth. But then, what he had thought were rocks and earth began taking on a more precise form before his eyes. They were limbs, arms, legs, some semipulverized at the time of their burial, others with bones clearly profiled and surrounded by cloth and cardboard, black, earth-covered heads one on top of the other, forming a mountain of human remains several meters deep. One could not even see the end of this accumulation of bones and dry bodies. The prosecutor fell to his knees and vomited. As he threw up the little he had in his stomach, he realized he was in a perfect position to join the bodies down below, the nape of his neck exposed, offered to the rifles, his body leaning over the hillocks of death, his mind lost in some moment of time when everything was even more dangerous, asking himself how long it would take that time to finish dying, how much longer it would take the memory to disappear, the pain to be extinguished, the wounds to scar over, the eyes to close.

He closed his eyes. It seemed that the bodies down there were mirrors that multiplied him into infinity. And he did not want to be multiplied.

Suddenly, he felt a tug. It was the soldier who had brought him there. Now he was picking him up, perhaps to make him more comfortable. He thought about Edith. He thought about fire. But the soldier made him turn and retrace his steps. Almost holding his hand, or rather his arm, almost dragging him while his legs were not sure they could support him, he took him back to the jeep where the commander was waiting for him and deposited him in front of the officer, like a child who is left at the door of a school.

“They found it last night,” said the commander. “The news came just as I was finishing your report. It's the second mass grave that has been opened in three days.”

The Associate District Prosecutor did not know what to say. He looked at the grave again, almost as a gesture of comprehension. Now, a peasant woman was coming down one of the hills on the other side. She tripped and rolled toward the foothills but got up and continued climbing down. Three soldiers on that side moved to block her way. The woman shouted something in Quechua. The prosecutor recognized her. It was the woman who had opened the door for him in Quinua, the mother of Justino and Edwin, Señora Carazo de Mayta.

“We've managed to keep the matter out of the press,” the commander continued, as if he had not seen her. The prosecutor looked at the officer. He had seen her, his dark glasses reflected her as she approached the edge of the pit. The soldiers took her by the arm but she pulled free and kept running and shouting. She reached the edge. She seemed to want to throw herself in. One of the soldiers pulled on her skirt. Another struggled with her, trying to drag her away. The woman refused to move. She seemed stronger than the three of them together. The third soldier took out a pistol. She did not see it. Her back was turned, she was concentrating on the grave, on her shouts. The soldier aimed his weapon at her back.

“Let's go, Señor Prosecutor,” said the commander.

The prosecutor could not look away from the woman and the soldiers. The commander put his hand on his shoulder. The prosecutor said:

“Stop them, Commander.”

But the commander said nothing, gave no order, did not raise his voice to his subordinates. Thirty meters away, the soldier continued to hesitate, holding his weapon while the woman threatened to throw herself, head first, in among the corpses. He aimed at her back, then at the back of her neck, then at her leg. The other two tried to hold her still. They shouted something at her. The prosecutor heard: “Get out of here, Mamacita, there's nothing here you should see.” The soldier with the weapon pointed the barrel at the sky. He turned to his companions. Then to the commander. The commander observed him but made no gesture. The prosecutor wanted to shout. Then he realized that nothing would change, that too many shouts serve only to hide the sound of shots. He held back his tears and said nothing. On the other side of the grave, the soldier put away his weapon and helped the other two drag the woman outside the perimeter of the security cordon.

“They would never kill a mother, Señor Prosecutor,” said the commander. “Sometimes fear makes them go too far. Sometimes they've even hit one. But they never kill them. They wouldn't do that even under orders. It's stronger than they are. It's a natural law. They can't.”

Two other soldiers came over to help. They picked the woman up and carried her past the hills. When the prosecutor climbed into the jeep to go back to Ayacucho, her shouts could still be heard among the hills. Or perhaps not, the prosecutor thought, perhaps they were only inside his head, saturated in his memories.

you behaved very bad, justino, you behaved very very bad. and i dont deserve it. i gave berth to you, i opened the black mouths of deth with you, and this is how you repay me. its not right, unnerstand? look in the mirrer, look at yourself. your a traiter.

dont look at me like that. its not my fault. its not even my desision. blood makes us strong, it doesnt hurt us. even an idiot like you can unnerstand the strenth of what were doing. were creating a new world.

but your weak. its normal. nobody can start a struggel and think hes going to win it very fast. unnerstand? itll take senturies, its allready lasted senturies. remembering is important. each life, each of the fallen, it piles up in history and dissolves in it, like tears in the rain. and its sap so that we can live, we who will die. its all the same to me, dont think its unjust.

do you hear it, justino? that voice. yes, its your brother. hes calling to you. do you hear him? didnt you want to see him? hes here, with us. down here, look at him. dont cry justino, men don't cry. leest of all men who have done what you did, what we did. we shed blood instead of tears, justino, you damn faggot. you almost deserve to live because your life is a slow painful death, but ill save you the effert, yes i will. thats what comrades are for, right? thats what were there for.

come here, thats right, like that … rest your head on my sholder. ill be with you every step of the way, i wont leave you alone. we wont leave you alone. well take you with us to the end of the rode. well take everybody who unites us to the end of the rode, everybody whose with us from the beginning of time. the moment comes closer and closer, justino. the moment of victory comes closer and closer. do you see the stains on the earth? do you see the red color of the puddels in the night? its your seed, justino, its you who waters the land so that from your guts the world weve fought so hard for will grow. enjoy it, because its the last thing your going to enjoy.

“You think we're a gang of killers. Isn't that right, Chacaltana?”

The commander's question came after a long silence, when they were already on the highway back to Ayacucho, between the mountains and the river. He was driving the vehicle himself. They were alone.

“I do not know … I do not know what you are referring to, Commander.”

“Don't act like a prick, Chacaltana. I know how to read between the lines of reports. And I know how to read faces, too. Do you think you're the only one here who knows how to read?”

The prosecutor felt obliged to explain himself.

“We waged a just war, Commander.” He said it like that, using the first person. “That is undeniable. But sometimes I have difficulty distinguishing between us and the enemy. And when that happens, I begin to ask myself what exactly it is that we fought against.”

The commander let several more minutes go by before he spoke again.

“Have you ever been in a war, Chacaltana?”

“What did you say, Señor?”

“I asked if you've been in a war. In the middle of bullets and bombs.”

The prosecutor remembered the incidents in Yawarmayo. Then he thought about the bombs, the power cuts in Lima, he remembered the night patrols, the ambulances, the buildings destroyed by explosives, the eyes of the police when they saw the mutilated, bloody bodies that came out of the wreckage. No. He had never been in a war. The commander continued:

“Have you ever felt surrounded by fire and known that your life at that moment is worth less than a piece of shit? Or have you found yourself in a town full of people and not known if they wanted to help you or kill you? Have you seen your friends falling in battle? Have you had lunch with people knowing it may be the last time, and the next time you see them they'll probably be in a box? Have you? When that happens you stop having friends because you know you'll lose them. You get used to the pain of losing them and simply try to avoid being one of the empty chairs that keep multiplying in the dining rooms. Do you know what that's like? No. You don't have the slightest idea of what that's like. You were in Lima, after all, while your people were dying. You were reading nice poems by Chocano, I suppose. Literature, right? Literature says too many pretty things, Señor Prosecutor. Too many. You intellectuals have contempt for military men because we don't read. Yes, don't make that face, I've heard your jokes, I've seen the faces of old politicians when we speak. And I understand. Our problem is that for us, reality is a pain in the balls, we've never seen the pretty things your books talk about.”

Associate District Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar became aware that he was considered an intellectual. In his way he had been in a war, as an unwilling witness, as the one who stays in the fortress of the capital until fire begins to bring down its walls and the smell of the dead contaminates the clean air. Suddenly, the commander stopped the jeep at a bend in the road and turned toward him:

“There wasn't one terrorist group here, or two. There was a war here, Señor Prosecutor. And in a war people die.”

The commander was becoming agitated. His voice, always so authoritative, seemed to break at certain syllables as he brought his face very close to Chacaltana's. Perhaps that was why he didn't say anything else. The prosecutor tried to calm him.

“I'm with you, Commander. I understand what happened. I saw it too, from the other side.”

The commander drew back his head. He took a deep breath. He no longer seemed furious. He seemed disoriented.

“The other side. Sooner or later they'll come from your side. Sooner or later they'll come from Lima, Chacaltana. They'll come for our heads. They'll sacrifice us, the ones who fought.”

The commander was sweating. The prosecutor offered him his handkerchief. The commander looked straight ahead. He seemed very concentrated. The prosecutor did not dare to move the handkerchief too close to him.

“It was them or us.”

The commander did not say anything else. Them or us, thought Chacaltana, until we are all the same, until there is no more distinction between us.

“I understand,” he said.

The commander started the motor again. He seemed to gradually evanesce as they returned to the highway.

“It's important that you understand,” he insisted, “because you still haven't seen anything.”

They continued on to Ayacucho, and then to the military hospital, where they got out. They climbed the steps and crossed the waiting room together. No one asked where they were going or tried to stop them. No one went to an office to find out if they could go through. They entered the corridor that Chacaltana remembered very well from his last visit, passing several wounded people who did not approach them to ask for help. They had not walked very far before the prosecutor realized they were going to the obstetrics ward, to the closed office surrounded by women in labor. He thought of his mother as the cold illumination revealed the criminal pathologist.

“Please close the door quickly.”

From the door, the dandruff on his shoulders was not noticeable. Only when they were at the autopsy table did the prosecutor notice that the pathologist seemed dirtier than last time. The smell was different too. This time it was clearly the smell of a corpse. Not too decayed yet, but already penetrating. Several cigarette butts and a few matches had accumulated under the table. This time there were no chocolate wrappers.

“Señor Prosecutor, I see you're not alone.”

“Hello, Posadas.”

This time nobody spoke about any paper. The commander's greeting was a gesture. The pathologist gave them two surgical masks smeared with Vicks VapoRub.

“You're going to need them,” he said.

Then he stood and walked to the table covered with a cloth. The prosecutor brought his handkerchief to his mouth in anticipation of what lay underneath. The light flickered. No one had fixed it since the last time. No one would ever fix it. The pathologist uncovered the table. This time the body was not as decomposed as the last time. It was a recent corpse, unburned, the body still bruised by the onset of rigor.

“Completely drained of blood,” Posadas remarked. “Observe the shoulder.”

The chest was an enormous red vulva with several sharp metal protuberances pointing at the ceiling. On the left side a mass of bones, muscles, and arteries erupted. What did not erupt was an arm.

“The first time it was the right arm, now they've cut off the left. It seems these gentlemen want to make a puppet.”

The commander came close to the face. It was a face stretched into a final shout, with open eyes trying to escape their sockets. He closed the dead man's eyes. Only then, safe from the pressure of those eyes on his, could the prosecutor recognize Justino Mayta Carazo.

“They just brought him in,” said the officer. “He was found at dawn, right after the news about the mass grave.”

At that moment the prosecutor did not remember fire but he did remember blows, blows on the chest, one after another, like the dripping from the table, blows on the door at dawn, in a house without light.

“It is clear to us there are several of them,” said the prosecutor. “Or at least two well-trained men. The things they have done in both cases cannot be done individually.”

“Digging up graves can't be done alone either,” added the officer.

The prosecutor asked for a glass of water. The physician took a bottle out of a refrigerator for specimens. The prosecutor decided not to drink that water. The physician handed it to him, saying:

“They're also trained. At least the one with the knife is. These are surgeries. He was stabbed seven times in the heart, with perfect precision. With all kinds of things: machetes, scouting knives, even a butcher knife. They had a good collection, apparently. They destroyed the heart without cutting the principal arteries and deliberately left the body facedown. Almost all the blood came out of his chest, the pulverized heart still managed to pump for a few minutes after death. He was being extinguished. It was slow, but to accelerate exsanguination they cut off his arm. It seems to be the same method as the previous time. It was removed by the roots.”

“A two-handed saw, probably,” said the commander. “Two people, you cut through the bone as if it were a piece of wood. You only need a little patience. What are those lacerations all over the body?”

“Beak marks,” the physician explained. “They left the body where we found it, on Acuchimay Hill, for the buzzards to eat.”

The prosecutor felt he ought to make a contribution to the discussion but was afraid that if he opened his mouth something would escape, tears, retching, inappropriate words. A puppet. A puppet constructed with human parts, a Frankenstein monster made of Ayacuchans. He tried to maintain a professional tone.

“Was … was there any recovery … of a Senderista … nature near the deceased?”

The pathologist seemed surprised by the question. His face reflected relief and at the same time terror. He turned toward the officer, who took a paper from his pocket and unfolded it. The prosecutor thought about suggesting more attentive care of evidence but preferred to concentrate on the note. He read:

KILLED BY THE PEOPLE'S JUSTICE

for rustling

Sendero Luminoso

They are back, thought the prosecutor.

The commander said:

“When all is said and done … you may have hit the nail on the head with your idea about the terrorists, Señor Prosecutor.”

“Nail” was an unfortunate word. The prosecutor tried to focus his gaze on some less horrific part of the body. He stared at the feet splayed from walking through the countryside, the thick nails, green now.

Dr. Posadas lit a cigarette.

The second time the prosecutor entered army headquarters, he did not have to present any identification. With Commander Carrión, he crossed the central courtyard of the old building and climbed a wooden staircase to the second floor. There, at the end of a creaking wooden corridor, was the commander's office. Inside, the air seemed heavier than it had the first time. It made him think of the air in Lima, downtown, on Avenida Tacna at six in the evening. The commander poured two glasses of pisco. The prosecutor did not want to refuse. They sat facing each other, this time at the worktable. Sitting there, they were on the same level. The commander took the first drink.

“I don't like working with civilians too much, Señor Prosecutor. And let's be frank, in general you and I don't like each other much. But I'm very worried.”

“Well, Commander, I believe we could establish inter-institutional bridges of the greatest …”

“Chacaltana, let's get to the point.”

“Yes, Señor.”

“We'll work together but under my command.”

“Of course, Señor.”

They were silent for a period of time that seemed like years. Finally the commander said:

“All right, say something, damn it!”

The prosecutor tried to be calm. He wondered if he was feeling palpitations, or if perhaps everything around him was suffering from palpitations. He tried to confine himself to the case:

“I have written a report that I will send to you, Señor. I will tell you in advance that I would ask for a statement from those involved in this report, to wit, Lieutenant Alfredo Cáceres Salazar of the Army of Peru and the civilian Edwin Mayta Carazo, both of whom can shed useful light on the connection of the deceased to …”

“See them? Mayta and Cáceres? You want to see them?”

“See them … and speak with them, Señor.”

“Speaking with them will be difficult. As for seeing them, you already saw them. You met Edwin Mayta Carazo, at least a part of him, this morning when you looked into the grave. And you saw Lieutenant Cáceres Salazar thirty-eight days ago, when his burned body was found in Quinua.”

The prosecutor felt blocked by the information, passed over.

“Señor?” he stammered.

“Yes, it was that motherfucker Cáceres. He was reported missing in Jaén a month before his body was discovered.”

“Dog Cáceres?”

The commander gave a half smile, as if he were remembering an old comrade:

“They called him Dog, right? He was a shit of a man. A sinchi, a member of the counterinsurgency forces. They were kept rotting on a base in the jungle. Then they were transferred here to bring them up to date. Cáceres outdid himself in every interrogation. He made the entire grave you saw almost by himself. Edwin Mayta Carazo was caught in one of his operations. They began to ask him questions and he didn't cave in. Then he began to confess. He confessed to everything they asked but began to contradict himself on the second round of questions. His testimony didn't fit, his facts were impossible …”

“Perhaps because he did not know anything.”

“Or perhaps because he wanted to confuse us. Do you also think we can't tell a terrorist when we see one?”

The prosecutor drew back in his seat. The commander had turned red with anger but quickly regained his composure.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “For whatever reason, Cáceres went too far. As usual. I believe it was respiratory, I don't really remember. I suppose the lieutenant made up a report about his being released and declared him clandestine a few days later. The body was buried in a nearby garbage dump. But that wasn't enough. His mother went every morning to look for her son in the dump. The soldiers tried to keep her away, but at the first careless moment that damn old woman was digging through the garbage. When things became difficult, the bodies were pulled out and piled up in the grave you saw. From then on, whenever they find a grave somewhere, Edwin Mayta Carazo's mother shows up to look for his body. Though it doesn't appear in the press. I don't know how the fuck she finds out, but she's always there, trying to get close, dragged away by soldiers who can't shoot her, pawing through all the bodies. Very often the heads were … torn off the bodies to make them difficult to identify … but that woman could tell it wasn't her son, even though the body had been decomposing for months.”

“What happened to Lieutenant Cáceres … when things became difficult?”

“They gave him twenty years in the military prison in Lima. He served two years of his sentence and then was sent to the garrison at Jaén so nobody would see him. They gave him new documents. They ordered him not to exist.”

The prosecutor supposed that the orders had been rigorously carried out. Lieutenant Cáceres Salazar no longer existed. The prosecutor completed the sentence:

“Until he disappeared. He ran away from Jaén and came right here. Why?”

“I don't know, Chacaltana.” The commander poured himself another pisco. “But I can imagine. I've seen it before. People who have killed too much don't get better. Sometimes they have normal, peaceful years. But it's only a question of time before they blow up. Intelligence reported the presence of the lieutenant in Vilcashuamán three days before his death. They said he had established contact with the campesino patrols to organize a ‘defense against subversion.’ Imagine. Nobody paid attention to him. He had simply gone crazy.”

“Perhaps the terrorist groups in Yawarmayo found him and took their revenge.”

“Those people are controlled. They don't operate outside their area. But it seems there are others. You were right about the dates. But besides the ones you mentioned, it's the tenth anniversary of the death of Edwin Mayta and the end of the first harvest of the year 2000: ‘The blood harvest of the millenarian struggle,’ as they call it.”

“If they were terrorists, why did they also kill Justino Mayta?”

The commander looked up at one of the flags on the table. Then he looked at the prosecutor.

“I believe the reason for that is you, Señor Prosecutor.”

“What?”

“According to your report, you spoke to him, didn't you? The Senderistas usually killed those they suspected of being informers, their own people.”

“But he did not tell me anything important!”

“And how would they know that? It's understandable, I would have done the same thing, honestly.”

The prosecutor suddenly felt guilty of a death. It never would have occurred to him that one could be responsible for a death just like that, by default, without having done anything to produce it. Perhaps he was not the only one guilty. Perhaps there were more, in fact, perhaps he lived in a world where everyone was guilty of something.

“Why haven't you finished them off, Commander? Why are they still in Yawarmayo? The army could …”

“The army has orders not to do anything there. And the police have no resources. Lieutenant Aramayo has spent ten years asking for weapons and equipment. Lima won't give its approval.”

“They have to know what is going on …”

“Lima knows, Señor Prosecutor. They know everything and are everywhere. If for some reason they have to, they will go into Yawarmayo and massacre them. The operation will be on television. The press will be there.”

Everything was becoming tangled in the prosecutor's head. He felt exhausted by thinking. One cannot choose to see or not see, hear or not hear, one sees, one listens, one thinks, the thoughts refuse to leave one's head, they change, they dissolve, they become disturbed.

“Why … why are you telling me this, Commander?”

Again the commander showed that turbid smile, a mixture of irony and disillusion. Now he seemed to be in another world, wrapped in a blanket of memories.

“Do you know what Cáceres used to do when he found a terrorist in a village?” he said. “He would call together the entire village that had sheltered the terrorist, lay the accused down in the main square, and cut off an arm or a leg with a two-man saw. He often ordered his sinchis to do it, but sometimes he did it himself, with someone helping him. He did it while the terrorist was alive, so nobody in the village could avoid seeing him or hearing his screams. Then they would bury the separate parts of the body. And if the head was still complaining, they would give him the coup de grâce just before putting him in the ground, and then the campesinos were obliged to fill in the hole with dirt. Cáceres would say that with his system, that village would never be disobedient again.”

“He died under his law.”

“He died under the only law there was, Señor Prosecutor, if there was any.”

“Why does it matter so much to you?”

The commander seemed to hesitate over what he would say. He looked at the bottle of pisco but did not get up. Then he said:

“At that time I was a captain. I was Cáceres's immediate superior. And according to the signals they're giving, the next victim … will be me.”

He tried to say the last sentence with self-assurance. A slight break in his voice betrayed his true state of mind. The prosecutor was moved to see this man confess that he was afraid. He felt better about his own fear. He said:

“Why don't you speak to the Intelligence Services?”

“Absolutely no contact with Lima, Chacaltana. Lima shouldn't know anything about this. During Holy Week, twenty thousand tourists will be in this city. It's the symbol of pacification. If they find out there's a recurrence, they'll cut off our balls. I don't want you to talk to anybody. Do you remember Carlos Martín Eléspuru?”

The prosecutor remembered the functionary Eléspuru. His ubiquity, his almost inaudible voice, his sky-blue tie. His serenity, his superiority.

“He shouldn't hear anything about this,” the commander continued. “And if we happen to run into him, you repeat everything I say: that terrorism is finished, that Peru waged a glorious struggle, any fucking stupid thing you can think of.”

“I do not understand, Commander. He should not hear anything about this?”

From one of his drawers, the commander took out a leather holster with a pistol inside. He placed it on the table, in front of the prosecutor. He recovered his authoritative tone to say:

“From now on you alone will take care of this investigation, Chacaltana. And fast. You'll deliver your reports directly to me and you'll have all my support, but I want you to find out once and for all what the fuck is going on and where so many terrorists are coming from. Carry this, you'll need it.”

“It will not be necessary, Se …”

“Carry it, damn it!”

The prosecutor picked up the holster by the barrel of the gun so the weapon would not go off. It was the first time he had held a weapon. It was very heavy for its size.

“Pick it up like a man, Chacaltana. Now leave. I have work to do.”

The prosecutor stood. He did not know if his appointment was an honor or a liability. He did not know whether to say thank you or request a transfer. There were many things he did not know. Mayta's was a long act of vengeance. It had taken ten years to arrive. From the door he turned to the commander to ask a final question:

“Commander, I need to know something. Edwin Mayta Carazo … was he innocent?”

“I don't know, Chacaltana. I don't think even he knew.”

It was afternoon when he left the commander's office and found himself in crowds of tourists waiting for the first processions of the day. He realized it was Friday of Sorrows. No one would be at the Office of the Prosecutor. He hurried to his own office and locked the door.

He put the holster on his desk. He looked at it. He did not want to take it to his house, so close to his mother. He thought about the mother of the Mayta family. Two sons lost at ten-year intervals. The bullets had reached her family from both sides of a battle that this woman surely never understood completely, just like the prosecutor. He opened the holster and took out the pistol with two fingers before putting it down again on the desk. It was black, 9mm, with a box of ammunition on the back of the sheath. The kind of weapon lieutenants use, like Cáceres, who had become intoxicated by the death of other people and in the end had left his job and run directly toward his own. Why?

It was difficult for him to take out the cartridge to verify that the weapon was loaded. It cost him even more effort to think what would happen if Sendero was rearming. He would not be enough to control it, or Commander Carrión, or all the functionaries in Lima. He closed the pistol carefully and put on the safety, or what he thought was the safety. If Sendero was regrouping, the best thing he could do with that pistol was blow his brains out.

But there were some very strange details in the latest deaths. Things he ought to investigate, which did not fit with traditional Senderista methods. His function now was to investigate on his own, to put his head where nobody wanted to put it, not even himself. Perhaps it was a promotion after all. That is what those famous ambitions brought one to.

He returned the pistol to the holster and put it under his jacket, between his armpit and his waist. He made certain it could not be seen. It felt strange and heavy. He took it off again and locked it in his drawer with two turns of the key. Before he closed the drawer, he took out the report and put it in an envelope to take to Carrión personally. When he walked without the weapon, he was filled with a sensation of peace and normality. He left the office at night, when he could begin to hear the procession of the Virgin of Sorrows.

The Magdalena district was packed with Limenians in sports clothes holding beers and cameras in their hands. The younger Ayacuchan girls approached the tourists calling them “amigo, amigo” and smiling at them. The older ones, the ones who had grown up shut in their houses during the war, looked at those brazen girls disapprovingly, though many mothers harbored the hope that some Limenian or, better yet, an American, would fall in love with one of their daughters and take her away from Ayacucho. It became difficult for the prosecutor to move forward. He was trapped by people, by the stands selling drinks, the smell of punch, the din. His mind wandered with the movement of bodies. Each person he bumped into seemed like a blow in his memory.

When he thought he had found a way through the crowd, an even larger surge of people blocked his way. Beside him the platform carrying St. John emerged; it had just left the church. He let himself be carried along, exhausted. The lights of the city and the fireworks gave him the impression of an overpopulated sky filled with souls circulating together toward some destination. At times the explosion of a firecracker startled him, but the sound was muffled by the mass of people. The prosecutor advanced with the procession until the moment he found most interesting: the encounter of the Lord of Agony and the Virgin of Sorrows, which symbolized the suffering of Christ and his Mother. When the platforms began to approach each other, the Associate District Prosecutor felt spurred on by a presentiment. Filled with tension, he tried to get closer, in among the men carrying the platforms, until he felt himself held back by his shirt. Somebody had sewn his sleeve to the sleeve of someone else. It was part of the celebration. The prosecutor freed himself violently, to the surprise of the other man, who laughed. He felt dizzy, perhaps because of the smell of the platforms and the people. He felt a jab. Beside him, several women were jabbing one another with needles and laughing, “to help the Lord in his pain.” He managed to move closer to the platform of the Virgin, who now was shining almost above him, like a true apparition of light, like a mother who materializes before her son, the Lord of Agony, the son who is going to die in his final farewell to life. He reached the edges of the platform and at last could see her clearly. The Virgin's black dress, the candles on the platform that illuminated her from below, her immaculate face, and the seven daggers that pierced her chest, as they pierced the chest of Justino Mayta Carazo, the son of the mother who searched mass graves.

The prosecutor tried to kneel before the holy image, but the movement of the people was too dense. He tried to move away, avoiding the jabs like daggers waiting in ambush. With the seven stab wounds piercing his mind, he tried to move away from the center of the procession. He looked up when he calculated he was in front of Edith's restaurant. Shoving his way through the crowd, he reached the door. Edith looked at him from the counter. She smiled, showing her brilliant teeth. Associate District Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar got around the last human obstacles to reaching her, went into the restaurant, rushed to her and embraced her, very closely, surrounded by people who for the first time filled the restaurant. Some tourists applauded, others smiled, like the startled Edith herself, but he did not stop embracing her. He clung to that small body, that smell of the kitchen, with his eyes closed, as if it were the last time.