Red April

Saturday, April 15 / Wednesday, April 19

Associate District Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar welcomed in Saturday by dancing. He had not done that for a long time. Since he did not consider it appropriate to his state of mind, he tried to resist. But Edith insisted when she left work and took him to a concert of indigenous groups at a fairground.

In the middle of the field an enormous bonfire was shining, and around it hundreds of bodies were dancing, sometimes embracing, sometimes alone, moving to the rhythm of the folk music and drinking punch and beer. At first, the prosecutor refused to dance. Edith dragged him to the floor, but he felt rigid, incapable of moving a body that was good only for carrying out basic vital functions.

At a certain point, worn out by the crowd and the noise, he went to a food stand and asked for Ayacuchan chorizo and a glass of punch. The woman gave him a piece of fried spiced pork with hot ají peppers and vinegar. It was good. As he ate, he saw Edith, who had stayed with the group in the middle to dance. He wondered if what he was doing made sense. Edith was no more than twenty, she had been born at the same time as the war. And he felt old.

He drank a little punch. The taste of the milk and cinnamon with the effect of the pisco warmed his body. Now Edith was dancing close to the bonfire, her smile hidden at times by her hair. The prosecutor ordered another punch while the Gaitán Castro brothers came up on stage and people welcomed them with enthusiastic applause. Even in their happiest songs, what predominated was the Andean lament that their public loved. The prosecutor realized he was keeping time with his foot. He took a few steps forward.

Edith saw him approaching and gave him a smile. At times the mass of people hid her, because she was very short. Pushing his way through, and in a good humor after two glasses of punch, the prosecutor reached her side. He began moving his feet, trying to look like all the people around him. It was good to look like everyone else and disappear into the crowd, dissolve in it. Edith directed a smile at him and he did not know if it showed tenderness or mockery for how badly he danced. But he kept on. Now he had to move his arms, as if he were harvesting a crop, now his waist, and again his feet. It was difficult for him to do everything at the same time. As he made the attempt, Edith whirled around him, framed by the fire, moving her head and shoulders, laughing, with a laugh that to the prosecutor seemed as welcoming as a warm room in winter.

The next morning started out gray, but as noon approached, the sky began to clear. Prosecutor Chacaltana got up later than usual and hurried to greet his mother and open the windows in her room. He told her he had danced. He knew she was returning his smile from somewhere. Then he went out.

At the prefecture and at the market they were distributing yellow and green palms brought in from the province of La Mar in Ceja de Selva. The faithful walked through the city carrying their branch for Palm Sunday. At the Church of Pampa San Agustín they were preparing the procession of the Lord of the Vineyard, scheduled to go out that night, holding a cluster of grapes in his hand to guarantee fertility. The entire city was given over to the celebration.

The Associate District Prosecutor appeared at the Church of the Heart of Christ at approximately 11:35. In the priest's office, the stewards of the eight processions of the celebration were arguing with Father Quiroz because they wanted to modify their routes. Quiroz responded without restraining his indignation:

“We've been following the same route for almost five hundred years, and we're not going to change now so that they can stop at the hotels!”

“But that's where the tourists are, Father. The hotels will give more financial support to the processions if we pass in front of them …”

The stewards were prosperous merchants and professionals. In earlier years they had tended to be very devout, observant gentlemen, but since the end of the war they had demonstrated more interest in the hospitality industry than in the preservation of traditions. As he listened to their discussion from the waiting room, the prosecutor thought of an impresario from Huanta who had proposed the previous year that the celebration be extended to an entire Holy Month with different processions each day. He had calculated that this would multiply the influx of tourists. And money.

The stewards came out of the office visibly annoyed. The Associate District Prosecutor preferred to wait a moment before going into the office. When he finally did, Father Quiroz was preparing to go out.

“I hope this will be brief, Señor Prosecutor,” said the priest, without inviting him to sit down. “This is the most complicated week in the year.”

“I understand, Father.”

“How are things? Do you have another burned body to investigate?”

“No. Not a burned body. I have Justino Mayta Carazo. Do you remember him?”

The priest seemed to make a slight effort to remember as he looked inside his briefcase. He replied as he closed it:

“Ah, yes. What happened to that little thief? Did they find him?”

“Yes, but dead.” The priest froze. The prosecutor wondered if his words had not been too abrupt. “I mean … They found him on Acuchimay Hill, eaten by buzzards. It happened early Friday morning.”

The priest crossed himself. He seemed to whisper a few rapid words, perhaps some formula for those who rest eternally in peace. Or not. The prosecutor did not know how corpses rest.

“Was it an accident?” the priest asked.

“No.”

“Was it the same … the same as last time?”

“We think so.”

“Come with me.”

They went to the eating hall for the poor of the Church of the Heart of Christ, which was half a block away. The Associate District Prosecutor wondered if he would ever succeed in talking to Father Quiroz while they were sitting down. When they reached the eating hall, they found a long line of beggars sitting on the sidewalk in front of the door. The beggars immediately surrounded the priest, who avoided them with an amiable gesture that indicated broad experience of this kind. The prosecutor and the priest went inside, where a short dark nun was waiting anxiously for Quiroz's arrival.

“How are we, Sister?”

“We have a new donation of milk, Father, but it won't be enough. There are too many,” she added, pointing outside.

“We'll do what we can. Divide the servings in half, and when that's finished, then it's finished.”

“All right, Father.”

The nun hurried to give instructions in the kitchen and then returned to the door. She opened it. Dozens of beggars pushed their way in. Some had been disabled during the time of terrorism, others were simply campesinos who had come to the city for Holy Week but could not pay for food. They sat at four enormous tables. The nun, with two other sisters, served pieces of bread, glasses of milk, and a thick soup in deep bowls.

“Your killer seems like a very devout man,” the priest remarked, returning to the subject.

“What do you mean?”

“The burning … the buzzards. He seems to be trying to destroy the body so it can't be resurrected … if you'll permit me a mystic interpretation.”

“No … that possibility had not occurred to me.”

“Hmm. It's curious. We humans, Señor Prosecutor,” the priest began to expound, “are the only animals who have an awareness of death. The rest of God's creatures do not have a collective experience of death, or they have one that is extremely fleeting. Perhaps each cat or dog thinks it is immortal because it hasn't died. Do you follow me? But we know we will die and are obsessed with fighting death, which makes it have a disproportionate, often a crushing presence in our lives. Human beings have souls to the exact extent that we are conscious of our own deaths.”

Some diners came over to the priest to ask for his blessing. The priest stopped speaking to trace signs of the cross in the air, as if he were tossing them carelessly in every direction. The prosecutor tried to recapitulate what he had just heard. Some words seemed familiar, but taken together their meaning escaped him. Perhaps it was the subject of death that was absent from his thinking. How could he think about death or know what it was? He was not dead, at least he did not think he was. The priest continued:

“We live the experience of death in others but don't assume it in ourselves. We want to live forever. That is why we save bodies for resurrection. Burying them is saving them. Etymologically, ‘burial ground’ or ‘cemetery’ are not words that refer to death but to repose, the body's rest until it is rejoined with the soul. It's beautiful, isn't it?”

The prosecutor did understand those words but did not understand what was beautiful about them.

“Yes, very nice.”

Quiroz stopped for a second to bless one of the diners, a man without legs who came to him, pushing himself along with his fists. The priest gave him the blessing on his forehead, and the man returned to his table, satisfied. Quiroz continued speaking:

“Some pre-Columbian cultures buried their dead with all their implements so they could use them in the afterlife. Right here, thirty kilometers from what is now Ayacucho, the Wari even buried important people with their slaves. Except that the slaves were buried alive. They were a warrior culture.”

They were brought two glasses of warm milk with cinnamon, a nonalcoholic version of punch. The prosecutor did not want to ask if they had mate. As he felt the first swallow revivifying his body, the Associate District Prosecutor thought of the meaning of the word “Ayacucho”: “Place of the dead.” For a moment, he thought of his city as a great sepulcher of slaves buried alive. The grave that he himself had chosen and decorated with old mementos of his mother. He tried to change the subject:

“And the blood? Justino's body was found without any blood. Does that mean anything?”

The priest shrugged.

“If you start looking, everything has a transcendental meaning. Everything is an expression of the mysterious will of the Lord. The blood may have a more pagan significance. It could be the blood of sacrifice. In many religions, the sacrifice of animals is intended to offer to the dead the blood needed to maintain the life ascribed to them. Draining someone's blood is draining the body of life in order to offer all that life to a different soul.”

The prosecutor tried to take a drink of milk before answering, but the speckle of cinnamon looked like a bloodstain to him. Without knowing why, he remembered the words: “Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh; for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.” He said them aloud. The priest specified:

“Leviticus 17:10–14. I see you keep up with your Bible reading.”

“I don't know where I heard it. I suppose I remember it from some Mass I went to when I was a boy. I used to go with my mother. And the seven daggers in the chest of the Virgin of Sorrows? What do they represent?”

“Seven silver daggers for the seven sorrows that the passion of Christ produces in his mother. Are you investigating a case, Señor Prosecutor, or do you want to take first communion?”

“It is just that the two deaths seem to have something to do with Holy Week: Ash Wednesday, Friday of Sorrows … it is … too much of a coincidence, isn't it?”

“No. The celebrations are superimposed. Carnival is originally a pagan celebration, the harvest festival. And during Holy Week there are also echoes of the Andean culture that preceded the Spaniards. That's because it doesn't have a fixed date, like Christmas, but depends on the seasons. As I told you last time, the Indians are unfathomable. On the outside, they follow the rituals that religion demands of them. On the inside, only God knows what they are thinking.”

The prosecutor observed all the beggars who had gathered on the benches of the eating hall, presided over by an image of the bleeding Christ wearing the crown of thorns. Another beggar approached to ask for a blessing, which the priest gave. The prosecutor remarked:

“They seem very devout to me, Father Quiroz.”

“I honestly don't believe that all the campesinos who come to Ayacucho for Holy Week know exactly what the meaning is of what they are doing. Even though this is the Holy Week with the longest tradition in the world. Did you know that? This and the one in Sevilla. Ayacucho keeps the memory of the older Christianity. Friday of Sorrows, for example, is no longer celebrated in most of the world.”

The prosecutor wondered in which province of Peru Sevilla might be. He promised himself to check it on a national political map when he had time. He continued to ask questions:

“Then what significance do the campesinos attribute to Holy Week?”

“I suppose it simply forms part of their cycle. It is the myth of eternal return. Things happen once and then they happen again. Time is cyclical. The earth dies after the harvest and then it is reborn for sowing. Except they disguise the goddess Pachamama with the face of Christ.”

The prosecutor was missing a fact. He overcame his embarrassment to ask:

“And what significance do we attribute to it?”

The priest seemed annoyed. He stared into the prosecutor's eyes reprovingly, as he would with a poor student.

“You were doing so well with your biblical quotations …” But then he smiled at the corners of his mouth. “Death, Señor Prosecutor. We celebrate the death of Christ and we represent it in order to die with him.”

“Oh, I understand that, but … I mean … Why do we celebrate death? Isn't that a little strange?”

“We celebrate it because we don't really believe in it, because we consider it the transition to eternal life, a life more real. If we don't die, we cannot be resurrected.”

That same afternoon, Chacaltana tried to explain to Carrión the little he had understood of his conversation with the priest. But the commander listened to his words with a disappointed grimace.

“Catholic terrorists, Chacaltana? But they're a bunch of damn communists!”

Papers had accumulated in the office, among them the prosecutor's reports, and dishes with the remains of food. The prosecutor guessed that the commander was not taking steps or making visits personally, that he asked for reports on everything, that he did not move from his office even to sleep at home. But he listened to the prosecutor. In fact, Chacaltana had gone through the entrance and the central courtyard of the headquarters building, up to the second floor, with no checkpoints or questions. Captain Pacheco was in the anteroom to the commander's office. The secretary was telling the police officer that Carrión was at a very important meeting but had let the prosecutor go in without a word. Pacheco had looked at him with hatred. The prosecutor knew he would have problems with him. But for now, his problem was how to convince the commander of what he was saying when he himself was not very convinced.

“The two killings are filled with religious references, Señor. They are something like … celebrations of death.”

“Have you been seeing too many movies, Chacaltana?”

Chacaltana thought about the television set in Edith's restaurant. No. He had not been seeing too many movies.

“It is … what I have found out … Señor.”

Prosecutor Chacaltana felt foolish, slow-witted, like a poor investigator. He thought he would have preferred never to have moved up, to have continued his devotion to his poems and memoranda. He did not like being important, and he specifically did not like being important in this case. If he were just a nobody, at this moment he would be with Edith, thinking about other things. About things that concerned him. About his life and not a pile of dead people. The commander turned and looked at him with suspicion.

“And what did you tell the priest? That we have a serial killer?”

“I did not give him too much information, Señor. Only what was indispensable. He guaranteed his discretion.”

“Discretion! A priest! He must have run to the archbishop's to shout about it there. Priests are like gossiping women. That's why they wear skirts.”

“I think we can trust him, Señor.”

“Trust!” Carrión laughed out loud. “Trust. Do you know why there's a crematorium in the Church of the Heart of Christ?”

“No, Señor.”

“To get rid of inconvenient corpses, Chacaltana. It was a good logistical alternative. Fire instead of graves. They offered to implement it themselves. But the solution itself turned out to be inconvenient. It was too visible, all that smoke in the center of the city. Besides, it meant opening a direct window for the priests onto our confidential operations. As it turned out, we hardly ever used the oven, and when we did, we knew that everybody up to the pope knew about it. You can't trust them. If they offered to install it, it was only to spy.”

“They offered … themselves?”

“It sounded reasonable. We all had the same desire to rid ourselves of the terrorists, didn't we?”

The prosecutor considered it reasonable. But, in any event, he believed in Father Quiroz. He had proven to be very cooperative. Besides, the prosecutor had to believe in somebody. If everything is a lie, he thought, then nothing is. If one lives in a world of falsehoods, those falsehoods are reality. Quiroz spoke of eternal life as a life more real. For a moment, the prosecutor thought he understood what he was referring to. The commander leaned back in his chair. He looked annoyed.

“And you, Chacaltana?” he asked. “Can we trust you?”

Chacaltana wanted to say no, they should not trust him.

“Of course you can, Señor.”

The commander was wearing the shirt and trousers of his uniform, but he looked untidy. His shoes and decorations had not been polished. On his lean face the first signs of a thin beard were making their appearance, more like dirt stains than facial hair.

“They're coming for me, Chacaltana. I know it. I can feel it. Every second we spend here is an opportunity for our killers.”

“They will not come for you, Señor. That is why we are here: so that will not happen.”

The commander flashed a brief smile of thanks. Then his face darkened:

“They'll come in any case,” he said sorrowfully. “Death forces its way in. I know that all too well.”

At times, Prosecutor Chacaltana realized in a flash that he was carrying out an investigation under orders from a killer. At times he wondered if it was possible to avoid that anywhere in his city or in any other city. But those thoughts always disappeared from his mind by themselves, so he would not be distracted from his duties.

“Perhaps you're right,” the commander concluded. “Perhaps this has to do with Holy Week. But not the way you think. You're a strange guy, Chacaltana. You're always about to hit the bull's eye and you always miss.”

“Thank you, Señor,” said the prosecutor. He wondered if he should have said that.

“They're trying to spoil the celebration. The symbol of Ayacucho, the pacified city. The record tourism of Holy Week. They're trying to show that they're back all over the uplands. And in the middle of the millennium, for fuck's sake. A blow struck for effect. Lucky we managed to hide it from the press. Being in the news would excite them. They don't have many resources yet, but they've become more sophisticated. These kinds of things didn't occur to them before.”

“In that case, it is possible to predict that their next blow will be tomorrow. Palm Sunday. The official beginning of Holy Week.”

“The triumphal entrance of Christ into Ayacucho.”

“Exactly, Señor.”

Commander Carrión thought for a few seconds. Then he called his secretary on the intercom and turned toward the prosecutor.

“They're going to think I'm crazy, but what the hell. I'll cancel all leaves for the police and request military reinforcements. I'll have them patrol the entire city, armed but in civilian clothes, so as not to cause any alarm. And I'll invent something to justify it internally. You can go, Chacaltana. And thank you.”

The prosecutor stood up. The commander thought of something else:

“Are you carrying your weapon?”

“What? Excuse me?”

“Where's the pistol I gave you? You're not carrying it? Carry it, don't be an asshole! You're a possible victim too. Very possible.”

“Yes, Señor.”

The prosecutor left headquarters thinking about the commander's final words. He had not been aware that he too was a possible victim. It was difficult for him to get used to the idea of being an official important enough to be annihilated. Annihilated, he repeated to himself. Turned into nothing. He thought it was a horrible word. He went to his office and opened the drawer. He took out the pistol carefully, verifying one more time that the safety was on. He contemplated it on the desk and then he raised it in front of the bathroom mirror. He tried to imagine himself shooting. He could not. He put it in the sheath and placed it in a large manila envelope. It was too big, and the envelope did not conceal it. He placed the envelope inside the typewriter cover. He went out carrying it as if it were a baby. He walked quickly to his house, nervously bumping into groups of tourists and vendors, afraid the gun would go off in spite of the safety because the devil carries weapons. When he was home, he took the package to his mother's room and put it on the bureau.

“Don't worry, Mamacita, I'm not going to open it, don't be afraid. It's just so you'll know I've brought it here. I think … I think the best thing is to keep it in the night table, just in case, though nothing's going to happen. Because nothing's going to happen, right? Nothing's going to happen.”

He continued repeating those words without taking his eyes off the weapon for at least two hours, until someone rang the doorbell. Before he opened the door, he hid the package in his night table. He was not convinced. He took it out and put it under the bed. Not that either. The doorbell kept ringing. Nervously, he left it behind the barrel of water he used when the water supply was cut. Yes. Nobody would look for it there. Before he opened the door, he took the pistol out again and returned it to the night table. He hurried to the door. It was Edith.

“They gave me the day off because tomorrow I work all day,” she said.

They spent the afternoon walking through a city they did not recognize, one filled with blond people with an accent from the capital. A couple of drunk Limenians whistled at Edith when she walked by. The prosecutor shouted at them:

“Beat it, motherfuckers!”

Edith laughed, but when they sat down to eat at a chicken shop, she said:

“You're nervous. What's the matter?”

“Things at work. Nothing important.”

“You were at Heart of Christ today, weren't you? They saw you with Father Quiroz.”

“Who saw me?” The prosecutor could not repress a touch of distress in his voice.

“I don't know. People. Ayacucho is a very small town, everybody knows everything. Why?” She gave him a mischievous smile. “Was it a secret?”

“No, no. It's just that … I'm working on a difficult case.”

“That's what happens when they promote you, isn't it? They give you more responsibility.”

“Yes, that's true. Did they see me anywhere else?”

“I don't know. I only heard that. Can't you tell me what your case is?”

“It would be better if you didn't know. It would be better for me not to know.”

“That priest is a good person. I go to that church a lot. He's very nice.”

“Yes. Nice.”

“When are you going to take me to Lima?”

For the prosecutor, Lima was merely a memory filled with smoke and sorrow. His work, his ex-wife were disappearing voluntarily from his memory and would never come back. In any event, he replied:

“Soon. When this case is finished.”

They watched the twilight from the lookout on Acuchimay, next to the statue of Christ. Edith insisted on going there in spite of his protests. As she drank an Inca Kola and held his hand, the prosecutor began to calm down. He thought that Christ had not protected him very much, but Edith had.

“Last week I talked to a terrorist,” he dared to tell her. “And I think this week I'll have to do it again. It frightened me.”

Simply by saying that, he understood that he needed to talk. At least, as much as he could. And with someone who would respond. He thought of Justino's body. In the sky, the buzzards seemed to be expecting another meal. She let a few seconds go by before she said:

“Don't be afraid. That's over. The war's over.”

He noticed that she called it the “war.” No one, except the military, called what had happened there a war. It was terrorism. He grasped her hand even tighter.

“This prairie could catch fire at any moment, Edith. All you need is the right spark.”

“The sun's beginning to go down,” she indicated. She didn't like talking about that.

Down below, the procession of the Lord of the Vineyard was setting out. Associate District Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar remembered that it was Passion Saturday, and with that in mind, he asked himself if trying to make love to Edith would show a lack of respect for her and Our Lord. To chase away those thoughts, he tried to say something pleasant to her.

“My mother would like you very much.”

Edith did not reply.

And she let go of his hand.

On Palm Sunday, after the blessing of the palms and the Mass, Christ entered the city of Ayacucho on the carpets of flowers that decorated its streets. First to appear were hundreds of mules and llamas adorned with broom and wearing trappings of multicolored ribbons and hanging bells. The villagers leading them set off rockets and firecrackers on the way, in the midst of the general uproar. At the front of the procession, sitting on a spirited charger, rode the principal steward, wearing a white and red sash across his chest. The celebration had been announced and was accompanied by a platoon of riders, male and female, on the back of horses adorned according to Huamanguina traditions. The troupe included the prefect, the subprefect, and the muledrivers and campesinos who blew into bulls' horns to celebrate the arrival of the Lord.

The Associate District Prosecutor was in the crowd, beside a carpet of red and yellow flowers that represented the heart of Jesus, alert to any suspicious movement, nervous because of the fireworks at the celebration. He could recognize the agents dressed as civilians because they were the only ones wearing suits, ties, and white sports socks, and because their sentries' attitude needed only a sign saying “secret agent” on each of their foreheads. They were, however, well distributed. There were at least two on each block of the route of the animals, and a net of vigilance covered everything, including the exits from the city. As the celebration approached the center of the city, the prosecutor ran into Captain Pacheco, wearing the dress uniform of the National Police but in the middle of the crowd, not on the stand of honor. Chacaltana wanted to move away when he saw him, but the captain approached:

“Would you care to explain what's going on, Señor Prosecutor?”

“It is the celebration of Palm Sunday, Captain.”

A firecracker went off near them.

“Don't fuck around with me, Chacaltana! Commander Carrión cancels all his appointments except with you. You leave the office and suddenly all the police have to work double shifts. Do you know how my people feel? How do I explain why their leaves have been canceled?”

“I do not know what you are talking about, Captain. I met with the commander only to hand him a report.”

At a corner of the square, one of the horses was about to bolt because of the noise and the crowd. The rider managed to control the animal.

“Do you think I was born yesterday, Chacaltana? My horse should have been one of those. I rented the best one and had to give it to my idiot son-in-law because I'm on foot duty. What do you have against us, Señor Prosecutor? Why do you like fucking us up so much?”

“I never wished to disturb your relationship with your son-in-law, Captain. The commander is very concerned with security during these festivities. That is all.”

A throng of tourists came between them. The captain pushed against the crowd to say:

“Don't think I'm not aware of things. I know a lot about you. And you should be more careful about the people you go around with. Your friends can make problems for you.”

Then he let himself be carried away by the crowd. He disappeared before the prosecutor could respond. What had he meant by those words? Did he know about his real relationship with the commander? Or was he referring to the terrorist? The police exchange information, probably Colonel Olazábal had told the captain about his visit to the prison. He was afraid it could be misinterpreted somehow. He thought it would be a good idea to inform Commander Carrión at the first opportunity that he had gone to the maximum security prison and had done so in strict compliance with his duties.

The beasts of burden began to enter the Plaza Mayor to walk around it. The prosecutor thought that for the llamas, Palm Sunday was the longest route to the slaughterhouse, because afterward the villagers would eat them all. But they kept walking with that imbecilic face that cows have too, that look of not understanding anything. Lucky for them.

A delegation stopped beside the cathedral, in front of the courtyard of the municipal building, to lay down the palm frond that would rest there until it was burned the following Sunday. As they ceremoniously lay down the palm leaves, to flashbulbs and applause, another explosion could be heard. And shouts. These were shouts not of joy but of terror.

The prosecutor and the two police officers on his block hurried toward the shouts. They had to move in the opposite direction from the procession, which was going to the center of the city. Ahead of them, two tourists were on the ground. People had formed a circle around them. Another four police officers in plain clothes arrived at the same time. Two were left to watch over the wounded tourists. The rest ran in the direction indicated by the crowd. The prosecutor saw the backs of several young men running away, pushing their way through throngs of people. They followed them. As they left the square the crowd thinned out, and they could run faster, but this gave an advantage to the men in front. On the way, some uniformed police reinforcements joined the pursuit. Curious onlookers, who at first were in their way, began to let the officers through, but the information they gave only confused them more: “This way, no, that way.” When they left the center of town, the young men being pursued separated to escape down the narrowest streets. This was not a makeshift group. They knew what they were doing. The prosecutor chose the ones closest to him and followed them with two of the officers. The fugitives crossed a new construction of similar residential buildings, trying to slip away through the passages between them. The officers divided up to cover the exits and ambush them. One radioed for reinforcements. At the far end of the site, they saw a boy running. The three of them followed. The site ended in a settlement of houses made from rush matting and corrugated tin, on unpaved streets. The perfect hiding place. The three pursuers tried to follow the young man, who had been joined by another boy, around the corners and intersections of the settlement. They separated again. The prosecutor realized he was running alone. He asked himself what he would do if he caught up with one of the young men, how he would stop him, what if his life was at risk, who was pursuing whom. He did not stop. And he did not have time to be surprised at his own courage. As he turned a corner, almost at the edge of the settlement where the slope of a hill began, he found himself face-to-face with one of the officers. They had gotten that far.

“Shit!” said the prosecutor, trying to catch his breath. He had to lean against a wall. The second officer came up a few seconds later.

“They have to be in one of these houses,” said the first policeman. “This is as far as they could have gone.”

They stood there, not knowing what to do, taking in air in great gulps. One of the officers went in a shop for something to drink. The prosecutor felt frustrated and furious. He followed the officer into the shop, where a girl of about fourteen waited on them. The other policeman remained outside. The girl placed two Inca Kolas on the counter. There was nothing else in the shop but Inca Kola and Field saltines. As they were taking the first swallows, the officer stared at the girl. He seemed to hesitate. He looked toward the back room, hidden behind a curtain. Then he shook his head, as if he had been confused. He smiled at the girl:

“Will you give me some crackers too, Mamacita?”

The girl turned her back to take down the crackers. They were on a high shelf. When she raised her arm, the officer took out his pistol, a 9mm like the one the prosecutor had at home, and jumped over the counter. He grabbed the girl around the neck and pressed the barrel to her head. Then, using her as a shield, he pushed her toward the back room, aiming the weapon and shouting:

“Don't any of you move, damn it, or I'll kill her! Damn it, don't move!”

He went into the back room. The prosecutor did not know what to do. Alerted by the shouts, the other officer came in holding his weapon. In the back room, the shouts of the first officer and two other voices could be heard:

“No, Papacito, we haven't done anything, Papa! Leave us alone!”

The officer pointed at the door. There was the sound of blows, breaking glass, objects falling from shelves, the weeping of a woman, that is, a girl.

“Hands on your head, damn it! Back!”

With hands behind their heads, two young men came out of the back room. The prosecutor recognized the white undershirt of one of the boys he had pursued. The officer waiting for them outside, aiming at their faces, became angry when he saw them:

“You two? Motherfucker …”

They put them against the wall, always aiming at their heads, and the prosecutor searched them: he found two clasp knives and a small revolver, a.28. The policemen kicked them a little and had them lie down on the ground, their arms extended, until the patrol wagon came to take them away. They had the girl lie down with them as well.

“You can't be a delinquent in Ayacucho,” said the officer who had recognized the girl. “Everybody knows everybody here.”

One of the detainees sobbed.

“Shut up, damn it!” said the other officer. He kicked him in the stomach. The other boy held back a sob.

“Who are they?” asked Chacaltana.

“Them? Nothing but trash. When Sendero Luminoso was already dying, it lowered the age of its cadres. It began recruiting kids ten or eleven years old, even nine. They gave them weapons and trained them to handle explosives. Then Sendero was finished, but the kids were still wandering around, nothing but common criminals.”

The prosecutor stared at the two boys lying on the ground. One was about eighteen. The other, younger than fifteen.

“And why are they still active?”

“What should we do with them? Until a little while ago they were underage. And there's no reformatory here. But the veterans like this motherfucker,” and he kicked the face of the older one, “have been training kids like this one for years,” and he stepped on the hand of the younger one. The prosecutor heard him sob from the ground. It was like the whimpering of a child. “The age gets lower and lower and they get worse and worse. And there's nothing we can do.”

The prosecutor noticed that the girl had a black eye.

“And what would you do with them?”

The other policeman answered:

“If it was up to me, I'd lock them up and throw away the key. There's no changing them. As the tree grows …”

The older boy turned to look at the policeman with hatred. The officer spat at him and said:

“What are you looking at, damn it? You're all grown up, huh? You must be at least twenty, but you play the snot-nose kid, damn undocumented shit. With your record, we can send you to be fucked in maximum security. So don't look at me too much because I'll turn you into a woman, see?”

The prosecutor understood why he did not know anything about them. There were no complaints at the Ministry of Justice, no papers on these boys. As Commander Carrión had said, they did not even have a name.

He went back to the center of town with his head lowered, preoccupied. As he crossed the residential tract he thought someone was walking behind him. When he turned, there was only a woman with some flowers for the procession.

Later, at police headquarters, the officers informed him that the tourists who had been attacked did not have even minor wounds. Pure fright, they said. The one who had taken their complaint remarked:

“Gringos, Señor Prosecutor, they're all faggots. They scream and carry on and nobody's done anything to them. They weren't even robbed because they all started shouting. We ought to export some criminals to them so they'll know what a real robbery is and stop wasting our time with stupid bullshit.”

Associate District Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar spent the rest of the afternoon watching the festivities. He saw the Lord of Palms leave the Monastery of St. Teresa mounted on a white donkey, accompanied by twelve Ayacuchans dressed as apostles, and the principal civilian authorities of the city. After them came another donkey carrying baskets of fruit. When they reached the cathedral, the sculpture of Christ was taken down and brought into the temple to the sound of hurrahs and applause. The prosecutor recognized the carpet of the Heart of Jesus that he had seen at the beginning of the ceremony. After the passage of people and animals, it had been destroyed. The figure of the heart was torn to pieces, shreds of it still hanging from the hooves of the donkeys.

On Monday afternoon, after having lunch with Edith, the Associate District Prosecutor walked to the maximum security prison of Huamanga. His entrance was easier than the last time. Colonel Olazábal welcomed him with open arms and offered him a mate because he knew it was his favorite drink. The prosecutor did not ask how he knew. He imagined the answer: Ayacucho is a small city, everybody knows everything. He assured Olazábal that he had interceded on behalf of his promotion, and then he could see Hernán Durango González, alias Comrade Alonso.

“You're becoming very fond of me, Señor Prosecutor,” was the first thing the terrorist said. “I don't have many visitors who are so faithful.”

“I have come on a professional matter, Señor Durango.”

“Call me Alonso, please.”

“Your name is Hernán.”

On the previous occasion, the terrorist had been aggressive and self-assured. Now, a certain irony seemed to emanate from his eyes, otherwise as fixed and stony as always. Knowing that Durango always had an answer even before knowing the question, the prosecutor decided to move ahead to what he had to say.

“I want to know what connections …”

“Why do you think I'll tell you anything, Señor Prosecutor?”

It was a good question. The prosecutor shuffled through possible responses: because I cannot think of anyone else to talk to, because I have no idea what is going on here, because I am not a policeman and do not know how to investigate, because I have to turn in a report and for the first time do not know how to do it …

“Because you like to talk, Señor Durango,” he finally said. “You feel superior to all of us and you like to flaunt it.”

“It's quite a stretch from that to betrayal, don't you agree?”

“I have already told you there is nothing left to betray. Your people are finished. But I am dealing with a special case, and you might perhaps be helpful.”

“Thank you,” he said sarcastically. “Can I smoke?”

As on the previous occasion, the terrorist was handcuffed. The prosecutor thought he might relax a little with a cigarette. He opened the office door and asked the guard for one. Chacaltana coughed when he lit it. He went back in and gave the cigarette to the terrorist. Durango inhaled deeply and looked out the window.

“Tell me, it's Holy Week out there, isn't it? I noticed because of the holiday visits.”

“Don't tell me you did not know.”

“I haven't kept track of time for a long while now.”

The prosecutor detected a hint of sadness in the terrorist's voice. He thought it was one of his strategies to confuse him. He tried to confuse him in turn:

“I never would have imagined you were so devout.”

The terrorist's eyes were glued to the window. He turned and looked at the prosecutor, and suddenly began to recite:

“And Jesus went into the temple and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.”

He kept staring at the prosecutor with pride. The prosecutor asked:

“Is that in the Bible?”

“In the Gospel of St. Matthew. There are things that are universal, Prosecutor Chacaltana, like indignation at the dens of thieves.”

“Interesting. Is there … any kind of relationship between your movement and some religious prophecy? The Apocalypse or … something like that?”

Now the terrorist burst into laughter. He let the explosion of laughter resonate along the bare walls of the office. Then he said:

“We are materialists. But I suppose you don't even know what that is.”

“What do you think will happen after death?”

Comrade Alonso gave a nostalgic smile.

“It will be like the Indian servant's dream. Do you know it? It's a story by Arguedas. Do you read?”

“I like Chocano.”

Now the terrorist laughed sarcastically. There was something like cultural petulance in his attitude. He did not consider the prosecutor to be an intellectual.

“I prefer Arguedas. They don't let us read here, but I always think about that story. It's about an Indian, the lowest of the slaves on a plantation, a servant of the servants. One day the Indian tells the master that he's had a dream. In his dream, they both died and went to heaven. There God ordered the angels to cover the Indian with manure until all his skin was hidden by shit. But he ordered the rich man to be completely bathed in honey. The master is happy to hear the Indian's dream. He thinks it reasonable, he thinks that is exactly what God will do. He urges him to go on and asks: ‘And then what happens?’ The Indian replies: ‘Then, when he saw the two men covered in shit and honey respectively, he says: Now lick the other's body until it is completely clean.’ That must be divine justice, the place where everything's turned upside down, where the defeated become the victors.”

The prosecutor oozed discomfort. He cleared his throat.

“That is a story,” he said. “I was referring to whether or not you believe in heaven or the Resurrection …”

The prosecutor thought it was a very strange question for an interrogation, but the entire case was more than strange, so he supposed it was an adequate question. The terrorist took his time looking out the window and smoking a little more before he began to speak:

“About four years ago, Comrade Alina was given a radio by one of her visitors, a … small battery-operated radio, almost invisible. Sometimes she even managed to get it to us in the men's block. We listened to it for a couple of nights and then sent it back one way or another. Often the police themselves would carry it back and forth in exchange for cigarettes or something to eat. For us it was an event. For years we hadn't seen television or heard the news, no papers, nothing to read. We kept the radio for a couple of months until one of the guards fought for some reason with Comrade Alina, some damn stupid thing, I suppose, and told his superiors that we had it. Colonel Olazábal demanded that the radio be turned in. Comrade Alina and the party members refused. They said we had the right to have a radio according to all the laws and treaties on human rights. The colonel threatened a round of searches, but the comrade didn't give him the radio. She said it would be over her dead body …”

The terrorist's voice broke. He threw the cigarette to the floor and stepped on it. He seemed to have collapsed. At first the prosecutor was surprised by his vulnerability but thought again that he was trying to confuse him. Durango continued:

“Olazábal didn't dare to provoke an uprising, and everybody forgot about it. But two days later he had the men and women arrested for terrorism line up in the central courtyard. The rest of the inmates were locked in their cells. We thought it would be a routine inspection. Until the doors opened and in came the Force for Special Operations, accompanied by a prosecutor … a prosecutor like you, of course. The prosecutor said he would conduct a search for illegal material and asked if anyone had any object to declare. After a long silence, Alina raised her hand and mentioned the radio but refused to turn it in. The prosecutor asked her for it twice, without result. Then he said he had done what the law required … He declared us mutinous … and put the officer at the head of the Special Forces in charge. He left. Then …”—now his eyes swelled. Threads of spittle formed inside his mouth as he spoke—“when the door closed, the Special Forces attacked us, Señor Prosecutor. There were about two hundred of them armed with clubs, paralyzing gases, and chains, set loose like mad dogs coming toward us across the courtyard. Most of our people were handcuffed or shackled. Some of us, the ones who were free, ran to surround Alina, to defend her …”—he stopped for a second. It seemed as if he would not continue, that he would break down. “About twenty of them came directly toward her. They sprayed chemicals into our faces, and when we couldn't see they clubbed us down to the ground. And didn't stop until they made sure we couldn't get up for a long time … They hit me in the head, the testicles, the stomach … But they weren't satisfied with that.” Now Durango looked at some point on the white wall, some infinite place. “The women, they …”—he closed his eyes—“they tore off their clothes, and then, in front of us, they brandished their clubs and laughed, telling them things like ‘Come on, Mamita, you'll like it,’ they said … Do you want … do you want to know what they did to them with those clubs, Señor Prosecutor?”

No. The prosecutor did not want to know. He wanted to stand up and leave, he wanted to close his eyes and clench his teeth forever, he wanted to tear out his ears so he would not have to go on listening. The terrorist no longer hid the tears rolling down his cheeks.

“You should know,” he continued, staring now at the prosecutor with hatred. “You should know what they did with their clubs to the women, because then they did the same thing to us men …”

He tried to control himself, to swallow his tears of shame and rage. The prosecutor tried to do the same. He remained silent. The terrorist, after sobbing for a moment, concluded:

“You asked me if I believed in heaven. I believe in hell, Señor Prosecutor. I live there. Hell is not being able to die.”

Félix Chacaltana Saldívar, Associate District Prosecutor, returned to the city at 7:00 in the evening, when the procession of the Lord of the Garden was leaving the Temple of the Good Death on its way to the Plaza Mayor. The platform was decorated with pineapples, fruit, ears of corn, tall candles, and olive branches in memory of Jesus' prayer on the Mount of Olives, when he asked his father to save him from dying. The prosecutor asked himself why no one in the world can choose either not to die or to die later. And his answer was that perhaps no one on high is listening to our pleas, perhaps prayers are only things we tell ourselves because nobody else wants to hear them.

In the procession for Holy Monday no fireworks were set off, since this was a remembrance of an act of sorrow. But that night, as he advanced on Edith's body, trying not to go too far, the prosecutor thought again about blows. Blows that thundered in his ears and on the back of his neck, blows like God's hate, blows that only fire could stop, turn into ash, into silence, into mute supplication. Suddenly, he could not go on.

“What is it?” she asked.

The prosecutor thought of telling her. He remembered Lieutenant Aramayo in Yawarmayo. He remembered his inability to speak.

“I love you,” was his only reply.

And then he continued to touch her, to press against his body the first warm body offered to him in years, the only living body he had touched in recent days. He made an effort to remove her underwear, but she resisted. Then he lay on top of Edith and tried to rub his groin against hers, until Edith moved away from his attacks, annoyed.

“That's all you want, isn't it?” she asked.

What concerned the prosecutor most was not the impulse to say yes, at that moment it was the only thing he cared about and he did not feel capable of controlling himself anymore. In reality, what concerned him most was the certainty he could achieve it, so easily, barely stretching out his hand, no longer being as good as he usually was, so amiable, so weak. Almost without realizing it, he tried again. He nibbled at her ears and ran his palms along her back. This time, when she stopped him, she pointed at a photograph hanging on the wall. His mother was observing them and did not seem to approve of what they were doing.

“It's as if she were here,” said Edith.

Then, they did not have the courage to continue.

That night, after walking Edith home, he returned to his house, said good night to his mother, made certain he had closed her door carefully, and masturbated in the bathroom, afraid she would hear him.

On Tuesday, the prosecutor had to take part in the procession of the Lord of Judgment, which was the responsibility of the personnel of the Judicial Branch. Normally he would have been proud to be part of the procession, but that day he did not want to. He felt drained and could think only of Edith's bosom. The image of Christ captured by the Jews had its hands tied and displayed evident signs of torture. Out of the corner of his eye he stared at that livid, exhausted body, its welts and scars. He felt he could not look directly at the platform during its passage.

Before the platform went out, Judge Briceño, one of the eight stewards of the procession, came up to him:

“You look tired, Señor Prosecutor,” he said with a rat's smile. “Did you have a long night? I hear you're having more of a social life lately …”

“It is just … I just did not sleep well.”

He felt his temples throbbing. Judge Briceño seemed very happy.

“I suppose you've dreamed about Captain Pacheco. Recently, I don't know why, that gentleman has taken an immense dislike to you, if you don't mind my saying so.”

“I cannot imagine why, Judge.”

“It's inexplicable, isn't it? Well, I want to indicate my pleasure at your sharing this procession with us. It's always a good idea for colleagues to share, isn't it? Keeping things all to oneself isn't very nice.”

The prosecutor did not even feel like understanding the subtext of what the judge was saying.

“Of course,” was all he replied.

“And now I'll leave you with your thoughts,” said the judge as he left.

The prosecutor took part in the procession mechanically, like an automaton, stopping at the fourteen stations required to pray the Via Crucis, intoning from memory the sacred songs in Quechua and Spanish. No one had died that day. He used the prayers to ask for an end to the murders, only two were more than enough for one week, he asked that there not be more, that the prediction of the return of Sendero not be more than that — a prediction. At no moment during the procession, however, could he stop thinking about blows, blows, blows …

you heer? its like a pownding.

its time for you to free yourself. its time for you to fly. they had you too long cownting hours, days, seconds. you had to wate. you have to wate for important things. but you dont have to no more.

did you see the proseshun of the meeting today? it was bewtiful. all the faithful were upset, yes, sad, yes, they felt deth close by. today he died. the nazareen. the sisters of saint clare spent too days dressing him and preparing him, cutting his hair and beerd that grew since last yeer. he dies every yeer.

come heer, closer, thats it, good. you know something? i bin lisening to you all this time. yes. i herd your voise. talking with all those peepel, with the comrades, with the watch dogs of the empire. your voise reeched me. your watch dogs are stupid, they sleep when you toss them a peese of meet. so today is your day. i lisened to you all this time, did you lisen to me? you must of herd me. i talk in your dreems, at the edge of your mind, at the doors to eden. like this sownd, can you heer it now?

they made him meet his mother. the nazareen. she was in black. oh what pane she felt. i felt it with her. there were coruses of men. they sang. yes. they sang for you. veronica was there too, wiping away the blud and swet of the nazareen so he wood die cleen. you wood have liked it. what a shame you coodnt go. then veronica went to saint john to tell him she had bin with jesus. the hoor. she showed him the hankerchif. and everybody sang.

you like this? shore you like it. you were born for this. dont complane. we all have a cross to bare. it can hurt a little. everything that matters is gotten with a little pane. history is washed only with blud. yes. you tawt me that. im a good student, rite? were all good students because a lot of us are wateing to wake up. youll leed us. i chose you, yes, so youll cross the river of blud.

christ has a tunic of red and gold. they say too angels made it in a nite and then ran away. too angels like us, rite? too angels making christ in their image and likeness, in ours, so that every yeer he can walk the rode to calvary.

no. dont resist. this is your place. you erned it. we fouwt a lot to give it to you. now do you remember me? no? this isnt the first time we seen eech other. and it wont be the last. we saw eech other before, when we were alive. maybe were still alive now. these days i cant reely tell the difrense. you smell good did I tell you? you smell of prarie and the lords day. happy lords day.

my voise was small before, like a little streem. littel by littel its bin growing, like a grate flud. it did that by itself, its bin taking up more room in my memory, it took the place of the others. there are no more voises now. now theres only me and the eckos. yes. eckos of faraway times. but i talk lowder. like now see? your voise isnt herd. only mine is herd and the sownd of the nails, do you heer, going thru wood, going thru flesh, going thru time.

yes. now you heer them.