Red April

Friday, April 21

you been talking abowt me, fadder?

you been talking abowt me to god?

talk to him about me. tell him to make me a plase. ill make him lissen to you. yes, hell lissen to you. youll be able to put your bald hed on his lap and lick his legs. hell let you touch him, run your hand down his back. youll like it. open your mowth, fadder, like that. let me see your holey tung. let me see your wite teeth. i like wite things, pure things. i have a treet fore you. taste the body of christ.

thats it, much better. now your nice and calm, you know? its better to stay calm. now everythings coming to an end. now its over, now. payshuns. all things have to have an end so they can begin again. you, me, well all have an end. yes. mines close too. but yours is allreddy here. ha. son of the devil.

your dirty, you know? dirty like the beggers in the sity. todays the day to wash you. ill leeve you spotless. oh, youll like it. dont say nothing, fadder, dont talk with your mowth full. its dirty. thats better. do you see how your getting cleen, fadder? your all full of sin. we all remember you here because of that. the bodys you berned remember you for that. did you forget abowt that? did you forget abowt there bodys disapeering into your oven? abowt there ashes?

they didnt forget abowt you. there they are, with god, like youll be, and they think abowt you every day. they cant live again, there bodys arent there anymore. its better. now they have life forever, dont they? true life. now youll meet with them, because your cleen, now you can see them. you and they will talk, yes. world withowt end.

move a little. the holey water has too touch you everywhere. its like a baptisim, unnerstand? a sacramint. a baptisim of fire for you. we lerned that with you. fire cleens. if not, whats the point?

do you heer something? seems like you have a visiter. did you invite another begger to wash him? your charitabel. your good. hoo is it? ah, now i know hoo it is. yes. we seen each other before. he came soon. have you been talking too him about me, fadder? thats good, im not mad at you. well make him one of ours, yes? well love him a lot with our tungs of fire. well wash away his impuritys too, fadder. we have a lot to share.

It was 2:30 in the morning when the prosecutor reached the parish house. There were still some tourists on the street with their Ayacuchan girlfriends, all high but not as noisy now. Some were fighting among themselves or perhaps shouting at the hometown boyfriends, abandoned for the celebration. The faithful had gone to sleep in preparation for the next few nights, the most important ones of the festivities. Prosecutor Chacaltana did not even notice them. He walked resolutely, becoming accustomed with each step to the weight of the pistol at his side, and more and more certain as he approached the door. Before he rang the bell, he wondered how he would justify a visit at this hour. Then he told himself that the priest would understand his concern perfectly, that perhaps he was waiting for him. Without hesitating he rang the bell.

He waited for a moment. He thought he heard something inside, perhaps a voice. He replied by saying who it was.

“I only came to see if everything is all right,” he added.

No one answered, and he heard no other sound. The noise of a dull thud attracted his attention. It had come not from inside the house but from beside it. He wondered if he should stay in the doorway or look for its cause. He remembered that just above the basement a narrow window opened onto the alleyway. He wondered if a person could get out of the house that way. He rang the bell again, with the same result as before. The noise died away, and a few seconds later it began again. The prosecutor walked toward the alleyway that separated the house from the church. He saw no one from the corner, but now a faint groaning came from behind an angle of the church. He caressed the pistol and walked closer. He stopped before he went to the other side of the angle, hugging the wall. Now the echo of a constant scraping and the bang of trash cans joined the groaning, as if someone were pushing the cans against the wall. He realized that his hand was clutching the butt of the pistol though he had not opened the sheath. He did so with his fingers, not moving from where he stood. It seemed to him that what he heard was the agitated respiration of two people, probably agitated because they were dragging a body. He asked himself if they were armed. Considering that these were terrorist assassins, he told himself they were. He was confused. In a gunfight, he was bound to lose. Perhaps the best thing would be only to see who they were without letting himself be seen, and then to pursue them in the light of day. Or perhaps he should drop the case and visit Judge Briceño to take part in his working group and buy a Datsun someday. He thought it was too late for that. After all, the killer was following him and almost seemed to be playing hide-and-seek with him. He thought, this is a case I cannot drop. Perhaps I will not be able to drop it even if I solve it. Solve it. Until a month ago, his function was simply to submit reports, not to solve things. He inhaled deeply, trying not to make noise. Holding his breath, he looked on the other side of the angle. In a corner, behind the trash cans, two shadows were moving in an agitated way. Their backs were to him. The prosecutor thought he could take advantage of the opportunity to apprehend them officially in the name of the law. He was aware that he did not have the legal authority to arrest anyone. As he was making his decision, he took a step forward and kicked a beer can, which noisily hit the stone wall. The two shadows stopped panting and moving. They whispered a few words. The prosecutor discovered that in fact only one figure had his back to him, a tall blonde who murmured in a foreign accent and held the other one, a woman, against the wall as she wrapped her legs around him. The prosecutor moved his hand away from the weapon. He could not suppress a choked sigh of relief as he leaned against the wall. His eyes met those of the other two. The man had remained motionless, not knowing what to do. It was the girl who said:

“Are you a cop?”

The prosecutor replied:

“What? Oh, no. Of course not.”

“Then get the hell out of here, damn it!”

She certainly had a Peruvian accent. Chacaltana thought about making them leave. They showed a lack of respect for Father Quiroz and for the church. But he felt ridiculous. He went back to the door of the parish house. He wondered if someone might have opened it while he had been distracted. There were still no lights on inside, but that did not mean anything. He rang the bell again. Perhaps the priest was not even inside. His encounter with the couple made him think that perhaps his nerves were getting the better of him. Perhaps the priest had left Ayacucho and stayed in some village to sleep. Impossible. Not during Holy Week. He thought about going in through the window, but it had wrought iron bars. He rejected the idea of going in through the little basement window. The couple would not allow him to. Besides, he would have to break it. It occurred to him to look for a telephone, but he did not even know if there was one in the parish house. The priest had used the phone in his office. Then too, if he did not answer the door, he would not pick up the phone either. Guided by an irritated, frustrated impulse, he put his hand on the doorknob. To his surprise, the door responded to his push. Inside everything was dark. He stood for a few minutes in the doorway. Now he would have to go in. He supposed he wanted to but did not know if he really wanted to. He wanted only to sleep quietly. He called to Father Quiroz. There was no answer. He looked around. The street was empty. He took two steps inside without closing the door, to take advantage of the streetlamps. The shadows produced in the house by the lights on the street seemed to move, shaken by the night breeze. As he looked for the light switch, he called again:

“Father Quiroz?”

Now he heard it clearly. It was the sound of something dragging along the floor, like a deep hissing.

“Father? It's Félix Chacaltana.”

He found the switch and turned on the light. He was startled by the image of a man, but it was really a crucifix a meter high. The room was in the same disorder he had seen the last time. The heavy door to the basement was open. He went through the living room to the priest's bedroom. He opened the door, standing to one side. Since nothing came out, he turned on the light.

Here, by contrast, everything was in the most scrupulous order. There was only a worktable, a bureau, and a meticulously made bed with no wrinkles on the sheets. On the wall hung another crucifix, a very small one, which seemed to watch over the peace of the bedroom. He heard the hissing again outside, in the living room. Almost by instinct, he unsnapped the holster and took out the weapon. He returned to the living room pointing straight ahead, at the chests, and cocked the gun so the bullet would come out faster in case of an emergency. He realized his hand was trembling. He leaned his back against the wall and began to move that way around the perimeter of the room, edging past the chests where they stood, then taking out his handkerchief to wipe away perspiration. He was soaked. He reached the door to the basement and began to go down the stairs, still hugging the wall. He did not know where to aim the weapon. He opted to point down, where the darkness was most dense. He recognized the smell of incense and dampness, mixed with a chemical odor he could not identify.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he tried to remember where the switch was located. Since he had the weapon in his right hand, he felt up and down along the wall on the left with his free hand. All he found was the cold, mildewed wall. He moved the weapon into his other hand and repeated the operation on the right. There it was, fairly low on the wall. He turned it on. The flickering light suggested there was someone else in the room. He raised the weapon in his direction and shouted:

“Freeze, damn it! I'm armed!”

There was no reply. When the light stopped trembling, he could see more clearly. The body, in reality the half body coming out of the oven, was Father Quiroz. He was still wearing the vestments for Mass, his arms in gathered sleeves opened in a cross. Overcoming his revulsion, the prosecutor moved closer. Something emerged from the priest's mouth, like a rigid, very long tongue. When he was beside him, the prosecutor discovered that it was the hilt of a knife. The rest was inside, piercing the priest's throat to the nape of his neck. The blood flowing out of his mouth had not yet coagulated. It was still dripping on the damp floor of the basement and staining the edges of the oven. The death was very recent. Blood was not the only thing dripping. Before or after the execution, the killer had poured acid on the face and arms of the priest. The open bottles were still to one side. The body parts that had touched the liquid looked eaten away and liquefied, the skin creased and torn, transformed into a sticky gum of flesh. Inside the oven, the prosecutor saw that one leg had been separated from the trunk. He shuddered and moved back. The priest's face looked blindly at the basement ceiling, perhaps trying to see heaven, but for him heaven was underground.

The prosecutor heard a sound on the stairs. Despite the horror of what he had found, or perhaps precisely because of it, he reacted in time. He turned and fired. It was the first time in his life he had fired a gun. The shot sounded much louder than he expected and pushed him backward until he tripped over the body. The bullet rebounded against the walls, thundering through the house with sharp echoes as it crashed against stone. In a corner he saw the little window. He estimated that the couple outside were only a few meters away. They must have heard it. Perhaps they would call the police. He hoped to God they had. Now he clearly heard a metallic clink coming from the stairs. The sound was moving away. He supposed the killer did not have a firearm and was fleeing. He ran after him. He threw himself onto the stairs just in time to see the basement door close. Before he reached the top of the stairs he heard the key turning in the lock. He shouted. He banged on the door with all his strength. He kicked it. But the door did not move a millimeter.

Slowly he went downstairs again. Father Quiroz seemed to be waiting for him. His face gave the impression of a disillusioned grimace. The prosecutor decided to wait. The authorities would come, alerted by the gunshot. He could explain to them what had happened. Perhaps they would come in time to pursue the killer. Then he reconsidered: What could he explain to the authorities? What could he say to them? They would find him locked in with a corpse, carrying an unlicensed firearm, near all the instruments of the crime. Then he thought too that each of the last three victims had spoken to him shortly before dying. He tried to clear his head. No. He was innocent. That same afternoon he had requested protection for the city streets. His request had been denied. Protection for the streets. He had not mentioned the parish house. It might seem that he had requested protection precisely to provide himself with an alibi. Pacheco would be delighted to sign that investigation, and Judge Briceño would sentence him with the same pleasure. Perhaps not even Commander Carrión would feel sure about him.

His heart began to pound. He imagined himself before the judges, who probably would transfer him to military jurisdiction. Or perhaps civil jurisdiction. He would face a prosecutor, a prosecutor “like you,” the terrorist had said, referring to the one who had cleared the way for Special Forces in the maximum security prison. If he were his own prosecutor, he could write thousands of probative briefs against himself. He imagined the documents: “Friday, the twenty-first day of April, 2000, with regard to the discovery of Félix Chacaltana Saldívar in possession of a firearm …” He could not even get rid of the weapon in that place. He tried out a defense: “I was attempting to pursue the murderer.” He saw Judge Briceño clearly: “Why didn't you request the intervention of the police? Prosecutors don't go around pursuing thieves. I mean, after all.” Attempted usurpation of functions would be added to his charges. Perhaps withholding information as well. None of the accusations had reached the Judicial Branch. Carrión would prefer to deny everything rather than find himself involved with a serial killer.

He tried to expel from his mind the entire judicial process, which seemed to unfold before his eyes. He did not entirely succeed. As he saw Captain Pacheco making his statement, it occurred to him to pile up all the chests until he could reach the window and get out through there. He crossed the room and began to move them. They weighed too much to carry. He would have to drag them. When he moved the first one, he accidentally knocked over one of the bottles of acid. The liquid spread along the floor until it reached Quiroz's hands and head. The prosecutor retreated to the stairs. If he moved forward, he would leave prints all around the room. Now the liquid ran everywhere, all the way to the bottom of the window. He climbed up two steps.

Then he remembered that he had the pistol. He would have to use it again. He went up to the door and calculated the most distant angle from which he could hit the lock. He fired when he was halfway up the stairs. The first shot went through the wood but did not hit the lock. The second was almost a direct hit. The prosecutor went to open the door. He had to kick it, and when he shoved it with his hand, he got a splinter. As he pulled out the splinter and sucked the blood, he understood he was leaving his fingerprints and even his blood all over the wooden door. He took out his handkerchief to wipe it down. From outside he heard the sound of people returning to their houses and hotels in the small hours. Men and women laughing. Strange accents. He thought he should hurry. Leaning against the door, he kicked the lock with the sole of his shoe until he broke it and opened the door. He went into the dark living room, then out to the street. When he was on the sidewalk, he looked around. The couple he had surprised in the alleyway were a few meters from the door. They were petrified when they saw him. He realized he was still holding the weapon. He gestured to them to calm them down as he tried to put it away. They put their hands up. They looked rigid.

“Listen, this is not what it seems … please …”

“Easy, easy,” said the man, “nothing's going on … We didn't see anything …”

They took a few steps backward as he came closer.

“Don't go, listen to me … We have to call the police …”

When they reached the first corner, they stopped moving. The prosecutor thought that at last they would listen to him. He moved faster, but they turned and started to run. He tried to follow, but they quickly disappeared down one of the streets.

Now they had seen him clearly. Chacaltana thought that each of his advances was a step backward. He tried to think calmly. He closed the holster to avoid any more trouble. No neighbor had looked out. Perhaps they thought the shots were fireworks. Yes. Perhaps the best thing after all was to wait for the authorities and explain everything properly in order to open an investigation. Then he recalled the faces of the judge and the officer in the captain's office. Unable to control himself, he broke into a run.

After running for a few minutes he tried to think where he was going. Not to his house. The killer or the police would probably be waiting for him there if they were not already following him. And not to the Office of the Prosecutor or headquarters. He passed the Arch and continued toward the far end of the city, heading for the San Juan district. Fifteen minutes later, he arrived at Edith's house, which was almost at the edge of the city. He placed his finger on the doorbell and decided to leave it there until the young woman gave a sign of life. He realized he was crying. He kicked at the door. He shouted Edith's name. Then he thought that this would attract the attention of the entire neighborhood. He tried to regain his composure. He was a prosecutor. He knew how to accuse, he had to know how to evade accusations. He took a deep breath. An old woman, her head covered in rollers, looked out a second-story window.

“What's going on? What do you want?”

“I'm looking for Edith.”

“And do you think this is a decent hour? And do you think that's any way to ring a doorbell?”

“I'm sorry … I …”

I what? What could he say? He thought about saying the police were after him, or that he was with the police and chasing someone. The woman continued to watch him as he asked himself if it would not be better to run away from there too. Then the door opened. There was Edith, half asleep, wearing an undershirt, flannel bottoms, and flip-flops. Her hair was loose and shiny. Behind her was a staircase. Félix Chacaltana had never seen the interior of Edith's house when he had walked her home. It was an old, subdivided, three-story house where the same doorbell apparently was heard in all the apartments. He realized the old woman did not live with Edith when the young woman let him in and apologized to her. He heard her say he was her cousin who had just come from Andahuaylas for Holy Week. She promised it would not happen again. The woman did not reply. She simply pulled her head in from the window and back into her own life.

Félix and Edith went up to the third floor, to a tiny room with an electric hot plate in a corner. There was no bathroom and no refrigerator. Chacaltana supposed she shared those facilities with some neighbors, perhaps with the same old woman who had reprimanded him. He thought no more about it. As soon as she closed the door, still half asleep, he put his arms around the girl and held her very tight, as if he wanted to fuse with her. As they embraced, she felt the shape of the pistol against her body. She tried to pull away.

“What's happened to you? What's going on?”

Félix did not let Edith go. He clung to her for a long time before he realized that tears were falling from his eyes.

“Do you want a mate?”

He nodded. She heated the water on the hot plate while he kept holding her. She served the mate and sat down. She caressed his hair gently while he, on his knees, rested his head on her lap and clasped her around the waist, trembling.

“Don't you want to tell me what happened? Does it have to do with your work?”

Now not even images of fire and blows passed through the mind of Prosecutor Chacaltana. There was only a great void, a hungry darkness, the maw of nothingness closing over his head. He needed to talk. He needed to tell everything that had happened to him in the past month and a half. He needed to cry like a baby. He began to tell it all, urged on by the young woman's caresses. When the first light of dawn sifted through the small window in the room, he had finished his story. Edith's lap was warm and dry. Seconds later, as if a great weight had been lifted from him, he was asleep.

He woke at eight in the morning. He had not slept very long. And he could not sleep any more. He did not even think he could move. After the initial shock of not knowing where he was, he looked around Edith's small apartment. He was in the bed. His jacket and the holster were hanging from the only chair, and under that were his shoes, one beside the other, as orderly and unwrinkled as the other things Edith had touched. She was there too, standing across from him, taking off her undershirt and bottoms. She had gotten a dishpan of water from somewhere and was carefully washing her underarms and crotch, her neck and feet, in the still tenuous morning light.

“Good morning,” said the prosecutor.

When she heard him, she did her best to cover her body. Her right arm crossed her chest and her left hand covered her sex.

“Turn around,” she replied. “I have no place else to go in here.”

The prosecutor did not turn around. He smiled at her. She returned the smile. She had turned red.

“Turn around,” she insisted.

Sluggishly, the prosecutor turned around. He remained in that position for a few seconds until he turned back to her, not so sluggishly now. She covered herself again.

“If you don't behave, you won't come back. Remember you're my cousin.”

The prosecutor thought of the previous night. His head was teeming with fragments of his encounter with Father Quiroz in the basement, his arrival at Edith's house, the young woman's tender lap. He wanted to touch her. Take refuge in her.

“Come here,” he said. It sounded like an order.

“I have to go to work and I'm already late. My boss will be there because we're expecting a crowd. Don't move from here. Doña Dora is furious. She scolded me for twenty minutes when I went down for water.”

“Come here,” he repeated.

She wrapped a towel around her body and approached him. She touched his forehead and let him bring her hand slowly to his lips. He kissed her palm and the back of her hand. He put her hand gently into his mouth and sucked each one of her fingers.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Thank you for helping me,” he said. “I'll never forget it.”

She leaned over to kiss him. He took her by the waist and pulled her to the bed. She refused, first with her body and then with her voice, but then she let herself sink down.

“I have to go,” she reminded him, laughing.

He lay on top of her body and put his tongue in her mouth. He no longer felt like a little boy needing protection. On the contrary, he wanted to recover his adulthood. Show her that he could also be a protective man, a man. He kissed her neck, her shoulders, the back of her neck, where a few short black hairs escaped, like long down. She responded with kisses on his forehead and cheeks. She tried to move him to one side. He resisted.

“Don't go to work,” he said.

She laughed.

“Don't go.”

He wondered if they had discovered the body yet. Then he removed the thought from his mind. He needed something else, something besides so much death. He needed something with life. He was breathing heavily. Her mouth was partially open. He bit her lips.

“Ow!” Edith groaned. “Does your mama know you do those things?”

“She doesn't see us here.”

“She's always with you. That's the problem.”

The prosecutor became perturbed. He did not think this was the right context for talking about his mother. He replied:

“She likes you very much.” It seemed to him a delicate moment, one of those moments when important things are said. “She would not object if … if I married you.”

The color rose in Edith's cheeks. She seemed surprised.

“She?”

He smiled but did not receive a smile in return. This disconcerted him, it disconcerted him not to receive from people what he had planned. Smiles are repaid with smiles, that must be written down somewhere as a norm. She caressed his forehead and said words he did not expect.

“Listen, Félix … I love you very much but … the truth is … to marry you … I'd need for her not to be here.”

“What?”

“I understand your feelings. But I couldn't go to live in a house that belongs to another woman. Least of all one … who isn't really there.”

“She is there,” said the prosecutor. “Do you believe that only things you can see are there?”

She lowered her eyes.

“No, of course not. I'm going to get dressed.”

She stood. He tried to hold her back but failed. Something in the air had broken, and the prosecutor tried to put the pieces back together.

“Listen … You have to understand … I love you but … my mother … just now …”

He knew there were words caught in his throat, trying to get out, but it was not clear to him how to pull them free, he would have liked to scoop them out with a spoon. He had always been good with words, but he seemed incapable of summoning the exact ones to talk about what mattered to him most. And the worst thing was that right now he did not have the time of a functionary at his desk or a poet facing a sheet of paper. The words he needed should have burst directly from his heart, but his heart was dry.

She picked up her clothes from the chair. The prosecutor felt he would never again see her undressed.

“It's not a problem,” she said. “I understand.”

It was as if she had spoken from the other side of the world. From the tip of a glacier. He went over to her. He tried to embrace her but she eluded him. He held her tight and kissed her shoulders. He felt a great need to control her, to not let her go, and he felt that no words could restrain her. He removed the towel from her body with a single movement and lowered his head to her chest and belly, kissing her constantly. She tried to push him away by the shoulders.

“That's enough …,” she whispered.

But he did not let her go. He held her around the legs and lowered his mouth to her sex until he felt her pubic hairs brushing his tongue. Her vulva tasted of soap and of her. He felt a tug on his hair. He raised his head. She was looking at him in a fury.

“Let me go,” she said dryly. “I'm going to …”

Normally the prosecutor would have let her go and apologized for his behavior. He would have said he had not intended any disrespect. But without knowing why, his reaction surprised even him. He lowered his head again and held her more tightly around the legs. He sucked. This time she shouted:

“Let me alone!”

And she shook him by his hair. He pulled Edith's hands away from his head. They came away filled with black hairs that jutted out between her fingers. He brought her hands down to the bed and climbed on her again to trap her between his body and the mattress. The bed creaked and rocked back and forth. Now Edith's eyes reflected fear. Inexplicably, that excited him even more. Trembling, Edith tried to free herself from his embrace. He squeezed her neck with one hand while he unzipped his fly with the other. He saw the red marks his paws had left on the young woman's wrists before she scratched his face and put her finger in his eye. Then he became violent. He slapped her on the bed and lowered his trousers as he got into position. He saw his own aged penis contrasting with Edith's fresh, clean flesh. His round stomach fell on her flat belly. He thrust forward. She closed her eyes and clenched her teeth. He thrust again, over and over again, shaking her as the bed creaked, feeling how her small body grew more and more diminutive as it trembled beneath his body, wrinkled but strong, still strong, stronger than ever.

When he finished, he rolled off her and lay to one side. He was perspiring. His head was spinning with memories of the previous night and what he had just done. She did not move. It was difficult to tell if the drops rolling down her face were perspiration or tears. He felt a strange pleasure when he asked himself the question in silence. She trembled. She felt raw, torn apart.

“Yesterday I shot a man,” he said. “I don't know who he was or if I hit him. But I might have killed someone. I felt it was a kind of test, a kind of training for something. I felt that something was changing in me.”

All the people I talk to die.

“Get out,” she responded, first in a whisper, then in a howl. “Get out! Son of the devil!”

It sounded innocent as an insult. But Prosecutor Chacaltana knew what it meant. Supaypawawa. Son of the devil. It was a direct translation of the worst thing you can say to a person in Quechua. He knew he really would have to get out. His crotch was wet but she would not let him wash. She was wet too, and a thin line of blood trickled between her legs. The prosecutor did not want to ask her if she was a virgin. He wanted to think she was.

As he was closing Edith's door, he saw her sobbing on the bed. He began to walk down the stairs as he put on his jacket and made certain the holster for the pistol was carefully closed. At the door he passed the neighbor from the previous night. He greeted her by name, Doña Dora. When he walked out to the street, it seemed to him the city was filled with light, much more than had come into Edith's small room. He walked toward police headquarters. He had decided to turn himself in.

He moved forward slowly, as if he had cement in his shoes, along the streets where the town was preparing for the procession of the Holy Sepulcher. He felt dizzy. He thought he would go into the captain's office, hand over his weapon, and recount step by step everything that had happened last night. It would almost be a relief if they did not believe him. It would almost be a relief to be arrested and be able to forget. If the captain insisted, he would even tell him what he had done to Edith. He felt too tired to try to run away or even to think where he could run to.

Before he reached police headquarters, he passed by his house. There were no guards at the door. He thought perhaps they had entered to search it during the night. He opened the door and walked in. Everything was just as he had left it: his room, his mother's room. He picked up the smiling photograph of his mother in Sacsayhuamán. He kissed it.

“You can see, Mamacita, I haven't managed to do anything to make you proud of me. I hope I won't disappoint you too much.”

He continued talking to her as he cleaned himself up. He thought he might be allowed some of her photos in a cell. He cleaned his private parts with special care. They smelled of Edith. He tried not to cry. He tried not to cry any more. He went out again. As he approached the Plaza Mayor, he passed more and more police rushing past him, carrying their orders from one side of the city to the other. He was waiting for the moment when one of them would aim at his chest and order him to drop his weapon. He was hoping they would save him the trouble of confessing to something he had not done, that they had already connected him to the crime scene, and that the couple from last night had identified him beyond any doubt. He lamented that there had not been more light on the street. He regretted not having continued firing the gun until the police had arrived. He passed some soldiers too. He felt as if he had impunity. He knew what it meant to walk among his pursuers without anyone turning around to look at him, like a ghost. He wanted to shout that he was a murderer, that he had already killed four people, that perhaps he had just committed rape, of that he could not be sure because of legal regulations. Legal regulations. He could not control his laughter. He began to laugh right in the middle of the square. He wanted to dance but thought of his mother. She would not have liked seeing him like this. He controlled himself but continued to laugh as he approached police headquarters. He thought about Pacheco. He would be happy to see him. Certainly he would give himself all the credit, he would say he had captured him after a long pursuit filled with bullets and patrol cars. He laughed again, louder and louder.

At the door to headquarters, the guard seemed to be asleep as he leaned on his rifle. The prosecutor stopped to admire the flag with the national seal hanging over the entrance. He turned to see the city bustling with preparations for the procession. It seemed that centuries passed before he took the last step to reception.

The usual sergeant was at his desk. It amused the prosecutor to think he would have to wait hours to turn himself in, that they would keep their murderer sitting beside the door for a good long time before allowing him to confess. The sergeant stood when he saw him walk in. The prosecutor waited for his words. He knew what they would be. He smiled again. He felt the weight of the weapon at his side. He had become used to the pistol. The sergeant saluted, his hand at his cap:

“Captain Pacheco is expecting you, Señor Prosecutor.”

They knew. They knew everything. He felt as if he were floating to Pacheco's office. He wondered if he should hold out his hands for the cuffs. Pacheco was sitting with papers in front of him, and he too stood when he saw him come in.

“Chacaltana! Where the hell have you been? I've been looking for you all morning.”

Chacaltana tried to impose some order in his mind before explaining where the hell he had been. But the captain continued:

“They killed Father Quiroz. Damn, Chacaltana, you have to see him. They really fucked him up.”

“They” killed? Not “you” killed? Chacaltana had been so ready to confess that now he did not know what to say. He had even begun to convince himself that he was guilty.

“How …?”

“They found him at dawn. The neighbors reported shots. But he wasn't shot to death. It seems the killer wanted to announce what he had done. The only thing the motherfucker didn't do was set off fireworks.”

And the couple? And people who saw him leaving the house?

“Are there … witnesses … statements from neighbors?”

“Witnesses? You know how it is, Chacaltana. Nobody talks, nobody makes a statement, nobody wants any problems. Even the call that reported it was anonymous. This is a fucking mess. I'm sorry about what happened yesterday. You … you were right.”

He noticed that it was enormously difficult for the captain to apologize. It caused him pain. Chacaltana could not believe what he was saying when he said:

“Don't worry, Captain. I understand. We all have too much to worry about, don't we?”

The captain thanked him for his understanding with a gesture.

“The fact that people don't talk isn't so serious. By some miracle we've managed to keep the matter out of the press. Even though we're crowded with tourists and reporters. Sometimes I ask myself if all these people aren't blind.”

Prosecutor Chacaltana was asking himself exactly the same question. But the captain gave a military pitch to his voice and said:

“I want you to tell me everything you know about this case.”

Prosecutor Chacaltana told him slowly and in detail, as if he were reciting all his reports. He did not mention the detail that all the people who knew about his investigation had been killed. He thought the captain would discover that for himself. The police official was thinking about taking charge of the investigation. He seemed very interested. Perhaps they had called him from Lima, they always knew everything, if they had retired the commander it would be precisely because they were up to date on everything. In reality, the prosecutor was not concerned about any of that. When he finished his account, the captain said:

“Go see the pathologist and prepare a report to open the case.”

For a moment, Chacaltana wanted to say that he could not become involved in this matter quickly. That what they faced had been going on for centuries and would last for many more centuries. That they were fighting against ghosts, against the dead, against the spirit of the Andes. That he had just sexually violated the person who was probably the best woman he had ever known in his life. That according to the law he ought to marry her now. That he no longer wanted to deal with this case, that he preferred to get away with Carrión to some pretty beach on the northern coast. He opened his mouth and finally said, with all the conviction of which he was capable:

“Yes, Señor.”

On the twenty-first day of April, 2000, the priest of the Church of the Heart of Christ, Sebastián Quiroz Mendoza, was discovered dead in the environs of his basement, when neighbors requested the intervention of the police force to guarantee order and safety while the perpetrator fired his weapon in the streets adjacent to the parish house.

According to the reconstruction effected by the forensic pathologist, the aforementioned priest was first tied by the hands and feet and gagged, which is suggested by hematomas at his joints and the corners of his mouth, then subsequently subjected to the amputation of his lower left extremity while alive. Likewise serious wounds were inflicted with acid, and the trachea and larynx were perforated with a sharp cutting instrument through to the nape of his neck, until he was left in the interior of the crematory chamber located in his basement.

According to verification effected by police authorities, the perpetrator subsequently proceeded to open fire at the walls and doors of the property, after which he fled, carrying the amputated lower extremity and his instruments of mutilation in a clear demonstration of a lack of the mental faculties required for sanity. The shells discovered at the scene correspond to a regulation weapon, which suggests that the perpetrator could have been a terrorist with access to military arsenals, or had stolen a pistol, with premeditated treachery and a clear advantage over his victim, from a member of the nation's security forces.

It is important to note as well that the wounds inflicted on the aforementioned priest Sebastián Quiroz Mendoza could not have been perpetrated by a person older than forty, due to the fact that they required considerable physical strength, or by a functionary or person who works or carries out his assigned duties in an office, for example, the need having been demonstrated for training in either police or subversive operations, which the perpetrator displayed in his actions.

Further, the signatory, who at the time of the outrage was asleep in his own residence, suggests, based on his criminological experience, that the crime would have to have been committed by vandalistic elements or groups especially dedicated to the perpetration of homicides with the intent to commit larceny or robbery.

Associate District Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar looked again at the page he had just written, thinking about another way to cover his presence at the site. No. It was sufficient. He erased the word “police” to avoid arguments with Pacheco and considered the report concluded. He would not have to face the couple from the previous night, who were probably more terrified than he was, in a confrontation with witnesses, but he knew that sooner or later the authorities would get around to him. On the previous night he had not even been careful to avoid leaving prints in the basement. On that basis they would have sufficient cause to accuse him. The prints would have to go to the laboratory in Lima, they would take a while, perhaps enough time to find the real killer. A matter of days. God willing.

In spite of having to find a quick solution, he could not get the incident with Edith out of his head. He did not understand why he had done what he had done. He tried to remember and at the same time forget the episode that morning. He had not been looking for sex but for a kind of power, a kind of domination, the feeling that something was weaker than he was, that in the midst of this world that seemed to want to swallow him whole, he too could have strength, potency, victims.

Or perhaps he had simply wanted sex. In either case, he felt like a perfect imbecile. It would be very difficult to convince himself otherwise. Above all, it would be very difficult to convince Edith.

He decided to concentrate on his investigation in order not to think about her, although moments he had been beside her returned like flashes to flog his memory. Her closed eyes, squeezed tight like her clenched teeth, her legs trying to resist his attack. He would return to the archives of the Office of the Prosecutor. He wanted to know if Father Quiroz had been threatened or undergone earlier attempts on his life during the years of terrorism. Perhaps that would give him a clue. This time there had been no note from Sendero, but that must have been due to lack of time. Chacaltana had interrupted the killers in the middle of their work, who knows how they had proposed to end it.

For lunch he ate a chicken sandwich at a street stand and then went to the Office of the Prosecutor. The faithful were forming lines at the Church of Santo Domingo, holding pieces of cotton in their hands to clean the wounds on the image of the Lord of the Holy Sepulcher. The prosecutor imagined all those hands, one after another, touching the wounds of Christ. Without knowing why, that made him think of his mother and of Edith.

Again he walked down the deserted corridors of the Office of the Prosecutor on a holiday, until he reached the file room. He began the search. Quiroz did not appear among the papers. Or perhaps he was there in a place beyond the images of Edith glued to the prosecutor's eyes: her body wrapped in the towel silhouetted against the first light of day. Her small feet, two soft packets. The taste of her pubis. The shining path that joined her neck to her navel, a road the prosecutor would never travel again. Perhaps she would accept an apology, he thought, as he opened boxes of abandoned cases. After all, he was not a bad sort. He had behaved well with her … at least until that morning. Perhaps she would be able to forget about it quickly. He would bring her flowers that night. Ask her to dinner. Take her dancing. She would like that. Soon, the morning's disgraceful incident would be only a bad memory, easy to erase.

Without realizing it, in a reflexive way, he was looking for Edith's name in the files. He tried to recover from his not very professional deviation from his subject. Then, out of curiosity, he looked for it deliberately. Her parents, at least, had to be there somewhere. He wanted to know more about her. He felt like looking for her everywhere, learning how he could make a good impression on her, finding her at every moment of her life. He was afraid he would not see her again in person, that she would not want to see him. But at least there, among the accusations, the victims, the perpetrators on both sides, Edith Ayala, at least a little of her, would be present.

He spent the afternoon looking through the old papers and enduring the allergic reaction produced by the dust. Edith's parents, Ronaldo Ayala and Clara Mungía, did not appear among the abandoned accusations. He continued looking until he found them in the reports of battle casualties. The attack they had led on the police post had been a desperate maneuver. Six poorly armed terrorists against a station with ten police. They had attacked at dawn on a day in July in the mid-eighties. Apparently, they miscalculated the number of men waiting for them. The police had been warned of the attack. The assault was a massacre. One policeman died, two were wounded, and all the terrorists were annihilated. The legal reports indicated shots in the back of Ronaldo Ayala's neck. They had finished him off after the assault. His wife showed wounds in the stomach and a final shot in the chest. When she was already wounded, she had continued to advance. In the photograph she looked a little like Edith: the hair, the neck the prosecutor remembered so well, were a maternal inheritance. But Clara Mungía did not have her daughter's sweetness. The identification-size photograph, taken in a previous arrest, showed the inexpressive, resolute gaze the prosecutor had seen so often beneath the eyebrows of Senderistas.

The file included an attachment that spoke of Edith. In the mid-nineties, a repentant Senderista had accused her of being a member of the logistical apparatus of the party. She was not yet sixteen, but according to the witness she passed weaponry and messages among the cells that survived in Ceja de Selva. She had been interrogated, but nothing of interest had been learned. She showed no lesions when she left the interrogations. After that, she had been left in peace. A report from Intelligence added that for two years she had dedicated herself to bringing medicine and food to those imprisoned for terrorism at the maximum security prison in Ayacucho, while she worked as an assistant in a butcher shop in the central market.

Butcher shop. Prison. Inevitably, he thought of Hernán Durango, Comrade Alonso, and his tale of the Indian servant's dream, and his stories. He remembered the first time he had seen him. The party has a thousand eyes and a thousand ears, he had said. The eyes of the people. Or perhaps only two eyes like two nuts in their shells, above two clenched jaws sweating with rage, two eyes vacant in their sockets. Almost in spite of himself, the prosecutor made some deductions and came to a conclusion. Perhaps he had the killer. At that moment, his blood turned to ice in his veins.

He thought it was an unfounded suspicion and returned to his office. He wanted to reject it. He wanted to remove that possibility. He telephoned Colonel Olazábal:

“Good afternoon, Colonel. How are you?”

“Well, I'm fucked, Chacaltana. Just like you, I suppose, working on a holiday.”

“I spoke about your promotion to Commander Carrión,” the prosecutor lied. “He seemed very well disposed, but he has been retired.”

“Yes. Well, news flies.”

“We will have to begin that task again with his successor. Do not be concerned, I will help you.”

“Thank you very much, Señor Prosecutor. You know that if there's anything I can do for you …”

“Well, to tell you the truth, yes, now that you mention it. I need a list of visitors to Hernán Durango González.”

“Right now?”

“If that might be possible, yes, Colonel.”

The colonel promised to call him back in five minutes. The prosecutor sat waiting by the phone. It had to be a coincidence, a miscalculation, a dead end. This whole story was filled with them. He spent an hour and a half next to the phone, caressing his pistol, until the colonel called.

“Let me see … Here it is: to begin with, the inmate's parents: Román Durango and Brígida González …”

“Ah ha …”

“A sister named Agripina …”

“Yes …”

“And just one other person. Not a relative. Maybe a girlfriend, though in that case, she was very patient, don't you think? Though you know, there are girlfriends who wait twenty years, let me tell you …”

He gave a short speech on girlfriends and inmates until he said a woman's name, and then the prosecutor moved his lips and felt a huge pain in his chest. Without saying good-bye he hung up the phone and hurried out of the building.

Outside, night had just fallen. The Lord of the Holy Sepulcher, lying in a transparent case on a bed of white roses, had taken over the streets. Blood dripped from his forehead, his side, his hands and feet. Only the candles of the town's notable and wealthy citizens who surrounded him illuminated his figure in the darkness. The faithful were dressed in black. Streetlights had been turned off. At that moment, the silence was absolute.

Chacaltana pushed his way through the solemn crowd, advancing directly to the restaurant on the square. Some people pushed him back, but no one dared to break the silence of the Sepulcher. Even among the tourists inside El Huamanguino restaurant, the atmosphere was one of reserve and silence. Edith was at her counter when he came in. She looked at him with an expression of surprise that quickly turned into fear and then hatred. She stepped back reflexively but did not move from the counter. It was he who approached her and took her by the arm.

“What are you doing?” she protested.

“I have to talk to you.”

“Don't touch me!”

Her eyes. The hatred of those eyes he had seen in the files that afternoon.

“Ssshhhhh!”

The clients demanded silence. The owner of the restaurant approached and said, in a quiet but firm voice:

“I'd like to know who the hell you are.”

“Office of the Prosecutor,” Chacaltana said authoritatively. “I have to speak with Edith Ayala. This is an official investigation.”

The owner looked at him and then looked at Edith, at both of them, with a censure that the mention of the Office of the Prosecutor attenuated and transformed, perhaps into fear. Prosecutors are not police, but the restaurant owner knew very well that anything official could be a constant source of problems. Edith was red with rage and embarrassment. She wanted to avoid a scene. She said:

“Can I go out for a moment?”

The owner agreed with a look of annoyance, more to get rid of them than out of courtesy.

“Five minutes, that's all,” he warned as they were leaving.

They moved away from the crowd, walking with long strides toward the district of Carmen Alto. The prosecutor remembered having gone to the cathedral when he was little, on another Good Friday. He had heard a long lament and then the church, covered in purple mourning cloths, had darkened. One after another, the canons had gone up to the altar, dressed in black robes whose trains dragged as they walked forward. They carried immense black flags and waved them in the air, like wings of sinister birds. Without knowing why, it seemed to him that the ancient ceremony had something to do with all this. As soon as they reached a quieter street, the prosecutor looked for a place where they could talk calmly. He held Edith's arm tightly, perhaps as he had that morning. She shook him off:

“You're hurting me!”

“I'm hurting you?”

The prosecutor was furious. If he had been brutal that morning, now his fury seemed like something just and honorable.

“I don't want to talk to you,” she went on. “I don't want to see you again!”

She turned and began to go back to the center of town. Several people passed them. Some children were playing with a plastic ball. He caught hold of her again and pushed her against a wall.

“You knew Hernán Durango, Edith. You are the only person who could have talked to him about me, about my mother.”

She looked surprised. Then she started to weep without saying a word. The prosecutor grabbed her hair:

“You knew him!”

“So what?” she shouted. “Tell me! What difference does it make?”

“Why did you talk to him about me?”

“Why couldn't I? I didn't know you knew him until last night.”

“Don't lie to me!” He raised his hand but stopped it in midair and did not hit her. He did not understand why he wanted to hit her so much. “Why did you talk to him about me? Tell me the truth!”

She tried to break free but he pushed her back against the wall, this time more violently. When Edith looked up again, it was difficult to know if the gleam in her eyes was due to terror or hatred.

“Because I liked you!” she said in a faint voice. Then she began to cry again. The children, who had not moved, ran away. Several couples passed close to them, walking faster. No one approached. “I thought you were different …,” she continued. She sobbed and gasped for breath, like a small animal. “I thought you were a good man, not the wretch you are …”

The prosecutor let her go. His body became rigid. His voice hardened:

“I know dirty terrorists like you, Edith. I know your lies. You won't deceive me anymore.”

“Then let me alone.”

“Be quiet!” The shout came out louder than he intended, but it worked. She was quiet and trembling, like a chick in a raffle at a fair.

She began to swallow snot and saliva.

“Are you … are you accusing m …?”

“There are sufficient indications of your connections to Sendero. And your parents, obviously. The savages who brought you up. Look what they did with you.”

“You wash your mouth when you talk about my …”

He did not let her finish. He covered her mouth and pushed her head against the wall.

“The murderer I am looking for knew the victims. He could go in the parish house, and had the trust of Durango, and certainly of Justino as well. And he knew I had talked to them. As you did. But you did not act alone. Where is the rest of your cell? Talk!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You could never forgive him, could you? You waited fifteen years to take your revenge. You kept that hatred your whole life. What did you do? Did you deceive him into coming to Ayacucho? Or did you simply find out he had come and then could not control yourself? Durango helped you from prison?”

“What are you talking about? Who am I going to take revenge on?”

“Lieutenant Alfredo Cáceres Salazar! The man in charge of the station where your parents were killed. Or do you think I am an idiot? Did you think it would never be traced back to you if you killed everybody involved? When were you going to kill me?”

Now she could no longer speak. Her body was sliding down the wall to the ground. She looked like a half-empty sack of rice, almost shapeless. The street was deserted and silent now, except for what gushed out of her mouth, the mouth he had kissed.

“If I wanted to kill you,” she said suddenly, “I would have done it last night. I should have done it …”

The prosecutor thought about Cáceres Salazar brandishing the pistol that had pierced the back of her father's neck. He thought about the scene that morning as he had penetrated her body. He did not feel repentance anymore, he felt pleasure. The pleasure of a job well done. He took out the pistol and aimed at the small head trembling near the ground. He recalled all the dead he had seen. He realized his hand no longer trembled.

“You don't deserve a trial either,” he spat at her.

Edith did not move and did not look up. He thought she had not even realized he was pointing the gun at her. She had become a weeping, crouching thing sliding down along the wall. Perhaps she had seen the weapon and did not care about dying as her family had. Prosecutor Chacaltana cocked the gun. He pointed it right at her forehead. He thought she ought to die looking at what she had searched for. She raised her head and fixed her eyes on him, as if her gaze were going through the weapon to lodge directly in the prosecutor's eyes.

“I won't be the first who dies like this,” she said. “And I won't be the last.”

That was a confession. Now the prosecutor felt certain. He moved the barrel slightly to the right to place the bullet just between her eyes. He adjusted his finger on the trigger. He gave her a final look, a look of disappointment, pity, and hatred. Perhaps he also felt disgust for having touched that body stained with blood, submerged in death, like the sinister birds of the Sepulcher. Now he would never touch it again. In his mind he said good-bye to her. After all, he would miss her. At least he would miss the warmth of her hands, the smell of her neck, the almonds of her eyes, the balm of her smile. He gripped the weapon more firmly and took a few steps forward. But as soon as he had taken aim at the target, the blows, the fire, the rain of blood returned to his mind, as if all the things that had appeared in his dreams were really inside Edith's head. The black flags. He wanted to fire immediately, without waiting anymore, he wanted to wipe away once and for all the life that had been hers, he wanted to do away with the nights of love he would never have now and the ones he had never had, all in one stroke, all in one shot, with all his might he wanted not to have to hear her lies ever again, not to have her face remind him of how stupid he had been. And his eyes blazed with a red fire, he heard shouting in his ears, he felt punches, kicks in his stomach. He wanted to be able to end everything with a single, final, fatal movement of his finger.

He could not.

He moved a few steps away from her and then came closer again. Now her gaze that had not wavered turned into a shield. He thought of himself at the edge of the mass grave, a weapon pointing at his head. At his back. He wanted to ask her not to look at him, he wanted to slap her, he wanted to tear off her clothes and rape her. But that gaze paralyzed him. He still had the weapon raised when he spoke, his voice breaking with grief:

“Why like this? Why did those people die so cruelly? Why the awful brutality?”

She was no longer sobbing. She seemed like a statue of black ice. When she responded, her voice sounded strong and resolute:

“Is there any other way to die?”

No. No there is not. The prosecutor tried to rally. He felt inexplicably defeated, vanquished, as if the pistol were pointing at his head, not hers. His arm was slowly lowering. As if an invisible hand were calming it and stopping it. When his arm had lowered completely, Edith was on her feet, facing him, defiant. She actually seemed taller. He could not even hold her gaze. With his eyes fixed on the sidewalk, the prosecutor said:

“Tomorrow morning I am going to file a complaint against you with the Ayacucho police. Before I do, you have time to escape. If they capture you, I suggest you betray your accomplices. In exchange for your statement, they will reduce your sentence.”

She gestured as if she were going to speak. He stopped her with a hand in the air. It was not an aggressive hand or an armed one. It was only an open hand.

She moved along the wall, walking sideways, never turning her back to him. When she reached a corner, she began to run. The prosecutor dropped to his knees, as if praying for protection. He hid his face in his hands. He fell to the ground. After a while he discovered that people were walking along the street again. Matrons looked at him disapprovingly and murmured complaints to one another about the drunkards who were destroying the city. He did not move. At one point he felt observed from a place beyond the street but did not see anything strange. He thought that perhaps it was time to get up and go home. He could continue to cry there. He looked at the time. It was midnight.