The Armies

~ ~ ~

I lean against the front of each house, in order to go on. I discover it all of a sudden, it is the noise, congealed; I am not alone in the street: the compact voices return, I turn around, they are voices that twist and tangle neither very near nor too far away, a river everywhere, and I catch sight of them, two blocks away: I see them go past, a small tumult of purplish faces and open mouths, in profile; I do not see who is screaming, they pass like a maelstrom in the middle of the fleeting noise, for now nothing can be heard, just the most private noises, an almost inaudible sigh, now the pursuers appear, and the last of them have turned in my direction, they are running, they advance on me, have they found me? They search, hunt, just half a block away, they point their weapons in every direction, they want to fire, they are going to shoot into the air, or are they going to shoot me? They point everywhere with their guns, they want to fire, I slump to the pavement and stay there curled up in a ball as if I were asleep, pretending to be dead, I pretend to be dead, I am dead, I am not asleep, it really is as though my own heart were not beating, I do not even close my eyes: I leave them wide open, motionless, immersed in the sky with its swirling clouds, and I hear the sound of boots, nearby, the same as fear, as if the air around me had disappeared; one of them must be looking at me, examining me now from the tip of my shoes to the last hair on my head, he will use my bones for target practice, I think, on the verge of making myself laugh, free again and simply, like a sneeze, in vain I press my lips together, I feel I am about to laugh louder than I ever have in my life, the men walk past as if they do not see me, or think I am dead, I do not know how I can contain the burst of laughter, the laughter of fear, and only after a minute of playing dead, or two, I turn my head to one side, move my gaze: the group runs off around the corner, I listen to the first drops of rain, fat, isolated, falling like big wrinkled flowers that explode in the dust: the flood. Lord, the deluge, but the drops stop at once and I tell myself God does not agree, and again on the verge of laughter, on the verge, it is your madness, Ismael, I say, and the laughter inside me stops, as if I were ashamed of myself.

“We don’t have to bother killing this old man, don’t you see? He looks dead.”

“Shall we give him a good whack?”

“Isn’t that the same old man we saw dead a minute ago? Yeah, it’s the same one. Look how pink he is, he doesn’t smell dead, maybe he’s a saint.”

“Hey, old man, are you alive, or are you dead?”

I was not alone. They were there, behind me. The man who said that put the barrel of his gun against my neck. I heard him laugh, but I kept still.

“What if we tickle him?”

“No, you don’t tickle saints. We’ll come back later, old man, and we won’t be in such a good mood.”

“Better just whack him and get it over with.”

“If you’re going to kill me, kill me.”

“Hear that? The dead man spoke.”

“Didn’t I tell you? A saint, a miracle from God. Is he hungry? Wouldn’t you like a little bit of bread? Ask God.”

They are leaving. I think they are leaving.

God, bread?

Worm food.

No. They are not leaving.

I am startled, without looking at them directly. I hear them return, taking an age, to my side. They have settled on something abominable among them. They drag over a body and drop it down beside me. He must be very badly wounded: his face and chest bathed in blood. It is someone from the town, someone I know, but who?

“Well,” says one of the men to me.

Well?

And the man: “Do him the favor of killing him.”

He hands me a pistol, which I do not take:

“I’ve never killed anyone.”

“Kill me, papá,” shouts the wounded man, with great effort, as if he is already speaking to me from much further away, and he rolls onto his side, trying in vain to look me in the eye; the tears prevent him from doing so, the blood that covers his face.

“You kill him,” I say to the one offering me the pistol. “Can you not see that he is suffering? Finish what you started.”

I sit up as best I can. I have never felt my own weight as such a burden; my arms crumple, my legs; but I still have the strength to push away the pistol they offer me, strength to spurn the gun, which has been pointing at me all the while.

I start to move away, again feeling my way; I flee with exasperating slowness, because my body is not my own; where am I fleeing to? Up, down?

And I hear the shot. The bullet whistles past just above my head; and then another, which hits the ground, centimeters from my shoe. I stop, and turn back to look. I am amazed that I do not feel afraid.

“That’s what I’m starting to like about you, old man: you don’t tremble. But now I know why. You’re not capable of shooting yourself, are you? You want us to kill you, to do you that favor. And we’re not going to give you that pleasure, now, are we?”

The others say no, laughing. I hear the wounded man groan, as if neighing weakly. I start away again, staggering.

Another shot.

This time it was not aimed at me.

I turn around to look.

“Who is this old son of a bitch?” they keep saying.

“Hey, old man, do you want us to do some target practice on you?”

“Here,” I tell them and point to my heart.

I do not know what they find funny this time: my face? They reply with another guffaw.

Where am I? Not only do I hear once more the confused clamor, which rises and falls now and again, and the shots, indistinct, but also the calls of Hey, who has lost his mind — I assume, even as I am going to lose mine, like everyone — but how can he be trying to sell his empanadas in the midst of this chaos, I wonder, when I hear the Heeeey that settles in all the streets, incredibly clear, as if Hey himself were on every corner: I cannot recognize the town, it is another town now, similar, but other, brimming with artifice, astonishment, a town with neither head nor heart, which corner of this town to choose? It would be best to follow a single direction until I was out of it, will I be able to? Now I discover it is not only fatigue, lack of determination that keeps me from going on. It is my knee, again. There is no cure for old age. Maestro Claudino, may you rest in peace.

By the school I find a group of people walking in single file, in the direction of the highway. They are leaving San José: they must be thinking the same way I am; it is a large portion of the population that is leaving. Slow and depleted — men, women, old folks, children — they no longer run. They are a shadow of bewildered faces in suspense, before me; the ladies stammer out prayers, one or two men insist on carrying the most valuable belongings, clothes, provisions, even a television set. Aren’t you leaving, profesor? No, I am staying, I hear myself decide. And here I stay between the hot shade of the abandoned houses, the mute trees, I say goodbye to all of them waving this hand, I am staying, God, I am staying, I stay because only here can I find you, Otilia, only here can I wait for you, and if you do not come, you do not come, but I am staying here.

“Be careful, profesor,” the same man who closed his door in my face when we were running away tells me.

It is not the first time they come to offer me that advice.

The man insists.

“They have a list of names. Every one they find has had it, just like that.”

“Profesor,” another decides. “You’re on the list. They’re searching for you. Better come with us, and keep quiet.”

It is a surprise. They are searching for me. I look at the one who has spoken: one of Celmiro’s sons.

“What about your father?” I ask him. “You left him?”

“He didn’t want to come, profesor. We wanted to carry him, but he said he would rather die where he was born, rather than die somewhere else.”

And he looks me in the eye, without blinking. His voice falters.

“If he told you that his children were wretches, it’s not true; he likes to complain. Go and see, profesor. The house is open. He wouldn’t let us carry him.”

Who to believe?

Including Celmiro’s son, there are just three inhabitants of this town who are still standing by me. But they begin to rush me, irritated.

“Come with us, profesor. Don’t be stubborn.”

“How?” I say, and show them my swollen knee. “Even if I wanted to I could not.”

Celmiro’s son shrugs and jogs away after the group. The other two sigh, shake their heads.

“They’ll soon turn up, profesor. Don’t you tell them who you are. Nobody’s going to recognize you.”

“What about Chepe?” I say. “What happened in the end? I did not see what happened to him.”

“We never saw him.”

“Who is going to bury the dead? Who buried Chepe?”

“None of us buried him.”

And I hear one of them say, ironically. “It must have been one of them.”

“The one who killed him, most likely.”

They regret saying it, or feel sorry for me, from the expression I must have on my face, while listening to them.

“We’re going, profesor, we don’t want to die. What can we do? They ordered us to leave, and we have to leave, as simple as that.”

“Come with us, profesor. You’re on the list. We heard your name. Be careful. Your name was there.”

Why do they ask for names? They kill whoever they please, no matter what their names might be. I would like to know what is written on the paper with the names, that “list.” It is a blank sheet of paper, for God’s sake. A paper where all the names they want can fit.

A sound of voices and breathing wells up from one side of the school, from the dense bank that adjoins the trees, the mountains, the immensity, wells up from the narrow path that comes down from the mountain range: more sweating men and women are arriving to join the line, I hear their voices, they talk and tremble, complain, lament,

“They’re killing people like flies,” they say, as if we did not know.

In vain I look for Rodrigo Pinto and his wife and their children. In vain I search for Rodrigo and his dream, his mountain. I ask after him: one of his neighbors shakes his head, and does not do so sadly, as I would have expected. On the contrary, he seems about to tell a joke: he tells me he saw his hat floating in the river, and keeps walking along with the rest, ignoring further questions. “And Rodrigo’s wife, his children?” I insist, limping after them.

“There were seven,” he yells, without turning around.

I see them disappear around the first bend in the road. They are leaving, I am staying, is there really any difference? They will go somewhere, to a place that is not theirs, that will never be theirs, like what is happening to me, staying in a place which is no longer mine: here dusk or night might begin to fall or dawn to break without my knowing, is it that I no longer remember the time? My days in San José, when I am the only one in its streets, will be hopeless.

If I could at least come across Celmiro’s window again, we could keep each other company, but where? I no longer know. I examine the corners, the façades: I catch sight of the Survivors, coming around the gutter on the roof of a house, one beside the other, above me, keeping pace with me, and observing me in turn, their eyes filled with curiosity, as if they recognized me too.

“Oh, to be a cat, God, just a cat up there on the roof,” I say to them. “They’ll surely shoot at me before they shoot at you two.”

They listen to me and disappear, as swiftly as they appeared, were they following me?

From the trees a cluster of birds takes flight, after a series of bursts of gunfire, still distant. Far away, another group of stragglers, men and women, rush along the road: it looks as if they are fleeing on tiptoe, trying not to make any noise, with voluntary, disproportionate stealth. Some of the women point to me, terrified, as if commenting to each other on the presence of a ghost. I have sat down on a flat, white rock, under a fragrant magnolia tree; I do not remember this rock either, or this magnolia, when did they appear? With every reason I do not know this street, these corners, things, I have lost my memory, just as if I were sinking and I began to walk one by one down steps which lead to the most unknown, this town, I shall stay alone, I suppose, but in some way I shall make this town my home, and I shall stroll through you, town, until Otilia comes for me.

I shall eat what they have left in their kitchens, I shall sleep in all their beds, I shall recognize their stories by their vestiges, guessing at their lives from the clothes they left behind, my time shall be another time, I shall amuse myself, I am not blind, I shall cure my knee, I shall walk up to the high plateau as a stroll and then return, my cats will continue to feed me, if weeping is all that is left, let it be out of happiness; am I going to cry? No, just burst out laughing with all the unpredictable laughter I have been holding back all this time, and I am going to laugh because I have just seen my daughter, beside me, you have sat down on this rock, I tell her, I hope you understand all the horror that I am, inside, “or all the love”—this last I say out loud, laughing — I hope you are drawing near in sympathy with me, that you forgive the only one guilty of the disappearance of your mother, because I left her on her own.

Now I see Otilia in front of me.

And with her some children who must be my grandchildren and who look at me appalled, all holding hands.

“Are you real?” I ask them. This is all I could ask them.

Hey’s shout replies, fleeting, unexpected. The vision of Otilia vanishes, leaving a bitter trace on my tongue, as if I had just swallowed something truly bitter, the laughter, my laughter.

I stand up. I shall walk to my house. If this town has gone, my house has not. I am going there, I say, I shall go, though I may be lost.