The Armies

~ ~ ~

In short, I did not go to call on Hortensia Galindo this year.

I said goodbye to Chepe and turned at the next corner, on the way to Mauricio Rey’s house. I have confused the streets and come out at the edge of town, darker and darker, strewn with filth and rubbish — some old, some new a sort of cliff which I peer over: it must be thirty years since I’ve been out here. What is it, what sparkles down there like a silver ribbon? The river. It used to rage all through the hellish summer, and it was a torrent. In this mountain town there is no sea, but there was a river. Today, desiccated by a pallid heat, it is a little meandering thread. That was another time when we used to go to the most abundant bends in its waters, in the middle of summer, not only to fish: naked and immersed up to their necks the girls smiled, whispered, floated, blurred, in the clear water. But later they sprang out more real and furtive, on tiptoes, looking from one side to the other, taking big steep jumps while they dried off and dressed, quickly, looking carefully every once in a while through the trees. Soon they relaxed, believing the world around them slept: only the song of a small owl, the song of my chest high up in an orange tree, the heart of every adolescent boy in town watching them. Because there were trees for all.

There is no sign of a moon, occasionally a street light, there is no living shadow in the streets, the gathering at Hortensia Galindo’s house is quite an event, as if the war had arrived in the plaza, in the school, at your door, when the whole town hides.

To get to Rey’s house I have to return to Chepe’s and from there restart the route as if the past could be restarted. I have to remember: the house was the last one along a dirt road, near an abandoned guitar workshop: then came the cliff. The sleepy-looking girl who opens the door tells me that Mauricio is sick in bed, that he cannot see anyone.

“Who is it?” Mauricio Rey’s voice comes from inside.

“It’s me.”

“Profesor, what an unexpected pleasure! Will miracles never cease? You know the way here.”

Whose is this girl? I seem to see her and not see her.

“Whose daughter are you?”

“Sultana’s.”

“I know Sultana. She was rather naughty, but she studied. Do you know me?”

“You’re the schoolteacher.”

“Profesor Pasos, we used to say,” Rey shouts from his room, “why does he always fail us?”

He is the oldest of my pupils, and one of my few friends now. There, in his bed, a bearded sixty-year old, under the yellow light from the bare bulb, he laughs, more toothless than me: he doesn’t have his bridge in, is he not embarrassed with this girl? For the last four years, he told me once, when the commemoration takes place and his wife — his second wife, because he is a widower — goes to offer her condolences for the disappearance of Saldarriaga, he has pretended to be ill and stayed at home and done with the girl who happened to be there what he could not do the whole year long.

“So, what news?” he asks. “I was thinking about the party, profesor.”

“What party, if you please?”

“The celebration, for Saldarriaga.”

“Celebration?”

“Celebration, profesor, and forgive me, but that Saldarriaga was, or is, if he’s alive, a triple son of a bitch.”

“I haven’t come to talk about that.”

“What then, profesor, don’t you see I’m pressed for time?”

The truth is that I do not myself know why I have come: what am I going to invent? Is it this girl? Have I come here to meet this girl with her hair so recently messed?

“My knee hurts,” it occurs to me to tell Rey.

“It’s old age, profesor,” he roars. “What do you think you are, immortal?”

He is drunk, I realize. At his side, scattered on the floor, are two or three aguardiente bottles.

“I thought you just pretended to be ill,” I say, pointing to the bottles.

He laughs and offers me a glass, which I refuse.

“Go, profesor.”

“You’re throwing me out?”

“Go to Maestro Claudino’s place, and tell me about it later. He’ll fix your knee.”

“Is he still alive?”

“Say hello to him from me, profesor.”

The girl accompanies me to the door: sumptuous in her innocence, unbuttoning her blouse to save time.

I was still a boy when I met Claudino Alfaro. He is alive, then. If I am seventy, he must be a hundred, or close to it. why did I forget about him? Why did he forget about me? Instead of entrusting myself to Ordúz, the doctor, Mauricio Rey reminded me of Maestro Claudino, who I had long given up for more than dead, since I didn’t even remember him. Where have I existed these years? I answer myself: up on the wall, peering over.

And I leave the town, unwary beneath the night, walking to the cabin of Maestro Claudino, folk healer. The pain in my knee, again, urges me on.

He is alive, so, he is alive, like me, I say to myself as I walk down the road. The last lights of the town disappear with the first bend, the night grows larger, with no stars. He will go on living while he heals: he makes his patients urinate into a bottle, then he shakes the bottle, and reads, against the light, the sicknesses; he straightens out muscles, sticks bones back together. “He is as alive as I believe I am,” I say to myself, and climb Chuzo’s mountain, following the bridle path. I must have stopped several times to rest. The last time I admit defeat and decide to go back; I suddenly discover that I have to drag my leg to make any progress at all. This outing was a mistake, I say to myself but I walk uphill, from stone to stone. At a bend in the path, already in the invisible jungle of the mountain, I give up and look for a place to rest. There is no moon, the night is still pitch black; I cannot see a pace in front of me, although I know I am halfway there: the Maestro’s cabin is at the back of the mountain, not at its summit, which today I would never reach, but rather skirting around halfway up. I find a mound finally, and sit down there. Above my knee the swelling has grown to the size of an orange. I am drenched in sweat, as if caught in the rain; there is no wind, and, nevertheless, I hear that something or someone is walking on and snapping the leaves and underbrush. I freeze. I try to distinguish between the shapes of the bushes. The noise approaches; what if it is an attack? It could be that the guerrillas, or the paramilitaries, have decided to take the town tonight, why not? Captain Berrío must be at Hortensia’s house, the guest of honor. The noises stop for an instant. Expectation makes me forget the pain in my knee. I am far from town, no one can hear me. They will probably shoot first and, then, when I am already dying, come and see me and ask who I am — if I am still alive. But they could also be soldiers, training at night, I tell myself, to calm down. “All the same,” I shout at myself, “they’ll shoot me just the same.” And, at that, with an explosion of leaves and stalks parting, I perceive something, or someone, leaping upon me. I scream. I reach out my arms, hands open, to repel the attack, the blow, the ghost, whatever it is. I know that this gesture is of no use, and I think of Otilia: Tonight you will not find me in bed. I do not know how long I have my eyes closed. Something touches my shoes, sniffs me. An enormous dog puts his paws on my lap, stretches, and now licks my face in greeting. “It’s a dog,” I say aloud. “It’s just a dog, thank God,” and I do not know if I am going to laugh or cry: as if I still love life.

“Who’s that? Who’s there?”

The voice is just the same: a husky wind, elongated.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s me. Ismael.”

“Ismael Pasos. Then you’re not dead.”

“I don’t think so.”

So we were thinking the same thing: that the other was dead.

I can only see him when he is a step away from me. He is wearing a sort of sheet around his waist; he still has his hair like little tufts of cotton; I can just make out his gleaming eyes in the night; I wonder if he can distinguish my eyes, or if only his eyes shine through the black night. The incomprehensible fear he caused me as a child returns again, fleetingly, but fear it was; I stand up and feel his hand on my arm, like wire, as thin and as tight.

He holds me up.

“What’s the matter?” he says. “Does your leg hurt?”

“My knee.”

“Let’s see.”

Now his wiry hands brush my knee.

“This had to happen for you to come to see me, Ismael. One more day and you wouldn’t be able to walk. Now we have to get the swelling down, for a start. Let’s go on up.”

He wants to help me walk up the hill. I am embarrassed. He must be close to a hundred.

“I can still manage.”

“Up you go, let’s see.”

The dog goes ahead of us; I hear him run, uphill, while I drag my leg.

“I thought they were going to kill me,” I tell him.

“I thought it was the war coming down on me.”

“You thought your time had come.”

“Yes. I thought I was dead.”

“That’s what I thought four years ago.”

His voice moves away, like his story.

“It was already late and I was in the hammock, taking off my shoes, when they appeared.

“‘Come with us,’ they said.

“I told them I didn’t mind, whenever they wanted, I told them all I asked was a bit of sugar water in the mornings.

“‘Don’t complain,’ they told me. ‘We’ll give or not give you whatever we feel like, depending on our mood.’

“That was a brutal walk; at full speed, as if the soldiers were closing in on them.

“‘And this one, who is he? Why did we bring him?’ one of them said.

“None of them know me, I thought, and I didn’t know any one of them either, I’d never seen them in my life; their accents were from Antioquia; they were young and they climbed; I kept up with their pace, of course. They wanted to get rid of my dog, who was following us.

“‘Don’t shoot him,’ I said. ‘He obeys me. Tony, go home,’ I begged more than ordered him, pointing down the path toward the cabin, and this blessed Tony obeyed, lucky for him.”

“This same dog?”

“This one.”

“An obedient dog.”

“That was four years ago, the same day they took Marcos Saldarriaga.”

“Who could have imagined it, the very same day? Nobody told me that.”

“Because I never told anyone, to stay out of trouble.”

“Of course.”

“After walking all night, when it was starting to get light, we stopped in that place they call the Three Crosses.”

“They took you that far?”

“And I saw him there, sitting on the ground, Marcos Saldarriaga. They took him further, not me.”

“And how was he, what did he say?”

“He didn’t even recognize me.”

Maestro Claudino’s voice is pained:

“He was crying. Remember he is, or was, pretty fat, twice the size of his wife. He just couldn’t go on. They were looking for a mule to carry him. There was a woman as well: Carmina Lucero, the baker, remember her? From San Vicente, Otilia’s town. Otilia must know her, how is Otilia?”

“The same.”

“That means she’s still well. The last time I saw her was at the market. She was buying leeks, how did she cook them?”

“I don’t remember.”

“They took the baker too, poor thing.”

“Carmina?”

“Carmina Lucero. Someone told me she died in captivity, after two years. I still didn’t know who they were, whether they were guerrillas or paras. Nor did I ask them.

“The one in charge reprimanded the boys.

“He said: ‘Morons, what did you bring this old guy for? Who the fuck is he?’

“‘They say he’s a healer,’ one of them said.

“So they do know me, I thought.

“‘Healer?’ the one in charge yelled. ‘What he wants is a doctor.’

“‘He?’ I thought. ‘Who is he?’ Must be someone in charge of the one in charge.

“But at that moment I heard the one in charge tell them: ‘Get rid of this old man.’

“And when he said Get rid of this old man a boy put the muzzle of his rifle to the back of my neck. That’s when I felt as you did a little while ago, Ismael.”

“That I was dead.”

“Thank God I still had the strength to be grateful that it wasn’t a machete on my neck, instead of that rifle. How many have they just slashed without even giving them a coup de grâce afterward?”

“Almost all of them.”

“All of them, Ismael.”

“It must be better to die of a gunshot than by machete. How was it they didn’t kill you?”

“The one in charge said to the boy: ‘I didn’t tell you to kill him, idiot.’ He said that, thank God. ‘He’s so old he’ll save us a bullet, or the effort,’ he said. ‘Get lost.’

“‘In any event,’ I answered him, and I still don’t know why I opened my mouth, ‘if I can help in some way, I won’t have come all this way for nothing. Who needs curing?’

“‘Nobody, old man. Get lost.’ And they kicked me out.

“I was starting to find my way, to come home, when they ordered me to return. Now the boys took me to where the ill man was, the real big boss. He was some way off lying in a tent. A girl, in military uniform, on her knees, was cutting his toenails.

“‘So?’ the boss said when he saw me arrive. ‘You’re the healer.’

“‘Yes, sir.’

“‘And how do you heal?’

“‘Tell them to bring an empty bottle, and urinate in it. There I’ll see.’

“‘The boss burst out laughing. But a moment later he became serious.’

“‘Take this skeleton away,’ he shouted. ‘What I can’t do is piss, for fuck’s sake.’

“I wanted to propose a different remedy, now that I knew what was wrong, but the man gestured with his hand and the girl who had been cutting his nails pushed me out of the tent with the butt of her rifle.”

“And they put a gun to you again?”

“No,” the Maestro’s voice turned bitter. “The boss missed his chance for help.”

“And what happened to Marcos Saldarriaga?”

“He stayed there, crying, and him such a proud man. It was pitiful. You couldn’t help but notice, not even the woman from the bakery was crying.”

I stopped. I wished I could do away with my leg. I wanted to be rid of that pain.

“Up, up, Ismael,” the Maestro said to me laughing. “We’re almost there.”

The cabin at last appeared around a corner, the light of a candle flickering in the only window, just when I was going to collapse on the ground, sleep, die, forget, whatever, anything not to feel my knee. He made me lie down in the hammock and went into the kitchen. I could see him. He put some roots on the stove to boil. I touched my face: I thought I was sweating from the heat. It was not the heat. At that hour, on the mountain — one of the highest in the range — it was cold. I had a fever. The dog would not let me sleep, he licked the sweat from my hands, put his paw on my chest; I’d catch sight of his eyes like two sparkling flames. The Maestro put a poultice on my knee and tied it in place with a strip of cloth.

“Now we have to wait,” he said, “an hour, at least.”

“Does Otilia know you came up here?”

“No.”

“Oh, she’s going to scold you, Ismael.”

And he gave me a gourd of cane liquor to drink.

“It’s strong,” I said. “I’d rather have coffee.”

“Absolutely not. You have to drink it, so your soul will sleep and you won’t feel anything.”

“I’ll be drunk.”

“No. You’re just going to have a waking sleep, but you must drink it down in one gulp, not in little sips.”

With trust I drank the contents of the gourd. I do not know how much time passed, nor when the pain disappeared, along with the swelling. Maestro Claudino squatted, looking at the night. His old tiple guitar was hanging on one of the walls. The dog had gone to sleep, curled up at his feet.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” I said. “I can go now.”

“No, Ismael. The best is yet to come.”

And he brought a stool up beside the hammock and made me stretch out my leg to rest on it. Then he stood astride my leg, but without putting any weight on it, just pinning it between his knees.

“Bite on a piece of your shirt, if you want, Ismael, so you won’t hear yourself scream,” and I shuddered, remembering his cures, which I had witnessed on occasion, but never experienced in my own flesh: dislocated elbows, necks, ankles, fingers, thrown-out backs, broken legs, and I remembered how his patients had screamed, how the walls had rocked.

As soon as I had clenched the sleeve of my shirt in my teeth his wiry fingers alighted on my knee like birds’ talons, felt around, recognized it and, all of a sudden, squeezed, grabbing the bone or the bones and I do not know when or how they opened and closed the knee, as if putting together the pieces of that puzzle of bone and cartilage that was my knee, that was me, worse than the dentist, I got as far as thinking, and though I bit the shirt I could hear my scream.

“That’s it.”

I looked at him stunned, trembling with fever.

“I should have another shot of liquor.”

“No.”

The pain had disappeared, there was no pain. Very gingerly I began to lower myself out of the hammock and, still not believing it, stood up and put weight on my leg. Nothing. No pain. I walked, from here to there, from there to here.

“It’s a miracle,” I said.

“No. It’s me.”

I felt like running, like a foal finally standing up.

“You still have to take it easy, Ismael. You have to let it rest for three days, for the bones to set. Try to go down slowly, don’t be foolhardy.”

“How much do I owe you, Maestro,” and, again, I did not know if I was going to cry or laugh.

“Bring a hen, when you’re quite better. It’s been a long time since I’ve tasted a chicken stew, since I’ve talked to a friend.”

I took my time going down the bridle path. No pain. I turned around to look: Maestro Claudino and his dog were standing there watching me. I waved goodbye, and went on.