Giles Blunt - Breaking Lorca

What is your name?

Mother of God. Mother of God. I can’t take any more .

Tell us your name .

Dear God, help me. Help me .

Tell us your name .

Maria Sanchez. Stop, please. Have mercy. I beg you .

Tell us your real name .

I am nothing. Nobody. I have no name. Dear God, dear God, dear God .

And so the transcript continued, for ten pages.

After each jolt, between each question and each answer, she swung back and forth from the pipe like a side of beef. The jolts Tito administered were so short that there was no hope of her losing consciousness, but each shock kicked the breath out of her. Eventually a vein opened in her wrist. Blood ran in dark scarlet ribbons down her left arm, formed red squiggles over her rib cage and down her legs, until it fell in big constant drops from her left foot.

The woman was probably not even aware that she was bleeding, but Victor could see that the gore frightened Tito-he had no orders to kill her, or even to mark her.

The sergeant ordered her taken down, and she collapsed in the blood at her feet. He kicked her, not hard. “You piece of shit. You’ve messed up my nice clean floor. I want you to clean it up, or I’ll string you up again.”

She could neither talk nor move. She was adjusted so that she was leaning against the wall, and water was brought for her to drink. A cold cloth was placed on her forehead.

“Clean that floor, you bitch. We’re making you our cleaning lady, got it? Take the cuffs off before she totally destroys them.”

The cuffs, no longer shiny, were undone.

Tito grabbed her hand and slapped it into the crimson puddle. “You feel that? That’s your mess, and you’re going to clean it up right now.”

“Give me a rag,” she moaned. “Something to wipe it up.”

“A rag? Who said anything about a rag? You don’t get no rag.” The sergeant’s boot was on the back of her neck. He pushed her forward, forcing her face down to the floor in the Muslim attitude of prayer. Her face was an inch from the blood. “You don’t get no rag, bitch. You got to use your imagination.”

Under the humming fluorescent lights, as the small pointed tongue lapped at the floor, the woman’s face was reflected in the dark red blood, the blindfold a black rectangle across her eyes, like a censor’s mark.

That day was a day of visitors. First the doctor and then, after they had forced the Sanchez woman to lick up her blood, Victor was summoned to the Captain’s office to meet with an American who was introduced as Mr. Wheat.

Mr. Wheat, Victor thought, must be of Irish descent. He reminded him of a Jesuit who had taught him history in the ninth grade. He had the same straw-coloured hair that flopped boyishly over one eyebrow. He had the same serviceable-looking glasses, nothing fashionable about them. He looked like a man who read a lot, a man who liked books.

Despite this intellectual appearance, Mr. Wheat carried with him an invisible cloud of toothpaste and aftershave. He had a ready smile, flawless teeth and a strong hand with which he squeezed Victor’s in greeting. Victor wished he could impress this man somehow, and knew sadly that he could not.

“Mr. Wheat is with the American embassy.”

“I’m very honoured to meet you, sir.”

“Glad to know you, soldier. The Captain tells me you have someone I ought to meet.”

“The so-called Sanchez woman,” the Captain said. “Bring her in so Mr. Wheat can speak to her himself. Clean her up first.”

Victor got Yunques to help him drag the woman up the hall past the Captain’s closed door. He wondered what would happen to that flawless smile if Mr. Wheat could have seen them. The woman’s heels left bloody streaks along the floor.

She couldn’t stand, so they filled the tub in the soldiers’ bathroom. He and Yunques lowered her into the water, and she fell back against the tiles.

“Wake up,” Yunques snapped. “Wash yourself.” But the woman only moaned in response. He turned to Victor. “You deal with her. I’m going for a smoke.”

Pink streaks threaded into the water from the woman’s body. Victor soaped up a cloth and put it in her hand, but she only let the hand fall into the water. He lifted her left foot from the water and began to wash it. There was a burn mark on her big toe where the electrode had been attached, and he found another burn when he rinsed the blood from her chest.

Gradually, the woman began to revive and was able to wash herself. Her skin glistened under the water, and Victor felt a sexual stirring. He turned away.

He sat on the toilet while she rubbed the bar of soap all over her hair and rinsed it off, leaning back gingerly so as not to soak her blindfold. He allowed himself a glance at her breasts, the prominent ribs. Such a vulnerable thing, the human body-particularly a woman’s; it was a great wrong to torment it. She was not so different from him self, this woman; she was not a campesino. He imagined her as a child, growing up in a small middle-class home like his own. Perhaps she was teased by an older brother, annoyed by a younger sister. Parents had loved her, looked after her, comforted her when she was sick. Not so different from himself. Clearly, she was educated. He imagined her carrying books, arguing with the nuns at school.

And look at the school she was in now, with the likes of Tito and himself for her teachers. And lessons no human being should have to learn.

Victor handed the woman a towel, and when she had dried herself, he bandaged her wrist and gave her back her clothes.

He and Yunques brought her down the hall to the Captain’s office. Mr. Wheat was seated near the window, so that the sunlight flashed on his blond hair and made his teeth gleam. He looked utterly out of place in the little school, and Victor found himself staring at him almost as if he were a beautiful woman.

“Where did you pick her up?” Wheat asked the Captain.

“Near the cathedral. She was carrying food supplies.”

“Food for children,” she said in her cracked, ugly voice. “Apparently this counts as a crime in our country.”

“Shut up,” the Captain said quietly. “Nobody’s talking to you.”

“She’s connected with the rebels?” Wheat asked.

“Most definitely. We are just waiting for her to admit it.”

“And her name is Sanchez.”

“So she claims. We don’t yet know her real name. We just brought her in last night.”

“That is a lie,” the woman said. “I have been here at least five days. They are torturing me.” She held up the bandaged wrist.

“Resisting arrest,” the Captain said. “She put up quite a struggle. It took three men to subdue her.”

Victor was surprised by the lie. The Captain too seemed to feel the need to impress this shining American.

“I did not resist arrest,” the woman said. “I was distributing food for children. Everything else this man says is a lie.”

Less than half an hour ago she had been screaming in agony; she must know such boldness could only bring more of the same. Sometimes bravery seemed to Victor a species of stupidity-but of course it would be convenient for a coward to view it that way.

Mr. Wheat flicked his hair, wafting a little lime-scented aftershave in Victor’s direction. “Miss Sanchez, if that’s your name-I represent the United States of America. Believe me, we’re doing everything we can to ease things up down here for you people.”

“Really? Maybe you could untie my hands, then.”

Wheat raised his eyebrows at Captain Pena, who shook his head.

“The fact is,” Wheat continued, “I only want to know one thing from you.”