Giles Blunt - Breaking Lorca

Seven or eight people slouched uncomfortably in rows of metal folding chairs. They were mostly women, all Hispanic, and Victor suddenly realized with panic where he was. “Lorca, no. I don’t want to be here.”

“I didn’t either, Ignacio. Not at first. But it has helped me a lot.”

“I cannot. It’s too much. I don’t know any of these people.”

Lorca took his hand and towed him toward the chairs, but he pulled away. She shook her head. “Really, Ignacio, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Why should you be so scared?”

Because somebody might recognize me , he wanted to scream.

“Everyone is afraid the first time. Just sit quietly. No one is going to bother you.” She took his hand in both of hers. “Please stay, Ignacio. Won’t you stay with me?”

There were only eight people in the place, and none of them looked familiar. My hair was shorter then, he told himself. And I wore a uniform-at least, until I joined the special squad I wore a uniform. Civilians see only the rifle, the sunglasses. They don’t see your face. I don’t look like a soldier now.

A voice boomed out across the basement. “Ignacio! You made it! Good going, Lorca!” Bob Wyatt’s massive frame blocked the doorway, and then he was rolling toward them, hand extended. “Glad you could come.”

“He is not happy about being here,” Lorca said. “He wants to run away.”

“Oh, everyone wants to run away the first time.” Wyatt squeezed Victor by the shoulders and eased him down toward a chair. “Sit down, sit down, take a load off! Just relax and you’ll be fine.”

Wyatt’s entrance had caused a stir. The others in the room had turned to look at them. One woman-a Salvadoran by her heavy features-was staring with intensity at Victor. The man beside her whispered something to her, but she kept her eyes fixed on Victor.

“Evening, all! Sorry I’m late!” Wyatt strode up to the makeshift stage, waving a sheaf of papers. “Some preliminary announcements!” he hollered, and launched into a list of scheduled events that meant nothing to Victor, until he got to the matter they had discussed at the Vieras’. “The congressional hearings are just two weeks away. We need more witnesses. Remember: nothing but good can come of testifying-good for you, good for your country, good for my country.”

“Not so good if you end up dead,” a man with a patch over his eye commented wryly.

“True. That would be a negative thing. But you don’t have to worry about that. I’ve checked out the security arrangements myself. You’ll be completely safe. Any more volunteers tonight?” He aimed his beard first at one side of the room then the other, but there were no takers. Lorca stared resolutely at the ceiling. “Well, all right. No one’s going to force you, that’s for sure.”

“I know who you are.” The accusation shot across the room like an arrow. Victor had no doubt who had said it, and to whom. The woman was still staring at him with black, venomous eyes.

She had spoken in Spanish, and Victor answered her in Spanish. “Well, I don’t know you.”

“You were not a prisoner. You were a soldier.”

“Hold on a second, there,” Wyatt said. “Can we just finish with the announcements first?”

“I was not a soldier. I was an administrator in land reform.”

“You were with the Guardia. You came to our village. You killed people.”

“It was not me. I was never a soldier.” A thick sweat had broken out on Victor’s brow. They can tell . All of them know .

“Please, Yvonne,” the woman’s husband said. “Leave the man alone.”

“I will not. He is Guardia.”

“Why would a soldier come to be among people like us?” he asked her gently. “I am sorry, sir,” he said to Victor. “My wife was mistreated by the Guardia. For this reason, now, she sees them everywhere. Even in the United States.”

“I am not mistaken! I have seen this man in uniform! He came to our village in Chalatenango!”

Victor had never been to Chalatenango. “I was not a soldier. I was a prisoner.”

“You don’t have to defend yourself to this woman,” Lorca said softly.

“They came in the middle of the night,” Victor continued. “They took me to this place, blindfolded-always I was blindfolded. I get there and the Captain kicks me.” He pointed to his crotch. “Kicks me harder than I have ever been kicked in my life.”

“If you were blindfolded,” the woman said, “how do you know he was a captain?”

“I don’t know. Someone called him Captain. I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Of course you don’t,” the woman said. “Because nothing you say is true. If you were a prisoner, tell us what jail you were in. Tell us what they did to you.”

“It used to be a school. A little school. They threw me in a cell by myself. They fed me meals full of salt, meals full of bugs. They stopped me sleeping. Day and night, they threw buckets of cold water on me.”

“It’s true,” Lorca said to the room at large. “This is exactly how it works at the little school. I was treated exactly this way.”

“You know this man? You were at the same place?”

“I was with him in the little school. What he says is true. It is exactly how they treat new prisoners.”

“Oh, yes? What else did they do to you, then?” The woman shook off her husband’s restraining hand. “No, let the poor suffering prisoner tell us himself.”

“I told you, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Hold on, hold on.” Bob Wyatt put his hand up for order. “Nobody is forced to talk here. Ever. I don’t care who it is. Many of you were forced to talk in the past, and that is the last thing we want going on in this group.”

The woman shrugged. “A convenient arrangement if you happen to be a soldier.”

“Don’t say that again,” Lorca warned the woman.

“Mother of God, I’ll tell you what they did to me.” Victor leapt up. “They played Submarine with me, all right? That’s what they did. Held me underwater in a tank full of shit. Does that make you happy? They beat me on the head. Here, you want to see the scar?” Victor bent forward to show the woman the crooked white scar at his hairline. He found there were tears in his eyes. “They shocked me with wires. Put wires on my fingers, my teeth, my ears-and here.” He pointed again to his crotch.

“You don’t have to talk,” Wyatt put in again. “No one here has to talk against his will.”

But Victor couldn’t stop. It was as if real memories were flooding through him. “Over and over they would shock me. Over and over they would say, ‘You ready to play ball now? You ready to play ball?’ Over and over they would say this, and apply the electricity. It felt like an earthquake in my flesh. It felt as if my flesh split open to the bone.”

There were scattered murmurs of recognition among the crowd. Lorca had covered her mouth with her hand.

“You think you will not cry,” Victor went on, weeping openly now, “and you do nothing but cry. You think you will not scream, and you do nothing but scream. I would have told them anything. Anything they wanted. But all they wanted was for me to play a part in this ceremony-a big ceremony in front of the Presidential Palace. ‘See! This is land reform! We are giving all these men a piece of land!’”

“So they tortured you,” Bob Wyatt said, “to make sure you wouldn’t give the game away?”

“And because I had encouraged others to apply for deeds under the law. They said they would bring me my own deed within the next few days. I knew what that meant.”

“What did it mean?”

“They come and kill you,” the man with the patch over his eye said. “I knew of a man who was killed this way. The Guardia showed up in the middle of the night and shot him in front of his wife and children, then they stuffed the deed in his mouth.”