Santiago Roncagliolo - Red April

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.

we reeched the end. oh, ends are so sad. no. this is a happy end. its reely a new start, rite? you unnerstand. i can see it. i can see the choris of the ded greeting me, patting me on the back with there hands sweting with blood. itll be soon. we can play together, for eternity, in a new world, in a world of peepel who live ferever.

it wasnt always like this, you know? there was a time i thowt you cood live another way. but thats a lie. i was inosent. if historys going to come for us anyway, the best thing is to speed it up, forse it forward, control it. like we did to you. well be mirrers of the universe, sacrifises of flesh that skech the wake of time. itll be nise.

i like your sholders. there soft. the others will like you too. your the senter of everything, did you know that? all the parts will go to you, youll have a grate responsibility. i hope your up to it. did you ever do what im doing? its like cutting up a chicken, allways full of bones and things. but what you eat is the mussel. you dont eat the blood. thats a sin.

but dont let your mind wander. yesteday was the day of the sepulcher and today will be the day of glory. they stoped waving the black flags in the cathedrul. its a good day for you. tomorrow god will begin to resurrect. and sunday the sun will shine on a new world. all thanks to us. the world will know what we did. i made shure of that. itll be sad, because theyll come for me too because of that.

oh i dont like it eether. but grate changes are like that, there born of pane. i dont want you to think this is a punishment, no. its penitense. an act of convershun. we take our flesh and purify it until we turn it into lite, into eternal life, into something devine. well be angels, angels with sords of fire, the ones who watch the entrense to paradise. gardians of eden. do you like that? i like it. gardians of eden. ha. nobody will get in unless we test him first with our sharp, burning blades. well all be there, and well all be one and the same, multiplyd by the mirrers we are for each other. itll all end in our hands and itll all begin there. maybe some day we can overthrow god. and then nobodyll be able to stop us. forever and ever.

but for that, im telling you, theyll have to come for me first.

On Saturday, April 22, at nine in the morning, the prosecutor was awakened by the bells of the city's thirty-three churches announcing the resurrection and glory of Christ. At the same time, the police were pounding loudly, almost angrily, on his door. Before he opened it, he imagined what he would hear them say.

“We have orders from Captain Pacheco to take you to the examination of a body.”

As he washed quickly, he regretted having allowed Edith to escape. It had not occurred to him that her homicidal rage would continue unrestrained even after his warning. He reproached himself for his own weakness and stupidity. Above all, he reproached himself for having chosen that woman in particular. And still, the news had not surprised him. Perhaps he was growing accustomed to death. Before he went out, he had time to be surprised at not having been the last victim. He discovered he was almost wishing for that.

Outside, preparations were beginning for the end of Holy Week. On Acuchimay Hill, celebrants from Andahuaylas, Cangallo, and even Bolivia were gathering around the stands that sold handicrafts, chicha , fresh cheeses, gourds of pumpkin soup. Some drunks, bottles of cheap cane liquor still in their hands, were lying in the streets. Here and there were the globs of green spittle of those who chewed coca. There was also elegance. Notable citizens were going to the blessing of new fire and Easter candles in the cathedral. Some would spend the entire day at vigil masses. Others were beginning the celebratory transfer of the bulls to the old-age home and the prison. The guards had mentioned to the prosecutor that Olazábal had tried to prohibit the transfer of the bull for reasons of security, but his own men had wanted some kind of celebration in that dismal place.

The prosecutor was still drowsy. He was thinking how to formulate the charge against Edith in his report. In spite of everything, he would regret having to do it. It would be sad but necessary. But as they moved forward, he suddenly recognized the road they were taking. The progressive aging of the houses, the painfully modernized neighborhood, the edges of the city on the hill, the three-story building, the neighbor Dora, shattered, looking at him suspiciously from her window. After a few seconds of paralysis, he ran up the stairs to the third floor. The stairs creaked at each step as if they were going to collapse. Captain Pacheco stopped him at the door.

“I don't know if you should come in here,” he said.

He had to go in. He shoved the captain aside and crossed the threshold. The small room was almost entirely spattered with blood. The floor was covered with sheets of transparent plastic so that people could walk without leaving footprints, and go out with no blood on the soles of their shoes. On the only wall not completely covered in blood were scrawls of Senderista slogans, written with a pencil that the killer had dipped into the body lying on the bed. Body. It was not really a body. When the prosecutor approached the sheets — the sheets he had already stained with blood and sweat — he discovered that this time everything was reversed: two legs, two arms, a head. Piled on the bed, leaving the space for the trunk free. And nothing else. He still had a hope before he recognized, in the absolute red of the limbs, Edith's gleaming tooth and the luster, now vermilion, of her hair. He could not repress a long howl. He had to stop himself from stomping all over the room, destroying it, as if in this way he could destroy memory too. He had to go out to the staircase to vomit, to cry, to stomp his feet.