Santiago Roncagliolo - Red April

“Well, the departure of Carrión has left a gap in the city's security that …”

“Why was I free if witnesses incriminated me on Thursday and again on Friday night? Why didn't you come for me right away?”

Pacheco began to stammer. He had suddenly turned pale.

“The witnesses … well … the fact is …”

“You want to incriminate me. You want to incriminate me in this! You want to lock me away!”

“Chacaltana, calm down …”

Chacaltana did not calm down. He got up from the table and lunged at the captain. He grabbed him by the neck. Everything was so clear and so late. Now that he was lost, perhaps he would at least be able to take Pacheco to hell with him. He threw him to the floor and began to squeeze his neck, the way he remembered Mayta squeezing his. In the end, the killers are exchanging faces, he thought, they become confused with one another, they all turn into the same one, they multiply, like images in distorted mirrors. Pacheco tried to throw him off, but the prosecutor was too enraged. The captain was turning purple when the prosecutor felt the blow to his head. He tried to squeeze a little more as he felt himself losing consciousness, sinking into sleep, while everything around him turned into the same, single darkness.

The last dream Associate District Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar had before what subsequently occurred was very different from all his previous ones: there was no fire or blood or blows. There was only an enormous, peaceful field, an Andean landscape, perhaps. And a body lying in the middle of it. Little by little, slowly at first, then with increasing agility, the body was getting up until it stood on its feet. Then it could be seen clearly. A body made of different parts, a Frankenstein sewn with steel threads that did not close the seams very well, for clots and scabs were dripping from them. It had two different legs, and the arms did not correspond either. It had a woman's trunk. The sight of the body was macabre, but it did not seem to have a violent attitude. It limited itself to standing and recognizing itself gradually as it became aware of itself. What really startled the prosecutor came only at the end of the vision, when the monster finished standing, and on its shoulders the prosecutor saw his own head, trapped on that body he had not chosen, before the light became more and more intense until it blinded him completely in a luminous white darkness.

Then he awoke. Beside him, the bars of the cubicle were open. Two police officers extended their hands toward him and dragged him out. They shoved him into the captain's office and threw him at Pacheco's feet. The prosecutor thought that everything was over, that he would not even deserve a trial, that they would simply take him to one of the graves and that would be the end. Case closed, no terrorists here, and nothing ever happened. He thought about the grave almost with relief as he raised his head toward his captor.

“You have powerful friends, Señor Prosecutor,” said Pacheco. “Who's in this with you?”

The prosecutor did not understand the question. The captain looked furious.

“I shouldn't ask, right? Sometimes there are so many things you shouldn't ask that you no longer know which ones you can ask. Sometimes, Señor Prosecutor, I wonder who we're working for. Especially when I see you.”

The prosecutor began to stand. It seemed, in fact, that the body he inhabited was not his, that it was made of other people's parts, that someone had lent it to him to use like a marionette.

“Is it an Intelligence matter?” the captain asked again. “That's it, isn't it?”

The prosecutor did not respond. The captain seemed satisfied by his silence.

“Get out,” he said.

“What?”

He was certain he had misheard.

“Get out, I said! There's no record of your being here, Señor Prosecutor. You never came here. But know I won't be responsible for this, Chacaltana. And at the first opportunity, I'll cut you down. Take him away.”

Chacaltana tried to protest but did not know what to protest about. Then it occurred to him to ask something. Again, he did not know what. He let himself be dragged by the same officers to the door. The noise on the street seemed like a distant, vague memory. When they let him go on the corner of the square, his own legs felt strange, as if he had to grow accustomed to them. He wondered if the odor of punch and the sound of bands on the square were the sound of heaven. Or of hell.

He walked to his house. His whole body ached. When he arrived, he hurried to his mother's bedroom. He gathered all the photographs and placed them on the bed. Then he lit candles in the four corners of the room, as if he were performing a ceremony for his mother. He kneeled beside the bed and kissed the sheets. He caressed the wood of the canopy. He wept.

“I know what has happened, Mamacita. I know what they have done to me. A body is missing, you know? Tomorrow is Easter Sunday. And the head is missing. I am the head, Mamacita. Tonight they are going to kill me.”

He stayed there for several hours, wondering what death was like. Perhaps it was not all that terrible. Perhaps it was a soft bed with a wooden canopy. Perhaps it was simply nothing. Living in no one's memory, because everybody you knew was dead. He wondered when his killers would come for him. It was after midnight. He wondered if he would be safer in the cell at police headquarters. He laughed weakly at his own idea. He waited for them impatiently. He imagined the saw that would cut his neck. He thought of it passing with difficulty through his vertebrae, his veins. At a certain moment he grew annoyed, he wanted them to come and be done with it. He spent some time meditating, remembering isolated, chaotic images of his mother smiling at him, advising him, embracing him, waiting for him there where she was, where she had always been, in the fire. When he evoked the image of his mother emerging from the flames, an idea took shape in his mind. Perhaps all was not lost. Perhaps there was a place where he could be safe. Only one, the last one. He made a decision. Before acting on it, he kissed all the photographs of his mother one by one, in a kind of long, affectionate farewell on the sheets. Affectionately, he put out each of her candles. Then, with new energy, he returned to his room, took out the weapon, loaded it, placed it in the holster under his arm, and went out. He felt that perhaps he would not die that night.

He walked through the street festivities like a zombie, brushing against people who were dancing and singing. Sometimes those who saw him approach moved aside to let him pass. He understood that he did not look clean and decent. He did not think about it anymore. After walking for about ten minutes, he reached military headquarters. Perhaps because of the celebration, there were no guards at the door. And he did not see anyone inside. He pressed the intercom and the commander opened the door for him from his office. He sounded pleased to hear him. The prosecutor crossed the gloomy courtyard and climbed the wooden stairs that creaked beneath his feet. When he reached Commander Carrión's office, he went in without knocking. The commander was inside, packing a suitcase. When he saw the prosecutor, his face contracted into an expression of shock:

“Chacaltana. What the hell happened to you?”

“Don't you know?”

“Nobody tells me anything anymore, Chacaltana. My retirement has broken speed records.”

He said it sadly. He felt nostalgia in advance for the Ayacuchan horror. Chacaltana took a few steps forward and caught a glimpse of his reflection in a mirror in the office. He really did look awful. As if he had come out of a sewer. Or a mass grave.

“They accused me of the murders,” the prosecutor explained, “and then they let me go again. Strange, isn't it? These weeks have been very strange.”