Alessandro Baricco - Without Blood

Nina heard the burst of gunfire sweep the house, above her.

Then silence. And immediately afterward another burst, longer.

She kept her eyes open. She looked at the cracks in the floor. She looked at the light, and the dust that came from up there. Every so often she saw a shadow pass, and that was her father.

Salinas crawled over beside El Gurre, behind the woodpile.

“How long would it take Tito to get in?”

El Gurre shrugged his shoulders. He still had the sneer on his face. Salinas glanced at the farmhouse.

“We’ll never get in from here: either he does it or we’re in deep shit.”

El Gurre lighted the cigarette. He said that the kid was quick and could manage it. He said that he knew how to slither like a snake and that they would have to trust him.

“But we’ll need a little distraction.”

Manuel Roca saw El Gurre emerge from behind the woodpile and throw himself to the ground. From that position the machine-gun volley arrived punctually, prolonged. I’ve got to get out of here, Roca thought. Ammunition. First ammunition, then crawl to the kitchen and from there straight for the fields.

Wait. El Gurre isn’t stupid, he must have someone behind the house, too. But no one’s firing from that direction. If someone were there, he would be firing. Maybe El Gurre isn’t in charge.

Maybe it’s that coward Salinas. If it’s Salinas, I can handle it.

He doesn’t have a clue, that Salinas. Stay behind your desk, Salinas, it’s the only thing you know how to do. But first go screw yourself. First the ammunition.

El Gurre was shooting.

Ammunition. And money. Maybe I can take the money with me, too. I should have run immediately, that’s what I should have done. God damn. Now I’ve got to get out of here, if only he would stop for a second, where did he get a machine gun?

They have a car and a machine gun. Too much, Salinas.

The ammunition. Now the money.

El Gurre fired.

Nina heard the windows pulverize under the machine-gun shots.

Then leaves of silence between one burst and the next. In the silence, the shadow of her father crept between the glass. With one hand she adjusted her skirt. She was like an artisan intent on refining his work. Curled on her side, she began eliminating the imprecisions one by one. She lined up her feet until she felt her legs perfectly coupled, the two thighs softly joined, the knees like two cups one inside the other, the calves barely separated.

She checked the symmetry of her shoes, paired as if in a shop window, but on their sides, you might have said lying down, out of exhaustion. She liked that orderliness. If you are a shell, order is important. If you are shell and animal, everything has to be perfect. Precision will save you.

She heard the pounding of a long volley. And right afterward the voice of a boy.

“Put down the gun, Roca.”

Manuel Roca turned his head. He saw Tito standing a few yards away. He was pointing a pistol at him.

“Put down that gun and don’t move.”

From outside came another burst of gunfire. But the boy didn’t move, he stood there, gun pointed. Under that rain of shots, the two stood motionless, staring at each other, like a single animal that had stopped breathing. Manuel Roca, half lying on the ground, looked the boy in the eyes, as he stood there, in the open. He tried to comprehend if he was a child or a soldier, if it was his thousandth time or his first, and if there was a brain attached to that gun or only blind instinct. He saw the barrel of the gun tremble just perceptibly, as if it were making a tiny scribble in the air.

“Stay calm, kid,” he said.

Slowly he placed the rifle on the floor. With a kick he sent it sliding into the center of the room.

“Everything’s okay, kid,” he said.

Tito didn’t take his eyes off him.

“Quiet, Roca, and don’t move.”

Another blast arrived. El Gurre was working methodically.

The boy waited until he finished, without lowering his gun or his gaze. When silence returned, he glanced toward the window.

“SALINAS! I’VE GOT HIM. STOP IT, I’VE GOT HIM.”

And after a moment:

“It’s Tito. I’ve got him.”

“He’s done it. Shit,” said Salinas.

El Gurre made a kind of smile, without turning. He was observing the barrel of the machine gun as if he had carved it himself, in idle hours, from the branch of an ash tree.

Tito looked for them in the light from the window.

Slowly Manuel Roca got up just enough so that he could lean his back against the wall. He thought of the gun pressing into his side, stuck in his pants. He tried to remember if it was loaded.

He touched it with one hand. The boy didn’t notice anything.

Let’s go, Salinas said. They went around the stack of wood and headed straight for the farmhouse. Salinas walked slightly bent, as he had seen it done in films. He was ridiculous like all men who fight: without realizing it. They were crossing the farmyard when they heard, from inside, a gunshot.

El Gurre ran. He reached the door of the farmhouse and kicked it open. Three years earlier, he had kicked open the door of the stable, had entered and had seen his wife hanging from the ceiling, and his two daughters with their heads shaved, their thighs spattered with blood.

He kicked open the door and went in and saw Tito, pointing the gun toward a corner of the room.

“I had to do it. He has a gun,” the boy said.

El Gurre looked in the corner. Roca was lying on his back.

He was bleeding from one arm.

“I think he has a gun,” the boy said again. “Hidden somewhere,” he added.

El Gurre went over to Manuel Roca.

He looked at the wound in his arm. Then he looked the man in the face.

“Hello, Roca,” he said.

He placed one shoe on Roca’s wounded arm and began to crush it. Roca shrieked and folded over on himself in pain. The gun slid out of his pants. El Gurre leaned down to pick it up.

“You’re a smart kid,” he said. Tito nodded. He realized that he still had his arm extended in front of him, and the gun in his hand, pointed at Roca. He lowered it. He felt his two fingers relax around the trigger of the pistol. His whole hand hurt, as if he had been punching a wall. Stay calm, he thought.

Nina remembered the song that began: Count the clouds, the time will come. Then something about an eagle. And it ended with the numbers, one after another, from one to ten. But you could also count to a hundred, or a thousand. She had once counted to two hundred and forty-three. She thought that now she would get up and go and see who those men were and what they wanted. If she couldn’t open the trapdoor, she would cry out, and her father would come to get her. But instead she stayed like that, lying on her side, her knees pulled up to her chest, her shoes balanced one on top of the other, her cheek feeling the cool of the earth through the rough wool of the blanket. She began to sing the song, in a thin voice. Count the clouds, the time will come. And then a voice.

“We meet again, Doctor,” Salinas said.

Manuel Roca looked at him without speaking. He pressed a rag against the wound. They had made him sit in the middle of the room, on a wooden chest. El Gurre was behind him, somewhere, gripping his machine gun. They had stationed the boy, Tito, at the door, to see that no one arrived, outside, and every so often he turned, and looked at what was happening in the room. Salinas walked back and forth. A lighted cigarette between his fingers. French.