Evelio Rosero - Feast of the Innocents

And when he understood, yes, that Platter Ilyich was following him, a pure peal of laughter burst from him, ringing in the night. Platter heard laughter above his head, but he did not know who it was.

“Floridita, we’re going to cover you in flour.”

“But today’s not January the sixth.”

“We’re going to flour you anyway.”

They were on one side of the children’s park. She did not know the three boys blocking her way. She could not remember them from anywhere but, somehow, they knew her name, and had said they were going to flour her — on the first of January, no less, when the carnival had not yet begun. She could not understand it: people painted their faces on the fifth, because it was Black Day, and they threw talc at each other’s faces on the sixth, because it was White Day. Why were these boys all around her on the first? What’s more, they did not even have the little bottles of scented talc she was familiar with, only grubby bags of flour. And they really were going to flour her, she thought, and if that flour went in her eyes she might go blind.

“If today was January the sixth, I would let you,” she told them. “But it isn’t. That’s why you can’t flour me either. Don’t you know what day it is? It’s Sunday, January the first.”

Above Pasto’s rooftops, crystal clear — pure, clear blue — the volcano Galeras rose up so close that it seemed to be listening.

Floridita walked off, and the three boys let her through, but they followed her, their hands in the tops of the open bags. She stopped again and faced them. The boys retreated, very slightly, not as she was hoping. She set off again, blushing, taking faster steps, and with faster steps the boys followed her. She checked there was no-one around who might help her. Then she confronted them one by one, her eyes glinting, lips compressed. For the first time in her life she had decided to go out of the house by herself, without her sister Luz de Luna, and this happened. For a moment she stood looking at the imposing silhouette of Galeras without really seeing it, and, when she did, it felt to her like it was coming down on top of them, that it would flatten them all; in the ruddy evening light it looked like a mountain of blood.

She set off. Her indifference cleared the way for her. But once more she heard:

“We’re going to flour you, don’t run away.”

“Who’s running?” she asked. And she paused again.

“Don’t cry now, Floridita,” the same boy said. Who was he? Did they know one another?

“Me, cry?” she asked, laughing, and her face immediately took on a scornful sneer: “Cry?”

Actually, yes. On the verge of it. And that boy had guessed it. She felt her legs trembling, but more than anything she felt unbounded rage that they might notice. What if they did flour her? With that flour in her hair, with it all over her face, how not to cry, she wondered.

And she broke into a run, heading further into the park. Her speedy dash left the boys standing; they were not expecting it; they thought she would give in, and they were wrong. Without thinking twice, they belted after Floridita. She had a good head start, but they managed to catch up with her by some tall eucalyptus trees; that is where they cornered her.

The boy who had spoken caught hold of her by the sleeve, at the same time as the others threw handfuls of flour — not just at Floridita, but at her captor.

“Not me, you idiots,” he yelled.

They seemed submerged in a dense fog, in clouds of fog, it was the flour smacking against her hair, her face; she closed her eyes and felt one of the boys — the one who had spoken? — no, it was all the boys, all their hands lifting her dress up to her neck; now she felt great lashings of flour under her clothes like mild stings. She began to cry and only then did the boy who had spoken let go of her. The others stopped throwing flour.

She was already moving away when she was halted by a tremendous clatter of wings in the sky, like applause. She and the boys raised their eyes: above, gliding over their heads, a flock of carrier pigeons was surging up, like the tip of a spear, then wheeling down like a circle, in dizzying hieroglyphics; now the flock seemed to brush against their heads, and swam up into the sky again, vertically, ascending; suddenly, it hung motionless for a few seconds, and, in a whirl of distress, with no order whatsoever, the birds tore off to seek out their pigeon lofts, or any protective niche in the walls. And all because, at the very instant the pigeons fled, there was a harsh, hungry cry of a hawk not far off; the children spotted it — a fast-moving smudge in the sky — and soon they could make it out above them: its broad, blunt wings, predatory beak, yellow eyes scanning for prey. The instant it shrieked, the pigeons scattered, to any roof, any roost, and the hawk’s cry cornered them again, terrifying them with its deadly raucousness. In a second, the sky was left empty of pigeons and the hawk kept on going, high in the sky, flying to the volcano; the volcano looked completely black now against the evening blue, a dark triangle silhouetted against the sky; the children remained looking at it as though it dazzled them; into the middle of its blackness the hawk vanished, swallowed up, just as the boy who had spoken appeared in Floridita’s memory: he was the steward Seráfico’s son, and those were his friends. What were they doing here? Shouldn’t they be watching the sheep? It was Toño, little Toñito, the boy she always saw around without really seeing him: at her birthday party he followed her all over the place, but only now was she able to see him.

“Now I know who you are,” she said, pointing at him. “You’re Toño, Seráfico’s son.”

“She’s recognized you,” the other boys chorused, terrified. Toño turned pale. Floridita ran away from them. But her voice was vengeful:

“I’ll get you back, you’ll see.”

Zulia Iscuandé saw her arrive home: she was a girl with the hair of an old woman, bright white, and she must have been floured all over because she ran along as if floating on white clouds. For some minutes Maestro Abril’s wife had been on the doorstep, without making up her mind to ring the bell. She wanted to speak to Doctor Proceso. The girl’s arrival brought her wavering to an end: when the door opened she would ask for the doctor.

Zulia Iscuandé took a step backwards; the girl, enveloped in the cloud of flour, which billowed around her at every step, not only pressed the bell without let-up, but gave the door a kick; the cloud got bigger, whiter still. Genoveva Sinfín opened the door. The girl went in like a wave, but when she heard her father being asked for she turned around, fuming.

“Papá isn’t here,” she shouted. “Doctor Donkey is never here.”

And she disappeared.

“How odd, my dear Zulia: the girl has told the truth this time,” Sinfín said. “Her father isn’t here. But wait for him, come in and have a coffee, just in case.”

The two women walked over the trail of flour Floridita had left, right through the house.

Doctor Justo Pastor Proceso López did not manage to get back home until January 4, in the early hours of the morning. Zulia Iscuandé was waiting for him at the front door, a persistent visitor for the past three days.

The doctor was returning from slaking a thirst that had lasted years: the widow had revived him. “You’ve turned me inside out, Chila,” he said on parting, “now I believe in another world.” They had entwined amorously in the most unexpected corners of the vast house — to occupy it, they said — and in truth they took the place apart with passion on a grand scale: upstairs and down, out the back, in every nook and cranny, on the roof terrace, with half of Pasto spying on them, including the secret poet.