Evelio Rosero - The Armies

“But he has done nothing,” she screams.

In any case, without hesitation, they aim at the man and fire, once, twice, three times, and then carry on walking, ignoring the mother, ignoring me; do they not want to see me? They stride away, with the mother behind them, arms flailing, her voice unhinged.

“There’s still God to kill yet,” she screeches at them.

“Tell us where he’s hiding, little lady,” they reply. She opens her mouth, when she hears them, as if gasping; then I see her doubt: should she kneel down by the body of her son, in case he is still alive, in case it is possible to comfort him in his last moment, or follow behind the men: her hand hangs from the rucksack of the last of them; with the other she points to her son’s body.

“Kill him again,” she screams and keeps screaming. “Why don’t you kill him again?”

I have sat down on the curb, and not because I want to play dead. The wind lifts swirls of dust again, the rain falls, softly. Somehow I stand up; I walk in the opposite direction from the mother, who screams the same thing, Kill him again . I hear another shot, the body falling. As when I came down from Maestro Claudino’s cabin, disgust and dizziness bend me over the ground; am I in front of my own house? It is my house, I think — or, at least, the place where I sleep, that is what I want to believe. I have just gone in, only to discover that it is not my house; all the rooms have been sealed. I go back outside. Another group of men jog past, not noticing me. I stand still, listening to them run.

At last I recognize a street, near what was once a guitar factory: I find Mauricio Rey’s house open, with no one inside, all of a sudden I am convinced I am alone in town. Celmiro will have died by now: you could feel it in the air, that is what I thought: they had all gone, those who were still alive and the murderers, not a soul — I caught myself thinking, and as soon as I thought it I heard from somewhere or from everywhere Hey’s cry. “He’s still here,” I said to myself, and the hope of finding someone reappeared.

I looked for the corner where Hey stood eternally selling his empanadas. I heard the cry and felt again the shiver because it seemed again that it came from all places, all things, even from inside me.

“Then it is possible that I am imagining the shout,” I said aloud, and heard my own voice as if it were someone else’s; it is your madness, Ismael, I said, and the wind followed the cry, a cold wind, different, and Hey’s corner appeared without my looking for it, on my way.

I did not see him: just the portable stove, in front of me, but the cry came again, Then I did not imagine the cry, I thought. The one who is shouting must be somewhere. Another cry, louder yet, was heard, within the corner, and multiplied with growing strength, an echo of a voice, sharp, forcing me to cover my ears. I saw the portable stove was quickly being covered by a film of red sand, a myriad of ants that zigzagged here and there, and, in the large copper frying pan, as if already before seeing it I had a premonition of it, half submerged in the cold black oil, as if petrified, Hey’s head: in the middle of his forehead a shiny cockroach appeared, as the cry appeared again: this must be madness, I thought, fleeing, knowing that the cry could not really be heard, but hearing it inside, real, real; I fled from the cry, physical, palpable, and kept hearing it lying at last in my house, on my bed, on my back, pillow over my face, covering my nose and my ears as if trying to smother myself to hear no more.

An unexpected quiet arrived, without peace: the silence all around.

It was not possible to guess what time it was, the darkness was growing, I closed my eyes: let them find me asleep, did they not kill me while I slept? But I could not get to sleep, I could not, though the earth might swallow me up. I would have to go out into the garden, look at the sky, imagine what time it might be, embrace the night, the course of things, the kitchen, the Survivors, the calm chair, to sleep again.

I went to the garden. There was still light in the sky: the saviour night was still distant.

“Geraldina,” I said aloud.

Now I supposed that on the other side of the wall I should find Geraldina, and, what was absurd, find her alive, in that I trusted: to locate Geraldina, and locate her, most of all, alive. To hear her live, in spite of the screams.

But I remembered another shout: her son had called her, the last time I saw her. I remembered that as I went through the wall; the grass had grown up around it.

There was the pool; I looked into it as into a pit: amid the dead leaves that the wind blew in there, amid the bird droppings, the scattered rubbish, near the petrified corpses of the macaws, incredibly pale, face down, lay Eusebito’s corpse and he was paler still because naked, his arms under his head, the blood like a thread seemed to still flow from his ear; a hen pecked about, the last hen, and she inexorably approached his face. My thoughts turned to Geraldina, and I headed for the wide-open glass door. A noise inside the house stopped me. I waited a few seconds and went on, up against the wall. Through the living room window I caught a glimpse of the profile of several men, all standing still, contemplating something with exaggerated attention, more than absorbed: gathered like parishioners in church at the hour of the Elevation. Behind them, behind their stone stillness, their shadows darkened the wall; what were they watching? Forgetting myself entirely, searching only for Geraldina, I found myself advancing toward them. Nobody took any notice of my presence; I stopped, like them, another stone sphinx, dark, emerging from the doorway.

Between the arms of a wicker rocking chair, was — fully open, exhausted — Geraldina naked, her head lolling from side to side, and on top of her one of the men embracing her, one of the men delving into Geraldina, one of the men was raping her: it still took me a while to realize it was Geraldina’s corpse, it was her corpse, exposed before these men who waited. Why do you not join them, Ismael? I listen to myself demean myself: why do you not explain to them how to rape a corpse? Or how to love? Is that not what you dreamt of? And I see myself lying in wait for Geraldina’s naked corpse, the nakedness of the corpse that still glows, imitating perfectly what could be Geraldina’s passionate embrace. These men, I thought, of whom I only saw the profiles of their deranged faces, these men must be waiting their turn, Ismael, are you too waiting for a turn? I have just asked myself that, before the corpse, while hearing her sound of a manipulated, inanimate doll — Geraldina possessed again, while the man is only a ferocious gesture, half-naked, why do you not go and tell him, not like that, why do you not go yourself and tell him how?

“O.K.,” one of the men shouts, lengthening his voice strangely. “Leave it.”

And another: “Let’s go.”

The three or four left do not respond, they are each an island, a drooling profile: I wonder if it is not my own profile, worse than looking in the mirror.

“Goodbye, Geraldina,” I say out loud, and leave.

I hear shouting at my back.

I have left by the front door. I walk toward my house, calmly walk along the street, not fleeing, not turning back to look, as if none of this were happening — while it happens — and I reach the doorknob of my house, my hands do not shake, the men shout at me not to go in.

“Freeze,” they shout, surrounding me.

I feel for a second that they even fear me, and they fear me now, just when I am more alone than ever.

“Your name,” they shout, “or you’re finished.”

Let it be finished, I only wanted, what did I want? To go inside and sleep.