Evelio Rosero - The Armies

“Who’s that? Who’s there?”

The voice is just the same: a husky wind, elongated.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s me. Ismael.”

“Ismael Pasos. Then you’re not dead.”

“I don’t think so.”

So we were thinking the same thing: that the other was dead.

I can only see him when he is a step away from me. He is wearing a sort of sheet around his waist; he still has his hair like little tufts of cotton; I can just make out his gleaming eyes in the night; I wonder if he can distinguish my eyes, or if only his eyes shine through the black night. The incomprehensible fear he caused me as a child returns again, fleetingly, but fear it was; I stand up and feel his hand on my arm, like wire, as thin and as tight.

He holds me up.

“What’s the matter?” he says. “Does your leg hurt?”

“My knee.”

“Let’s see.”

Now his wiry hands brush my knee.

“This had to happen for you to come to see me, Ismael. One more day and you wouldn’t be able to walk. Now we have to get the swelling down, for a start. Let’s go on up.”

He wants to help me walk up the hill. I am embarrassed. He must be close to a hundred.

“I can still manage.”

“Up you go, let’s see.”

The dog goes ahead of us; I hear him run, uphill, while I drag my leg.

“I thought they were going to kill me,” I tell him.

“I thought it was the war coming down on me.”

“You thought your time had come.”

“Yes. I thought I was dead.”

“That’s what I thought four years ago.”

His voice moves away, like his story.

“It was already late and I was in the hammock, taking off my shoes, when they appeared.

“‘Come with us,’ they said.

“I told them I didn’t mind, whenever they wanted, I told them all I asked was a bit of sugar water in the mornings.

“‘Don’t complain,’ they told me. ‘We’ll give or not give you whatever we feel like, depending on our mood.’

“That was a brutal walk; at full speed, as if the soldiers were closing in on them.

“‘And this one, who is he? Why did we bring him?’ one of them said.

“ None of them know me , I thought, and I didn’t know any one of them either, I’d never seen them in my life; their accents were from Antioquia; they were young and they climbed; I kept up with their pace, of course. They wanted to get rid of my dog, who was following us.

“‘Don’t shoot him,’ I said. ‘He obeys me. Tony, go home,’ I begged more than ordered him, pointing down the path toward the cabin, and this blessed Tony obeyed, lucky for him.”

“This same dog?”

“This one.”

“An obedient dog.”

“That was four years ago, the same day they took Marcos Saldarriaga.”

“Who could have imagined it, the very same day? Nobody told me that.”

“Because I never told anyone, to stay out of trouble.”

“Of course.”

“After walking all night, when it was starting to get light, we stopped in that place they call the Three Crosses.”

“They took you that far?”

“And I saw him there, sitting on the ground, Marcos Saldarriaga. They took him further, not me.”

“And how was he, what did he say?”

“He didn’t even recognize me.”

Maestro Claudino’s voice is pained:

“He was crying. Remember he is, or was, pretty fat, twice the size of his wife. He just couldn’t go on. They were looking for a mule to carry him. There was a woman as well: Carmina Lucero, the baker, remember her? From San Vicente, Otilia’s town. Otilia must know her, how is Otilia?”

“The same.”

“That means she’s still well. The last time I saw her was at the market. She was buying leeks, how did she cook them?”

“I don’t remember.”

“They took the baker too, poor thing.”

“Carmina?”

“Carmina Lucero. Someone told me she died in captivity, after two years. I still didn’t know who they were, whether they were guerrillas or paras. Nor did I ask them.

“The one in charge reprimanded the boys.

“He said: ‘Morons, what did you bring this old guy for? Who the fuck is he?’

“‘They say he’s a healer,’ one of them said.

“ So they do know me , I thought.

“‘Healer?’ the one in charge yelled. ‘What he wants is a doctor.’

“‘He?’ I thought. ‘Who is he?’ Must be someone in charge of the one in charge.

“But at that moment I heard the one in charge tell them: ‘Get rid of this old man.’

“And when he said Get rid of this old man a boy put the muzzle of his rifle to the back of my neck. That’s when I felt as you did a little while ago, Ismael.”

“That I was dead.”

“Thank God I still had the strength to be grateful that it wasn’t a machete on my neck, instead of that rifle. How many have they just slashed without even giving them a coup de grâce afterward?”

“Almost all of them.”

“All of them, Ismael.”

“It must be better to die of a gunshot than by machete. How was it they didn’t kill you?”

“The one in charge said to the boy: ‘I didn’t tell you to kill him, idiot.’ He said that, thank God. ‘He’s so old he’ll save us a bullet, or the effort,’ he said. ‘Get lost.’

“‘In any event,’ I answered him, and I still don’t know why I opened my mouth, ‘if I can help in some way, I won’t have come all this way for nothing. Who needs curing?’

“‘Nobody, old man. Get lost.’ And they kicked me out.

“I was starting to find my way, to come home, when they ordered me to return. Now the boys took me to where the ill man was, the real big boss. He was some way off lying in a tent. A girl, in military uniform, on her knees, was cutting his toenails.

“‘So?’ the boss said when he saw me arrive. ‘You’re the healer.’

“‘Yes, sir.’

“‘And how do you heal?’

“‘Tell them to bring an empty bottle, and urinate in it. There I’ll see.’

“‘The boss burst out laughing. But a moment later he became serious.’

“‘Take this skeleton away,’ he shouted. ‘What I can’t do is piss, for fuck’s sake.’

“I wanted to propose a different remedy, now that I knew what was wrong, but the man gestured with his hand and the girl who had been cutting his nails pushed me out of the tent with the butt of her rifle.”

“And they put a gun to you again?”

“No,” the Maestro’s voice turned bitter. “The boss missed his chance for help.”

“And what happened to Marcos Saldarriaga?”

“He stayed there, crying, and him such a proud man. It was pitiful. You couldn’t help but notice, not even the woman from the bakery was crying.”

I stopped. I wished I could do away with my leg. I wanted to be rid of that pain.

“Up, up, Ismael,” the Maestro said to me laughing. “We’re almost there.”

The cabin at last appeared around a corner, the light of a candle flickering in the only window, just when I was going to collapse on the ground, sleep, die, forget, whatever, anything not to feel my knee. He made me lie down in the hammock and went into the kitchen. I could see him. He put some roots on the stove to boil. I touched my face: I thought I was sweating from the heat. It was not the heat. At that hour, on the mountain — one of the highest in the range — it was cold. I had a fever. The dog would not let me sleep, he licked the sweat from my hands, put his paw on my chest; I’d catch sight of his eyes like two sparkling flames. The Maestro put a poultice on my knee and tied it in place with a strip of cloth.

“Now we have to wait,” he said, “an hour, at least.”

“Does Otilia know you came up here?”