Evelio Rosero: The Armies

“No.”

“Oh, she’s going to scold you, Ismael.”

And he gave me a gourd of cane liquor to drink.

“It’s strong,” I said. “I’d rather have coffee.”

“Absolutely not. You have to drink it, so your soul will sleep and you won’t feel anything.”

“I’ll be drunk.”

“No. You’re just going to have a waking sleep, but you must drink it down in one gulp, not in little sips.”

With trust I drank the contents of the gourd. I do not know how much time passed, nor when the pain disappeared, along with the swelling. Maestro Claudino squatted, looking at the night. His old tiple guitar was hanging on one of the walls. The dog had gone to sleep, curled up at his feet.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” I said. “I can go now.”

“No, Ismael. The best is yet to come.”

And he brought a stool up beside the hammock and made me stretch out my leg to rest on it. Then he stood astride my leg, but without putting any weight on it, just pinning it between his knees.

“Bite on a piece of your shirt, if you want, Ismael, so you won’t hear yourself scream,” and I shuddered, remembering his cures, which I had witnessed on occasion, but never experienced in my own flesh: dislocated elbows, necks, ankles, fingers, thrown-out backs, broken legs, and I remembered how his patients had screamed, how the walls had rocked.

As soon as I had clenched the sleeve of my shirt in my teeth his wiry fingers alighted on my knee like birds’ talons, felt around, recognized it and, all of a sudden, squeezed, grabbing the bone or the bones and I do not know when or how they opened and closed the knee, as if putting together the pieces of that puzzle of bone and cartilage that was my knee, that was me, worse than the dentist, I got as far as thinking, and though I bit the shirt I could hear my scream.

“That’s it.”

I looked at him stunned, trembling with fever.

“I should have another shot of liquor.”

“No.”

The pain had disappeared, there was no pain. Very gingerly I began to lower myself out of the hammock and, still not believing it, stood up and put weight on my leg. Nothing. No pain. I walked, from here to there, from there to here.

“It’s a miracle,” I said.

“No. It’s me.”

I felt like running, like a foal finally standing up.

“You still have to take it easy, Ismael. You have to let it rest for three days, for the bones to set. Try to go down slowly, don’t be foolhardy.”

“How much do I owe you, Maestro,” and, again, I did not know if I was going to cry or laugh.

“Bring a hen, when you’re quite better. It’s been a long time since I’ve tasted a chicken stew, since I’ve talked to a friend.”

I took my time going down the bridle path. No pain. I turned around to look: Maestro Claudino and his dog were standing there watching me. I waved goodbye, and went on.

She was waiting for me, sitting in her chair by the front door. It was after midnight and there were no lights on.

“Sooner or later you were bound to come back,” she said.

“How was it, Otilia? What did I miss?”

“Everything.”

She did not even ask me where I had been. Nor did I wish to talk about Maestro Claudino and my knee. She turned on the light in the bedroom and we lay down on the bed, on top of the covers. She had given me a plate of stuffed pork and a cup of coffee.

“So you don’t fall asleep,” she said. And explained: “Hortensia Galindo sent you the pork. I had to make excuses for you, say you weren’t well, that your legs were hurting you.”

“My left knee.” And I began to eat hungrily.

“Father Albornoz didn’t go,” she told me. “He didn’t go to Hortensia’s. And nobody cared. The mayor arrived without his wife, without his children, Dr. Orduz, Captain Berrío, Mauricio Rey, drunk but calm.”

“And the youngsters? Did the young people have a party?”

“There was no party.”

“Really? The girls didn’t dance?”

“There wasn’t a single girl on the patio. They’ve all gone in this past year.”

“All of them?”

“All the girls and all the boys, Ismael.” She gave me a reproachful look. “The most sensible thing they could do.”

“It won’t be any better elsewhere.”

“They had to leave to find out.”

Otilia went to the kitchen and came back with another cup of coffee. This time she did not lie down beside me. She drank her coffee and stared blindly out of the window. What could she see? It was night time; we could hear only the cicadas.

“And she turned up,” she said.

“Who?”

“Gloria Dorado.”

I waited.

And eventually: “With a letter that she had received from Marcos Saldarriaga two years ago; she turned up to say that she thought perhaps that letter would help to get him freed. And she put it on a table.”

“On a table?”

“In front of Hortensia Galindo.

“‘I cannot possibly read this,’ said Hortensia as she picked it up. But she read out loud: My name is Marcos Saldarriaga. I am writing this in my own hand. ”

“She read that?”

“‘I recognize his handwriting,’ Hortensia said.”

“And? No one said anything?”

“No one. She just kept reading. It was as if she was listening herself, unable to believe it, but with no choice but to believe it. In that letter Marcos Saldarriaga asked Gloria Dorado, of all people, to make sure Hortensia was never allowed to take charge of his liberation. Hortensia would like to see me dead , Hortensia Galindo read out loud, her voice steady. She was strong enough to read it.”

“Damn me.”

“She was reading the words of a madman, that’s what I thought, at first. Not even a madman would take it into his head to make so many enemies in such a way, starting with his wife. In that letter Marcos spoke ill of everyone, even Father Albornoz, whitewashed sepulchre, he called him, said that everyone wanted to see him dead, from that hypocrite Mauricio Rey right the way down to the Mayor, betrayer of his people, by way of General Palacios, that bird breeder, he called him, and Dr. Orduz: pigheaded quack. He begged Gloria Dorado not to let the people of his town negotiate his liberty, for the opposite would happen, they would do things backward, and so backward that sooner or later he would turn up dead at the side of a road.”

“Well, he hasn’t turned up yet, either dead or alive.”

“And still Hortensia read, without her voice breaking: Make this public, so the world will know the truth: they want to kill me, those who say they want to liberate me every bit as much as those who are holding me prisoner . This last bit etched itself in my memory because that was when I realized that Marcos had already given himself up for dead, that he wasn’t mad and that he was telling the truth, the truth that comes only from desperation, as told by one who knows his death is near, so why lie? The man who lies at the hour of his death is not a man.”

“And no one said anything? How could everybody keep quiet?”

“They all wanted to hear something worse.”

We heard the buzzing of an insect in the room; it flew around the light bulb, crossed between our gazes, landed on the crucifix above the bed, then on the head of the old wooden Saint Anthony, a sort of altar in the corner, and finally flew away.

“I too am somewhat pleased, I confess, that Marcos Saldarriaga has disappeared,” I dared to tell Otilia.

“There are things we should not say aloud, not even to those who love us most. They are the things that cause walls to listen, Ismael, understand?”

I laughed.

“Everyone knows those things, long before the walls do,” I told her.