The Enlightened Army

by David Toscana

  Milagro, seated silently on the shaft of the cart, looks before him; he knows his situation is worse than rolling over in a gray car. It’s time to get Cerillo back to the land that gave him birth, Azucena says. Ubaldo sees him snuggled down in the wool blankets. We’ll tie the flag around him like a cape, she says, that way we’ll throw him gently, he’ll fly away from the water’s edge and come down slowly, without waking up. Comodoro casts another stone with such accuracy that it hits the mule in the mouth; the mule gets up and begins to walk toward the riverbank. The enlightened ones stare in astonishment at its legs, free of bites.

  Minutes later everybody’s on board the cart. The sound of the river can no longer be heard. They travel along a road that points north. They look at the landscape as they move along in silence; they will never speak of that episode in which they felt death so close.

  The office is dark, thanks to some thick, closed curtains that keep the midafternoon sun out; the noise and the clacking of typewriters increases every time someone opens the door, something that hasn’t happened for a while. The metal desk contains a half-consumed glass of pop, a grease-stained paper plate, and a balled-up napkin; there’s also a lighted cigarette in an ashtray. The walls are hung with newspaper clippings about robberies and assassinations; one of them shows a photograph of a facedown bleeding body in black and white. Agent Álvarez is resting his elbows on the desk and leans forward to instill fear in Caralampio. They tell me I shouldn’t interrogate someone like you, that only a psychologist should ask you questions, that following normal procedure with you can lead to serious problems in your development, but nevertheless it’s your fault there are some kids missing and it’s my responsibility to find them safe and sound, although right now I’m not sure whether that’s possible. Caralampio is not paying much attention, because for some time he’s been watching the cigarette on the lip of the ashtray. Agent Álvarez took only one draw on it after he lit it; now it has a long tail of ashes that threatens to break apart at any moment. The speech of Agent Álvarez, about justice, which should treat everyone equally, is barely an echo in the office. It’s not going to do you any good to hide behind that innocent face, understand that your classmates could now be in the hands of a pervert, understand that anything that happens to them is as though you were doing it, and understand most of all that your classmates include a young girl and the worst things could happen to her. Caralampio closes his eyes for a few seconds; he tells himself when he opens them the ash will have fallen. He counts from one to ten and opens them. The smoke continues to rise in a straight line for a few centimeters and then fades into a cloud. The cigarette is now half ash. Caralampio wonders about a world record. His father also smokes and sometimes he forgets and sets his cigarette down wherever, but the slightest breeze comes along and breaks up the ashes, or Caralampio gets anxious and breaks it with his finger. He supposes that the office must be closed tight and, although he attempts to control his impatience, in an instant of weakness, he reaches his hand toward the ashtray. Sit still, Agent Álvarez tells him, cross your arms, you only have permission here to tell me where your classmates are, why you had a pistol in your schoolbag, what you intended to do with it, if you already had someone in mind or you were only going to shoot at random to see what you’d hit, what was the purpose of the bag of rat poison. Too many questions, Caralampio thought, and rudely put, without a hand resting on his shoulder or pushing back the shock of hair that fell over his forehead, without the kind voice of the teacher who gave him complete freedom to express himself; tell me what you’re thinking, Caralampio, and he tells her about a man who made himself invisible on television and drank tea, and you could see the cup in midair; draw a picture for me of the place where your friends are, and he draws a battlefield with explosions and various dead bodies. The teacher picks up the drawing and speaks in a whisper to the director of the institute; look at this atrocity, it’s obvious Caralampio is going through a crisis, maybe his mother hits him, the battle scene represents family violence, the explosions are the verbal insults, and this man who’s giving orders must be his father; look at the boy in the trench, it surely must represent himself, beaten down, belittled, attempting to hide from the world. The teacher smiles and tries for a soft voice and says, very well, Caralampio, I’m now going to give you a word and you tell me the first thing that comes to your mind; she says cat, he replies guitar. But Agent Álvarez does not attempt to play friendly, he smells of onion and smiles like the bad guys in the comic books when he says we can stay here all day and all night and you won’t see your mother until you answer my questions. Caralampio can’t stand it any longer; he starts jumping around to make the floor vibrate; he jumps as high as he can and locks his legs stiff when he comes down. After several attempts, the ash crumbles. Yes, Caralampio cries out, I did it, better than since the beginning of time, and starts to run in happy circles until he gets dizzy and falls. He moves his arms and legs on the floor like a runner, which makes him keep twirling, using his hips like an axis. He hums a happy song and keeps going even when his head bangs into the walls and the feet of the furniture. Agent Álvarez sucks on his cigarette and admits that this kid can’t be interrogated in due and proper form.

  Milagro nods off with the reins in his hands, it’s hard for him to keep his eye on the road and he wonders if this is his responsibility or if the mule on its own takes on the details of the journey. The answer comes with a jab to his arm. Wake up, Ubaldo tells him, you’re just like your father, you want us to fall down a ravine at the kilometer thirty-six post, in the end we all die and you experience a second miracle, and once you’ve demonstrated that plunging down a ravine leaves you without a scratch you’ll earn a living going over waterfalls in a barrel. The champion of the fatherland turned into a circus performer: more’s the pity for our fatherland. I need someone to take over, Milagro says, Cerillo isn’t the only one who has to sleep. Ubaldo takes the reins nervously, thinking about all kinds of risks, like a runaway mule who kicks up so much dust that it’s impossible to follow the road; the wheels beginning to crack, making imminent the point at which they will crumble; a sprawl of bodies lying on the road; the mule reaching the Alamo alone and the unhappy Milagro raising his fists and shouting I’m a miracle. But those aren’t the risks that most bother him. He turns around and calls out to Comodoro. I’ve seen that someone should lead the way, thus discovering firsthand the dangers that threaten the troop; in case of an ambush they only shoot at him, he notifies us if there’s a bridge that’s out before it’s too late to brake and, above all else, he’s the first to fall into the quicksand. Comodoro is on the verge of refusing. Although he trusts in his boots he doesn’t consider them so prodigious that they would leave his feet unwounded in the event that he stepped on a mine; nevertheless he discovers that Azucena is following the conversation and looking at him with dreamy eyes. He grabs a rifle and sits down on the back edge of the cart; one, two, three he counts and flexes his backside so he can jump off the cart. He stumbles as he hits the ground, but succeeds in keeping himself upright. He immediately hastens his squeaky trot until he’s in the lead. Hurry up, Azucena tells him when she sees the mule is about to catch up with him. Comodoro speeds up for a few seconds, but only for a few seconds because exhaustion overtakes him and the animal is once again nipping at his heels. Move over, Ubaldo shouts at him, unable to brake. This rifle is heavy, Comodoro babbles. Taking advantage of how close he is to Comodoro, Ubaldo gives him a piece of advice: if you fall in quicksand, stay still, don’t try to jump out because you’ll only sink deeper; wait for us to toss you a rope. Even if you sink in over your head, hold your hands up, don’t lose hope. Comodoro tries once again to overtake the mule. He’s upset his rubber boots don’t make him go any faster or put him beyond reach. It must be a horrible death, Azucena says under her breath so that only Ubaldo can hear her; he never uses the handrails at the institute because his hands can’t sustain his weight. No matter how much rope we throw him, Comodoro will sink. Th
e moment in which the sand swallows him up we’ve got to shoot him, thereby saving him from darkness and despair, since nature will have saved us from providing a grave. Five minutes later, Comodoro has been hopelessly left behind by the cart, which second by second pulls farther ahead; he feels himself passing out while begging for someone to take note of his absence, someone to stop the mule or, for the love of God, someone to remember the oath they took to the soldier’s manifesto.

  Fatso Comodoro opens his eyes when he hears some nearby feet; he feels his mouth dry, his breath burning his chest. He’s gone beyond the moment in which his heart was about to stop. I’m not dead yet, comrades, but almost. And the rifle? Ubaldo asks. I had to drop it back there, I don’t know how far back. Milagro goes for it while Azucena pours water on Comodoro’s forehead. He’s lying on his back in the middle of the road, his arms outstretched and his face flushed, especially his cheeks. I’m going to count to ten, Ubaldo says to him, if you don’t get up we’ll leave without you. Comodoro rolls over because he’s got to get on his hands and knees before he can stand up. Once he’s resting on his hands and knees, he maintains that position while he breathes in and gathers his strength. Yet his muscles feel like jello, incapable of completing the task. Please, Azucena, ask Ubaldo to count slowly.

  In the distance they make out a man advancing toward them. What do we do? Milagro says. Ubaldo evaluates the situation and makes a plan. Don’t stop the cart, just keep going like nothing’s happening, hum a tune, read a magazine, perhaps we can go unnoticed, like tourists; the point is not to call attention to ourselves or shed blood until we reach the Alamo, but if the guy turns aggressive, we can jump him and discreetly strangle him. Cerillo has to go to the bathroom, Azucena says. Tell him to hold it, Milagro orders. The distance between them is shrinking little by little; Comodoro begins to sweat because he knows he’ll be the one to have to jump the man. He’s carrying something on his arm, Ubaldo sharpens his sight, maybe it’s a gun. Milagro feels tempted to yank the reins, to order the mule to change course; he doesn’t want to meet up with the man because now he thinks he must be a more advanced soldier, one doing what Comodoro was incapable of doing, and behind him there are three infantry regiments at the ready. Cerillo can’t hold it any longer, Azucena insists. Tell him to pee over the edge, because we’re not going to stop. Fortunately the road is flat and Cerillo is able to keep his balance as he stands to the far right and lowers his white shorts. Comodoro clenches his fists and his teeth in the face of the imminent encounter with the man. Ubaldo rummages around in his schoolbag until he finds his corkscrew; you grab him by the neck and I’ll twist this into his head. The moment comes when their paths cross. The man comes upon the peeing white cherubim from the San Sebastián church, casts aside his hoe and falls to his knees with his head bent over. Shall we kill him? Comodoro asks. The cart passes on by, Cerillo’s stream becomes intermittent, and the man remains in his pious pose. Let him live, Ubaldo says, he looks like a man of peace.

  Today Arechavaleta works for a textile company, where he calls himself chief of operations and speaks with satisfaction about being in charge of more than three hundred employees and says that last year he was responsible for implementing a new weaving process; he’s married to a woman whom he calls my life and who gave him three children, none of whom attend the Colegio Francomexicano. The problem is they don’t teach English, he explains, and these days English is more important than Spanish, it’s the language of business, and he utters the phrase with all the self-satisfaction of a wise man, just as he did when he used to utter stupidities in class. He says he vaguely remembers Matus and claims he has no idea of why he stopped teaching. He sees his cup is empty and presses a button to ask his secretary to bring him coffee. Where were we? he asks, and after remaining silent while the secretary comes in and serves him, he answers himself. Oh, yes, Matus, he was a good man.

  Despite having aged prematurely, the chief of operations retains a marked resemblance to the child in the yearbook. And just like back then, you want to smash him in the face.

  Milagro stops the cart on a path lined with mesquites and whistles for his companions, who are dozing in the back of the cart. There’s a large old two-story house with crumbling walls at the end of the path. The enlightened ones emerge from their lethargy and lift their heads up. The building is symmetrical, with a double door in the middle, a balcony over the door, and a pair of grated windows on each side, two above and two below. On the roof, over the balcony, there’s a concrete cross that’s been weathered by the years. Comodoro studies the house and swears he can hear a chorus of hallelujahs descending from the heavens. The Alamo, he says, we’ve made it. And what did you expect? Milagro demands, I’ve been driving the cart. Cerillo looks around him, he sees that it is too early to get up and snuggles back down. What do we do now? Azucena asks. Milagro shrugs. Ubaldo climbs up on the driver’s seat and addresses the others. I’ve seen this many times. We’ve got to send two volunteers to surround the Alamo on opposite sides, they can’t carry firearms, only knives. You’ve got to take the guards from behind and strike them with the edge of your hand on the shoulder so they pass out, or in extreme cases, cover their mouths and drag them off into the shadows to stab them to death. Once we’ve cleaned the exterior, we can charge the door and shoot right and left. Who’s coming with me? Ubaldo asks and Comodoro hesitates as he imagines a gigantic guard with shoulders beyond his reach. Milagro raises his hand and Azucena kisses him on the cheek. The rest of you get your rifles, Ubaldo says, and only go into action if something goes wrong. Azucena hands a rifle to Cerillo, who hugs it like it was a stuffed bear; she takes his index finger and puts it on the trigger. Comodoro puffs his chest up and takes aim at the door. He watches the two valiant warriors walk off. He’ll have to shoot if something doesn’t go right, but if that something is the soundless death of his comrades behind the Alamo, his firing will come too late and miss the mark. He knows he needs to keep looking straight ahead, his obligation is to provide cover for his companions, and yet he is assaulted by the image of a man behind him, drawing a dagger from its sheath. Help me, Immaculate Lady, help me, goddess of just wars.