“Dax,” he said, his voice unnaturally harsh in the muted cemetery.
The director nodded. “Dax,” he repeated in a satisfied voice.
The laborer with the pickax nodded also. There was a sound of pleasure in his voice. “Dax.” He spat into the dust at his feet.
The laborer on the ladder held out his hand. “El pico.”
The other laborer handed the small pickax up to him. With a tight expert blow the man on the ladder sent the pickax smashing into the dead center of the concrete block. It splintered in radiating lines tearing through the chiseled lettering in all directions just as the sun crossed the corner of the overhang. The laborer cursed at the sudden sun and pulled his hat down over his eyes. He slammed the pickax into the cement again. This time the stone broke through and pieces came flying down, rattling against the cobblestones.
The journalist looked at the director. He was watching the laborers but it was evident he wasn’t much interested in what they were doing. He seemed bored with the whole thing. It was just another job. He turned as the journalist came up to him.
“Dónde están los otros?” the journalist asked in his hesitant Spanish.
The man shrugged his shoulders. “No están los otros.”
“Ero, en la prensa—” The journalist stopped. He had almost reached the limit of his Spanish. “Habla inglés?”
The director smiled proudly. “Sí. Yes,” he hissed sibilantly. “At your service.”
“I saw the notice in the newspaper,” the journalist said with a feeling of relief. “I thought there would be others.”
“There are no others,” the director said.
“But… who placed the notice? Surely there must be someone. He was a very famous man. Muy famoso.”
“The office put in the notice. The time has long passed for someone to claim the body. There are others waiting for this space. The city is growing. We are very overcrowded. You can see.”
“I can see,” the journalist said. He hesitated. “Wasn’t there anyone? Family. Or friends. He had many friends.”
A veil came across the man’s eyes. “The dead are alone.”
A muttered cry came from the laborer on the ladder. They turned to look up at him. He had broken through the cement façade and through it could be seen the discolored, termite-ridden wood of the coffin. Now, using the edge of the pickax as a lever, he pried out the remaining pieces of cement from the vault. He lowered the pickax to his assistant and brushed away the final crumbs of cement with his hand. He reached inside the vault and began to pull out the coffin.
The journalist turned back to the director. “What will you do with him now?”
“He will go to the fire,” the director answered. “It will be very quick. By now there is nothing left but bones.”
“And then?”
The director shrugged. “Since no one has come for him, the ashes will be placed with others in the cart and sent to fill in the land we are reclaiming from the swamp.”
The coffin was lying on the narrow strip of cement next to the building. The director walked over and looked down. He brushed his hand over a small metal plate on the cover. He checked the lettering on the plate with the paper in his hand. “Verificado,” he said.
He looked up at the journalist. “You want to look in the coffin?”
“No.” The journalist shook his head.
“You do not mind then?” the director asked. “When there is no family to pay, the men are allowed to—”
“I understand,” the journalist said quickly. He turned away as the men began to lift the coffin lid. He took out a cigarette and lit it. He heard the soft murmur as the men discussed what they found and how it was to be divided. Then there was a muttered curse and the sounds of the lid being nailed back.
The director came back to him. “The men are very disappointed,” he said. “There was nothing but a few gold fillings in his teeth and this ring.”
The journalist looked down at the ring in the man’s hand. It was encrusted with grime.
“I have taken the ring,” the director said, “and let them have the fillings. The ring is valuable, no?” He took a grimy handkerchief from his pocket and cleaned it, then held it in the palm of his hand.
The journalist looked down at it. It was gold with a crimson facing stone. He picked it up and read the familiar lettering. It was a Harvard class ring, year of 1939. “Yes,” he said. “It’s valuable.”
“Ten U.S. dollars?” the director asked.
It took a moment before the journalist realized that he was being offered the ring. He nodded. “Ten U.S. dollars.” He took the bill out of his pocket.
“Gracias,” the director said.
The journalist put the ring in his pocket. They turned toward the laborers. The coffin was already on the wagon.
The director looked at him. “Vámonos. We go now to the fire.” He climbed up on the wagon and gestured to the space on the seat beside him.
The sun was hotter now than it had been when he first came into the cemetery and even the faint breeze afforded no relief. The journalist’s shirt was wet through to his jacket. They moved through the cemetery in silence. It was almost twenty minutes before they reached the flat dull-gray building that served as the crematorium.
There was a faint smell of smoke in the air as the journalist climbed down from the wagon. He followed the director and the two laborers as they carried the coffin through the wide entranceway.
Once inside he was surprised to see there was no roof; only the sky and the hot sun above. There were six stone open-topped furnaces placed in a circle within the walls of the building. Over each the air shimmered and danced with the heat contained within. A man in a dusty ash-covered gray coat came up to them. “Verificado?”
The director nodded and gave him the slip of white paper. “Verificado.”
“Sí,” the man answered. He gestured to the laborers. “A las uno.”
The laborers walked to the nearest stone furnace and slid the coffin into it. They turned and left the building.
The director took the journalist’s arm and they moved over to the furnace. The coffin rested on smoke-blackened steel bars; underneath was what seemed to be a fine wire netting. “For the ashes, no?” the director said.
The journalist nodded.
The man in the gray coat was watching.
The director tugged at the journalist’s sleeve. “He expects ten pesos for his work. It is the custom.”
The journalist reached into his pocket and held out a bill.
The man’s teeth flashed whitely in his swarthy face. “Gracias.”
He gestured toward them and, still following the pressure on his arm, the reporter moved back until they were against the far wall. Then the man in the gray coat began to pump the bellows.
There was a faint rumble in the furnace at first, then the rumble turned quickly into a roar. It felt as if thunder were confined in the little box, but still there were no flames visible. The coffin seemed merely to shimmer in the waves of hot air. Then suddenly the man pulled a lever and for a moment it seemed as if all the fires of hell suddenly leaped up.
The journalist felt the intense blast of heat against his face, but only for a moment, then the flames were gone and the coffin seemed to disintegrate into gray dust and settle slowly into the furnace.
The director tugged at his sleeve. “We will go outside and smoke a cigarette. Before we are finished, he will bring the ashes.”
The hot sun seemed cool compared to the heat he had felt inside. He offered the director a cigarette. The man took it in that delicate manner some Latin Americans have and quickly offered a light to the journalist’s cigarette, then to his own. They smoked in silence.
The director was right. They hadn’t finished their cigarettes when the man came out with a small gray ceramic urn. He looked at the director.
“The urn is five pesos,” the director murmured apologetically.
The journalist found a f
ive-peso coin in his pocket. The man nodded his thanks again and offered the urn to the director.
“Now we go to the wagon,” the director said. He led the way around to the back of the building. There a small wagon stood, with a sleepy-eyed burro before it. It was filled with dirt and refuse and flies were buzzing around it. “We empty the ashes here.”
The reporter started at it. Something inside him was suddenly sick. “Is there no other place?”
The director stared at him. He nodded. “There is a farm across the road. For five pesos the farmer will let us scatter the ashes there.”
“We will go there.”
He followed the director across a field, then over the road. It was a field of potatoes and the farmer who appeared seemingly came from the ground in which they were growing. He vanished as quickly as he received the five-peso coin.
The director held out the urn. “Señor?”
The journalist shook his head.
“You knew him, señor?” the director asked.
“Yes,” the reporter said. “I knew him.”
The director removed the cover from the urn and with a practiced twist of his wrist scattered the ashes to the wind. Silently they watched the wind scatter them across the field.
“It’s all wrong,” the journalist said suddenly. “It’s all wrong.”
“Por qué, señor?”
“This was a strong man,” the journalist said. “The earth moved before him when he walked, men loved him and feared him, women trembled at the power in his loins, people sought his favors. And now there is no one here who remembers him.” He began to turn away. “You were right. The dead are alone.”
The director caught at his sleeve again. The journalist turned to face him. He felt weary and tired. He wanted to be back in the bar at the new hotel with a tall cool drink. He wished he hadn’t found the notice, hadn’t come out in the terrible sun to this horrible place, to this world without memory.
“No, señor,” the director said softly. “I was wrong. He was not alone. You were here.”
VII
Book One: VIOLENCE and POWER
53
I was playing in the hot sun of the front yard when I heard the first thin scream from far down the road toward town. My dog heard it too, for suddenly he stopped frisking around me and the little adobe hut I was trying to build in the hard-baked dirt. He looked up at me, his eyes white and frightened, his yellow tail curving protectively against his testes. He stood very still and began to tremble.
“Quién es?” I asked, my hand reaching to soothe him. I knew he was frightened but I didn’t know why. The scream had been eerie and curiously disturbing but I wasn’t frightened. Fear is something that has to be learned. I was still too young. I was six years old.
There was the rattle of gunfire in the distance. It quickly died away and then came the sound of another scream, this one louder and more terrified than the first.
The dog broke and raced away to the cane field, ears flat against his head. I ran after him, screaming, “Perro! Perro! Venga aqúi!”
By the time I reached the edge of the field he was already gone. I stood very still, trying to locate him by sound amidst the heavy stalks.
“Perro!” I shouted.
He did not come back. The sugarcane rustled slightly in the warm breeze. I could smell its pungent sweetness. It had rained last night and the sugar was wet and heavy in the stalks. Suddenly I was aware that I was alone.
The workmen who were there only a few minutes ago were gone. They had vanished like the dog. I stood there thinking that my father would be very angry with them. At ten centavos an hour, he expected each of them to give him a full measure of work.
“Dax!”
The scream came from the house behind me. I turned around. My older sister and one of the kitchen girls were standing on the galería along the front of the house.
“Dax! Dax!” my sister screamed, her arm waving.
“The dog ran into the cane,” I shouted back, and turned once more to look into the field.
A moment later I heard her footsteps behind me and before I could turn around she had scooped me up in her arms and was running back toward the house. I could hear her labored breath against my ear and the sobbing husky murmur of her voice, “Ah, Dios! Dios!”
My mother was at the doorway even before we reached the galería. “Quickly. A la bodega!” she hissed. “The wine cellar.”
We pushed through the doorway. La Perla, the fat Indian cook, was standing behind my mother. She took me from my sister and began to hurry through the house to the pantry off the kitchen. Behind us I heard the click of the heavy bolt on the front door.
“What is it, La Perla?” I asked. “Dónde está Papá?”
She held me tighter to her heavy bosom. “Shh, niño.”
The pantry door was open and we clattered down the cellar steps. The other servants were there already, their faces dark and frightened in the shadows cast by the small candle burning on top of a wine barrel.
La Perla set me down on a small bench. “Now sit there and be quiet!”
I looked up at her. This was fun, I thought, more fun than playing in the yard. It was a new kind of game.
La Perla hastened up the stairs again. I could hear her hoarse voice shouting above me. A moment later my sister came down, and there were tears running down her cheeks. She ran over to me and put her arms around my neck and pulled my head down to her chest.
I pulled away angrily. Her chest hurt my face. It was bony. It wasn’t comforting and soft and warm like La Perla’s.
“Leave me alone,” I said.
My mother came down the steps, her face drawn and thin. I heard the sound of the heavy cellar door being slammed and bolted, and then La Perla came too, her face red from the exertion. In her hand she held a huge cleaver, the one she used to chop off the heads of the chickens.
Mother looked down at me. “Are you all right?”
“Sí, Mamá,” I said. “But Perro ran away. He ran into the cane field. I couldn’t find him.”
But she wasn’t listening. She was trying to hear any sounds from the outside. It was a waste of time. No sound could penetrate this far into the ground.
One of the servant girls suddenly began to cry hysterically.
“Shut up!” La Perla hissed, with a threatening gesture of the cleaver. “Do you want them to hear us? Do you want to get us all killed?”
The girl shut up. I was glad that La Perla had made her because my sister stopped crying too. I didn’t like her to cry. Her face gets all ugly and red.
I held my breath and tried to listen. I could hear nothing. “Mamá—”
“Quiet, Dax,” she whispered sternly.
I had a question to ask. “Where’s Papá?”
At that my sister began to cry again.
“Shut up!” my mother hissed, then turned to me. “Papá will be here in a little while. But we must be very quiet until he comes. Comprende?”
I nodded. I turned to look at my sister. She was sobbing under her breath now. I could see that she was frightened but there was no real reason for her to cry. I reached out for her hand. “No tengas miedo,” I whispered. “I am here.”
Somehow a smile pushed its way through her tears. She pulled me close. “My little hero,” she whispered. “My protector.”
The thud of heavy boots came from the ceiling overhead. Suddenly they seemed to be all over the house.
“Los bandoleros!” one of the maids screamed. “They will kill us!”
“Shut up!” This time La Perla did more than speak. Her hand flashed in the dim light. The maid tumbled to the floor whimpering softly. The footsteps seemed to be coming toward the kitchen.
“The candle!” my mother whispered hoarsely. The small light went out abruptly. We sat there in the blackness.
“Mamá, I can’t see,” I said.
I felt a hand press across my mouth. I tried to see in the dark but all I could do was listen to the s
ounds of the others breathing. The footsteps were over our heads now. They seemed to be in the kitchen.
I heard the crash of a table as it was overturned and dimly the voices of men, the sound of their laughter. There was the creak of a door, and now they were in the pantry. The cellar door rattled. I could now hear their voices more clearly.
“The chickens must be hiding down there,” one of them said, and there was a sound of laughter.
“Cock a doodle doo,” another crowed. “Your rooster is here.”
There was a kick at the door. “Abre la puerta!”
I could feel the girls shrinking back against the wall. I felt my sister shiver. “They’re only looking for chickens,” I whispered. “Tell them they’re in the coop back of the house.”
No one answered. They didn’t seem to mind anymore if I spoke. La Perla pushed past me in the darkness and stood at the foot of the steps waiting. A heavy blow against the door reverberated through the cellar.
One of the maids fell to her knees and began to pray hysterically as there was another crash from above. A panel of the door gave way and then it sprang open, as a stream of light came tumbling down the steps to reveal La Perla standing there, resolute as a rock, the cleaver reflecting the light like a silvered mirror.
Some men came down the stairs. There were three that I could see. The others were behind, so all I could see were their legs.
The first one stopped when he saw La Perla. “An old fat hen. Not worth the bother.” He knelt slightly and peered under the overhang. “But there are others. Young and juicy ones. The old hen stands guard on her flock.”
“Bastardos!” La Perla said through her teeth.
The man straightened up almost negligently and the short-barreled musket in his hand exploded with a blinding flash.
The acrid smell of gunpowder was strong in my nostrils and as my eyes cleared I could see La Perla stagger back against the wall opposite the steps. She seemed to hang there suspended for a moment, then began slowly to slide down the wall. The side of her face and neck was completely gone. There was nothing but a raw red mass of flesh and bone.
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