Among the Lost

by Emiliano Monge

  ‘It looks like it’s coming out of the guy’s head,’ says the elder. ‘We should get going.’

  Turning from the smouldering, one-eyed corpse, the two boys go back to stuffing the sacks with clothes, shoes, bracelets, identity papers, hairbrushes, pictures, photographs, chains, nail-clippers, soap, earrings and votive cards lost by those who abandoned here their hopes and their names.

  It is not until the day has almost completely devoured the shadows and workmen can be heard in the distance — an axe is striking a tree-trunk, a tractor ploughing furrows in the soil — that the eldest throws his shoulders back and announces: ‘Now the dawn is truly breaking … We have to hurry.’ But his words are interrupted by the younger shrieking excitedly: ‘A medal!’

  ‘A medal?’ the elder says, but before he can reach the younger’s side, an unfamiliar sound makes him turn towards the trees: ‘On the ground! Down on the ground, NOW!’ the elder growls, watching as the clearing known as El Tiradero is invaded by the swarm of fleas or flies or gadflies come to prey on things and on men.

  ‘Get down or I’ll get up and knock you down!’ the elder boy roars for the third time, looking up and pounding the earth with his fists.

  ‘What the fuck are they doing here? It’s not their time,’ says the younger, finally sliding to the ground.

  ‘Just shut up and don’t move!’ says the elder and these words are the last they hear for some time.

  When at last the swarm moves on, the two boys get to their feet, examine each other and pluck from their skin the barbs and stings they have been unable to avoid. When they have finished delousing each other, they laugh nervously and, grabbing their hessian sacks, return to the moment before the plague descended and contemplate the medal the younger boy has discovered hidden in a bundle.

  But all too soon, they are itching from the bites and stings: scratching his neck, the elder, soon to turn sixteen, emerges from a daze: ‘Take whatever’s left!’ he orders in a voice that does not sound like that of a lone man, then he says: ‘I want to get out of here before that fucking swarm comes back.’

  In the minutes that follow, the younger boy, who turned fourteen two months ago, and whose lips and eyes do not move even when an expression distorts his face, finished filling his two sacks, and the elder, on his knees, scours the grass: there is always an earring, a necklace or a ring that the jungle tries to keep.

  Rays from the sun, still hidden beyond the horizon, have now reached the treetops and new sounds join the thrum of the jungle: ravens caw, migratory chepes sing, turkey buzzards croak, mountains of oil rumble, dawn breaks to the screech of metal and scattered gunshots in the distance.

  Urged on by one of these, the elder boy, whose face looks as though it is permanently cast in shadow, gets to his feet, and in a voice like a chorus, announces: ‘They are close, the poachers … We need to get away.’ It is then that the two sling their sacks over their shoulders and walk away from the packs and bundles they have looted.

  A few metres from the liana curtain that separates the wasteland from the jungle, the two boys are once again startled by a cry that convulses the sky and, looking up, see the eagle as it plummets towards the earth. But twenty metres before it reaches El Tiradero, the bird realises its prey has made it safely back to its burrow and, deploying its great black wings, it pauses in mid air.

  After hovering for a moment, the eagle beats its wings and once more takes flight: the two boys pay it no more heed, they shoulder their sacks, leave El Ojo de Hierba and vanish into the thick jungle just as the eagle vanishes into the distance.

  Soaring into the air as the two boys head back to the house where they live with their children and their women, the eagle scans the horizon and, after a moment, once again espies an animal on the ground. Swooping from the vastness of the sky once more, the bird crosses the space where daylight now reigns and, in seconds, lands, disappointed, in a dusty furrow.

  Contemplating the dead animal that caught its eye, the eagle scans for a mouthful amid the half-eaten remains left by nocturnal creatures. When, finally, it sees a gobbet it might pluck with its beak, it senses an approaching vehicle and, unfurling its great black wings, takes to the air.

  The sight of the eagle he has almost hit rouses Epitafio from his daydream: he had been walking with Estela in far-off El Paraíso; now he turns his attention to the dirt track blazing in the sunlight: the sun finally appears between the mountaintops.

  Inside Epitafio’s Cheyenne, a shaft of light ricochets off the rear-view mirror, and again off a stray coin in the ashtray, and strikes the left pupil of the man who so loves Estela. It is unbelievable that I still let you decide things on the toss of a coin, thinks Thunderhead and, reaching out, plants four fingers in the ashtray. Taking the coin, he sets it on the dashboard and, thinking about Estela, he says aloud: ‘Never beat you, not even once.’

  The smell of ash brought unwittingly onto his fingertips triggers a furious urge to smoke and he reaches out again, grabs his cigarettes and, remembering Estela’s smile, looks in the rear-view mirror at the bars on the truck following behind, knowing that, inside, bound and helpless, are those who have come from other lands. What he does not know is that inside the huge Minos trailer truck, there are also five packages put there on the orders of the woman flickering through his thoughts.

  Clutching the pack of cigarettes, Epitafio stamps on the brake, turns the steering wheel several degrees and heads east, staring into the rising sun and, addressing it directly — as he always does when speaking to inanimate objects — says: ‘I’ll probably reach El Teronaque before you reach your zenith.’

  Lighting the cigarette twitching impatiently between his lips, Epitafio coughs several times — the first lungful always chokes him — shifts gear and accelerates, forcing the three outriders to do likewise, and the hulking Minos, whose shoddy suspension judders and jolts those who have been walking for so many days.

  As the others pitch and roll, one of these creatures who, without death, are going through the kingdom of the dead, is trapped between the boxes Estela has despatched, and though he tries to wriggle away, to scream, having heard the noises coming from inside the cargo and feeling something move inside, he cannot free himself.

  They bound us and they tossed us in here …

  feet tied with shoelaces …

  hands with mobile charging cables …

  mouths gagged with our own socks.

  The last puff of smoke Epitafio exhales dances before his face only to be quickly whipped away by the void: Thunderhead rolls down the window. The Cheyenne is invaded by the sound of the wind and, reaching out again, Epitafio turns on the battered old stereo, which is only half-fitted to the dashboard.

  Discovering that Estela left her disc behind, Epitafio once again calls to mind her face and immediately begins to address her absent presence: ‘I’ll bet you listened to it before you fell asleep … while I was down there working … I thought you said you were tired … that you just wanted to sleep … I’m busting my balls and you’re listening to this shit … This always happens to me because … because … Jesus fuck … that’s fucking disgusting!’

  The Cheyenne is also invaded by the fetid stench produced by the fertiliser factory hidden on the border between the jungle and the patch of woodland Epitafio can make out up ahead. ‘It’s amazing that they haven’t closed it … It’s not as if they don’t know this shit-tip is here,’ grumbles Epitafio, though he knows how ridiculous the protest sounds coming from his lips.

  Just as it invaded the Cheyenne a moment since, the stench from the manure factory leaches into the Minos, chafing the lungs of the men who obey Epitafio, but not those of the men and women who have come from other lands plagued by the doubt that takes root in each of them as a voice that is never silent, those who have crossed frontiers heed nothing but the desperate wail that comes from the packages.

  We were lying i
n the trailer truck when

  one of us began to shudder and howl …

  howls of such pain they were not

  human sounds … and we felt

  terror take hold once more.

  Rolling up the window against the stench of manure, Epitafio ejects the disc Estela left behind and scans for the only radio station whose signal reaches this place where the jungle gives way to scrubland and thickets. But even as Thunderhead spins the dial of the radio, he changes his mind and slides the CD back into the slot: ‘You always have your way with me … even when you’re not here with me I can’t listen to what I like.’

  Humming Estela’s favourite song, Epitafio accelerates again and the three outriders and the trailer truck behind do likewise. Those who breached the borders, those who have not ceased to listen to this disturbing voice, to the wails of this creature in torment, are thrown across the floor of the container, crushing the one who is lying trapped between the packages, causing one of them to split.

  The wails grew worse and worse … the

  poor man writhed and screamed as though

  something had been ripped from him … I could

  feel him shudder … It went on for a long time.

  The howls of the man lying beneath the sack that has split trail off only when the bile surging from his stomach through his throat finally fills his mouth. And even more than the wails the sudden silence that swells inside the vast container of the Minos terrifies those who have come from other lands.

  Suddenly he stopped making a sound … but

  what was worse he stopped shuddering … I

  tried to think of something else but I heard

  someone crying … and I started sobbing.

  Meanwhile, in the Cheyenne, Epitafio has turned off the stereo and, as he does so, he notices the three black dots forming a triangle on his wrist: like the other tattoos that disfigure his skin, it is a sign to the world and to his memory, that he, too, grew up in El Paraíso.

  Seeing how the jungle and the frost merge, Epitafio thinks of the first time that his skin was marked, and the memory of the smell of burning flesh makes him shake his head with rage. Why am I thinking about this? Thunderhead wonders and, as though he might outrun his past, he urges the pickup truck faster: but he cannot shake the memory of Father Nicho’s needle and his heart pounds faster in his chest.

  Controlling his breathing in the way Estela taught him, Epitafio gradually calms himself and manages to drive out the disturbing memory, as the image of the woman he so loves resurfaces in his mind and he is struck by another memory: You said you had something you wanted to tell me.

  ‘Remind me I’ve got something important to tell you,’ that’s what you said, Epitafio thinks, accelerating again, this time without realising. Later, after you wake up, ‘I need to talk to you,’ you said that, too, thinks Thunderhead, opening up the Cheyenne and heading towards the ditch, to the surprise of the drivers following, who are trying to catch up.

  Feeling his heart race again, Epitafio decides to dispel the doubts once and for all and is about to take his mobile phone from his pocket and call the woman he so loves when suddenly, in the middle of the dirt road, a man appears, waving his arms. Behind him, in the distance, the sun climbs, unperturbed, its rays giving form to the heat that will soon be unbearable.

  What’s he doing here, the little shit? Epitafio wonders and the Cheyenne slows, as do the motorcycles and the Minos, where the boy Estela ordered to hide in the container assumes that his moment has come. Taking advantage of the fact that the convoy has stopped, the boy struggles to his feet, turns on a flashlight, jumps over the bound bodies, pushes aside a young man who has choked on his own bile, and, taking a knife, slits open the other boxes.

  Meanwhile, Epitafio stares hard at the boy standing in the ditch, observes him for a long moment in silence, then, forgetting what he was thinking about earlier, he stretches himself and, releasing the lock on the passenger side, throws open the door and calls: ‘What are you doing standing there?’

  ‘Nothing … no lights, no sound, no.’

  ‘Why aren’t you where I told you to be?’ Epitafio interrupts the boy.

  ‘There weren’t no people there even,’ says the boy, climbing into the passenger seat and slamming the door behind him, ‘that’s why I came straight back.’

  ‘Why do you never listen to me?’ says Epitafio, slapping the dashboard of the old pickup truck. ‘Why the fuck do you never fucking listen?’

  ‘I got a surprise for you.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘You’ll see how easy they are to unload,’ says the boy from the ditch with a smile. ‘I watched them and I thought … He’s gonna love this.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear about it … Shut up, I don’t want to know,’ bellows Epitafio, interrupting the boy again.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I said shut your mouth,’ says Epitafio as he sets off once more, leading the convoy.

  Having skirted the copses and thickets where the forest peters out and driving for a long while, each immured in silence, Epitafio raises his arm and points to the house in the distance and, in a gruff voice, announces: ‘El Teronaque!’ ‘I know where we are,’ mutters the boy from the jungle, then adds, ‘How could I not know, when you keep me locked up there all the time?’

  Still staring at this building that was once a slaughterhouse, Epitafio turns towards the boy from the ditch and says: ‘I’m not even going to ask whether you’ve got everything ready … Everything better be fucking ready, Sepelio, for your sake … and my breakfast better be on the table … I’m half-dead from starvation …’

  When silence falls again in the Cheyenne, Epitafio accelerates for the last time, as do the three outriders and the hulking Minos trailer truck, in which the men and women who came from far-off lands are suffering the attacks of the creatures that emerged from the sacks, creatures recently freed by the stowaway planted by Estela; Estela, the woman who is only now crossing the Tierra Negra, having had to stop to fix one of the clapped-out trucks.

  We shouldn’t still be in the sierra … We should be in hiding by now, Estela thinks, gazing at the plains that stretch out all around and spill over the horizon. ‘Better not to be outside at this time of day,’ she says and the driver next to her thinks that he should say something, but cannot bring himself to open his mouth.

  Cursing the time they have wasted, IhearonlywhatIwant rolls down the window and the dust entombing the plains rushes into the cab. Tiny particles embed themselves in the eyes of both driver and passenger and, furiously rubbing her eyelids, Estela hastily closes the window and growls again: ‘Fucking shitty, clapped-out trucks … We should be miles from here by now!’

  Then, when her eyes have wept out all the dust of the plains, IhearonlywhatIwant removes the hearing aids and decides to doze for a little while. But a second later, the sun blazes on a strange mass in the distance and her fingers immediately replace the little devices in her ears: ‘What the hell are they doing over there … When the fuck were they sent here?’

  IV

  Moments before the Ford Lobo stopped and the soldiers manning the roadblock noticed, Estela fixed her eyes on one of them and muttered: ‘When the fuck were they redeployed?

  ‘“When the fuck were they redeployed?” I asked,’ Estela repeated, jabbing a finger at the soldier she is talking to. ‘You’re new — I’ve not seen you before.’

  ‘I … I … can’t,’ the soldier stammers, instinctively clutching his rifle.

  ‘When did you join them?’ IhearonlywhatIwant asks, only to instantly modify her question. ‘Where’s your commander?’

  ‘Capitán!’ yells the soldier, without turning around, his fingers gripping his weapon tighter still.

  ‘I said you were new — he doesn’t like it when people shout.’

 
‘Capitán!’ the soldier calls again, not daring even to turn his face.

  ‘So is the lazy fucker coming out or what?’

  ‘He’ll be here in a minute.’

  ‘Which minute?’

  Exasperated, Estela opens the door of the truck and jumps down. But before she can set off walking, a roar comes from the hut behind the banks of sandbags and a door slowly opens.

  For two seconds that could be two minutes, the whole world is reduced to the rasp of three hinges, the wind whipping across the plateau, the idling engines of the Ford Lobo and the two battered trucks, and the tense, wary breathing of the soldiers and the men loyal to IhearonlywhatIwant.

  Then the voice from the hut is heard again, and words: ‘We were redeployed at short notice!’ This reassures everyone, everyone except Estela, who mutters, ‘Hijo de puta!’, pushes aside the soldier she has never seen before and walks towards the shack, where the captain buttons his uniform shirt and comes towards the door, tugging at his shoelaces.

  ‘This door is banjaxed,’ the captain says under his breath, then, noticing Estela — he has always been fond of this woman who stands before him — adds, ‘They redeployed us during the night … They ordered us to come here with no advance warning.’ ‘With no advance warning?’ IhearonlywhatIwant fumes, and as she grabs the captain’s elbow and drags him back inside the hut, she hears her phone vibrate.

  ‘ALREADY IN TERONAQUE. WHERE U???’ reads the message Epitafio sent a moment earlier, to which Estela hurriedly replies: ‘PROBS W/ PICKUP JUST ARRIVED CHECKPOINT … IT’S MOVED!!!’

  Slipping the phone back into the pocket of the tight leather pants that hug her figure the way a punchbag hugs its contents, Estela looks at the captain, steps towards him, cornering him next to the window and, as though she has not heard a word he has said before now, asks: ‘Why the fuck aren’t you up where you’re supposed to be?

  ‘And don’t tell me, they didn’t give us any warning … Don’t tell me you don’t know, because I’m not going to believe that shit,’ splutters IhearonlywhatIwant, taking two paces towards the window and forcing the captain up so close to the glass that he nervously turns and opens it.