Among the Lost

by Emiliano Monge

  Seeing the two beat-up trucks and thinking he might still be able to negotiate, the captain grasps at straws, saying: ‘How many you got in there today?’

  ‘I’m not going to give you any unless you tell me what I want to know … You don’t want to see me … Don’t take me for a fuckwit,’ Estela growls, poking her head out the window, then, playing to the captain’s greatest weakness, she adds: ‘Today I might even let you take your pick.

  ‘And let me tell you I’ve got a little girl in there who can’t close her mouth,’ Estela stokes the captain’s unease: IhearonlywhatIwant does not remember that the little girl in question is in the Minos, that the girl with the big head is not in her trailers, where prostrate, the wretched gnash their teeth and pour out their sufferings.

  What happened to me does not matter, but what they did to all those women, that really hurts. There were seventeen. Seventeen women who each night came back battered and bruised.

  I will never forget what I saw done to them.

  After a brief silence that infuriates Estela still further and sets the blood in the captain’s groin tingling, IhearonlywhatIwant turns her body and presses herself to the man, who can no longer tear his eyes or his urges from the two battered pickup trucks and, angrily grabbing his rigid prick, she threatens: ‘If you want them, you’ll tell me … What the fuck are you doing posted here? … What the hell happened?’

  ‘The orders came yesterday afternoon … I swear,’ the captain says in a voice quavering with lust. ‘“Get your shit together, you’re moving down to the plateau.”’

  ‘Then who the fuck is up there?’ Estela asks, her fingers squeezing harder. ‘Unless there’s no one manning the checkpoint in La Cañada?’

  ‘Why would you think there’s no one … stationed up there?’ the captain says, the words almost disintegrating in his mouth. ‘They must have dispatched men … from somewhere else.’

  ‘You’re telling me that you don’t know who’s stationed at La Cañada?’ IhearonlywhatIwant says, releasing the captain’s penis and then kneeing him in the balls. ‘In that case I’ll just have to take you with me!’

  ‘…’

  ‘You’re coming with me and you’re going to make sure that whoever’s up there doesn’t give me any shit!’

  ‘You know … you know I can’t do that.’ The captain gasps for breath and re-opens the eyes that snapped shut when her knee made contact. ‘I can’t …’

  ‘Who said it was a request?’

  When the door of the shack finally opens again, Estela drags the captain out and shouts to her boys: ‘Back in the trucks! We’re out of here!’ Meanwhile, the captain, whose voice has recovered its gravitas, says to his soldiers: ‘Get that barrier up now … I’m going uphill with them, I’ll be right back … No fucking around while I’m gone.’

  With an obvious limp — one leg is six centimetres shorter than the other — the captain follows Estela, who calls to her driver: ‘You get in the back, I’ll be driving from here!’ Without a word, the boy turns and walks to the battered trailer trucks in which the women who have come from other lands lie gnawing on their pain.

  Two of the women they raped daily. They were

  like rag dolls, these women, the ones they raped.

  And the girls, those who were raped over and

  over, day and night, they reminded me

  of my daughter.

  As Estela and the captain climb into the Ford Lobo, the boy passes the blue trailer and hears: ‘If you hurry, you might land yourself a fresh one!’ while the driver of the red pickup, seeing the boy scuttle past, adds: ‘Get your arse in gear and you’re well in.’

  With a leap as deft as it is agile, the boy who drove here bounds into the trailer carrying the women who have come from other lands and, listening to the cries of despair … the tormented spirits as they lament in chorus, clambers inside just as the convoy following Estela moves off again.

  Revving the engine of the Ford Lobo, IhearonlywhatIwant forces the trailer trucks behind to accelerate and leaves the checkpoint, where she has wasted too much time. ‘Just look at the time … It’s your fault we’re running so late,’ Estela complains to the captain next to her, a creature so scrawny his skin seems to stick to his bones.

  ‘What the fuck do I care that you’re late?’ says the captain, looking out the window. ‘I’m going to be in deep shit if anyone finds out I left my post!’ ‘You wouldn’t be in the shit if you’d warned us,’ bawls Estela. ‘If you’d phoned Epitafio. He trusted you, and this is the thanks he gets.’ As she rants, she feels the fury coursing through her body and she grips the steering wheel, trying to resist the overpowering urge telling her: Beat the shit out of the bastard!

  Bowing his head, seeing Estela raise her fist, the captain opens his mouth and is about to apologise when the fist becomes an open palm, stopping him in his tracks as a policeman stops traffic: ‘Because of you, we’ll be running a serious risk up there … Fucking hell.

  ‘We could have taken the other route,’ Estela says, gesturing to vast plateaux as the sun continues to scale the ramparts and a phalanx of birds skirls in the sky, searching for the corpse that will set them plummeting like a cyclone, just as in the blood-red trailer truck the boy who arrived driving the Ford Lobo is searching for the female cyclone writhing beneath him.

  That one raped me. Laid me face down and raped me while the others chatted. Another one said I was pretty and wanted to stick it to me, too. Two raped me at the same time. One kicked me in the face. One beat me with the flat

  of a machete until I bled.

  After driving in silence for a while, Estela realises the captain has been glancing at her painted green fingernails and, not quite knowing why, breaks the silence, murmuring: ‘They’re not the colour he likes them.

  ‘What the hell has it got to do with you, anyway? What the fuck are you looking at?’ snarls IhearonlywhatIwant a moment later and, hiding her nails behind the steering wheel, angry that she is justifying herself to this man, who ventures a smile. Without changing his rictus grin, the captain allows his gaze to shift to the horizon, where, a moment later, he sees the vultures in the distance whirl and swoop.

  Then, when the carrion birds have vanished from the sky, the captain looks down at the ground and is surprised to note that the dirt track they are following has already left behind the vast plateau and begun to wind its way up towards the sierra.

  As the track becomes ever steeper, Estela and the captain, who have both rolled down their windows, listen as the hushed drone of the plains gives way to sounds of the mountains and watch as the black soil of the massif becomes streaked with bone white. Only now does the soldier dare speak again: ‘A zebra. The ground around here is like a zebra.’

  ‘A zebra?’ Estela says mockingly as she slows the truck, the convoy is hemmed in by monolithic escarpments. ‘What the fuck are you babbling about? What makes you think you can just blurt out whatever shit pops into your head? … Didn’t you hear me when I said shut up?’

  Gravel crunches beneath the tyres of the Ford Lobo as the track grows steeper, raising a cloud of dust that envelops the trailer trucks where the men loyal to IhearonlywhatIwant cover their faces and the women whose bodies have been penetrated by the miasma of other beings long for the dust that would clot into earth and bury them by the shovelful.

  Some kilometres later, at a point where the road levels out for a stretch, Estela gazes down at the plateau in the distance, turns back to the captain and, with a calm brought on by this vision of the void and the time they have spent in silence, asks: ‘What do we do if you can’t come to a deal with whoever is stationed up here? … If there’s trouble at La Cañada?’ ‘Why wouldn’t they deal with me,’ says the captain also calmer now and staring down at the plains. ‘They might have been redeployed from elsewhere, but they’re all the same!’

  ‘It’s true … Why w
ouldn’t they want to make something out of it?’ Estela mutters in a low voice, then, staring down into the void and the plateau below and dropping her voice even lower: ‘I’m tired.’ The calmness spreading through her body suddenly becomes deeper, heavier, and, almost without realising, IhearonlywhatIwant yawns and whispers, ‘I feel sleepy.’

  But this phrase, I feel sleepy, is enough to rekindle Estela’s unease: I’m tired because I haven’t had a wink of sleep … and I haven’t slept because of fucking Cementaria … I was just about to nod off when you came and woke me up … and you didn’t even bloody remember … I said, when you come to wake me, remind me I’ve got something to tell you.

  No sleep. ‘You didn’t say anything and I didn’t say anything either!’ Estela suddenly roars, startling the captain, as her inner calm evaporates. ‘Why didn’t I say something? Why? I’d already said I’ve got something to tell you that changes everything!’

  The Ford Lobo accelerates with the worries whirling in her mind. Estela is beside herself as she hurtles towards the narrowest stretch of the road. ‘Jesus fuck!’ yells the captain, staring at the sheer drop to his right. ‘There’s no need to drive so fast!’

  Jolted back to the reality of the mountain pass by the sound of the captain’s voice Estela gives a loud laugh and, steering towards the edge of the cliff, threatens: ‘You scared? Want to see how close I can get?’ ‘What’s wrong with you? What the fuck are you doing?’ screams the captain, squeezing his eyes shut and cowering in his seat.

  ‘Who’d have thought you’d be such a chickenshit? You should be ashamed!’ Estela taunts between howls of laughter. ‘And these are the men sworn to defend our Fatherland!’ At this word, Fatherland, Estela’s thoughts once more fragment, and Epitafio is with her here in the high sierra.

  Slamming on the brakes and snapping, ‘Don’t get out and don’t move a fucking muscle,’ Estela opens the door, jumps down and climbs the steep road, then leaves the path and heads to an outcrop of rocks jutting from the ground like ribs from a corpse, while the drivers of the battered trailer trucks brake suddenly and wonder: What the fuck is going on?

  When she reaches the promontory, a bevy of larks pecking for food in the scree takes wing, and the drivers, still wondering what is happening, watch the frantic flutter as the birds are drawn back to the ground by hunger, and their boss scales the tallest of the rocks.

  Having reached the top, IhearonlywhatIwant takes out her phone and is disappointed to find she can get no signal: Why was I so fucking stupid when I woke up … letting you think you were waking me up? … Why did I pretend to be asleep when you were talking to the boys? … Why didn’t I say, ‘Come here, I’m already awake? … Come here, I want to tell you something?’

  Climbing down again and rejoining the road, Estela continues to reproach herself. Why didn’t I talk to you after they’d gone … when I saw you there on your own? … Why didn’t I get out of the truck? As she reaches her truck and realises that she cannot talk to Epitafio from here, IhearonlywhatIwant climbs in and tries to dismiss the man she so loves from her mind: I’ll call you when we get back down … at least this fucking phone might get a signal there.

  Flooring the accelerator of the Ford Lobo again, now completely focussed on the road, Estela manages to forget Epitafio for a while, but not the boys of the jungle: I should have got out when I saw them leaving. The same two boys still lugging the sacks they filled in El Tiradero.

  ‘I can smell eggs!’ says the elder, and, almost without realising, quickens his pace: ‘First back gets second helpings!’ ‘But you started before me!’ whines the younger boy, dropping his sack and, pointing to a fallen tree, says: ‘When we get to the log, we run!’

  When the door of the house opens and the two boys pile in, panting for breath, their wives get up and lay their babies in the hammock that divides the space. Each still claiming victory, the boys allow their women to hug them, and then immediately demand: ‘Who won, who won?’

  Her face hardening, the elder of the women says: ‘We didn’t see you come in,’ and the other quickly adds, ‘You’re too old for games … Why are you so late today?’ The elder of the two boys says: ‘It took us ages at the clearing … There was a whole shitload of stuff today … We couldn’t cram it all into the sacks.’

  ‘We’ve left them outside … you go and fetch them, but first give us something to eat,’ says the younger boy, sniffing the air and slipping an arm around his wife. ‘We’re starving.’

  As the women move towards the fire, a litter of puppies appears from the shadows and they scamper, yapping, to the table where the two boys are tucking in to the huevos con camarón seco and tortillas set in front of them.

  The whimpers of the puppies wake the babies sleeping in the hammock and the boy who acts as leader raises a hand and, his mouth full, splutters: ‘Shut those kids up and then go bring in the sacks.’

  When they have finished eating, the two boys get up, go over to the hammock, lie down and announce: ‘We need to sleep.’ But before either of them can close their eyes, a voice makes them turn back to the door: ‘You planning to take everything away today?’

  ‘Only the clothes and the shoes,’ says the elder boy, lifting his head from the hammock.

  ‘So you’ll be going out again today?’ says the younger of the girls.

  ‘I already told you,’ says the younger boy, jumping to his feet.

  ‘They told me,’ says the elder girl.

  ‘I’ve told you a million times, we can’t just work for one client,’ says the younger, hurrying to the door.

  ‘You never said anything about that,’ says the younger woman, turning on her heel and disappearing into the forest.

  ‘Let her go … I’ll calm her down,’ says the older woman, looking at the younger boy.

  ‘You heard her, she’ll calm her down,’ says the older boy, then, glancing at his partner, he says, ‘Wash the clothes and clean the shoes. Everything needs to look new.’

  No one says anything else. The two women go out into the forest. The two boys go their separate ways: the house is divided in two by the table and the fire; the left-hand side is occupied by the elder boy and his family; the right-hand side by his subordinate and his brood.

  But before the two boys can get to sleep, the mother of the puppies appears in the doorway and, yelping, they scurry from under the table. They will not shut up now until the bitch lies down and they are latched on to her dried-up teats.

  And the cats prowling under the big table far away in El Teronaque will not be quiet until one of Epitafio’s men gives them a scrap from their breakfast.

  V

  ‘Give them whatever’s left on your plates,’ says Epitafio, looking from his men to the cats mewling under the table. ‘I don’t care if you’re still hungry … We have to go unload the container.’

  Resigned, the boys loyal to Epitafio tip their food on to the floor, get to their feet, grumbling angrily, and head for the door, where each takes a rifle. ‘Maybe the sun will have finished them off … They’ve been in there for ages,’ says Thunderhead as he leaves the house overlooking El Teronaque and walks quickly to the patch of ground where the Minos is parked.

  We could hear nothing now. We even thought they might leave us here forever. Lying face down on the white-hot steel. There we were gasping for air. Waiting for whatever to happen.

  But halfway there, realising that not all of his boys are following, Epitafio stops in his tracks. He removes and replaces his cap, scans his men to see who is missing and, feeling a fire in his belly, he roars: ‘Where the fuck is Sepelio?

  ‘Where is the little shit?’ He throws his hands up and, surveying the yard of the former slaughterhouse and the fringes of the forest enclosing everything, he growls, ‘Why the fuck does he always do whatever comes into his head?’

  Hearing him, the men loyal to Epitafio race across the red volcanic rock cal
led tezontle and take up their accustomed positions for unloading, grateful that they are not Sepelio. ‘Fucking moron … I suppose I have to do everything, as usual!’ gripes Thunderhead, walking on and thinking: I wanted to have a little talk with that giant, then he gestures to the first men he sees and barks: ‘You! Go fetch the ladder!’

  Then, quickening his pace again and silently muttering to Sepelio, ‘Hijo de puta … You’d do well not to show your face,’ Epitafio arrives at the spot where the trailer is parked. Talking a run-up, he leaps and grabs the door handle: ‘Jesus Christ, it’s burning hot!’

  The sound that comes from Epitafio’s body as it hits the steel goes unnoticed in the courtyard of El Teronaque, where the air is pervaded by the voices from the forest, but inside the trailer it sounds like an explosion, a violent sneeze that startles the boy who stowed away on the orders of Estela, and the tiny mammals that have escaped from the hessian sacks, and the men and women who have crossed borders and who suddenly feel the dread cling to their skin and fresh grief to their soul.

  Before he can raise the bolt that operates the lock-rods, a sound unlike any he has ever heard captures his attention like a dog tugged by a leash: at the sight of Sepelio, leading a group of men who are dragging a huge ramp, Epitafio feels his black rage swell and he jumps down from the container.

  ‘I told you I had a surprise for you!’ Sepelio shouts when he sees Thunderhead looking at him. ‘I saw it and I thought, It’s better than the ladder.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ says Epitafio, walking towards him. ‘Where the hell did you get that thing?’

  ‘I spotted it over in Hortaleza when they were using it,’ says Sepelio. ‘I saw it and I thought, This is better than the ladder.’

  ‘You saw it and you thought … How many times do I have to tell you … we have nothing to do with those people?’ roars Epitafio, stepping aside so as not to be knocked down by the ramp.