Among the Lost

by Emiliano Monge

  ‘I really thought we wouldn’t all make it today,’ says the older boy, quickening his pace as he illuminates the four immense subterranean caves through which the jungle channels the water that rushes down from the sierra, then, turning briefly to glance at the boy who acts as lieutenant, who is urging himself faster, and those of the men and women who still have a name, a body, a tongue and a shadow, the older boy adds, ‘I can’t believe we made it here with all of them.’

  ‘It was hard work today … So much rain so much mud … so many dumb fucks brought here by you … so many old people so many young … not to mention that pregnant bitch … It’s amazing they all made it … We’re not likely to lose any of them now … The path from here to the clearing is easy going,’ says the boy who serves as leader, coming to a halt a few metres from where the subterranean caves open their flinty throats to the night: the four caves known as El Purgatorio, that people here call Cuatro Bocas — the Four Mouths.

  ‘Stop! We’re going to rest up here for a while,’ barks the younger of the boys, yawning and turning his torch on the men and women recently arrived from other lands, stopping them in their tracks: ‘No one is to wander off … Stay close by … go no further than the caves.’ Yawning again, the boy who serves as deputy sinks a little into the mud and, training his torch on the face of his leader, protests: ‘Why are you blaming me for this? You brought them here just as much as I did!’

  ‘I told you not to shine that thing in my eyes,’ growls the older boy, batting aside the torch and, yawning himself, he turns his own flashlight on the men and women who have dragged their hopes through the jungle: ‘You know full well why I said that … Don’t play the fool … just look at the ones you selected, then look at the one I brought!’ Turning again, the younger boy trains the flashlight on the creatures who have meekly stopped: like diminutive searchlights, the torches bring from the shadows the bustle of those who once more feel their hopes swell.

  Hewhostillboastsasoul is now sitting on a branch and on his knee is the little girl he carried all this way, who whispers a few words in his ear and hugs him, nestling against his shoulder. ShewhostillcallsonGod is wandering towards one of the caves with Hewhostillhasabody, who is taking out the inhaler he uses from time to time and which he will use inside the cave they have just entered. Behind them, a small group comprising two unnamed old men and a middle-aged woman are walking decisively towards one of the other caverns.

  As they pass, the group of those unnamed step over Hewhostillbearsaname, who is framed against the giant movie screen that is the jungle, lying on a rock next to which stands another rock against which a woman who has not been named is leaning: the two huge rocks are sheltered by a flame tree that, in the movie projected by the flashlight of the two yawning boys, looks as though it is bleeding out. Farther off, between the roots of a copperwood tree, Hewhohasnotyetsunghisfears has laid out the plastic sheet he carried with him and, settling himself on it, he watches Shewhostillhashershadow who is wandering aimlessly, muttering to herself in a low voice.

  Silent, bewildered and increasingly exhausted, the two boys watch the movie their flashlights project on to the shadows, then, slumping to the ground and, without even realising, they contemplate the dance of the rain, which has now become a downpour: from time to time there is a crackle as lightning flashes hurled upon the world by the great black clouds light up the shadows that their torch beams cannot reach: a squirrel scampering along a branch, a bird in flight whose vivid plumage does not fear the raindrops, a ring-tailed snake frantically slithering across the mud.

  Each time the lightning flashes fade, the rumble of thunder lingers and when the echo of the thunderclap falls silent, the sons of the jungle, whose eyelids long to rest if only for a moment, lose themselves in the murmur of the jungle: the croak of frogs in the river that spews from the vast caverns, the screen of hundreds of bats inside the caves, in the distance a panther of these latitudes roars while a stubborn bird pecks at the soft trunk of a towering avocado tree. And so, as they unravel the sounds that weave together the thrum of the jungle they can hear, the boys’ eyelids surrender and the nervous tongues of the men and women who recently breached the wall that divides the ravaged lands begin to awaken.

  I just need to get there I’ve got people waiting for me … My two sons and my husband … Four years they’ve been here … I haven’t seen them in all that time … so they’re bound to throw a party for me.

  I come from there, but there’s nothing there any more … That’s why I’m leaving … as all my friends left … I’ll have a job here … I’ll have a life here … I’ll meet up with my friends again … They’re waiting for me.

  I am leaving so I can forget … forget what I had … forget what I don’t have … what I don’t have any more … I’ve come here so I don’t have to live in fear … because I won’t be afraid here.

  I want to go so that I can come back and keep my promises … I promised my daughter a laptop … my son a Cubs jacket … I promised my wife I’d bring back money … That’s why I’ve come here … so I can go back weighed down with promises.

  So I can give birth there, so he won’t have to make the journey … I want him to be born there, so he never has to make this journey … That’s why I’m going … to finish this pregnancy.

  ‘She says she can’t carry on … The woman over there keeps saying she can’t carry on,’ says the boy who serves as lieutenant, his eyelids suddenly flickering open, thereby exploding the silence in which he and his leader had been plunged until now. ‘That even if she wanted to she couldn’t … she couldn’t take another step,’ the younger boy says, clapping his hands and training the beam of his torch on Shewhostillhashershadow. ‘It will do her good to get some rest … Maybe she’ll stop fucking with things she can’t change.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ the older boy asks, opening his eyes and slapping his cheeks before turning towards the men and women following them. ‘What did you say? … What the fuck are you talking about?

  ‘I had to pretty much drag her here,’ the younger boy says, once more shining his torch on Shewhostillhashershadow.

  ‘That idiot … You should have left her behind,’ the older boy says, looking at the woman illuminated by his lieutenant’s circle of light; and, feeling a stabbing pain in his chest, he adds, ‘How many times have I got to tell you? … We don’t bring pregnant women.’

  ‘You don’t care that she’s pregnant … Something happened between you and her,’ mutters the younger boy, barely noticing as he lets his torch fall on the ground.

  ‘What the hell are you on about?’ the elder asks, picking up the other’s torch and training it on Shewhostillhashershadow. ‘You know the rules … There’s only one fucking rule … No old people, no amputees, no pregnant women.’

  ‘I could tell back there that you’d seen each other before,’ the younger boy says, closing his eyes and leaning back. ‘I even told you then that I knew.’

  ‘One simple rule!’ the boy who serves as leader says, ignoring the fact that the younger is now lying down and peering at the pregnant woman, who has been wandering around and is now heading towards one of the caves.

  ‘I knew that she recognised you, too … She took one look at you and ran off.’

  ‘Don’t talk shit,’ the elder boy says, his tone more perfunctory than before and, as he turns towards the younger boy he feels another stab in his ribs. ‘Why don’t you get some sleep? … I’ll come by and wake you later.’

  ‘Back there in the alley … maybe in the churchyard … it was … it’s true … did tell you …’ mutters the younger boy, allowing his body and his mind to mingle memories with the noises of the jungle and the voice of the boy who between them serves as leader.

  ‘I’ll come back and wake you, then when you’re awake I can get some sleep, so we’ll both have had some rest,’ the older boy says, the words pour out mechan
ically and, as he waits for the other to nod off, he tries to ignore the impulse that has risen from his chest to his brain and there become a thought.

  ‘While I’m asleep … I said back in the jungle … back in the churchyard … then you sleep,’ the younger boy murmurs, memories not twining with the dream he is having and the words that seem increasingly distant.

  ‘Sleep, get some rest. I’ll be back later to wake you. Right now I’m going to go and check on them, make sure they’re not up to something,’ the leader says, still looking at the younger boy and, embracing the idea that blossomed in his mind a moment earlier, he jumps to his feet.

  ‘Please don’t hurt her,’ the younger boy pleads, opening his eyes, feeling again the curious stabbing in his chest as he sees the older boy race off.

  ‘What?’ the older boy spins around, more angry than nervous. ‘What the hell are you saying?’

  ‘You know … I’m saying …’ the boy whose role is to obey closes his eyes again, feeling the needle withdraw from his chest and once more confounding wakefulness and dream, ‘… to her … nothing … I’m …’

  ‘Why do you suddenly care about her? You weren’t even there the day when …’ The leader begins, but trails off in mid-sentence, realising that the younger boy is now asleep.

  ‘…’

  ‘That’s right … you just get some shut-eye,’ the elder boy says, and, turning on his heel again, walks away from his lieutenant.

  Illuminating the space with his torch and the torch that the younger of the two boys has been using until now, the older boy slips past ShewhostillcallsonGod and Hewhostillhasabody and comes to the entrance of the huge subterranean cavern Shewhostillhashershadow has just entered. The rain is falling harder on the place where he is standing, on the body of the older boy and on the idea urging him on while the lightning flashes grow more frequent: the deluge has become a thunderstorm.

  Ignoring the storm and allowing himself to be led on by the idea that has brought him to this place and now grips him, the boy who serves as leader thinks: I saw her at the entrance to this cave … I’m sure of it … She must be inside. Then, walking on, he illuminates the interior of the cave, burying his rage and his fear: If you recognised me, you shouldn’t have come … You should never have come to the churchyard.

  Racing inside the rocky gullet that spews forth the river that cleanses the essence of the forest — El Purgatorio is the liver and the kidneys that purge the jungle — the older boy grips both flashlights in one hand, unsheathes the machete hanging from his belt, feels the idea that a moment earlier governed his existence become a plan and, pushing aside two other men who have not been named here, cajoles them: ‘Where did the pregnant woman go?

  ‘Did you not hear me or did you not understand?’ the boy who serves as leader here insists, training the beam of the flashlights on the men, who seem to fuse with the rocks, as though they were drawn on the rocks there several eons ago. Then the elder boy raises the machete and, his eyes boring into the fearful eyes of Hewhostillhashisvoice and Hewhocanstillusehistongue, snarls: ‘Where is she … the pregnant woman … Where is she, the fucking pregnant bitch?’

  ‘I saw … I saw her … I saw her sitting … sitting there … then I saw her go deep inside,’ Hewhocanstillusehistongue says, gesturing to the point where the earth’s gullet divides into two tunnels. ‘That way?’ The older boy asks, shining the twin torches towards the tunnel that snakes towards the right. ‘If you want I can come … I can show you … If you want I can show you the way,’ Hewhostillhashisvoice says, raising his head.

  ‘Hijo de puta … Don’t even set … What do I care?’ growls the boy who serves as leader, staring hard at Hewhostillhashisvoice, then, leaning his face so close the man can smell him, he adds: ‘Just tell me which tunnel … which path she took … and don’t think it will earn you any favours … That’s all I need, you thinking I owe you something … There’s nothing to be gained here.’ Bowing his head again and forcing his feet to walk, Hewhostillhashisvoice leads the elder boy to the place where the cave divides and, stretching out his hand, he points: ‘She should be down that way.’

  ‘If I don’t find the bitch down there, you’re the one who is going to pay,’ the elder of the sons of the jungle warns. ‘I’ll come back and you’re going to pay,’ he says and stalks off towards the vast cave, then steps into the stream and plunges off into the bowels of the forest dark, using the twin torch beams to illuminate the shimmering epochs of the earth and his blade to startle the bats, who flutter off, wheeling in the air.

  Once embarked upon the path, the boy who serves as leader sees the woman he is seeking and who a moment ago, just as the most distant of her ancestors did a thousand years ago, looks up and knows that her time has come. Crouching on the rocks, Shewhostillhashershadow brings both hands to her belly, smiles at the elder of the sons of the jungle and returns the water she has just poured into her mouth to the river that sweeps along the odours of all things living and all things dead: this place smells of the very essence of the earth.

  Exploiting the impulse that has led him to her, the elder boy furiously brings the machete down and with a single stroke cuts the throat of the woman, so robbing her of her shadow. ‘You didn’t have to come … If you recognised me, why the fuck did you come? … You should never have gone to the churchyard!’ the elder boy roars, slashing the shadowless creature over and over with his blade. ‘Or you should have said something to me … You were the one who should have remembered … You shouldn’t have seemed so unsure … so uncertain … You should have acknowledged me!’ the boy howls and falls into the stream as a strange, garbled moan escapes his lips.

  Crouching in the stream, the water lapping at his thighs, the older boy looks to the ruined body, glances at his machete, contemplates the reflection of the bats returning to their roosts as the moan becomes a long, hoarse whimper and then a plaintive howl that ebbs and flows. Setting down the torches on the rocky bank, the boy who serves as leader plunges his weapon and his hands into the water and, watching the water sweep away the blood still dripping from his body, he sobs for a long time.

  When, finally, he gets to his feet again, the elder of the two boys picks up the flashlights, slips the machete back into his belt and, wiping the tears from his face, he clenches his jaw: ‘But you didn’t recognise me.’ He smiles briefly and sets off back to the entrance of the cave and, as he does so, without quite knowing why, he recalls the face of the man to whom he and the younger boy sold the nameless only a day ago: No, you’re not thinking about that man … Don’t be an idiot, the elder boy thinks, smiling, and realises he is thinking about the woman he saw in the clearing known as Claro de Hierba.

  Then, when he finally emerges from the cave, the boy who serves as leader finds that he is still smiling and that the dappled night has given way to grey-blue dawn. ‘Come on …! Get up … We’re on the move again!’ he orders the men and women who so recently crossed the border, and, heading back to the place where the younger boy still lies, sleeping, he searches his memory for an image of the woman he saw in El Tiradero: this time, however, he realises that he is thinking about Epitafio, the man who is still behind the wheel of his truck and who is growing more worried with each passing moment.

  That same truck that, some time ago, left behind the vast plain known as the Llano del Silencio, the uninhabited plain that unites the south and the centre of the land that is the birthplace of Epitafio, the sons of the jungle and Estela. Estela who, back in La Caída, sprawled on the floor of a shack belonging to the triplet who took off one day for the mountains, briefly regains consciousness and, lost in an ocean of pain and fear, babbles: ‘Him too … going to leave me … kill him … no coordinates … must phone him … betrayed us … with no map … without him I don’t want … without my Epitafio.’

  Epitafio, the man who still does not understand why Estela has not called him and who, as he slows the truck and
twists the steering wheel, leaves the motorway and, shifting gears, takes the road that crosses the high plateau called Sombras de Agua — Shadows of Water. The high plateau that forms the centre of his homeland and which leads to the north, a place Hewhoisdeafofmind will never reach.

  V

  Gazing into the distance, yet oblivious to the dawn breaking over the volcanoes that rise from the centre of the plateau known as Sombras de Agua, since for him the outside world and indeed the cab of his truck do not exist, Hewhoisdeafofmind reaches out, flicks down the sun visor that protects his eyes and, without realising, launches into another tirade: ‘Fucking hell … Why haven’t I heard anything when I said I love you!’

  Startled, the two men sitting next to him in the cab of the Minos — the same two men who, in Epitafio’s mind, ceased to exist some time ago when the truck pulled up next to a derelict building and they sold the girl with the oversized head to the man with particular tastes — turn to look at him, but say nothing. Each is still carrying on a conversation in his mind: It couldn’t have worked out better for me … I haven’t even started and the lunatic is already half-crazed, Sepelio is thinking, while Mausoleo reasons: I stepped aside just in time … I’ve managed to play them both.