Meanwhile, as the younger of the two boys watches light play on the damage wreaked by the storm — the rays of the great star glancing off pools of rainwater, the damp leaves of the shrubs, the wet rocks and the mud which look as though the jungle has been sprinkled with slivers of metal — he echoes the words of his leader: ‘You heard him! Get moving … We’re nearly there … Just a little farther and we’ll be there!’
‘That’s the clearing up ahead … just past that line of sapote trees,’ the elder of the boys says, forcing his legs faster until he is almost running as he listens to the cacophony of jungle voices that daylight imposes upon the world: the calls of crows and mockingbirds, the chatter of magpies and the croak of ravens. He looks over his shoulder at the boy who serves as his lieutenant: ‘It’s amazing that we got here on time … I didn’t think we’d make it back on time.’
‘Almost on time … You mean almost on time,’ the boy whose role is to obey contradicts him, racing towards the clearing called El Ojo de Hierba as he, too, listens to the shifting sounds of the jungle in the light of day: from all around, though invisible to the eye, comes the cackle of turkey buzzard, the snort of a wild boar, the bell of a deer, the drone of bees and the sound of furtive labourers: the thwack of axe against wood and, further off, the clang of a machete against a rock concealed by grass.
‘What do you mean almost on time … surely we’re …?’
‘We’re a little late,’ the younger boy interrupts the elder, bringing a hand up to shield his eyes from the scorching, blood-red sun. ‘If you want me to believe what you say, don’t tell lies!’
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ asks the elder boy, also shielding his eyes from the sun as it blazes through the huge flowers of a flame tree that mimic its blaze. ‘Why are you angry with me?’
‘We wouldn’t be late if we hadn’t stopped at the caves,’ the younger boys says, and he quickens his pace and, looking over his shoulder, yells at the those who are following: ‘Don’t get left behind … This is the last stretch!’
‘We’re not so late that it’s going to cause trouble,’ the elder boy says, lowering his hand since the sun is now hidden behind a philodendron, ‘Besides, they couldn’t carry on any more … If we hadn’t stopped, we’d have lost some along— ’
‘We stopped because you wanted to stop,’ the younger boy once more interrupts the boy who serves as leader. ‘Because you wanted to do what you did to her.’
‘Why are you going on about her?’ the older boy yells, turning his head. ‘What the fuck do you care?’
‘I couldn’t give a shit about that bitch,’ he whose duty is to obey calls, now twenty metres from the wall of roots, trunks and vines that separates the jungle from the clearing called El Tiradero, ‘I’m just angry that you didn’t tell me.’
‘Didn’t tell you what, exactly?’ says the leader, also quickening his pace.
‘That it was her,’ the younger boys says, leaping over a fallen tree trunk.
‘I can’t believe that that’s what’s made you so angry.’
‘The fact that you didn’t tell me that it was her, and that you didn’t even let me help.’
‘I knew there was something else … So I didn’t let you help me!’ the older boy says, using one arm to sweep aside the liana and stepping into the clearing.
‘…’
‘You’ve never done the things I’ve had to do back there,’ the boy who serves as leader says, surveying the empty space blazing in the sunlight, then, turning around, he threatens those who all too soon will lose all hope: ‘Right, all of you together … stay in a group … no one wander off.’
‘I’ve never done … I’ve never gone … I’ve never got to carry the money … I’ve never got to do anything,’ the boy who serves as lieutenant says, turning to those who have come from other lands: ‘You heard him … keep close together!’
‘Exactly … Why would you need to do it? … I’m already doing it,’ the elder boy says, coming to a halt. ‘You see, we are here on time … They haven’t even arrived yet.’
‘It’s strange that they’re not here yet.’
‘Yeah, it is strange,’ the elder boy agrees, then, pointing to some holes in the grass, he says: ‘What are those?’
‘That’s weird too,’ the younger boy says, looking at the curious holes and, following the boy who serves as leader who is already heading there, adds, ‘But don’t change the subject … tell me who she was.’
‘Who she was?’ the elder boy echoes mechanically, paying no heed to his own words or the question posed by the boy who serves as lieutenant, so fascinated is he by the strange excavations.
‘Exactly … Who the fuck was she?’ he whose duty is to obey insists, forgetting the hole in the grass for a moment. ‘I want to know who she was … Why are you making such a big deal about it?’
‘Fucking hell,’ the older boy says, peering into one of the holes.
‘Shit,’ the younger boy says, as he, too, recognises the body lying there. ‘What the fuck happened?’
‘All of you, shut up right now!’ roars the boy who serves as leader, turning to the men and women who crossed the borders and, backing away, he glances around: ‘Who could have done this … Who did …?’
‘On the ground … all of you, get down on the ground right now!’ the younger boy orders, not realising he is contradicting his leader, and he throws himself down. ‘I told you they never show up late.’
When the elder boy realises that he is the only one still standing, he too drops to the ground and, crawling through the grass and squelching through the mud left by the rainstorm towards the one who serves as lieutenant. ‘What the fuck do we do now …? Who could have done this to that idiot?’ the older boy asks, staring at the ground and listening to the whisperings among the men and women who have come from other lands.
‘Who gives a shit?’ the younger boys says, but before he even finishes his sentence, he digs his elbows into the mud and crawls towards another hole. ‘There’s another body here,’ he says, and the murmur of the beings that crossed the borders raises several decibels just as, in the distance, they hear the approaching swarm of fleas or flies or gadflies come to prey on things and on men.
‘Shut the fuck up … Shut up or I’ll do it for you,’ the elder boy growls, turning his head and, hearing the growing drone of the swarm he cannot see but can sense, he turns to the younger boy, who is crawling off again, and barks, ‘Come back here and forget about those fucking holes!’ Meanwhile, for the first time, those who will never be allowed to leave the ravaged lands begin to weave their song, and for the first time their tongues begin to tell their terrors.
‘What the hell is happening?’ says Hewhostillboastsasoul.
‘Who are those dead people?’ asks Hewhostillbearsaname.
‘What is going to happen to us now?’ says ShewhostillcallsonGod.
‘That noise … Where is that noise coming from?’ says Hewhostillhashisvoice.
‘We made it this far!’ screams Hewhostillhasabody.
‘It is all going to end here … You’ll see what …!’ roars Hewhocanstillusehistongue.
‘Shut up … I’m serious … If you don’t shut up, you’ll see what happens,’ the boy who serves as leader interrupts Hewhowillnotusehistonguemuchlonger. Then, raising his head above the grass, the older boy looks around for his lieutenant and, hearing it grow louder still, this swarm of horseflies, blowflies and locusts, he feels a twinge in his bladder and suddenly relaxes his sphincters.
‘And you! Get over here, right now!’ the older boy shouts, only to be silenced midway through the sentence by the younger boy calling: ‘Another one … There’s another body in this hole! They’re all riddled with bullets!’ the younger boy shouts a moment later, and just as he who serves as leader is yelling: ‘Get over here, forget about them … Get back here, now!’ the drone of
the horseflies, blowflies and locusts deafens everyone in earshot, even as the song of those who will soon forsake their creator, their history and their name, is transfigured to become a lament.
By the time that he who serves as lieutenant finally reaches the place where his leader is lying, face buried in his hands, nose pressed into the grass, crushed by the sound of the horseflies, the blowflies and the locusts that rises to the apocalyptic rumble of the plague that it is, the sons of the jungle silently realise that the music they can now hear is being blasted from a dozen speakers.
The thunder of the approaching music crushes the ears of the sons of the jungle, but not their dignity or their spirit: realising that they have no other choice, he who serves as leader and he who serves as lieutenant exchange a brief glance and, smiling at each other, jump to their feet. Forming a perimeter all around them, the men clutching their weapons are now loyal to a different man, and from his perch on the roof of the battered pickup truck, he issues new orders with a wave of his arm.
Taking each other by the hand, the two boys glance at each other once more, thrust out their chests and close their eyes, and a hail of shots and shrapnel knocks them to the ground where their mangled bodies form one single hole in the grass, and their blood nourishes the mud lit by a rising sun that sets off a thousand sparks: this is how, it is as though here, in the clearing known as El Tiradero, the earth is suffused by threads of gold.
Stepping around the two boys bleeding out on the ground, the men who now lay down their arms and follow the orders of the man on the roof of his hulking truck at the top of the hill, who, with a slight wave of his hand, set them marching, while the men pushing the heavy wheelbarrows carrying the heavy speakers that deafen and terrify the men and women who are still lying on the ground, gradually tighten the gruesome circle.
Jumping over the bodies of the boys of the jungle, who have just left the clearing called El Ojo de Hierba as they have just left the story of Epitafio, the story of Estela, and this, which is their own story: the story of the last holocaust of its kind, those loyal to this man who is now clambering down from his huge truck reach the place where the godless are lying, haul them to their feet and train the still smoking muzzles of their rifles on them: it often takes place by night; this time it takes place by day.
Among the Lost Page 28