by Tim Baker
‘We’ll regroup. We’ll reorganize. We’ll strike in the future.’
‘After the elections?’ she cries. ‘When nobody gives a damn. Are you crazy? It has to be now. Please, it’s got to be now.’
‘Pilar, be reasonable. It was a massacre.’
‘And what’s happening to our working women isn’t? This has got nothing to do with last night. It’s about fear. They’re all afraid of China. The CTON, the workers, the factory owners, even the gringos. They’re all terrified of a country on the other side of the ocean. Everyone is staring so far into the distance that no one can see what’s happening here, right in front of their noses!’
‘For fuck’s sake, Pilar, it’s not China they’re afraid of, it’s the cartels.’
‘And yet Pilar is right,’ Mayor says. ‘Fear’s fear. If you can’t act in the face of fear, you’ll never be able to act in the name of truth.’
‘I don’t know what the fuck that means, and I don’t even care.’ Juan Antonio turns back to Pilar. ‘Be disciplined. Accept it. It’s over. They called it off.’
‘How many times do I have to tell you?’ Pilar cries. ‘They are not us!’
‘There’s got to be some kind of compromise.’ Ventura looks across the room at Mayor. ‘Do you have any ideas, Felipe?’
‘If the strike is rescheduled for after the election, it will never take place. The CTON is going to be in a very awkward situation with Fox, effectively negotiating not just its relevance but its continuing existence. Fox is an unknown. They’ll want to put on a moderate mask for him.’
Pilar stares at Juan Antonio. ‘See? Even he understands.’
‘Don’t condescend to your friends,’ Ventura says.
‘You’re not my friend and neither is he.’
‘You’re right, you don’t have any friends. And no wonder, the way you talk to people—’
‘Ventura, it doesn’t matter, as long as she can still listen to reason.’ Mayor turns back to Pilar. ‘If you dare go ahead on your own, there will be consequences. Ordinary people are outraged by what happened last night. They’ll want to take out their anger on someone, and they can never reach the narcos …’
‘But they can reach us,’ Juan Antonio says. ‘That’s why they canceled the buses. Surely you see the danger, Pilar?’
‘Claro. But I also see the danger of inaction, and it is far greater.’
‘I think you should call off the strike, but maintain the demonstration. March in solidarity with the funeral; not as demonstrators, but as mourners.’
Pilar turns to Ventura. ‘Can you explain just who the hell gave you a voice in this?’
Ventura stares at her for a searing moment. ‘You did.’
Her initial impulse is to slap Ventura, but passion has two faces: anger and love. Pilar pulls a seat out from the kitchen table and sits down. She knows it’s going to be a long day. ‘So what’s your plan?’
70
Gomez
Gomez is escorted to Valdez’s office by two plainclothes detectives. The only thing missing is the blindfold and cigarette. Valdez motions him in without looking up from the vast terrain of his empty desk. It’s as though it’s a mirror and he can’t pull himself away from the intensity of his own gaze. ‘Where’s Fuentes?’ It’s not a question. It’s more a lament. Gomez can still smell the smoke from the Heartbreak. Even though he took thirty minutes out to shower and change before coming here, he can still smell it in his hair. ‘And don’t tell me you don’t know.’
Gomez turns options over quickly. There aren’t any. That’s what working with a man like Fuentes does – it defoliates all potential cover. ‘I don’t know …’
Valdez slaps the desk so hard that Gomez takes a step back. Not in fear, in shock. He’s used to the sardonic Valdez. Not the man who finally looks up at him, his face full of hot-marrow fury. ‘According to the hospital, the witness was transferred without my authority and died during transportation to another facility.’
‘An attempt was made on her life.’
‘You deliberately disobeyed my orders.’
‘I wasn’t there.’
‘Don’t lie to me. You were seen at the hospital. There’s even CCTV images.’
‘I meant I wasn’t there when you gave the orders.’
‘I went to the morgue myself. Interestingly, her file led me to a cadaver that had already had an autopsy performed upon it.’ Gomez tries to shrug but it’s more an admission of guilt. He can see where this is leading. Fuentes promised he would take the rap. But this isn’t going to be just a rap; this is going to be a nuclear strike. ‘A cadaver that, according to hospital authorities, was not that of the witness who was being treated there yesterday morning …’
‘Are they sure?’
‘I will give you a chance to withdraw that question. Now tell me, what happened to the rescued victim?’
‘That was the first thing I noticed, boss. You call me in here, and you don’t say a single word about the Heartbreak, even though I’ve spent the last seven hours there. I mean, it’s like you don’t even care about the biggest massacre in history? You only care about a missing witness. Why is that?’
There is a long pause, as though Valdez is trying to remember a phrase in a foreign language. Then he slowly stands, pushing himself up with his hands spread wide on his desk, as if he fears he might slip and fall. ‘What happened to her?’
‘She’s in the US. She’s been granted asylum there.’
The ashtray comets across the office, leaving a surly dust trail of ash and debris before shattering into an explosion of crystal asteroids. ‘What fucking game are you playing?’
Gomez brushes glass fragments from his hair. ‘Your fucking game, boss.’
‘You’re suspended. And as soon as I find Fuentes, I’m having him placed under arrest. Now get out of my sight.’
Gomez pauses at the door to the office. He has nothing more to lose, so he may as well play his hunch and see where it leads. ‘It’s only a matter of time, boss.’ Valdez stares back at him, betrayed by his silence. ‘You know he’s got you, right?’ Still silence. He smiles, and slams the door behind him.
One of his colleagues, Hernandez, calls out to him. ‘What the fuck was that all about?’
‘Just letting off steam. I think he knew the manager at the Heartbreak.’
‘That explains it.’
Gomez takes the cigarette that’s offered him. ‘Explains what?’
‘Why he hasn’t said a word about it. Not even to the press. It’s like it never happened.’
‘Cut the guy some slack. He’s got a lot on his mind.’ Gomez starts out saying it facetiously, but by the time he has completed the sentence, he recognizes the truth. The only explanation – the people responsible for the Heartbreak are responsible for the women of Ciudad Real. Valdez works for them. And soon he’ll end up like El Feo did last night, a headless corpse with a narco banner, hanging from an overpass.
71
Pablo Grande
Pablo Grande had been living in la tierra celestial for the last forty years. He had spent all of those four decades honing his abilities. He had run with the naguals and danced with the lunar goddess during an eclipse. He had sat on the lip of the highest cliff shelf at Las Barrancas del Cobre, his legs dangling two thousand meters above the Copper Canyon, and listened to the earth reverberate as it turned on its orbit with a hollowing cosmic chime.
Pablo Grande had spent fourteen thousand nights watching the stars emptying themselves from the sky and falling to earth as phosphorescent crystals. He had sung the ecstatic song of the leaves at the summer solstice, and explored the secret tunnels that looped the past with the future, and the living with the dead.
Pablo Grande had witnessed the creation of the universe, but had turned his weeping eyes away when faced with its destruction.
For the most part, he had remained silent, patient and courageous in the face of wonder, and had been rewarded with an understanding of the spirit world
that suffuses our earth with its veiled munificence. He had acquired the strengths of reticence, observation and humility and become an expert on spagyric medicine and second sight.
In short, he had assumed his responsibilities as a celestial being; which was why he had started walking to Ciudad Real forty days ago, for he had a rendezvous there with a man whose life he had already saved once before – Padre Márcio.
Pablo Grande had earned his celestial wisdom and it had come at a price. He had grown prematurely old, advancing forty years in a single decade. Augmented knowledge always leads to accelerated aging. Nothing compares to the exhaustion of the brujo, who must remain forever vigilant; using not just the two eyes he was born with, but the eyes that he develops in the back of his head. Never dormant. Alert not just to every movement but to the suggestion, the mere prospect, of motion; of differentiation. Disparity and similarity are opposites in the physical world, but in the spiritual world they are invariable: measurements of growth, of existence. They are harmonious dualities, like night and day, life and death. Fire and water. If not exactly identical, then complementary forces.
After that first decade of enhanced aging, the accelerated process suddenly stopped. His body became like the finest mountain ash caulked by the sun; immune to generational corruption and erosion – an enduring monument to polished strength. He was that rarest of things: a vital elder, destined to survive another half-century of wisdom, effortlessly capable of walking fifteen hundred kilometers on a quest to save a saint.
He descended the mountains a kupuri spirit and re-entered a world of brutality. While he had been absent, the drug cartels’ evil had migrated to Ciudad Real, like spiders ballooning across restless skies inside the camouflage of silver gossamer trails, landing with the blister char of a haboob. Evil spirits sheltered sullen in the shade, watching Pablo Grande walk with immunity across the town’s melting macadam.
Pablo Grande followed the call of electricity cables that formed a teslatic path to an orphanage at the edge of town. Rendering himself invisible, he observed Padre Márcio’s kindness to the children; and witnessed his severity with the staff for having dared to cut back on food supplies, medicine and books. He listened to Padre Márcio as he explained to the lay workers the simple mystery of children: the more you give them, the more you receive.
Pablo Grande was pleased with this side of Padre Márcio; his just amalgam of kindness, concern and wrath. The priest had grown in unexpected ways. But he could observe the dark metallic flush of anger and pride still rooted inside the stigmatist’s thoracic cavity. He also quickly discerned the ephemeral shadows of assassination that followed Padre Márcio like footsteps in a low tide.
The ancient brujo knew his serene vigilance would be tested, for, as any shaman can tell you, it is far easier to save someone who only deceives others than it is to save someone who also deceives himself.
72
Pilar
In the end only three buses made it, two from Guadalajara and the last from Iguala. They had already traveled so far that when they finally got the news, they decided to keep going anyway. They were only half full of activists, mainly students from university and technical colleges, even a few from preparatoria. The students were brimming with idealism and a need for adventure. Brief romances would be born over the next few days; lifelong friendships forged. In their later years, they would be able to look back with pride on marching alongside fellow students and workers, defending universal rights; standing fast as they were gassed and clubbed by police. Virginity would be lost. Songs would be sung; protests chanted. Factories would be closed, strikes enforced, streets barricaded. Arrests would be made, bail posted, fines paid and sentences suspended. They would travel back home in the buses, transformed into more compassionate, complex adults, their righteous zeal softened by reality, their tolerance ripened by experience.
At least that was what normally happened.
But normal is no longer a concept in Ciudad Real.
The body of Isabel Torres is carried out of the church in a modest plywood casket with a silver-plated cross that will be passed to her mother during the interment. Juan Antonio is one of the pallbearers because Isabel’s brother hasn’t shown up. He went out drinking the evening before and never came back. He wasn’t there when his mother needed him most. His own desire for oblivion was just too strong. In his absence, the women are left to fend for themselves, just like always.
The activists march silently behind the family, the hearse barely advancing, a low purr amongst the drumbeat of footsteps, Ventura’s camera fluttering gentle as an ascending dove. Their banners and placards are at the end of the procession, not because they want to draw less attention but because they are aware of the power of the mourning mother; a more pragmatic than modest decision. Besides, the last thing they want is for the police to disrupt the most sensitive component of the demonstration: the mask of the funeral.
Afterwards, when Isabel has been buried, and the sobs of her family have faded, there will be plenty of opportunity for disruption. For protest.
For battle.
Some of the students wear orange high-visibility jackets with reflective strips and red bandanas, acting as parade marshals, shepherding traffic a safe distance away from the mourners; from the concealed activists. The out-of-town buses and two more from Ciudad Real follow, their windows covered in slogans. Cars slow, some of them tooting their horns in support as though it were a wedding, not a funeral. There are also whistles and catcalls, and a couple of shouted insults, but the most common response is silence. Not the silence of respect.
The silence of indifference.
The cortège reaches the highway and begins the crossing, heading away from the bridges and the border, the marshals stopping traffic. This incites a new response. Irritation. Buses idle patiently at first, their drivers sitting high on their thrones and, when the passengers start to grumble, gesturing grandly to the procession. This time the fault lies not with the individual drivers, or the bus company, or the goddamn municipality. Or even that most convenient and ineffectual excuse of all – the weather. Now the delay has a clear cause: the young people parading slowly by, arms linked in solidarity: not with the workers whose commute they are delaying, but with the dead. Passengers who only minutes before crossed themselves at the sight of the hearse now complain angrily; intimidated drivers easily swayed into revolt, blasting the passing demonstrators with horns, gassing them with black fumes belched across desert air that was last clean decades ago.
The agitators pass leaflets through the windows, chanting to the women workers inside: March for jobs. March for justice. Ventura shoots the scenes, capturing the various reactions on the faces of the women in the buses: curiosity. Annoyance. Anger.
Fear.
Pilar walks at the head of the procession, right behind the family, because she cannot bring herself to witness the puny demonstration at the back. She had envisaged thousands, even tens of thousands. She had imagined walkouts from dozens of maquiladoras; blockades of all the roads leading to the industrial estates, barricades across the bridges. Huge delays crossing the border. Tumult and passion. For her it wouldn’t be industrial action, it would be industrial war.
And now they are a glorified honor guard for a woman who died because the basic elements she needed for survival – safe transport to a secure working environment with honest standards of payment and conditions – did not exist. Their march will mourn Isabel’s life and death, but it won’t change the circumstances that led to her murder, and that was the whole point.
Tears come to her eyes, and as soon as she is aware of them, it is already too late. She is weeping. Juan Antonio glances at her. He knows she has spent time with the family, and thinks that Pilar is being overwhelmed by their grief. But he is wrong. Pilar is weeping because at last she understands the dimensions of her own failure.
73
Fuentes
A lock slides free and Gomez rushes in, slamming the door behi
nd him, heading towards the bedroom, when he freezes and slowly turns … Fuentes is standing at the kitchen counter, drinking a glass of orange juice. ‘How the fuck did you get in?’
Fuentes jerks his thumb over his shoulder, towards the kitchen window. ‘Same way as before.’
‘This is becoming a bad habit.’ Gomez kicks a coffee table over, sending magazines skating across the floor. ‘Get out of my house.’
‘I need your help.’
‘You’re always asking for help, but all you ever give in return is trouble, you selfish son of a bitch.’ He starts to pick up the magazines, then gives up and kicks them under the sofa with a wail of frustration. ‘Where the fuck have you been, man? It was pandemonium at the Heartbreak and you weren’t there. I called you like a hundred times.’
‘I took the phone off the hook.’
‘I even sent a fucking car to get you.’
‘You seriously expect me to answer my door at three o’clock in the morning?’
Gomez slumps onto the sofa, his anger giving way to fatigue. ‘It was mayhem. I’ve never seen anything like it. We don’t know how many more bodies are there. They haven’t even started checking the upper floors. Too dangerous. Structurally unsound.’ He closes his eyes. ‘I can’t get rid of the smell.’
‘I said I need your help.’
‘Fuck help. Nothing’s going to help you. Or me for that matter. That asshole Valdez suspended me.’
‘What about me?’
‘They’re putting a warrant out for you. Valdez is going to arrest you, man. And I’m going to be the one handing him the cuffs.’
‘You can’t. You’re suspended.’
‘Fuck you. I’m resigning. It’s bullshit anyway. We don’t make a difference. You should have seen what they did last night. Women. Children. Last night was a fucking war crime. And the only thing that pinche pendejo could talk about was Gloria – or Mary-Ellen, or whoever she is now.’