by Roger Bruner
She hesitated. “He may not have gone out looking for trouble, but when he ran across your mother, nothing could have kept him from punishing me by forcing himself on her.”
I wiped my tears on the sleeve of my blouse and stared at Señora Valdes in disbelief. “I don’t understand. If you already knew about your husband’s…vicious crime, why was my mother’s letter—?”
“I wasn’t positive. Something terrible had happened, but that’s all I knew. Pedro came home almost immediately after the rape. He had sobered up enough to be visibly distraught about whatever had happened while he was out.
“He wouldn’t tell me what. He just kept saying, ‘I shouldn’t have done it. I didn’t mean to. How can I live with myself?’
“He became a different man after that…a stranger in many ways. He swore never to touch another drop of alcohol, and I didn’t allow him to become intimate again until I saw him living up to that promise. In spite of my inability to get pregnant prior to that time, I conceived my Valentina just before your birth. I didn’t discover I was pregnant until we had taken you into our home.
“Your presence appeared to haunt Pedro. He became sullen. Restless. He insisted we didn’t need two babies. I would have to give you up. I wouldn’t have done that, Rosa. I didn’t want to. But Pedro gave me no choice.
“So you became a ward of the village. Pedro never touched me again. I had no idea why, although I suspect now that guilt had made him lose interest. I had my Valentina, but how I grieved that I no longer had you. As much as I wanted to befriend you, Pedro forbade me to have anything to do with you.”
If this tale had been the unburdening of a heartbroken older woman to an objective younger one, I might have felt sorry for Señora Valdes. But I was too intensely involved in this whole situation, despite the years that had passed since the night of the rape—the night of my conception. No way could I worry about her feelings.
I looked into Señora Valdes’s eyes. “You really didn’t know?”
“Not until I read Chalina’s letter tonight.”
“And you figured it out then?” I could only mouth the next question. “How?”
“My life had become a jigsaw puzzle with the final piece missing. Once that piece showed up, I had no difficulty putting the whole story together.”
I couldn’t speak.
“Ironically,” she continued, “if your grandmother had reported the incident to the Elders, I would have figured this out twenty-nine years earlier. You understand why she couldn’t report it. Or thought she couldn’t.”
I don’t know if I nodded or not, but I didn’t feel like responding.
“If Chalina had told the Elders, I would have testified on her behalf.”
We both sighed. How different my whole life would have been.
My short-term memory was coming back. “But what happened tonight? Surely the letter—”
“I confronted Pedro. He seemed almost relieved that I had discovered his secret, and he didn’t deny my accusations. But when I told him I would report him to the Council, he became angry. Violent.”
I looked at her more closely. In my anxiety about the girls, I hadn’t noticed her blood and bruises. One eye was almost swollen shut. No wonder she’d looked so disheveled in the shadows.
“He hit me—hard—several times before running out of the house. ‘I must find those brats,’ he said. He knew they had delivered the letter that condemned him. Your daughters were about to ruin his life.”
I started to say, He ruined his own life, but she plowed ahead without heeding my reaction.
“‘They won’t get away with it,’ he said. He had lost all sense of reason. He could have defended himself adequately by destroying Chalina’s letter. If I had stood before the other Elders without evidence, my word would have meant nothing. They would have found him innocent, and they would have punished me for ‘telling lies’ about him.
“But he didn’t think about that. In books, they sometimes talk about killing the messenger who brings bad news, even though he is not responsible for the news itself? That was Pedro’s reaction to your girls.”
I broke out in a cold sweat. Now that I knew that much about what had happened, no amount of assurance from her or the chief Elder could convince me my girls were actually safe. She must have read strong doubt on my face.
“I ran after him. I didn’t have any trouble following him, for he kept shouting for the girls. I’m surprised the whole village didn’t hear him. He didn’t call for ‘Alazne and Anjelita,’ though. He called for ‘Alazne and Maldita.’
“If they had gone straight home, things would probably have been different. Unfortunately, they must have gotten sidetracked by playing some silly little game. And why not? This is Santa María. They didn’t know they were in danger until Pedro caught up with them and knocked them both to the ground.
“He seized a large stone and was about to smash it against Alazne’s head. She lay there whimpering, and that seemed to aggravate Pedro. ‘You knew what you were doing, you little brat!’ he cried out. Alazne couldn’t have scrambled out of the way in time, for she had become disoriented when she fell. He kicked her crutches out of reach.
“I tried to stop him, but he bashed me with the stone. It only grazed my forehead, but I fell to the ground, too. Alazne was defenseless. I couldn’t help. That’s when…”
She hesitated.
“What?” I said. “Tell me.”
“Anjelita grabbed one of Alazne’s crutches with her one hand, pushed it between Pedro’s legs, and twisted it sideways. He fell to the ground. Then she propelled herself to a standing position before he could get up.
“She stood over him and beat him on the head with the crutch. He tried to grab it from her, but she kept hitting him before he could. The rage in his eyes was ferocious, but Anjelita clubbed him repeatedly. Blood ran from his nose and mouth. I couldn’t believe such a little girl could injure a grown man so severely.
“He was probably almost dead by then, but Anjelita wouldn’t stop. She must have been afraid he would kill her sister if she let him up.
“Anjelita was moving so fast I didn’t dare to try stopping her. So I grabbed Alazne’s other crutch from where it had landed and beat my Pedro in the face and head, too. I kept telling myself, ‘If the Council finds anyone guilty of murder, let it be me, not Anjelita. She is just an innocent victim defending herself and her sister.’”
She stopped, and I felt satisfied she had nothing more to say.
Chief Elder Diaz led me outside, leaving Señora Valdes in my shack. Even after reaching the warehouse, we still heard her wailing in the distance.
Not only were my girls fine—Señora Valdes’s Valentina had been a wonderful mother while her children were still growing up and living at home—they had fallen asleep and were resting peacefully. She offered to stay with the girls so I could go home and rest.
I agreed not to chance waking my girls by taking them home. I kissed them as gently as if they’d been newborns and walked to the door as quietly as I could.
My waking nightmare had been too real. No matter how horrible the night’s events had been, what would tomorrow’s aftermath be like?
~*~
Word of Pedro’s death passed quickly from mouth to ear to mouth the next day, although no one could say who had actually started the rumor.
Among the men, I overheard conversations like this.
“You heard what happened to Pedro Valdes?”
“No, what?”
“He is dead…killed by his wife.”
“His wife? I’m not surprised.”
“No? Why not?”
“I heard that he quit sleeping with her years ago. She must have gotten fed up with it.”
“I wouldn’t have believed it of her.”
“That she was capable of killing her husband?”
“No, that she would have killed him for such a pathetic reason.”
“Pathetic or not, he is dead. She beat him to dea
th.”
“No!”
“With a stick. If the chief Elder hadn’t arrived in the nick of time, she would have smashed him in the face with a huge stone.”
“She is stronger than she looks, eh?”
“Must be. The stone is still lying where she dropped it when the chief Elder tackled her.”
“He is stronger than he looks, too, then.”
“I suppose. Guess what else?”
“What? This story can’t get any better…”
“Oh, but it does. Rosa’s two daughters were playing nearby and saw the whole thing.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am. The Council will call them as witnesses before sending the guilty Señora away from the village without food, water, and anything but the clothes she is wearing.”
“Ah. They are such good girls. They will tell the truth.”
“I have just told you the truth.”
~*~
Among the women, the conversations were slightly different.
“You’ve heard what happened to Pedro Valdes?”
“No, what?”
“He is dead…they say she killed him.”
“They do? Why?”
“She found out he’d been sleeping around with some of the village women.”
“He had?”
“Of course. Everyone knows that.”
“You know that as a fact?”
“I never slept with him, if that’s what you mean.”
“Anyhow, she had plenty of reasons to kill Pedro, didn’t she?”
“I suppose. He wasn’t a very nice man.”
“How did she do it, do you know?”
“She tripped him outside in the dark and kicked him in the face until he was dead.”
“Eh? I hope she wore those sharp-pointed shoes she got from San Diego.”
“You are right. Kicking him to death barefooted would have been too tiresome. She would have died of exhaustion and he would still be alive.”
“We’ll look for blood on those shoes the next time she wears them.”
“You think she will wear them again after that?”
“Why not? She is a very practical woman.”
“But not such a lucky one.”
“No?”
“Rosa’s two daughters were playing nearby. They saw the whole thing.”
“Ah! They are good girls. They will tell the Elders the truth about what happened.”
“But I’ve already told you the truth.”
~*~
At least Elder Diaz, Señora Valdes and Valentina, and my girls and I knew the truth.
But would it be to anyone’s advantage?
37
The Council of Elders normally rotated their meetings among the members’ homes. But their meeting agenda had never included a murder investigation or a trial.
Feelings ran high among the villagers. Although no one had been fond of Pedro, the men wanted to put Señora Valdes out of the village to die without food and water. They were afraid the other women might get some ideas from her about dealing with their own worthless husbands.
The women, on the other hand, wanted to commend and perhaps even reward her for exterminating a rodent who should have been disposed of years earlier.
Ultimately, however, the Council would be responsible for assessing the facts, determining guilt, and—if necessary—meting out the appropriate punishment.
As the village’s sole governing body, its members selected because of their perceived wisdom, the Council had never opened its meetings to the public. Although villagers disagreed with the Elders at times, they generally acquiesced to the Council’s collective wisdom without an excessive amount of bickering.
Yet now, in the matter of Pedro’s murder, the first one recent enough for anyone to remember, everyone considered himself wise enough to both judge and punish.
The Council refused to yield to the growing pressure to allow the investigation to turn into a “public circus” or a “witch hunt,” metaphors they understood now only because of their ability to read. Because the warehouse had a door and a lock and their shacks had neither, they moved this controversial meeting behind locked doors.
The girls and I must have added a new luster of truth to the existing rumors when we entered the warehouse accompanied by Elder Diaz. Our participation in the inquiry didn’t appear to surprise anyone, although some people must have considered our attendance optional while others believed it was mandatory.
I don’t know who held the key that day, but he would lock us inside. Justice would be independent of public opinion.
The Council members looked agitated. Nervous. And who could blame them? They would have to go outside and face the crowd again at the completion of the inquest.
I was thankful not to be in their shoes. They were under enormous pressure to do the right thing, and the villagers would not be unanimous about what the right thing was.
Although I wanted to see justice done, my biggest concern was that they not punish Anjelita. She had only been protecting her big sister from certain death. Her use of what some villagers might consider excessive force was irrelevant. Anjelita kept hitting Pedro Valdes only to keep him from getting up again. She must have realized he would kill her and her sister (and perhaps Señora Valdes as well) if she didn’t stop him.
“We have locked you inside,” a man’s voice called through the closed door. “Let us know when you have made your decision.”
Elder Diaz called the meeting to order and began giving his account of the previous night’s goings-on. “I was resting comfortably at home, almost asleep, when I heard shouts outside. ‘Come quickly, Señor! There’s been a murder.’”
“Who gave you that information?” one of the Elders asked.
“I don’t know. The voice was a man’s, but I was too drowsy to recognize it. He’d left by the time I put enough clothes on to go outside.”
“Continue, then,” a second Council member said. His tone was patient. Although he had addressed the chief Elder, his tone stated more clearly than his words that no one else should waste time asking such irrelevant questions.
“I heard talking—loud talking—a short distance past the last house on the right-hand side of the street leading toward the dirt path, so I headed in that direction. I was fully awake by then and determined to find out what had happened.”
Each Council member had a legal pad and a pen or pencil and was taking notes. Even though Anjelita’s future—perhaps her very life—lay in their hands, I was proud of their ability to read and write. No longer would village history depend upon the shifting vagaries of oral tradition.
The second Council member rubbed the back of his hand with a pencil eraser. “And when you got there…?”
From that moment on, he took charge of the questioning.
In spite of my fear for Anjelita’s life, I couldn’t keep from laughing inwardly. More than anyone else in the village, he had enjoyed a steady diet of legal thrillers. Whether those books would provide insights for conducting an inquest, I couldn’t say. But at least his reading had given him more courage than the other council members appeared to have.
I chuckled silently while thinking about the relationship between insights and courage. And—a few moments later—between courage and audacity.
If the other Elders noticed he was taking over, they didn’t say anything. They were probably relieved at not having to deal directly with the principals in the case, even though the warehouse contained only the five of us—Elder Diaz and Señora Valdes were principals even though they were also council members—and seven of them.
“When I got there,” Elder Diaz testified, “I found Pedro’s lifeless body. His wife was standing over him with a crutch—”
“A crutch? Has Pedro’s wife developed spina bifida now as well?” The trickle of nervous laughter died out as quickly as it had arisen. The questioner’s attempt at humor didn’t impress me. This was not the time for laughter
.
“No, it was one of the crutches belonging to Rosa’s older daughter, Alazne.”
“Ah. And did Señora Valdes explain why she was holding Alazne’s crutch?”
“She didn’t need to. Alazne lay on the ground unable to move. She was slightly injured. Pedro Valdes had knocked both her and her younger sister to the ground. Alazne’s crutches fell where she couldn’t reach them.”
The interrogator (as I now chose to think of him) wasted no time getting to his next question. “Ah. So the other crutch was still on the ground?”
“I didn’t say that.”
I had to remind myself to breathe, for my body had forgotten to. I was perspiring from head to toe. Although I dabbed at my forehead as inconspicuously as I could with a handkerchief I’d wisely thought to bring, it didn’t help much. It was far too small. So I stopped trying. I didn’t want to call attention to my nervousness or make anyone curious about it.
After a significant pause, the interrogator spoke like a bad actor, emphasizing each word while pausing just briefly between phrases, “Where, pray tell, was the other crutch?”
“In the hand of Alazne’s younger sister, Anjelita.”
On an American television program, the occupants of the courtroom would have uttered a shocked gasp at this revelation. But this combination judge-and-jury had known most of the facts—hidden as they had been among the popular rumors—before the proceedings started. Surprises would be few, other than learning which of the so-called facts the witnesses would eliminate.
“Did it appear that Señora Valdes and Anjelita were handing the pair of crutches to Alazne and helping her to her feet?”
“Quite the opposite.”
“What do you mean, Señor?”
The American television programs I had spent four years watching made me realize this Elder was imitating a real trial. Or attempting to. I couldn’t imagine that actual trials were that much like the ones he had read about, however, and I was the only one who seemed to understand what a fool he was making of himself.