“I love you too, Escorza!” responded the police officer. “Over here! In the cellar, by the vegetable garden!”
Gil Portela made as if to head there, but Manuel Escorza motioned for him to stop. He didn’t mind playing games for a while.
“Are you coming here or would you prefer for us to come and get you, superintendent?”
“Listen carefully, Escorza—I have the bishop with me! Either you and your men leave now, without harming anyone, or I’m knocking him off, and then you might have a real problem. What do you say?”
Manuel Escorza shook his head as at some childish remark. “You have cojones, superintendent, I have to hand it to you. But you’re no idiot, so you probably know you are in no position to impose conditions. Come out with the bishop and I promise I will let you go!”
“That’s right, Escorza, I’m no idiot. Either you do as I say or you won’t have a bishop for long—your choice!”
“Superintendent, between the brothers and the nuns I have nearly two hundred hostages here, and if you don’t come out of that hole, you will be responsible for their fate!”
A few seconds of silence followed. From across the courtyard Brother Lacunza observed his Marist brothers; they stood stiffly, as though immortalized in a photograph of desperation. The militiamen, with their weapons, also looked fossilized, as did Antoni Ordaz, who was as rigid as Gil Portela and Aureli Fernández. Only the mother abbess—who had repressed the urge to ask the superintendent about Sister Concepció and now bowed her head in prayer—and Manuel Escorza, standing in a corner of the courtyard barking commands, showed any signs of life. As for Muñoz, he was silently repenting for his sins and entrusting his soul to God, but he had to recognize that he had never felt more alive.
The answer finally arrived.
“Sorry, Escorza, I’m having none of it. You are the only one responsible here. And you know full well that your two hundred hostages matter far less to you than my one pawn. So tell me, what do you think will happen to you if he runs into trouble, Escorza?”
The Cripple of Saint Elies’s patience had come to an end. High treason is what would happen to him. A court-martial and death by firing squad. He had ruffled more than a few feathers on his way up the FAI ranks, and now he had too many enemies. He could not afford to make a mistake—the superintendent wasn’t bluffing.
“Send two boys to him,” Escorza said to Gil Portela.
After this exchange, the superintendent retreated back into the storage room. Sister Concepció was kneeling in front of the shrine to Saint Galderic, Muñoz’s jacket still around her; Bishop Perugorría was where the superintendent had left him: lying atop the sacks of grain, his arms and feet bound and secured with a couple of reef knots he had learned in his youth. The prelate was half asleep and delirious.
“The Holy Ghost . . .” Muñoz heard him say. “The Holy Ghost . . .”
“Come with me,” the superintendent said to Sister Concepció.
He took her by the hand and they went down to the well.
“Stay here and do not move or speak, no matter what happens. Is that clear?”
“Do you know if my mother is dead?” asked the girl.
The superintendent would have liked to answer, but just then he heard noises coming from above. Escorza had sent someone to fetch them. He bounded up the steps and hid behind a section of the wall that projected out behind the stairs that led up to the vegetable garden.
He listened intently and heard the sound of boots approaching. He couldn’t tell if there were two or three men. He held his breath.
Just as he had anticipated, the shape of Bishop Perugorría’s body on the sacks was the first thing the men’s eyes encountered as they came around the curve in the stairs. That sight should distract them for an instant—at least in theory.
The superintendent caught a glimpse of someone’s head. He lifted his weapon and, almost without aiming, pulled the trigger.
The shot rang out in the cloister’s courtyard, the echo slowly fading into the morning light. Then, another shot—and another—nearly simultaneous. A final shot came a few seconds later.
Then, silence. Aureli Fernández and Gil Portela watched Manuel Escorza in a corner, engrossed in thought. Brother Lacunza was wringing his hands. The mother abbess was praying.
More than a minute went by, until Escorza grew tired of waiting.
“What happened?” he shouted in a shrill tone.
More silence. The Cripple snorted.
“Careful, Escorza!” Superintendent Muñoz’s voice sounded grave. “This is a bottleneck here—the only thing I have to do is wait for the men you send over, and I have plenty of ammunition! They might end up getting me, but before that I will have taken out quite a few of yours. Are they really that brave, your men? Or do you think they might prefer to get rid of you instead?”
Manuel Escorza opened his mouth to reply but only a half-formed profanity came out. One of the militiamen cursed; the other seventeen remained silent.
“Escorza!” shouted the superintendent. “I will not repeat this again: leave the convent, you and your men, and forget about us, and I guarantee that nothing will happen to the bishop. What do you say?”
An unexpectedly cold gust of wind made the men shudder. Manuel Escorza seized his crutches, abandoned his corner, and stared at Gil Portela. Then he nodded toward Brother Lacunza, who was standing by the mother abbess with his forage cap in his hands.
Gil Portela drew his weapon from his jacket, pointed it at Brother Lacunza and shot him in the heart. Brother Lacunza gave what sounded like a belch, opened his eyes wide, and looked at Aureli Fernández, who averted his gaze. Then he collapsed onto the mother abbess, who embraced him as though he were a long-lost relative. His body slid to the ground, revealing the mother abbess’s blood-stained habit.
“Superintendent!” barked Manuel Escorza. “I’m not sure if you saw that, but I just executed the hermano who was in charge here. Will you come out of your own free will now, or would you prefer for me to continue?”
The superintendent rushed down the stairs and ducked back into the cellar. He heard the bishop mumbling incoherently atop the sacks.
“Monsters,” he said. “Poor chimney sweeps . . .”
Sister Concepció had returned to the niche that housed the image of Saint Galderic, and she was studying the bodies of the two soldiers the superintendent had shot: one had collapsed by the herring barrel, the other, two steps from the stairs. Curiously, the girl did not seem afraid anymore. She looked at him and said, “You didn’t answer my question, senyor.”
The blood trickling down her thighs now reached her feet. There was also blood on the floor—the soldiers’ blood. Neither of the men appeared to be more than twenty; they could have been his sons, thought the superintendent. Or the novice’s older brothers. A feeling of exhaustion swept over him, deep and sweet, as though he hadn’t slept for days.
“I’m sorry, child,” he said, “but I don’t know anything about your mother. Funny thing is, I’ve been missing my own mother recently.”
Sister Concepció lowered her head and said nothing more. She was starting to understand that, in life, the prospect of torment was at least as certain as that of joy, and encountering one or the other ultimately depended on chance. Bean or almond—C-sharp major or A minor. What she didn’t understand is what faith had to do with any of it.
She felt a chill and bundled deeper into the jacket. She watched the superintendent as he dragged the two bodies by the well to clear the way. The bloody trails left on the floor reminded her of the blotches that formed across the lines of her sheet music when she knocked over an inkwell.
“I think we’ve waited too long already, comrade,” said Gil Portela, squinting under the blinding sun that fell on his brow.
“Maybe he’s thinking of surrendering. He has no way out,” Aureli Fernán
dez hesitantly pointed out.
The mother abbess was staring at the bloody streaks on her habit as though trying to read a map. Brother Lacunza lay sprawled at her feet, his mouth and eyes still open; the nun leaned down and closed them with a trembling hand.
There was murmuring among the Marists, forced by the militia to remain in line. Brother Plana continued to try to attract the attention of Antoni Ordaz by making increasingly bizarre grimaces. Ordaz steadfastly ignored him.
“Gil is right,” said Manuel Escorza. “We will only get him out of there feet first.”
“And we have no guarantee that the bishop is still alive,” Gil Portela pointed out.
“Let’s be methodic about this,” said Escorza. “First we take care of the hermanos, then the superintendent. After that we’ll decide what to do with the nuns.”
He looked at the mother abbess, who was still bending over Brother Lacunza’s body. She returned his gaze. Heavy with scorn. Drained.
Manuel Escorza swallowed, a bitter taste in his mouth.
“Proceed,” he said.
Gil Portela crossed the courtyard, approached Antoni Ordaz, and conveyed the orders in a low voice.
Ordaz positioned himself in a corner of the courtyard, perpendicular to the squad.
“Lock and load!” he shouted to the militia.
The eighteen soldiers lifted their rifles in unison and stood ready.
“Superintendent, pay attention now!” said Manuel Escorza, relishing the moment.
“Take aim!”
The soldiers placed the buttstock of their rifles to their chests and pointed their rifles at the line of Marists. The idea was to aim for the heart to avoid the need for a coup de grace. The soldiers stood six steps from the religious and could see the horror in the faces of the doomed men. Some of the militia smiled. For others the rifle was heavy as stone.
A shriek of horror pierced the silence.
“No—not me!” cried the voice.
Brother Plana abandoned the line and started running aimlessly through the courtyard like a chicken with its head cut off.
“Not me. Don’t kill me!” he repeated. “Don’t kill me!”
Two of the soldiers fell out of formation and took aim at him, but they didn’t dare to shoot without hearing the command. Brother Plana flailed his arms wildly and ran around in circles shrieking pitifully like a child who has burnt himself with the fireplace embers. Manuel Escorza clicked his tongue and shook his head. He looked at Gil Portela and gave the go-ahead with a hand signal. Gil Portela nodded back.
Brother Plana finally stopped in front of Antoni Ordaz and Gil Portela. He knelt before them.
“Not me!” he wailed. “I was told I would be spared! I delivered Brother Darder to the Tostadero for you . . .”
He began to weep—a snotty, resolute weeping. The rest of the Marists observed him with looks that ranged from rage to pity, revulsion, and indignation. Brother Plana curled up on the ground and wept.
“Not me . . .” he repeated in a nearly lifeless voice.
Standing beside him, Gil Portela again drew his gun and, as though swatting away an insect, shot him in the head. Brother Plana collapsed facedown, a large pool of blood immediately forming under his head. One of the Marists let out a cry, and the mother abbess covered her face with her hands.
“Enough fun and games!” shouted Manuel Escorza. “Let’s get this over with!”
“Squad—attention!” commanded Antoni Ordaz.
The militia immediately obeyed and pointed their rifles at the religious. Someone among the Marists shouted: “Brothers—let us hold hands! Ad Iesum per Mariam!”
“Fire!”
In the cellar, Superintendent Muñoz wrapped his arms around Sister Concepció and covered her ears with his hands to muffle the sound of eighteen rifles going off at the same time. But it was to no avail—the discharge boomed with a force that was audible even beyond the convent walls.
“Monsters . . .” Bishop Perugorría repeated, reclining on the sacks with his eyes closed.
One hundred and seventy-two men for eighteen militiamen. The weapons had to be reloaded, and ten times Antoni Ordaz had to repeat the command to fire. The execution lasted eight minutes; the survivors of each blast witnessed their slayed brothers falling to the ground. Piled one on top of the other, their bodies bled as one. The first did not have time to join hands, but the rest did. Some died with their hands clasped.
Gil Portela followed the development with keen interest and a smile. Manuel Escorza also smiled, especially after seeing the sadness on Aureli Fernández’s face. The mother abbess felt weak in the knees and leaned against the railing by the arcade; she stared at her brother as though wishing to exterminate him with her gaze.
When it was all over, the pungent smell of gunpowder wafted through the air, thick and acrid, and the center of the courtyard was shrouded in the smoke from the fusillade. One of the soldiers fell out of formation, ran to lean over the banister, and vomited. From the pile of bodies came the sound of moaning and whimpering.
“Finish them off, dammit!” Manuel Escorza raged. “Can’t you hear them?”
Antoni Ordaz, Gil Portela, and the soldiers took up their weapons and started groping through the bodies searching for the wounded. It was not an easy task; some of the men were buried two or three bodies deep, and more than one dead body received a redundant coup de grace. Antoni Ordaz looked away when he fired, but Gil Portela discharged his weapon with unnerving impassivity.
Finally there was no more moaning. Only silence.
The mother abbess thought of the twenty-seven sisters in the Saint Agatha chapel, who must have heard the commotion and were probably praying, expecting to be next. Yes, it was now their turn to die, she thought, and after them it would be the superintendent’s. He wouldn’t be able to withstand such ferocity. Her brother had finally released the beast he had inside him since infancy, the beast whose appetite had been repressed for so long. She thought also of Sister Concepció, and she prayed silently, fervently, that she was safe and that those savages would at least take pity on her. Stabat Mater dolorosa: without knowing why, those words now came to her mind.
“Superintendent!” Manuel Escorza boomed, facing in the direction of the cellar. “Did you enjoy that? They died for you, superintendent!”
The officer released Sister Concepció, trudged up the stairs and approached the door very cautiously in case one of Escorza’s men was waiting for him. When he was sure no one was there, he peered out and glimpsed the cloud of gunpowder and the carnage. The bodies were strewn about on the rough ground of the cloister. He was feeling more and more exhausted.
“I think you are finished, Escorza, that is what I think!” he said. “I still have your bishop; come and get him, if you want him!”
He ducked back into the cold room and made Sister Concepció hide again by the well, even though that meant being in the company of the two dead soldiers. The girl did not protest: she headed down there and fixed her attention on the walls of the well to avoid looking at the bodies. It was better to keep the bishop bound for now. The superintendent had his own gun, but he grabbed one of the soldier’s rifles and filled his pockets with bullets from both of the dead men. He walked back up the stairs, ready to hold out until the end. He suddenly felt like weeping; it wasn’t easy to hold back the tears.
Gil Portela and Antoni Ordaz approached Manuel Escorza.
“What now?”
“Go and get him,” replied Escorza. “Have all the men go. How many can he kill? Three—four? He won’t be able to take them all out. He’s done for.”
“What about the nuns?” asked Aureli Fernández, distressed.
“Later,” said Manuel Escorza. “Besides, that is a more—how shall I put it?—personal matter. Isn’t it, little sister?”
The mother abbess said nothing. With h
er hands on the railing, she contemplated the massacre with petrified eyes. The militia moved about in the courtyard, one of them flicking his cigarette ashes on Brother Plana’s body. She continued to pray.
She was the first to see him coming. Then Escorza did, and the rest.
“What the hell is this?” asked Antoni Ordaz, a look of horror on his face.
From the door to the cellar, Superintendent Muñoz also spotted Brother Darder—he had no trouble recognizing him—riding into the cloister mounted on Hadaly. The great black horse, shiny and powerful, and its tattered, filthy horseman cut an enigmatic image that seemed spawned by a madman’s dream. The horse advanced slowly toward the cloister arcade with a majestic gait. Everyone watched in a stupor, some with mouths agape, as though faced with the apparition of a ghost or an angel. From atop his saddle, Brother Darder observed the scattered bodies of his massacred brothers. He did so calmly, with a touch of apathy even, as if contemplating a diorama. A certain affliction came over him on spotting the body of the indefatigable Brother Lacunza, and a modicum of pleasure when he saw that of Brother Plana, that rat.
“He’s the one who killed Burntface!” cried Gil Portela.
Brother Darder said nothing. He and Hadaly circled the scene of the massacre, entered the courtyard from the side, and slowly approached the corner where Escorza, Ordaz, Fernández, and Portela had gathered. Brother Darder stopped in front of the men and looked at them attentively, a severe expression on his face. The horse’s coat glistened in the sunlight. Not knowing what to do, the soldiers regrouped on the far side of the courtyard. The mother abbess stopped praying and appeared as dumbfounded as the rest.
“That was one hell of an entrance, hermano—I grant you that,” Manuel Escorza said at last, trying to maintain control of the situation. “May I ask where you are headed on that imposing steed of yours?”
Brother Darder smiled. “To hell,” he replied. “I’ve come to take you with me.”
It all happened very fast. Hadaly rose on his hind legs and let his forelegs come down on Manuel Escorza, who lost his footing and collapsed to the ground, sending his large boots and his crutches into the air.
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