The Dead Girls

by Jorge Ibargüengoitia

  2

  The first time she saw Captain Bedoya, Serafina Baladro was standing on the corner of Soledad and Cinco de Mayo streets in Pedrones. He was riding a dapple-gray horse—borrowed—wore a helmet, and carried an unsheathed saber in his hand. The band was playing “The Dragoons’ March.” It was on the occasion of the Sixteenth of September parade of the year 1960. She says she noticed him because his horse was different from the others and because he was darker than any of the other soldiers—an entire regiment—who passed. He did not notice her. After the parade was over, Serafina went home and did not see or think of the captain again until five months later when she met and recognized him.

  During this lapse of time, Captain Bedoya may be pictured riding another mount—a chestnut horse, government property—which is picking its way along a rugged path in the Güemes Mountains. The day is hot, insects buzz around the captain’s head, and the morning glories are in bloom. A contingent of soldiers rides behind him in a file, pushing aside the branches with their hands. Ahead of him goes a man on foot, a peasant wearing sandals and a broad-brimmed hat. He is an informer.

  The path grows steeper and narrower, and when it appears to be coming to an end, the peasant stops and raises his arm, indicating something on the other side of the ravine: “The flowers [poppies] are over there.”

  The ambush may be imagined: Two other peasants come to the ravine—which appears to be deserted—carrying sacks in which to pack the crop; their terror when they realize they are surrounded by the federales; the torture, something simple like a broken finger or roasted foot. They are not heroic and tell the name of the person who provides the seeds and buys their production.

  Background material is lacking on what followed. It is not known how Captain Bedoya learned that Humberto Paredes, the person accused, was Arcángela Baladro’s son, nor what intuition led him to visit her instead of notifying the police to make the arrest.

  The detachment, having accomplished this brilliant action—it was the first plantation it had succeeded in uncovering—returned to the base and the captain wrote up his report, in which he mentioned taking the prisoners and burning the crop, but not that he had obtained the name of the person responsible. When he finished, he removed his uniform, put on civilian clothes, and took the Scarlet Arrow bus to San Pedro de las Corrientes.

  The interview with Arcángela put his mettle to the test. At first, she treated him arrogantly, thinking he was selling something; then she took him for a health department inspector looking for a bribe—the México Lindo toilets were never in proper working order. When he explained that the matter he wished to discuss concerned Humberto Paredes, she ushered him into the dining room, figuring it was a friend of her son who had come to borrow money. The confusion was annoying; the explanation distressing.

  With a firmness that surprised him more each time he recalled the incident, the captain insisted on imparting his message from start to finish: that the señora’s son was a drug dealer; not only was he a lawbreaker, but he had been denounced and was practically in custody. Following this declaration, the captain was obliged to observe—in a matter of minutes that seemed like hours—the painful transition in a mother from ignorance to realization of the truth.

  During the first moments of incredulity, Arcángela insulted the captain. “You are lying,” she screamed at him. He remained impassive. He repeated the accusation. Arcángela then sought to explain to the captain all that she, a mother, had undergone: that she wanted her boy to be a doctor, and had even made the sacrifice of parting with him so that the youngster would not be exposed to unfavorable influences and could become a person of consequence; that she had spent a fortune on his schooling, and now she was forced to face the stern reality—her son was a drug dealer.

  “How would you expect me to feel, Captain? All the work and privations of a lifetime thrown to the wind on account of a boy’s recklessness.”

  She wept copiously. Picking up the white tablecloth stained with coffee, she used it to dry her tears. In the silence that reigned as Arcángela did this, Captain Bedoya had time to say, “Now, I don’t want to get the boy into trouble . . .”

  The captain left the México Lindo with five thousand pesos in his pocket.

  This was Captain Bedoya’s first contact with the Baladro sisters. Several months later, when Serafina, in her thirst for revenge, wanted to buy a more powerful weapon than the pistol she owned and to hire a teacher of marksmanship, Arcángela recommended Captain Bedoya as a trustworthy person.

  3

  Serafina wanted a large-size pistol, even if it meant having to hold it with her two hands to fire it, even if the kick would almost wrench it out of her grip, even if its report was ear-splitting, and even if the bullet, on entering through the victim’s chest, would tear a great hole in his back. All these drawbacks were offset, in Serafina’s opinion, by the assurance such a weapon gave that after justice had been meted out the “executed” culprit would not come stumbling toward her, his eyes staring like a crazy man’s, arms outstretched as though he meant to embrace her.

  Having made the recommendation, Arcángela then arranged a meeting. Captain Bedoya arrived at Serafina’s house on the evening agreed upon at eight o’clock sharp, went to the barroom, and asked to see the proprietress.

  Serafina, who was then in her period of continence, had decided that she would be polite but aloof in her treatment of the captain. Her plan was to meet with him in one of the private rooms, explain what she required, find out if it was feasible, and how much it would cost. If the price was acceptable, they would come to an agreement and the deal would be considered closed. She thought that at this point she would send for a few of the girls and order some bottles to be brought in, while she herself, as she rose from the table, would invite the captain to be her guest, make himself at home, drink his fill, and indulge his every whim. At this juncture she would say good night, leave the private room, and go about her business.

  However, something happened at the outset of the interview that Serafina had not anticipated. When the captain walked into the private room, she recognized him as the darkest man in the regiment—Captain Bedoya is almost black.

  “Don’t you ride a dapple-gray horse?”

  The captain sensed the implicit compliment. He felt impelled to tell the truth: “That is a horse I borrow, señora.”

  “Señorita, please!”

  Captain Bedoya begged pardon, made the correction, sat down, accepted the brandy Serafina offered, and was proper and accommodating. “What was it the señorita wished?” “A large pistol.” She explained the features she was interested in. He recommended a regulation .45 special. He could get one for her for twelve hundred pesos and deliver it in two weeks’ time with a supply of one hundred cartridges.

  “Do you want some money in advance?”

  “Not one centavo.”

  She also needed somebody to teach her to handle the weapon. The captain promised to take her to a deserted spot where she could practice until she had acquired thorough mastery of the piece. How much would he charge for the classes?

  “Not one centavo.”

  The deal was closed. The moment had now arrived when Serafina was to get up and call in the girls. She says that she has no idea what made her linger there chatting with that very homely man. She served him another drink and questioned him about army life, remarking that it was said to be one of considerable austerity. The captain spoke eloquently of forays on horseback, of going hungry and suffering thirst, of long nights on guard duty under the pouring rain. Then, all at once, conversation came to a sudden halt.

  Serafina noticed that the captain had put his right arm under the table and, then, she felt a hand on her abdomen. She says that she became alarmed but did not know what to do.

  Serafina terminated her continence that night and forgot all about revenge.

  4

  Serafina met Captain Bedoya on February 3, 1961. His influence upon the destinies of the Baladro
sisters over the months following that date was decisive. He had promised the pistol in two weeks, but was lucky and obtained one in three days. He packed it in a shoe box together with a supply of one hundred cartridges and, carrying it under his arm, appeared for the second time at the house on Molino Street, went into the barroom and asked to talk to the proprietress. Serafina emerged, radiant, to greet him, escorted him to her room, where he handed over the pistol and she the money, and—the bargain having been concluded—they spent the night together.

  Three days later, the captain put in his third appearance at the house on Molino Street. This time it is eleven o’clock in the morning and he is in uniform. He knocks at the door of the house because the cabaret is closed, and when the Skeleton opens it, he asks for the señorita—Serafina was “señora” to everybody else, but “señorita” to him. After making him wait in the hall for a while, she appears—breathless and blushing—in a lavender bathrobe. He says that he has come to give her her first lesson with the pistol.

  Serafina dressed rapidly and put on a wide-brimmed hat with a ruffle to protect her from the sun. She thought he was going to take her to a deserted spot in the country, as he had said, but such was not the case. They took a Scarlet Arrow bus to Concepción, the village where the captain was stationed.

  (This trip of Serafina’s—to a village she had seen before only from afar as a cluster of houses in the middle of a plain—was fateful in her life and in the lives of the other protagonists of this story. Concepción is not on the Mezcala highway that links Pedrones and San Pedro de las Corrientes, but is connected to it by a three-kilometer-long side road.)

  The captain had concocted cross-country marches and field exercises so that nobody would be in the camp at midday except the squad on guard duty. Serafina received preliminary instructions from the captain on the handling of firearms in general. Following this, she fired her first clip—erratically—on the detachment’s small firing range with no indiscreet onlookers or accompaniment of mocking remarks. When the session was over, the captain took her to the commanding officer’s quarters, but the cot was too narrow and the floor too cold, making it necessary to move the typewriter and make love on the desk under a contour map of the military zone, after which he invited her for dinner at the Gómez Hotel.

  She says that it was during this meal—the regular six-course dinner—that she realized that she had fallen in love with Captain Bedoya. She noted that it was only with effort that she could recall Simón Corona, that she was no longer obsessed with revenge, and regretted having spent twelve hundred pesos on a pistol that left her ears ringing after every shot.

  She must have said to the captain, “Tell me the story of your life.”

  Whereupon, he must have told her about his wife in Mexico City, whom he met, conquered, seduced, and impregnated at the graduation dance of the Military College; about their four children—especially, the little girl, Carmelita; about the day his wife caught him eating tamales with another woman in the city of Puebla; of the scene she made and how he slapped her until she fell to the floor. He must have also told her that the couple got together every two or three years in a vain attempt to patch up their marriage. (Note: Those reunions came to an end because the captain was fated to live with Serafina for three years, happy ones for both, until they had to separate to begin serving their sentences—he in the men’s penitentiary, she in the women’s prison.) To conclude, the captain must have complained about being lonely. Serafina must have felt sorry for him.

  The captain called for the check, paid it, and left a one-peso tip—he never gave more or less and was hated by all waiters. They then went to the arcade. Serafina stood among the shoeshine boys contemplating the square. It was at this moment that it dawned on her that Concepción would be the ideal town in which to open a third whorehouse.

  V

  The History of the Houses

  1

  Señora Eulalia Baladro de Pinto states:

  The newspapers wrote that my sisters inherited the business from my father, that my father was notorious in Guatáparo for his dissolute life, and that he was shot by the federales. A pack of lies! My father was a respectable man, a storekeeper, a person who never set foot in a house of ill fame, and who did not live in Guatáparo but in San Mateo el Grande, where we—his three daughters—were born, and where people remember him to this day with respect and admiration. He never had trouble with anybody, least of all the federales. He died in the year 1947 in San Mateo from a pain, having confessed and received communion and, fortunately, without ever knowing that my sisters were involved in a way of life he would have disapproved of.

  My sister Arcángela became the proprietress of a house of vice by accident. She was a moneylender; one of her clients could not pay up and she had to take over some of his properties, which included a small bar in Pedrones on Gómez Farías Street. She tried out managers for months, but they were all dishonest so she had no choice but to run the place herself. She made such a success of it that in a couple of years she was able to open the house on Molino Street in Pedrones, which became famous.

  Years after that, thanks to a politician friend of hers in the state of Mezcala, she got a license to operate a business in San Pedro de las Corrientes. She came to see me at that time and said, “I am moving to San Pedro. Would you be interested in taking charge of a little business for me that I have on Molino Street?”

  I was married to Teófilo and had all I needed, but I was curious to know what sort of business it was in case I might be able to run it without neglecting my responsibilities at home. That was the first I knew of what my sister was doing. I could hardly believe my ears.

  “Better dead,” I told her, “than running one of those places.”

  Arcángela took offense at this answer and we were not on good terms for years. When I turned her down, she made the offer to my sister Serafina. Whatever her faults, Arcángela was always in favor of keeping business in the family. Serafina accepted because she was young, inexperienced, had just gone through a disappointment in love, and was working in the Aurora textile factory as a spinner. She took over the Molino Street place and Arcángela went to live in San Pedro de las Corrientes where she opened the México Lindo, which was to become the most popular cabaret in the city.

  For years it seemed like God was with them. While my husband and I lost everything three times through honest work, my sisters were getting rich off immorality.

  2

  Arcángela Baladro states:

  The prostitution business is simple. All you have to do to be successful at it is to keep strict discipline.

  The girls come down from the rooms at eight o’clock in the evening and file by me so I can check on them to make sure they are clean, neatly dressed, and have combed their hair. The man behind the bar sets his cash register on zeros. The jukebox is plugged in and the metal shutters raised. The customers begin to arrive. Some are already familiar with the place and go straight over to the girls they prefer while others feel strange or are shy and would rather stand at the bar and have a drink or two until they make up their minds. When I notice that time has gone by and they are still at the bar, I send over one of the girls who is not busy to attend to them. Most men will go along with the first one who invites them to a table.

  In my houses it is forbidden for the girls to drink at the bar. Sometimes, a customer will prefer to wait for a particular girl who is working upstairs to be free. As long as he pays for what he drinks, a customer is welcome to stand at the bar for as long as he pleases. Sometimes, a group of men will come in who want to sit down at a table by themselves without female company, which is all right, too. They can do anything they like, as long as they pay. There is one thing I will not permit, though—which is usually done by students—and that is for anybody to pick out a girl, dance piece after piece with her, and then leave without having spent a peso. To prevent this kind of behavior, the jukebox is rigged up so that there is an intermission between numbers f
or a rest and a drink. Everybody has to go back to the tables when a number is over. It is forbidden for anybody standing at the bar or the entrance to go out on the dance floor, for the girls to charge for dancing, or for them to sit down at a table without ordering. After each round, the waiter hands the customer a check for the amount consumed and gives the girl a token. The customer is required to pay his bill before leaving, in a nice way, and in cash.

  All drinks served in my houses are legitimate. In twenty years nobody has ever been able to say he was not served exactly what he ordered. Even the girls are served what they ask for. If somebody wants rum, a bottle of rum is uncorked, and what goes into his glass is what was originally inside that bottle.

  The cabaret has two doors, one to the street and one to the house. Anybody can come inside and whoever has paid up can go out through the street door. When a customer at a table with a girl feels like spending some time alone with her, he can ask her to take him to her room. She will say yes because it is forbidden for her to say no. The customer pays his check, the two of them leave the table and go out of the cabaret through the door to the house. This door opens into a hall where the stairs are. The room attendant’s table is at the foot of these stairs. She is the one who tells the customer the price because not all the girls cost the same. The customer pays the attendant and she gives the girl a token and the man a towel. The customer and the girl go upstairs to her room where they may stay as long as he has paid for. When they are through, they must come down together. This is important so that the room attendant can be sure that the customer has not mistreated the girl. The customer may, if he wishes, go back to the cabaret or he can leave the house by the street door. The girl must return to the cabaret and continue working. A good worker earns three, four, and up to ten tokens a night.