He stopped talking, and Razor could think of no way to soften the silence. ‘What happened to you after your mother died?’ he asked eventually.
‘My two older brothers left to join the guerrillas after that, but I was only fourteen years old, and Emelia was only nine. We went to live with my uncle – the husband of my father’s sister – in a village not far from here. It is about twenty kilometres in that direction.’ He gestured towards the west.
‘My uncle was an important man in the cofradías. Do you know what they are? They are a little like priests, a little like politicians, a little like community elders. They are the men entrusted with preserving the old traditions, of keeping our way of life alive. I learnt a lot from my uncle before he was killed,’ he added. ‘But that’s another story – I think it is dark enough for us to leave now.’
The land grew no flatter, but as the evening wore on the two men saw increasing signs of human habitation: well-worn paths, areas of cleared forest, the wink of yellow lights in a far-off village. Even the rivers seemed tamer, lacking the same eagerness to reach the distant ocean.
Around nine o’clock they breasted a small ridge and saw a village almost immediately beneath them. Several of the houses were lit and, much to Razor’s surprise, the sound of voices floated up into the night, singing voices, with an accordion for company. Razor could make no sense of the words, but there was no mistaking the joy with which they were being sung.
He felt close to tears, and wondered how a few happy voices and an out-of-tune accordion could move him so much, when the tragedies recounted by Tomás had left him with only cold rage and a sense of hopelessness. But maybe that was obvious – in a heart of darkness nothing is more moving than a light being held aloft.
‘We have friends here,’ Tomás said, and led the way down the slope, stopping every few metres to look and listen. They were within fifty metres of the first house when two figures suddenly appeared in front of them. Tomás said something in the local language, and the men hurried forward to embrace him.
He introduced Razor, and they shook his hand with enthusiasm, all the while staring up at him with the wonder of men greeting a well-meaning traveller from outer space. Razor smiled back, and then took a back seat as Tomás listened to what the men had to tell him. In the village the accordion had fallen silent, but the voices were still filling the night air with their bitter-sweet beauty.
A few minutes later the two villagers were heading back towards the houses. ‘An Army patrol went up the next valley this afternoon,’ Tomás told Razor, ‘but my friends don’t know where it was going. Otherwise they say all the activity has been north of here.’ His teeth flashed white in the darkness. ‘The Army told one of the villagers they’re looking for a couple of crazy gringo criminals. American drug-runners.’
In his study Colonel Serrano pored over the small-scale military map, mentally measuring distances in time. If the woman had been in Panajachel, the two men north-west of Uspantan…But how did they get her out of Panajachel? He looked again at the surveillance photos which had been taken in Antigua. She was wearing blue jeans, a white T-shirt and a beige jacket. Dark glasses perched on top of the swept-back hair. A good suntan for someone who had only just arrived…
So it wasn’t a suntan. Senora Wilkinson had naturally dark skin and black hair. They had disguised her as an Indian, Serrano realized, and probably taken her out on a bus.
His finger followed the road out of Panajachel, through Sololá, north to Los Encuentros and then, after a slight hesitation, north again to Chichicastenango. The mumbo-jumbo town. Crawling with holy idiots and subversivos. If the tourists didn’t spend so much of their money there the Army would have long since razed the place to the ground.
Serrano let his finger rest on the town for a second, then exchanged it for a fist, smiling as he did so.
It was almost three in the morning and the mist in the narrow valley seemed to be growing thicker by the minute. But not evenly – it was a bit like his mum’s custard, Razor thought, thicker in some places than others. Sometimes the river below the path was visible, and occasionally even the steep rocky wall which lay beyond the cascading water swam into view, but for long periods now Razor’s field of vision had included no more than the blurry figure of his companion and a few metres of rocks and grass on either side of the path.
Given the noise the river was making, the two men were lucky to hear the advancing patrol. Later they were unable to agree on exactly what it was they had heard – Tomás claimed that someone had laughed, Razor that the man had cursed – but whatever it was it stopped both men in their tracks as if they had hit an invisible wall.
The noise had sounded so close, but all they could hear was the river, and all they could see was the wall of grey. Both men made the same mental calculations, and simultaneously gestured each other off the path in the direction of the water. The grass and rocks were slippery, the descent decidedly uneven, and they half scrambled, half fell the twenty metres or so, ending up crouching precariously a few feet above the swirling black water.
No more sounds had emerged out of the mist, and they were just beginning to wonder if nature had played a trick on their ears when the first in a line of dim, shadowy figures came into view on the path above. Both men froze again, inwardly praying that the view looking down was dimmer than the view looking up. The temptation to bring the Uzis into the firing position was almost irresistible, but any movement might well be fatal.
The figures filed past above them, like a long line of armed ghosts. Ten men, Razor counted. Fifteen, twenty, twenty-three. And then they were gone.
The two men waited another minute to be sure, then climbed back up to the path. Tomás wiped his brow in mock relief and turned to go, just as the figure stumbled out of the mist in front of them. The man’s rifle seemed to almost leap from his hands as he tried to bring it round, and Tomás’s Uzi stitched a line across his chest, throwing both man and weapon into the air.
Someone shouted on the path behind them, but the two men were already running. Razor glanced down at the dead soldier as he leapt over him, and saw that the zip on the man’s trousers was undone. He had obviously dropped off the back of the line for a piss. Which had been bad luck, both for him and for them.
They ran on, listening for the sounds of pursuit, but for several minutes they could hear nothing more lethal than their own footfalls and breathing above the monotonous rush of the river below. Then a sub-machine-gun opened up in the distance, much too far behind them to do any damage.
They kept running, willing themselves on. After another half a kilometre the path wound up and out of the narrowing valley, and crossed a small high meadow where swirls of mist alternated with patches of stars, before descending once more into the realms of opacity. The two men slowed their pace to conserve energy, both knowing that when the dawn came and the mist lifted the enemy would be filling the sky with reconnaissance flights.
At the bottom of the next valley they took to the river. According to Tomás the Army never used tracker dogs, but Razor was afraid the bastards might make an exception in their case. After a couple of kilometres they left the river for one of its tributary streams, heading up a forested hillside toward its source. By the time they left the water, their feet half-numbed by the cold, first light was only an hour away, and it was time to dig in for the coming day. Tomás reckoned they were now no more than twelve kilometres from Chichicastenango.
The two men dug a rectangular scrape in a dry dip, and embellished the tarpaulin cover with artistically draped foliage. Unless someone literally dropped in to see them they would be safe until nightfall.
They slept in shifts as a precaution, but there was no need. Helicopters were audible for most of the day, but the hunt for them seemed concentrated about ten kilometres to the north: either someone had reported a false sighting or no one in authority had been able to believe they could have travelled as far as they had. Not a single patrol disturbed the serenity o
f their forested hillside.
At around five they shared the usual scant meal and talked about the night to come. He would take them to a hill above Chichicastenango, Tomás said, and then he would go down on his own to fetch Hajrija in the hour before dawn. Razor felt like protesting about the arrangement, but unfortunately it made sense – his height would be a give-away on the streets of the town.
‘Do you know the place well?’ he asked.
Tomás nodded. ‘We used to go there when we lived with my uncle. His cofradía conducted many ceremonies in the Church of San Tomás.’ He smiled. ‘There are many tourists now, and perhaps it is not what it was, but that is a good thing as well as a bad thing. The less land my people have the more they need the money from the tourists.’
‘But you come from near Lake Atitlán, right?’
‘Santiago Atitlán. It is on the south shore of the lake.’
‘So why are you fighting with the Old Man in the Cuchumatanes? Are there no guerrilla units around the lake?’
‘Yes, there are: the people who organized your wife’s escape from Panajachel are part of one unit. It is just chance that Emelia and I are in the north. I met the Old Man in a refugee camp in Mexico and we have been together ever since. It is many years now.’
‘And how many more, do you think?’
‘Until the Old Man dies…I do not know.’
‘He looks indestructible. But can you win? Or can there be some sort of peace? What about this agreement which the Government wants to sign with you?’
Tomás snorted. ‘Their agreement is a waste of paper. The issue here is land, and their agreement doesn’t even mention it. When we are strong enough to make them talk about land, then there will be a chance of peace. But I am afraid that will take a long time. Five years…maybe ten.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘It is hard to think about it sometimes. We have each other, and we know our cause is just, and our hearts are full, but all of us sometimes long for a normal life. A husband or a wife, children, enough land to grow food on, an end to living in fear. Of course one day we would like proper schools and clinics and a life that is easier, but the simple things must come first. No one should live every day of their lives in fear.’
The dusk was deepening in the forest. ‘It’s time to go,’ Tomás said.
Hajrija sat awkwardly in the confined space, trying not to worry about the staleness of the air or the complete lack of light. She had been in hiding for two hours now, ever since a breathless Lara had arrived with news that the Army had begun a house-to-house search of the town. The old couple had taken it calmly, lifting up the rug in the corner of their main room to reveal the dug-out hole beneath.
She had gone in willingly enough, and the sound of the soldiers searching the house above her had confirmed the soundness of the arrangement, but now, three hours after their departure, she was beginning to feel more than a little disoriented by the experience. Hajrija had always thought the movies exaggerated the horrors of solitary confinement, but the sharpening edge of hysteria in her own mind suggested they had not.
And the more she thought about it, the clearer it became that the real surprise was how long it had taken her to realize the seriousness of the situation. But then again, she thought, smiling grimly to herself in the darkness, it wasn’t so hard to work out why it had taken her so long. When all you met was kindness, it was hard to take evil and its consequences seriously.
Two platoon-strength units of guerrillas had left on the same night as Tomás and Razor, leaving the base camp more than half empty. For the next two days and nights Chris had helped out with the maintenance chores, taken his turn on sentry duty, and enjoyed several walks in the forest with Emelia, book and binoculars. They had neither seen nor heard another laughing falcon, but on one foray up the mountain they had surprised a Montezuma quail crouching in the grass, its boldly patterned black and white face peering out at them with almost comic alarm.
The camp’s social life was concentrated in the evenings, when groups of compas would gather around the butane stoves on which dinner had been cooked, and then there would be talking, storytelling, and sometimes singing, deep into the night.
There would also be a great deal of flirting. Some of the compas were obviously partnered off, but there was no way for Chris to know how permanent the relationships were. He wondered if strict Catholic precepts in this regard had ever been adopted by the Mayans, and if so, whether the pressures of life in the mountains had led to a loosening of what was deemed acceptable.
That evening he asked Emelia.
She thought about it for a moment. ‘At the beginning,’ she said, ‘when more than a few women came to the mountains to fight, I think it was hard for all those who had been brought up to believe sex outside marriage was wrong. And not just for the women – I think some of the men had a hard time accepting women who gave them what they said they wanted! But over the years, well, we are human beings and being in love and having sexual relations are part of being human.
‘Of course, it is not the same as in a village or even the city. We cannot ever pretend we are living a carefree life – quite the opposite, in fact – and just as we must always be on our guard against the enemy, so we must be twice as careful in how we deal with each other. We cannot afford jealousies and resentments in the camp, so we must be serious in love as we are in all other things. But I think that is good.
‘It is hard to see someone you love die,’ she said, and the slight change of tone in her voice made Chris aware that this was something she knew from first experience.
‘But of course the struggle goes on,’ she added.
‘Did you lose someone?’ Chris asked.
‘Yes, I lost someone. His name was Francisco. He was killed on an operation. A year ago now.’ She stared out across the rapidly darkening vista, defiance in the set of her lips, loss in her eyes. ‘It seems a long time, but it isn’t.’
That explained why the men rarely flirted with her, Chris thought.
‘And of course we cannot have pregnant women in the mountains,’ she went on, as if determined to move the conversation away from the personal level. ‘If an accident happens then the compañera must return to her village of the city until the baby is born, and then she must leave the child with a relative if she wishes to return to combat.’
She turned her face to his in the gloom, wondering if he could understand what she was saying.
By some unfortunate quirk the mountain bowl which held Chichicastenango was free of any concealing mist. Looking down through the pines from their position on the hill Razor could see the sleeping town spread out beneath, the two white churches standing sentry at either end of the main square.
At least the moon would soon be down, he thought, turning to look for Tomás. His companion was crouching in front of the strange stone idol which resided on the hill, and which he claimed was thousands of years old. Pascual Abaj was its name, and according to Tomás it was the local representative of the Mayan earth god, whose name Razor had already forgotten. Scattered in front of the idol were a variety of offerings left by visitors in either hope or gratitude: several bunches of flowers, a small bottle of local brandy, two packets of cigarettes and a can of Coca-Cola.
Tomás got to his feet, feeling strengthened by his communion with Pascual Abaj, and looked at his watch. ‘I must go soon,’ he said.
‘I know,’ Razor replied, looking again at the map Tomás had drawn for him. He could think of nothing more to ask. With any luck his friend would return with Hajrija before dawn, and he would have no need to use it.
The two men shook hands almost formally, and then embraced. There was an almost serene expression in the guerrilla’s eyes, Razor noticed. In his own he imagined there was only anxiety. ‘Good luck, mate,’ he murmured, but Tomás was already disappearing down through the trees, his mind focused on what lay ahead.
They had been observing the town for four hours, and there had been little activity in that time. One three-truck co
nvoy had passed through on its way to the north, the noise of its passage down the cobbled streets enough to wake the dead, but there had been no sign of any motorized patrols within the town itself. There might be foot patrols, but none had been visible from the top of their hill. With any luck most of the local military were still scouring the countryside, but Tomás knew he could take nothing for granted.
He reached the foot of the trees just as the moon disappeared behind the mountains to his left, casting the town into deeper shadow. Keeping low, he crept round the edge of a cornfield and through the backyard of a tumbledown shack. On the other side he reached the small road which led along the rim of a ravine and into the town. A dog barked in the yard he had just passed, as if it had only belatedly realized its responsibilities.
Tomás started up the road, one hand on the butt of the handgun that was tucked into his belt. It would have been nice to have the Uzi, but there was no way of carrying the sub-machine-gun as a concealed weapon, and there was always the chance he would need to pass himself off as just another Indian.
The road turned away from the ravine and a possible escape route. Now there were houses on either side of a steeply sloping street – a death trap if an Army patrol turned one of the corners in front of him. Tomás kept close to the buildings, listening for the sound of an approaching enemy.
At the crossroads he put an eye to the corner wall, and looked down the street which led into the main square. Almost directly ahead of him the church of his saintly namesake thrust its plain white façade towards the heavens, and he felt the weight of the memories, both his own and his people’s, which the sight evoked.
He cautiously advanced to the corner of the square, and crouched down in the shelter of an empty stall only metres away from the church steps. The smell of incense still lingered in the air, and in his mind Tomás could hear the fireworks and see the Virgin Mary held aloft on a sun-filled afternoon.
The town seemed locked in silence, and for a moment he let his mind wander, north towards Emelia in the mountains, south towards the Englishman on the hill. Watching Razor try to make sense of Guatemala, Tomás had realized how narrow his own experience was. Emelia was right – it was important to learn about other worlds, and even to visit them if possible. Their way of life was not so fragile that it need fear contact with others.
Guatemala – Journey into Evil Page 18