by Caryl Ferey
Rubén immediately pulled the trigger. His head thrown backward, the giant spun briefly around before falling to the ground. A cloud of gunpowder evaporated. Hit at point-blank range, Parise’s head had exploded. The dog yapped, frightened. Sensing a presence, Rubén pointed his pistol to the right and saw the old man trembling against the wall. Ardiles. He was holding his bandaged arm against his body, crouched among the thornbushes and moss-covered stones, without a weapon. Jana was not moving, crushed by the weight of Parise’s body. Rubén knelt down and moaned as he pulled the brute’s 250 pounds off her.
“Jana . . . ”
Bits of gelatinous flesh had landed on her. She was inert; Rubén could see nothing but her dreadful face under the cracked paint, and didn’t know what to do: her nose, lips, eyes, all the blood that was flowing out of her. He found the necklace of cut-off ears on her breast and shuddered with horror.
“Jana,” he murmured. “Jana . . . ”
The arches of her eyebrows had been shattered by Parise’s blows, her broken nose had been reduced to a pulp, her mouth split. No bullet holes or wounds, only the poison of barbarism in her veins. Rubén tore the bloody necklace off her neck and threw it away.
“It’s over,” he said, holding her. “It’s over.”
The drizzle was falling on the ruins. Her hair was sticky with blood. He rocked her, imploring her to live.
No, Jana was a brave woman, she couldn’t die, not now, not after all they’d been through. He shuddered when he felt her pulse against his heart. She sighed and opened her eyes, subdued.
“Rubén . . . ”
Her voice rose up out of the depths of time. Had he become a ghost, like her? The Mapuche remained incredulous for a moment, staring at Rubén, her eyes full of pink tears, and then she saw Diesel at her side, sniffing the killer’s body. Everything became clear and real again: the ruins of the old mission, the pale light of morning, the drizzle. Stupefying seconds. Rubén.
“I thought . . . they’d killed you,” she murmured.
“No.”
Jana hugged him with all her strength and the hate that had been twisting her stomach into knots for days seemed to disintegrate. Rubén had brought her back from the dead. He said comforting words to her, words of love, as they embraced each other, to give her time to realize her terrible mistake. The gentle rain cooled their faces; Jana’s had been only a mask of pain; bloody tears were running down her cheeks, but she no longer felt them. Rubén tried to help her up but he was the one who staggered. She saw his pallor, the arm he could hardly move, the pieces of his blue soul that clung to life.
“Will you be O.K.?” she asked.
“Yes.”
There was water at the campsite, and the descent through the woods would take them to the clearing where Díaz was waiting for them, chained to his tree. The Grandmothers needed the testimonies of the ex-agent of the SIDE, the general, and the others. They would all be put on trial, right down to the last one. Diesel was mounting a needless guard over Ardiles, who was watching them from the thornbushes, his eyes glassy. Jana put Rubén’s arm over her shoulder to help him walk. He would walk. They would never leave each other again—never.
Their enemies called them the Auracans, the rabid ones. The Mapuche kicked the old man on the ground.
“Get up, you dirty son of a bitch.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
An abrazo to the Magnificent Seven, my faithful companions in adventure, constant from Niceto to La Mascara; to Sergio Nahuel, the all-purpose photographer; to Daniela, Leslie, and Karla, the little Mapuche fairy picked up on the road of the machi; to Miguel and Barbara, flores and nightime ramblings in Buenos Aires; to Nicolas and Emilie Schmerkin for the forename, the contact, and your humane parents; to the delicious Rodolfo De Souza and Marilù Marini of the book theater; an abrazo to Sophie Thonon, a pugnacious lawyer, and to Rosa the subtle Abuela; to Danielle Mitterand’s France Libertés Foundation; to the Argentine Collective for Memory, Alicia in Paris and the others; to you, the girls; to Fabien the anthropologist and to the help provided by Quai-Branly; to Florent for the information about aviation; to my readers Clem and Stef of the Collectif des Habits Noirs; an abrazo to you, Aurel, for the words that were needed; to Susana’s placid patience during the preparatory courses (“Las putas al poder!”); to Florence Malgloire for the first apartment in San Telmo; to Eugenio for the Breton asado in the delta; to Jose and his Mapuche brothers detained in Chile (Pewkawal!)—but that’s another story . . .
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Caryl Férey’s first novel to be published in English, Zulu (Europa Editions, 2010), was the winner of the Nouvel Obs Crime Fiction and Quais du Polar Readers Prizes. In 2008, it was awarded the French Grand Prix for Best Crime Novel. Utu (Europa Editions, 2011) won the Sang d’Encre, Michael Lebrun, and SNCF Crime Fiction Prizes. Mapuche is his third novel to be published by Europa Editions. He lives in France.
Notes
1“Power to the whores! (Their sons hold it already.)”
2“Balls,” “cuckolds,” “bastards,” “worms,” “pain in the ass,” “whore-flower.”
3“Let’s get the hell out of here!”
4Organisation de l’armée secrète, a clandestine organization within the French army that resisted the liberation of Algeria in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
5Montoneros: A Peronist urban guerrilla group
6Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo: an armed Trotskyist group in Argentina.
7Escuela de Suboficiales de Mecánica de la Armada: a facility of the Argentine Navy employed as an illegal detention center during the National Reorganization Process (1976–1983).
8“Bootlickers.”
9A national commission similar to the one devoted to the desaparecidos.
10“Military men, you sons of bitches! What have you done with the desaparecidos? The dirty war, corruption, that’s the worst shit the country’s been through! What happened in the Falklands? Those children are already gone, we can’t forget them, and that’s why we’re continuing the struggle!”
11Law No. 23492: dictates the end of investigation and prosecution against people accused of political violence during the dictatorship.
12“Church! Garbage! You’re the dictatorship!”
13Jerk-offs.
14“Don’t be so stuck up!”
15EAAF: Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense
16“Your sister’s pussy!”
17Triple A: Argentine Anticommunist Alliance, a right wing group.
18“Your grandmother’s pussy.”