Breaking Lorca

by Giles Blunt

  Breaking Lorca

  Giles Blunt

  Giles Blunt

  Breaking Lorca

  PART ONE

  I have shut my windows.

  I do not want to hear the weeping.

  But from behind the grey walls.

  Nothing is heard but the weeping.

  — Federico Garcia Lorca

  ONE

  Sooner or later the other soldiers in the squad were going to kill him. It was only a matter of time. Victor had never done anything to antagonize the brutes he worked with, but he was sure they hated him, or soon would.

  He had wanted such a different life. He had wanted to be a teacher, but war had come and schools were closed. Many teachers were killed, many disappeared. Both of Victor’s parents were dead; he had joined the army out of necessity. Now all he wanted was to stay alive.

  He tried to concentrate on the paperback in his hand. Victor was reading Of Mice and Men-very slowly, and with an English-Spanish dictionary-but even reading at this turtle’s pace, he was touched by the loyalty between the two men: big, dumb Lenny and shrewd, crabby George. John Steinbeck knew that people should exist in pairs. Victor would have given anything for a friend, someone to be loyal to, but there was no one like that in this place.

  A friend might have helped stem the tide of fear that rose around him; he could feel it lapping at his chin. Soon the waters would close over his mouth and nose and he would drown altogether. The Captain hated him to be reading, he knew that, but there was simply no other way, lacking a friend, that he could distract himself from the fear that-maybe not for a month, maybe not for two-the other soldiers were going to kill him.

  In America, now, things would be different. They had jobs in America, not war. You didn’t have to carry a rifle to prove your manhood. He could go to a vast American city and lose himself among the crowds. No one would know what a coward he was. He would work at two jobs, three if necessary, and perhaps one day open a restaurant or a store. Maybe New York, maybe Washington, he hadn’t decided yet. That was the nice thing about a fantasy, there were no decisions to make. He devoted himself to the study of English, knowing that one day he would speak it in America. Oh, all of the soldiers spoke a little English, but none of them could read it-he wasn’t even sure if his uncle could read it.

  Not that he could lose himself for long in fantasy, not at the little school. The air was sour with the smell of bodily fluids. The guardroom was a tiny space between the cells and the interrogation room. Pretty much the only thing the soldier on guard had to do was to bring the latrine bucket to the cells as needed, and to shoot anyone who tried to escape. There was no chance of that. Guard duty was easy, but the stench from the cells was not something you could forget for more than a few minutes at a time.

  “Reading again.” The Captain filled the entire doorway, casting a shadow over the book.

  “Yes. Same story,” Victor said, showing the cover. Anger emanated from his uncle like heat from a stove.

  Captain Pena did not even glance at the book. “That’s why you took guard duty, I suppose. Even though it’s not your turn.”

  “The others enjoy their card games. I thought, why not let them?”

  “You don’t do it for them. You do it because you want to read.”

  “Well, yes,” he said with what he hoped was a disarming smile. “Reading is definitely my vice.”

  “Don’t imagine you’re making friends by taking extra duty. You read in here because you don’t want to be with them. You think they don’t know that?”

  “They like cards, I like books. Why is that a problem?”

  “Don’t be stupid. They know you are from a different class. By reading, you rub their noses in it.”

  “I don’t think I’m better than them.”

  “Then you’re even stupider than I thought. With your background and education? Of course you are better than them. But you’re a corporal, not a general, and from now on you take your breaks like everybody else. You spend your free time with your brothers-in-arms.”

  “It’s just going to cause trouble, sir. They don’t want me around.”

  “They never will, if you don’t make the effort.”

  A prisoner called out, “Please. I need the bucket. I can’t wait any longer.”

  Victor started to get up.

  “Sit down. I’m talking to you.”

  Victor sat down.

  “I’m beginning to wonder why I saved your ass. I should have let Casarossa put you in front of that firing squad.”

  “Please don’t think I’m ungrateful, sir. I’m very grateful.” That was true. He was still amazed that his uncle, whom he had never known all that well, had saved him.

  “I didn’t do it for you. What would your father do if he knew he had a coward for a son?”

  “He would have shot me himself,” Victor said. “He would have had no mercy.”

  “Exactly. You didn’t deserve any. That fake wound on your head.”

  “The wound was not fake, sir. I ran into a guy wire.”

  “Very convenient to fall into a ditch just when the fire-fight is about to begin. Quite a coincidence.”

  “I can’t say. I don’t know what happened.”

  “Oh, of course not. You were unconscious through the whole thing.”

  The prisoner called out again, “Please. The bucket. I can’t hold out any longer.”

  Victor started to stand.

  His uncle screamed so that the veins stood out on his neck. “You get up when I tell you to get up and not before! You think our dainty little prisoners need a bucket every time they whine for one? Forget the prisoners. The prisoners are dogs.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Dogs.” The Captain took out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. He spoke more softly, as if he had suddenly remembered they were blood relatives. “I blame myself for letting things slide. Two weeks go by and you don’t make the slightest effort to fit in. Well, things are going to change, understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Number one: no more reading. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Number two: you spend your free time with your squad. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Number three: I’m going to be on your tail night and day. No more mollycoddling. You’re my nephew, you’re a Pena-I expect more of you, not less.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Every day I’m going to move you a little bit closer to the heart of what we do in this place. If you stay on the edge, the others won’t trust you. I know the work is hard, I know it doesn’t come naturally. You think I like this work?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I hate this work. God knows how I hate this work. But it’s my duty, and you do your duty or you are nothing but a traitor, you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Holy Mother, the things I’ve had to witness. They would make you sick just to hear about them. The war has forced this on us, the fucking Communists. I get no pleasure from what we do here. I just do my job, understand? And from now on, you will be one with the team. Otherwise, I’ll send you back to Casarossa with my apologies. Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll just shoot you myself.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Captain’s anger seemed to ebb again. He took out his handkerchief and mopped his brow, and when he put it away his tone was softer.

  “Listen, Victor, I have seen even some of the worst soldiers eventually shape up. I’m not giving up on you. First opening that comes available, I’ll pull some strings and send you for training. Real training. They have a wonderful facility in Panama. Even better would be the United States. Fort Benning. That would be the best.”

  “The United States,” Vi
ctor breathed with hope. “I could go to Fort Benning?”

  “Possibly. But it’s for soldiers, not cowards. Next detainee we bring in, I don’t care who it is, you are going to get some hands-on experience, is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir. Understood, sir.”

  TWO

  There was not much left to identify the little school as a school. It sat like a red brick hat, neat and symmetrical, on the crest of a long, slow hill south of the city. Once there had been a small village around it, but when war came it had been necessary to remove the village. Faint rectangular outlines marked the places where the houses had been.

  A perimeter of sandbags and barbed wire surrounded the school, and a makeshift gun tower rose like a periscope from the southeast corner where the playground used to be. And yet, despite the barbed wire and the sandbags and the gun turret, Captain Pena sometimes imagined he could hear the shrill voices of schoolchildren playing in the yard. The sounds of peace.

  The walk was helping him calm down after yelling at his nephew. Now, as he climbed back up the hill, the only sounds were the lowing of cows and the stutter of gunfire from the nearby practice range. Captain Pena always took a walk after lunch, otherwise he had a tendency to be sleepy and then he would have trouble concentrating on the reports he had to read and write. He certainly couldn’t afford to relax, not with the kind of men he was forced to work with.

  A cow came right up to the fence at the edge of the road and looked at him with mournful eyes. The little school was a tranquil spot, all in all, and he hoped that one day it would be returned to its former purpose. Then again, it was war, and war changes everything and everyone. His peacetime career had been going so well-so had his war, until the Sumpul campaign. It was because of the Sumpul campaign that he was posted at the little school.

  He came to the back step, where a young recruit was unloading a delivery.

  “Did you bring my chocolate milk?”

  “Yes, sir. Right here, sir.”

  The driver handed him a squat brown bottle and went back to unloading. He was maybe sixteen, his uniform drifting loosely around his neck and shoulders. Another soldier, no older, stood guard at the back of the truck. They were from the garrison down the road, the regular army. Aside from providing twenty-four-hour sentries for the barbwire perimeter, these deliveries were their only connection to the little school. An army of children, the Captain thought as he went inside. How can we win a war with an army of children?

  “Ha! The Captain got his milk, I see,” Tito said without looking up. Four of the squad were playing poker at the kitchen table. There was a game every lunch hour. The kitchen was the only room in the school that resembled what it had been before the war. “Some pull he must have to swing luxuries like chocolate milk.”

  “It’s not a luxury. I have an ulcer from working with no-good bumpkins like you, sergeant.”

  “Give me two,” Tito said to Lopez.

  Lopez was the biggest man at the table, a perfect cube of muscle whose hands looked small and prim holding the cards. He flicked two cards at the sergeant. “Two for the bumpkin.”

  “Call me that again, you’ll end up playing Submarine. Yunques, bring me a raincoat. Private Lopez wants to play Submarine.”

  The Captain sighed. It was terrible discipline, but that was one of the benefits they promised men they picked for squads like this-no uniforms, a more relaxed atmosphere. It’s not like any other assignment in the army, they were told, you’ll be joining a team, you’ll be part of an elite unit, part of the advance guard.

  It remained to be seen whether his nephew would ever be a part of this team. Victor was the son of the Captain’s dead brother, and utterly without social sense. His brother had been a bit like that too; they had never been as close as he would have liked. When his brother had died of cancer-it was ten years ago now-he had sent money to Victor’s mother every once in a while to help out, at least until Victor finished high school. His mother had died a few years ago, but by then the boy had been old enough to look after himself.

  Or so the Captain had thought. He was damned if he was going to see a Pena executed for cowardice. He had to think of the family name. Shot before a firing squad? No, no. Captain Pena was honour bound to try his best for his nephew, even though everything the young man said or did seemed guaranteed to alienate the others. Too quiet, too polite, and always with his face in a book, as if he were still a student. Except for Sergeant Tito, none of the other men was even able to read, although, curiously, they had no trouble distinguishing one playing card from another.

  The Captain missed the regular army, the fellowship of officers, people from his own class, but he lingered for a while, watching these coarse men finish their hand. Tito, at forty, was the oldest; the others were in their early twenties, not children at least. He sighed and looked out the window. It was barred like all the others-those that had not been bricked up-but this was the only room with a view of the hills. The cows had folded themselves up in a patch of sun.

  Peacetime. In peacetime his nephew might have made something of himself, perhaps started a small business, married, and raised a few children. In peacetime no one would have discovered what a weakling he was, what an embarrassment. War shone a pitiless light on a man’s character, and what was revealed was seldom flattering. Still, he didn’t want to give up on the young man.

  Lopez cursed under his breath. The sergeant characteristically was holding his cards close. Discretion. Yes, discretion was an important character trait. Loyalty, patriotism and the unquestioning carrying out of every order-these were crucial. Literacy was not even on the list.

  “You have ten minutes, my children. Lunch is over in ten minutes.”

  “Who’s on deck?”

  “Unless I am mistaken, there is more to learn from Labredo.”

  “Labredo? Labredo’s a goner.”

  “Exactly why I want to hear from him.”

  Labredo had no information, the Captain knew, but it was important for the men to believe they were hot on the trail of priceless intelligence-the stray, half-forgotten fact that might thwart a terrorist attack or save a campaign. They had to believe they were saving lives.

  Lopez folded his cards. “Any bets Labredo makes it past five o’clock?”

  “You’re not going to get any takers on that one, Lopez.”

  “Three o’clock, then. That’s only two hours. He might make it two hours.”

  “Labredo’s a goner.”

  “Okay,” said Lopez, “so let’s make bets on his last words. Fifty centivos he says Oh, God.”

  The others laughed.

  “Oh, please. Oh, no. Oh, God. … It’s got to be one of those, right? That’s pretty good odds.”

  “There’s no point betting on things you can make happen,” Tito pointed out.

  “What do you mean? You can’t know for sure something like a man’s last words.”

  “If I feel like it, I can guarantee what the guy’s last words are going to be. Gua-ran-tee.” Tito stabbed the table with his forefinger at each syllable.

  “Oh, big shot here.” Lopez leaned forward on his elbows. “What can you guarantee?”

  “Fifty centivos his last words are Please kill me.”

  “Exactly this? Please kill me exactly?”

  “I don’t know about exactly. Please kill me more or less.”

  “Oh, well, more or less. Nobody bets on more or less.”

  “Shut up now. That’s enough.”

  All four men looked over at the Captain, who glared at them from beside the window.

  “Where is your dignity?” he asked them, putting an edge into his voice. “Where is your self-respect? You think you’re on some junior baseball team? This is not a sport we’re involved in. This is not a game. Listen to me. Every time you are tempted to think we are playing a game, you remember. Remember that somewhere out there”-the Captain gestured toward the fields, the hills-“somewhere out there, your enemy is calling this exactly wha
t it is. He is calling this war. And some day, when you are scouting some godforsaken barrio, or running half blind into some snake-infested village, or even driving down a halfway decent road-some day, when you are ambushed in your shiny little Jeep-you will meet this man, my children. And he will kill you.”

  The Captain crossed the room to the door, and the four pairs of brown eyes followed him.

  “It’s one o’clock,” he said. “Bring in Labredo.”

  THREE

  Only two months previously, Victor had been in a jail rather than guarding one. Being from a military family and having a high school diploma had made him prime officer material when he enlisted. And as Lieutenant Pena, he had several good months under his belt, running supplies along a coastal route considered only medium risk. Then one night, in a stunningly swift and brutal raid, the guerrillas slaughtered more than half the men in his command.

  His sergeant had turned to yell something when his head exploded. Blood and brain matter blew into Victor’s face. He fell choking into a pit slick with blood, firing blindly into the trees, and surely would have been killed with all his men had it not been for the purely accidental arrival of a helicopter gunship thrown off course by faulty electronics. The pilot had plucked Victor and his remaining men to safety.

  Victor had posted three guards, the right number by the book, but “clearly insufficient for conditions,” his superiors decided. Thus Lieutenant Pena was busted down to corporal. And that was not the end of his humiliation.

  That night, that raid, undid him. Terror-at least in the field-became his mode of existence. The mere sound of automatic gunfire made him want to cry. And when, six months later, it came time to overrun a northern village suspected of harbouring rebels, Victor managed to charge smack into a guy wire, and spent the rest of the manoeuvre in a sheltering ditch, bleeding from a scalp wound. The resulting court martial sentenced him to death by firing squad.