by Giles Blunt
“Not just the General. She’s made the Captain angry now. It’s becoming personal now, and that’s much worse for her. We did the water thing to her-have you seen that yet?”
“No.”
“Put a wet towel over her face, pour water all over it. Basically drowns them without killing them. She choked and cried like a motherfucker but didn’t tell us a thing.”
“Maybe she really knows nothing. Maybe she is innocent.”
“Don’t be an idiot. If she was innocent, she would have told us everything she knows. She would have given up her grade three teacher by now, if she was innocent.” Lopez laughed at some memory. “When the rat trick doesn’t work, you know they’ve got to be FMLN. Let me tell you, I wish I had as much balls as this bitch.”
“Maybe she will never talk. Maybe some people-”
“Don’t be stupid. You think she’s going to continue this way if we take her eye out with a pencil? We’re just going easy on her because she’s a woman. We can afford to take time. Otherwise they turn you into a monster, and that’s no good. Then it’s like the bastards have won-the rebels, I mean. If they turn you into a monster, it’s like all the things they’ve been saying about us are true. But listen, my friend.” Lopez leaned forward and spoke in a quieter voice. “If I were you, I’d worry more about myself. Tito is going to have your nuts in a vise if you don’t participate more. I mean it. He don’t like what he’s heard about you. He don’t trust you. This afternoon you better show some enthusiasm or, you know, there might be an accident one night-a grenade or something.”
They listened for the rest of the morning to the sounds from the interrogation room. There was a tea party with cookies for one of the male prisoners. A tea party was a regular beating; a tea party with cookies was a beating with clubs.
When they dragged him back to the cells, Victor could not see a single mark on his face.
ELEVEN
When the woman was first brought to the little school, she had been wearing a watch that hung loosely on her left wrist until the Captain had taken it from her. He brought it to the interrogation room, pulling it out of a manila envelope. It was a large man’s watch, a Bulova with gold trim and a gold flexible band. It was engraved on the back: To M. from J.
The Captain read the inscription aloud. “Who is this J.?” he asked her. “Who is this J. who gave you the watch?”
“Jose. Jose was my brother. He is dead now.”
“Brothers do not give watches to their sisters,” the Captain said. “Nor do they engrave them.”
He asked her the question over and over, and every time she gave the same answer.
Captain Pena said to Victor, “Clearly, the M. is just to convince us her name is really Maria, although we know it is not Maria. The J., however, is another matter. This J. could be a real person, and I want to know who it is.”
“I told you. It is my brother, Jose.”
“Listen,” the Captain said to her. “Maybe you can win your smelly little watch back.” He unbound her thumbs and slid the watch over her left wrist. “All you have to do is tell us what we want to know.”
“You wanted his name,” she said. “I gave you his name.”
Captain Pena kicked her in the shin-it would have looked childish had it not been done with such force. For the next few minutes the woman sucked in her breath through clenched teeth.
Victor had not seen her for the three days he was sick, and he was shocked by the change in her appearance. Her face had taken on a grey, corpse-like hue, and the set of her features had changed utterly. Where before they had had a fixed, determined look, now they were slack and puffy. The woman’s words were still defiant, but the sag of her shoulders and the slack muscles of her cheeks resembled only death. It was as if the spirit had already left her body, and what defiance remained was only reflex.
Perhaps courage itself is just a reflex, Victor thought, and cowardice too. No credit or blame could attach where there was only reflex. Neither the brave nor the cowardly would be responsible for their actions. She was not a saint, and he was not a demon.
“Hit her,” Captain Pena said to Victor.
Victor was caught off guard. He had sat himself down at the table with pencil in hand, ready as always to play secretary. “Pardon me, Captain?”
“You heard me. Hit her.”
The other soldiers folded their arms across their chests and watched.
Victor put down his pencil and walked around the table. An actual physical blow-his fist against her flesh-would be harder to administer than a shock. More personal. The woman tensed at his approaching footsteps.
Victor punched her in the belly, not too high. She doubled over.
“I said hit her, not tickle her. She didn’t even feel it.” Captain Pena stepped back against the wall, folded his arms like the others, and stared at Victor.
Tito moved away from the woman and stood beside the Captain. Then Yunques and Lopez moved to the opposite wall. He felt their eyes sink into him like fangs.
Victor’s terror expressed itself in a fury of punches. The woman had no time to recover from one before another caught her somewhere else. Some part of Victor still kept the blows low-the ribs, the side, the hip. He meant to give her a good one in the chest-a convincing punch that would knock her back against the wall without doing too much damage-but the woman chose that moment to tip forward and his punch connected with her face. He felt her tooth break the skin on his knuckles and he also felt the tooth snap. The woman tumbled back against the wall, cracking her head against it, blood pouring from her upper lip.
Cheers and whistles filled the room.
Victor staggered a little in the centre of the room, thrown off balance by his own violence.
Captain Pena bent over the groaning woman and pulled the watch from her wrist. He handed it to Victor with great solemnity, as if it were a medal of honour. “Good work, soldier. Such work calls for a little bonus.”
Lopez and Yunques gave him a thumbs-up sign, and even Tito gave his shoulder a squeeze. What gorgeous relief, their sudden acceptance of him-like cool water on a burn.
That night, the watch ticked loudly on the wooden crate beside Victor’s bed. It took him a long time to fall asleep, and the night was filled with bad dreams. In one, Tito was playing Submarine with him, half drowning him in the filthy tank. He awoke with a shout, and lay staring into the blackness until his heart subsided. Outside it was raining, the drops rattling on the garbage cans outside his window. The breeze brought smells not of the tank but of the nearby pastures.
The dial of the woman’s watch glowed in the dark: four-thirty. Would she be asleep now? Or was she kept awake by the pain of the beating he had given her? Punching a defenceless woman in the mouth, you couldn’t get much lower than that. He squeezed the watch tightly, and felt it ticking in his fist like a tiny heart.
When they drove into town the next morning, Victor was so tired he could hardly keep his eyes open. Sunlight poured through the Cherokee’s windows, and even through the tinted glass it felt hot. The heat made Victor even sleepier. This was the first time the squad had driven anywhere since El Playon. They did not usually venture out in daylight, but today was special. They were all dressed in impeccable uniforms, and in the back of the Cherokee they had two bewildered male prisoners, freshly scrubbed and wearing new clothing.
It was a big day. So big that Captain Pena had held a full-dress inspection first thing in the morning. He had yelled at them about the state of their uniforms, yelled at them to shine their boots until they were mirrors, were they a bunch of animals? Now the cleaned and pressed squad was heading into town and, despite his drowsiness, Victor could feel the pride inside the Cherokee. He indulged a fantasy, imagining himself part of a crack unit rolling into town for a victory celebration.
One of the cleaned-up prisoners was Ignacio Perez, whom Tito had nearly drowned playing Submarine. Victor had seen his papers. The other man was much older and had only one arm. Victor recognize
d him from the group cell that held half a dozen prisoners, but he knew nothing about him. Neither of the men was blindfolded, and they crouched in the back with heads averted from the light.
The square in front of the Presidential Palace was already crowded. Coloured strips of bunting were woven around the iron gates, and off to one side a brass band was playing. Sunlight flashed on their instruments.
Tito showed the guards his pass and they were allowed through. A stage had been set up in front of the palace. Tito drove around behind it and parked.
“All right, you faggots,” he said to the prisoners. “Make sure you smile a lot, you got that?”
The prisoners nodded.
“You got to smile like you love us, understand?” Tito grabbed Perez by the hair. “Understand?”
“Yes, I understand,” Perez said.
“You’d better. Otherwise, we’re going to pay a visit to your daughters later-show up at the plantation and cut their tits off. How you like that, huh?”
“Please, sergeant. We will smile the whole time.”
“You make it convincing, though.”
“Otherwise we cut up your daughters,” Yunques said, as if he had just thought of it.
Tito gave Perez several light slaps on the cheek, as if reviving him from a faint. “It should be easy for you to smile! No more Submarine! No more tea party! You should be happy! Today you get to go free-unlike your buddies back at the school.”
A row of seats had been reserved for the squad just behind the front row. They filed in and sat down. Captain Pena turned around and looked them over from the front row. He didn’t smile, just nodded at Tito and turned around again to face the stage.
The stage was not large. Most of the space was taken up by flags: the flag of El Salvador, the flag of the United Nations, the flag of the United States. Several dignitaries sat down in the handful of seats. Victor caught a glimpse of blond hair flashing in the sunlight and recognized Mr. Wheat, the American who had visited the little school.
Members of the foreign media, as glamorous to Victor as movie stars, were there in abundance. Photographers crouched before the stage taking preliminary readings. The air was alive with expectation. The band played another march, and Victor rubbed at his knuckles where the woman’s teeth had cut him.
Then the President of El Salvador came out on stage and took a seat. He waved in acknowledgement of the applause, but he did not address the audience. One of his ministers-a balding man in an impeccable pinstripe suit-stood before the microphone. Victor didn’t know his name, but he had seen his photograph many times.
The minister spoke first on the dignity of labour. He noted how the nation could not survive without the people who worked the soil. It was in recognition of this fact that the present administration was committed to land reform. The President nodded his head in agreement; Mr. Wheat stared impassively at the crowd.
“Today’s ceremony,” the minister went on, “is not a great moment in history. We are not gathered at a great turning point. What we celebrate today is simply a quiet example of quiet justice: under our Land to the Tiller program, those who work the land ….” Here he paused for effect. “ …. will own the land.”
Tito and Lopez escorted the two prisoners to the side of the stage. The one-armed prisoner was sent up first, his features fixed in a grotesque jack-o’-lantern smile.
The minister held up a scroll and spoke not to the prisoner but to the audience. “Senor Bartel, this deed transfers ownership of one-tenth of the land you have worked for the past twenty years to you and your family. On this piece of land you may plant what you want. Or, if you choose, you may sell this land for whatever the market will pay. Any profit from this piece of land goes directly into your pocket.”
Turning to the prisoner for the first time, the minister handed him his deed. The prisoner kept smiling and nodding his head. The document joined their two hands, and a lusty round of applause went up. Camera flashes lit the backdrop.
The one-armed prisoner took his seat again, and then a man Victor recognized as General Damont stepped up to the microphone. Damont was in charge of El Salvador’s anti-terrorist strategy. He had a grave, courteous manner. He thanked the minister and the President for teaching him the wisdom of reform. “Justice and wisdom,” the General said, “will win this war for me.” He was completely unfazed by the stage, the crowd, the cameras, pausi ng between sentences with the confidence of a seasoned actor. “Justice and wisdom will take from the terrorists the very ground they stand on. How do I know this? The proof of this, my friends, is the constant stream of defectors from the other side.”
Ignacio Perez was sent up to the stage.
The General faced him, one warrior to another, and placed the microphone between them. “You were a member of the rebel forces, is that correct?”
“Yes, General. That is true.” Perez seemed much more natural than the one-armed man. Nervous, but natural.
“Could someone lower this microphone, please? I want everyone to hear what this man has to say.”
A technician was produced. He lowered the microphone to the prisoner’s height.
“You were a member of the FMLN, is that correct, Senor Perez?”
“Yes, General, I was a member of the FMLN. But I can no longer fight for these people.”
“And why is that? Why can you no longer fight beside them?”
“The last village we were at. The campesinos refused to give them food. So the rebels burned their village to the ground. They killed the old men with bayonets, and they raped all of the girls.”
The General nodded gravely. “Tell me this. Why did you join the rebels in the first place?”
“I joined the rebels for one reason. I joined the rebels because they promised us we would have land. Not a lot, but a piece of land of our own to work.”
“And now, Senor Perez? Now that your own government has promised you a piece of land?”
“Now I will fight for the government.”
“You are volunteering for the army?”
“Yes, General. I regret I ever joined the rebels. They are the enemy of the people and I want to destroy them.”
“Well, you are welcome in my battalion any day.”
The General held his hands up in ostentatious applause. The dignitaries behind him-even the President-rose and clapped their hands. The entire audience rose to its feet and clapped loud and long. Before the applause could subside, the band struck up the theme from Rocky.
The General smiled brilliantly. Seeing this, the prisoner remembered Tito’s warning and he smiled brilliantly too. Then, in what looked like a completely spontaneous bit of theatre, the General hugged him. He would not have done so yesterday, Victor thought, when Perez was filthy from Submarine.
The President gave a short speech after that, thanking the Americans for their help and vowing to continue his struggle for reform.
When they were at the Cherokee again, Tito took the deed from the one-armed prisoner. “You’ll get it back,” he said. “It has to be formally notarized.”
Ignacio Perez made to get back into the Cherokee.
“Where you going, you idiot?”
The prisoner looked at him blankly.
“Don’t you understand anything? You’re free to go.”
“Free?”
“Yes, free. Absolutely and completely free. You are a landowner now. We will have the deed notarized and bring it to you tomorrow.” He reached out and pumped the prisoner’s hand energetically. “So long, Ignacio. No hard feelings, I hope. It’s just war, you know, and war …. war does funny things.”
TWELVE
“Thank you, my children,” Captain Pena said when they were back at the little school. “You were very well behaved, and I’m giving you the afternoon off.”
The men made childish noises of approval, slapping each other and mussing each other’s hair, although none of them touched Victor.
“That’s the good news,” the Captain continued.
“The bad news is, you have to work tonight.” The Captain waited for the exaggerated groans to subside. “Tonight we have another ceremony to attend. A very different ceremony. Tonight we will hand over to Senors Bartel and Perez their deeds of property. Fully notarized. Don’t worry, it won’t take long.”
The sun was still strong outside, so Victor took a book and went to sit at the edge of the pasture under a tree. He read a few paragraphs, but it was such a pretty day, he found himself looking up at the white columns of cloud, the deep blue of the sky above the hills. From a nearby hillock, three heifers gazed at him with melancholy eyes.
So far, it had been a better day than most. True, the land ceremony was something of a sham-all right, it was a complete fake-but at least two prisoners had gone free. And now the Sanchez woman was getting the afternoon off. That was a good thing too. He dozed for a while, and woke when he heard his uncle’s footsteps on the gravel road. Victor jumped to his feet and saluted.
“At ease, soldier,” the Captain said, and lifted his bottle of chocolate milk as if to say, You see? I know how to relax and take a break. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. A wonderful day, sir.”
“If only it were peacetime, I would take the family for a picnic somewhere. The twins love a picnic. They get so excited.”
“I can imagine. They are beautiful girls.”
Captain Pena gestured with his milk bottle toward Victor’s book. “Reading again, I see.”
“Yes, sir. It was free time. I never thought-”
“You’re right. I did not forbid you from reading on your own time. Still, you disappoint me, Victor.”
“I’m sorry, Captain.”
“Look, things are very cozy with the Americans right now. You remember Mr. Wheat? Mr. Wheat and I get along very well. We understand each other’s needs. There’s a chance I may be able to get you into a training course with the Americans.”
“In Panama?” Victor’s heart began to pound. If he could get to Panama, he might be able to escape altogether. He could escape to the North.