The Uncomfortable Dead Read online

  So I says goodbye to Genaro, thinking how he was more worried about who was going to do his cooking than about the deceased, or not, María, and thinking that what he was remembering was not that he loved her or nothing like that, but all the work she did around the house and all. Then I went down to the stream where the women did the washing and I ran into cousin Eulogia. She was with Heriberto, my godson, and she was washing something. I decided to talk to her cause she was naturally real nosey, and she told me that just before she disappeared, the deceased María, who wasn’t really deceased yet, had quit going to the meetings of the Women for Dignity Cooperative just when they were fixing to name her to the bureau, and that she, Eulogia, had gone to see her, the alleged deceased, to ask why it was that she wasn’t going to the meetings, and that she, María, answered, “Who’s gonna make me?” and didn’t say no more cause just then Genaro showed up and María shut up and just went on grinding corn. I asked if María could have got lost in the woods, and Eulogia went, “How’s she gonna get lost when she knows every path and every trail?”

  “So she didn’t get lost,” I says.

  “No!” she says.

  “So then what?” I says.

  “You ask me, I think it was that demon with the hat—El Sombrerón—who hauled her away,” she says.

  “Shit, cousin, you’re old enough to not be believing those stories about El Sombrerón.”

  “All I know is that things happen, cousin, like what happened to Ruperto’s wife,” Eulogia insisted.

  “Ah, c’mon, cousin, that wasn’t no Sombrerón. Don’t you remember how they finally found her all cuddled up naked behind the fireplace?”

  “That may be,” Eulogia said, “but there’s a whole lot of other Sombrerón stories I figure are true enough.”

  Well, right then I didn’t have time to explain to cousin Eulogia how those stories about El Sombrerón were just that, stories, so I headed for the trail that lead up to where they go for firewood. I was just about leaving the town when I heard a voice behind me: “Is that Elías Contreras?”

  And I turned to see who it was, and it was Comandante Tacho, who was just getting into town—to talk up the citizens, I think.

  “So how’re you, Tacho?” I said.

  I wanted to hang around and chat with him about neoliberalism and globalization and all, but I remembered I only had three days to clear up the matter of the deceased María, so I bid him goodbye.

  “I’ll be moving along now,” I said.

  “Oh, so you’re on a mission?”

  “That’s about it,” I said.

  “Go with God then, Don Elías” he said.

  “And you, Don Tacho,” I added and hit the trail.

  As I was getting to the sunflower fields it started raining. I wasn’t carrying nothing to keep the rain off, so I started hollering and cussing, which don’t keep you dry, but it does warm you up a bit. I followed the firewood trail every which way and back again, cause the thing spreads out like the branches of a tree, but no matter how far I went up any one of them branches, I didn’t find nothing to tell me what could have happened to the alleged deceased María. I went over by the stream and had my pozol sitting on a rock. Night falls hard and fast in the woods and although there was a big old moon, I had to use a light to get back to the trail. So now what? I asked myself, just staring like a dummy at the branches cut by a machete … machete …

  Machete! That’s it! There was no sign of the machete the alleged deceased María had used to cut firewood. And then I remembered that back at Genaro’s I’d seen a machete by one of the piles of firewood stacked up against the side of the shack. There was a goodly amount of wood there, so why would the right now not-so-deceased María have gone out to chop more, seeing as how she already had plenty? And that was when I got to thinking that María had not been disappeared, but had disappeared herself. What I mean is that, like folks around here say, she just up and left.

  So I got myself on the road and headed back to Entre Cerros. After a cup of coffee at cousin Eulogia’s, I made myself as comfortable as I could on the grain bin to get some sleep. It turns out I didn’t get much sleep, what with the drumming of the rain and the worrying about finding María. Now, when I don’t sleep I get to thinking too much. Mara always scolds me for thinking too much, and I tell her there’s no way to stop, that that’s how they made me. So I went on thinking about what if María ain’t deceased, what if she wasn’t disappeared, what if she disappeared herself, and where could she have got to, and if she disappeared herself it musta been cause she didn’t want to be appeared, so then she musta gone where nobody could appear her.

  In the morning it was still raining, so I borrowed a nylon poncho from cousin Humberto. I left him the loaded mule and went to the local government at La Realidad.

  Soon as I got there, I asked to talk to the head of the Good Governance Board. They took me first to the Vigilance Commission. Míster and Brusli were there. I told them I was on the Investigation Commission and that I needed to talk to the Good Governance Board. Then they sent me in. I asked the Board if they had information about the women’s collectives in the towns. They handed me some lists. It took awhile, and I couldn’t find anything I wanted in the lists, so I gave them back.

  “So what is it you’re looking for?” they asked.

  “I don’t know,” I answered, cause it was the pure and simple truth. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but if I found it, I’d know.

  “Looks like you’re all mixed up,” the Board guys said.

  “That’s about right,” I said.

  “So you couldn’t find what you were looking for?” they went on asking.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “Well, that list has all the women’s collectives,” one of the Board guys told me.

  “Yeah, all of them except a brand new one that’s just getting started,” another one added.

  “Oh yeah, that one, but it’s in a new region and it barely hasn’t even started up yet. They don’t even have an autonomous municipality, but the women are organizing their collective,” the first one said.

  “That’s the way it is,” the only female Board member said, “the women are the first to get organized, and if the fight is taking too long it’s because of the men; their minds are too narrow.” None of the men said anything.

  I got the feeling that I was about to find what I didn’t know I was looking for, so I asked, “Where is that collective that’s just getting started?”

  “It’s over in the Ceiba region, in the town of Tres Cruces, along the Comitán road,” the woman said.

  Brusli loaned me his mare and I set out for Tres Cruces. Along the way it grew dark and the mare kept getting spooked at every shadow, so I put her up in a town along the way, but seeing as how the second day was running out, I walked it—fact of the matter is, I think I practically ran the rest of the way.

  I got to Tres Cruces when the moon was halfway across the sky. I went to see the local headman and introduced myself. He went off for a while, I imagine to radio in and see if I was who I said I was, cause he came back real happy and even invited me to dinner. We had coffee and guineo bananas. When we got through I asked him how the work was going and he said it was fine, that the collective sometimes lost a bit of push, but that with a little political talking-to they perked right up again.

  “The one that’s getting along just fine is the women’s collective, and it’s that April who’s providing the spark,” the headman said.

  “Who’s this guy April?” I asked.

  “Not a guy, but a gal,” he answered.

  I took another sip of coffee and waited on him. Soon the headman continued.

  “April’s a woman who came in about three weeks ago, said she was Women’s Commission. We put her up at Doña Lucha’s, seeing as how she’s alone after Aram went deceased. So that’s where the April woman is living and I think she’s got a good head on her, cause the other women in town really like her. Every
week she comes in for the political work and stuff, and I think they already asked to have their collective registered with the Good Governance Board.

  So I said goodbye to the headman and told him I was going to spend the night over at the church. Making believe it was just out of curiosity, I asked him where that Doña Lucha lived. He said it was on the outskirts of town facing the hill. So I left him, but instead of going to the church, I went right on. There was only one shack on the side of town by the hill, so I figgered that must be Doña Lucha’s place. I stood around awhile waiting, but not for long. The door opened up and the first thing I saw was a shadow that by the light of the moon became a woman.

  “Good evening to you, María,” I said, stepping out from behind the water trough.

  She sorta froze up a second, but then she bent over, picked up a rock, and looked me in the eye.

  “Who says my name’s María? My name’s April.”

  I just stood there not saying a word, and thinking how any other woman would’ve gotten spooked and would’ve screamed or run away or both. This here one was ready to face down a stranger, though. A woman like that don’t shut up when things aren’t right. She don’t stay with a man who treats her bad, either.

  I kept my eyes glued to the hand with the rock and talked to her real slow: “My name is Elías; I’m Investigation Commission and I’m looking to find out what happened to a woman called María who disappeared from the town of Entre Cerros, and the thing is, her husband is real worried.”

  Still holding onto the rock, she asked, “Am I supposed to know this town Entre Cerros or this María or her husband Genaro—”

  Right there I butted in, “Now, I didn’t say her husband’s name was Genaro.”

  Well, I’m imagining she went pale, but I could barely make out her face so it was hard to tell if she actually changed color or not. Then, after a long silence, she picked up a stick with her free hand and said real slow, “Nobody’s taking me where I don’t want to go.”

  “Not my job to take anybody anywhere, ma’am, not by hook and not by crook. I’m just investigating.” I turned around to take my leave but had hardly moved when I heard her voice.

  “You like to come in and have something to eat? Doña Lucha made tamales.”

  After dinner, as María-April or maybe April-María told me her story, Doña Lucha offered me …

  Some Coffee

  “El Sup is right there waiting on you,” said the insurgent combatant standing guard outside the command post, and sure enough, there was El Sup by the hitching post, smoking his pipe. He gimme a hug, offered me some coffee, and we sat down on a log. Lieutenant Colonel José was there as well. I told them the whole story. Cause the thing is, this María, who is actually April, her husband, who’s called Genaro, mistreated her a lot, didn’t let her participate, and was very jealous. And when Genaro, her husband, found out that they were going to name her to the Board of the Women’s Collective, well, he even beat her. Then she took it up with the town assembly but they couldn’t come to any decision, and things went on the way they were. Now, her children are all grown and all and don’t really depend on her, and the Revolutionary Law on Women says she has the right to progress. And with every word she said, Doña Lucha kept nodding her head like saying she agreed, and she kept clenching her fists like she was real mad. And so April, who is María, got tired of being treated like a dog, but before disappearing herself she left a good stack of firewood for Genaro so he would never think she left cause she was lazy. She said that she had disappeared herself cause she couldn’t take it no more. That the Revolutionary Law on Women says that she has a right to choose the man she wants to have—or if she wants to have one at all. That she left for Tres Cruces because she had already met Doña Lucha at a women’s meeting and she knew she would back her up. That she knew it was wrong to have lied about being Women’s Commission and all, but that’s the only thing she could think of to get them to let her into town. That she changed her name and called herself April cause that was the month of women who fight. Now, I didn’t mention that the month of women who fight is not April, but March, cause they were pretty mad right there and it might be better for somebody else to explain later on when they were a bit more settled down. And that April accepted that she should be punished for lying about being Women’s Commission, but that she was not going back to be mistreated again, that she was a Zapatista and she was acting like one.

  El Sup and the lieutenant colonel listened in silence, El Sup only refilling and lighting his pipe now and again.

  When I finished reporting, he said, “Well, that’s a surprise. I met that Genaro compa once at a meeting of headmen and he spoke very well, he sounded very Zapatista.”

  And I said, “Hey, Sup, you ever heard of anyone who couldn’t be a Zapatista for a little while?” El Sup moved his head like he was doing some thinking.

  “So, how long does it take to become a Zapatista?” he asked as he was helping me saddle up the mule.

  “Sometimes it takes more than 500 years,” I said and hurried up to get going, cause my town is actually a ways off.

  And the sun was hurrying along like there was something it was …

  Missing

  The sky bit off chunks of the darkness billowing among the treetops. Distracted by a flying cloud, El Sup chewed on his cold pipe stem.

  “There’s still a whole lot missing on the question of women,” the lieutenant colonel said.

  “Yeah, missing,” said El Sup, putting the case documents into a thick folder that read, Elías: Investigation Commission.

  Someone, very far away, received a sealed envelope on which the sender had written:

  From the mountains of Southeast Mexico,

  Insurgent Subcomandante Marcos

  November 2004

  CHAPTER 2

  LEAVING AN IMPRINT

  Were there more antennas or fewer? There were many more, he told himself. Many more television antennas. Many more than when? More than before, of course. And he let that before just linger. With every passing day, there were more befores in his conversations and in the thoughts that flitted through his mind; he was turning into a pre-retirement adult. But the fact was, he had that antenna thing nailed right. There were a whole lot more antennas than before, and they were part of the jungle canopy. The jungle of television antennas of Mexico City. The jungle of antennas and lampposts and buttresses that wove in with the trees, stretched over the rooftops, hung off lines, climbed up broomsticks: glorious, arrogant. The jungle of Mexico City, along with its mountains, the polluted Ajusco hills.

  The afternoon was fading away; Belascoarán lit his final cigarette and gave himself the seven minutes it would last before leaving his perch. Over the last few months, he had begun to prefer seeing Mexico City from above. From the highest roofs and bridges he could find. It was less harmful that way, more like a city, just a single solid thing as far as the eye could see. He liked it and still likes it.

  When he was about five and a half minutes into his cigarette, his office mate, Carlos Vargas the upholsterer, came whistling through the metal door that led to the roof. He was whistling that old Glen Miller piece that had become so famous at sweet-sixteen parties in Mexico City during the ’60s. He was whistling in tune and with a great deal of precision to boot.

  “You know, boss, I’ve got half a notion that these disappearances of yours up here on the roof might mean you’ve begun smoking grass on the sly. You’ve gone pothead, you’re getting high and flying low.”

  “You’re wrong and I’m going to show you,” Belascoarán said, offering him the chewed-up butt of his filtered Delicado.

  Carlos shook his head. “There’s a progressive official looking for you.”

  “And what is a progressive official?”

  “Same as the others, only they’re not on the take, and this one’s got a chocolate stain on his tie and a crippled dog.”

  Héctor Belascoarán Shayne, independent detective, accustomed to absur
d enigmas because he lived in the most marvelously absurd city in the world, climbed down the seven stories asking himself what the hell a “crippled dog” might mean in upholsterer’s crypto-language, only to find out that “crippled dog” meant a goddamn dog with a splint on one of its front legs, a timid face, and ears hanging to the ground. The animal was resting serene and sad at the feet of this progressive official. Carlos paid them no mind and was already back in his own corner of the office stuffing a pink-velvet easy chair.

  Belascoarán dropped into his seat and the wheels carried him elegantly, until he hit the wall. He stared at the progressive official and raised his eyebrows, or rather his eyebrow—ever since he had lost one of his eyes, he found it difficult to move the other eyebrow.

  “Are you a leftist?” the official asked, and God only knows why, but Belascoarán did not find that icebreaker at all strange in these times when the nuns of the Inquisition were flying back on their broomsticks, conjured up by the administration of one Mr. Fox, who wasn’t foxy at all.

  He took a deep breath. “My brother says I’m a leftist, but a natural one, which means unawares,” Héctor said, smiling. “And that means I’m a leftist but I never read Marx when I was sixteen and I never went to demonstrations to speak of and I don’t have a poster of Che Guevara in my house. So, well, yes, I’m a leftist.”

  The explanation appeared to satisfy the official. “Can you guarantee that this conversation will remain confidential?”