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  “Some pre-Columbian cultures buried their dead with all their implements so they could use them in the afterlife. Right here, thirty kilometers from what is now Ayacucho, the Wari even buried important people with their slaves. Except that the slaves were buried alive. They were a warrior culture.”

  They were brought two glasses of warm milk with cinnamon, a nonalcoholic version of punch. The prosecutor did not want to ask if they had mate. As he felt the first swallow revivifying his body, the Associate District Prosecutor thought of the meaning of the word “Ayacucho”: “Place of the dead.” For a moment, he thought of his city as a great sepulcher of slaves buried alive. The grave that he himself had chosen and decorated with old mementos of his mother. He tried to change the subject:

  “And the blood? Justino's body was found without any blood. Does that mean anything?”

  The priest shrugged.

  “If you start looking, everything has a transcendental meaning. Everything is an expression of the mysterious will of the Lord. The blood may have a more pagan significance. It could be the blood of sacrifice. In many religions, the sacrifice of animals is intended to offer to the dead the blood needed to maintain the life ascribed to them. Draining someone's blood is draining the body of life in order to offer all that life to a different soul.”

  The prosecutor tried to take a drink of milk before answering, but the speckle of cinnamon looked like a bloodstain to him. Without knowing why, he remembered the words: “Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh; for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.” He said them aloud. The priest specified:

  “Leviticus 17:10-14. I see you keep up with your Bible reading.”

  “I don't know where I heard it. I suppose I remember it from some Mass I went to when I was a boy. I used to go with my mother. And the seven daggers in the chest of the Virgin of Sorrows? What do they represent?”

  “Seven silver daggers for the seven sorrows that the passion of Christ produces in his mother. Are you investigating a case, Señor Prosecutor, or do you want to take first communion?”

  “It is just that the two deaths seem to have something to do with Holy Week: Ash Wednesday, Friday of Sorrows … it is … too much of a coincidence, isn't it?”

  “No. The celebrations are superimposed. Carnival is originally a pagan celebration, the harvest festival. And during Holy Week there are also echoes of the Andean culture that preceded the Spaniards. That's because it doesn't have a fixed date, like Christmas, but depends on the seasons. As I told you last time, the Indians are unfathomable. On the outside, they follow the rituals that religion demands of them. On the inside, only God knows what they are thinking.”

  The prosecutor observed all the beggars who had gathered on the benches of the eating hall, presided over by an image of the bleeding Christ wearing the crown of thorns. Another beggar approached to ask for a blessing, which the priest gave. The prosecutor remarked:

  “They seem very devout to me, Father Quiroz.”

  “I honestly don't believe that all the campesinos who come to Ayacucho for Holy Week know exactly what the meaning is of what they are doing. Even though this is the Holy Week with the longest tradition in the world. Did you know that? This and the one in Sevilla. Ayacucho keeps the memory of the older Christianity. Friday of Sorrows, for example, is no longer celebrated in most of the world.”

  The prosecutor wondered in which province of Peru Sevilla might be. He promised himself to check it on a national political map when he had time. He continued to ask questions:

  “Then what significance do the campesinos attribute to Holy Week?”

  “I suppose it simply forms part of their cycle. It is the myth of eternal return. Things happen once and then they happen again. Time is cyclical. The earth dies after the harvest and then it is reborn for sowing. Except they disguise the goddess Pachamama with the face of Christ.”

  The prosecutor was missing a fact. He overcame his embarrassment to ask:

  “And what significance do we attribute to it?”

  The priest seemed annoyed. He stared into the prosecutor's eyes reprovingly, as he would with a poor student.

  “You were doing so well with your biblical quotations …” But then he smiled at the corners of his mouth. “Death, Señor Prosecutor. We celebrate the death of Christ and we represent it in order to die with him.”

  “Oh, I understand that, but … I mean … Why do we celebrate death? Isn't that a little strange?”

  “We celebrate it because we don't really believe in it, because we consider it the transition to eternal life, a life more real. If we don't die, we cannot be resurrected.”

  That same afternoon, Chacaltana tried to explain to Carrión the little he had understood of his conversation with the priest. But the commander listened to his words with a disappointed grimace.

  “Catholic terrorists, Chacaltana? But they're a bunch of damn communists!”

  Papers had accumulated in the office, among them the prosecutor's reports, and dishes with the remains of food. The prosecutor guessed that the commander was not taking steps or making visits personally, that he asked for reports on everything, that he did not move from his office even to sleep at home. But he listened to the prosecutor. In fact, Chacaltana had gone through the entrance and the central courtyard of the headquarters building, up to the second floor, with no checkpoints or questions. Captain Pacheco was in the anteroom to the commander's office. The secretary was telling the police officer that Carrión was at a very important meeting but had let the prosecutor go in without a word. Pacheco had looked at him with hatred. The prosecutor knew he would have problems with him. But for now, his problem was how to convince the commander of what he was saying when he himself was not very convinced.

  “The two killings are filled with religious references, Señor. They are something like … celebrations of death.”

  “Have you been seeing too many movies, Chacaltana?”

  Chacaltana thought about the television set in Edith's restaurant. No. He had not been seeing too many movies.

  “It is … what I have found out … Señor.”

  Prosecutor Chacaltana felt foolish, slow-witted, like a poor investigator. He thought he would have preferred never to have moved up, to have continued his devotion to his poems and memoranda. He did not like being important, and he specifically did not like being important in this case. If he were just a nobody, at this moment he would be with Edith, thinking about other things. About things that concerned him. About his life and not a pile of dead people. The commander turned and looked at him with suspicion.

  “And what did you tell the priest? That we have a serial killer?”

  “I did not give him too much information, Señor. Only what was indispensable. He guaranteed his discretion.”

  “Discretion! A priest! He must have run to the archbishop's to shout about it there. Priests are like gossiping women. That's why they wear skirts.”

  “I think we can trust him, Señor.”

  “Trust!” Carrión laughed out loud. “Trust. Do you know why there's a crematorium in the Church of the Heart of Christ?”

  “No, Señor.”

  “To get rid of inconvenient corpses, Chacaltana. It was a good logistical alternative. Fire instead of graves. They offered to implement it themselves. But the solution itself turned out to be inconvenient. It was too visible, all that smoke in the center of the city. Besides, it meant opening a direct window for the priests onto our confidential operations. As it turned out, we hardly ever used the oven, and when we did, we knew that everybody up to the pope knew about it. You can't trust them. If they offered to install it, it was only to spy.”

  “They offered … themselves?”

  “It sounded reasonable. We all had the same desire to rid ourselves of the terrorists, didn't we?”

  The prosecutor considered it reasonable. But, in any event, he believed in Father Quiroz. He had proven to be very cooperat
ive. Besides, the prosecutor had to believe in somebody. If everything is a lie, he thought, then nothing is. If one lives in a world of falsehoods, those falsehoods are reality. Quiroz spoke of eternal life as a life more real. For a moment, the prosecutor thought he understood what he was referring to. The commander leaned back in his chair. He looked annoyed.

  “And you, Chacaltana?” he asked. “Can we trust you?”

  Chacaltana wanted to say no, they should not trust him.

  “Of course you can, Señor.”

  The commander was wearing the shirt and trousers of his uniform, but he looked untidy. His shoes and decorations had not been polished. On his lean face the first signs of a thin beard were making their appearance, more like dirt stains than facial hair.

  “They're coming for me, Chacaltana. I know it. I can feel it. Every second we spend here is an opportunity for our killers.”

  “They will not come for you, Señor. That is why we are here: so that will not happen.”

  The commander flashed a brief smile of thanks. Then his face darkened:

  “They'll come in any case,” he said sorrowfully. “Death forces its way in. I know that all too well.”

  At times, Prosecutor Chacaltana realized in a flash that he was carrying out an investigation under orders from a killer. At times he wondered if it was possible to avoid that anywhere in his city or in any other city. But those thoughts always disappeared from his mind by themselves, so he would not be distracted from his duties.

  “Perhaps you're right,” the commander concluded. “Perhaps this has to do with Holy Week. But not the way you think. You're a strange guy, Chacaltana. You're always about to hit the bull's eye and you always miss.”

  “Thank you, Señor,” said the prosecutor. He wondered if he should have said that.

  “They're trying to spoil the celebration. The symbol of Ayacucho, the pacified city. The record tourism of Holy Week. They're trying to show that they're back all over the uplands. And in the middle of the millennium, for fuck's sake. A blow struck for effect. Lucky we managed to hide it from the press. Being in the news would excite them. They don't have many resources yet, but they've become more sophisticated. These kinds of things didn't occur to them before.”

  “In that case, it is possible to predict that their next blow will be tomorrow. Palm Sunday. The official beginning of Holy Week.”

  “The triumphal entrance of Christ into Ayacucho.”

  “Exactly, Señor.”

  Commander Carrión thought for a few seconds. Then he called his secretary on the intercom and turned toward the prosecutor.

  “They're going to think I'm crazy, but what the hell. I'll cancel all leaves for the police and request military reinforcements. I'll have them patrol the entire city, armed but in civilian clothes, so as not to cause any alarm. And I'll invent something to justify it internally. You can go, Chacaltana. And thank you.”

  The prosecutor stood up. The commander thought of something else:

  “Are you carrying your weapon?”

  “What? Excuse me?”

  “Where's the pistol I gave you? You're not carrying it? Carry it, don't be an asshole! You're a possible victim too. Very possible.”

  “Yes, Señor.”

  The prosecutor left headquarters thinking about the commander's final words. He had not been aware that he too was a possible victim. It was difficult for him to get used to the idea of being an official important enough to be annihilated. Annihilated, he repeated to himself. Turned into nothing. He thought it was a horrible word. He went to his office and opened the drawer. He took out the pistol carefully, verifying one more time that the safety was on. He contemplated it on the desk and then he raised it in front of the bathroom mirror. He tried to imagine himself shooting. He could not. He put it in the sheath and placed it in a large manila envelope. It was too big, and the envelope did not conceal it. He placed the envelope inside the typewriter cover. He went out carrying it as if it were a baby. He walked quickly to his house, nervously bumping into groups of tourists and vendors, afraid the gun would go off in spite of the safety because the devil carries weapons. When he was home, he took the package to his mother's room and put it on the bureau.

  “Don't worry, Mamacita, I'm not going to open it, don't be afraid. It's just so you'll know I've brought it here. I think … I think the best thing is to keep it in the night table, just in case, though nothing's going to happen. Because nothing's going to happen, right? Nothing's going to happen.”

  He continued repeating those words without taking his eyes off the weapon for at least two hours, until someone rang the doorbell. Before he opened the door, he hid the package in his night table. He was not convinced. He took it out and put it under the bed. Not that either. The doorbell kept ringing. Nervously, he left it behind the barrel of water he used when the water supply was cut. Yes. Nobody would look for it there. Before he opened the door, he took the pistol out again and returned it to the night table. He hurried to the door. It was Edith.

  “They gave me the day off because tomorrow I work all day,” she said.

  They spent the afternoon walking through a city they did not recognize, one filled with blond people with an accent from the capital. A couple of drunk Limenians whistled at Edith when she walked by. The prosecutor shouted at them:

  “Beat it, motherfuckers!”

  Edith laughed, but when they sat down to eat at a chicken shop, she said:

  “You're nervous. What's the matter?”

  “Things at work. Nothing important.”

  “You were at Heart of Christ today, weren't you? They saw you with Father Quiroz.”

  “Who saw me?” The prosecutor could not repress a touch of distress in his voice.

  “I don't know. People. Ayacucho is a very small town, everybody knows everything. Why?” She gave him a mischievous smile. “Was it a secret?”

  “No, no. It's just that … I'm working on a difficult case.”

  “That's what happens when they promote you, isn't it? They give you more responsibility.”

  “Yes, that's true. Did they see me anywhere else?”

  “I don't know. I only heard that. Can't you tell me what your case is?”

  “It would be better if you didn't know. It would be better for me not to know.”

  “That priest is a good person. I go to that church a lot. He's very nice.”

  “Yes. Nice.”

  “When are you going to take me to Lima?”

  For the prosecutor, Lima was merely a memory filled with smoke and sorrow. His work, his ex-wife were disappearing voluntarily from his memory and would never come back. In any event, he replied:

  “Soon. When this case is finished.”

  They watched the twilight from the lookout on Acuchimay, next to the statue of Christ. Edith insisted on going there in spite of his protests. As she drank an Inca Kola and held his hand, the prosecutor began to calm down. He thought that Christ had not protected him very much, but Edith had.

  “Last week I talked to a terrorist,” he dared to tell her. “And I think this week I'll have to do it again. It frightened me.”

  Simply by saying that, he understood that he needed to talk. At least, as much as he could. And with someone who would respond. He thought of Justino's body. In the sky, the buzzards seemed to be expecting another meal. She let a few seconds go by before she said:

  “Don't be afraid. That's over. The war's over.”

  He noticed that she called it the “war.” No one, except the military, called what had happened there a war. It was terrorism. He grasped her hand even tighter.

  “This prairie could catch fire at any moment, Edith. All you need is the right spark.”

  “The sun's beginning to go down,” she indicated. She didn't like talking about that.

  Down below, the procession of the Lord of the Vineyard was setting out. Associate District Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar remembered that it was Passion Saturday, and with that in mi
nd, he asked himself if trying to make love to Edith would show a lack of respect for her and Our Lord. To chase away those thoughts, he tried to say something pleasant to her.

  “My mother would like you very much.”

  Edith did not reply.

  And she let go of his hand.

  On Palm Sunday, after the blessing of the palms and the Mass, Christ entered the city of Ayacucho on the carpets of flowers that decorated its streets. First to appear were hundreds of mules and llamas adorned with broom and wearing trappings of multicolored ribbons and hanging bells. The villagers leading them set off rockets and firecrackers on the way, in the midst of the general uproar. At the front of the procession, sitting on a spirited charger, rode the principal steward, wearing a white and red sash across his chest. The celebration had been announced and was accompanied by a platoon of riders, male and female, on the back of horses adorned according to Huamanguina traditions. The troupe included the prefect, the subprefect, and the muledrivers and campesinos who blew into bulls' horns to celebrate the arrival of the Lord.

  The Associate District Prosecutor was in the crowd, beside a carpet of red and yellow flowers that represented the heart of Jesus, alert to any suspicious movement, nervous because of the fireworks at the celebration. He could recognize the agents dressed as civilians because they were the only ones wearing suits, ties, and white sports socks, and because their sentries' attitude needed only a sign saying “secret agent” on each of their foreheads. They were, however, well distributed. There were at least two on each block of the route of the animals, and a net of vigilance covered everything, including the exits from the city. As the celebration approached the center of the city, the prosecutor ran into Captain Pacheco, wearing the dress uniform of the National Police but in the middle of the crowd, not on the stand of honor. Chacaltana wanted to move away when he saw him, but the captain approached:

  “Would you care to explain what's going on, Señor Prosecutor?”

  “It is the celebration of Palm Sunday, Captain.”

  A firecracker went off near them.