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“Don't fuck around with me, Chacaltana! Commander Carrión cancels all his appointments except with you. You leave the office and suddenly all the police have to work double shifts. Do you know how my people feel? How do I explain why their leaves have been canceled?”

  “I do not know what you are talking about, Captain. I met with the commander only to hand him a report.”

  At a corner of the square, one of the horses was about to bolt because of the noise and the crowd. The rider managed to control the animal.

  “Do you think I was born yesterday, Chacaltana? My horse should have been one of those. I rented the best one and had to give it to my idiot son-in-law because I'm on foot duty. What do you have against us, Señor Prosecutor? Why do you like fucking us up so much?”

  “I never wished to disturb your relationship with your son-in-law, Captain. The commander is very concerned with security during these festivities. That is all.”

  A throng of tourists came between them. The captain pushed against the crowd to say:

  “Don't think I'm not aware of things. I know a lot about you. And you should be more careful about the people you go around with. Your friends can make problems for you.”

  Then he let himself be carried away by the crowd. He disappeared before the prosecutor could respond. What had he meant by those words? Did he know about his real relationship with the commander? Or was he referring to the terrorist? The police exchange information, probably Colonel Olazábal had told the captain about his visit to the prison. He was afraid it could be misinterpreted somehow. He thought it would be a good idea to inform Commander Carrión at the first opportunity that he had gone to the maximum security prison and had done so in strict compliance with his duties.

  The beasts of burden began to enter the Plaza Mayor to walk around it. The prosecutor thought that for the llamas, Palm Sunday was the longest route to the slaughterhouse, because afterward the villagers would eat them all. But they kept walking with that imbecilic face that cows have too, that look of not understanding anything. Lucky for them.

  A delegation stopped beside the cathedral, in front of the courtyard of the municipal building, to lay down the palm frond that would rest there until it was burned the following Sunday. As they ceremoniously lay down the palm leaves, to flashbulbs and applause, another explosion could be heard. And shouts. These were shouts not of joy but of terror.

  The prosecutor and the two police officers on his block hurried toward the shouts. They had to move in the opposite direction from the procession, which was going to the center of the city. Ahead of them, two tourists were on the ground. People had formed a circle around them. Another four police officers in plain clothes arrived at the same time. Two were left to watch over the wounded tourists. The rest ran in the direction indicated by the crowd. The prosecutor saw the backs of several young men running away, pushing their way through throngs of people. They followed them. As they left the square the crowd thinned out, and they could run faster, but this gave an advantage to the men in front. On the way, some uniformed police reinforcements joined the pursuit. Curious onlookers, who at first were in their way, began to let the officers through, but the information they gave only confused them more: “This way, no, that way.” When they left the center of town, the young men being pursued separated to escape down the narrowest streets. This was not a makeshift group. They knew what they were doing. The prosecutor chose the ones closest to him and followed them with two of the officers. The fugitives crossed a new construction of similar residential buildings, trying to slip away through the passages between them. The officers divided up to cover the exits and ambush them. One radioed for reinforcements. At the far end of the site, they saw a boy running. The three of them followed. The site ended in a settlement of houses made from rush matting and corrugated tin, on unpaved streets. The perfect hiding place. The three pursuers tried to follow the young man, who had been joined by another boy, around the corners and intersections of the settlement. They separated again. The prosecutor realized he was running alone. He asked himself what he would do if he caught up with one of the young men, how he would stop him, what if his life was at risk, who was pursuing whom. He did not stop. And he did not have time to be surprised at his own courage. As he turned a corner, almost at the edge of the settlement where the slope of a hill began, he found himself face-to-face with one of the officers. They had gotten that far.

  “Shit!” said the prosecutor, trying to catch his breath. He had to lean against a wall. The second officer came up a few seconds later.

  “They have to be in one of these houses,” said the first policeman. “This is as far as they could have gone.”

  They stood there, not knowing what to do, taking in air in great gulps. One of the officers went in a shop for something to drink. The prosecutor felt frustrated and furious. He followed the officer into the shop, where a girl of about fourteen waited on them. The other policeman remained outside. The girl placed two Inca Kolas on the counter. There was nothing else in the shop but Inca Kola and Field saltines. As they were taking the first swallows, the officer stared at the girl. He seemed to hesitate. He looked toward the back room, hidden behind a curtain. Then he shook his head, as if he had been confused. He smiled at the girl:

  “Will you give me some crackers too, Mamacita?”

  The girl turned her back to take down the crackers. They were on a high shelf. When she raised her arm, the officer took out his pistol, a 9mm like the one the prosecutor had at home, and jumped over the counter. He grabbed the girl around the neck and pressed the barrel to her head. Then, using her as a shield, he pushed her toward the back room, aiming the weapon and shouting:

  “Don't any of you move, damn it, or I'll kill her! Damn it, don't move!”

  He went into the back room. The prosecutor did not know what to do. Alerted by the shouts, the other officer came in holding his weapon. In the back room, the shouts of the first officer and two other voices could be heard:

  “No, Papacito, we haven't done anything, Papa! Leave us alone!”

  The officer pointed at the door. There was the sound of blows, breaking glass, objects falling from shelves, the weeping of a woman, that is, a girl.

  “Hands on your head, damn it! Back!”

  With hands behind their heads, two young men came out of the back room. The prosecutor recognized the white undershirt of one of the boys he had pursued. The officer waiting for them outside, aiming at their faces, became angry when he saw them:

  “You two? Motherfucker …”

  They put them against the wall, always aiming at their heads, and the prosecutor searched them: he found two clasp knives and a small revolver, a .28. The policemen kicked them a little and had them lie down on the ground, their arms extended, until the patrol wagon came to take them away. They had the girl lie down with them as well.

  “You can't be a delinquent in Ayacucho,” said the officer who had recognized the girl. “Everybody knows everybody here.”

  One of the detainees sobbed.

  “Shut up, damn it!” said the other officer. He kicked him in the stomach. The other boy held back a sob.

  “Who are they?” asked Chacaltana.

  “Them? Nothing but trash. When Sendero Luminoso was already dying, it lowered the age of its cadres. It began recruiting kids ten or eleven years old, even nine. They gave them weapons and trained them to handle explosives. Then Sendero was finished, but the kids were still wandering around, nothing but common criminals.”

  The prosecutor stared at the two boys lying on the ground. One was about eighteen. The other, younger than fifteen.

  “And why are they still active?”

  “What should we do with them? Until a little while ago they were underage. And there's no reformatory here. But the veterans like this motherfucker,” and he kicked the face of the older one, “have been training kids like this one for years,” and he stepped on the hand of the younger one. The prosecutor heard him sob from the ground. It was lik
e the whimpering of a child. “The age gets lower and lower and they get worse and worse. And there's nothing we can do.”

  The prosecutor noticed that the girl had a black eye.

  “And what would you do with them?”

  The other policeman answered:

  “If it was up to me, I'd lock them up and throw away the key. There's no changing them. As the tree grows …”

  The older boy turned to look at the policeman with hatred. The officer spat at him and said:

  “What are you looking at, damn it? You're all grown up, huh? You must be at least twenty, but you play the snot-nose kid, damn undocumented shit. With your record, we can send you to be fucked in maximum security. So don't look at me too much because I'll turn you into a woman, see?”

  The prosecutor understood why he did not know anything about them. There were no complaints at the Ministry of Justice, no papers on these boys. As Commander Carrión had said, they did not even have a name.

  He went back to the center of town with his head lowered, preoccupied. As he crossed the residential tract he thought someone was walking behind him. When he turned, there was only a woman with some flowers for the procession.

  Later, at police headquarters, the officers informed him that the tourists who had been attacked did not have even minor wounds. Pure fright, they said. The one who had taken their complaint remarked:

  “Gringos, Señor Prosecutor, they're all faggots. They scream and carry on and nobody's done anything to them. They weren't even robbed because they all started shouting. We ought to export some criminals to them so they'll know what a real robbery is and stop wasting our time with stupid bullshit.”

  Associate District Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar spent the rest of the afternoon watching the festivities. He saw the Lord of Palms leave the Monastery of St. Teresa mounted on a white donkey, accompanied by twelve Ayacuchans dressed as apostles, and the principal civilian authorities of the city. After them came another donkey carrying baskets of fruit. When they reached the cathedral, the sculpture of Christ was taken down and brought into the temple to the sound of hurrahs and applause. The prosecutor recognized the carpet of the Heart of Jesus that he had seen at the beginning of the ceremony. After the passage of people and animals, it had been destroyed. The figure of the heart was torn to pieces, shreds of it still hanging from the hooves of the donkeys.

  On Monday afternoon, after having lunch with Edith, the Associate District Prosecutor walked to the maximum security prison of Huamanga. His entrance was easier than the last time. Colonel Olazábal welcomed him with open arms and offered him a mate because he knew it was his favorite drink. The prosecutor did not ask how he knew. He imagined the answer: Ayacucho is a small city, everybody knows everything. He assured Olazábal that he had interceded on behalf of his promotion, and then he could see Hernán Durango González, alias Comrade Alonso.

  “You're becoming very fond of me, Señor Prosecutor,” was the first thing the terrorist said. “I don't have many visitors who are so faithful.”

  “I have come on a professional matter, Señor Durango.”

  “Call me Alonso, please.”

  “Your name is Hernán.”

  On the previous occasion, the terrorist had been aggressive and self-assured. Now, a certain irony seemed to emanate from his eyes, otherwise as fixed and stony as always. Knowing that Durango always had an answer even before knowing the question, the prosecutor decided to move ahead to what he had to say.

  “I want to know what connections …”

  “Why do you think I'll tell you anything, Señor Prosecutor?”

  It was a good question. The prosecutor shuffled through possible responses: because I cannot think of anyone else to talk to, because I have no idea what is going on here, because I am not a policeman and do not know how to investigate, because I have to turn in a report and for the first time do not know how to do it …

  “Because you like to talk, Señor Durango,” he finally said. “You feel superior to all of us and you like to flaunt it.”

  “It's quite a stretch from that to betrayal, don't you agree?”

  “I have already told you there is nothing left to betray. Your people are finished. But I am dealing with a special case, and you might perhaps be helpful.”

  “Thank you,” he said sarcastically. “Can I smoke?”

  As on the previous occasion, the terrorist was handcuffed. The prosecutor thought he might relax a little with a cigarette. He opened the office door and asked the guard for one. Chacaltana coughed when he lit it. He went back in and gave the cigarette to the terrorist. Durango inhaled deeply and looked out the window.

  “Tell me, it's Holy Week out there, isn't it? I noticed because of the holiday visits.”

  “Don't tell me you did not know.”

  “I haven't kept track of time for a long while now.”

  The prosecutor detected a hint of sadness in the terrorist's voice. He thought it was one of his strategies to confuse him. He tried to confuse him in turn:

  “I never would have imagined you were so devout.”

  The terrorist's eyes were glued to the window. He turned and looked at the prosecutor, and suddenly began to recite:

  “And Jesus went into the temple and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.”

  He kept staring at the prosecutor with pride. The prosecutor asked:

  “Is that in the Bible?”

  “In the Gospel of St. Matthew. There are things that are universal, Prosecutor Chacaltana, like indignation at the dens of thieves.”

  “Interesting. Is there … any kind of relationship between your movement and some religious prophecy? The Apocalypse or … something like that?”

  Now the terrorist burst into laughter. He let the explosion of laughter resonate along the bare walls of the office. Then he said:

  “We are materialists. But I suppose you don't even know what that is.”

  “What do you think will happen after death?”

  Comrade Alonso gave a nostalgic smile.

  “It will be like the Indian servant's dream. Do you know it? It's a story by Arguedas. Do you read?”

  “I like Chocano.”

  Now the terrorist laughed sarcastically. There was something like cultural petulance in his attitude. He did not consider the prosecutor to be an intellectual.

  “I prefer Arguedas. They don't let us read here, but I always think about that story. It's about an Indian, the lowest of the slaves on a plantation, a servant of the servants. One day the Indian tells the master that he's had a dream. In his dream, they both died and went to heaven. There God ordered the angels to cover the Indian with manure until all his skin was hidden by shit. But he ordered the rich man to be completely bathed in honey. The master is happy to hear the Indian's dream. He thinks it reasonable, he thinks that is exactly what God will do. He urges him to go on and asks: ‘And then what happens?’ The Indian replies: ‘Then, when he saw the two men covered in shit and honey respectively, he says: Now lick the other's body until it is completely clean.’ That must be divine justice, the place where everything's turned upside down, where the defeated become the victors.”

  The prosecutor oozed discomfort. He cleared his throat.

  “That is a story,” he said. “I was referring to whether or not you believe in heaven or the Resurrection …”

  The prosecutor thought it was a very strange question for an interrogation, but the entire case was more than strange, so he supposed it was an adequate question. The terrorist took his time looking out the window and smoking a little more before he began to speak:

  “About four years ago, Comrade Alina was given a radio by one of her visitors, a … small battery-operated radio, almost invisible. Sometimes she even managed to get it to us in the men's
block. We listened to it for a couple of nights and then sent it back one way or another. Often the police themselves would carry it back and forth in exchange for cigarettes or something to eat. For us it was an event. For years we hadn't seen television or heard the news, no papers, nothing to read. We kept the radio for a couple of months until one of the guards fought for some reason with Comrade Alina, some damn stupid thing, I suppose, and told his superiors that we had it. Colonel Olazábal demanded that the radio be turned in. Comrade Alina and the party members refused. They said we had the right to have a radio according to all the laws and treaties on human rights. The colonel threatened a round of searches, but the comrade didn't give him the radio. She said it would be over her dead body …”

  The terrorist's voice broke. He threw the cigarette to the floor and stepped on it. He seemed to have collapsed. At first the prosecutor was surprised by his vulnerability but thought again that he was trying to confuse him. Durango continued:

  “Olazábal didn't dare to provoke an uprising, and everybody forgot about it. But two days later he had the men and women arrested for terrorism line up in the central courtyard. The rest of the inmates were locked in their cells. We thought it would be a routine inspection. Until the doors opened and in came the Force for Special Operations, accompanied by a prosecutor … a prosecutor like you, of course. The prosecutor said he would conduct a search for illegal material and asked if anyone had any object to declare. After a long silence, Alina raised her hand and mentioned the radio but refused to turn it in. The prosecutor asked her for it twice, without result. Then he said he had done what the law required … He declared us mutinous … and put the officer at the head of the Special Forces in charge. He left. Then …”—now his eyes swelled. Threads of spittle formed inside his mouth as he spoke—“when the door closed, the Special Forces attacked us, Señor Prosecutor. There were about two hundred of them armed with clubs, paralyzing gases, and chains, set loose like mad dogs coming toward us across the courtyard. Most of our people were handcuffed or shackled. Some of us, the ones who were free, ran to surround Alina, to defend her …”—he stopped for a second. It seemed as if he would not continue, that he would break down. “About twenty of them came directly toward her. They sprayed chemicals into our faces, and when we couldn't see they clubbed us down to the ground. And didn't stop until they made sure we couldn't get up for a long time … They hit me in the head, the testicles, the stomach … But they weren't satisfied with that.” Now Durango looked at some point on the white wall, some infinite place. “The women, they …”—he closed his eyes—“they tore off their clothes, and then, in front of us, they brandished their clubs and laughed, telling them things like ‘Come on, Mamita, you'll like it,’ they said … Do you want … do you want to know what they did to them with those clubs, Señor Prosecutor?”