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  “What is all this?”

  Cahuide tried to make Chacaltana go back inside the house.

  “Let it go, forget it.”

  “How can I forget it? What are they doing?”

  “Don't be an asshole, Félix. This is a press.”

  “Press conscriptions are illegal …”

  “Félix, stop thinking like a law book. Did you want security measures? Now you have security measures.”

  “Where are they taking them?”

  “They'll perform their obligatory military service. And that's it. They'll have work. There's nothing to do here. What do you want them to do? Study engineering? It's better for them. Félix. Félix!”

  Chacaltana was hurrying to the police station. He remembered that electoral law prohibited detentions twenty-four hours before elections. He knew he would seem ridiculous, but he could not think of anything else to do.

  Near the station was another military truck, toward which soldiers were shoving the young men they had hunted down. If they refused to climb in they were forced to by blows with a club to the face, stomach, and legs, until they had been hurt so much they could not refuse anymore. Three meters from the door of the police station, two soldiers stopped the prosecutor. He tried to resist and showed his identification, but they barred his way. One put his hand on his revolver. The prosecutor calmed down. He said he would wait. Farther away, in the dust raised by the skirmish, he could see the commander with the official in the sky-blue tie and Lieutenant Aramayo. Eléspuru seemed unperturbed and looked away while the commander shouted something at the lieutenant. The police officer looked down and nodded, appearing repentant, like a little boy admitting his mistakes, while the furious commander criticized him. After shouting several times in the confusion of the roundup, the commander walked away. He gestured to an officer, and his jeep drove up. He and Eléspuru climbed in. Only then did the prosecutor manage to break through and approach the vehicle.

  “Commander! Commander!”

  Carrión sighed. The prosecutor's presence exhausted him. He barely looked at him as he came up sweating, covered with dust in spite of his handkerchief and the clean, pressed suit he had worn for the occasion. Chacaltana panted as he spoke to him:

  “Commander, this operation must be stopped. This is … it is …”

  “Take it easy, little Chacaltita. We're picking up people without documents and those wanted for questioning. So they won't frighten you.”

  The commander laughed, but not like a father. The jeep drove away, and behind it came the two military trucks filled with villagers and soldiers. In five minutes, even the town's dust was still, as if it were dead. A few meters away, the lieutenant followed on foot, chewing on his rage. The prosecutor tried to talk to him; he wanted to offer his cooperation in finding help at the highest level. But when he reached his side, the lieutenant spat in his face:

  “Chacaltana, you motherfucker! I told you not to say anything! You're very brave. Huh? You want to be a hero? All right, then. We'll see who helps you when you come crying in the night. Your fucking mother will protect you. It's really easy to be a hero here.”

  “But Lieutenant! The correct thing was …”

  He could not go on. The continuation of that sentence was obscure, perhaps impossible. The lieutenant turned his back and went into the station. Chacaltana looked for a glance of support in the other policemen, who responded to him by dispersing, one by one.

  The prosecutor returned to Cahuide's house. He knocked on the door several times, but no one answered. He went up to the window. Cahuide was there. From the interior he looked back at him with a mixture of pity and fear. The prosecutor did not insist further. He crossed the half-deserted village feeling the distrustful looks piercing him from the windows. They did not answer the door in the house where he was staying either. This time, he did not even go up to the window. He continued walking until he reached the countryside.

  As he walked, not doing anything, he thought about Edith. He missed her, her silver tooth, her table settings in a restaurant where he had never eaten. He thought that, for the moment, Edith was the only person waiting for him. He did not know if he should tell his mamacita about it. He stopped at a stream to skip stones the way his mother had taught him when he was little. He became sad. The way things were going, Edith would have no good reason to respect him. He would not be promoted. Perhaps that was better. If Yawarmayo was a promotion, he preferred to stay where he was. He took a deep breath. For a few moments he enjoyed the peaceful light and air in the countryside. He forgot where he was.

  As the ripples disappeared on the surface of the water, images reappeared as geometrical reflections: a branch, a projecting rock, a tree trunk. The images of the countryside seemed small, insignificant, so different from the disordered, foul-smelling visions of the capital. Among the decomposing figures he saw the face of his ex-wife. Perhaps she was right, perhaps Chacaltana had never had any ambition and the best thing for him was to sit in an office in Ayacucho and write reports and prepare recitations of Chocano. Ayacucho was a city you could walk all around on foot; he liked that. And it was a safe place, sheltered from roundups and bombs in the night. His ex-wife's face was turning into his mother's face. The prosecutor would have liked to do something to make her proud of him.

  He decided to go back. He took a last look at the stream. The figures continued to play on the water. One of them was becoming fixed as the surface settled down. At first it appeared to be a strange bird, but then the prosecutor looked more carefully. That was not a bird. It was the shadow of a man.

  He did not look up. He wanted it to be nothing but an optical illusion. He had already seen enough in the past two days. His eyes were not accustomed to seeing so much. Slowly, he moved toward a spot where the stream narrowed. He jumped to the other side in order to leave. The shadow did not move. He took a few more steps. About two hundred meters away, two campesinos, each with a machete, approached on foot. He wanted to call to them but was afraid of provoking the shadow. He thought about moving closer to them. After a few more steps, he could not control himself any longer. He shouted:

  “Excuse me! Señores!”

  The campesinos turned toward him. They made a move toward him but then seemed to think better of it. They stopped. The prosecutor greeted them from a distance. They looked at him with curiosity. They said something to each other. He smiled at them. They resumed walking and moved away, speeding up the pace. The prosecutor wanted to follow them or call to them. It occurred to him to identify himself as an electoral observer. He realized that the best thing was to let them go. He listened to the sound of the branches as they moved. He tried to hurry too and reach the village. At that moment, he was hit on the back of his neck by a falling body.

  The blow made him lose his footing. He almost fell in the water but held on to the branches of a bush and managed to crawl out from under the pressure of the man, who rolled a few meters and stood to throw himself at the prosecutor. Félix Chacaltana recognized the dwarfish silhouette he had seen the day before at the entrance to the village. As he tried to stand, he caught a glimpse of the old shoes with the tire soles and, above all, the same red chullo cap he had pursued days before in Quinua. Justino Mayta Carazo did not give him time for more before he leaped at his throat.

  The prosecutor managed to hit him in the face with a branch and run toward the steep rocks. He found himself facing a stone wall. Justino came bounding after him. Chacaltana began to climb. He felt that each rock pierced his hands, that his feet were slipping on the falling rocks. He did not want to look down. He simply let himself be hit in the face by some of the stones dislodged from the wall as he advanced. The rocks ended in an embankment. The prosecutor took several seconds to reach the top, feeling that at any moment he might slip down to the bottom. But spreading before him at the top was a large ascending plain surrounded by another stone wall. He ran. Justino had climbed up very quickly but seemed to be limping slightly after his fall from the
tree. The prosecutor sensed that Justino was gaining on him, but the slopes of the rise were too steep for him to descend any of them. He veered to the right, trying to reach the next wall in order to climb it. He tried and failed, feeling that altitude and exhaustion were overwhelming him. His heart was pounding, he needed air. He reached the slope and clung to the rocks with his hands. He began to climb, supporting himself on occasional projections. He hung from a cornice and pushed himself forward. The vertical surface seemed impossible to conquer. He spent his last breath in the effort and managed to rest on a rock and move a meter up from the ground. When he tried to take the second step, his foot rested on a false projection and slipped. The rock he was on gave way, and his entire body hurtled toward the ground in a small avalanche of stone and soil. He fell on his back.

  The campesino picked him up from the ground and pinned him against the wall. Chacaltana had time to think of something to say:

  “Señor Justino Mayta Carazo, you are liable for contempt and lack of respect for the law.”

  The other man shouted something in Quechua. His voice betrayed more fear than courage.

  “I assure you that I will bring you up on charges for your assault on my physical well-being …”

  Frothing at the mouth and sputtering in Quechua, Justino began to squeeze Chacaltana's neck. For a moment, the prosecutor had the sensation that the air was escaping his lungs, his throat, his mouth trying to articulate that he was merely an electoral official. The campesino did not let him go; on the contrary, the pressure became harder and harder. With his right hand, the prosecutor felt around him until he found a stone, lifted it, and with all his remaining strength hit Mayta in the face. The campesino fell to the ground. The prosecutor needed to catch his breath before he got to his feet. He gulped in all the air he could. He felt as if his chest were about to explode. Off to one side, Justino raised his hand to his face. The prosecutor was afraid he would attack him again. But the campesino in the red chullo began to sob gently.

  “I ain't done nothin', Your Worship! My brother's the one. He does everythin'! Everythin'!”

  “Honestly, I don't understand what you're saying,” the prosecutor managed to say.

  “My brother, it's my brother, Your Worship! I ain't done nothin'!”

  Chacaltana understood he could not say much else in Spanish. He understood what Pacheco and Carrión were alluding to when they said these people do not speak, do not know how to communicate, it was as if they were dead. The campesino did not crawl on the ground. His body was square and solid from working the land, but he did not seem to threaten him now, it was more as if he were pleading. He had moved from aggressor to victim to unmoving man. The prosecutor thought that now he would let himself be taken away peacefully, having understood the principle of authority that made him subordinate to the Ministry of Justice. He wanted to take the campesino someplace where there was a translator. His testimony had to be something important. He thought about calling Ayacucho. But he would not find a telephone he could use. The campesino sank progressively lower and lower until he was sobbing at his feet. The prosecutor decided he would oblige the police to receive him and take his statement. They could not refuse. Sobbing and whimpering, the campesino kept talking about his brother. The prosecutor wondered to which jurisdiction Yawarmayo belonged and which judge he would appear before. Suddenly a new possibility occurred to him that he had not considered previously. Or, rather, he had assimilated the obvious. He looked again at the wretched man groveling on the ground. He asked him:

  “You were … you were going to kill me, weren't you?”

  It had never occurred to him that someone might want to kill him. Perhaps Justino had intended to burn him and make his body disappear. He felt the impulse to hit him, to kick him until he bled. He realized he could not. Justino's pathetic suffering had disarmed him. The killer had been consumed in his own attack. Without warning, the wretch lamenting on the ground filled him with fear and pity, just like the mountains, the stream, the clean, dry air.

  He grabbed Justino by the back of the collar and lifted him up.

  “I am going to take you to the police station. The lieutenant will have to listen to me now.”

  But Justino had other plans. As soon as he found himself on his feet, he gave the prosecutor a surprise blow in the stomach with his elbow. Chacaltana had the air knocked out of him, and could not respond. Justino punched him in the face and then kicked him to the ground. In one jump he was on the stone wall and began climbing again. Down below, Associate District Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar could do nothing but watch him disappear up the mountain while he tried to warn him that now he was committing the crime of assault and flight.

  As soon as he recovered his strength, he returned to the village, thinking that the police still had time to pursue Justino. In the station he found Yupanqui and Gonza playing cards. He went in short of breath, panting. He had a bruise on his face.

  “I found a terrorist. I have his name and description. I know where he has gone. We can still catch him.”

  Yupanqui threw a card on the table. He did not even turn to look at him.

  “Go away, Señor Prosecutor.”

  “Listen to me! He is a killer. I can prove it.”

  Yupanqui had won the hand. He smiled and picked up the cards from the table, along with three one-sol coins. Gonza made an annoyed face. Yupanqui said:

  “If you don't leave, we'll have to throw you out.”

  “I want to speak to Lieutenant Aramayo.”

  Yupanqui shuffled and began a new deal. Chacaltana insisted:

  “I want to speak to … !”

  “Don't raise your voice, Señor Prosecutor. The lieutenant isn't here. As far as you're concerned, he won't ever be here again.”

  The prosecutor left the police station. He walked to Teodoro's house, looking at the mountains, as if he might discover Justino's hiding place there. He understood that the enemy was like the hills: mute, immobile, mimetic, part of the landscape.

  He had to knock a long time on Teodoro's door before they let him in. His things were still there but opened and disturbed. His suit was wrinkled and thrown under his bag. He was surprised to realize he did not care. Teodoro said something to him in Quechua. It did not sound like a lament. It sounded like a reproach. The prosecutor took a couple of coins from his pocket and put them on the ground, in front of the owner of the house, who said nothing else to him. Chacaltana appreciated the progress he had made in his ability to communicate. He lay down right away, in his clothes and shoes. Although it was just getting dark, he felt exhausted.

  At night, he again heard the sound of bombs and saw the light of fires coming from the mountains. He did not turn to look at Teodoro's family, and he did not try to leave the house. The first shouted slogans seemed like the echoes of an old movie. Then, everything seemed like the background music to a nightmare.

  He thought about his mother.

  That night, he did not dream.

  The next morning, he got up early to go to his work. At seven, police were still painting the facades of houses. No dogs had been hung that night either.

  Voting began at eight, with six members absent from the table and a total ignorance of electoral procedures on the part of the other six. Some voters were recruited for the tables, and they tried to get out of their duties until two soldiers energetically asked them to sit down. No agent or representative of any political party was accredited. The entire police force guaranteed security in the area surrounding the Alberto Fujimori Fujimori School.

  At about noon, a civil service helicopter appeared in the sky and landed at one end of the village, making the plants shake in the wind from the rotors. The villagers enjoyed watching it descend. The children went up to play with it. Civilian journalists climbed out with cameras and tape recorders. They were all white, Limenians or gringos. They looked very serious. They greeted the police and Johnatan Cahuide and went into the school to verify the normal process of the
elections. They spoke with the two table members who knew Spanish. The table members asked if the president had come in their helicopter.

  While the journalists were taking the usual photographs, a reporter went out to the square and lit a cigarette. One of the villagers came up and asked him for one. And then another villager. And another. In five minutes, the reporter was surrounded by villagers who wanted to smoke. Prosecutor Chacaltana considered it appropriate to move them away. He approached and asked them to allow the reporter to do his work in peace. When they were alone, the reporter said:

  “It seems that everything's calm, doesn't it?”

  “It seems so, yes.”

  “There haven't been any problems the last few days? This zone is completely pacified?”

  Prosecutor Chacaltana thought that perhaps it was his last opportunity to tell what he knew. The reporter could publish it and let them know about it in Lima, where they surely would become indignant and send a commission or demand an investigation. Perhaps the commander simply was not aware of what was going on, but if the order came from Lima, he would make new inquiries. He wanted to talk about Justino Mayta Carazo and his mysterious appearances and disappearances, about the hammers and sickles burning in the Yawarmayo night, about the shouts from the hills and the shouts of the young men from the village when they were shut inside the military trucks. He opened his mouth and began:

  “Well, sometimes …”

  “Sometimes you'd think there had never been a war here.”

  The voice that interrupted him belonged to Lieutenant Aramayo, who had come up to them wearing an amiable, satisfied smile.

  “As you can see,” the police officer continued: “A good climate, a peaceful countryside, people freely exercising their right to vote … What else could you ask for?”

  “You're right,” said the journalist. “I ought to move here. Lima can be an unbearable city.”

  “I can well imagine,” Aramayo replied with complicity. “Can I steal a cigarette from you?”

  Prosecutor Chacaltana did not say anything for the next twenty minutes. Then the journalists returned to their helicopter and left. The winds did not allow planes to fly into Ayacucho after two in the afternoon. They were running out of time. From the ground, the prosecutor could see the cameras taking their final shots from the helicopter windows.