Death in the Andes Page 12

  “That’s what I want you to tell us, Doña Adriana,” said Lituma. “Forget about devils, evil spirits, black and white magic, and all those witches’ stories you recite for the laborers. Just tell me straight out what happened to those three men. Why is there talk in camp that you and your husband are responsible?”

  She laughed again, joylessly and with a touch of contempt. As she sat on the sheepskin, her body distorted by her posture and her bulky clothing, there was something sinister and disturbing about the woman. She did not seem frightened at what could happen to her. Lituma thought that Doña Adriana was so certain of her fate she could even permit herself the luxury of feeling sorry for them when he and Carreño fumbled like blind men. As for the cantinero, he was the most cynical man he had ever seen. Now he claimed not to remember wanting to sell him the secret; he even had the gall to deny their conversation at the abandoned mine, when he let him know unequivocally that the missing men were at the bottom of a shaft. From that time until the radiogram arrived from Huancayo, Lituma and Tomasito had not considered the terrucos responsible for the disappearances. But now they weren’t so sure. The terrucos must have been looking for that Andamarcan mayor with his false name, no question about it. Which means…In any case, as Tomasito said, every finger pointed at these two. Gradually, by putting some pressure on one laborer, a little more on another, and connecting what still others had hinted at, they knew beyond any doubt that the cantinero and his wife were seriously involved, and in any case certainly knew every detail of what had happened. The rain continued, coming down harder.

  “You need somebody to blame for the disappearances,” Dionisio exclaimed suddenly, as if coming back to the real world to confront Lituma. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, Corporal, sir. We have nothing to do with it. Adriana may read people’s fates, but she doesn’t decide them.”

  “What happened is beyond you, beyond us,” his wife interrupted. “I already told you. Destiny, that’s what it’s called. It exists, even if people wish it didn’t. Besides, you know very well that the camp gossip is garbage.”

  “It’s not garbage,” said Carreño, still sitting behind her. “Before she left Naccos, Demetrio’s wife, I mean Medardo Llantac’s wife, told us that the last time she saw her husband he said he was going to have a drink at the cantina.”

  “Don’t all the laborers and foremen come to our place?” Dionisio exclaimed, waking up again. “Where else can they go? Is there another cantina in Naccos?”

  “To tell the truth, we have no concrete accusations against you,” Lituma acknowledged. “That’s right. Either because they only know part of the story, or because they’re afraid. But with a little pressure, they all imply that the two of you had a hand in the disappearances.”

  Señora Adriana laughed her bitter, defiant laugh, grimacing and stretching her mouth wide into the kind of face adults make to amuse children.

  “I don’t put ideas into anybody’s head,” she said quietly. “I take out the ideas they already have inside and make people look at them. But these Indians don’t like to see themselves in the mirror.”

  “I just pour their drinks and help them forget their troubles,” Dionisio interrupted again, turning his glazed, unfocused eyes toward Lituma. “What would happen to the laborers if they didn’t even have a cantina where they could drown their sorrows?”

  There was a distant lightning flash followed by thunder. The four did not speak until the noise stopped and the only sound was the rain. The entire hillside leading down to the camp was a quagmire rutted by streams of water. Through the half-opened door, Lituma saw curtains of rain and a backdrop of dark storm clouds. The camp and the surrounding hills had vanished into a gray blur. And it was only three in the afternoon.

  “Is it true what they say about you, Doña Adriana?” Carreño exclaimed suddenly. “That when you were young, you and your first husband, a miner with a nose this big, killed a pishtaco?”

  This time the witch turned to look at the guard. They took each other’s measure for a long while, in silence, until Tomasito finally blinked and lowered his eyes.

  “Give me your hand, boy,” Señora Adriana murmured gently.

  Lituma saw the guard pull back and begin to smile, but he immediately became serious again. Dionisio watched in amusement, crooning quietly to himself. Doña Adriana waited, her hand extended toward him. Seen from behind, her head looked like a ruffled feather duster. The adjutant’s eyes were asking him what he should do. Lituma shrugged. Tomasito allowed the woman to take his right hand between both of hers. The corporal craned his head forward slightly. Doña Adriana blew on the guard’s hand and wiped it, and brought it up to her large, bulging eyes: to Lituma they seemed about to pop out of their sockets and roll around the floor of the shack. Tomasito turned pale and looked at her suspiciously, but allowed her to continue. “He ought to tell her to go to hell and put an end to this farce,” Lituma thought, not moving. Dionisio was lost again in some dream, and with half-closed eyes hummed one of those tunes that mule drivers sang to while away their boredom on long trips. Finally, the witch released the guard’s hand, exhaling as if she had just made a great effort.

  “Boy, you have a broken heart,” she said softly. “Your face already told me so.”

  “Every fortune-teller in the world says that,” Lituma declared. “Let’s get back to serious business, Doña Adriana.”

  “And your heart is this big,” she added, as if she had not heard Lituma, separating her hands and sketching a gigantic heart. “She’s a lucky girl to have somebody who loves her so much.”

  Lituma attempted a laugh.

  “She’s trying to soften you up, Tomasito, don’t let her do it,” he said. But the guard did not laugh. Or listen to him. He was very serious, staring at her, fascinated. She took his hand again and blew on it, peering at it with her bulging eyes. The cantinero continued to sing the same song under his breath, swaying and hopping in time to the music, indifferent to everything else.

  “It’s a love that has brought you misfortune, that makes you suffer,” said Doña Adriana. “Your heart bleeds every night. But at least that helps you to go on living.”

  Lituma did not know what to do. He felt uncomfortable. He did not believe in witches, much less in the wild rumors about Adriana that circulated through the camp and the Indian community of Naccos, like the story that she and her first husband had killed a pishtaco with their bare hands. All the same, he felt disoriented and confused whenever the supernatural was involved. Could you read people’s fates in the lines of their hands? In cards or in coca leaves?

  “Everything will work out, so don’t despair,” Señora Adriana concluded, releasing the guard’s hand. “I don’t know when. You may have to suffer a little while longer. Some hungers are never satisfied, they always demand more and more. But the thing that’s making your heart bleed now, that’s going to work out fine.”

  She exhaled a second time, and turned back to Lituma.

  “Señora, are you trying to get on our good side so we’ll forget about the disappearances?”

  The witch gave her little laugh again. “I wouldn’t read your future even if you paid me, Corporal.”

  “And I wouldn’t let you. Son of a bitch, what’s wrong with him?”

  Animated by his own fantasy, singing in a louder voice and keeping his eyes shut tight, Dionisio, in a state of great concentration, had begun to dance in place. When Carreño grasped his arm and shook it, the cantinero stopped moving and opened his eyes, gazing at each of them in astonishment, as if seeing them for the first time.

  “Quit acting, you’re not that drunk,” Lituma chided him. “Let’s get back to business. Are you finally going to tell me what happened to those guys? Then I’ll let you go.”

  “My husband and I didn’t see a thing,” she said, her eyes and voice hardening. “Go shake the truth out of the ones who say we did anything wrong.”

  “Besides, what’s done is done, and there’s no way to change i
t, Corporal, sir,” Dionisio intoned. “Just accept it. You can’t fight destiny, it’s useless, understand, it can’t be done.” The rain came to an abrupt stop, and immediately the world was filled with bright afternoon sunlight. Lituma could see a rainbow crowning the hills around the camp, hovering over the eucalyptus grove. The ground, covered with puddles and gleaming rivulets, looked like quicksilver. And on the horizon, along the Cordillera where rock and sky met, there was that strange color, somewhere between violet and purple, which he had seen reproduced on so many Indian skirts and shawls and on the woolen bags the campesinos hung from the ears of their llamas; for him it was the color of the Andes, of this mysterious, violent sierra. The witch’s words had left Carreño pensive and withdrawn. Of course, Tomasito: she told you what you wanted to hear.

  “Where are you going to keep us prisoner?” Señora Adriana cast a scornful glance around the shack. “In here? Are the four of us going to sleep on top of each other?”

  “Well, I know this isn’t the classy kind of station you’re used to,” said Lituma, “but you’ll have to settle for what we have. It isn’t good enough for us, either. Isn’t that right, Tomasito?”

  “Yes, Corporal,” the guard whispered, waking up.

  “At least let Dionisio go. Who else will keep an eye on the cantina? They’ll steal everything, and that junk pile is all we have.”

  Lituma examined her again, intrigued. Thick and shapeless, buried inside the rags of a secondhand clothes dealer, with only her flaring hips to remind the world that this was a woman, the witch spoke without a trace of emotion, as if she were complying with a formality, demonstrating that she really did not care what happened to her. Dionisio seemed even more contemptuous of his fate. His eyes were half closed again, he had distanced himself from the world. As if the two of them were above it all. Son of a bitch, they were still acting superior.

  “We’ll make a deal,” Lituma said at last, suddenly overcome by a sense of defeat. “Give me your word you won’t leave camp. Not even twenty meters. On that condition, I’ll let you live at the cantina while we investigate.”

  “Where would we go?” Dionisio opened his eyes. “If we could have gone, we’d have left by now. Aren’t they out there, hiding in the hills, with their stones all ready? Naccos has turned into a jail, and all of us are prisoners. Don’t you know that yet, Corporal, sir?”

  The woman struggled to her feet, holding on to her husband. And without saying goodbye to the guards, the two of them left the shack. They moved away, walking carefully, searching out the stones or higher ground where it wasn’t so muddy.

  “You’re pretty happy about what the witch told you, Tomasito.”

  Lituma offered him a cigarette. They smoked and watched the silhouettes of Dionisio and Adriana on the slope grow smaller and finally disappear.

  “Did all that about your broken heart impress you?” Lituma exhaled a mouthful of smoke. “Bah, everybody feels that, some more, some less. Or do you think you’re the only man who ever suffered on account of a girl?”

  “You said you never went through it, Corporal.”

  “Maybe not, but I’ve been head over heels in love,” said Lituma, feeling somehow diminished. “It’s just that I get over it fast. Almost always with hookers. Once, in Piura, in the Green House I told you about, I was crazy about a little brunette. But to tell you the truth, I never wanted to kill myself over a woman.”

  They smoked in silence for a time. Down at the foot of the slope, a tiny figure began to climb the path to the post.

  “I don’t think we’ll ever know what happened to those three men, Tomasito. No matter how much everybody in camp hints that Dionisio and Doña Adriana are involved, the truth is I’m not convinced.”

  “I have a hard time believing it, too, Corporal. But then, why do all the laborers wind up accusing them?”

  “Because all the serruchos are superstitious and believe in devils, pishtacos, and mukis,” said Lituma. “And since Dionisio and his wife are half witches, they tie them in with the disappearances.”

  “I didn’t believe in any of that until now,” the guard attempted to joke. “But after what Doña Adriana read in my hand, I ought to believe. I liked what she said about a big heart.”

  By this time Lituma could make out the person climbing the hill. He wore a miner’s helmet that glinted in what was now a sunlit afternoon with a brilliant, cloudless sky. Who would believe that just a few minutes earlier there had been violent downpours, thunder, heavy black clouds?

  “Ah, hell, the witch bought you off,” Lituma continued the joke. “Maybe you made those three disappear, Tomasito.”

  “Who knows, Corporal?”

  And they broke into nervous, insincere laughter. In the meantime, as he watched the approach of the man in the helmet, Lituma could not stop thinking about Pedrito Tinoco, the little mute who ran errands for them and cleaned their quarters, who had seen with his own eyes the slaughter of the vicuñas in Pampa Galeras. Ever since Tomasito told him the story, he had Pedrito on his mind almost all the time. Why did he always picture him in that spot between the barricade and those gray rocks, washing clothes? The man in the helmet had a pistol in his belt and carried a club similar to the ones the police used. But he wore civilian clothes: blue jeans and a heavy jacket with a black armband around the right sleeve.

  “There’s no question that a lot of people around here know exactly what happened even if they won’t open their mouths. You and I are the only suckers who don’t know what’s going on. Don’t you feel like an asshole up here in Naccos, Tomasito?”

  “What I feel is jumpy as a grasshopper. Sure they all know something, but they lie and try to shift the blame onto the cantinero and his wife. I even think they all got together to make us believe that Dionisio and Doña Adriana planned it. That way they throw us off the track and don’t get any of the blame. Shouldn’t we just close this case, Corporal?”

  “It’s not that I care so much about solving it, Tomasito. I mean, as far as the job is concerned. But I’m a person with a lot of curiosity. It’s gnawing at me, and I want to know what happened to them. And after what you told me about the mute and Lieutenant Pancorvo, I won’t sleep easy until I find out.”

  “People are really scared, have you noticed? At the cantina, on the job, all the work crews. Even the Indians who haven’t left the community yet. There’s tension in the atmosphere, like something was about to happen. Maybe it’s the rumor that they’re stopping work on the highway, that they’ll all lose their jobs. And all the killing everywhere. Nobody’s nerves can take it. The air’s overheated. Don’t you feel it?”

  Yes, Lituma felt it. The laborers’ faces were intent, their eyes darted right and left as if trying to spot an enemy waiting to ambush them, and their talk at the cantina or on the work crews was intermittent and melancholy, and stopped altogether in his presence. Was it the disappearances? Were they frightened because any one of them could be the fourth?

  “Good afternoon, Corporal,” said the man in the miner’s helmet, greeting them with a nod. He was a tall, strong mestizo with a full beard. His heavy-soled miners’ boots were muddied up to the ankle, and he kicked them against the side of the doorway, trying to clean them off before entering the shack. “I’ve come from La Esperanza. To see you, Corporal Lituma.”

  La Esperanza was a silver mine, about a four-hour trek to the east of Naccos. Lituma had never been there, but he knew that several laborers in camp had miners’ licenses issued by the company.

  “The terrucos attacked last night and did a lot of damage,” he explained, taking off his helmet and shaking his long, greasy hair. His jacket and trousers were soaked. “They killed one of my men and wounded another. I’m chief of security at La Esperanza. They stole explosives, payroll money, and a lot of other things.”

  “I’m really sorry, but I can’t leave,” Lituma apologized. “There are only two of us at the post, my adjutant and myself, and we have a serious problem here to take care of. I’
d have to ask for instructions from headquarters in Huancayo.”

  “The engineers already took care of that,” the man replied, very respectfully. He took a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to him. “They talked to your superiors by radio. And Huancayo said you should take charge. La Esperanza is within your jurisdiction.”

  A disheartened Lituma read and reread the telegram. That’s exactly what it said. They had better equipment at the mine than in this filthy camp. And he was stuck here, cut off, blind and deaf to what was happening in the outside world. Because the camp radio worked poorly, or too late, or never. Whose crazy idea was it to establish a Civil Guard post in Naccos instead of at La Esperanza? But if it had been there, he and Tomasito would have been obliged to face the terrucos. So they were close by. The noose was tightening a little more around his neck.

  Carreño was preparing coffee on the Primus. The man from the mine, whose name was Francisco López, dropped onto the sheepskin where Doña Adriana had been sitting. The pot started to bubble.

  “It’s not that you can do anything now,” López explained. “They got away, naturally, and took all their loot with them. But a police report has to be filed before the insurance will reimburse the company.”

  Tomás filled the tin cups with boiling coffee and handed them around.

  “If you want, I’ll take a run over to La Esperanza, Corporal.”

  “No, that’s okay, I’ll go. You take charge of the post. And if I’m late getting back, say an Our Father for me.”

  “There isn’t any danger, Corporal,” Francisco López reassured him. “I came in a jeep, but I had to leave it down where the road ends. It’s not very far, less than an hour if you drive fast. Only I got caught in the rain. I’ll bring you back as soon as you finish the paperwork.”

  Francisco López had worked in security for three years at La Esperanza. This was the second assault. The first time, six months earlier, there had been no casualties, but the terrorists had taken explosives, clothing, provisions, and all the medical supplies.