The Killer's Tears (2 page)

What was Angel supposed to think? Had he, through
the hazard of circumstance, become the child's father? After all, why not? He was almost thirty-five years old and, so far, had never done anything good in his life. To be a father, well, that was something meaningful.

“Call me Papa,” he said one day.

“No.”

“It's an order.”

Paolo shook his head. “My father lies here, under this,” he answered, showing the mound.

Angel turned away. The grave, which lay in the middle of the path leading to the vegetable garden, had begun to torment him. Its silent presence was a constant reminder of his past misdeeds. It was proof of his cruelty, stupid actions, and helplessness. Paolo put wildflowers there sometimes. His eyes remained dry but they tried to probe through the depth of the soil like the drills of an oil digger. All the questions that the child did not ask, and all the answers also, were buried there. Angel always felt a little jealous to see him stop in front of the mound.

“We could flatten it,” he said.

“Why?”

“To open the path.”

“The path is large enough.”

Angel looked around him. It was true. How could this pile of dirt be in the way, considering the vast and desertlike stretch of land surrounding it? He did not dare talk about it again. It was agreed: the grave would remain as it was.

“But you and I, we could leave,” Angel suggested.

“Go if you want,” said Paolo. “Me, I live here.”

“I live here too. And anyway, I can't leave. I'd be arrested by the police.”

A full year went by and no one came to the Poloverdo house. You would have believed that word had spread among the geologists, the adventurers, and the stargazers to avoid the place; that they knew what a brutal owner they would find there. So solitude closed its arms around the desolate house, cradling it with its empty voice to lull it to sleep.

When the rain damaged the metallic roof, Angel climbed to repair it.

When the snow covered the vegetable garden, Angel held Paolo close to him at night to keep warm.

When the winds howled under the window and door, Angel repaired them to keep the draft out.

He wondered why, in the past, he had ever felt the need to steal, kill, and cheat, when it seemed so easy to live without bothering anyone, simply fighting the seasons and the roughness of life, with the presence of the child as his only joy.

“In town, people live on top of each other,” he said to Paolo. “That's why they're so nervous.”

“Is it why you became a killer?” the child asked.

“I don't know.”

“Why didn't you kill me?”

“Maybe you didn't make me nervous.”

Then, as the summer began to whiten the metallic roof and the snakes hid in the shade of the rocks, a traveler was seen approaching the house. Angel was coming back from the well, carrying plastic containers that made his arms ache. The man signaled to him. Angel glanced toward the garden where the child was hoeing, waiting for the water. He felt a pain in his stomach. The old mistrust was creeping back. From the distance, the man seemed young and strong, and probably was, since you had to be in good health to walk up to this spot. Who was he?

“Hello!” said the stranger. “I'm looking for the Poloverdo farm. Is this it?”

Angel went on the path, the containers banging against his thighs. Already, the fear of danger made the hair on his arms stand on end. Over in the garden, Paolo had stopped hoeing: he had heard the man call.

“You are Mr. Poloverdo?” the stranger asked.

“What do you want?” Angel put the containers down in front of the stranger's feet.

Although they were stained with mud and dust, Angel could see that the man's walking shoes were new. The qual ity of his clothing indicated that he was rich. He was tall, well built, jovial and sure of himself. Anyone but Angel would have found him pleasant.

“My name is Luis Secunda,” the man said, holding out his hand.

Angel did not bother to shake it. He folded his arms
across his chest. If he had to kill this man, he preferred to avoid any preliminary contact. In the meantime, Paolo had joined them and the stranger smiled at him broadly.

“I realize that I am disturbing you. …”

“That's right,” said Angel.

“It's okay,” said Paolo. “Would you like a drink?”

The child made the offer spontaneously, without thinking. He went to open the door to the house.

“Come in,” he said.

“Hurry!” Angel grumbled. “Don't let the heat in.”

They quickly entered the darkness of the small house. Angel kicked a chicken that ran off cackling.

“You're not badly off here,” the stranger remarked. “You're right to live away from everything. The city …”

Out of habit, the child had taken out his mother's chipped pitcher to pour a glass of goat's milk for his guest.

“… the city is hell,” the stranger went on.

He drank the goat's milk in one gulp. Angel sat down on the bench facing him and watched him surreptitiously. His knife was in the drawer, within easy reach. Under the stranger's elbows, in the grooves of the table, traces of Paolo's parents' blood still remained. Now the stranger had a white mustache above his lip from the cream of the milk. Inwardly, Angel was fuming at Paolo: a glass of milk! He knew how precious it was here!

“I'm looking for a special place,” the stranger explained. “A place … how can I put it?… a place like this one.”

“You mean like this house?” Paolo asked, surprised.

“Like this house. Like this path. Like the rocks.” The stranger got up and went to the window. “Like this sky and those low bushes, over there. A place exactly like this one.”

He turned to look at the man and the child; he was smiling.

“Like this place, hmmm …,” Angel muttered. “But not
this
one.”

The stranger came back and sat down again. The more Angel looked at him, the more he was sure of the inevitable end: he was going to kill this man. By disturbing their peace, the intruder had sealed his fate and put an end to the truce. The hellish cycle was about to start again; already Angel felt a tingling in his fingers.

“I know that I am intruding,” Luis Secunda continued awkwardly, “but—”

“Would you like some more milk?” Paolo interrupted.

He poured another glass of milk while Angel continued to fume, his fists clenched under the table. The drawer was not far. It wouldn't take much effort.

“I'm willing to pay you,” the stranger went on. “Money is not a problem for me. I have more than I need. And I'm willing to work. If you agreed, I could rent out part of your land and build a shack. I don't want to take advantage of your hospitality. I would go to the far end of the path, where you would hardly see me.”

Paolo had put the empty pitcher down on the table and was looking at Angel. He sensed that a tragedy was about to happen if he did not intervene. He liked the stranger. He
did not want him to die. He also did not feel like helping Angel dig a new hole. The drought of these last weeks had made the soil more compact and denser than granite. It was difficult enough to dig the furrows in the garden. When he saw that Angel was opening the drawer, he cried out:

“Oh, Papa! That would be so nice, Papa! Say yes, Papa!”

Angel froze.
Papa
. Had the child really said “Papa”?

“Your son is a nice kid,” the stranger said. “I'm sure he's been well brought up.”

Angel remained stunned, his hand suspended above the drawer.

“Come on, Papa,” implored Paolo. “Please, Papa.”

WHEN HE WAS thirty years old, Luis Secunda had left Valparaiso to travel around the world. In his family, it was unheard of to remain in the place where you were born. Of Spanish origin, generations of Secundas had scattered throughout the seven continents. Luis's mother got stranded in Valparaiso after many years of senseless journeys. There, she finished the education of her four children—all mirac-ulously fathered by the same man—before leaving for Africa to follow a new lover.

Luis's father, a rich wine merchant, lavishly provided his children with money, thinking that this kind of fertilizer would ensure their blossoming. He sent checks the way
others send postcards. Each time he came back to Valparaiso from his travels, he inspected his four offspring with the same care he brought to his vines. Satisfied that they were growing in size, and unable to measure anything else, he would leave again, his conscience at peace.

Luis's two older sisters married young, one a German, the other a Frenchman, and both had left Chile. His younger brother had dreams that took him to Hollywood, where he hoped to become an actor. When his father had last visited Valparaiso, Luis was the only one still living in the family house.

“You're still here?” Mr. Secunda had said, surprised.

“I guess I'm the kind that puts down roots,” Luis answered.

“Well, put down roots where you want, but not here. I'm selling the house.”

These last years, the wine business had not been partic-ularly good. Expenses needed to be cut, and belt-tightening often meant that one had to sell.

“Here is your share,” Luis's father told him. “This is the last time I'll give you money. And this is my last visit to Valparaiso. From now on, you'll have to fend for yourself.”

It was then that Luis left the city of his birth, imagining that he would travel around the world. After all, it was the most natural thing for a Secunda to do, even if it was the most unlikely thing for Luis.

When he said goodbye to his friends and girlfriends, he made the solemn promise to write to them from the farthest
and most exotic cities. He saw the excitement in their eyes:
Luis Secunda is going around the world! He is a fantastic man!
they must have been thinking.

“And then?” Paolo asked when Luis told him his story.

“Then, nothing. I took a train going south. I slept in hotels. I walked the streets. …”

“Did you like it?”

“No.”

“So, you didn't even leave Chile?”

“I arrived here.”

“And the letters?”

“Promises are not always kept, you know.”

Paolo nodded with seriousness. He grasped only half of what Luis meant, since no one had ever promised him any-thing. What he did understand was that Luis was trying to escape from something, a little as an ostrich would. He had found this no-man's-land, and it was here that he was hiding his shame. In Valparaiso, he'd left the impression that he was a fearless adventurer, and now he was condemned to keep the dream alive for his friends by disappearing.

“What do you see in this stranger?” Angel asked with annoyance when Paolo came back from the shack at the end of the path.

“Nothing. I'm just helping him build his roof.”

“Let him cope by himself. Come and help me look after the goat instead.”

Paolo followed Angel to the goats' enclosure. There were five of them, no longer young, that Paolo's father had bought
at a fair a long time before. They were still giving milk, but not much. One of them had been ill for a few weeks.

“You know, I don't think it's sick,” Paolo grumbled as he sat astride the fence.

Angel was already near the goat, which was bleating weakly, and forced it to lie down. He brandished a vial filled with a vitamin solution.

“Of course it's sick! It's dragging itself. It's in pain and its eyes are lifeless!”

Paolo let Angel take care of the goat. Vitamins wouldn't hurt it, but there was no miracle cure for old age. Looking at Angel, at this murderer, who was trying everything possi ble to save the life of an old goat, made Paolo feel he was caught in a whirlwind. How were such actions possible? How could anyone comprehend the universe without first understanding the ways of the people they lived with?

“I'm going snake hunting,” he said suddenly.

In spite of Angel's protests, he ran off, far from the house, far from the goats' enclosure, far from the mound where his parents' bodies were rotting, and far from Luis's rickety shack. He ran like a frightened rabbit. This immense space, relentlessly assaulted by the wind and pounded by the sun—this infinite space—was his, deeper and darker than an abyss. Since his younger years he had known that the cold waters of the Pacific lay beyond this flat and barren land where he lived. He could also just make out the distant shapes of volcanoes. The tales told by the travelers had sown seeds in his mind, where they had flowered into words
unknown to him before. Words like
city, fair, ship, observa tory, Temuco, Valparaiso, train, horses, storms
…

He stopped running. Around him, the rocks resembled an impassive and dead forest. He did not feel like chasing snakes. He sat on the ground and watched the clouds march from the sea like an army ready to invade and darken the land.

After sunset, Angel started to get anxious. He had waited. Now he was worried about Paolo. And he was upset with himself for worrying. Only apprehensive mothers worried, not murderers. He searched for Paolo by going round the outside of the house, the storm lantern in hand. Then he went to the vegetable garden, came back toward the mound, which he passed with sorrow, and went down the path. At the end of the path, he made out the light that the stranger had attached to the ceiling of his shack. It was swaying in the night, irritating him. Angel's fists tightened: if he found Paolo at the stranger's house, he determined he would go back home to fetch his knife. And this time, “Papa” or not, he would kill him for having stolen the affection of the child.