Of course this was sheer stupidity on my part, venturing out at night in a front-line town. Even now, I can’t justify or explain it except to say that I have always been impetuous and that my insatiable curiosity overcame all caution. We also seek what we most fear.
The statue showed a man, half-crouched but defiant, a sickle in his hand. A noble Russian, defending the soil against the enemy. The sickle as harvester and weapon, exemplifying two of the major themes of Russian history. The figure had been cast in bronze, and on its base were the dates 1198, 1581 and 1611, surrounded by Cyrillic script. Neither the script nor the dates meant anything to me.
I climbed the steps to the gutted door of the white building. Nothing could be seen inside. I hesitated, then went in.
A church, as I had known all along. Moonlight filtered down through a large hole in the ceiling, providing just enough light for me to make out its arches and frescoed walls. Ammunition boxes had been piled against them, and empty cartridge cases littered the mosaic floor. Icons of haloed saints and archbishops hung everywhere, and there was a terrible stench in the air.
I moved towards a screen behind which a light was flickering. Rubble and patches of dirty snow lay on the floor, chairs had been stacked against square pillars, the smell was petrol and burnt meat. Silence, a terrifying silence except for the scrunch of my feet on grit and rubble.
Behind the screen a candle burned in a golden holder, and I gasped. A body had been spread across the ammunition box, its arms and legs splayed out, its chest dark and steaming. The face was slack, mouth and eyes open, dead white eyes which saw nothing, felt nothing. Almond eyes, broad nose, black hair – an Aztec soldier. But no, because the heavy brown greatcoat which hung from the body was that of a Russian Army officer, and the boots were Russian, too. An Asian Russian, bloodied from his neck to his belly.
Buttons were missing from his coat where it had been torn open. His uniform and vests had been slit up the middle, his chest bared. There had been no finesse about the ceremony, a gaping wound curving under his left breast. The blood, now blackened and beginning to freeze, had drained over his shoulders and throat, and tendrils of steam still rose from the warm innards.
The candlelit screen bore an icon of the Virgin. In front of it was a small, crudely carved figurine in soap. It had the hunched head and the squat body characteristic of traditional Aztec religious statuary. Beside it, an upturned Russian Army helmet held the charred remains of the offering. Petrol had been poured on it to make sure it would burn.
I backed out of the church and fled across the square. Near the statue I slipped and fell, but I scrambled up again and hurried on. As I neared the house, several hooded figures seemed to materialize out of nowhere.
‘Keep away from me!’ I screamed. And then I bolted towards the open door of the mansion, scurrying up the steps into the warm light of the hall.
I was leaning against a marble pillar, panting, when Pachtli walked in, the other guards following him.
‘Where have you been?’ he asked, throwing back his hood. ‘We went looking for you. What has happened?’
I was still too breathless and terrified to answer him immediately. He and the other guards were all carrying automatics, and they looked perfectly sober. In the square I had mistaken them for the soldiers who had carried out the sacrifice, but I felt little relief at the sight of them. They waited, standing motionless, watching me.
‘The front door was unlocked,’ Pachtli said. ‘We searched the house and found you gone.’
Had they seen me coming out of the church? I tried to gather my wits, gambling that they hadn’t.
‘I went for a walk,’ I managed to say.
‘A walk?’
‘I couldn’t sleep. I wanted some fresh air.’
He gave a smile to indicate his disbelief. There was a long silence. Then he turned to the other guards and told them in Nahuatl that they were no longer needed.
As soon as we were alone, he said, ‘I was concerned. If something should happen to you, my lord Extepan, he would not forgive me.’
He was smiling and fingering the trigger of his rifle. ‘There is a curfew. You could have been shot.’
‘If I’d known that, then obviously I wouldn’t have gone out.’
‘There are always curfews in a war zone.’
I said nothing.
‘It is a cold night for a walk.’
Only now was I recovering my equilibrium. ‘That’s why I wore boots and mittens.’
‘Something upset you, yes?’
‘I got lost. But, as you saw, I found my way back. You startled me when you came upon me in the square, that’s all.’
Patently he did not believe me. ‘Did you think we might shoot you? It might have happened. In these suits, and in darkness, we all look the same. It is hard to tell friend from enemy.’
I unzipped the front of my suit. ‘You must excuse me. I’m really quite exhausted.’
‘A little brandy will help you sleep.’
‘That won’t be necessary.’
I turned and walked up the stairway without looking back. Only when I had closed the door behind me did I let out a breath of sheer relief.
I drew the curtains on the windows, blotting out the night and all its horrors, then removed my snowsuit. Without undressing further, I climbed beneath the eiderdowns and switched on the bedside lamp.
I lay back and tried to calm myself. But my thoughts were racing, and suddenly I began to wonder if I had been wilfully blind and stupid. What if I hadn’t been wrong in my first split-second assumption that the soldiers who had appeared in the square were the same ones who had carried out the sacrifice? I’d imagined that they had melted into the night, but what if they had simply returned to the house? All too easily I could imagine Pachtli acting as the chief priest, wielding the knife and reaching into the chest to twist the palpitating heart from its moorings. That was how it was done, with a deft turn of the wrist. A sacrifice to Huitzilopochtli, or some other unforgiving deity of the old Aztec pantheon.
Had I had my wits about me, I might have checked their snowsuits for splatterings of blood; or I might have registered the stench of petrol and burnt flesh. But I had been in no state to notice anything of the sort. Yet this meant nothing in itself – they might have easily changed their clothing on returning to the house immediately after the sacrifice, and before Pachtli discovered I was gone.
I contemplated trying to wedge the wardrobe or the dresser against my door, but this seemed melodramatic. I would lie there instead and wait until morning, staying awake. Surely they wouldn’t dare try anything with me, even if they knew I had discovered the corpse in the church? Huemac had delivered me safely to the mansion, and he, at least, seemed an honourable man who would be no part of any cover-up should I be disposed of. But what if he secretly worshipped the same Aztec gods as they? What if they all did?
Awake. I would stay awake. Fight the exhaustion I felt. They wouldn’t harm me, I was sure, but I had to remain vigilant. There couldn’t be too many hours left before dawn, so I didn’t have long to wait. If anyone tried to enter, I would jump up, scream, fight them with all the power I possessed. Awake. I would stay awake. That was my protection.
Six
‘Good morning.’
I surfaced abruptly from a deep sleep. Pachtli was standing over me.
‘Here is some tea,’ he said, putting a silver tray down on the bedside table.
I sat up, still groggy with sleep. Pachtli switched off the lamp and threw open the curtains. Bright winter sunlight flooded in through the window.
‘It is a very pleasant morning,’ he remarked.