“God, Uncle. How did you stand it?”
“I couldn’t stand it. I wanted only to die. If I had had anything to tell them, I would have told them: names, dates, locations, you name it. I would have given up my mother to stop that pain.”
“But the Sanchez woman-she’s been taking it for three days now. Surely if she had anything to give up, she would have done so by now.”
His uncle shrugged. “Some guys, you can pull their teeth out one by one and they won’t tell you a thing. Pull their hair out? Nothing. You break their fingers? Silence. Then one day, for a little variety, you force them to swallow a few turds. Suddenly they sing like a sparrow. Just a little shit! It’s not even painful! Suddenly you can’t shut them up.” The Captain shook his head in wonder. “I am constantly amazed by human nature.”
Captain Pena’s house turned out to be a modest two-storey adobe, much smaller than its neighbours, hidden behind the highest walls on the crest of a hill. They were greeted at the side door by Victor’s aunt, a slim woman in her mid-forties, slightly bent at the shoulders, as if weighed down with some old sorrow. Whatever grief this might have been, she had long ago learned to keep hidden behind a wide, reassuring smile.
“You are out of the infantry now, at least,” she said to Victor when they were settled in the living room with tea and biscuits. She made no mention of his having recently been condemned to death. “I’m so glad for you. It’s terrible what our soldiers have to endure out there.” She gestured vaguely, as if “out there” encompassed every place on the far side of her lace curtains, as if once you got beyond the gleaming floors, and the smells of lemon oil and lavender, only chaos could be expected to reign.
“Yes,” Victor said. “Lucky for me the Captain saw fit to rescue me.”
“Couldn’t have a blot on the Pena name, could we, my dear?” The Captain put an arm around his wife and pulled her close. “Old Iron Pants here wouldn’t stand for it.” He winked at Victor.
“Don’t you call me that,” said his wife with a weary laugh. “Iron Pants, really. Did you ever hear such a thing?”
“It’s true. This little woman has more macho than our entire squad, I’m not kidding you. I have to watch what I do.”
“Eduardo is always telling me that he’s not as stern as everyone says he is,” Mrs. Pena said. “But frankly, I have my doubts.”
“He does run a tight outfit,” Victor said with a smile. “Very disciplined.”
“Really? He’s quite a softie at home. Do you remember from when you visited us as a boy? Once he comes through that door-poof! — no discipline at all.”
As if to demonstrate the point, Captain Pena’s twin daughters, seven years old, came in with their nanny. At first, in the presence of a stranger, they were subdued and quiet. They were introduced and made solemn curtsies and smiled, showing matching gaps where their front teeth had been. But soon they began to climb, laughing, all over their father. He sat back in his easy chair and let them romp all over his lap. They hung from his arms, climbed around his neck, their little flowered dresses riding up, exposing the perfect young limbs, the tiny underpants with pictures of Disney characters on them.
The Captain laughed too, and covered his little girls with kisses. He took first one and then the other into his arms, fixed his mouth to their neck, and blew hard, making a loud, obscene noise that delighted them. They squealed and cackled and begged for more. Victor stared in amazement at their beautiful skin, their innocent, open faces. Their cries were miniature parodies of the Sanchez woman’s shrieks.
Why had his uncle brought him here? Officers were not supposed to fraternize with enlisted men. Perhaps he intended it as a carrot to dangle in front of him. The lace curtains, the polished wood, the flowered chintz-you too can have all this, if you lead a respectable life in the army. A loving wife and pretty children, these too could be yours in return for loyal service.
His aunt called them to dinner. They sat around an antique oak table, and the Captain made the sign of the cross and bowed his head. The little girls copied him and bowed their heads, showing the perfectly symmetrical parts in their shining hair. “Oh Lord, for this food and for all thy mercies, may we be truly thankful.”
All thy mercies. Just that morning, the Sanchez woman had screamed through a long session with the General. Over and over, she had begged them to stop. Over and over, Victor was ordered to turn the dial.
“Mother of God,” she had said during the questioning. “You were raised Catholic, were you not? Where is your Christian charity?”
Tito had jeered. The others had laughed nervously.
“The Mother of God does not care about terrorists.”
“Is that what the priests taught you in school? That God loves only soldiers?”
“He doesn’t give a shit about whores like you,” Tito said, and spit on her.
“What about Mary Magdalene? And the woman he saved from stoning? But no, you are all free of sin, aren’t you. What would Our Lord say to you about inflicting pain like this?”
Victor saw a worried look creep into Lopez’s face.
She kept on at them, her voice ragged and raw from all the screams. “Did you not do the stations of the cross when you were children? Did you not think about the sufferings of Our Lord? Or are you on the side of those who tormented him?”
“Maybe that’s enough for today,” Lopez muttered.
“You going to listen to this whore?” the Captain had yelled at him. “You want to show her mercy? Fine. We’ll stop the machine for today.” He snapped his fingers at Yunques. “Go fetch our little friend. On the double.” He leaned over the woman. “You want mercy? I’ll show you the kind of mercy we reserve for terrorists. Today, you get to go to the zoo.”
Yunques came back with a rat in a small cage. The woman’s legs were forced apart, and at an order from the Captain, Lopez shoved the animal into her.
“How do you like that?” Captain Pena had shouted over her screams. “You happy now? Any more religious instruction you want to impart?”
And now the same man bent his balding head over his dinner, giving thanks to the Lord. Now, surrounded by the comfortable smells of grilled steak and onions, the sound of classical music streaming from hidden speakers, the piping voices of his little girls, Victor imagined himself saying to Mrs. Pena, “You know your husband is a rapist? A torturer?”
He would not be believed, of course. The Captain, pouring milk for his daughters with the same hand that fixed electrodes to the Sanchez woman’s nipples, seemed aware of no contradictions. He fixed his twins’ barrettes with the same hand that had twisted the dial.
“I’m so glad you could come, Victor,” his aunt said to him with her heartbreaking smile. “In wartime, it’s even more important to stay in touch with relatives, don’t you think?”
“Oh, yes,” Victor said, and smiled in return. “And such wonderful food.”
The Captain had reached out and touched his wife’s arm without looking at her. A gesture of complete confidence and affection.
This is why he has brought me here, Victor said to himself. This is what he wants me to see. My uncle wants to reassure me that it is possible to perform the work of the little school and yet be a good husband, a kind father, a delightful host in a house filled with love.
EIGHT
After lunch the following day, Victor led the Sanchez woman to the interrogation room. She no longer put up any struggle, trailing meekly along behind him. He wondered if this was the first sign of defeat. Then again, perhaps it was just a tactic, perhaps she was simply conserving her energy, the better to withstand the General.
Victor sat her down on the chair. When he turned around, he was surprised to see a white-haired gentleman in a white jacket standing beside the table where his uncle was seated.
His uncle nodded at the gentleman, and he lifted a black bag from the floor. It was the doctor. Victor had not recognized him, because the last time he had seen him, the doctor’s hair had been black, slicked back. Now it was quite white, and he had shaved off his moustache. Perhaps these changes of appearance were to convince himself that he was a different man each time, that he had no history of working at the little school.