Victor had not seen her for the three days he was sick, and he was shocked by the change in her appearance. Her face had taken on a grey, corpse-like hue, and the set of her features had changed utterly. Where before they had had a fixed, determined look, now they were slack and puffy. The woman’s words were still defiant, but the sag of her shoulders and the slack muscles of her cheeks resembled only death. It was as if the spirit had already left her body, and what defiance remained was only reflex.
Perhaps courage itself is just a reflex, Victor thought, and cowardice too. No credit or blame could attach where there was only reflex. Neither the brave nor the cowardly would be responsible for their actions. She was not a saint, and he was not a demon.
“Hit her,” Captain Pena said to Victor.
Victor was caught off guard. He had sat himself down at the table with pencil in hand, ready as always to play secretary. “Pardon me, Captain?”
“You heard me. Hit her.”
The other soldiers folded their arms across their chests and watched.
Victor put down his pencil and walked around the table. An actual physical blow-his fist against her flesh-would be harder to administer than a shock. More personal. The woman tensed at his approaching footsteps.
Victor punched her in the belly, not too high. She doubled over.
“I said hit her, not tickle her. She didn’t even feel it.” Captain Pena stepped back against the wall, folded his arms like the others, and stared at Victor.
Tito moved away from the woman and stood beside the Captain. Then Yunques and Lopez moved to the opposite wall. He felt their eyes sink into him like fangs.
Victor’s terror expressed itself in a fury of punches. The woman had no time to recover from one before another caught her somewhere else. Some part of Victor still kept the blows low-the ribs, the side, the hip. He meant to give her a good one in the chest-a convincing punch that would knock her back against the wall without doing too much damage-but the woman chose that moment to tip forward and his punch connected with her face. He felt her tooth break the skin on his knuckles and he also felt the tooth snap. The woman tumbled back against the wall, cracking her head against it, blood pouring from her upper lip.
Cheers and whistles filled the room.
Victor staggered a little in the centre of the room, thrown off balance by his own violence.
Captain Pena bent over the groaning woman and pulled the watch from her wrist. He handed it to Victor with great solemnity, as if it were a medal of honour. “Good work, soldier. Such work calls for a little bonus.”
Lopez and Yunques gave him a thumbs-up sign, and even Tito gave his shoulder a squeeze. What gorgeous relief, their sudden acceptance of him-like cool water on a burn.
That night, the watch ticked loudly on the wooden crate beside Victor’s bed. It took him a long time to fall asleep, and the night was filled with bad dreams. In one, Tito was playing Submarine with him, half drowning him in the filthy tank. He awoke with a shout, and lay staring into the blackness until his heart subsided. Outside it was raining, the drops rattling on the garbage cans outside his window. The breeze brought smells not of the tank but of the nearby pastures.
The dial of the woman’s watch glowed in the dark: four-thirty. Would she be asleep now? Or was she kept awake by the pain of the beating he had given her? Punching a defenceless woman in the mouth, you couldn’t get much lower than that. He squeezed the watch tightly, and felt it ticking in his fist like a tiny heart.
When they drove into town the next morning, Victor was so tired he could hardly keep his eyes open. Sunlight poured through the Cherokee’s windows, and even through the tinted glass it felt hot. The heat made Victor even sleepier. This was the first time the squad had driven anywhere since El Playon. They did not usually venture out in daylight, but today was special. They were all dressed in impeccable uniforms, and in the back of the Cherokee they had two bewildered male prisoners, freshly scrubbed and wearing new clothing.
It was a big day. So big that Captain Pena had held a full-dress inspection first thing in the morning. He had yelled at them about the state of their uniforms, yelled at them to shine their boots until they were mirrors, were they a bunch of animals? Now the cleaned and pressed squad was heading into town and, despite his drowsiness, Victor could feel the pride inside the Cherokee. He indulged a fantasy, imagining himself part of a crack unit rolling into town for a victory celebration.
One of the cleaned-up prisoners was Ignacio Perez, whom Tito had nearly drowned playing Submarine. Victor had seen his papers. The other man was much older and had only one arm. Victor recognized him from the group cell that held half a dozen prisoners, but he knew nothing about him. Neither of the men was blindfolded, and they crouched in the back with heads averted from the light.
The square in front of the Presidential Palace was already crowded. Coloured strips of bunting were woven around the iron gates, and off to one side a brass band was playing. Sunlight flashed on their instruments.
Tito showed the guards his pass and they were allowed through. A stage had been set up in front of the palace. Tito drove around behind it and parked.
“All right, you faggots,” he said to the prisoners. “Make sure you smile a lot, you got that?”
The prisoners nodded.
“You got to smile like you love us, understand?” Tito grabbed Perez by the hair. “Understand?”
“Yes, I understand,” Perez said.
“You’d better. Otherwise, we’re going to pay a visit to your daughters later-show up at the plantation and cut their tits off. How you like that, huh?”
“Please, sergeant. We will smile the whole time.”
“You make it convincing, though.”
“Otherwise we cut up your daughters,” Yunques said, as if he had just thought of it.
Tito gave Perez several light slaps on the cheek, as if reviving him from a faint. “It should be easy for you to smile! No more Submarine! No more tea party! You should be happy! Today you get to go free-unlike your buddies back at the school.”
A row of seats had been reserved for the squad just behind the front row. They filed in and sat down. Captain Pena turned around and looked them over from the front row. He didn’t smile, just nodded at Tito and turned around again to face the stage.
The stage was not large. Most of the space was taken up by flags: the flag of El Salvador, the flag of the United Nations, the flag of the United States. Several dignitaries sat down in the handful of seats. Victor caught a glimpse of blond hair flashing in the sunlight and recognized Mr. Wheat, the American who had visited the little school.
Members of the foreign media, as glamorous to Victor as movie stars, were there in abundance. Photographers crouched before the stage taking preliminary readings. The air was alive with expectation. The band played another march, and Victor rubbed at his knuckles where the woman’s teeth had cut him.
Then the President of El Salvador came out on stage and took a seat. He waved in acknowledgement of the applause, but he did not address the audience. One of his ministers-a balding man in an impeccable pinstripe suit-stood before the microphone. Victor didn’t know his name, but he had seen his photograph many times.
The minister spoke first on the dignity of labour. He noted how the nation could not survive without the people who worked the soil. It was in recognition of this fact that the present administration was committed to land reform. The President nodded his head in agreement; Mr. Wheat stared impassively at the crowd.
“Today’s ceremony,” the minister went on, “is not a great moment in history. We are not gathered at a great turning point. What we celebrate today is simply a quiet example of quiet justice: under our Land to the Tiller program, those who work the land ….” Here he paused for effect. “ …. will own the land.”