he people, young
and old, gather outside the
Cathedral to affirm the dignity of man. But the
soldiers who have taken their positions receive the
inevitable order and fire. The people rush to the
Cathedral doors only to find them closed by secret
government decree. Juan, Pablo, Pedro, Cecilio, and
Mario are among the soldiers. They fire until they run
out of bullets and the red puddle forms, on which
flies swarm and the sun reflects, at the bottom of the
Cathedral steps. After that, the soldiers return to
their barracks. At first, they go about their duties.
But then it starts. Juan goes to drink water, and the
tears of the murdered come out of the faucet instead.
Pablo goes to his bunk and covers himself with sheets
that turn into the skin of the slain. Pedro turns on a
light and sees that each bulb is an eye from the
massacred. Cecilio takes off his boots and walks
barefoot on tiles that turn into the bones of the
executed. Mario sits down to eat his rice and beans,
but the dish is filled with the hair and fingernails
of the butchered. Horrified, they run out into the
courtyard and stare at one another. They watch as Juan
grows long hair and becomes the pregnant Marta, who
had her unborn child cut out, as Pablo grows into
Isabel, who was beheaded before her family, as Pedro
grows four inches and becomes Noel, whose body was
never found, as Cecilio shrinks into Miguelito, the
first grader, who can only be identified by his teeth,
as Mario grows bald and becomes Ernesto, the Wise,
whose torture lasted three, unheard of days. Then all
of the soldiers, in all of the barracks of the nation,
one by one, turn into those whom they have killed, the
glow of recognition visible in their eyes, in their
fingers a warmth, in their throats previously
unutterable words crawling toward the living breath:
"Justice does not wear a hood, Truth is the enemy of
torture. Death must serve Life. Forgive us, for we
knew not what we did."
Mauricio Rosales was born in El Salvador and has
published literary translations in Mundus Artium:
Journal of International Literature and the Arts
(University of Texas, Vol. XV, 1985) and in Borges,
the Poet (University of Arkansas Press, 1986). His poetry and fiction will
appear this year in Wordstorms, The Bi-lingual
Review: La Revista Bilingue and Kimera.
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