“These people…. Who are they?” Colonel Delcano’s voice was calculating as he interrogated his clerk.
“Mi coronel, we know that they’re mainly foreigners and fanatics. I think that some have been here a long time…”
“You think! You think!” The colonel’s voice was a hoarse whisper. It was strained, and his words betrayed irritation. “I want you to do more than think. I want you to bring me accurate, precise information. In the meantime, call in the lieutenant in charge of the Sumpul maneuver. I want him here in my office before evening. That will be all. You may leave.”
The clerk left the room silently. Few people had the courage to return Colonel Lucio Delcano’s glassy stare, much less attempt an exchange of words with him. His demand for exact information was nothing new. He was a feared intelligence officer, known for the strict manner in which he conducted investigations. Since his early childhood when he had pressed his uncle Damián for details about the family he had gotten into the habit of gathering information. His talent for ferreting out material, for prying and digging had been perfected during his youth when he had become secretive, cagey, and greedy for what others might have to tell him.
Lucio had been fourteen when he left the Delcano estate, but even then he had been filled with rancor and hatred. When he entered the military academy, he was prepared beyond anyone’s expectations to deal with a new way of life. He had plunged into his career with vengeance and spite and his primary tools had been spying and the amassing of information to be used against his enemies.
Cadet Delcano became known among his fellow students and teachers for his intelligence, self-control, and seemingly limitless ability to know and remember details. He soon knew the birthplace of his companions, their birth dates and the names of every member of their families. He remembered their choice in sweets and colors as well as their favorite movies. What his companions didn’t realize, however, was that by knowing everything important to them, Lucio was gaining control over them.
His teachers quickly noticed Delcano’s ability to manipulate circumstances and people, and it was not long before they tapped him for their own benefit. When he became a spy against his classmates, he embarked upon a profession that would eventually take him to the top levels of government.
After completing the requirements of the academy, Lucio had been sent to the United States where he learned quickly. He became skilled in the language of the Americans and in their ways, mastering their preoccupation with order and organization. Especially appealing to him was their method of gathering, sorting, and cataloguing useful information for later review.
When Lucio returned from the United States he had been placed in the intelligence gathering sector of the military, where he applied his fine-tuned skills. From the beginning, he demanded that even the most insignificant detail be considered important and pertinent. Every bit of data was to be rigorously divided and sub-divided, sifted, measured and maintained under strict alphabetical and numerical order.
He became invaluable in the military structure, and his star rose not only because he was a son of the privileged caste, but because he was talented and cold-blooded, and his ability to work seemed limitless. From his early days in military intelligence, and especially after achieving the rank of colonel, Lucio almost always remained in his office late into the night, long after his staff had retired for the day. It was during those hours that he would read and analyze information submitted by his agents. His stamina and ability to work provoked awe in others. No one knew, however, that sleeping was an intolerable agony for Lucio, and that he feared falling asleep because then the nightmare would assault him. No one imagined the shrewd colonel felt a child’s terror of the dark nor that it was chronic insomnia that led to his efficiency.
Colonel Delcano’s office was at the core of intelligence activity. It was directly to him that heads of death squads reported, as did others charged with the business of assassination. As a result, politicians and other fellow military officers, as well as judges and lawyers were afraid of the angel-faced colonel and of the power he exerted. Everyone knew that the invitations to high society dinners, weddings and baptisms, which always included Colonel Delcano, were extended out of fear of his powerful position.
Outsiders were not the only ones to be targeted by Lucio’s probing. He applied the efficiency of his profession to his personal life as well. He remembered the first lead that Hortensia had given him in what soon became an obsessive tracking down of his mother: “She is a common servant in one of the homes in Escalón.”
From the time that Lucio had first left the family residence to study at the academy, he had utilized every moment of his free time attempting to find his mother. He had little to go by, almost nothing in fact, since the wealthy section of the city held dozens of households, each with its own staff of servants. He had to find one woman out of hundreds, perhaps even thousands who fit the same description. The search took Lucio several years, but he eventually did uncover Luz’s whereabouts, based on a dim description of his mother provided by Damián. She had been a girl, thirteen or fourteen at most, when she bore him, Damián had said. Thus, he figured that his mother would then be around twenty-eight years old. Also, he knew that her name was Luz. Of that not only had Damián spoken, but Hortensia as well. He remembered hearing that his mother had very brown skin and large eyes. She was short and rather plump.
Even though the description might fit countless women, Lucio continued his search. He spent hours, and eventually months and years, seated at bus stops where he scrutinized women. Finally, he concluded that he was looking in the wrong place. More than likely, his mother lived in the mansion where she worked. Therefore, she would have no need to take buses, or any other form of transportation. Rather, she would shop at the market or in other stores that sold household goods.
Lucio shifted his attention and began to haunt marketplaces. He stalked the streets daily, walking up and down Avenidas 8 and 10, and through the Mercado Cuarte, a maze of stalls where servants went to purchase the day’s food or garments for their masters. Lucio frequented the other marketplace as well, the one located on Calle Gerardo Barrios behind the National Palace. This market was always filled with servant girls, idlers, peddlers, and stray dogs.
He spent his time looking at women’s faces, hoping to see something of himself in one of them. He soon became conspicuous, not only because of his white face and fine clothes, but because of his strange manner of staring. People began to talk about the intruder who went from one stall to the other, from one store to the next, asking if anyone knew a woman by the name of Luz. The time came when people anticipated Lucio’s question, answering before he had the opportunity to open his mouth.
“No. ¡No conozco a ninguna mujer que se llame Luz!”
One day his persistence paid off when he approached the driver of an elegant car. The chauffeur was standing by the automobile, his arms crossed over his chest as he waited for his passengers.
“Señor, forgive me, but do you happen to know a woman by the name of Luz?”
When Lucio asked his standard question, the man seemed surprised. He took a few moments before responding. “Luz Delcano?”
Lucio’s breath left him. He felt the blood in the veins in his head throbbing. Delcano! He had never stopped to ask himself what her surname might have been. He cursed his stupidity. His face drained, and the man asked him if he felt sick.
“Do you want to sit a moment inside the car? Let me bring you a glass of water.”
“No, no, gracias. It must be the heat, nothing else, believe me. Tell me more about this woman, señor. Where is she now? Where can I find her? What does she look like? What…”
“¡Un minuto, por favor!”
The man held up a hand, as if to shield himself from a hail of invisible stones. “One question at a time, please! To begin with, who are you? And what do you want with Luz Delcano?”
“Perdón, I’m Lucio Hidalgo and I have a gift of money that my grandmother left for the lady who, I understand, was a servant of my family when she was very young.”
As Lucio fabricated his lies, he placed a large amount of money in the driver’s hand, who smiled with obvious satisfaction. “¡Gracias! But I’m afraid you’re a little late. You see, Luz left about a year ago.”
Lucio could not bear the possibility that, after he had dedicated four years of his life to his search, his mother would be slipping through his fingers. He pressed the man for more information.
“Tell me where I can find her. You see, I promised my grandmother just before she died that I would find her former servant. I cannot fail in my promise. Please tell me where Luz Delcano has gone. Or, if you don’t know, tell me where I can get more information about her whereabouts.”
“Well, I’ll tell you only because you look like an honest boy. You see, Luz stuck her foot in it. You know what I mean? She stepped on the plant that causes women to puff up like this.” The man used his arms and hands to indicate a big belly. “It turned out that the seed was planted by Señor Grijalva, the master of the house. So when la Señora found out, well, you know….”
The man’s voice trailed off, but his eyes were bright with mockery. “When Luz left the house, she hadn’t had her kid yet, but I heard around town that she had a boy. Must have been some months back.”
Lucio felt his feet sinking into the ground. For a few seconds he had the impression that the sky was lowering itself, coming closer and closer to him until it would suffocate him. A son! His mother had another son. He had a brother. Someone eighteen years younger than he.
“Where can I find her? I must know!”
“Well, if you must. She went north, to a little town called Carasucia. You might know where it is. It’s on the border with Guatemala.”
Lucio turned his back on the man without thanking him, or looking back at him. His tears felt hot on his face and he could taste the salty drops as they ran down his cheeks and chin, scorching their way down his neck, staining his white shirt. He had found his mother, but now she had another son. He wept as he realized that he had searched for his mother not because he hated her, as he had told himself from the beginning, but because he loved her, and he could not deny that he had secretly hoped that she, too, would love him.
Despite his desire to confront his mother, Lucio did not have the courage to go to her new home. Instead he went through a period of depression. He stopped eating, becoming gaunt and withdrawing into himself more than ever. He was forced to admit that he did not have the strength to face his mother, and that he feared her ridicule. He knew, however, that he had to keep track of her.
The plan he worked out then was only the beginning of a method that he would perfect throughout many years. He hired people to spy on Luz and her baby. Through those informants, Lucio built up dossiers on both his mother and his brother in a process that spanned years. He continued this practice even when he was in the United States, where he received envelopes stuffed with papers and photos of the boy and Luz.
Even though Lucio never doubted his actions, he was often assaulted by the many questions left unanswered. He wondered if his mother would sell his brother as she had sold him. He had no answer to that question nor to the one that had always nagged him: whether or not his mother had actually sold him for money. Trying to ferret out the answer, he sent his agents back to the family estate to question the few servants who still remembered Luz Delcano. All of them acted nervously, however, and provided little of the information he sought.
Those years of probing were painful for Lucio because as soon as one of his agents would deliver a written report, he would bury himself in it, reading and re-reading all its details. Through these communications he learned of his mother’s life, of how she cooked and sold food, and of how she cleaned the homes of the few rich families in Carasucia. It hurt him to find out that despite her menial work, his mother had a happy disposition, and that others loved her. When people described her as affectionate, he felt cheated.
His spies informed him about everything that had to do with his brother, from the child’s first steps, to his early days in school. He knew that his brother was intelligent, that he grasped his lessons rapidly, and that he tended to help other boys and girls. Lucio was especially tormented when he read that the teachers and the parents of the other children loved his brother.
A source of even greater torture was the constant supply of photographs he received. In time, these photos became an obsession, and Lucio spent nights compulsively staring at frayed, faded snapshots of his mother cuddling the child or of her pointing at an unseen object while the baby laughed. Most of those pictures became so familiar to him that soon he did not even need to look at them to recall them as vividly as if they were in front of his eyes.
Through the network, Lucio knew every move his mother and brother made: her decision to return to San Salvador, the manner in which she supported herself and the boy once they were back in the city, and, eventually, his brother’s adolescent decision to enter the seminary.
When Luz and Bernabé had first returned to the capital, Lucio had even felt compelled to go to her, to confront her with the way she had abandoned him. But fearing that she would reject him once again, he never approached her.
Recently, the colonel had been informed that on the day of the Archbishop’s death, his brother had fled to the mountains, and there joined the guerrillas who now called him Cura. Colonel Delcano also knew that his mother had been seen roaming the barrios of the city, pounding on doors and windows, asking for her son.
“Mi Coronel, I’m afraid it’s getting late. Shall I call in the lieutenant?”
“Sí. And don’t interrupt us until we’re finished.”
Almost immediately the lieutenant walked in and stood rigidly at attention.
“Mi Coronel, at your orders!”
“Be seated, Teniente. Please make yourself comfortable.”
As he spoke, Lucio Delcano’s voice was flat, cold, filled with icicles. “I’ll get to the point! I’m disappointed with the way events turned out at the Sumpul the other day. I understand you were in charge.”
“Sí, mi Coronel. I can’t explain what happened. We were able to plug some of the subversives, but others got away. My men… something strange happened. The campesinos began to run. They followed a madman who ran out to the river. Our choppers, well, if there’s blame, it belongs to…”
Colonel Delcano stiffly lifted his hand, palm outstretched in the lieutenant’s direction. “Enough! You’re not here to give me excuses. You’ll have to try to show a better face next time.”
Delcano was on the verge of reprimanding the lieutenant for his carelessness. He even considered demoting him but before taking this measure, he paused. The man was too valuable as an expert in terminating enemies. Clearly he was a better assassin than a soldier and it would be best not to hold him liable for what happened at the Río Sumpul. The colonel took a different approach.
His voice changed. He seemed to be giving a warning. “In fact, Teniente, since you’ve been instrumental in resolving incidents of continued agitation among the people, I feel you should be given the opportunity to redeem yourself regarding the Sumpul fiasco.”
The lieutenant smiled, relieved at the change of attitude he perceived in his superior. The colonel then extracted a sheet of paper from under the desk blotter. The lieutenant knew it was the report on the agitators assisting the Sumpul escapees. By carefully placing the paper on his desk, then running his fingers over it with care, Delcano conveyed the importance of its contents to the lieutenant. Then, he leaned back in his chair and reclined his elbows on the armrests. Slowly, he placed the fingertips of both hands together, forming a triangle under his chin.
“Teniente, we have many subversives among us. There are several of them, foreigners, intruders, troublemakers, who have been distorting the news of events in our country. Most recently, and I know this will interest you, they’ve been spreading lies regarding the Río Sumpul incident. This report,” Colonel Delcano delicately held the page between his index finger and thumb, “although as yet incomplete, explains their activities. These people claim to be assisting needy campesinos but, in fact, what they’re doing is circulating Marxist rubbish. It’s embarrassing for us all. We must think of the bad example they give others, mustn’t we? People will begin to believe in what these lies preach. Who knows, others may even attempt to imitate them. Therefore, they must be silenced…permanently.”
Colonel Delcano paused, allowing his words to take root. “At any rate, I know that I needn’t be detailed about what I mean.” He focused his pale gaze squarely on the lieutenant’s face.
“I understand, mi Coronel.”
Colonel Delcano’s voice then became smooth, soft, like the voice of a father advising a young son on how to remove a nail from his bicycle tire, or how to repair his favorite plaything. There was no expression on his face.
“You’ll know how to take care of this embarrassing matter, I know. I feel confident that there’s no need for me to provide suggestions. What I do have to say is that this office is at your disposition insofar as information and any other necessary assistance are concerned. As for timing, again I leave that up to you. I set no deadline for the task. Take your time, please. It might be a matter of days, but then, you might need months. Who’s to know? All I request, and this you already know from working for me, is that precision and efficiency be your guides. No more sloppiness, please!”
The lieutenant’s jaw and neck jerked slightly. “All of them, mi Coronel?” he managed to ask.
Colonel Delcano stared at the soldier. He nodded his head, then whispered his orders through frozen lips. “Sí, Teniente. Todos. Every single one.”