Father Benito arrived in his pickup ahead of the police. He found the hut full of people talking and trying to help in whatever way they could. They had laid Andres’s body on the table, straightening the head and covering the slit throat with a shawl. After cleaning his body with wet cloths they had sent for a fresh shirt to make him look presentable. Meanwhile other women were applying cold compresses to Evelyn and doing their best to comfort Concepcion. The priest understood that it was already too late to preserve the evidence, because it had been handled and trodden on by these well-meaning neighbors, but also that it did not really make any difference, given the police’s lack of concern. It was unlikely that anyone in authority was going to put themselves to any trouble over this poor family. When the priest arrived, the villagers moved apart out of respect and hope, as if the divine powers he represented could undo the tragedy. He only needed to glance at Evelyn to assess her condition. He told the men to put a mattress on his pickup and had the women slide a blanket under her so that four of them could carry her out and place her on the mattress. He ordered Concepcion to go with him, and the others to wait right there for the police, if they ever showed up.
Evelyn’s grandmother and two of the women accompanied Father Benito to the clinic seven miles away that was run by evangelical missionaries. There were always one or two doctors on duty as it served several surrounding villages. Usually a terror at the wheel, Father Benito drove carefully for the first time in his life, because every pothole or bend elicited a groan from Evelyn. When they arrived they carried her into the clinic on the blanket as if it were a hammock and placed her on a stretcher. She was seen by a doctor, Nuria Castell, who as Father Benito later discovered was far from evangelical: she was Catalan and agnostic. Evelyn’s right arm had been torn out of its socket and to judge by all the bruises, she must have had several broken ribs. The X-rays would confirm that, said the doctor. She had also been beaten about the face and suffered a possible concussion. Although she was conscious and had opened her eyes, she muttered only incoherent words. She did not recognize her grandmother or realize where she was.
“What happened to her?” asked the Catalan doctor.
“Her house was attacked. I think she saw how they killed her brother,” Father Benito said.
“They probably forced her brother to watch what they were doing to her before they killed him.”
“Jesus!” shouted the priest, punching the wall with his fist.
“Be careful with my clinic. It’s flimsy and we’ve just had it painted. I’ll examine the child to see what internal injuries she’s suffered,” Nuria Castell told him with a resigned sigh born of experience.
Father Benito called Miriam and this time had to tell her the harsh truth. He asked her to send money for the funeral of another of her children, and to pay a coyote, or people smuggler, who could take Evelyn to the United States. She was in imminent danger, because the gang would try to get rid of her to avoid her identifying the attackers. In a flood of tears and unable to take in this latest tragedy, Miriam explained that to pay for Gregorio’s funeral she had plundered the money she was saving to pay for Andres’s trip to see her when he finished school, as she had promised. She only had a small savings left but would borrow as much as she possibly could for her daughter’s sake.
Evelyn spent several days in the clinic until she could swallow fruit juices and cornmeal and was able to walk again. Her grandmother went back to the village to organize Andres’s burial. Father Benito presented himself at the police station and made good use of his booming voice and his strong Basque accent to demand a copy of a signed and officially stamped report on what had happened to the Ortega family. No one took the trouble to go and interview Evelyn; even if they had, it would have been of little use, because she was still unable to speak. The priest also asked Nuria Castell for a copy of the medical report, thinking it might be useful someday. During this time the Catalan doctor and the Basque Jesuit met on several occasions. They had long discussions about the divine without reaching agreement but discovered that on a human level they were united by the same principles. “It’s a pity you’re a priest, Benito. Such a good-looking man staying celibate is a real waste,” the doctor joked between two cups of coffee.
The MS-13 had carried out its threat to wreak revenge. Gregorio’s betrayal must have been very serious to deserve such punishment, thought the priest, although possibly it had simply stemmed from an act of cowardice or a misplaced insult. It was impossible for him to know, as he had no idea what codes operated in their world.
“Rotten bastards,” he muttered during one of his meetings with the doctor.
“Those gang members weren’t born so rotten, Benito. They were once innocent kids, but they grew up in utter poverty, with no laws and no heroes they could emulate. Have you seen the children begging? Selling needles and bottles of water on the roads? Digging in the garbage dumps and sleeping out in the open with the rats?”
“Yes, I’ve seen them, Nuria. There’s nothing I haven’t seen in this country.”
“At least in the gangs they don’t go hungry.”
“This violence is the result of an endless war against the poor. Two hundred thousand indigenous people massacred, fifty thousand disappeared, a million and a half displaced. Guatemala is a small country; just calculate what percentage of the population that means. You’re very young, Nuria, what can you know of all this?”
“Don’t underestimate me, Father. I’m well aware of what you’re talking about.”
“Soldiers committing atrocities against people who are just like them, from the same race and class, born into the same bottomless misery. It’s true they were following orders, but they carried them out intoxicated by the most addictive drug: power with impunity.”
“You and I have been lucky, Benito, because we’ve never tried that drug. If you had power and impunity, would you make the guilty suffer as much as they do their victims?” she asked.
“I suppose I would.”
“Even though you’re a priest and God tells you to forgive.”
“I always thought that story about turning the other cheek was stupid. It only means you get a second slap,” he retorted.
“And if you are tempted by vengeance, just imagine what it’s like for mere mortals. I would castrate those who raped Evelyn, without anesthetic.”
“My Christian faith keeps failing me, Nuria. I guess it must be because I’m just a dumb Basque like my father, God rest his soul. If I’d been born in Luxembourg perhaps I wouldn’t be so indignant.”
“We need more angry people like you in this world, Benito.”
The priest’s anger went back a long way. He had been struggling with it for years and thought that at his age, with all he had lived through and seen, it was time to accept reality. Age had not made him any wiser or gentler, only more rebellious. As a young man, he had rebelled against the government, the military, the Americans, the usual rich people. Now his rebellion extended to the police, corrupt politicians, narcos, traffickers, gangsters, and all the others responsible for this mess. He had spent thirty-five years in Central America apart from a couple of interruptions when he was sent as a punishment to the Congo and to a retreat for several months in Extremadura to atone for the sin of pride and to dampen his passion for justice after a spell in prison in 1982. He had served the church in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, what was now known as the Northern Triangle, the most violent part of the world not at war, and in all that time he had never learned to live alongside injustice and inequality.
“It must be tough being a priest with a character like yours,” Nuria said with a smile.
“The vow of obedience weighs a ton, Nuria, but I’ve never questioned my faith or my vocation.”
“What about the vow of celibacy? Have you ever fallen in love?”