But before allowing anyone to offer an explanation, he gives his officers a dressing down: "So then, my orders have not been obeyed! Instead of searching for the outlaw, you've let the men get into a fight! Didn't I give orders that there were to be no fights?"

But his orders have been obeyed to the letter. Patrols of Bahia police had been out scouring Canudos till the general had ordered them to withdraw so that the demolition squads could get to work. The incident had involved, in fact, one of these very patrols out searching for the corpse of Abbot Joao, three Bahians who had followed the barricade between the cemetery and the churches down to a depression that must at one time have been the bed of a little stream or an arm of the river and is one of the places where the prisoners who have been captured are being held, a few hundred people who are now almost exclusively women and children, since the men among them have had their throats slit by the squad led by Second Lieutenant Maranhao, who is said to have volunteered for his mission because several months ago the jaguncos jaguncos ambushed his company, leaving him with only eight men alive and unharmed out of the fifty under his command. The Bahia police came down there to ask the prisoners if they knew what had become of Abbot Joao, and one of the men recognized, among the group of prisoners, a woman from the village of Mirangaba who was a relative of his. On seeing him embrace a ambushed his company, leaving him with only eight men alive and unharmed out of the fifty under his command. The Bahia police came down there to ask the prisoners if they knew what had become of Abbot Joao, and one of the men recognized, among the group of prisoners, a woman from the village of Mirangaba who was a relative of his. On seeing him embrace a jagunca jagunca, Lieutenant Maranhao began hurling insults at him and saying, pointing a finger at him, that this was proof that the Bandit-Chaser's police, despite the republican uniforms they were wearing, were traitors at heart. And when the policeman tried to protest, the lieutenant, in a fit of rage, knocked him to the ground with one blow of his fist. He and his two buddies were then driven off by the gauchos in the lieutenant's squad, who kept yelling after them from a distance: "Jaguncos!" They had returned to camp trembling with rage and stirred up their buddies, who for an hour now have been seething and champing at the bit to go avenge these insults. This was what awaited Colonel Geraldo Macedo: an incident, exactly like twenty or thirty others, that had come about for the same reason and involved almost word for word the same insults.

But this time, unlike all the others, when he has calmed his men down and at most presented a complaint to General Barbosa, the commanding officer of the first column, to which the Bahia Police Volunteer Battalion is attached, or to the Commander of the Expeditionary Forces, General Artur Oscar, if he regards the incident as an especially serious one, Geraldo Macedo feels a curious, symptomatic tingle, one of those intuitions to which he owes his life and his gold braid.

"That Maranhao isn't someone worthy of respect," he comments, rapidly licking his gold tooth. "Spending his nights slitting the throats of prisoners isn't really a job for a soldier but for a butcher, wouldn't you say?"

His officers remain silent, standing there looking at each other, and as he speaks and licks at his gold tooth, Colonel Macedo notes the surprise, the curiosity, the satisfaction on the faces of Captain Souza, Captain Jeronimo, Captain Tejada, and First Lieutenant Soares.

"I therefore am of the opinion that a gaucho butcher cannot take upon himself the privilege of mistreating my men, or of calling us traitors to the Republic," he adds. "He is duty-bound to show us respect, wouldn't you say?"

His officers stand there motionless. He knows that at this moment they have mixed feelings: joy at what his words hint at, and anxiety.

"Wait here for me. No one is to set foot outside this camp," he says, starting to walk off. And as his subordinates speak up in protest and demand to accompany him, he stops them short: "Stay here. That's an order. I intend to settle this matter by myself."

He has no idea what he is going to do as he leaves the camp, followed, supported, by the eyes of his three hundred men, whose admiring gaze is like a warm pressure at his back; but he is going to do something, because he has felt a raging fury. He is not an angry man, nor was he one in his earlier years, at that age when all young men are angry; in fact, he had the reputation of only rarely losing his temper. His coolheadedness has saved his life many a time. But he is in a rage now, a tingling in his belly that is like the crackling of the burning fuse that precedes the explosion of a large charge of powder. Is he enraged because that throat-slitter called him Bandit-Chaser and the Bahian volunteers traitors to the Republic, because the man dared to lay hands on his police? That is the last straw. He walks along slowly, looking down at the cracked, stony ground, deaf to the explosions that are demolishing Canudos, blind to the shadows of the vultures tracing circles overhead, as meanwhile his hand, in an automatic gesture, as swift and efficient as in the good old days, since the years have left him with wrinkles and a bit stoop-shouldered but have not yet slowed his reflexes or made his fingers less agile, unholsters his revolver, breaks it open, checks that there are six cartridges in the six chambers of the cylinder, and places it back in its holster. The last straw. Because this entire experience, which was to be the greatest one in his life, the crowning reward of his perilous race toward respectability, has turned out instead to be a series of disillusionments and vexations. Instead of being recognized and treated with deference as the commanding officer of a battalion that is representing Bahia in this war, he has been discriminated against, humiliated, and offended, in his own person and in that of his men, and has not once been given the opportunity to show his worth. His one valiant deed thus far has been to demonstrate his patience. A campaign that has been a failure at least for him. He does not even notice the soldiers who cross his path and salute him.

When he arrives at the depression in the terrain where the prisoners are being held, he spies Second Lieutenant Maranhao, standing smoking as he watches him come toward him, surrounded by a group of soldiers dressed in the balloon pants worn by gaucho regiments. The lieutenant is not at all imposing physically and has a face that does not betray that murderous instinct to which he gives free rein in the darkness of the night; a short, slight man, with light skin, fair hair, a neatly clipped little mustache, and bright blue eyes that at first glance seem angelic. As Colonel Geraldo Macedo walks unhurriedly toward him, his face with the p.r.o.nounced Indian features not betraying by the least muscle twitch or shadow of an expression what it is he intends to do-something that he himself does not know-he notes that there are eight gauchos around the lieutenant, that none of them is carrying a rifle-they have stacked them in two pyramids alongside a hut-but that all of them have knives tucked into their belts, as does Maranhao, who also has a bandoleer and a pistol. The colonel crosses the stretch of open ground where the horde of female specters have been herded together. Squatting, lying, sitting, leaning one against the other like the soldiers' rifles, the women prisoners watch him pa.s.s, the last flicker of life in them seemingly having taken refuge in their eyes. They have children in their arms, lying on their skirts, fastened to their backs, or stretched out on the ground alongside them. When the colonel is within a couple of yards of him, Lieutenant Maranhao tosses his cigarette away and comes to attention.

"Two things, Lieutenant," Colonel Macedo says, standing so close to him that the breath of his words must strike the Southerner's face like warm puffs of breeze. "First off: interrogate these women and find out where Abbot Joao died, or if he's not dead, what's become of him."

"They have already been interrogated, sir," Lieutenant Maranhao says in a docile tone of voice. "By a lieutenant of your battalion. And after that by three of your men, who were so insolent I was obliged to reprimand them. I presume that you were informed. None of the prisoners knows anything about Abbot Joao."

"Let's try again and see if we have any better luck," Geraldo Macedo says in the same tone of voice as before: neutral, impersonal, restrained, without a trace of animosity. "I want you personally to interrogate them."

His little dark eyes, with crow's-feet in the corners, do not leave the young officer's surprised, mistrustful blue ones for a moment; they do not blink, nor do they move to the right or to the left. Colonel Macedo knows, because his ears or his intuition tells him so, that the eight soldiers on his left are standing there with every muscle tensed now, and that the lethargic gaze of all the women is upon him.

"I'll interrogate them, then," the lieutenant says, after a moment's hesitation.

As the young officer, with a slowness that betrays how disconcerted he is by this order, unable to decide whether it has been given him because the colonel wants to try one last time to find out what has happened to the bandit, or whether he wants to make a show of his authority, makes his way through the sea of rags that parts, then closes again behind him as he pa.s.ses asking about Abbot Joao, Geraldo Macedo does not look around even once at the gaucho soldiers. He deliberately keeps his back to them, and with his hands at his waist and his kepi tilted back, in a stance that is typical of him but also characteristic of any cowboy of the sertao sertao, follows the lieutenant's progress among the women prisoners. In the distance, beyond the hills round about, explosions can still be heard. Not a single voice answers the lieutenant's questions; when he stops in front of a prisoner, stares her straight in the eye, and interrogates her, she merely shakes her head. Concentrating on what he has come there to do, his entire attention focused on the sounds coming from where the eight soldiers are standing, Colonel Macedo nonetheless has time to reflect that it is strange that such silence reigns among a crowd of women, that it is odd that not one of all those children is crying out of hunger or thirst or fear, and the thought occurs to him that many of those tiny skeletons must already be dead.

"As you can see, it's pointless," Lieutenant Maranhao says, halting in front of him. "None of them knows anything, just as I told you."

"Too bad," Colonel Macedo says in a thoughtful tone of voice. "I'll leave here without ever finding out what happened to Abbot Joao."

He stands there, his back still turned to the eight soldiers, staring into the lieutenant's blue eyes and white face, whose expression betrays his nervousness.

"In what other way may I be of service to you?" he finally mutters.

"You come from a long way away from here, isn't that so?" Colonel Macedo asks. "I'm quite certain, then, that you don't know what the worst insult of all is in the eyes of people of the sertao sertao."

A very serious look comes over Second Lieutenant Maranhao's face, he frowns, and the colonel realizes that he can't wait any longer, for the young officer will end up pulling his pistol on him. With a lightning-quick, totally unexpected sweep of his open hand, he slaps that white face as hard as he can. The blow sends the lieutenant sprawling on the ground, and unable to rise to his feet, he remains there on all fours. Looking up at Colonel Macedo, who has taken one step so as to place himself directly alongside him, and now warns him: "If you get up, you're dead. And also if you try to reach for your pistol."

He looks him coldly in the eye, and even now his tone of voice has not changed in the slightest. He sees the hesitation in the lieutenant's reddened face there at his feet, and is certain now that the Southerner will not get to his feet or try to reach for his pistol. He has not drawn his own, moreover; he has merely raised his right hand to his waist and placed it just a fraction of an inch away from his cartridge belt. But in reality his mind is focused on what is happening behind his back, sensing what the eight soldiers are thinking, feeling, on seeing their leader in this predicament. But a few seconds later he is sure that they will not make a move either, that they, too, have lost the game.

"It's slapping a man in the face, the way I slapped yours," he says, as he opens his trouser fly, swiftly flips out his p.e.n.i.s, and watches the clear little stream of urine splash down on the seat of Lieutenant Maranhao's trousers. "But p.i.s.sing on him is an even worse one."

As he tucks his p.e.n.i.s back into his fly and b.u.t.tons up, his ears still listening intently to what is going on behind him, he sees that the lieutenant has begun to tremble all over, like a man with tertian fever, that tears are welling up in his eyes, that he is all at sea, body and soul.

"It doesn't bother me a bit if I'm called Bandit-Chaser, because that's what I've been," he finally says, seeing the lieutenant rise to his feet, weeping and trembling still, knowing how much he hates him and also knowing that he will not reach for his pistol now. "But my men don't like being called traitors to the Republic, because it isn't true. They're as much republicans and patriots as anybody else."

He licks his gold tooth, with a rapid flick of his tongue. "You have three choices left to you now, Lieutenant," he concludes. "The first is to present a formal complaint to the General Staff, accusing me of abuse of authority. I might be demoted and even thrown out of the service. It wouldn't matter to me all that much, since as long as there are bandits I can always earn myself a living chasing them. The second is to come ask me for satisfaction, whereupon you and I will settle this matter man to man, taking off our officer's braid, with revolvers or knives or whatever other weapon you like. And the third is to try to kill me from behind. So then, what's your choice?"

He raises his hand to his kepi and gives a mock salute. This last quick glance tells him that his victim will opt for the first, or perhaps the second, but not the third choice, at least not right now. He walks off, not deigning to look at the eight gaucho soldiers, who still haven't moved a muscle.

As he is picking his way among the skeletons in rags on his way back to his camp, two thin grappling hooks take hold of his boot. It is an old woman with no hair, as tiny as a child, looking up at him through her gummy eyelashes. "Do you want to know what happened to Abbot Joao?" her toothless mouth stammers.

"Yes, I do." Colonel Macedo nods. "Did you see him die?"

The little old woman shakes her head and clacks her tongue, as though sucking on something.

"He got away, then?"

The little old woman shakes her head again, encircled by the eyes of the women prisoners.

"Archangels took him up to heaven," she says, clacking her tongue. "I saw them."

Also by Mario Vargas Llosa

The Cubs and Other Stories

A Writer's Reality

The Time of the Hero

The Green House

Captain Pantoja and the Special Service

Conversation in the Cathedral

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter

The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta

The Perpetual Orgy

Who Killed Palomino Molero?

The Storyteller

In Praise of the Stepmother

A Fish in the Water

Death in the Andes

Making Waves

The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto

The Feast of the Goat

Letters to a Young Novelist

The Language of Pa.s.sion

The Way to Paradise

The Bad Girl