فصل سی و سوم

33

Just a Woman

And there she was, tied to the beam stained with Tarta’s blood while outside a new day was breaking. Mercedes didn’t look at Garces as he tightened the ropes and bound her hands in front of her, the same way they had tied Tarta’s.

Vidal was busy searching her bag. He had taken off his gloves. He often did when he questioned a prisoner. It was so hard to clean the blood off the leather. Mercedes knew. She’d done it quite a few times.

“Chorizo . . .” He threw the sausage on the ground. “That was not supposed to feed just you and the girl, right? And for sure you didn’t steal this for the girl.” He sniffed at a small parcel. “My best tobacco. You should have asked for it. I would have given it to you, Mercedes.” Garces smiled and tied another knot, while his capitán pawed through the letters she was to deliver to the men in the forest.

“I want the names of whoever wrote these. I want them by tomorrow.” He handed the letters to Garces.

“Yes, Capitán.”

Why hadn’t she left the letters behind? All the loved ones the soldiers would now come for . . . Nothing would hurt the men in the woods more. All those words of love would turn into weapons against the ones they were supposed to comfort.

Mercedes tried to fight back the tears. Despair welled up like poisoned water in her heart. Love is such a terribly efficient trap, and the cruelest truth about war is that it makes loving a deadly risk. We’ll kill your mother. We’ll rape your sister. We’ll break your brother’s bones. . . .

Mercedes leaned her head back against the splintered wood. What did it matter if they killed her now? She’d been afraid of this for far too long. Her heart was so exhausted from all the fear that it felt nothing except regret about the letters and compassion for the people who’d soon hear a knock at their doors.

Vidal unbuttoned the shirt she had washed and ironed for him. How often had she cursed the stains the blood of someone else had caused? Would hers stain the sleeves or would he take the shirt off? Yes, think about washing shirts, Mercedes. Don’t give your mind time to think about what he’ll do to you.

“You can go, Garces.”

She wasn’t sure what she sensed in the look Garces gave her. Some of the soldiers didn’t like to torture women. His capitán didn’t have any such hesitations. She suspected he enjoyed it even more than breaking men.

“You’re sure, Capitán?”

Mercedes couldn’t remember having ever heard Vidal laugh before. “For God’s sake! She’s just a woman.” Mercedes stared at the wooden walls of the barn. That would be the last thing she’d see. The dead flanks of trees, while the living forest outside was out of reach. Garces closed the barn doors behind him.

“That’s what you always thought. That’s why I was able to get away with it. I was invisible to you.” Mercedes continued staring at the wall so her captor wouldn’t see the fear in her eyes. But Vidal stepped to her side and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look up at him.

“Damn. You found my weakness. Pride.” He examined her face like it was a piece of beautiful meat. All his to make it bleed. “Luckily it’s my only one.” Liar. Mercedes felt his fingers pressing into her cheeks. How he enjoyed her helplessness, how he enjoyed making her beauty into something he could own by destroying it.

“And now let’s find out about your weakness.”

Vidal let go of her face and strode to the table that held his tools.

“It’s very simple,” he said, turning his back to her as he picked up the hammer. “You will of course talk . . .” He laid the hammer back on the table, surveying the other tools as if not sure which one to use. “But I have to know that everything you say”—he picked up an iron hook, scrutinizing it tenderly—“is the truth.” Keep talking, Mercedes prayed as her fingers searched silently for the knife hidden in her apron. Would it be sharp enough? Sharp enough to cut rope instead of carrots and onions?

“Yes, you will talk. We have a few things here strictly for that purpose.” He still had his back turned to her.

Mercedes was sure Tarta had heard the same speech. Vidal liked to boast. After all, a capitán stationed at an abandoned mill in the middle of a Galician forest didn’t have much to boast about except his cruelty. Pride? No, vanity—that was his weakness: the urge to constantly prove to himself and to others that nothing and no one could withstand him and that his heart didn’t know either fear nor pity. Liar. He was afraid of everything. Especially himself.

Mercedes kept her eyes on his back as she cut the fibers of the rope.

“We use nothing special . . . it’s not necessary. One learns about these things on the job.” Oh yes, he liked to hear his own voice. He was proud of the fact he could keep it calm even when his heart was beating fast with rage or excitement. Mercedes was sure it was beating faster at the prospect of using that hammer on the face he’d gazed upon so often, on the hands he’d touched so casually whenever she came close. Invisible. Yes. Mercedes, sister of Pedro and of another sister who’d died far too young, daughter of parents long dead . . . her true Self had been invisible to him. But Vidal had always noticed the beauty of her body.

There. She felt her knife’s blade against her skin. Her hands were free. But there was more to cut.

“At first . . .” Vidal held up a pair of pliers. “Yes, I think this one will do.” He still hadn’t turned.

Mercedes silently loosened the rope from around her legs. Her feet sank deeply into the straw as she tiptoed toward her captor.

She thrust the knife through the white shirt into his back. She used all the strength she had left, but the slim blade was short, and muscles and flesh are not as easy to cut as the fibers of a rope. Vidal moaned and grabbed at the wound, while Mercedes stumbled back, trying to catch her breath. She’d never driven a knife into human flesh and her weapon felt as fragile as her body.

How wide his eyes were with disbelief, when he finally turned to face her. Just a woman. This time Mercedes plunged the knife into his chest. He collapsed as she yanked it out, but she’d caught him underneath the shoulder, far too high for his heart—if he had one—and the blade was just too short. Mercedes thrust it one more time, although her fingers were already slippery with his blood. This time the knife went between his opened lips and Mercedes pressed the blade against the corner of his mouth.

“You see? I’m not some old man, hijo de puta,” she hissed at him. “Nor a wounded prisoner.” She slashed the knife up into his cheek. Then she peered down at him, on his knees, pressing his hand against his bleeding mouth.

“Don’t you dare touch the girl.” She barely recognized her own voice. “You won’t be the first pig I’ve gutted.” Her knees spoke another language. All her fear seemed to have gathered in them, but she made it to the barn door and pulled it open. Mercedes didn’t even notice that she still had the bloody knife in her hand when she stepped outside. She managed to hide the blade once again in her apron and she began to walk. Past the soldiers in the yard. None of them paid attention to her.

Invisible.

Only one turned his head. An officer. Serrano. He stared after her, but Mercedes kept walking. A radio was blaring in front of the stables, announcing the winning numbers of the lottery the cook always spent her money on.

Keep walking.

“Hey, did you see that?” Serrano called over to Garces, who was frowning in disappointment at the rebels’ lottery ticket he’d kept after picking it up in the woods. “Can you believe it?” Serrano’s face was blank with bewilderment. “He let her go.”

He pointed at Mercedes. Garces crumpled the lottery ticket in his hand and threw it to the ground. “What are you talking about?” Mercedes walked faster. She felt Garces’s eyes on her back. Maybe he didn’t enjoy torture as much as his capitán but he for sure didn’t mind killing.

“Hey!” he called after her. “You! Stop!”

Mercedes began to run.

Oh, this was easy.

Garces pulled the pistol out of his holster.

So much easier than taking a hammer to a tied-up prisoner.

He took aim as carefully as Ofelia’s father had put yarn through the eye of a needle.

“Get her, Garces!”

But Garces had forgotten about Mercedes. He lowered his pistol and stared at his capitán stumbling out of the barn like a drunk, his shirt covered in blood, his hand pressed over his mouth.

“Come on!” It was hard to understand what Vidal was saying with his hand over his mouth. “Bring her to me!” Garces didn’t move. He just stared at the blood seeping through Vidal’s fingers. “Capitán, what . . .” “Bring her to me, damn it!”

This time the hand came down. The mouth that yelled at Garces opened wide into Vidal’s left cheek. It wasn’t easy to take one’s eyes off that bloody grin, but Garces finally managed to lower his gaze.

“Mount up!” he shouted to his soldiers.

Mercedes had just reached the trees when she heard Garces bark his order. Why didn’t you kill him when you had the chance? she asked herself when she looked back and saw Vidal. If she’d had a better knife she would have done it. Yes, she would. She stumbled on through the wet ferns, their fronds brushing her skin and her clothes. Mercedes hadn’t run like this since she was a little girl, and then it had been for the joy of running.

Joy. How did that feel? She couldn’t remember. . . .

She soon had to lean against a tree to catch her breath, even though she heard horses snorting behind her, their hooves trampling down the ferns, their riders yelling. So many of them and she kept stumbling over roots and rocks while they came closer and closer.

A clearing opened between the trees. Tall pines standing in a wide circle as if they had gathered to watch her die. The soldiers encircled Mercedes with their horses when she had barely crossed half of the clearing. Her hair had come loose and she felt as small and vulnerable as a child.

Garces smiled down at her, his gaze mocking and admiring her at the same time. All women were prey. Look at her, Garces’s eyes said. Quite beautiful for a maid. He calmed his horse, caressing its neck as if it was hers. He took his time getting out of the saddle. He was enjoying this. The fun was just starting.

“Shhh,” he said, walking toward her, holding his hands up soothingly as if he were calming a child.

Mercedes had always believed Garces to be less cruel than Vidal, but what did that matter? He was one of them. She reached for her knife. Its blade was still red with his capitán’s blood when she pointed it at him.

Garces took off his uniform cap, still smiling as if he was courting her. “You are going to stab me? With that little knife?” Oh, how she wished to be a man.

“It’ll be better if you come with us without struggling. The capitán says if you behave . . .” How a man’s voice could turn into a cat’s purr when he was hunting a woman.

Mercedes pressed the blade against her throat. Tarta hadn’t had that chance. Poor Tarta.

“Don’t be a fool, sweetheart.” Garces took another step toward her.

Mercedes pressed the knife so firmly against her throat she felt the blade prick her skin. Garces kept walking.

“If anyone’s going to kill you,” he purred, “I’d rather it be me.”

He was still smiling at her when he died.

The bullet hit him in the back. The others tried to flee, but they fell one by one. while Mercedes was still pressing the knife to her throat. Her ears were numbed by the shots and the screams when she finally lowered it. Around her, panicked horses were slipping in the grass, dropping their riders at her feet, and the clearing was covered with the bodies of dying men.

Mercedes couldn’t tell if any of the soldiers managed to escape. If yes, it wasn’t many. She only saw a few horses galloping into the forest, wild and free for the first time in their lives. And there was Pedro. When her brother came walking toward her, followed by his men, it felt as if he were emerging from a dream, a good dream for a change. He pulled her into his arms and Mercedes cried, holding him tight, weeping at his shoulder, weeping, weeping, while his men shot at the soldiers still stirring among the trampled ferns.

Shots and sobs . . . the sounds of the world. There had to be more than that, but Mercedes had forgotten. She hugged Pedro and it seemed as if she’d never stop crying.