GUANACOLÍA: Excerpt 3
MARÍA DEL TESTIMONIO
This offers an example of Testimonio, the “narrative of witnessing,” which is a literary form prevalent in Latin America that grew as a result of the upheaval—both social and political—that racked the area from the 1959 Cuban Revolution up to the early 1990s.
For other examples of Testimonio, see María de la Cruz, María del Dolor, and María de la Sombra.
This excerpt is one woman’s account of the death of the poet, which she witnessed. Marianne receives this transcript from her journalist friend, from San Salvador.
Listen to "María del Testimonio"
María del Testimonio
I saw them kill the poet. I know who did it, who ordered the killing; I know who pulled the trigger. It was before the rains, just before the rains came that year. The cicadas had been screaming for a month, their parched throats crying out for the rains. No one could remember when the heat had been so bad. The village children’s song had become a monotonous drone over the last month—“¡Qué llueva, qué llueva! La Virgen de la cueva”—yet not a drop had come from the sky.
When the comandante gave the order, none of the boys (they were all only boys) wanted to do it. They all looked into the other’s eyes, flashing the question, “Will you do it?” All knowing that the others would not want to pull the trigger. They liked the poet. He had always been kind to them. Always had words to play with and to say those things they could not. He had spoken for them. How could they want to kill him? None of them wanted to do it. They all looked down at their feet while the comandante stood a few steps away, smoking while he waited for a volunteer to speak up.
The heat was unbearable. The cicadas kept on screeching. In silence they chose Luis. Luis could do it. He could kill the poet. Poor, simple Luis wouldn’t even know what he’d done. Without looking up, they each mumbled. “Vaya pues, que lo haga Luis.”
Luis had been crouching alone, away from the group. When he heard his name, he looked up, his vacant eyes searching the sky. One voice beckoned him, meekly at first, pleading. Then, all the boys began calling out to him. “Vení ‘mano, mirá vos, tenés una orden que cumplir. Algo importante. Lo manda el comandante.”
Luis got up and joined the group. They huddled around him, laughing and slapping him on the back. Someone put the rifle in his hand. “When you hear the comandante say ‘shoot,’ aim at the prisoner and pull the trigger, okay?” They spun Luis around so that he stood facing the poet. And they soldiered along, lining up beside him and holding up their rifles, but when the comandante called out, they did not shoot. Only Luis did.
When the bullet tore into the poet’s head, a flurry of poems came flying out, slowly drifting down to the ground. The boys scrambled to gather them as if they were candy falling from a piñata. But once they hit the ground, the scraps turned into rose petals, deep red rose petals that covered the poet’s body like a shroud.
After pulling the trigger, Luis did not join the other boys in grabbing for the slips of poems. He knelt next to the body, rocking and lurching over the poet, wailing. He held his head at the temples, seemed to be crushing it, trying to squeeze out the vision. He knew what he’d just done. He knew the poet wouldn’t speak again.
Then a bullet came tearing through Luis’ head from behind. His body slumped over onto the poet’s forming a mound amidst the rose petals. With his arms flung out, he seemed to be embracing the man he’d just killed. The smile of the innocents once again beamed across his face. Luis’ guilt had lasted only a moment. Luis, the simpleton, my only son. How I loved him.
I saw the comandante pull the trigger, and he knew I’d seen him. In the shock of seeing my son’s crumpled body, I began wondering why the comandante would do such a thing. Why not leave the poet’s killer alive to face the consequences, for surely there would be consequences some day? It would have been convenient to pin the poet’s murder on the act of a lunatic. In the dance of war, surely only poets and lunatics could dance through the rainfall of bullets unscathed. Surely poets and lunatics were not meant to die.
But my son did die and I saw the comandante kill him. Did he think that by killing the poet’s killer, he could wash the poet’s blood off his own hands? That by attempting to avenge the dead poet, he could redeem himself? That God would somehow forgive him? I don’t know what the comandante was thinking as he killed Luis. All I know is that he pulled the trigger, and he knew that I’d seen him.
When I returned the next day for my son’s body, it was gone. Both bodies were gone, and the rose petals that had covered them had turned to ash. I stood there a moment to think what to do next, how to find my son’s body and bring him home to be buried. I stood there one moment too long because then they were all on me, four, five, six of them. They tied my arms and blindfolded me, pushing me along a path with the butt of their riffles. I recognized their voices. Yesterday, they had been my son’s comrades.
Once we got into the jungle, they told me to stop. That’s when I heard the comandante’s voice. Even through my blindfold I could see his cruel smile. “This woman has a habit of seeing too much. She saw too much yesterday. So now we have to change that habit, make sure she doesn't ever see too much again. But first, Juan, let’s find out just how much she knows. Call me when you’re through.”
That’s when they began the torture. I can’t say how long it lasted; it seemed to go on for days. Through it all, they had kept on the blindfold so that I could not see their faces. Then, when I thought they couldn’t possibly beat me or burn me anymore, they called in the comandante.
He ordered me to stand, but I could not get up. Two of them dragged me up and held me by the arms. I couldn't understand why the comandante gently untied my blindfold and removed it. Then he smiled into my eyes. “Look at me carefully now viejita. Look well at my eyes and see my smile, because this is the last time you’ll ever see anything.”
He then put out my eyes. The pain was such I’d never felt anything like it. When I came to, I heard no voices and knew I was alone. I groped and crawled and found my way to a village, to some voices. They were good people and helped me get home.
I now can do almost everything I used to do in the days before they killed the poet. Before they killed my son. Before they blinded me. And I tell the children in the village that my name is María del Testimonio and that I know what I saw.
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