Al-Mumit

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Al-Mumit المميت

 

The corpses usually vanished forever. The corpses were thrown into old cemeteries, under existing graves, never to be found. The corpses were heaved into the middle of the sea from helicopters. The corpses were dismembered and burnt... What there was from the start was the great silence.[1]

 

 

Late November, riding on a path south of Granada. A cold, sunny morning under the intensely blue Andalusian sky. On the way back I decide to take the old road to Almuñécar, on the Mediterranean coast. The new bicycle went very well on the paved highway but now it is harder to ride on this lonely dirt road, with so many stones and deep potholes. Nobody in this mythical forest of evergreen pines and oaks. I feel like the only human under the sun here. No time, no space. Just the trees and me.

 

A steep ascent during half an hour, arriving at a clearing in the forest. A sign warns, “No trespassing - Military facilities”. The ruins of what may have been military barracks. Thirsty and thinking on making a break for lunch. But wait, someone is there, near the road. I approach with reluctance. Two naked female bodies in the sun, quietly lying on a dark blanket. They embrace, they sleep. They haven’t noticed my presence. Used cardboard dishes and plastic cutlery scattered around, cheap tupperware boxes, a thermos spilling a clear liquid on the dusty grass.

 

Should I go? I don’t know. Noises behind me. A soldier, two, in full combat gear. Shadows moving behind the trees. Shouts. More uniformed men appear from nowhere. Dark dogs barking wildly. What is this. I’m in a panic. They have guns. The women swiftly stand up and run, without looking backwards. The soldiers surround me, pointing their guns. I’m paralysed on my bike. Everybody shouts and run. So many years ago.

 

You wake up. Sweating. You look so scared. Tell me what you were dreaming about, she says. You stare at me as if I have threatened you. You tell her about the ride in the forest. The naked women (you pigs). The soldiers and their guns pointed at you. We don’t want to remember. It is threatening to think of that time, the years of lead. Police officers killing passersby. Labour union members killing workers. Civil servants killing students. Guerrillas killing soldiers. Bodies and blood and rosary beads and baroque coffins. Protests, huge drums and people singing and shouting against the army, the church, the government.

 

Now you. It is your turn. What were your dreams tonight? Cycling on the highway, I approach a petrol station. A big dog ferociously jumps from nowhere against me, barking like a devil in boiling water. Like you always tell me, dogs don’t like cyclists. I try to accelerate but the dog runs faster. His snout so close to my right foot. Then I look and there is no foot anymore. I stop, standing on the left side, I’m terrified. I see other bikers on the road shoulder. Some of them are dead. Others are dismembered but still alive. Dogs sniffing at their wounds. Blood everywhere. Dogs hate cyclists.

 

Military police dogs barking at the students in the university hall. The officers laugh. Prisoners are taken to the basement. “Next client for Susana” (the electric picana), a cattle prod applying high voltage shocks to torture victims. A brainchild of Argentinean police creativity. They laugh with the view of the naked young student. She is tied to a metal bed frame and water is thrown over her body. The picana goes from her feet to her genitals, her breasts, her nipples. She keeps silent, just opening enormous eyes. Tears spelt in silence, her body jerking with the electric shocks.

 

The kidnapped, the tortured, the disappeared. Another gaucho invention. A disappeared does not exist anymore. His or her body has vanished. There are no traces of it, unless a leg or a hand surfaces in the coast of the river. Fathers, mothers making a pilgrimage to dark government offices, ministries, ambassadors, bishops, lawyers, businesses. They find a mute expression, cheap consolation. Fear. Nobody knows anything. El silencio es salud (silence is health) reads a doublespeak campaign launched by the city of Buenos Aires. They must be in a foreign country, you know? You should be more vigilant with your children. There are dangerous people out there trying to convince them. Terrorists. I argue with my far cousin. Those communists need to be killed.

 

We have breakfast in silence. Too tired to speak in this grey morning.

Memories of a dead past.

[1] Jacobo Timerman, “No Name, No Number”, The New Yorker, 20 April 1981, p. 90.