write about the stories “The Road North” and “And of clay we are made” relate to society flaw of favouring the wealth and taking advantage of the poor

THE NORTH’S ROAD

Claveles Picero and his grandfather, Jesus Dionisio.

Picero, it took thirty-eight days to cover the two hundred and seventy kilometers between his village and the capital. They crossed the lowlands on foot, where the humidity macerated the vegetation in an eternal broth of mud and sweat, climbed and lowered the hills between motionless iguanas and burdened palm trees, crossed the coffee plantations dodging foremen, lizards and snakes, walked under the leaves of tobacco between phosphorescent mosquitoes and sidereal butterflies. They went straight to the city, bordering the road, but on a couple of occasions they had to make long detours to avoid the soldiers’ camps. Sometimes the truckers slowed down as they passed by, attracted by the mestiza queen’s back and the girl’s long black hair, but the old man’s eyes immediately dissuaded them from any attempt to disturb her. The grandfather and his granddaughter had no money and did not know how to beg. When the supplies they had in a basket were finished, they went on at the point of pure courage. At night they wrapped themselves in their rebozos and slept under the trees with a Hail Mary on the lips and the soul placed on the child, not to think of pumas and poisonous vermin. They woke up covered in blue beetles. With the first signs of dawn, when the landscape remained enveloped by the last mists of the dream and still the men and beasts did not start the day’s work, they started walking again to take advantage of the fresco. They entered the capital by the Camino de los Espanoles, asking those who crossed the streets where they could find the Secretary of Social Welfare. By then Jesus Dionisio sounded all the bones and Claveles the colors of the dress had vanished, had the enchanted expression of a sleepwalker and a century of fatigue had spilled on the splendor of his twenties.

Jesus Dionisio was the best-known craftsman of the province, in his long life he had gained a prestige of which he did not boast, because he considered his talent as a gift in the service of God, of which he was only his administrator. He had started as a potter and still made clay pots, but his fame came from wooden saints and small sculptures in bottles, which the peasants bought for their domestic altars or were sold to tourists in the capital. It was a slow work, something of eye, time and heart, as the man explained to the children swirling around him to watch him work. He introduced the painted sticks into the bottles with pincers, with a point of glue on the parts he had to stick, and patiently waited for them to dry before putting the next piece. His specialty was the Calvarios: a large cross at the center where the carved Christ hung, with its nails, its crown of thorns and a halo of golden paper, and two more simple crosses for the thieves of Golgotha. At Christmas he made niches for the Child God, with pigeons representing the Holy Spirit and with stars and flowers to symbolize Glory. He could not read or sign his name because when he was a boy there was no school in those parts, but he could copy from the mass book some Latin phrases to decorate the pedestals of his saints. He said that his parents had taught him to respect the laws of the Church and the people, which was more valuable than having instruction. The art did not give him to maintain his house and rounded up his budget by raising roosters of race, fine for the fight. To each rooster he had to devote a lot of care to them, feed them in the beak with a porridge of crushed cereals and fresh blood, which he got in the slaughterhouse, he had to remove them by hand, air them the feathers, polish the spurs and Pain them daily so that they did not lack value when trying them. Sometimes I went to other towns to see them fight, but never bet, because for him all money won without sweat and work was a thing of the devil. On Saturday nights he went with his granddaughter Claveles to clean the church for the Sunday ceremony. The priest did not always reach the priest, who traveled the towns by bicycle, but the Christians gathered anyway to pray and sing. Jesus Dionysus was also in charge of collecting and keeping alms for the care of the temple and the help of the priest. Thirteen children had Picero with his wife, Amparo Medina, of whom five survived to childhood pest and accidents. When thecouple thought that the parenting had ended, because all the boys were adults and had left the house, the minor returned with permission from the Military Service bringing a bundle wrapped in rags and put it on Amparo’s knees. When they opened it they saw that it was a newborn girl, half agonized by the lack of breast milk and by the crushing of the trip. drink secretly, so that no one would notice her shame. Drunkard called his wife and sometimes he could see her by the kitchen stove. Without the diligent care of Amparo Medina, the house deteriorated, the chickens became ill, the goat had to be sold, the orchard was dried and soon they were the poorest family around. Shortly after, Claveles left to work in a neighboring town. At the age of fourteen his body had already reached the definitive shape and size, and since he did not have the coppery skin or the firm cheekbones of the other members of the family, Jesus Dionisio Picero concluded that his mother must have been white, which offered a explanation for the unusual fact that he had left her at the door of a barracks.

After a year and a half Claveles Picero returned to the house with spots on his face and a prominent belly. He found his grandfather with no company other than a leash of hungry dogs and a couple of pitiful roosters loose in the yard, talking alone, his eyes lost, with signs of not having washed in a while. The greatest disorder surrounded him. He had left his piece of land and spent the hours making saints with insane urgency, but from his old talent there was little left. His sculptures were deformed and dismal beings, inappropriate for devotion or for sale, which were piled up in the corners of the house like piles of wood. Jesus Dionisio Picero had changed so much that he did not try to give his granddaughter a speech about the sin of throwing children into the world without a known father, he did not seem to notice the signs of pregnancy. He just hugged her, trembling, calling her Amparo.

“Look at me well, Grandpa, I’m Claveles and I’m here to stay, because there’s a lot to do here,” said the girl, and left to light the kitchen to boil some potatoes and heat water to bathe the old man.

During the following months, Jesus Dionisio seemed to rise from his duel, he stopped drinking, he returned to cultivate his garden, to take care of his roosters and to clean the church. He still spoke to the memory of his wife and occasionally confused the granddaughter with the grandmother, but regained the ability to laugh. The company of Carnations and the illusion that soon there would be another creature in the house returned the love to him by the colors and little by little it stopped embetuna his Saints with black paint, adorning them with more suitable clothes for the altar. The boy Claveles left his mother’s womb one day at six in the afternoon and fell into the calloused hands of his great-grandfather, who had a long experience in these tasks, because he had helped to give birth to his thirteen children.

“His name will be Juan,” the improvised midwife decided as soon as he cut the cord and

wrapped his offspring in a diaper. -Why John? There is no Juan in the family, grandfather. Because Juan was Jesus’ best friend and this will be my friend. And what is the father’s last name? Remember that father does not have. – Then, Juan Picero. Two weeks after the birth of his great-grandson, Jesus Dionisio began cutting the sticks for a Nativity, the first he had made since the death of Amparo Medina. Claveles and his grandfather did not take long to realize that the child was abnormal. He had a curious look and moved like any baby, but he did not react when spoken to, he could stay awake and motionless for hours. They made the trip to the hospital and there they confirmed that he was deaf and therefore would be mute. The doctor added that there was not much hope for him, unless they were lucky and managed to place him in an institution in the city, where they would teach him good and in the future they could give him an office to earn a decent living and not be always a burden for others.

“Not to mention, Juan stays with us,” said Jesus Dionisio Picero, without giving Carve a glance, crying with his head covered by his shawl. -What are we going to do, grandfather? she asked as she left. Cry it, then. -How? -With patience, just as cocks are trained or put Calvaries in bottles. It is a matter of eye, time and heart. They did it. Regardless of the fact that the creature could not hear them, they spoke to him without respite, they sang to him, they placed him near the radio at full volume. The grandfather took the child’s hand and firmly supported it on his own chest, so that he felt the vibration of his voice when

speaking, urged him to scream and celebrated his grunts with great fuss. As soon as he was able to sit down, he installed him beside him in a drawer, surrounded him with sticks, nuts, bones, pieces of cloth and pebbles to play with, and later, when he learned not to put it in his mouth, he passed a ball of mud to him. mold. Every time he got a job, Claveles left for the town, leaving his son in the hands of Jesus Dionisio. Wherever the old man the creature followed him like a shadow, they rarely separated. Between the two developed a solid camaraderie that eliminated the tremendous difference in age and the obstacle of the encio. Juan got used to observing the gestures and expressions of his great-grandfather’s face to decipher his intentions, with such good results that by the year he learned to walk he was already able to read his thoughts. For his part, Jesus Dionisio looked after him like a mother. While his hands took care of delicate crafts, his instinct followed the child’s steps, alert to any danger, but only intervened in extreme cases. He did not come near to comfort him after a fall or help him when he was in trouble, so he used to take care of himself. At an age when other boys are still tripping like puppies, Juan Picero could dress, wash and eat alone, feed the birds, fetch water from the well, know how to carve the simplest parts of the saints, mix colors and prepare the bottles for the Calvaries. – It will be necessary to send it to the school so that it does not remain gross like me – said Jesus Dionisio Picero when the seventh birthday of the boy approached. Claveles made some inquiries, but informed him that his son could not attend a normal course, because no teacher would be willing to venture into the abyss of solitude where he was immersed.

“No matter, grandfather, he will make a living making saints, like you,” Claveles resigned. – That does not give to eat. – Not everyone can be educated, grandfather. -Juan is deaf, but not stupid. He has a lot of discernment and can get out of here, life in the country is very hard for him. Claveles was convinced that his grandfather had lost his mind or that love for the child prevented him from seeing his limitations. He bought a syllabary and tried to pass on his limited knowledge, but he could not make his son understand that those scribbles represented sounds and he ended up losing patience.

At that time the volunteers of Mrs. Dermoth appeared. They were young people from the city, who toured the most remote regions of the country talking about a humanitarian project to help the poor. Explaining that in some parts too many children were born and their parents could not feed them, while in others there were many couples without children. His organization was trying to alleviate this imbalance. They showed up at the Picero ranch with a map of North America and colored brochures showing pictures of dark children with blond parents, in luxurious environments with fireplaces, big shaggy dogs, pine trees decorated with silver glitter and balls. Christmas. After making a quick inventory of the Piceros’ poverty, they were informed about the charitable mission of Mrs. Dermoth, who placed the most destitute children and gave them up for adoption to families with money, to save them from a life of misery. Unlike other institutions aimed at the same end, she dealt only with creatures with birth defects or ballasted by accidents or diseases. In the North there were some marriages-good Christians, of course-that were willing to adopt these children. They had all the resources to help them. There in the North there were clinics and schools where they worked miracles, the deaf and dumb, for example, they taught them to read the movement of the lips and to talk, then they went to special schools, they received full education and some enrolled in the university and ended up converted, in lawyers or doctors. The organization had helped many children, Picero could see the pictures, see how happy they look, how healthy, with all those toys, in those houses of the rich. The volunteers could not promise anything, but they would do everything possible to get one of those couples to welcome Juan, to give him all the opportunities that his mother could not offer him.

– Where did you get this, son? -asked Jesus Dionisio Picero. “Apparently it’s the same blood of mine,” replied the young man, not daring to hold his father’s gaze, squeezing his uniform cap between his sweaty fingers. -And if it’s not too much to ask, where did the mother go? -1 dont know. He left the little girl at the door of the barracks with a written paper that the father is me. The sergeant sent me to deliver it to the nuns, he says there’s no way to prove it’s mine. But 1 feel sorry for myself, I do not want her to be an orphan … -Where has a mother been seen abandoning her newly born child? -They are things in the city. -It must be, then. And what’s the name of this poor thing? “As you baptize her, father, but if you ask me, I like Claveles, which was her mother’s favorite flower.

Jesus Dionisio went to look for the goat to milk, while Amparo cleaned the baby with oil and prayed to the Virgin of the Grotto asking him to give her courage to take care of another child. Once he saw the child in good hands, the youngest son said goodbye gratefully, threw his bag over his shoulder and returned to the barracks to carry out his punishment.

Claveles grew up in his grandparents’ house. She was a stubborn and rebellious girl, who was impossible to master by reason or with the exercise of authority, but who succumbed immediately when touched feelings. He got up at dawn and walked five miles to a barn in the middle of the pastures, where a teacher gathered the children of the area to give them a basic instruction. He helped his grandmother in the chores of the house and his grandfather in the workshop, went to the hill in search of pottery and washed his brushes, but was never interested in other aspects of his art. When Claveles was nine years old, Amparo Medina, who had been shrinking and reduced to the appearance of an infant, woke up cold in her bed, exhausted by so many maternities and so many years of work. Her husband exchanged his best cock for some tables and made an urn decorated with biblical scenes. Her granddaughter dressed her for the funeral with a habit of Santa Bernadette, white robe and blue cord at the waist, the same used by her for his First Communion, and that was just right to the old woman’s emaciated body. Jesus Dionisio and Claveles left the house heading for the cemetery, pulling a wheelbarrow where the coffin was decorated with paper flowers. Along the way were joined by friends, men and women with their heads covered, who accompanied them in silence. The old saints sculptor and his granddaughter were left alone in the house. In a sign of mourning they painted a large cross on the door and both wore for years a black ribbon sewn on the sleeve. Grandpa tried to replace his wife in the practical details of life, but nothing was as before. The absence of Amparo Medina invaded him inside, like a malignant disease, he felt his blood run down, his memories darkened, his cotton bones turned, his spirit filled with doubts. For the first time in his existence he rebelled against fate, wondering why she had been taken away without him. From then on he could no longer make Pesebres, from his hands only came Calvarios and Santos Martires, all dressed in mourning, to which Claveles pasted signs with pathetic messages to Divine Providence, dictated by his grandfather. These figures did not have the same acceptance among the tourists of the city, who preferred the scandalous colors attributed by mistake to the indigenous temperament, nor among the peasants, who needed to adore happy deities, because the only consolation to the sorrows of this world was to imagine that in heaven they were always partying. Jesus Dionisio Picero found it almost impossible to sell his handicrafts, but he continued to manufacture them, because in that job he spent the hours without fatigue, as if it were always early. However, neither the work nor the presence of her granddaughter could alleviate it and she began to drink secretly, so that no one would notice her shame. Drunkard called his wife and sometimes he could see her by the kitchen stove. Without the diligent care of Amparo Medina, the house deteriorated, the chickens became ill, the goat had to be sold, the orchard was dried and soon they were the poorest family around. Shortly after, Claveles left to work in a neighboring town. At the age of fourteen his body had already reached the definitive shape and size, and since he did not have the coppery skin or the firm cheekbones of the other members of the family, Jesus Dionisio Picero concluded that his mother must have been white, which offered a explanation for the unusual fact that he had left her at the door of a barracks.

After a year and a half Claveles Picero returned to the house with spots on his face and a prominent belly. He found his grandfather with no company other than a leash of hungry dogs and a couple of pitiful roosters loose in the yard, talking alone, his eyes lost, with signs of not having washed in a while. The greatest disorder surrounded him. He had left his piece of land and spent the hours making saints with insane urgency, but from his old talent there was little left. His sculptures were deformed and dismal beings, inappropriate for devotion or for sale, which were piled up in the corners of the house like piles of wood. Jesus Dionisio Picero had changed so much that he did not try to give his granddaughter a speech about the sin of throwing children into the world without a known father, he did not seem to notice the signs of pregnancy. He just hugged her, trembling, calling her Amparo.

“Look at me well, Grandpa, I’m Claveles and I’m here to stay, because there’s a lot to do here,” said the girl, and left to light the kitchen to boil some potatoes and heat water to bathe the old man.

During the following months, Jesus Dionisio seemed to rise from his duel, he stopped drinking, he returned to cultivate his garden, to take care of his roosters and to clean the church. He still spoke to the memory of his wife and occasionally confused the granddaughter with the grandmother, but regained the ability to laugh. The company of Carnations and the illusion that soon there would be another creature in the house returned the love to him by the colors and little by little it stopped embetuna his Saints with black paint, adorning them with more suitable clothes for the altar. The boy Claveles left his mother’s womb one day at six in the afternoon and fell into the calloused hands of his great-grandfather, who had a long experience in these tasks, because he had helped to give birth to his thirteen children.

“His name will be Juan,” the improvised midwife decided as soon as he cut the cord and

wrapped his offspring in a diaper. -Why John? There is no Juan in the family, grandfather. Because Juan was Jesus’ best friend and this will be my friend. And what is the father’s last name? Remember that father does not have. – Then, Juan Picero. Two weeks after the birth of his great-grandson, Jesus Dionisio began cutting the sticks for a Nativity, the first he had made since the death of Amparo Medina. Claveles and his grandfather did not take long to realize that the child was abnormal. He had a curious look and moved like any baby, but he did not react when spoken to, he could stay awake and motionless for hours. They made the trip to the hospital and there they confirmed that he was deaf and therefore would be mute. The doctor added that there was not much hope for him, unless they were lucky and managed to place him in an institution in the city, where they would teach him good and in the future they could give him an office to earn a decent living and not be always a burden for others.

“Not to mention, Juan stays with us,” said Jesus Dionisio Picero, without giving Carve a glance, crying with his head covered by his shawl. -What are we going to do, grandfather? she asked as she left. Cry it, then. -How? -With patience, just as cocks are trained or put Calvaries in bottles. It is a matter of eye, time and heart. They did it. Regardless of the fact that the creature could not hear them, they spoke to him without respite, they sang to him, they placed him near the radio at full volume. The grandfather took the child’s hand and firmly supported it on his own chest, so that he felt the vibration of his voice when speaking, urged him to scream and celebrated his grunts with great fuss. As soon as he was able to sit down, he installed him beside him in a drawer, surrounded him with sticks, nuts, bones, pieces of cloth and pebbles to play with, and later, when he learned not to put it in his mouth, he passed a ball of mud to him. mold. Every time he got a job, Claveles left for the town, leaving his son in the hands of Jesus Dionisio. Wherever the old man the creature followed him like a shadow, they rarely separated. Between the two developed a solid camaraderie that eliminated the tremendous difference in age and the obstacle of the encio. Juan got used to observing the gestures and expressions of his great-grandfather’s face to decipher his intentions, with such good results that by the year he learned to walk he was already able to read his thoughts. For his part, Jesus Dionisio looked after him like a mother. While his hands took care of delicate crafts, his instinct followed the child’s steps, alert to any danger, but only intervened in extreme cases. He did not come near to comfort him after a fall or help him when he was in trouble, so he used to take care of himself. At an age when other boys are still tripping like puppies, Juan Picero could dress, wash and eat alone, feed the birds, fetch water from the well, know how to carve the simplest parts of the saints, mix colors and prepare the bottles for the Calvaries. – It will be necessary to send it to the school so that it does not remain gross like me – said Jesus Dionisio Picero when the seventh birthday of the boy approached. Claveles made some inquiries, but informed him that his son could not attend a normal course, because no teacher would be willing to venture into the abyss of solitude where he was immersed.

“No matter, grandfather, he will make a living making saints, like you,” Claveles resigned. – That does not give to eat. – Not everyone can be educated, grandfather. -Juan is deaf, but not stupid. He has a lot of discernment and can get out of here, life in the country is very hard for him. Claveles was convinced that his grandfather had lost his mind or that love for the child prevented him from seeing his limitations. He bought a syllabary and tried to pass on his limited knowledge, but he could not make his son understand that those scribbles represented sounds and he ended up losing patience.

At that time the volunteers of Mrs. Dermoth appeared. They were young people from the city, who toured the most remote regions of the country talking about a humanitarian project to help the poor. Explaining that in some parts too many children were born and their parents could not feed them, while in others there were many couples without children. His organization was trying to alleviate this imbalance. They showed up at the Picero ranch with a map of North America and colored brochures showing pictures of dark children with blond parents, in luxurious environments with fireplaces, big shaggy dogs, pine trees decorated with silver glitter and balls. Christmas. After making a quick inventory of the Piceros’ poverty, they were informed about the charitable mission of Mrs. Dermoth, who placed the most destitute children and gave them up for adoption to families with money, to save them from a life of misery. Unlike other institutions aimed at the same end, she dealt only with creatures with birth defects or ballasted by accidents or diseases. In the North there were some marriages-good Christians, of course-that were willing to adopt these children. They had all the resources to help them. There in the North there were clinics and schools where they worked miracles, the deaf and dumb, for example, they taught them to read the movement of the lips and to talk, then they went to special schools, they received full education and some enrolled in the university and ended up converted, in lawyers or doctors. The organization had helped many children, Picero could see the pictures, see how happy they look, how healthy, with all those toys, in those houses of the rich. The volunteers could not promise anything, but they would do everything possible to get one of those couples to welcome Juan, to give him all the opportunities that his mother could not offer him. “You never have to get rid of the children, whatever happens,” said Jesus Dionisio Picero, pressing the boy’s head against his chest so he would not see the faces and guess the reason for the conversation. -Don’t be selfish, man, think about what is best for him. Do not you see that there you will have everything? You do not have to buy medicine, you can not send it to school, what will become of it? This poor thing does not even have a father. “But he has a mother and great-grandfather,” replied the old man. The visitors left, leaving Mrs. Dermoth’s pamphlets on the table. In the days that followed Claveles was surprised many times by looking at them and comparing those spacious and well-decorated houses with their modest dwelling of planks, thatched roof and ground of rammed earth, those kind and welldressed parents, with herself tired and barefoot, those children surrounded by toys and his kneading mud.

A week later Claveles met the volunteers in the market, where he had gone to sell some sculptures of his grandfather, and he heard again the same arguments, that an opportunity like that would not be presented to him again, that people adopt creatures healthy, never retarded, those people from the North were of noble feelings, who thought it well, because he would regret his whole life of denying his son so many advantages, condemning him to suffering and poverty. -Why do you want only sick children? Claveles asked. -Because they are half saints gringos. Our organization deals only with the most painful cases. For us it would be easier to place the normals, but it is about helping the destitute.

Claveles Picero again saw the volunteers several times. They always appeared when the grandfather was not in the house. Towards the end of November he was shown a portrait of a middle-aged couple standing at the door of a white house surrounded by a park, and was told that Mrs. Dermoth had found the ideal parents for her son. They pointed out on the map the precise place where they lived, they explained that there was snow in winter and the children made dolls, skated on the ice and skied, that in the autumn the forests looked like gold and that in the summer they could swim in the lake. The couple was so excited about the idea of adopting the child, that they had already bought him a bicycle. They also showed him the photograph of the bicycle. And all this without mentioning that they offered two hundred and fifty dollars to Claveles, with which she could marry and have healthy children. It would be crazy to reject that. Two days later, taking advantage of the fact that Jesus Dionisio had left to clean the church, Claveles Picero dressed his son with his best trousers, placed his christening medal around his neck and explained him in the language of gestures invented by his grandfather for him, they would not see each other for a long time, maybe never again, but it was all for their own good, he would go to a place where he would have food every day and gifts for his birthday. He took him to the address indicated by the volunteers, signed a paper giving Juan’s custody to Mrs. Dermoth and ran away so that his son would not see his tears and burst into tears too.

When Jesus Dionisio Picero learned of what happened he lost his voice and his voice. He slammed down everything he could find, including the saints in bottles, and then lashed out at Claveles, striking her with unexpected violence on someone of his age and of such a meek nature. As soon as she could speak, she accused her of being equal to her mother, capable of getting rid of her own son, which even wild beasts do, and she cried out to the ghost of Amparo Medina pai, to take revenge on that depraved granddaughter. In the following months he did not address Claveles, only opened his mouth to eat and to mumble curses while his hands were busy with carving instruments. The Piceros got used to living in sullen silence, each one fulfilling their tasks. She cooked and put the plate on the table, he ate with his eyes fixed on the food … Together they took care of the garden and the animals, each one repeating the gestures of his own routine, in perfect coordination with the other, without rubbing On the days of the fair, she would take the wooden bottles and saints, start selling them, return with some provisions and leave the remaining money in a jar. On Sundays the two went to church separated, as strangers.

Perhaps they would have spent the rest of their lives without speaking to each other if by midFebruary Mrs. Dermoth’s name had not made the news. The grandfather listened to the issue on the radio, when Claveles was washing clothes in the yard, first the speaker’s comment and then the confirmation of the Social Welfare Secretary in person. Heart pounding, he leaned out the door, calling Claveles shouting. The girl turned around and when she saw him so distraught she thought he was dying and ran to hold him. -They killed him, oh Jesus, he sure was killed! the old man groaned, falling to his knees. – Who, grandfather! -A Juan … -and half choked by the sobs he repeated the words of the Secretary of Social Welfare, that a criminal organization run by a Mrs. Dermoth sold indigenous children. They were chosen sick or from very poor families, with the promise that they would be placed for adoption. They kept them for a time in the process of fattening and when they were in better conditions they were taken to a clandestine clinic, where they operated. Dozens of innocents were sacrificed as organ banks, to remove their eyes, kidneys, liver and other parts of the body that were sent for transplants in the North. He added that in one of the fattening houses they had found twenty-eight creatures waiting for their turn, that the police had intervened and that the Government was continuing the investigations to dismantle that horrendous traffic.

Thus began the long journey of Claveles and Jesus Dionisio Picero to speak in the capital with the Secretary of Social Welfare. They wanted to ask him, with all due submission, if among the rescued children was his and if they could be returned. There was very little left of the money received, but they were willing to work as slaves for Mrs. Dermoth for as long as necessary, until paying her the last penny of those two hundred and fifty dollars.

They discovered the head of the girl peeking out of the quagmire, with her eyes open, calling without a voice. He had a First Communion name, Azucena. In that endless cemetery, where the smell of the dead attracted the most remote vultures and where the cries of the oiphans and the cries of the wounded filled the air, that obstinate girl in living became the symbol of tragedy. Both cameras transmitted the unbearable vision of his head sprouting from the mud, like a black pumpkin, that nobody was left without knowing it or naming it. And whenever we saw her appear on the screen, there was Rolf Carle, who came to the place attracted by the news, without suspecting that there he would find a piece of his past, lost thirty years ago.
sinking when treading. They threw a rope at her, which she did not make any effort to grab, until they shouted at her to take her, then she pulled out a hand and tried to move, but then she submerged more. Rolf released his bag and the rest of his equipment and advanced into the swamp, commenting for his assistant’s microphone that it was cold and that the pestilence of the corpses was already beginning.

-What is your name? he asked the girl and she answered him with her flower name. Do not move, Azucena, “ordered Rolf Carle, and went on talking to him without thinking what he was saying, only to distract her, while crawling slowly with mud up to his waist. The air around him seemed as muddy as mud.

On that side it was not possible to get close, so he backed off and went around where the terrain seemed firmer. When at last he was near he took the rope and tied it under his arms, so that they could lift it. He smiled at her with that smile that narrows his eyes and returns him to childhood, told him that everything was fine, he was with her, they would immediately take her out. He motioned for the others to pull, but as soon as the rope was tightened the girl shouted. They tried again and her shoulders and arms appeared, but they could not move her anymore, she was stuck. Someone suggested that perhaps her legs were compressed in the ruins of her house, and she said that they were not just rubble, she was also held by the bodies of her brothers, clinging to her. “Do not worry, let’s get you out of here,” Rolf promised. In spite of the transmission failures, I noticed that his voice was breaking and 1 felt so much closer to him because of that. She looked at him without answering.

In the first hours Rolf Carle exhausted all the resources of his ingenuity to rescue her. He fought with sticks and ropes, but each tfron was an intolerable torment for the prisoner. It occurred to him to make a lever with sticks, but that did not work and he had to abandon that idea too. He got a couple of soldiers who worked with him for a while, but then they left him alone, because many other victims demanded help. The girl could not move and could barely breathe, but she did not seem desperate, as if an ancestral resignation allowed her to read her destiny. The journalist, on the other hand, was determined to snatch her to death. They brought her a tire, which she placed under her arms like a life preserver, and then crossed a board near the hole to support herself and thus reach it better. As it was impossible to remove the debris blindly, he submerged a couple of times to explore that hell, but he left exasperated, covered in mud, spitting stones. He deduced that a pump was needed to extract the water and sent to request it by radio, but they returned with the message that there was no transport and they could not send it until the next morning.

-We can not wait that long! said Rolf Carle, but in that hurry no one stopped to pity him. There would still be many more hours before he accepted that time had stagnated and that reality had suffered an irremediable distortion. A military doctor came to examine the children and said that his heart worked well and that if he did not get too cold he could resist that night. “Be patient, Azucena, tomorrow they will bring the bomb,” Rolf Carle tried to console her. “Do not leave me alone,” she asked him. -Of course not. They brought coffee and he gave it to the girl, sip by sip. The warm liquid encouraged her and she began to talk about her little life, about her family and school, about what that piece of world was like before the volcano burst. He was thirteen years old and had never left the limits of his village. The journalist, supported by a premature optimism, was convinced that everything would end biem would arrive the bomb, extract the water, remove the debris and Azucena would be transferred by helicopter to a hospital, where he would recover quickly and where he could visit with gifts. She thought that she was not old enough for dolls and did not know what she would like, maybe a dress. I do not understand much about women, he concluded with amusement, calculating that he had had many in his life, but none had taught him those details. To deceive the hours began to tell him his travels and his adventures as a hunter of

First it was an underground sob that shook the cotton fields, curling them like a frothy wave. The geologists had installed their measuring machines weeks in advance and already knew that the mountain had awakened again. For a long time they had predicted that the heat of the eruption could release the eternal ice from the slopes of the volcano, but nobody paid attention to these warnings, because they sounded like old women. The people of the valley continued their existence deaf to the moans of the earth, until the night of that fateful November of November, when a long roar announced the end of the world and the walls of snow fell off, rolling in an avalanche of mud, stones and water that fell on the villages, burying them under unfathomable meters of telluric vomit. As soon as they were able to shake off the paralysis of the first horror, the survivors found that the houses, the squares, the churches, the white cotton plantations, the somber forests of the coffee and the pastures of the bulls had disappeared. Much later, when the volunteers and soldiers arrived to rescue the living and to take account of the magnitude of the cataclysm, they calculated that under the mud there were more than twenty thousand human beings and an imprecise number of beasts, rotting in a viscous broth. The forests and rivers had also been defeated, and there was nothing left but an immense desert of mud.

When they called from the Canal at dawn, Rolf Carle and 1 were together. 1 left the bed stunned with sleep and left to prepare coffee while he dressed in a hurry. He placed his work items in the green canvas bag that he always wore, and we said goodbye as many other times. 1 had no feeling. 1 stayed in the kitchen sipping my coffee and planning the hours without him, sure that the next day 1 would be back.

He was one of the first to arrive, because while other journalists were approaching the edges of the swamp in jeeps, on bicycles, on foot, each one making his way as best he could, he counted on the television helicopter and could fly over the avalanche. . On the screens appeared the scenes captured by the camera of his assistant, where he was submerged to the knees, with a microphone in his hand, in the middle of an uproar of lost children, mutilated, corpses and ruins. The story came to us with his quiet voice. For years I had seen him in the news, digging in battles and catastrophes, without anything stopping him, with reckless perseverance, and I was always amazed by his calm attitude to danger and suffering, as if nothing could shake his strength or divert your curiosity Fear did not seem to touch him, but he had confessed to me that he was not a brave man, far from it. 1 think the lens of the machine had a strange effect on him, as if it were transported to another time, from which he could see the events without really participating in them.

Upon knowing him more, I understood that this fictional distance kept him safe from his own emotions.

Rolf Carle was from the beginning with Azucena. She filmed the volunteers who discovered her and the first ones who tried to approach her, her camera focused insistently on the girl, her dark face, her big desolate eyes, the compact tangle of her hair. In that place the mud was dense and there was danger of news, and when he ran out of memories he used his imagination to invent anything that could distract her. At times she was dozing, but he kept talking to her in the dark, to show her that he had not left and to overcome the harassment of uncertainty. That was a long night many miles away, 1 watched Rolf Carle and the girl on a screen. 1 did not resist the wait in the house and went to the National Television, where many times 1 spent whole nights with him editing programs. So I was close to him and I could see what he experienced in those three final days. 1 went to all the important people in the city, to the senators of the Republic, to the generals of the Armed Forces, to the American ambassador and to the president of the Petroleum Company, begging them for a bomb to extract the mud, but I only got vague promises I started asking urgently on radio and television, to see if anyone could help us. Between calls, he would run to the reception center to avoid losing satellite images, which arrived at all times with new details of the catastrophe. While the journalists selected the scenes with the most impact for the news, I looked for those where Azucena’s well appeared. The screen reduced the disaster to a single plane and accentuated the tremendous distance that separated me from Rolf Carle, however I was with him, each suffering of the girl hurt me like him, I felt his same frustration, his own helplessness. Given the impossibility of communicating with him, 1 came up with the fantastic resource of concentrating to reach him with the force of thought and thus encourage him. At times 1 was stunned in a frantic and useless activity, at times pity overwhelmed me and I started to cry, and other times the fatigue overcame me and I thought I was looking through a telescope at the light of a dead star a million years ago.

In the first morning newscast I saw that hell, where corpses of men and animals floated by the waters of new rivers floated, formed in a single night by the melting snow. From the mud stood the tops of some trees and the bell tower of a church, where several people had found shelter and were waiting patiently for the rescue teams. Hundreds of Civil Defense soldiers and volunteers were trying to remove debris in search of the survivors, while long lines of ragged specters waited their turn for a bowl of broth. Radio stations reported that their phones were congested by calls from families offering shelter to orphaned children. There was little water to drink, gasoline and food. The doctors, resigned to amputate members without anesthesia, claimed at least sera, analgesics and antibiotics, but most of the roads were interrupted and the bureaucracy also delayed everything. Meanwhile, the mud contaminated by decomposing corpses threatened the living with plague. Azucena trembled on the tire that supported her on the surface. The immobility and tension had weakened her a lot, but she remained conscious and still spoke in a perceptible voice when a microphone was brought to her. His tone was humble, as if he were asking for forgiveness for causing so much discomfort. Rolf Carle had his beard grown and dark shadows under his eyes, he looked exhausted. Even at that enormous distance I could perceive the quality of that fatigue, different from all the previous fatigues of his life. I had completely forgotten the camera, I could no longer look at the girl through a lens. The images that came to us were not from his assistant, but from other journalists who had taken over Azucena, attributing to him the pathetic responsibility of embodying the horror of what happened in that place. From the dawn Rolf struggled again to move the obstacles that held the girl in that grave, but she had only her hands, she did not dare to use a tool, because she could hurt her. He gave Azucena the cup of corn and banana porridge that the Army distributed, but she vomited it immediately. A doctor came and found that she was feverish, but said that there was not much to do, the antibiotics were reserved for cases of gangrene. A priest also came to bless her and to hang a medal of the Virgin around her neck. In the afternoon a soft, persistent drizzle began to fall.

“The sky is crying,” Azucena murmured and began to cry too. “Do not be scared,” Rolf begged. You have to reserve your strength and keep calm, everything will be fine, I’m with you and I’ll get you out of here in some way. The journalists came back to photograph her and ask her the same things that she
sleepers and the vegetation had erased their tracks. The Congress then sent a detachment of explorers and a couple of military engineers who flew over the area by helicopter, but the vegetation was so thick that they could not find the place either. The traces of the Palace were confused in the memory of the people and in the municipal archives, the notion of their existence became a gossip of comadres, the reports were swallowed by the bureaucracy and as the country had more urgent problems, the project of the Art Academy was postponed.

Now they have built a road that connects San Jeronimo with the rest of the country. The travelers say that sometimes, after a storm, when the air is humid and charged with electricity, a white marble palace suddenly appears next to the road, which for a few moments remains suspended at a certain height, like a mirage, and then disappears without noise.