A certain amount of tempest has always been mingled with battle.
During the heat of it, one perceives vast fluctuations as if through a fog, a dizzy mirage, paraphernalia of war almost unknown to-day, floating sabre-taches, cross-belts, cartridge-boxes for grenades; brown, sandy boots with a thousand wrinkles, heavy machinery garlanded with torsades, the privates with starched hats with sun screens that fall down on the slopes of their shoulders, and their oblong carriers of leather, with brass hands and red tails. The pull and push of men, dirt, and sweat.
This had been none of that.
This had been a massacre, pure and simple.
The scene was a typical quiet Peruvian coastal village by the name of Moche, close by Trujillo, rather large, built along the beach which had become a fisherman's port, with Algarrobo trees, and sugarcane fields spreading out behind the houses.
There was a square were the school let the children play during break, and onto which six streets entered. It had a fountain and there were benches, and big trees that gave shade, whose leaves would partly obstruct the balconies of the houses looking out on the plaza. There was an arcade from the houses that went around so that one could walk in the shade when the sun was at its highest.
The weather was cold for that time of year.
The wind was westbound, and clouds had packed themselves together over the mountains in the East, and descended towards the coast during the early morning. Sombre folds of fog advanced as if in warning of what was to come, a sort of wind from the sepulchre pushed forward, hurled back, distended, and dispersed.
Totora reed fishing boats had been pulled into the sand and were being unloaded. Heavy nets left traces in the sand leading to the marketplace.
A teacher and a little girl came out onto the plaza, quickly followed by other students pouring from the schoolhouse. A man ran in to the teacher, who then turned back to the children, gesturing and talking wildly, waving to get out of the area.
Craftsmen and shopkeepers and farmers ran through as the teacher hurried the children along. One small boy remained, and an older girl ran back to get him and run after the others.
The mist wove trough the Algarrobo trees and made them seem distant and as though one was looking through the veil of a dream. Occasionally colored smoke wafted through, yellow, and then black.
Yellow and black.
Yellow and black.
No choice. And no certainty.
Mary Graves arrived at the top of the stairs, Charles's unspoken words still at the forefront of her mind. She felt a certain distance to her own body, as if she was aware she was walking through the landing, but she did not perceive it the way she might have some other time. Her throat was dry. Her eyelids were weary. And reality weighed heavily upon her brows. She laid her hand on the brass doorknob.
No choice, she told herself. And no certainty.
They had once talked about it at the dig site.
Mary Graves had overheard them when she'd been working not too far from Silva and Jackson, but still out of sight from where they were resting in the sand. Both men hadn't meant to hide and they hadn't meant any bad.
"You know what was done?" Jackson had asked Robert Leigh.
"Yes. I have heard the story."
"From Silva?"
"No." Leigh said. "I read the report."
"Now let us go and get coffee," Silva spoke, dismissively.
The sun had been rising over the far hills and shining on the road and on the white wall of the rising monstrosity that was the dam, and the dust in the air had been golden in that first sun.
"Where you there?" Leigh had asked.
The clack of a coffee mug resounded and one could barely make out Silva's 'Sí'. Then the mug was filled and you could hear Silva grousing in that characteristic way of his that was both familiar and unnerving in its wonted stolidity.
"What was done there?" Leigh pressed.
"Did you not read the report?" Silva reminded him.
"What was done there?"
"Dr Graves had them blown to death and then washed away with the tide."
It had been silent for awhile, and Mary had known when Leigh asked something, for she could hear Silva answer:
"It was not that simple. But in my life never do I wish to see such a scene again," Silva coughed, "I remember most of all how quiet it was. I know I'd expected noise. Lots of noise. Instead I remember soldiers just quietly waiting and watching, and I heard one say to another, 'Will there be children?'"
"And another said, 'I hope to Christ, no.'"
"'No, Emilio. There will be no children. We are not killing the children. Why should we kill their children?'"
"And he said, 'Thanks be to Christ, there are no children.' And then I only remember looking away and feeling sick inside." Silva took a long drink before he hummed. "They began at noon."
Mary Graves now looked out at the night sky from where she sank onto her bed. It was a clear night, and there were few clouds high in the sky. The clinic grounds were not dusty after the heavy rain, and the few lights that were still on in the clinic cast slender beams of light onto the courtyard and nearly touched the veranda of the house. And Mary remembered the drought of that day in Mocha, and how there had been far more dust and wind and smoke. And how the school had looked on fire and how the anger had frozen in her veins and given way for pure terror.
And how General Rivas-Saldaña had smiled at her.
And how the governor of Trujillo had shaken her hand, and said: "We are always happy to meet new friends." But how his eyes had said: you must have known. You must have known and I thank you for providing it.
And Mary Graves remembered herself dry-heaving above the porcelain toilet bowl in the bathroom of that little hotel with the good cod and the great liquor. The wind blowing the wash lines crossing overhead the cobbled street.
While she told herself: no choice. And no certainty.
And she remembered looking up from the foul-stinking porcelain bowl and seeing Charles in the doorway. His eyes had been showing an emotion that seemed too removed from the scene, standing amidst the dead silence of the hotel room, waiting. Looking at Mary like he was saying goodbye. Forget the frostbitten horror she had felt looking at Rivas-Saldaña's face, this fear had been worse. Infinitely so. It had been hot and furious and had filled her with so much dread it felt like she'd be sick again.
Now, sitting on the bed and with but a few walls separating her from Charles, Mary Graves unlaced her boots and sat down by the vanity, telling herself: no choice. And no certainty.
And Mary Graves knew that Charles was right. There was simply no excusing a thing like that.