tell. They were leaving the next day for San Jacinto. It was Sunday and I myself advised them to go there. On Sundays, a priest from Sullana goes to San Jacinto to say Mass. He could marry them in the hacienda chapel. That’s what they wanted most in the world, a priest to marry them. Here they were wasting their time waiting around. Go to San Jacinto, that’s what I told them.”
“But the lovebirds didn’t get to San Jacinto that Sunday.”
“No.” Doña Lupe was struck dumb and looked back and forth from Lituma to the lieutenant. She trembled and her teeth chattered.
“They didn’t get to San Jacinto that Sunday because . . .” Lieutenant Silva helped her along.
“Because someone came looking for them on Saturday afternoon,” the terrified woman whispered, her eyes jumping out of her head.
It still wasn’t dark. The sun was a ball of fire among the eucalyptus and carob trees; the tin roofs of some houses reflected the blazing sunset. She was bent over the stove cooking and stopped when she saw the car. It left the highway, turned toward Amotape, bounced, raised a dust cloud, and ground its way straight to the plaza. Doña Lupe watched every inch of the way as it approached. They, too, heard and saw it. But they paid it no attention until it skidded to a halt in front of the church. They were sitting there kissing. They were kissing all the time. Stop it, now, you’re setting a bad example for the children. Why don’t you talk or sing.
“Because he sang beautifully, didn’t he?” whispered the lieutenant, encouraging her to go on. “Mostly boleros, right?”
“Waltzes and tonderos, too.” She sighed so loud that Lituma jumped. “And even cumananas, you know, what they sing when two singers challenge each other. He did it really well, he was so funny.”
“The car rolled into Amotape and you saw it,” the lieutenant reminded her. “Did they run away? Did they hide?”
“She wanted him to run away and hide. She scared him, saying, Run away, honey, go away, run, run, don’t stay here, I don’t want them to . . .” “No, sweetheart, remember, you’re mine now. We’ve spent two nights together, you’re my wife. Now nobody can come between us. They’ll have to accept our love. I’m not leaving. I’ll wait for him, talk to him.”
“She was scared out of her wits, run, run, if they catch you, they’ll . . . I don’t know what, get out of here, I’ll keep them here, I don’t want them to kill you, darling.” She was so scared that Doña Lupe also got scared: “Who are they?” she asked the young couple, pointing at the dusty car, the silhouettes that got out and stood anonymously framed by the burning horizon. “Who’s coming? My God! What’s going to happen?”
“Who was coming, Doña Lupe?” asked the lieutenant blowing smoke rings.
“Who do you think it was? Who else could it be but your kind?”
Lieutenant Silva didn’t move a muscle. “You mean the Guardia Civil? Or do you mean the military police from the Talara Air Force Base? Is that it?”
“Your kind. Men in uniforms. Isn’t it all the same thing?”
“Actually it isn’t. But it doesn’t matter.”
At that moment, even though he missed not a one of Doña Lupe’s revelations, Lituma saw them. They were sitting right there, in the shade, holding hands, an instant before disaster struck. He’d bent his head covered with short, black curls over her shoulder and, caressing her ear with his lips, was singing to her: “Two souls joined by God in this world, two souls who loved each other, that’s what we were, you and I.” Moved by the tenderness and the beauty of his voice, she had tears in her eyes, and so she could hear him better, she shrugged her shoulders and crinkled up her loving face. There was no evidence of nastiness or arrogance in those adolescent features sweetened by love.
Lituma felt desolated by sadness as he imagined the vehicle of the uniformed men: first a roaring motor, then clouds of yellow dust. It traced a path around midday Amotape and after a few horrid moments stopped a few yards from the very doorless shack where they were now. “At least he must have been very happy during the two days he spent here.”
“Only two men?” Lituma was surprised to see the lieutenant so surprised. He avoided looking him in the eye, out of an obscure superstition.
“Only two,” repeated the woman,