“Tomorrow your father is going to be very upset,” I told him. “I feel sorry for him. Now go

on, and rest in peace, Miguel. I‘m grateful that you came to say goodbye to me.”

“And then I closed the window. Before it got light, a servant from Media Luna came to tell

me: ‘Don Pedro needs you; his son Miguel has died, and he wants you to come and see him.”

“Yes, I know what happened,” I told him. “Did they say you should cry when you told me?”

‘Yes, Don Fulgor told me I should do that as I told you.’

“Okay, tell Don Pedro I’ll come. How long has it been since they brought him back?”

‘Only a half an hour ago. If they had brought him sooner, they might have been able to save

him. Although, according to the doctor who examined him, he had been dead for some time.

We knew something was wrong when Colorado came back by himself and was so upset that he

woke everyone up. You know how he and the horse cared for each other, and I think the horse

suffered even more than Don Pedro. It hasn’t slept or eaten, and all it does is run around like

someone who is broken and shattered inside.”

“Don’t forget to shut the door when you leave.”

“And the servant from Media Luna went on his way.”

“Have you ever heard the way a dead person mourns?” she asked me.

“No, Dona Eduviges.”

“It’s just as well you haven’t.”

The drops of rain are falling into the filter one after another. After that one hears the drops

falling into the pitcher. One hears noises: one hears feet scraping the ground as they walk,

coming and going. The drops of rain keep on falling without stopping. The pitcher overflows,

making the water run over the wet ground.

“Wake up!” someone tells him.

The sound of the voice is familiar. He tries to think who it might be, but his body slackens

and he falls back to sleep, sinking into a deep slumber. Two hands lift the covers, holding on to

them, and his body still feels their warmth, searching for peace.

“Wake up!” someone says again.

The sound of the voice startles him, making him rise up and open his eyes. He hears drops of

water falling from the hydrant into the open pitcher. Footsteps are heard, and weeping.

Then he heard the weeping. That woke him even more: a soft, thin weeping that, perhaps

because it was thin, was able to slip through the thicket of sleep until it reached the point where

the shock was able to startle him.

He rose up slowly and saw the face of a woman who was leaning against the doorframe, her

body darkened by the night as she was sobbing.

“Why are you crying, mama?” he asked, because as soon as he rose up, he recognized his

mother.

“Your father has died,” she told him.

And then, as if the source of her pain had opened even more, she turned around, again and

again, until he was finally able to grab her shoulders and stop the movement of her body.

Through the doorway one could see that it was getting light. There were no stars, only a

cloudy, gray sky still not illuminated by the sun. A dark light, not like the start of day, but as if it

were the beginning of night.

Outside in the patio he heard the sound of footsteps. Quiet sounds. And here in the doorway

was the woman, her body blocking the light of day; between her arms traces of sky were visible,and under her feet were trickles of light, as if the ground beneath her had been covered with

tears. Then a sob, after that more weeping, and pain that made her body writhe.

“They killed your father.”

“And who has killed you, mother?”

“The air is clear, there is sunlight, and there are clouds. Up above the sky is blue, and perhaps

behind it there are songs, and perhaps also voices… In short, there is hope. There is hope for us

to heal our sorrow.”

“But not for you, Miguel Paramo. You have died without forgiveness, and you will receive no

mercy.”

Father Renteria turned around and ended the Mass. He finished as quickly as possible and left

without giving the final blessing to the people who filled the church.

“Father, we want you to give us a blessing!”

“No!” he insisted, shaking his head. “I will not do that. He was an evil man, and he will not

enter the Kingdom of Heaven. God will punish me if I intercede for him.” He said that trying to

hide his hands, not wanting to reveal how they were shaking. And he left.

The sight of the body weighed heavily on the spirit of everyone there. It was on top of a dais

in the center of the church, surrounded by candles and flowers, and his father who was standing

behind it, waiting for the end of the service.

Father Renteria walked up next to Pedro Parano, trying not to touch his shoulder. He raised

the hyssop, sprinkling the holy water higher and lower, murmuring something that might have

been a prayer. After that he kneeled, and all the others kneeled with him.

“Have pity on your servant, Lord.”

“May he rest in peace, amen,” their voices responded.

And as he began to feel his anger again, he saw that everyone was leaving the church, taking

with them the body of Miguel Paramo.

Pedro Paramo came to him and kneeled at his side:

“I know you hated him, Father. And with good reason. The murder of your brother which,

according to rumors was committed my son, and the case of your niece Ana who you said was

violated by him; these offences, and the lack of respect he showed for you at times, are all

motives that anyone could appreciate. But let it go now, Father. Forgive him and pardon him,

like God must also have forgiven him.”

He put a handful of gold coins on the prie-dieu and stood up.

“Take this as a gift for your church.”

The church was now empty. Two men waited in the doorway for Pedro Paramo, who joined

them, and together they followed the coffin that was being carried on the shoulders of four men

from Media Luna. Father Renteria picked up the coins and went to the altar.

“This is yours Lord,” he said. “He is able to buy salvation. You will know if this is sufficient.

As for me, Lord, I place myself at your feet to ask for him whatever is just, or unjust, which is all

we can ask for… But I ask you, Lord, to condemn him.”

And he closed the sanctum.

He entered the sacristy and he went into a corner and began to cry, with shame and sadness,

until his tears were gone.

After that he said, “It’s all right, Lord, you win.”“Anita, do you know who they buried today?”

“No, uncle.”

“Do you remember Miguel Paramo?”

“Yes, uncle.”

“Well, that’s who it was.”

Ana bowed her head.

“You’re sure it was him, right?”

“I’m not sure, uncle. I never saw his face. He grabbed me at night when it was dark.”

“Then how do you know it was Miguel Paramo?”

“Because he said so, ‘I am Miguel Paramo, Ana. Don’t be afraid.’ That’s what he told me.

“But you knew he was the one who killed your father, right?”

“Yes, uncle.”

“Then, what did you do in order to get away from him?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

They were both silent for a while. One could hear the warm wind blowing through the myrtle

leaves.

“He told me that was why he had come to see me: to apologize, and ask for my forgiveness.

Without getting out of bed, I told him: ‘The window is open.’ And then he came in. He started

hugging me as if that was his way of apologizing for what he had done. And I smiled at him. I

remembered what you told me: that you must never hate anyone. I smiled to show him I didn’t,

but afterward I realized he couldn’t see my smile, because I didn’t see him either, since it was so

dark that night. I only felt that he was on top of me, and that he was beginning to do bad things

to me.”

“I though he was going to kill me. That’s what I thought, uncle. And I even stopped thinking,

so I would die before he had a chance to kill me. But evidently he did not dare to do that.”

“I knew that for sure when I finally opened my eyes to see the light of day coming in through

the window. Before that I felt like I had ceased to exist.”

“But you must have had some certainty. His voice. Didn’t you know him by his voice?”

“I didn’t know him by anything. I only knew that he had killed my father. I had never seen

him, and after that I never saw him either. I couldn’t have done that, uncle.”

“But you knew who he was.”

“Yes, and what he was like. I know that now he must be in the depths of hell, because that is

what I asked all the saints with all my heart.”

“Don’t be sure of that, child. Who knows how many are praying for him now. You are all by

yourself here. One voice amid thousands of others. And among them, some that are much

stronger than yours, like the voice of your father.”

He was going to say to her: “Besides, I have now forgiven him,” but he only thought that. He

did not want to disappoint the partly broken soul of the poor girl. Instead, he took her arm and

told her:

“Let us give thanks to our Lord God because He has removed him from this earth, after he has

caused so much harm. And it doesn’t matter if He now has him in His heaven.”

A horse was galloped past the intersection where the main road crossed the road to Contla. No

one saw it. However, a woman who was waiting in the outskirts of the town said she had seen

the horse running with its legs bent, as if it were going to collapse. She recognized the sorrel ofMiguel Paramo and thought to herself: “That horse is going to break its neck.” Then, she saw it

had straightened its legs and, without slowing down, it was galloping with its neck turned

around, as if it were frightened by something it had left behind.

Her story spread through Media Luna on the night of the burial, while some men were resting

after the long journey they had made to reach the cemetery. They were chatting like men often

do before they are going home to get some sleep.

“Carrying that corpse really hurt me,” said Terencio Lubianes. “My shoulders are still sore.”

“Me too,” said his brother, Ubillado. “My bunions even got larger. And then his father made

us carry the coffin on foot. It’s not as though it was a day to celebrate, right, Toribio?”

“They can say whatever they want. I think it was time for him to die.”

After a while, there was even more gossip from Contla. It came with the last wagon coming

from there.

“Some are saying that his soul is still wandering around out there. They have seen it knocking

on a woman’s window. It looked just like him, with leather chaps and all.”

“And do you think Don Pedro, with the temper that he has, is going to let his son keep chasing

women? If he knew that, I can just imagine him saying: ‘Okay, you’re dead now. Stay there in

your grave, and leave that business to us.’ And if he ever saw him, I would bet that he would

order him to go back to the cemetery right away.”

“You’re right, Isaias. That old man doesn’t pull any punches.”

“When I know something, I tell it like it is,” and the wagon driver continued his journey.

There were falling stars. They were falling as though the sky was sprinkling light.

“Look there,” said Terencio; “look at all the sparkling that’s up there”

“They’re just celebrating the departure of Miguel,” Jesus chipped in.

“Don’t you think that’s a bad sign?”

“For whom?”

“Maybe your sister is hoping for his return.”

“Who are you speaking to?”

“To you.”

“We’d better keep moving, boys. We’ve been on the go for a long time, and tomorrow we

have to start early.”

And they vanished like shadows.

There were still falling stars. Then, finally the lights in Comala were turned off, and the sky

took charge of the night.

Father Renteria was twisting and turning in his bed, without being able to sleep:

“It’s all my fault,” he said. “I’m afraid to offend those who support me because, the fact is, my

job depends on them. I don’t get anything from the poor, and prayers don’t fill your stomach.

That’s the way it has been, and these are the consequences. My fault. I have betrayed those who

care for me, and have faith in me to intercede with God for them. But what have they gotten

with their faith? Going to heaven? Or the purification of their souls? And why purify your soul

if, at the last moment… I can still see Maria Dyada, when she came to ask me to save her sister,

Eduviges:

‘She always helped her fellow creatures. She gave them everything she had. She even offered

a child, to everyone. And she put him out there, so that someone would recognize him as theirs;

but no one was willing to do that. Then she said: ‘If that’s the way it is, I will be his father, eventhough by accident I have been his mother.’ They took advantage of her hospitality while she

tried not to offend people, or fall out with anyone.’

‘But she committed suicide. She went against the will of God.’

‘She had no other choice. She also did that out of kindness.’

‘In the end she failed at the final moment,’ that’s what I told her. She had done so many good

things toward her salvation, and then she lost them like that, so quickly!’

‘But no, she didn’t lose them. She died with many sorrows. And her sorrow… You told us

something about sorrow I don’t remember. She left us because of her sorrow. She died, tortured

by the blood that was choking her. I can still see her grimaces, and those grimaces were the

saddest gestures a human being has ever made.’

‘Perhaps she was praying a lot.’

‘We all pray a lot, Father.’

‘I mean maybe, perhaps, with Gregorian Masses; but for that we need to have help, to ask for

priests, and that costs money.’

“I can still see Maria Dyada, that poor woman, with so many children.”

‘I don’t have money. You know that, Father.’

‘Let us leave things as they are. Let us believe in God.’

‘Yes, Father.”

How could she look so courageous in that moment of resignation? What would it have cost

him to forgive her, when it was so easy to say a word or two, or a hundred, if that was necessary

to save a soul? What did he know about heaven or hell? And nevertheless, lost in a town with

no name, he knew many who had deserved heaven. There was a long list. He started to go over

the saints of the Catholic cemetery, beginning with those of the day: “Saint Nunilona, virgin and

martyr; Anercio, bishop; Saints Salome, widow, Alodia or Elodia and Nulina, virgins; Cordula

and Donato.” And he went on. And then, when he began to feel sleepy, he sat down on the bed:

“I am going through a list of saints as if I were seeing a herd of goats.”

He went outside and looked up at the sky. It was raining stars. He felt bad about that, because

he would have preferred a quiet sky. He heard the sound of roosters crowing. He felt the

blanket of night covering the earth. The earth, “this valley of tears.”

“Go ahead, son. Go ahead and do it,” Eduviges Dyada told me.

It was the middle of the night. The lamp that was burning in the corner began to waver, then it

flickered and went out.

I heard the woman get up, and I thought that she would go and get a new light. I heard her

footsteps getting farther away, and I stayed there waiting.

When the time passed and she didn’t come back, I got up too. I started walking, taking short

steps, trying to feel my way through the darkness until I got to my room. I sat down on the floor

and tried to fall asleep.

I slept with fits and starts. In one of the moments when I was awake I heard someone shout.

It was a pathetic shout, like that of someone who was drunk: “ Ah life, you don’t deserve me!”

I got up in a hurry because it sounded like it was right next to me. It could have been out in

the street, but I heard it here, as though it was stuck to the walls of my room. After that

everything was silent; only a pin dropping, and the sound of silence.

No, it wasn’t possible to calculate the depth of the silence that produced that shout. It was as

if the earth existed in a vacuum. No sound; not even of my breathing, or the beating of my heart;as if the awareness of sound had ended. When the moment passed and I started to calm down, I

heard the shout again, and it continued, over and over, for a long time. “Let me go; it is the right

of those who are hanged to protest