parts in their shining hair. “Oh Lord, for this food and for all thy mercies, may we be truly thankful.”
All thy mercies. Just that morning, the Sanchez woman had screamed through a long session with the General. Over and over, she had begged them to stop. Over and over, Victor was ordered to turn the dial.
“Mother of God,” she had said during the questioning. “You were raised Catholic, were you not? Where is your Christian charity?”
Tito had jeered. The others had laughed nervously.
“The Mother of God does not care about terrorists.”
“Is that what the priests taught you in school? That God loves only soldiers?”
“He doesn’t give a shit about whores like you,” Tito said, and spit on her.
“What about Mary Magdalene? And the woman he saved from stoning? But no, you are all free of sin, aren’t you. What would Our Lord say to you about inflicting pain like this?”
Victor saw a worried look creep into Lopez’s face.
She kept on at them, her voice ragged and raw from all the screams. “Did you not do the stations of the cross when you were children? Did you not think about the sufferings of Our Lord? Or are you on the side of those who tormented him?”
“Maybe that’s enough for today,” Lopez muttered.
“You going to listen to this whore?” the Captain had yelled at him. “You want to show her mercy? Fine. We’ll stop the machine for today.” He snapped his fingers at Yunques. “Go fetch our little friend. On the double.” He leaned over the woman. “You want mercy? I’ll show you the kind of mercy we reserve for terrorists. Today, you get to go to the zoo.”
Yunques came back with a rat in a small cage. The woman’s legs were forced apart, and at an order from the Captain, Lopez shoved the animal into her.
“How do you like that?” Captain Pena had shouted over her screams. “You happy now? Any more religious instruction you want to impart?”
And now the same man bent his balding head over his dinner, giving thanks to the Lord. Now, surrounded by the comfortable smells of grilled steak and onions, the sound of classical music streaming from hidden speakers, the piping voices of his little girls, Victor imagined himself saying to Mrs. Pena, “You know your husband is a rapist? A torturer?”
He would not be believed, of course. The Captain, pouring milk for his daughters with the same hand that fixed electrodes to the Sanchez woman’s nipples, seemed aware of no contradictions. He fixed his twins’ barrettes with the same hand that had twisted the dial.
“I’m so glad you could come, Victor,” his aunt said to him with her heartbreaking smile. “In wartime, it’s even more important to stay in touch with relatives, don’t you think?”
“Oh, yes,” Victor said, and smiled in return. “And such wonderful food.”
The Captain had reached out and touched his wife’s arm without looking at her. A gesture of complete confidence and affection.
This is why he has brought me here, Victor said to himself. This is what he wants me to see. My uncle wants to reassure me that it is possible to perform the work of the little school and yet be a good husband, a kind father, a delightful host in a house filled with love.
EIGHT
After lunch the following day, Victor led the Sanchez woman to the interrogation room. She no longer put up any struggle, trailing meekly along behind him. He wondered if this was the first sign of defeat. Then again, perhaps it was just a tactic, perhaps she was simply conserving her energy, the better to withstand the General.
Victor sat her down on the chair. When he turned around, he was surprised to see a white-haired gentleman in a white jacket standing beside the table where his uncle was seated.
His uncle nodded at the gentleman, and he lifted a black bag from the floor. It was the doctor. Victor had not recognized him, because the last time he had seen him, the doctor’s hair had been black, slicked back. Now it was quite white, and he had shaved off his moustache. Perhaps these changes of appearance were to convince himself that he was a different man each time, that he had no history of working at the little school.
The woman took off her clothes when ordered. The doctor opened his leather bag and wrapped a blood- pressure cuff around her small bicep.
“You are a doctor?” she said in disbelief as she felt the cuff. “What can a doctor be doing in this place?”
“Relax, please. I am just here to examine you.” He pumped up the cuff and looked at the meter. “Your blood pressure is slightly high. Nothing to worry about.”
“Doctor, I request that you do a thorough examination. You will find that I have been repeatedly raped.”
“Just relax, please.” He adjusted her slightly forward and placed his stethoscope on her back. “Take a deep breath?” He moved the stethoscope slightly. “And another? That’s it. Very good.”
She obeyed him like a child, lifting her chin slightly when he placed the metal disc on her chest. His eyes focused somewhere beyond the wall of the interrogation room, as if her heartbeat were a radio signal from a distant town.
“Did you hear what I said, Doctor? I said I’ve been raped by these men. Over and over again they have raped me. And they put things inside me.”
“We’ll shove a pitchfork in your guts if you don’t shut up.” Tito smacked her hard across the back of the head.
“Please,” the doctor said. “I am trying to examine this woman.”
“I have been deprived of sleep. I have been deprived of water. I have been fed poisoned food.”
The doctor took her wrist and held it lightly to take her pulse. He stared at his watch and the woman fell into a silence. Despite the blindfold, Victor could see that she was weeping, undone by the touch of a hand that was not brutal.
The doctor stood up and nodded at Captain Pena. He dropped his stethoscope into his leather bag, snapped it shut, and started for the door. The Captain touched his arm. “Not just yet, Doctor. I want to know how she holds up to the General.”
“I don’t like to do that. I told you, it is against my oath.”
“Sit down, please.”
The doctor sat down beside the Captain and stared at the floor.
“Soldier.” The Captain pointed at Victor. “You work the dial.” When Victor hesitated, his uncle screamed at him. “Do as I say. Do it now.”
Victor sat down before the little black box while Tito attached the electrodes, one to a nipple, one between her legs. “Little bitch,” he said. “Now you will feel something worth talking about.”
“Why?” she asked in a small voice. “Why do you want to hurt me so much?”
“Because you’re a terrorist slut and we hate your guts, that’s why.”
The Captain nodded at Victor. Victor stared at the white numerals. He turned the dial to one and a half.
“Turn it up,” his uncle yelled over her screams.
Victor turned it to two, then switched it off.
“I didn’t say to stop, you fool. Put it back on.”
The woman’s screams sank like pencils into Victor’s ears.
Afterwards, she sagged in the chair.
Once more the doctor took out his stethoscope and listened to her heart, felt her pulse. The white hair gave him a kindly look-like a doctor in an ad for children’s cough syrup. “Her heart is strong,” he informed the Captain. “You may continue.”
“A little higher this time, soldier.”
Victor turned the dial to two and a half and kept it there for a minute. His guts turned to liquid at the sounds she made. Like your flesh is splitting open, the Captain had said. This woman has done nothing to me, and I am splitting her flesh wide open.
The ritual of the stethoscope was repeated. The signal to begin was repeated.
