Under This Terrible Sun

Kraken"

Chapter 1

The barbs dig into the animal’s digestive tract so that we can pull it up to the surface without it tearing itself to pieces trying to escape. They are voracious animals with cannibalistic tendencies, and more than once the squid we’ve pulled into the boat is not the one that swallowed the lure, but a larger one eating the one we hooked first.

Cetarti was in the living room, smoking weed and watching the Discovery Channel, a documentary about night fishing for Humboldt squid in the Gulf of Mexico. The TV was on mute—the film was narrated in English and had Spanish subtitles. Standing in a boat, a guy was holding the lures they used to fish for Humboldts, luminous cylinders with fifty little barbs hanging from them, pointing upwards at an angle. Simulating the movements of the squid with his other hand, he was explaining how the lure worked: the Humboldt approaches the hook from below, opens its tentacles and takes hold of it, to swallow it in one or two movements. The barbs get embedded in its esophagus, and the fisherman only has to hoist it into the boat.

Which is certainly not easy: these predators, some almost two meters long, are extremely strong, and by the time they reach the boat they are enraged. There are fishermen who die in accidents every Humboldt fishing season. These animals eat ferociously, are always hungry, and are extremely aggressive.

The phone rang. The caller ID said unknown, which meant a call from a public telephone. Or from a person who was deliberately hiding their number. He didn’t answer. They called back twice, and the third time he picked up the receiver.

Hello.

Good evening, I have this number as a Mr… from the other end, a thick and sibilant voice hesitated, as if its owner were reading something. Javier Cetarti, is he there?

That’s me.

Ah, a pleasure, sir. My name is Duarte, I’m calling from Lapachito, in the province of Chaco. I’m executor of the estate of Mr. Daniel Molina.

Cetarti said nothing, none of those names meant anything to him.

Daniel Molina was… his voice faltered, sounding a bit uncomfortable. Ahem, he was your mother’s companion. I have some bad news for you.

While Cetarti listened, the guy on the documentary had the cameraman turn out all the lights and film the water. The screen went dark, except for the yellow subtitles:

Some twenty meters below us is a school of sardines, and the squid are hunting. We can see the green glow of their phosphorescent eyes…

Chapter 2

Sixteen hours after hanging up the phone (the time it took him to finish the documentary on Humboldt squids, watch another about nuclear arsenals and the politics of mutually assured destruction in the 1950’s US, roll some joints for the road, feed the Carassius fish in their tank, shutter the windows, get into the car, and drive six hundred and fifty kilometers), Cetarti entered Lapachito. He rolled down the window to air out the car a bit. He was walloped by the smell of shit, so he rolled it up again. The streets of the town were neglected and covered with a thin layer of mud; it must have rained recently, though there were no clouds. He looked at the clock; it wasn’t yet nine, but the sun was already beating down hard. He took a couple of turns around the town, to get a feel for the place. He didn’t see anything pretty—the paint was peeling on almost all the houses, and there were salt stains and thick cracks marring many of the walls, the result of the buildings sinking unevenly. The visual result was devastating. He stopped at a service station close to the central plaza. In the bathroom he washed his face, wet his hair, and put on deodorant. He went to the bar and ordered a café con leche and two croissants. While they were serving him, he phoned Duarte. Duarte had already given his statement, but he had to go pick up a couple of affidavits for the paperwork he was doing, so they agreed to meet at the station at a quarter to ten. He arrived a few minutes early; Duarte was already waiting in the doorway, standing next to the shield of the Chaco police. He was a solid man with a red face, fat and massive, who must have been around seventy years old. He had a wide smile and a disgusting set of teeth, yellowed fangs corroded by cavities. He was carrying a leather briefcase. He greeted Cetarti with a powerful handshake. He had enormous hands.

I’m glad you made it all right. I’m sorry we have to meet under such circumstances.

He slapped Cetarti on the back and ushered him in.

They walked down a hallway until they came to an office where a man in uniform was reading the newspaper online, with a desktop fan pointed directly at him. Duarte introduced them; the policeman was called Officer Cardozo in charge of the investigation. Cardozo invited them to sit, adjusted the fan to distribute the flow of air more equitably, and related more or less the same thing Duarte had told him the previous afternoon, only without scrimping on the lurid details. Daniel Molina retired petty officer of the air force and represented here by Mr. Duarte, had killed his lover and a son of hers at noon the previous day. That is, Cetarti’s mother and brother. He had killed them with a semi-automatic shotgun, fired into their chests. Then he had taken out his dentures and shot himself in the head, pressing the barrel against his chin.

Here are photos of the scene, if you’d like to see them, said Cardozo, handing him a folder.

There were some twenty photos that Cetarti flipped through quickly. This Molina’s head was a disaster (seen from behind it looked like a bag with the bottom removed), but his mother’s and brother’s faces were intact, and they both wore the same expression, like they were staring fixedly at something that wasn’t terribly entertaining. He was amazed at how old they looked, especially his brother; if Cetarti remembered correctly he was forty-three, and he looked sixty. He went through the photos only once, and then put them back on the table.

It’s clear that Mr. Molina executed the woman and her son, Cardozo resumed, and that he then turned the gun on himself. What we don’t know is what caused the situation. Perhaps you can help us with that.

I wouldn’t know what to tell you.

Oh, wait just a moment, we need to take your statement right away… The officer minimized the newspaper webpage on the computer, opened the word processor, took down Cetarti’s personal information, and asked him to repeat what he had said. Cetarti did so obediently.

Did your mother at any point tell you anything that could have led you to predict this outcome?

It’s been years since I’ve seen my mother. I didn’t know she lived here, or that she’d gotten married again.

Cetarti shifted in his seat. He thought he would like to disappear from the room right then. He couldn’t think of any pleasant place to reappear in.

And your brother? asked the policeman. Was there animosity between your brother and Mr. Molina?

I know even less about him. I’m surprised they lived together, he left home before I did.

They didn’t live together, Duarte interjected. Your brother was visiting.

All the same.

The policeman jotted a couple of lines on the back of a photocopy and then put the note away in the same folder as the photos.

We’ll be finished in just a bit.

He finished typing the document, printed two copies, and handed them to Cetarti to sign.

That’ll do it. If you identify the bodies you can take them as soon as the paperwork is done, they’re in the cemetery morgue, at the disposal of family. He opened a drawer and took out a manila envelope that he handed to Duarte. Here are the copies you asked for.

Duarte took the envelope, thanked him, and told him that if he should need anything, to just ask. On the sidewalk, he asked Cetarti if he had a car with him. Cetarti answered that he did.

Great, the cemetery is a couple kilometers from here and I came on foot. Can you give me a lift? We can chat about a couple things on the way.

Chapter 3

Cetarti had turned on the air conditioning and it was cold inside the car, but the sun beating in through the windows made his skin burn, as though there were nothing between him and it. He was sweating and the sweat got cold, but the sensations of cold and burning didn’t cancel each other out, they instead coexisted unpleasantly. Still, it was better than being outside. Duarte gave directions and had him make a couple of turns, and after ten or twelve blocks they came out onto a slightly larger avenue.

OK, turn right here, and it’s two kilometers further, more or less. I’ll let you know when we’re about there.

In spite of the punishing sun, the carpet of mud on the pavement hadn’t dried at all. It was on all the streets.

It rained a lot here, looks like, said Cetarti.

No, hasn’t rained here since April, more or less. You saying that because of the mud?

Uh-huh.

No, that’s because the water table has risen, the groundwater is almost even with the surface. Look at the houses: they’re all cracked. The ground is all mud now, they’re sinking. The cesspits are overflowing—a lot of this mud on the street is shit and piss. That’s why the trees have died, they all rotted the first year. Get your car washed when you leave, because the metal will corrode, and have them wash inside the fender, this mud is poison to the metal on cars.

Thanks. How long has it been like this.

Well… since the Caucete earthquake. More or less a year, year and a half after that, the water started to rise. It’s been like this for four years now, maybe five.

And why don’t people leave?

Well, since it happened gradually, people just got used to it, and anyway, you may laugh, but there’s some dough to be made around here. A lot of people here live very well off the land.

But doesn’t everything just rot?

The water table is only high in town, it sits in a slight depression. If you go out around eight kilometers the land is fine, it’s higher up.

The town’s landscape slid past the car, almost shining with the malignant power of the sun.

Course, without trees the sun beats down something terrible.

Yeah, this sun is something, it’s pretty punishing. But you get used to it, it’s not like a person can’t live here.

They were silent for a few minutes, and the houses became more sparse alongside the road.

We’re almost there. Please forgive me for asking this, but, ah, what do you plan to do with your mother and your brother?

…

With the bodies, I mean. Are you going to take them to Córdoba?

Cetarti thought for a few seconds.

If I can and it’s less hassle, I’ll bury them here… I’ll have to see how much it costs, too, and what kind of formalities there are. The truth is I don’t really know, this whole thing caught me by surprise.

Well, the money’s not your problem here. Molina had standard burial insurance from the air force and a supplement for family, your old lady is covered for sure, and we can work it out for your brother too, given the circumstances. Especially if we don’t spend much.

Good, that’s lucky. Whatever you think is best, then.

OK, we’ll see. That barbed wire fence there is the cemetery, and the entrance is over by those black bars.

Cetarti parked under a tree in front of the bars and they got out. A dog came over and urinated on one of the wheels. Duarte chased him off with a fairly cruel kick to the ribs.

In