Even Silence Has an End Read Free Page A

jungle. In the grid of a big city, I could easily get lost, but in the jungle I could find my way. I emerged exactly level with the chontos. Of course there was no one. The place was deserted. I looked around, disgusted by the swarms of insects above the holes, and my dirty hands, and my fingernails black with mud, and this incessant rain. I did not know what to do. I was ready to sink into despair.
    I heard voices and quickly went back to hide in the thick of the jungle. I tried to see what was going on over by the camp, and I circled it to get nearer the cage, taking cover at the very spot where I’d come out. The storm had given way to a biting and persistent drizzle, and now you could hear other sounds. The commander’s loud voice reached my ears. It was impossible to understand what he was saying, but his tone was threatening. A flashlight lit up the inside of the cage, and its beam shone harshly through the hole in the board and then swept over the clearing from left to right, only inches from my hiding place. I stepped backward, sweating abundantly in my clothes; I had a terrible urge to throw up, and my heart was racing. That’s when I heard Clara’s voice. The suffocating heat now instantly gave way to a mortal chill. My entire body began to tremble. I could not understand what might have happened. Why had she been caught? Other lights appeared, other orders were given, a group of men carrying flashlights scattered; some of them were inspecting the area around the cage, the corners, the roof. They took their time over the hole, then shone their beams toward the edge of the jungle. I could see them talking among themselves.
    The rain stopped completely, and darkness fell like a lead curtain. I thought I could see my companion’s silhouette inside the cage, thirty yards or so from my hiding place. She had just lit a candle, a very rare privilege; as prisoners we were not allowed to have light. She was talking with someone, but it wasn’t the commander. Their voices were calm, as if restrained.
    As I looked at this inaccessible world, I found myself almost regretting the fact that I was alone and drenched and shivering. It would have been so easy, so comfortable, so tempting to admit defeat and return to that warm, dry place. I contemplated the patch of light and told myself that I couldn’t afford any self-pity, and I said over and over, You have to go, you have to go, you have to go!
    Painfully I tore myself away from the light and plunged into the thick, matted darkness. It had begun to rain again. I had my hands out in front of me to avoid obstacles. I hadn’t managed to get hold of a machete, but I did have a flashlight. The risk of using it was as great as the fear of doing so. I went slowly into this threatening space and told myself I would switch it on only when I couldn’t take the darkness anymore. My hands collided with wet, rough, sticky surfaces, and at any moment I expected to feel the burn of some lethal poison.
    The storm was raging again. I could hear the thundering of the rain pounding on the canopy of vegetation that for a few more minutes would protect me. I expected the fragile roof of leaves to yield at any moment and open under the weight of water. The prospect of the flood that would soon submerge me was overwhelming. I no longer knew whether it was raindrops or my own tears that were flowing down my cheeks, and I hated to have to drag along this relic of a sniveling child.
    I had already made considerable headway. A bolt of lightning tore through the forest, landing a few yards from me. In a burst of light, the space around me was revealed in all its horror. I was surrounded by gigantic trees and was only two steps from falling into a ravine. I stopped short, totally blinded. I squatted to catch my breath among the roots of the tree just there before me. I was on the verge of finally taking out my flashlight when I noticed intermittent flashes of light in the distance, headed my way. I