Eva Luna by Isabel Allende Read Free Book Online

hurry the slow-moving line headed by the mayor and the school principal, the only authorities surviving from the catastrophe of the last years. They walked in silence, uneasy, turning to look back at the roofs of their houses still visible among the hills, asking each other where they were being taken—until it became obvious that they were being led in the direction of the prison camp, and their hearts closed like fists.
    Rolf knew the way, because he had often walked there when he went with Jochen to hunt snakes, trap foxes, or gather wood. Sometimes the brothers had sat beneath the trees, looking in the direction of the barbed-wire fence hidden by foliage; they were so far away they could not see clearly, and had to be satisfied with listening to the sirensand sniffing the air. When the wind was blowing, a peculiar odor drifted into their houses, but no one seemed to notice; certainly it was never mentioned. This was the first time that Rolf Carlé, or any of the other villagers, had passed through the metal gates; they were immediately struck by the eroded soil stripped of vegetation, arid as a desert of sterile dust, far different from the soft, green-growing fields of the season. The column filed along a long path, crossed through various barriers of rolled barbed wire, walked beneath guard towers and emplacements that had only recently housed machine guns, and finally reached a large open area. On one side were windowless sheds, on the other a brick building with large chimneys, and, at the rear, latrines and a gallows. Spring had halted at the gates of the prison: here everything was gray, shrouded in the fog of an eternal winter. The villagers came to a stop before the barracks; they huddled together, touching each other for courage, oppressed by that stillness, that immense silence, that sky turned to ash. The commandant gave an order and the soldiers herded them like cattle in the direction of the main building. And then everyone could see. There were dozens of them piled on the ground, one on top of another, a tangled, dismembered mass, a mountain of pale firewood. At first they could not believe they were human bodies, they looked like the marionettes of some macabre theater, but the Russians poked the villagers with their weapons, prodded them with their rifle butts, and they had to move closer, to smell, to look, to allow those bony, eyeless faces to be burned into their memories. Each of them heard the thudding of his own heart, and no one spoke, because there was nothing to say. For long moments they stood motionless, until the commandant picked up a shovel and handed it to the mayor. The soldiers distributed other tools.
    â€œBegin digging,” said the officer without raising his voice, almost in a whisper.
    They sent Katharina and other small children to sit beneath the gallows while the rest worked. Rolf stayed with Jochen. The ground was hard; his hands and fingernails were grimy from the flinty soil, but he did not stop; stooped over, his hair fallen over his face, he was shaken by a shame he would never forget, a shame that like a relentless nightmare would pursue him throughout his lifetime. He never looked up, not once. All he heard around him was the sound of metal striking rock, harsh breathing, the sobs of some women.
    It was night by the time they finished digging the pits. Rolf noticed that the spotlights in the guard towers had been turned on, and night had become as bright as day. The Russian officer gave an order, and people were dispatched two by two to bring the bodies. The boy brushed off his hands, wiping them on his pants legs; he dried the sweat from his face, and with his brother Jochen walked forward to what awaited them. With a hoarse cry their mother tried to stop them, but the boys continued on; they bent down and picked up a cadaver by the ankles and wrists: naked, hairless, bones and skin, weightless, cold and hard as porcelain. They lifted it effortlessly and, tightly