Erased faces by Limón Graciela

Author:Limón, Graciela [Limón, Graciela]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Arte Público Press
Published: 2014-12-21T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

The night in Tlatelolco had shaken him.

It was late October and the diffused autumn light filtering through tall windows accentuated the reflection in the full-length mirror. Twenty-one-year-old Rufino Mayorga stared at his image and was pleased with what he saw. His hazel-colored eyes took in his blond hair, oval-shaped face, long straight nose, wide mouth highlighted by lips clasped in a jaunty smile. His glance slipped downward, pausing on his broad shoulders, slim torso, long legs planted apart on the tiled floor. Rufino gawked at his mirrored image, gratified with how the officer’s uniform, knee-length boots and shiny medals rendered him an exceptionally handsome figure.

He suddenly snapped out of his reverie when he remembered that he and other officers were expected at Los Pinos to dine with El Señor Presidente. The 1968 Olympic Games had ended and with those events a turbulent month had just closed in Mexico City. Rufino Mayorga had distinguished himself as a young officer, emerging from the bitter violence of those days with a sterling record, proving himself an enemy of the rabble that had tried to embarrass the country in the eyes of the world. Dinner with the president was his reward.

Rufino sniffed contentedly and looked at his watch, noting that there was still time before the driver was due to arrive. He walked to the window and stared out at the steel-colored sky while he waited. Soon it would be dark, but there was still enough light for him to make out rooftops, and farther away the silhouettes of the Tower of the Americas and other tall buildings. He craned his neck to look down at streets, now eerily silent after the turmoil of the past month.

He turned his gaze north of the Zócalo, to Tlatelolco, and his thoughts drifted back to the mass student demonstration of October 2. The towering silhouette cut into the night by the church of Santiago de Compostela loomed in his memory, its giant wooden doors slowly creaking shut. The square was jammed with people chanting, shouting, singing, protesting. In his memory, Rufino looked beyond the left flank of the church and focused on the building known as El Chihuahua; its balconies were filled with screaming, ranting university students, its walls draped with insulting placards and banners. Over tinny microphones, hysterical voices poured out scorn, all of it aimed at the government, at the ruling class, at the military.

“¡Asesinos!”

“¡Gorilas!”

“¡Puercos!”

“¡Gobierno de mierda!”

When Rufino received the order to be one of the officers in charge of dispersing the crowd, he felt proud, but when he actually confronted that outraged mass of people, he was filled with terror. Face to face, he realized that the troops he commanded were identical to the mob filling the plaza, except that his men were uniformed. Amid the turmoil, Rufino had looked at them as if for the first time, seeing their flat, brown faces, accentuated by slanted eyes, broad mouths with lips that barely covered buck teeth. What if they turn on me? His

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