Leopard in the Sun by Laura Restrepo

Author:Laura Restrepo [Restrepo, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2024-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

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“HAVE YOU ever seen how heat can make things look blurry, as if a thin veil had been placed in front of them? Heat waves make the images wavy, as gasoline vapors do. And the overabundance of light fades the colors. That’s how we saw the Barragáns appear in the cemetery on the broiling day when Narciso died, like vapor. Like a procession of stains on a mourned photograph.

“The press was at the cemetery. Reporters and photographers from the newspapers, because news of Narciso Barragán’s assassination had spread wide. But they say none of the photographs turned out clear. They captured only a blinding light that was not of this world.”

The group of neighbors and curious onlookers has been waiting for a while for the Barragáns to appear. While they wait, they protect their ears from the ringing bells by stuffing them with wads of cotton and protect their bodies from the ravaging sun by huddling under the extended wings of a plaster angel, which offer the only bit of shade on the sacred ground.

The Barragán family pavilion occupies the entire northeast section of the cemetery. There are many white marble headstones with engraved names, slowly disintegrating into lime. Some have epitaphs: “Hectór Barragán, The Righteous,” “Diomedes G. Barragán, His hand repaid the debt,” “Wilmar H. Barragán, Avenger of his race by the will of God.” Those that were Barragán on their mother’s side had their paternal surname reduced to a capitalized initial and a period, so that the clan remains unified and labeled in the next life too. Barragáns and more Barragáns, all dead from unnatural deaths, awaiting the final judgment in graves heated like ovens under the huge white star.

“At those temperatures, how did the dead ever manage to find eternal rest?”

“They didn’t. They turn in their graves pursued by guilt, cooking in their own gases and swelling until they explode.”

Before the neighbors actually see the Barragáns they hear them approaching and become terrified. The women’s cries are sharper than the highest bells and sound as if they come from beyond the grave. But they are human voices, coming closer, and now the neighbors can make out what they are saying.

“Poor Narciso, what a shame, your beauty destroyed!”

“Your black eyes, the earth will swallow them!”

“Oh, Narciso Barragán, your gorgeous eyes won’t see anything down there, they won’t find anything beautiful to look at!”

“They killed Narciso, El Lírico! The enemies did it! They took no mercy on his body. They even destroyed his soul!”

Only Severina shouts in a low hoarse voice, drowning in anger. She murmurs a pagan litany that does not include pardon or pity or eternal rest.

“My son’s blood was spilled. Now it will be avenged.”

“Did they put an epitaph on Narciso’s headstone?”

“Yes. A strange epitaph, different from the others; but like them, it was dictated by Nando. It read then, and should still, if time and the heat haven’t erased it, ‘Narciso Barragán, He lies here assassinated, though he killed no one.’ ”

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