Las personas que ya no existen
El primero que se llevaron fue Algimiro. En ese momento, yo aún era pequeño, me aferraba a su pecho y, mientras ella lloraba, yo también lloraba, pero los que vinieron no nos hicieron caso ni a ella ni a mí. Solo veían a Algimiro como un chico que podía disparar al enemigo, y se lo llevaron. Y aunque fue el primer pedazo que le arrancaron del alma, tenía a Cruz María y a mí para mantener la inconsolable normalidad de aquellos días, para contener la represa de lágrimas que amenazaba con ahogarla.
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Luego fue Cruz María. No vinieron a buscarlo a la casa; lo secuestraron. Llegaron a la casa con la noticia:
_"¡El gobierno se ha llevado a Cruz María!". Y ella, descalza y con la ropa manchada de fogón, comida, sudor y tierra, corrió hacia donde le indicaron, pero llegó demasiado tarde: solo encontró huellas de cauchos en el barro. Volvió a la mañana siguiente y a la siguiente para ver si lo habían devuelto, pero la única que regresaba una y otra vez a ese lugar era ella.
Fue entonces cuando empezó a hablar antes de encontrar a alguien con quien hablar. También fue la primera vez que me dejó encerrado en ese cuartico hecho para guardar cosas viejas:
_"Quédate aquí, no salgas, no hables, no grites", -me dijo, y solo abría la puerta cuando se acordaba de que me había dejado allí durante mucho tiempo. También empezó a pegarme a su pecho seco y a cantarme canciones que solo me cantaba cuando era niño.
_"Come, mi pequeño, come por ti y por tus hermanitos", -y yo, por alguna extraña razón, chupaba como un ternerito hambriento y me tumbaba en su regazo en forma de frijol, como si yo fuera una semilla.
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Pero un día llamaron a la puerta, registraron todo y me encontraron. Me preguntaron quién era y yo se les dije. Ella empezó a gritar y a llorar como una loca:
_"No se lo lleven, no se lo lleven".
Los nuevos funcionarios del gobierno, sin entender nada, me dejaron una bolsa de comida y se marcharon. Pero desde ese día, ella dice que los hombres que vinieron me llevaron, y empieza a contar con los dedos: uno, dos, tres, dice. También dice que fue tras esos hombres y que no sabe quién soy, me dice, y que ella más nunca ha regresado.
HASTA UNA PRÓXIMA OPORTUNIDAD, AMIGOS
La imagen principal es de libre uso y editada en Canva, y el texto fue traducido con Deepl Translate
Versión en inglés
People who no longer exist
She says that when the government men came to take me away, they carried me off amid her desperate cries, tears streaming down her dry, yellow skin, already furrowed from so much crying. She says aloud that she had three children: Algimiro, the eldest; Cruz María, the second; and me, Antonio, the youngest. She counts on her fingers and has fingers to spare, but she knows she is missing children, she says, and her gaze rests on her open hand as if she could read her destiny in it.
The first one they took was Algimiro. At that time, I was still little, clinging to her breast, and while she cried, I cried too, but those who came did not pay attention to her or me. They only saw Algimiro as a boy who could shoot at the enemy, and they took him away. And although it was the first bite they took out of her soul, she had Cruz María and me to maintain the inconsolable normality of those days, to hold back the dam of tears that threatened to drown her.
Then it was Cruz María. They didn't come to take him from his home; they kidnapped him. They came to the house with the news:
“The government took Cruz María!” And she, barefoot and with her clothes stained with soot, food, sweat, and dirt, ran to where they pointed, but she arrived too late: she only found tire tracks in the mud. She returned the next morning and the morning after that to see if he had been brought back, but the only one who returned again and again to that place was her.
That's when she started talking before she found someone to talk to. It was also the first time she left me locked in that shed made for storing old things:
“Stay here, don't go out, don't talk, don't scream,” she said, and she only opened the door when she remembered she had left me there for a long time. She also began to hit me on her chest and sing songs to me that she only sang to me when I was a child.
“Eat, my little boy, eat for yourself and your little brothers,” and I, for some strange reason, sucked like a hungry calf and lay down on her lap in the shape of a bean, as if I were a seed.
But one day, they knocked on the door and searched everything and found me. They asked who I was, and I told them. She started screaming and crying like crazy:
“Don't take him away, don't take him away.”
The new government officials, not understanding anything, left me a bag of food and left. But since that day, she says that the men who came took me away, and she starts counting on her fingers: one, two, three, she says. She also says that she went after those men and that she doesn't know who I am, she tells me, and that she has never returned