I saw my mother press her hands to her eyes, and I hated myself for being so little, for being so scared, and for not being able to help her. The bandits themselves were now growing uneasy, screaming and striking out at everyone around them. They scooped up whatever food they could find, but for some reason they didn't see the basket of corn that I was hiding behind. And then they started taking away some of the younger women. To my horror I saw that they had also begun tugging at my mother; she was still young and they wanted to take her too. She screamed and called my father's name. They struck her, but she kept on resisting.

'That's when I could no longer stay hidden behind the basket of corn. I was still not wearing any trousers. But I saw how they were trying to take my mother away from me, and that was something I could not let happen. I stood up, dashed naked across the sandy space where Alfredo's head was already covered by a swarm of green flies, and took a firm grip on my mother's capulana. The leader of the bandits, who seemed to take a special interest in my mother, looked at me in surprise. He saw that I was her son. Everyone used to say that we looked so much alike. He grabbed my little sister from my mother's back where she had been tied on in the same way I had once been. He went over to a big mortar that the women used to pound corn and stuffed my sister inside. Then he lifted up the heavy pole and handed it to my mother.

'"Tm hungry," he said. "Crush the corn and what's in the mortar so we can have some food."

'My mother tried to move towards the mortar. She screamed and fought, but he held her off. Finally he hit her and she fell to the ground, and then he grabbed me by one arm.

'"You have to choose," he shouted at my mother. When he yelled, his voice had a strange hissing sound, almost like an animal, because he didn't have any teeth in his mouth.

'"I'm going to chop off this chicken's head," he said. "I'm going to chop off his head if I don't get some food."