“And then they left?”

“Yes.”

“Did the officer seem to give orders to the men? Did the men obey him?”

The witnesses shrugged.

“Were the soldiers drunk?”

“Those who could find wine.”

“Do you think the officer was drunk?”

“He drank wine in Benito’s house.”

“You know this?”

“He found Benito’s wine.”

“It was hidden?”

“Yes.”

“What else was hidden in the village? Was food hidden?”

It was the younger man’s answer that Medina translated. “What we do not hide will be taken from us. Then we will have nothing. We will starve.”

“Thank you,” said the colonel, sitting back in his chair. “I have no more questions. Don Ignacio. You wish to question the witnesses?”

Don Ignacio unlaced his long fingers. He had beautiful boots. Where the light fell on them you could see the leather was almost red. “I am trying to imagine,” he said, “how these people have suffered.”

“Indeed,” said the colonel. He waited, as though he assumed Don Ignacio’s words were the preface to something. When nothing came he turned back to the witnesses. “If you go with this gentleman”—he pointed to the man in the black coat—“he will take you to where you can eat. I would like to thank you for the long journey you have made to answer our questions. And my thanks to you, Lieutenant. A most disagreeable task for all of us.”

He picked up the papers from the table but as Medina began the translation the woman interrupted him. It was a single sentence, vehement, and aimed at Don Ignacio, who visibly flinched.

The colonel looked at Medina. “Lieutenant?”

“One moment, please . . . ” said Medina. He spoke to the woman who answered him in a quieter voice. The child, who had been sleeping throughout the story of the massacre, had woken. It stared up at the carved ceiling, an expression of panic on its face.

“She says,” said Medina, “that they cut her hair.”

“Her hair?” said the colonel. “Her hair does not look to have been cut in years.”

“No,” said Medina. “The girl in the priest’s house. After she was violated they cut off her hair.”

“In God’s name, why?” asked the colonel.

Medina glanced at the woman, then back to the colonel. “To insult her,” he said.

When the witnesses had been led from the room, when those still in the room could no longer hear the child’s crying and had endured together a full minute of silence, the heat pooling like oil on the wood of the floor, the colonel straightened himself in his chair.

“Corporal Calley?”

“Sir.”

“Stay seated. You are ready to give your testimony?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You were interviewed by Captain Henderson at the Convento barracks last . . . ” He looked at Henderson.

“Six days ago,” said Henderson. “The 5th of the month.”