Louisa Reynolds /

Pz

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24

that its shins had been blown away by the explosion. With 
that gruesome image, Petronila López Méndez awoke from 
a terrible nightmare on December 4, 1982.

Three days later, her husband, Marcelino Granados Juárez, 
left his home in Las Cruces, as he did every week, to work as 
a farm hand in Dos Erres, accompanied by his sons, Cecilio, 
14, and Abel, 5. He had not slept for the past twenty four 
hours, as he had just completed his compulsory patrol shift, 
and a granular feeling persisted in his eyes. 

Although she had watched him leave week after week, that 
day, in particular, Petronila felt uneasy, maybe because 
the memory of that mutilated body lying on the ground 
remained vivid and poignant in her mind.

At six o’clock, she saw two children walking past in the street 
and said she would give them a coin if they went to look for 
Don Ventura, her husband’s employer, to see if he had arrived 
yet.  A few hours later, the children returned without the 
words that Petronila was longing to hear. “Don Ventura says 
that there’s no one there, that someone did something bad in 
the village”, they told her.

After a sleepless night, Petronila left her home early in the 
morning and went to the military detachment to look for 
Sub-Lieutenant Carías. But the soldier at the entrance said 
that he was still sleeping.

Petronila waited for several hours until Carías finally 
appeared. “You know what’s going on in Dos Erres”, she 
said, stating a fact rather than asking a question.

 

-“Why do you say that?” he replied.