Page 19 - Microsoft Word - Belicena respaldo

Chapter VII

It was Friday and I could rest the weekend in the old homestead of Cerrillos, a beautiful
ancient village located at 18 km. from Salta, on the same route that guides to Cafayate, in the
heart of the chalchaquíes Valleys, and, beyond, of Santa María de Catamarca. There lived my
parents, old now, and a widow sister with two kids.
The perspective to see them and pass some days together always provoked me great joy;
so must not impress to any one that a few hours later, while I was driving the car through the
path bordered by vineyards, I forgot everything concerning to the horrible crime.
However, it was written that the peace would be brief: in less than an hour my life was
shattered and a Medic future, Anthropologist, Cathedratic, that’s to say, of utter profession,
disappeared as a probable Destiny for me. In the house of my parents was waiting the letter of
Belicena Villca and the beginning of madness. If just I’d have not read it! How many pain, death
and grief I caused to my loved ones for reading that letter and, the worst, for believing what it
said!
How much I’d regret three months later to have given credit to it, in the same place!
The next Monday started my holidays, and at my return to the Hospital, in March, all would be
forgotten. I should not have read it: that was my last opportunity to continue being normal,
i.e., comfortable and mediocrely normal, loved by everybody, respected by everybody, and, of
course, by the Good Creator! Aye, it is not a blasphemy: the Good Creator God would have been
proud of me: I was not interfering in any of his great plans, and I was contributing when it was
possible for me with the common Good, What else could be expected from a humble Psychiatric
Medic from Salta? But I fear now that I have lost everything, even the favor of the Creator. It
will be necessary to read the letter of Belicena Villca and know the rest of the story to disagree
or to coincide with me.
As I said, I should not have read it and all would have continued as before. But in the
life of some persons there are traps carefully placed: it is enough to touch a spring to
unchain irreversible mechanisms.

19