Original subtitles

Sometimes you are thinking about something, or about nothing,

and some stupid, an unnoticeable detail

plunges you into a different time in your life,

as if you had stepped into a time machine,

as if someone had suddenly put on a tape on the VCR.

Casterman experienced this with the tsetse fly.

"The tsetse fly," thought Casterman. "The damn tsetse fly.

I hadn't thought about it in a long time."

THE TSETSE FLY

Some time ago, when Casterman worked in England,

the Boss didn't think of anything else.

He seemed obsessed.

"You know, lad? When you are where I am,

you start to fear things others don't imagine.

When you are in charge of assassins,

blackmailers and professional liars, your fears change.

You are no longer afraid of getting your brains blown out,

your house ransacked, or your wife kidnapped.

Nobody will do that to you."

And the Boss would keep quiet.

Then he'd look at him and, with a smile, he'd say

"But, the tsetse fly..."

and he would remain silent and stare. "The tsetse fly is something else..."

And he would remain quiet, or walk away laughing,

like a grandfather scaring off his grandchildren.

One day, during those neverending,

tedious hours that make up the life of a spy,

a guy known to all as Spider told him.

At first, he repeated the other one.

"When you are the Boss..." Blah, blah, blah,

as if it were a line he had learnt at spy school.

But then he paused and continued...

Something happened in the window they had under surveillance.

For a few seconds, they watched in silence.

Then, Spider continued.

"Cut to the chase already, damn hairy monkey,"

thought Casterman.

Spider complied.

Spider looked at Casterman to see if he laughed. He continued.

Spider paused.

"Here comes the good stuff," thought Casterman.

Spider lit a cigarette.

He looked tired and proud,

like an actor who has just declaimed Hamlet's monologue.

"And those," he added, "are the ones who need to be wiped out right away."

Then he stood up extravagantly

and, as if his performance entitled him to do anything,

peed for a long time with the door open.

"Now I understand the Boss," Casterman thought.

And he understood him, over and over again,

and he thought of him, of the Boss and of the fly,

every time circumstances forced him to pick up the phone

and wipe out one of his agents in cold blood.

Done. It was not that easy.

It was just the one, but he could defend himself.

They are tough, the guys from this country.

Now it's all quiet.

Leave the truck there. It's of no use, anyway.

"And these four?" Thought Casterman. "Why do they want them dead?

"Why have they asked me to kill them? Is there a tsetse among them?

"Let's see," Casterman told himself,

and started to do that fingerplay you play with children

and that ends saying: "And this little piggy..."

Not this one. This one became mystical.

Not this one either. She fell in love.

This one took her mission too seriously. And ended too far.

But this one, yes. This little mute, yes.

This one got stung by the fly and never came back.

THERESA

At the beginning, she was a regular person.

How could she imagine that while she was living her life,

while she was simply going around, innocent,

she was being observed by a whole empire?

That everything she did was written down, assessed,

that for everything she did, people were writing reports,

discussing, reading psychological profiles,

deciding with a nod or a shake of the head.

She was just over twenty years old,

and the only decision she had made in her life

was to quit studying in London to go study in Berlin.

Berlin, the eternal spy city

which was at the time, for a small group of people,

some kind of chess board

where the fate of the world was at stake.

At the beginning, nothing happened.

She had almost no friends and knew nobody.

She was mute, an English mute. That cannot be forgotten.

One day, a new girl appeared and started chatting. Just like that.

Within a week, they were friends.

The girl was Swiss, from Zurich, or at least that's what she said.

She didn't look Swiss: she was funny

and made jokes against Germans all the time.

A month went by, and they became close friends.

She invited her to concerts, to the countryside,

they walked around those parts of the city that could be visited.

She was loving, very loving,

and at first Theresa thought she may be confused.

But no, not at all.

She barely talked about politics, at first.

She started very slowly, most of the times in jest.

Theresa laughed a lot with her, and it was hard to take her seriously,

but at some point, she started to read the books she gave her,

and to listen to her with more attention.

One night, after a party, they were both very drunk.

They stayed talking until it got very late

and everyone had left.

At some point, the conversation became strange.

The girl started to talk about commitment, getting involved,

about doing something to change things.

When they left, it was already daylight.

They walked around, and the girl, just like that,

told her she wanted to tell her a secret.

She made a joke: she said

"Do you know why I tell you? Because you are mute."

After that, she made no more jokes.

She told her she belonged to a group of people

who worked for this and that,

and that the enemy this and that.

That was the word she used: The enemy.

Theresa realized she was serious. She was afraid.

"We are interested in you," she said. "You can help us a lot. All of us.

Our cause." Suddenly, her friend became a stranger.

She wanted to run away.

She wanted to be in England, in bed, hugging her mother.

One week later, the girl from Zurich picked her up in a car.

The car was driven by another girl,

and they went to a place in the outskirts of the city.

The girl from Zurich spoke very little,

they talked among themselves.

The other one said her name was something like "Marisa" or "Maritza".

She didn't smile, she didn't joke and she wasn't nice either.

She was kind, but tense and prompt.

Theresa looked at her as if she was the wolf

and herself, Little Red Riding Hood.

We are here.

Come with us.

I have three questions. The first one is...

Have you ever worked in any agency for or with the Government?

Negative? Good. Question number two.

Have you ever been accused of or found guilty of any charges?

Negative? Alright. Question number three.

Have you ever had any trouble with any police officer near England?

Maritza asked the questions. Theresa nodded or shook her head.

The other one, earnestly, wrote them down in a notebook.

Finally, she smiled at her, or something like that.

"Alright," she said. "That is enough."

Good.

The time has come.

Don't be afraid.

And remember, don't look at the VoPos in the eye.

Nobody, really.

Good luck.

A couple of days later, Theresa crossed the wall.

It was her first time.

A year later, maybe a little more, she went back to England,

already a different person.

She could crack coded messages, forge signatures,

transmit over radio equipment,

switching channels so as not to get intercepted.

She could handle weapons and become invisible.

She was a cold, melancholic and untrusting person, entirely alert.

And the word "enemy" no longer scared her.

Did she like being like that? She liked it a bit.

"Or was I better off before?" Theresa thought. "Or have I ever been better?"

The first months she did nothing. She barely saw anyone.

She hardly had anyone there, and the few she had,

were stranger to her than her Czech and Ukranian trainers.

They told her to wait. That it could take months.

Finally, something came up.

Someone named Rosenthal, they told her.

A guy they knew little about,

but who had recently been involved in a couple of delicate issues,

very close to the government.

They showed her pictures

and gave her an endless file that said almost nothing.

One afternoon, on a Sunday in March,

she walked into the house for the first time.

She was supposed to spy on Rosenthal.

The backyard of the house bordered upon Rosenthal's office backyard,

and she had to write on a notebook whatever happened through the window.

If someone came in, if he came back,

if they argued, if they had a party or an orgy,

or if he got together with old ladies to play whist.

"Anything," they told her. "Everything can be useful.

Just go every day to that house, sit down and spy."

She waited for four hours, maybe longer, until it was nighttime.

At around eight o'clock, Rosenthal showed up.

Finally, Rosenthal showed up. Scrawny, somewhat elegant.

He reminded her of a bank teller.

He had one of those totally forgettable faces.

Rosenthal took off his raincoat, disappeared for a few minutes

and came back with a teapot and a steaming cup.

He started writing, he wrote for hours.

In the meantime, he made some phone calls,

some of them quite lengthy.

At some point, he opened a door, looked for some files,

leafed them through and put them back away.

And so on, until he left.

When he left, Theresa returned to her house

and wrote down, detail by detail, all that nonsense.

For weeks, that was her life.

Rosenthal writing, Rosenthal having tea,

Rosenthal speaking on the phone.

She arrived in the morning and spent all day watching him.

Full weeks like that.

Sometimes, Rosenthal didn't arrive till the evening,

and she spent all day still, like a statue.

Not even like a bird of prey, awaiting its victim; like a statue.

Other days were more entertaining: Rosenthal would meet with people.

There was a bold guy who came all the time,

and another one, red-haired and rosy-cheeked

who played a piano Theresa couldn't see but could hear.

Rosenthal would sometimes meet them both at the same time.

When one of them would stand up to go to to the bathroom,

play the piano or something,

Rosenthal's attitude to the other one would change.

He became more like a confidant.

Every morning, a red-haired woman showed up.

It wasn't clear if she was a secretary or what,

but Theresa thought Rosenthal was attracted to her.

And each of those news would go into the notebook:

Rosenthal was "Tristam" or "The Bishop".

"The Bishop gave her a chocolate box.

The Ballerina was late and she put new flowers in the vase."

On Fridays, Theresa would meet her contact, someone called Archer.

An unpleasant guy

who was always swearing and making risqué jokes.

She took him some typed sheets, following the code she had been given.

He read them and knew at a first sight if they were useful.

It showed he had experience in the trade.

But one day something happened.

Archer made his usual jokes,

his usual innuendo, his usual coarse language

until at some point, just like that, he became serious and threatening.

"I have news for you," he said, "you have been promoted,

you'll go with your friend Rosenthal. They managed to get you in."

"When did it happen?," Casterman thought.

When did the fly stung her?

When did she stop being on their side and crossed to the other side?

The day she went into Rosenthal's office

for the first time, she felt she knew everything by heart.

She thought: "Now while he reads,

he leaves the cup in the air without drinking the tea.

Now he lifts his legs and places them on the desk."

She thought: "What an ugly voice he has.

The face alone was better than the voice."

She thought: "He reminds me of someone.

Who? Harpo Marx? Maybe. Or is it Chaplin?

That's it, Chaplin. An old Chaplin."

Through the window, Rosenthal appeared more polite and stately.

One of those stiff and uptight guys from Belgravia or Kensington.

When she met him, though,

he reminded her of a school-boy from a good family

who seizes any opportunity to curse or to make raunchy jokes.

"Better this way," Theresa thought.

The flesh and bones one is more likeable.

That's how she felt, like in those contests from the 50's

in which you sent a coupon and won a dinner out

or a weekend away with a Hollywood star

or you could attend the shooting of your favorite show.

It was the same with the other ones,

suddenly all those guys she saw through the window became real.

The bald guy who always came in was a big fish,

someone from Whitehall, and he was called Percie.

"Percie who?," asked Archer...

"Percie as first or last name? Percie alone is no use to me."

The other one, the red-haired, rosy-cheeked one

was Italian or Hungarian and he was called something like Lazlo

and he was as heavy as he looked through the window.

Rude, vulgar, always calling attention onto himself,

always talking about money, or women, or cars,

or whether Testoni shoes were better than Church's.

Then there was another one, an old guy, very very old,

whom everyone called The Admiral, who never spoke

and who played chess with Rosenthal in silence, for long hours.

Suddenly, that bunch of motherfuckers was her world.

"Was she already a traitor back then?" thought Casterman.

"From the very beginning? When was it, then?"

It has to be said that in the meantime she kept doing her job

and that when someone said the word "submarine,"

she would write down the word "submarine" in her report.

And that when Archer asked her to pay attention to some Emilio,

she would pay attention to Emilio.

That much is clear, right?

It's not like the tsetse fly

makes you fail to report the submarines, or Emilio's visits.

Rather, it makes you prefer it if there were no submarines to report,

or if Emilio didn't show up,

that way nobody has to inform on anyone

and everything remains in peace.

That thing with Emilio was just an example.

Emilio has nothing to do with the story,

and doesn't appear again.

What's important is to make clear that during those first months,

Archer was calm.

He didn't think much of the mute, but at least she did her job.

But no, two months later, it was too late.

Two months later, everything had changed.

She was already on the other side.

That is, if someone had asked her

"Hey, Theresa, are you on the other side?

Have you changed factions?", she would have answered no.

She would've answered hat her flag was still the same,

that she was still a soldier fighting for change and progress

and the unity of nations.

It's not that she would suddenly say

"Yes, my friends, I've become a Capitalist Traitor.

You know, they are wrong, but they are not bad.

They had fallen in with the wrong side, that's all.

Deep down, they are nothing but poor victims.

Victims of a perverse system.

Deep down, they think they are doing things right, as everyone else.

In their own way, they are right. In their own way, they are good.

Among them there are good and bad people, as everywhere else.

Or aren't there good and bad people among us?

How many of us go around the world playing vigilantes and then...!"

This sort of thing is what Theresa would have said,

the sort of thing you say

when you are about to ditch your people and become a traitor.

Archer was talking about Sunday 22, the second day of fall.

Theresa remembered it perfectly. Rosenthal and Lorna were very excited.

They told her to get ready for "strong emotions".

They took a train.

They got off at a station in the middle of the countryside.

A taxi was waiting there.

The guy driving the taxi didn't look like a taxi driver.

He introduced himself as Thompson,

and he looked like a retired colonel, rather,

or a former member of the Royal Guard, or something like that.

Theresa could only think of one thing.

"Be careful, be careful Rosenthal. I am a spy, don't you know it?

There are things you don't do in front of a spy.

We do agree on that, don't we? Well, don't do them.

Don't do that sort of thing. Not in front of me.

Open your eyes once and for all, you old fool.

Be careful."

Is this how they have taken over the world,

these damn Imperialists?

Theresa was scared to death. "Where are you bringing me, Rosenthal?

What is this damn Fortress you are bringing me to?

You wouldn't be bringing me to see one e of your bosses, would you?

You wouldn't be that crazy, right?

You wouldn't be taking me to the house of a Secretary of State, or minister,

or any of those important blokes, right?

You know that if you did that, I'd have to rat you out,

or don't you know that?

I would have to tell the Communists, Rosenthal. That's why, don't do it.

Don't take me to see anyone important. Or at least, not so important.

Let it not be the Queen. Let it not be Thatcher.

Let it not be Thatcher, Ross. Let it not be Thatcher."

About this particular point, Theresa didn't tell the truth.

Cricket was not discussed in the meeting.

The following Friday it was Rosenthal's birthday.

Lorna had asked her to take care of the cake,

to surprise him when he arrived at the office.

Theresa thought "I'll go order the cake,

meet Archer, give him the report and then pick up the cake."

A full-grown secret agent.

But when she got to the park, Archer wasn't there.

That sometimes happened to spies. They were taught a protocol.

The told them: if something were to happen, you do this or that.

But maybe what they were expecting took years, sometimes many years.

And when it finally happened,

the spies realized they were terrified.

With some sort of stage fright.

She did what she was supposed to do if Archer didn't show up.

And a guy on the other side.

A bad, cold, mocking Russian gave her a series of instructions.

"The picnic is over," he told her.

"Go north, stay still. We will contact you."

But she did exactly the opposite.

She got scared, her legs trembled. She felt like crying. She ran away.

Theresa was confused. She didn't know what to do.

She travelled to Amsterdam and holed up for a few days.

She then caught a train to Copenhagen,

where she had a cousin,

and that was where Casterman found her.

"This one looks decent," Theresa thought when she heard him talk.

"He inspires confidence."

Poor girl, she had never been good

at telling who really loved her from those who didn't.

Bad luck. Poor thing.

SOUTH AMERICA

So?

Yes. They were here.

A van and three women. They bought supplies.

Three?

He said there may have been another one in the van.

He didn't know.

The old man said nothing.

What did they buy?

Chocolates.

Anything else?

Yes... They had a drawing of a map.

They asked him how to follow it.

Direction?

South.

The airfield.

But, what would they do at the airfield?

Where are the other ones?

They are coming. They are getting some chocolates.

Shall I call them?

No. It doesn't matter.

We have time.

Go inside. I'll be right there.

The airfield...

Damn...

Shit!

SIX HOURS BEFORE

THEY COME

TO KILL THEM

Do not make the same mistake as last year.

Don't let the bagworm destroy your crop. Act soon.

The bagworm is a foreseeable and controllable threat.

Don't wait until it's too late.

Attack the larva when it's still defenceless.

Don't wait until the summer.

That's why, remember: this winter, act on time.

Fumigate during the months of July and August.

The bagworm has no mercy.

Have no mercy for the bagworm.

This was a message

from the Pest Control Department of the Province Government.

"Avec" Restaurant invites you to find

its exclusive menu of international standards.

A wide variety of beef cuts, poultry, fish and seafood

with our usual quality standards.

Fine international cuisine, paired with an exclusive, elegant ambience.

"Avec" Restaurant, European quality straight onto your table.

"Avec" Restaurant.

Fridays and Saturdays

with the unmistakeable French show by Monsieur Le Moi.

"Avec" Restaurant. – Do you get anything?

Dare to be elegant. – Nothing

244 Belgrano street, between Vidal and Varela.

Leave it. It's nice...

Does it bother you?

And you?

Does it bother you?

The music...

Does it bother you?

He doesn't understand...

Is it alright? Do you like it?

The music...

He likes it...

It's nice...

It's nice...

And you?

What do you want?

You looked so watchful, so fierce...

Look at you now...

Don't you want to kill me anymore, traitor?

Have you forgotten about your owner?

Go to your owner...

Go to him...

I don't like traitors...

Look at him, poor thing...

Don't you love him anymore?

He is a gaucho, right?

They are like that, aren't they?

I guess.

He looks like an Italian...

A Sicilian fisherman...

With that hat and that moustache...

Ready.

How many did you put?

Four.

We'd said five.

Five is too much.

It's a lot.

I know this.

It's too much.

It'll work.

I hope so...

Be calm.

It will work.

I will go back there.

The mute is alone.

I don't trust her.

Hey, little one, don't forget this one.

Will it work?

I don't know.

Have you seen these?

So beautiful.

They are relics.

I had never seen ones so beautiful.

JOAN OF ARC

Her father was a famous soldier, almost a legend.

Her mother, nobody knew who she was,

and they called her The Girl.

Get that rifle right inside. Get that rifle in.

That's it, that's it. Right in there.

Let's see, Clemente, get that cigar in your mouth.

There we go, that's it. Real nice, real nice.

Hang on a minute. We'll do another one.

Chico, we are almost done.

Don Perico, Celestino. Look up.

And you, Zacarías, spit that gum out.

Her father was Perico Huerta, and when they killed him,

helicopters and planes swarmed in from every direction,

and soldiers poured into the forest.

All that was needed to get him off the map.

She killed for the first time when she was nine years old.

At twelve, she had already killed more soldiers than her father,

and everyone feared her.

At fourteen, she travelled to Syria and Cambodia to get trained,

and at sixteen she was leading brigades of thirty people.

Men older than her, double or triple her age,

obeyed and respected her.

Not for her father, for herself.

A princess, Casterman thought. An authentic warrior princess.

Like Joan of Arc.

She had lived all her life in the forest.

She could handle weapons,

she could drive boats, cars and trucks,

send radio messages, cure wounds and break a fever.

She could read and write, because there were always teachers in camps.

She spoke English and French,

because there was always some gringo among them who would teach her.

But she had never seen a TV set, she had never seen an airline plane,

she had never seen a coat or an umbrella in real life,

she had never been on an elevator, she had never been to a movie theater.

She knew nothing about love either.

When men talked about that, she kept silent,

without laughing and without asking anything,

and to Casterman's knowledge, never, not in those times, nor later,

had she been with a man.

In the camps, where they didn't see a woman for months,

nobody had ever had the idea of making a mistake with her.

There are places where you must not go and everyone understood that.

She hadn't come to this world for that.

Everybody, one step forward.

You, Villa, Epifanía: Armory.

Valladares, Salomé: Infirmary

Monte, Casimiro: Armory.

Sandoval, Úrsula: Infirmary

San Martín, Anacleto: Militia

Zapata, Silvano. Come on, boy, you cannot stand on your feet.

Someone take him to the infirmary, fucking hell.

Bocudo, Agapito: Logistics.

Espil, Bonifacio: Armory.

Palma, Cirilo: Armory.

Villamayor, Damaso: Logistics.

They were fighting a war that was never going to end.

They had been born in war and they would die in war,

and for them it was fine like that.

Some had never seen an enemy.

They did not imagine them either, or thought about them,

but they knew the rifle they carried everywhere with them

was meant to kill them when they appeared.

In Europe, in the great cities, there were people dreaming of them,

supporting them, wanting them to overcome.

Those typical Europeans fuckers who feel great supporting revolutions

but who then don't give a dime to a Turkish guy

who stops them at a traffic light.

There were the ones who supported them and also great writers and thinkers

who wrote poems and essays about them,

who'd go to congresses where they talked about them

and they argued with other Europeans who thought differently about them.

Old and rich men who had never been bitten by a mosquito,

or heard the whistling sound of a bullet, or anything

and who used words they didn't use

and who had really nothing to do

with anything that happened in the middle of the forest.

There were all those from universities and congresses.

But they, the ones in the guerrilla, didn't know, or couldn't imagine

those cities and those people.

And if they had them in front of them,

they would have probably shot them away

and they would've yelled:

get out of here, you fucking exploiters.

Yankee, go home. Go back home.

...a bunch of fuckers like you can spend their time fucking around?

No, sir.

I get my rifle and start walking.

Bunch of assholes. Come on, come on!

And do not give me that face again, Zacarías.

Huh, Zacarías? Did you hear me?

One day they caught her.

A guard fall asleep, and when the soldiers arrived,

they killed them all, but not her.

They kept her for three days inside the trunk of a car,

until the gringos arrived.

Then they took her to an empty school and held her for five more days.

They had no mercy; the full package.

The whole amusement park.

Five days later, the fat guy arrived.

His name was Gordon; and he was no joke.

He introduced himself as Sam Gordon.

The fat guy was the worst.

I'd rather have the boys from before, she thought. Dance and all.

The fat man spoke non-stop, like for three hours.

He made jokes.

He told her that she had spent too much time with the bad guys

and that it was about time she met the good guys.

That's how he spoke, good guys, bad guys.

They were the good guys,

those who pushed her head into water and hit her with the butt of a rifle.

The Fat guy took care of her for weeks.

He spoke all the time, like a school teacher.

They'd go around town together and there, he'd teach her his lessons.

He told her that freedom this, that democracy that,

and that the free world this, and that justice that.

Democracy, freedom, peace.

The same words the guerrilla men

fighting with her in the forest used only days before.

Funny, the Girl thought, they say the same things.

They think the same.

That was how her days went by.

The fat guy held her hand and took her for a walk.

Come with uncle, he'd say, and they walked around for hours.

At night, so as not to lose the habit,

he'd give her some session on rock & roll on the grill

or drown her head into the water,

or suffocate her with a bag, or something.

But less and less each day.

Soon after, when he felt she was already one of them,

he left her alone.

A few days later, the fat guy introduced her to his comrades.

They called them The Dalton's

and they instantly warmed up to one another.

After all, they talked about guns and engines, like the other ones.

The fat man was happy,

sometimes he'd tell her:

"Come, let's go for a walk."

And they would spend the afternoon together, like in old times.

The backyard will never be the same, the Fat man thought.

It was as if he worked for a Hollywood studio

and had discovered a new star.

And the girl...?

What was her life like since she changed sides?

Since she walked along the river with her enemies,

searching guerrilla men to kill.

Nothing, it was the same,

instead of the filthy Chinese of before,

she had the Dalton's now.

That was all.

Everything remained the same.

It was the same rivers. Nothing had changed.

She didn't feel a thing. Her life was the same.

She was still living among rifles and bombs, the same old thing.

And she lived like that for ten years, killing her own people.

New year, new life, she thought.

Don't they say that at a certain age one needs to be independent

and make their own way, this is my way, she thought.

Jumping rope with these motherfucking gringos.

The pretty girl in the agency. The best student.

Once, someone recognized her, and told her.

You...

You are the Girl.

You are the Girl, you killer son of a bitch.

You are Perico Huerta's girl.

You're killing your own people.

You are betraying your father, you motherfucking bitch.

Yes. You're right.

I am Perico Huerta's girl.

I have betrayed my father.

I have sold to my father's assassins.

I have handed them my people to kill.

I have killed my people with my own hands.

I have killed the people who raised me with my own hands,

the people who saved my life.

I have killed them all.

So, imagine what I can do with you,

fucking motherfucking faggot fucker.

The first time she had the dream, the Girl had just turned twenty.

It was the night before she went with the guys

to spray flaming liquid on a series of rebel camps.

She woke up somewhat confused,

with a feeling that something had happened,

but the bustle distracted her immediately,

and she forgot about the matter.

A week later, the dream recurred.

The following week, the same thing,

and at that point she started to accept it was not mere chance.

Something new had appeared in the horizon.

She couldn't explain what it was,

and couldn't clearly remember the dream either,

but as time went by, the matter started to disturb her.

She knew that on those days she was different when she woke up,

she even had to admit that on the days following the dream,

she was slower and more distracted.

She walked through the forest absentmindedly, she had bad aim,

she was peevish and cranky.

She was a worse soldier. She was less useful.

The only thing that was clear

was that someone spoke to her in the dream.

Someone spoke to her as if they knew her,

as if they knew her better than anyone else,

and hadn't she been the daughter of a revolutionary,

educated under dialectical materialism and the Marxist faith,

she would've thought God was speaking to her.

The first times, she found it hard to remember

what the guy in the Dream told her.

She did remember that when he talked to her,

she felt a strange sensation all over her body.

It was hard to describe.

For the sake of saying something: it was the same feeling she had

every time she threw a grenade and the grenade exploded.

The same feeling she had

when she fired the rifle in the middle of a shootout;

the same feeling she had when bombs fell from the plane,

and she heard the houses and trees catching fire down below.

The same feeling.

It was as if the same feeling were speaking to her.

As if that load of bullets and explosions were someone,

and that someone was trying to communicate with her

and tell her something.

Here is where our point of view and Casterman's diverge.

Casterman thought: The same old thing. The agent betrays their side.

For a while, nothing happens;

the agent is well-trained and doesn't believe in superstitions.

But the agent comes from a primitive culture,

and even though her father was not religious, or her mother,

most likely her grandmother was, or her great-grandmother,

or her great-great-grandmother.

And that doesn't go away easily.

The agent got rid of that bourgeois guilt nonsense,

but those lies are still there, crouching in their blood.

A short time later, they will have mystical visions,

or thinking that demons or angels talk to them,

and they will end up losing their mind,

dropping a grenade in the middle of a mission,

sacrificing themselves like an idiot,

and ruining a business that took years of work.

The same happened with that Uzbek in 1972. Classic.

That's the reason why we could never use Muslims.

That's what Casterman thought, in his office in Brussels.

But today we believe the Girl.

Today we believe the Girl was right,

and that someone was really speaking to her

through the smoke and shrapnel.

At first, she didn't want to know a thing.

At first, the matter scared her as much as when she was thirteen

and saw her hands and legs stained with her own blood.

Just like then,

she knew she could not talk about that with anyone,

and that something had changed forever.

She could tell when the Dream was about to come

because her body changed, her voice changed,

and she was distracted and sullen.

She tried not to fall asleep, she was afraid of sleeping.

But the Dream would come anyway,

and she tried to wake up, but she couldn't,

and she tried not to listen,

but the voice was so clear and loud that there was nothing she could do.

And when the Dream left, she tried to forget what it had told her

and think about something else

and grab her rifle and go out to kill people,

like when she was happy.

But one day she got tired and talked to it.

Who are you? she said.

The Dream, replied nonchalantly, as if it was a long-time friend.

I am the fire, it told her.

And I know you well.

She didn't know what to answer.

It tried to calm her: Don't be afraid, it said.

We know each other.

I am like your father, or your brother,

or your boyfriend, or your country.

I am by your side.

And whatever comes, it will be like that.

From that day on, they talked quite often,

almost every day.

They talked about anything,

and soon after she began to feel she could really trust it,

that it was truly her friend.

Most of the times, their talks were not serious;

they even laughed.

Sometimes it was the Dream that asked questions,

and she caught herself talking a lot, explaining things

and giving her opinion on every subject.

This one time they had a serious talk.

The Dream said: I am like a caged animal.

I was born to be outside, to shine, to be loud.

And most of the time I am sleeping, and nobody knows about me.

And right then the Dream made a joke:

I am like that blok who was locked up in a lamp.

I need to be rubbed to come out and kill them all.

She didn't pay attention to the joke. She was very serious.

What can I do for you? She said.

The Dream didn't say a word for a while, as if lost in thought.

Finally, it said: Help me. Let me out.

A short time later, the things she did during the day were like lies to her,

like vile pretence.

Her whole world disgusted her.

Someone once said: Real life is somewhere else.

Her real life was there, with it.

And then the day came. The day of the Chinese.

That's what they told her: today is the day of the Chinese.

Today we'll do the business with the Chinese.

They woke her up early

and told her she would be working with the cream of the crop.

They put her in a helicopter.

She flew in the helicopter for two or three hours

to a place she had never been to before.

There, the helicopter landed, and she met her comrades.

A bunch of repulsive blond guys

who spoke exactly as they do in the war movies on TV.

They were the cream of the crop.

They had a guy named Mister with them. John Mister.

An infamous firearms dealer

who wouldn't stop talking about his previous hijacks.

The agreement was

that he'd be exchanged for rockets or something of the sort

that the Chinese had stolen from them.

A sinister business, dirty whichever way you looked at it.

Her contact was a new piggy from the Agency,

a neat and bossy kid who wanted to do everything well,

like those sons of bitches who take presents for the teacher

on the first day of class.

She looked at it all from outside, as if she were reading from a book.

As if she were no longer there.

Suddenly, something happened.

I have no interest in being your friend.

Let's settle this quickly. Is that it?

The new guy from the Agency repeated the order, two, three, four times.

She was barely there.

She observed it all as if it were a comedy,

as if that whole world of traitors and bastards

had nothing to do with her anymore.

Something in the mission was going bad, very bad.

But she didn't care.

She thought only of her friend, locked in there,

in a grenade between her tits.

Out, buddy, she thought. The time has come.

The firearms dealer looked at her

and started laughing and she smiled back, too.

She took her hand to the safety pin and released it almost tenderly.

The Chinese realized immediately. The new guy didn't.

You were too slow, she thought.

You wouldn't have got very high-up in the Agency, anyway.

The fire could be seen from miles around,

and the bang reached even farther.

There was a great party here,

said the guy from the Agency in charge of collecting the bodies.

And he was right.

When Casterman found her, two or three weeks later,

she had some minor burns, and two or three bruises on her leg.

She didn't look like an assassin, or a guerrilla woman.

Rather, she looked like a little girl

who had got a couple of scratches riding her bike.