Tender is the Flesh(31)
“Because they need things to be legal so the church can remain in operation, they need the certificates.”
Krieg let the incident go because he agreed with everything she’d said.
The plant is under obligation to deal with the church and “go through the whole grim ordeal”, as Mari puts it. None of the processing plants wanted anything to do with them. The church fought for years until the government gave in and the two sides signed an agreement. Their success occurred only after the addition of a member who had high-ranking contacts and a lot of means. Eventually the government came to an arrangement with a few processing plants that now deal with the church members. In exchange, they’re given tax breaks. That eliminated the problem of a group of lunatics who jeopardized the whole false structure built around the legitimization of cannibalism. If a person with a first and last name can be eaten legally, and they’re not considered a product, what’s stopping anyone from eating anyone else? But the government didn’t stipulate what was to be done with the meat because it’s meat no one wants to consume, not if they know where it comes from and have to pay market value for it. A while back, Krieg made a call when it came to the Church of the Immolation. The sacrificed person’s meat would be given a special certificate for consumption by those most in need, with no further explanation. The members take this certificate and file it away along with the others they’ve been given over the years. The reality is that the meat really does go to those most in need, the Scavengers, who are already lurking close to the fence. Because they know a feast awaits them. It doesn’t matter if it’s old meat, for them it’s a delicacy because it’s fresh. But the problem with the Scavengers is that they’re marginalized and society regards them as being of no value. That’s why the immolated person can’t be told their body will be disembowelled, torn apart, chewed up and devoured by an outcast, an undesirable.
He gives the church members time to say goodbye to the person who’s about to be sacrificed, to Gastón Schafe, who appears to be in a state of ecstasy. He knows it won’t last long: when they reach the box sector, Gastón Schafe will probably vomit, or cry, or want to escape, or wet himself. Those who don’t are either heavily drugged or severely psychotic. He’s aware that the plant’s employees have placed bets. While he waits for the hugs to end, he wonders what Jasmine is doing. At first he had to leave her locked up in the barn so she wouldn’t hurt herself or destroy the house. He asked Krieg for the holiday he hadn’t taken and spent several weeks at home, teaching her how to live in a house, how to sit down at the table for dinner, how to hold a fork, how to clean herself, how to pick up a glass of water, how to open a fridge, how to use the toilet. He had to teach her not to feel fear. Fear that was learnt, ingrained, accepted.
Gastón Schafe steps forward and raises his hands in front of him. He gives himself over with dramatic gestures, as though the whole ritual had some value. He recites, “As Jesus said, Take and eat of my body.”
Listening to Gastón Schafe’s triumphant voice, he’s the only one who sees the decadence to the whole scene.
The decadence and the insanity.
He waits for the rest of the group to leave. A security guard walks them to the exit. “Carlitos, see them out,” he tells the guard, with a gesture that Carlitos knows means, “See them out and make sure they don’t return.”
He asks Gastón Schafe to take a seat and offers him a glass of water. The heads are required to undergo a complete fast before slaughter, but the rules don’t matter here. This meat is for the Scavengers, who don’t care about subtleties, or norms, or violations. His objective is for the man to be as calm as possible, given the circumstances. He goes to get the glass of water and speaks to Carlitos, who confirms that the church members have left. They all got into a white van and he saw them drive away.
Gastón Schafe takes the glass of water, unaware that it contains a tranquillizer, a weak one, but one that’s strong enough to ensure the man’s reaction will be as minimal and non-violent as possible when they reach the boxes. He started using the tranquillizers fairly recently, after a situation arose with the young woman about to be sacrificed. The whole plant had been involved. It had happened on the day he’d learnt that Jasmine was pregnant. That morning, he’d given her a home pregnancy test after noticing that in addition to not menstruating, she’d gained a bit of weight. At first, he’d felt happiness, or something like it. Then it was fear he felt. Then confusion. What was he going to do? The baby couldn’t be his, not officially, not if he didn’t want them to take it away, put it in a breeding centre and send Jasmine and himself straight to the Municipal Slaughterhouse. He hadn’t planned on going in to work that day, but Mari had called and said it was urgent: “That church is here, the Immolation Church, they’re driving me crazy, they changed the date on me and now they’re here and telling me I’m the one who made a mistake. And Krieg’s not here and I’m not about to deal with them. Just imagine, Marcos, I want to shake them to their senses, they’re all crazy, I can’t even look at them.” He hung up and drove to the plant. But he couldn’t think of anything other than the baby, his child. The child that was really his. He’d come up with something to ensure no one took it away. When he got to the plant, he was impatient with the church members. That Claudia Ramos, the woman about to be sacrificed, was young, didn’t matter to him. He didn’t think to have someone see the church members to the exit, and took Claudia Ramos straight to the boxes. Nor did it matter to him that she was looking through the windows into the offal and slitting rooms and that with each step was becoming increasingly pale and nervous. He didn’t take into account that Sergio was on break and that Ricardo, the less-experienced stunner, was working. Nor did he think twice when they entered the box sector’s lounge and Ricardo grabbed her arm as though she were an animal. Ricardo tried to remove her tunic so she’d be naked for stunning and was somewhat violent and disrespectful with her. Claudia Ramos broke free, frightened, and ran off. She ran desperately through the plant, from room to room, shouting, “I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die,” until she reached the unloading sector and saw a lot of heads coming down from the trucks. She went straight for them yelling, “No, don’t kill us, please, no, don’t kill us, don’t kill us.” He looked on as Sergio, who had seen her approaching at full speed, and knew she was from the Church of the Immolation because heads don’t talk, grabbed his club (which he was never without) and stunned her with such precision that they were all amazed. He had run after Claudia Ramos, but hadn’t been able to catch her. When he saw Sergio stun her, he breathed a sigh of relief. Then he called security on his walkie-talkie and asked if the church members had left. “Just now,” the guard answered. It was then that he ordered two workers to take the woman to the Scavenger sector. An unconscious Claudia Ramos was cut to pieces with machetes and knives, and devoured by the Scavengers lurking nearby, metres away from the electric fence. Krieg learnt of what had happened but didn’t give the incident much thought; as the owner of the plant, he’d had it with the church. But unlike Krieg, he understood that it couldn’t happen again, that if Sergio hadn’t stunned her, it could have been worse.