ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author compares contradictory versions of how Rigoberta Menchu's brother Petrocinio died at the town of Chajul. It is there that Rigoberta places the calvary of her younger brother, in the climactic chapter of I, Rigoberta Menchu. By 1979, according to her account, Chimel is fully organized and most of her family is in hiding. The Menchus join the crowd in the plaza just as soldiers drag Petrocinio and the other prisoners off an army truck. Wearing army uniforms, the captives are ordered to stand in line but can barely hold themselves up, so hideously have they been tortured. Petrocinio’s head has been shaved and slashed; he has no fingernails left, nor soles on his feet, and his wounds are suppurating from infection. Petrocinio was last seen being dragged in the direction of the army camp at Xejul, just east of town along the road to Alta Verapaz.
