Sunday, July 13, 1924: another date that Matus can’t forget. The clock on the cathedral shows 7:59 a.m. and the Olympics program says that within the next minute the shot will be fired in Paris that will start the marathon runners on their race. A columnist from the local newspaper stated in the Friday edition that that race was not only the most difficult challenge faced by any athlete but also by any human being, since by contrast to others that end in a few seconds or in a couple of minutes, this one lasts for more than two hours, which means that only certain cycling events last longer; the marathon runners, by contrast, have no seats to rest on on the downslope nor do they have any bananas to dull their hunger. The extenuating challenge of the marathon, the columnist concluded, is that it is not a competition of speed but of endurance. Fortunately, the Mexican government had joined the world time zones two years previously, and so Matus has the certainty of acting simultaneously with the Olympic runners. He looks around him and is disappointed that neither Román nor Santiago have shown up, nor, of course, Ibáñez, who refused to participate from the outset. The clock shows 8 a.m. and, together with the first striking of the bell, Matus fires a shot into the air and turns his chronometer on. He wants everything to be like in that faraway Paris, which he only knows thanks to a book of photographs in which he saw the Eiffel Tower and other monuments. In the images taken from the book you can see that it’s a flat city, friendly to runners; this is why he decided to avoid the hills of Monterrey, its mountains, and looked for a stretch as flat as in those photographs, and that’s why there is no better route than the train tracks, constructed by engineers and workers to be a completely flat surface. Nevertheless Matus knows that the equality is an illusion, because the athletes in Paris will have set off amidst applause, while in Monterrey people are looking at him with scorn. Who’d ever think of dressing up in children’s shorts and firing off a shot like he was half-drunk? Why is he running? Who’s he running from? You’d think he was a thief, waving a pistol threateningly at an upright business man so he can rob him blind, including the nice Swiss watch.
The watchmaker assured him it was one of the finest instruments ever made and that even the prancing of a horse could not affect its ticking, which is why artillerymen, the only ones in the military for whom precision means something, prefer it. That instrument loses no more than three minutes a day. Three minutes more or three minutes less? Matus asked. The man shrugged. There’s no way of knowing, but since Monterrey’s climate is warmer than in Switzerland, I guess it runs slow. Matus paid for it and thanked the man. The watchmaker’s words were no comfort to him; a daily three-minute deviation is equal to almost twenty seconds in two-and-a-half hours.
He progresses north down Zuazua Street; he knows the first kilometer is difficult, his legs are still stiff and his mind is fixed on the huge stretch he still has to run. He measured the distance on his bike from the cathedral to the Golfo station, counting the revolutions of the wheel; beginning at the station, the railroad tracks provided him with the exact distance necessary to complete the 42 kilometers and 195 meters that ended a little beyond Villa de García. He’s anxious to leave Monterrey beyond to run through the open fields, where there is no automobile traffic and no horses, people, or carts, where there are no jerks to make fun of his fleeting passage. Only when he gets to Tapia Street is he thankful for the dead weight of the pistol, because a drunk man is standing there with his arms outstretched. Matus takes aim at his head and the drunk moves to the side before they run into each other. Laughter and some catcalls can be heard; also the drunk’s insults. While he scrutinizes each pedestrian, Matus feels envy for the runners in Paris, with the course clear and with officials minding the pace, each wearing a number and the flag of their country on their chest. When he reaches Isaac Garza he can hear a horse trotting behind him. I’m running late, Román says when he catches up with him. You’ve left me to run carrying the pistol, Matus gasps out, that gives the others an advantage, and it would be just my luck to have a policeman stop me. Román stretches his arm out to take the pistol. It’s not my fault, it was your idea to have a starting gun when all you needed was the hand on the cathedral clock. It’s got to be just like Paris, he says and gulps in air before continuing, even though the girls along the curbside aren’t blowing me kisses.
The Saturday newspaper claims that the favorite to win is a gringo named Clarence DeMar, and Matus imagines seeing in front of him a pair of pale white legs, gleaming shoes kicking up the dust for him to swallow, a proud ass, a ramrod-straight back and the swinging arms of a dancer. When that back pulls well ahead of him, Matus redoubles his efforts to catch up. It doesn’t matter that the girls are blowing the gringo kisses, that the little French whores are allowing themselves to be seduced by a design with stars and stripes, more suitable for a cabaret than a country, it doesn’t matter that the man, a millionaire, is running with a smile on his face, it’s Matus’s idea to dog his steps for the entire race, and in the end overtake him with rapid strides. I’ll see you at the finish line, shitty gringo, I’ll tell him, and he’ll draw on his remaining strength to leave the little French girls disenchanted, because the olive branches and the gold medal will fall to a stinking Mexican without a penny to his name, and then we’ll see who the hell comes to hug me and kiss me and dampen her Sunday dress with my sweat, posing for a photograph with me and tumbling into bed with a savage from the Antilles or Central America or the Caribbean or wherever the hell Mexico is.
He reaches the Golfo station and continues from there along the train tracks. His idea is that the sunken ties give the ground a texture similar to that of the racetrack at the Colombes stadium, which the newspapers describe as resilient and delicate, covered with various layers of gravel. He looks to the left as he crosses Pino Suárez. There’s the Independence Arch, perhaps Clarence DeMar is seeing the Arc de Triomphe. He supposes he’s still part of the pack, surrounded by a group of runners called the Flying Finns; to his left two Englishmen are marching and close behind, he can hear the footfalls of the rest, including the French team and a couple of Latin Americans, one from Chile and the other from Ecuador. How can I beat out invisible enemies with an advantage over me of a hundred lengths? He doesn’t know if he’s got the right stride and decides to speed it up a bit. He laughs to himself over the ignorance of the journalist who called the marathon a test of endurance. That would be equivalent to running until they all except for one dropped dead and in that case Matus had no doubts about his winning. Come on, Clarence, run all you want with your shining sneakers, because here I’ll be, behind you, rain or shine, until you finally collapse; and yet the marathon, like the 100-meter dash, is a test of speed, you’ve got to achieve the greatest quotient of distance over time. What is the ideal speed? Matus asks himself, incapable of providing an answer. If I go too fast, I’ll be wiped out halfway through; and if I slack off, not even a Parisian old maid will applaud me.
He gestures with his hand for Román to come up alongside him with the horse. Here, he says, and gives him the chronometer, you handle this. Although the watchmaker assured him there would be no problem, he’s waving his arms around too much with each stride; his sweat is dampening the gold finish, the face, and it’s better to maintain its precision. He can feel the breath of a bunch of runners; he bumps his stride up until he realizes that it’s Santiago on his horse, complaining, saying where’d he get the idea for a race on a Sunday morning beneath the blazing summer sun?
When it’s just five to eleven Matus is leaning against the school gate. From there he can keep his eye on the car that Román lent him and that he’d parked a few meters down the street, on the corner, to ensure that no vehicle would block his path. He takes note of the fact no one is waiting for him and curses the idea that the recruits would be ready before the appointed hour. A woman walks by who looks at him with nothing special in her eyes, but he’s ready to distrust any passerby. Although he doesn’t smoke, Matus wishes he were holding a lighted cigarette between his fingers, that
way he could keep himself busy doing something instead of standing there as what he is: a man who’s waiting, and anyone could ask who he is, how long he’s been there, how much longer he’ll be there, if he is meeting someone or just hanging around; someone could call the police and accuse him of feeling the schoolgirls up and then it would all go to hell. By contrast no one thinks twice about people smoking in the street, leaning against a wall, with one foot on the ground and the other propped up behind; he’s smoking, the passersby say, and it’s no use trying to remember his face if the police ask for a description.
With no cigarette or even some gum to chew noisily, he spits to the left; that seems to him a good gesture to generate respect from anyone looking at him. His saliva forms a dark amoeba-like splotch on the curb, and Matus crosses his arms with satisfaction. It’s already eleven and there isn’t a trace of Fatso Comodoro or any of his friends.
A young lady looking like a secretary walks by. She changes her route a bit so as to avoid the gob of spit. Matus wishes it would finish evaporating, nevertheless the amoebas multiply in his mind. After a few minutes, another pedestrian approaches, a man wearing a tie but no jacket. Matus asks him for a cigarette. The man ignores him and walks on by.
Comodoro is the first one to arrive. So much the better, Matus says, I was beginning to suspect that none of you could tell time or that you had chickened out. The others won’t be long, Comodoro says with a gesture of extreme formality; he would have preferred to say it wearing a black beret and a camouflage uniform. What are they waiting for? We were asked to paint a landscape and no one wanted to leave it only half-done. Cerillo’s is a scrawl; Ubaldo’s has mountains and a rabbit; Ubaldo is an artist. I don’t want to stay here too long and have people see us talking, so I’m going to walk around the block. If you guys are ready when I get back to the institute, wink at me and I’ll open the gate. Tell your friends that they are to walk out, silently, with no shouting or running that might attract attention. Check, Comodoro says, over and out. Matus looks at his watch and starts his walk, he wants to measure the time it takes him to go around the block. He would prefer to run, show these kids that at his age he’s capable of physical deeds, but he decides against it when he thinks that later, jammed together in the car, someone would complain that he stinks like a sweaty old man. As he rounds the first corner, he imagines fifteen enlightened ones walking single file toward the automobile. Ten will have to pile in back with five in front, no more, or I won’t be able to handle the steering wheel and work the pedals and I’ll have to avoid any street with a light because if I hit a red one it’ll be impossible for anyone not to see us. Someone might think it’s funny to see so many people in a car, someone else might think it’s suspicious and write down the license-plate number. And if there are more than fifteen? And what if the fifteen don’t even fit into the car? Now the scene is one where Matus is saying I’m really sorry to the two or three who don’t fit in, it’s a door you’ve got to slam shut and a car that pulls away leaving adrift the dreams of glory of those who showed up late, take me, one of them is crying; someone says better to kick Cerillo out and take any one of those two or three, and Matus wonders what his primary responsibility is: to comply with the mission or with the promise he made to Cerillo’s mother. He sighs as he realizes that he would throw Cerillo out the window. So sorry, he’d manage to say, the fatherland comes before your statue, and my duty trumps my word, and I can always lie to your mother, tell her that you died fighting and not because you got thrown out of a moving car, and because we would never know if you lost your life as you hit the pavement or when the route one bus rolled over your body. As he turned the last corner and walked toward the institute, he could see Fatso Comodoro’s arm waving from between the bars of the gate. Matus quickens his pace, and as soon as he gets there, he slaps Comodoro. I told you to wink at me. Comodoro looks at his flesh turning red from the smack. Are you all ready? Matus whispers, with his back toward the institute, leaning against the gate as though smoking, making sure there are no witnesses in the street. Ready. How many are you? We’re six, counting me. Only six? More are coming? Matus unlatches the gate and leads the way to the car; he opens the back door and right away the front one. He doesn’t look behind to see if the last one closed the gate; all he does is sit down at the wheel and await the signal. First Ubaldo and Milagro, between the two of them they’ve got Cerillo by the arms; Azucena follows and, last, Fatso Comodoro, each one with his schoolbag. Matus turns the key in the ignition. Ubaldo knows that in tight situations cars never start, you’ve got to try three or four times as the enemy draws closer and closer, but this time the motor starts right up and he can’t see any of the teachers from the institute running toward them. We’re all here, Comodoro says from the back seat and, at the very moment that the car starts to advance toward Hidalgo Street, there’s a burst of laughter and applause. Three blocks from there as he passes in front of what had been his school, Matus mutters an insult at the principal and especially at Arechavaleta.
Fatso Comodoro is not comfortable in the back seat; it’s not right for him to be treated like all the others, when he was the one who took it upon himself to recruit volunteers, to inform his mates that it was their duty to fight the enemy. No, sir, my place is in the front seat. He slips the schoolbag off and, after struggling a bit with his weight and ignoring Matus’s orders to keep still, at the moment when he’s about to cross the barrier the car brakes at a crosswalk. Inertia makes Comodoro fall and bang his head on the instrument panel. A rivulet of blood springs from his nose. Although the recruits would like to burst out laughing, they remain silent when they see the impatience in Matus’s face.
They proceed down Hidalgo Street and then turn north on Cuauhtémoc. It’s not until they reach the highway to Laredo that Matus calms down and stops seeing every car as a possible pursuit vehicle. Then he hands his handkerchief to Comodoro, who’s still trying to stop his nosebleed. Here, he says, cover your nostril with this and lean your head back.
What time will we get there? Azucena asks. Matus recognizes the voice and moves the rearview mirror to examine the backseat. He finds her seated to the far right, looking out the window. The car reduces its speed and comes to a stop in a vacant lot to the right of the road. Matus rests his forehead on the steering wheel; he gives the appearance of being worn out, of having fallen asleep. A woman, he says softly; we’ve got to go back to the institute.
Caralampio is sitting on the toilet and hears the whispers coming in through the window and although he recognizes Comodoro’s voice he can’t make out what he’s saying; then he hears some hurried footsteps, and someone silently opening and closing the gate. No, he mutters to himself, no, please, and reaches for the roll of toilet paper. When he doesn’t find it where it should be, he guesses it’s behind him, on top of the toilet, but under the circumstances it strikes him as a luxury to use it; he stands up and barely pulls his underpants and pants up his legs, enough for him to run out onto the patio. He finds it empty and quiet. Private Caralampio, take roll, and he answers himself in a martial tone: present. He dashes over to the gate, looks out to the street without seeing any of his buddies. For a moment he lets go of his pants to wipe the sweat from his brow; he reaches down and pulls them up to his thighs. Now he runs over to the classroom. He sees how some of the seats are empty. Where’s Comodoro? he asks with a trembling voice, Comodoro, where are you? The teacher scolds him. Fasten your pants, she tells him, and tells everyone to close their eyes. Caralampio ignores her. Where’s Azucena, Ubaldo, Cerillo, Milagro? He goes over to the middle of the patio and looks around but can’t find any of the others who’d raised their hands after Comodoro’s speech. He sees that they’ve abandoned him, and glory has slipped away from him in the wink of an eye, in the time it took him to take a dump; the ship set sail leaving its most valuable cargo behind at the dock. He looks at himself in the reflection of a windowpane and decides to close his eyes like the students hadn’t closed theirs, as the whoop of thei
r laughter now rings throughout the building. Caralampio is crying, he knows no one will remember him for his bravery in battle but for the time he stood stock-still in the middle of the patio, with his pants slowly slipping down his legs to bunch up around his ankles, his T-shirt riding above his belly button, his member dripping. Of course I remember Caralampio, the crybaby with the dirty underwear. And there’s no consoling him, not even when the director yanks him by the hair to drag him into the office and lock him up, and everybody’s attention centers on what the psychologist will call pure exhibitionism, which is why none of the teachers notice the absence of the other five, not until Ubaldo’s mother shows up around a quarter past one and asks, where’s my son?
The Enlightened Army Page 4