The Enlightened Army

by David Toscana

  Esteemed General Matus, I am sending you these lines to give you some instructions regarding Cerillo; I don’t wish to trouble you with this, my intent is for you to find him always a ready and willing combatant. And since you know a soldier who doesn’t sleep well is not an alert soldier, I implore you to cover him well at night with his blanket and make sure he never forgets his purple cushion, because not every pillow will make him rest well; shoo the mosquitoes away and use the cologne as a repellent. I thought of sending some storybooks with him, but they’re very heavy and I suppose you know some stories worth telling; please avoid those in which dwarves appear, because these will keep Cerillo awake until dawn. I did put a book of prayers in his schoolbag; it’s got color illustrations and can help raise my son’s spirits and those of the rest of the troop if the trek becomes tedious. I’m thinking especially about page seventeen. As for his clothes, I included a change of uniform and five pairs of underwear. Please check to be sure he changes his socks every other day. You’ve got to wash them with bleach, preferably in boiling water for forty to fifty minutes.

  Matus sighs and takes a look at Cerillo. The boy is smiling broadly as he admires from the driver’s seat the mule’s haunches. He shouldn’t eat spicy food, the letter goes on, and you’ve got to cut his meat in small pieces. Matus reads no farther, he throws the pages away without even imagining what follows. After whirling around a bit in the air, the pages come to rest in the scrub.

  Comodoro and Azucena are riding on the back of the cart, their feet kicking in the air. They see the pages that fall behind, moving gently with the wind. Your death certificate, Comodoro says. Yes, Azucena comes back, I was a great lady.

  The cart comes to a stop next to a pathway. Toward the end you can make out blinking colored lights. Matus turns around to address his sleeping cargo. From the time of the Romans there’s a military law that every soldier must drink, dance, and make out before going into battle, that’s to ensure, in case of death, that he leaves this earth with the sensation that his life was not in vain, but more than anything else it infuses an enormous desire to go on living, which translates into a feeling of fortitude when the time for battle comes. Alcohol is the tonic of warriors, the potion of a good death. Matus watches them rub their eyes, yawn, scratch their balls, and knows that it’s going to be hard for him to make them into real soldiers, because boys always lose wars. It’s the real men, those with a woman waiting for their return, who are the only ones capable of finishing off a rival, because in the end, wars are not won for the fatherland, but for the women we left behind, and it seems like the only woman these boys have dreamed of is the one who’s riding next to them, lying face down, showing a broad soft backside, held in by synthetic pants with bursting seams, and any fantasy about being with her would have to be about a spin on the carousel and nothing more. Have we gotten to Texas yet? someone asks. Corporal Azucena, Matus says firmly, it’s your job tonight to watch over the cart and the arms, and with this mission I am confirming that I see no difference between you and the rest of the troop for reasons of sex, age, religious belief, or physical beauty: we’ll be back a little before dawn and you put your life on the line for our goods and possessions. Roger, Matus, Azucena replies and she snaps to attention with her hand over her heart. The rest of you follow me in silence. Without arms? Comodoro asks. The first three jump down, then wait for Cerillo’s slow movements. In the darkness, he’s an enormous viscous blob that eventually manages to fall from the cart to the ground. We can’t wait for you and we can’t carry you, Matus tells him, so get this straight. You see that sign going on and off? That’s where we’re headed. Cerillo smiles and sets out walking behind the backs in front of him.

  A few steps from the entrance they hear accordion music. Comodoro imagines a lively place with women dancing and wearing hats covered in fruit and men singing with their arms around the shoulders of their closest buddies. He’s surprised at Matus’s assured manner as he walks in without knocking or without calling out a password. The music comes from a jukebox in the corner. A man is at the bar drinking, head down. Ubaldo whispers to Comodoro that he already knows this kind of place. You’ve got to watch your step, he says, for no reason at all they’ll smash you in the head with a whiskey bottle. There are five tables to choose from, and Matus points to the one farthest from the door, under a burned-out light bulb. The jukebox stops playing and you can hear the rattle of the ceiling fan. What surprises me, Ubaldo continues, is to not find a player piano with a woman sitting on top of it. Service, Matus yells out, and a fortyish woman wearing an apron comes over. He stands up and gives her a hug, she says I thought you were dead; they both laugh out loud.

  Soldiers, this is Luz, and she’s going to serve us some drinks that will make you men. Comodoro imagines himself swilling on a bottle: he’s wearing a bowtie and well-shined shoes. He utters a sentence that contains the words economics, politics, and diversity. There’s a young woman opposite him wearing a short skirt whom he addresses as Miss; she calls him Sir. There’s a typewriter that no one uses, desks, and blue-and-green striped wallpaper. Miss, you’re very pretty. Thank you, sir. Miss, it’s better to write on lined paper. Yes, sir. Miss, when economics is politics it becomes diversity. You know a lot, sir.

  Comodoro slams his fist down on the table. I need a drink.

  Luz comes over with mezcal and fills four glasses. Do you want lemon and salt? As soon as he tastes it, Comodoro makes a face of disgust. Milagro is afraid he’ll spill some and asks for a straw. Only Ubaldo adopts a proper pose and with his hands on his waist says he thinks it tastes great. Luz nevertheless realizes she’s made a mistake and brings over four beers. Miss, Comodoro says after taking a sip, this is much better.

  Everyone’s had two and a half beers when Cerillo shows up at the door. The man at the bar puts another coin in the jukebox and the music starts again. Matus goes over and whispers something to Luz. Alcohol’s not enough to make them men. How old are they? she asks as she gives them the once-over with her eyes. I have no idea, it’s hard to tell with these people, but anyone who’s ready to die should also be ready to love. When Matus sees Luz smiling at Ubaldo, he takes her by the arm. Go with Fatso, he tells her. Why? She doesn’t lower her voice, confident the music will drown out her words. He’s the least appetizing. Perhaps, Matus says, but you’ll see how he’ll say sweet nothings to you. Matus is still drinking mezcal and Luz takes a sip from his glass and offers her arm to Comodoro. He takes it with his left hand while he sticks his right one into his pocket to caress the Immaculate Lady; he knows Luz is the incarnation of his lucky tile and he’ll follow her wherever she asks him to go. Where? he says to say something. Upstairs, we’ll be alone there. Nervous, he nods. He’s drunk more than he ever has before in his life, which is why, as much as he wants to be a real man, he takes a few dance steps as he climbs the stairs.

  Matus fills Ubaldo’s glass with mezcal. Comodoro tells me you’re an artist. Yes, I’m one of the great ones. He tells me that you painted a landscape with mountains and a rabbit. It wasn’t a rabbit, Ubaldo says, Fatso’s eyesight is bad, it was a tank, it had a cannon, not ears, and if we can’t defeat the enemy, at least we can steal a lot of their cows and make them stampede so women, old people, and children will flee screaming. And blow up their dams, Milagro joins the conversation, and plunder the stores and cut the telephone lines. Before I drew rabbits; now that I’m a military man I no longer have time to think about animals, except maybe horses. Would you like for me to draw you a tank? I could do it on a napkin. Matus shakes his head. There are some engravings from when the gringos invaded Monterrey; they drew the bishop’s palace as though it were a medieval castle, I’m sure you would have done a better job, you’d have given more realism to Saddle Mountain and you wouldn’t have placed an enormous gringo flag in the foreground. I’d put the Japanese one, because it’s the only one I know how to draw. Well, I’d put in the Mexican one, Milagro says. No one knows how to draw the Mexican flag, it’s impossible, and
even more so at the institute where they only give us a twelve-box of crayons; and because you are saying falsehoods I’m going to draw you dead from having stepped on a landmine, and Cerilllo will be standing next to you, staring at you, drooling. Cerillo starts in his seat when he hears his name; he stretches his hand out to take a bottle of beer. Ubaldo takes a pen out of his pocket and draws a face without eyes; he puts in a body on the ground, disproportionately small, the feet with three toes each. Here lies Milagro, infantry corporal in the Mexican army, let his father ram his car into his tomb, and may the tears of his dead mother dampen his body, may his aunts cast a carnation on his grave, may the teachers from the institute tell him the story of the soldier that everyone thought was dead but who returned home after living ten years in a cave. I know that story, Milagro says, an explosion causes him to lose his memory and he goes into a cave and paints buffaloes on the walls and hunts to stay alive; one day a coconut falls on his head and he recovers his memory, and since he believes everything happened only yesterday, he looks for his companions but finds a peasant who tells him no, sir, you’re wrong, the war was over long ago. I don’t know the story, Matus intervenes, but I’m sure the peasant’s the one who’s wrong. Milagro raises his glass and says cheers; the tremor in his hand gets worse and he spills beer on Cerillo. You’d better go check to see how Comodoro’s doing, maybe he needs help.

  The three climb the stairs, Cerillo in the middle helped along by the other two. Once upstairs, they push open the door of the room into which they saw their companion go. Through the crack they can make out two naked bodies on the bed. How much good there is in the world, Comodoro is whispering, and he falls asleep in a fetal position. The enlightened ones are drunk, they’re also sleepy. They stand by the bed waiting for Luz to invite them to climb in, but she just keeps staring at the ceiling. The image of Comodoro passed out and making a whistling sound with his breath fascinates them; perhaps it’s their last chance to sleep in a bed, even if they’re going to be crammed together. Ubaldo crawls over the covers and finds a soft place between Luz and Fatso, resting his head on the woman’s thigh. Later, in the middle of a dream, there are no barriers or differences of flesh, and he’ll end up hugging the whitish stomach of his friend. Milagro stretches out in the space between the six feet and the end of the bed, and he falls asleep caressing the woman’s ankles. Cerillo finds a space in a narrow groove Luz has left on her left side, and he wraps his arm tightly around her so he won’t fall off. Luz’s delighted, she’s never felt more loved in her life, and she herself has never loved any of her customers as much; she can adore these enlightened ones like men, like sons, like humanity. Little by little she too falls asleep, with the certainty that tonight she’s not going to make a dime, and that makes her happy.

  It’s well past midnight when she wakes up. She opens her eyes and spies Cerillo, dozing contentedly, sucking her left breast. No one has ever nurtured himself with so little sensuality at her breast and yet never before has she been possessed so categorically.

  The minutes go by, perhaps a half hour, and Cerillo continues his libations; and though Luz starts to hurt, she cannot deny the will of someone dressed in white with a light blue tie and patent leather shoes, in whom she sees something of a depraved soul and a child god.

  Azucena is holding on to one of the mule’s legs. She left her place when she heard a far-off howl. She misses her nightlight, which illuminates the pink curtains in her room and casts mysterious shadows, her door half-ajar so she can go to the bathroom or the kitchen whenever she wants, the tick-tock of her clock with the phosphorescent hands.

  The howl is repeated insistently and Azucena swears that it sounds closer each time. She closes her eyes and holds on harder. It won’t be long now, she tells the mule, the sun is about to come up.

  When it dawns, they are all ready to go; Cerillo’s the only problem, since he refuses to let go of the warm nipple that gave him as much peace as an ethereal lullaby.

  The cart bounces along over the bumps in the road. The jolting causes Cerillo’s body, stiff with slumber, to inch toward the edge. Pull that child back in or he’s going to end up falling off, Matus says from the driver’s seat. Comodoro and Ubaldo grab him under the arms and drag him over to the opposite end of the cart. Be gentle, Azucena says, and nestles his purple cushion under his neck. Milagro is sitting next to Matus; he’s been wanting to ask him for the reins for a while now. It looks like it’s easy to drive a cart. As far as he can see, all you have to do is take the reins in one hand, shake them now and then, something his trembling arms would do automatically, and send the mule sporadic kisses. Can I drive? Matus nods yes and hands him the reins. Keep them loose or the mule will stop; if you want the mule to go to the left, pull the reins to that side, and work it out for yourself how you get him to go right. Comodoro looks up irritably. It was already bad enough for Milagro to be sitting up front, and now he’s driving. He hopes the wheels hit a rock so the cart stops like a car at a traffic light and Milagro lurches forward against the invisible dashboard, his head bleeding rather than his nose, with an enormous gash that lets you see his skull. So, why do they call you El Milagro? Matus asks. Azucena gestures for silence by placing a finger to her lips, but it’s too late to pretend the question hasn’t been asked. And maybe you can’t tell, old man? Milagro’s voice is harsh, angry. Ladies and gentlemen, we have here the man who questions the origin of my name as though it weren’t obvious to friends and strangers alike, because the world knows the story of that gray car whose brakes failed, some say, or whose driver fell asleep, according to others, it doesn’t matter, since what is essential is that the car ran off the road from Tula to Victoria City at the thirty-six-kilometer marker and rolled down an incline with father, mother, sister, and brother: the whole Margáin family thrown against the bottom of the mountain. I’m a miracle because even though in the first rollover the voice of the mother could be heard crying save us, good God, the two women and the other adult were to die from being banged and smashed and knifed by pieces of metal, and by contrast here I am, safe, sound, and sensible, talking about that remote accident. I’m a miracle because while it was necessary to place three Margáins in finely etched coffins, I only spent a month unconscious in bed and one day I awoke all in one piece just as we had been at the kilometer thirty-five post: intact except for this scar on my forehead, for this trembling in my arms and hands that gets worse day by day, intact although even though my friends no longer come looking for me and I never again could get an A, not in language nor in numbers nor maps nor memory of remote things, and the teachers told my aunts, we’re very sorry, this child does not belong in a school like ours, we can give you the address of a suitable place for his development; intact because even though there are some adult things I don’t understand, I’m smart enough to realize I’m a living miracle, because a miracle is a rollover in a gray car without consequences, it’s to see the Margáins die among shrieks and screeches and to only sleep for a month or exactly twenty-nine days, which is every now and then equivalent to a month. Ladies and gentlemen, a miracle is being an enlightened one, because before, I was blind and thought my destiny was to follow in my father’s footsteps: becoming a lawyer who defends property owners against their tenants and ends up throwing the poor out who don’t pay. That’s not the way it was, my friends, because today I fly higher and I will go by martial law, the one standing above all the other laws, to notify the gringos that in twenty-four hours they must abandon Texas without looking back, or we will proceed to evict them with force, something my father would never have accomplished, not even by paying off the judges. He stands up on the driver’s seat and shouts I’m a miracle, and he keeps his balance with the reins because he’s riding atop a gray automobile that’s plunging down the incline at demon speed toward that luminous infinite to which very few are called.

  Matus opens the children’s prayer book to page 17. Have you hugged someone today? the heading asks, with simple verses that explain the i
mportance of hugs to transmit affection. Matus guesses that Cerillo’s mother made a mistake when she recommended this page, which is completely bland for someone marching off to the slaughterhouse. He fervently hopes that she made a mistake. He tosses the book to the side of the road, just as he had done with the letter.

  Are you asleep? Azucena’s whisper reaches Fatso Comodoro’s ear along with her warm and humid breath. He says no, that he was thinking with his eyes wide open. They are both stretched out on the grass, watching the blackness of the sky. The rest of the troop is sleeping within a three-meter radius. About what? she asks. Comodoro was thinking about the pleasure of sleeping out in the open, much nicer than sleeping at home and looking at the chipped paint of the ceiling: an idea he doesn’t want to share, so he makes something up. Listen to this, Azucena: if the two of us survive this expedition and the war, and if our egos can overcome all the applause and celebration, it would be nice for us to get married. Is that an idea or a proposal? Azucena’s eyes sparkle. Matus begins to snore. It’s a prolonged grunt that blends in with the other sounds of the night: crickets, wind, leaves, and tree branches; fortunately, no motorcycles or train whistles or couples fighting. I accept, Azucena says, for my whole life. Comodoro covers her mouth. You can’t say those things when someone’s snoring. He goes over to Matus’s profoundly sleeping body and drops a stone into his open mouth. Matus coughs a couple of times and changes position. Did he choke? He never chokes and he doesn’t wake up, the key is to use a small object, never larger than an orange seed; and if it’s larger it needs to be of a different consistency, like phlegm. I accept, Comodoro, until death do us part, which could be very soon. Although Comodoro has never seen Azucena naked, it’s obvious to him that there’s quite a distance between her flesh and Luz’s, but maybe with time they’ll become identical or similar. Maybe the teacher lied to him, and some day they’ll be adults, at least Azucena, as far as curves and overflowing breasts go, and him with a beard and a deep voice that can command respect on the telephone. Miss, connect me with Mr. Mendoza; Miss, it would be a good idea to invest in tin mines; Miss, his voice is deep and sensual, I’ll be waiting for you outside, we’ll go to the woods and Azucena will never find out. Mr. Comodoro, you’re a real man. No question about that, he answers, you can see it in my war wounds and the way I pronounce the word Miss. Azucena goes over and kisses him on the shoulder. Listen, Comodoro, Cerillo is crying. Go see what’s the matter. It’s up to women to quiet nighttime crying, that’s why you were born with a tender voice and soft hands. Azucena caresses Cerillo’s hair and begins to sing something about a lost apple. It’s the first time Comodoro has heard her singing alone, without the off-key voices at the institute. Her voice reminds him of the women’s Olympic chorus that they keep playing on the radio. If I die, Comodoro says, and you stay on in the world to fulfill my last wish, I don’t want stone on my grave but glass, even if it’s like the bottom of a bottle. That way the newspapers can report on the process of decomposition of the hero of the nation: he’s ceased to be Fatso Comodoro to become skinny Comodoro; today he lost a lock of hair, today you can see the first bones of his chest, today a phalange fell out, now we can discern that his skeleton is just like that of the most prestigious artists and thinkers of humanity. Bury me naked, wearing only a rubber loincloth resistant to time and climate, because if it’s noble to conceal your manhood while you’re alive, it’s venerable to conceal it when you’re rotting. Promise, Azucena? She doesn’t know what to answer; she thinks the idea of a window to show Comodoro consumed by worms is absurd. Matus hacks and coughs until he spits the stone out.