Azucena and Ubaldo open the doors full of bullet holes and Milagro observes the mesquite-lined road that separates them from freedom. He knows he should choose the straight line, even though only the circle will keep him safe. Bring me my gun, I feel so bold, bring me my bullets set to fire, bring me my knife, lo and behold, watch me combat and not perspire, won’t see me cry, won’t see me fly, nor shall I stop my trembling hands, till we have seized this Lone Star state, to make it home and fatherland. He crosses himself with one knee on the ground, stands up, breathes deeply, and wishes there were a photographer present to capture the instant in which he initiates his race. The instant in which Milagro undertakes his glorious onslaught, it would say at the bottom of the photograph, observe the strength with which he holds the bayonet, the veins of each muscle protruding, the decision on his face, the dashing stance that will inspire every forthcoming generation of Mexicans; observe also, behind our hero, the admiring gaze of Azucena and the resigned gesture of Ubaldo; observe, finally, on the bed of the carriage, the lamentable promontory of Fatso Comodoro, who is holding on high in his fist a crumpled Mexican flag. I’m a miracle, Milagro cries with his threatening rifle and bayonet as he dashes forward impetuously, I’m a miracle. And the enemy launches a barrage of bullets that miss their mark because Milagro, with his clumsiness and his shaking, jerks forward in a zigzag and provokes admiration for his evasive ability. I’m a miracle and Texas is ours and anyone who raises his weapons against the enlightened army be damned and let whoever put a bullet in Comodoro’s belly be damned a thousand times. Azucena and Ubaldo hasten to climb into the cart and it’s only then that she realizes that she doesn’t know how to count to ten. The doorway allows for the entry of a blinding sun barely eclipsed by Milagro’s ever-smaller silhouette. It’s getting late, Ubaldo says, let’s get the mule going. Azucena smacks its haunches with a stick, but the mule fails to move forward, rather it startles back from the thunder of the gunpowder. I order you, Ubaldo deepens his voice, out of the humanity that lies in every animal, to move forward with alacrity and majesty.
Nothing.
The firing has stopped because someone giving orders on the other side has concluded that the kid with the bayonet is out of bullets, and as he draws closer, he also concludes that the kid with the bayonet is not a regular mortal. And Milagro continues to run and proclaim that he is a miracle, and threatens with his bayonet and comes over with the intent of breaking the enemy blockade until the blow from a fist knocks him to the ground.
Comodoro doesn’t realize any of this because he’s closed his eyes tight to get his courage up and he imagines that the cart is advancing at the speed of a cruiser. When he thinks it’s just the right moment, or perhaps when he’s gotten up his courage enough, he decides to sacrifice himself so his friends’ lives are assured; he stands up and jumps with open arms shouting, Remember the Alamo. Matus sees him coming and decides it’s best to move aside.
Azucena also doesn’t realize any of this, and she tries talking to the mule with affection.
Cerillo will never realize any of this.
It’s nighttime when they get them into the large metallic bed of a green vehicle. Wooden benches run along both sides, with no type of cushion, where the soldiers sit resignedly, their rifles resting on their butts and aimed toward the sky. Ubaldo counts seven rivals, plus two traveling in the cabin. Milagro also wants to count them, but he loses count because his hands are jammed into his pockets; there his fingers are trapped in fists and it’s hard for him to touch them one by one with his thumbs, nevertheless his hands are fine there, lessening the trembling of his arms, which can nevertheless still be seen. It’s not because he’s afraid, he would like to explain to his enemies, nor is it because of the cold. He’s seated between two foul-smelling types, with rough and scratchy uniforms, with helmets undoubtedly full of ticks. He sees Ubaldo up front, also between two of them, and Milagro makes signs to him and moves his shoulders to communicate with him; he wants to tell him that among so much military gear they never gave a thought to helmets, maybe if they had been better fitted out their destiny would have been different and now he would be sitting in the cabin of this vehicle, full of prisoners, attempting to decipher the procedure to start the motor. Ubaldo sees his companion’s gestures and understands them in his own fashion: we can take them on, we’ve got to eliminate them and flee. This is why he makes him a sign with his hand, wait, this is not the moment, let the vehicle start up and get going down an unmarked road and the enemy is dozing off; then we’ll steal their weapons and at gunpoint we’ll rescue the girl and Cerillo and jump down to freedom, and the ones who are driving will never know what happened until they get to their quarters and discover their companions tied and gagged in the bed of the truck. That is if Azucena doesn’t scream like all girls do, because he knows when the time comes to cast themelves from the vehicle in motion she will probably hesitate; he’ll take her by the hand so they can fly through the air together. The normal thing would be a slow fall with her screaming throughout the trajectory, but then there would be a change of plans because the men traveling in the cabin would hear her and stop the vehicle, and they would have to kill them, not directly but with grenades.
Azucena only has a man to her right, because the cabin is to her left; her efforts not to cry are obvious.
The vehicle pulls away and the group moves its body to one side in unison. Comodoro is not traveling with them, he was put into a van that departed immediately. Matus didn’t get on board either, and Azucena supports his version of events: he’s our leader, it’s only natural that they take him to an interrogation room. Or maybe he sold us out, Milagro says, maybe he informed them of our position, how many of us there are, the quantity and type of arms, and now instead of being interrogated he’s seated at a table with a red cloth, drinking wine and cutting a slice of ham. Shut up, Ubaldo orders them, haven’t you realized that the enemy has mastered our language?
The pair of soldiers escorting Cerillo soon get tired of keeping him upright, seated in his place. Wake up, do you want some candy? Where’d anyone get the idea of bringing a kid like this to business among men with callouses on their hands? Help me, Vicente, one says to the other, and with great care they place him in the middle of the bed, next to their dirt-covered boots. Be careful, don’t step on him, and the one named Vicente takes his shirt off and makes a pillow for Cerillo’s head. I always wanted one like this, he whispers to his companion, and he gazes at Cerillo’s white shoes sticking up in the air, outside the bed, and he thinks, I hope the laces are tight.
Ubaldo is humiliated by the fact that the soldiers haven’t tied their hands behind their backs, with an ankle cuff and a gunny sack over their heads, making breathing difficult, and that they don’t punch them in the ribs every five minutes. He can’t take his eyes off the pistol the man to his left has. He’s wearing it on his waist in an unfastened leather holster, in such an ostentatious fashion that it’s impossible not to fall into the temptation of going for it. And if he still hasn’t it’s because he hasn’t decided if he should grab it with a rapid or slow movement. Rapidity has the advantage of anticipation, but it’s uncertain as regards the details: your hand can end up completely wrapped around the butt, with no index finger left to close around the trigger, or worse, you can make a bad move and the pistol ends up on the ground, such that any soldier can place his boot on top of it; it fell next to you, Cerillo, grab it and finish them off, the kid opens his eyes and tries to find a more agreeable position in which to go back to sleep. Slowness, on the other hand, has stealth in its favor and certainty of movement. You can’t do it whenever you want, you’ve got to take advantage of the soldier’s distraction, his lethargy, his mind drifting off to the full-breasted woman who visits him through the fence at the military base; they start with kisses, caresses, and just when he’s unbuttoning her blouse, Ubaldo will have the pistol in his hand, with the barrel pointing at the forehead of some enemy, carefully exercising control over his w
ords: drop your guns and close your eyes. If he doesn’t pull the trigger it’s because he’s heard that pistols have a safety lock, and it would be mortifying to produce a click rather than the thunder of gunpowder. Azucena and Milagro grab rifles and now they can go on with their plans, or better yet, he will knock on the window of the cab to ask the driver to stop. The enemies will all soon be face down on the ground, with their hands behind their necks. Before escaping, he’ll ask what hospital they took Comodoro to; he doesn’t expect an immediate reply, so he’ll threaten to kill the lot of them, one by one, until they talk; after placing the first one against a tree and taking aim at him, one of them will weaken, okay, you win, and he will give the name, address, telephone number, and he will swear by his mother that he does not know the room number. Ubaldo doesn’t need that many details, he knows that it’s easy to distract the receiving nurse to find in her papers Comodoro’s exact location, and he’s seen how easy it would be to rescue him if you hide him in a dirty laundry basket.
He decides how he’s going to get hold of the pistol: with a chameleon-like movement, slow in its approach and then rapid in the final stretch. He pretends to scratch his crotch as the starting point for then moving his hand to his thigh; he continues by lifting it up over his waist and, when he’s about to dart it toward the pistol, the enemy soldier turns around and slaps him. Sit still, he tells him, and he returns to his relaxed position, without even snapping the holster shut.
Ubaldo is humiliated by the fact that he’s not bound and gagged, but he’s even more humiliated by the slap and by the look on Azucena’s face: she can’t contain her laughter.
The green truck comes to a stop and the enlightened ones arise from their lethargy. Where’s Cerillo? Azucena asks. Who? one of the soldiers says. The one dressed in white, Ubaldo replies, the one wearing a light blue tie and lying on the floor. The soldiers look at each other with surprise, then accuse each other of not paying attention, blame each other. One of them runs over to where the vehicle came from; perhaps the accident occurred in the final meters and they can find him where he fell out, with a bump on his head. Cerillo became a ghost and disappeared, Azucena says. And he’ll come to punish all of you, Milagro adds, pointing to his rivals with a trembling finger. A soldier strikes him on the back of his neck with his open hand and tells him he’s in a military base and he can only speak when ordered to.
Comodoro grips the back of his bed and refuses to be operated on without first seeing Azucena. The nurses attempt unsuccessfully to reason with him; they discuss using force or sedating him. Why don’t we let him have his way? one of them proposes. After all, Dr. Azael Delgado has not arrived and the operating room isn’t ready yet. The two soldiers who brought him remain in the doorway. Who’s Azucena? one of them asks. She’s part of my army, Comodoro says, you can easily recognize her because of her beauty.
The commentator on the radio announces that the prizes will be awarded to the winners of the two-hundred-meter dash. He speaks about the winners, two gringos and an Australian, about the times, which were good but without breaking any world records, and then he announces that they will observe two minutes of silence out of respect for the national anthem of the United States, which they are about to hear. Matus gets up and shouts from his cell, gripping the bars like a common criminal, turn that thing off, change the station. The guards look at him with sarcastic smiles. One of them goes over to the radio and turns the volume up. Matus covers his ears with his hands once he hears the first six notes, but he still can’t stop the sound, and he drops his hands because he accepts that the ear is submissive, it hears what it wants to and what it repudiates, what a woman whispers in bed and what the neighbor lady shouts to her kids; the ear awakens in the morning because a motorcycle rider decides to go down the street. Blessed are the eyes and mouths that remain shut, the touch that is evasive, the nose that can be pinched shut. When the music finally stops, Matus collapses again on his cot. The commentator is talking about the two colored Americans who climbed barefoot up onto the podium, he speaks about how they lowered their heads and each raised a fist wearing a black glove during the national anthem. Matus bursts out laughing, poor boys, it’s one thing to use Jesse Owens as propaganda against Nazi racism, and it’s something else when a couple of blacks want to denounce homegrown racism. He feels sorry for them, although he knows it would be impossible to win them over with drink and song.
Captain Argüelles comes in with a friendly gesture. He approaches Matus’s cell and greets him. The last time we had a prisoner here it had to do with a woman. The wife of a sergeant was seeing a lieutenant, and as you can imagine it wasn’t the lieutenant who got locked up. Matus looks at him without saying a thing, until the captain exchanges his expression for a serious one. I’ve got good news for you, he says, I’m going to let you go. It seems like you chose the best time for your adventure, because with all that’s going on in Mexico City what we least want is for the army to continue to attract attention. We are not after people with ideals, like you and your kids, we are only attempting to maintain order. Do you understand me? Matus shrugs his shoulders. It would be best for you to forget that you were jailed here, forget that you saw us and everything we talked about, and above all else forget the gringos. Think about how we saved your life, because if you’d crossed the Rio Grande you’d find yourself in a coffin, and you can be sure no one would be talking about a heroic militia that set out to recover the fatherland but rather a group of illegal workers looking for a job, some starving bastards who were riddled with bullets by the police for attempting to rob a hacienda. Matus grits his teeth, he’s not uttered a word about invading Texas and he asks himself which of the enlightened ones must have sung; he guesses it was Comodoro, because a bullet to the body softens your character, especially when you find yourself surrounded by doctors who are injecting you with serum and drugs. He puts his shirt on without buttoning it. And Cerillo? he asks, disheartened, are you still looking for him? The ones we’re looking for are the real guerillas, but if we find your little soldier, we’ll give him back to you safe and sound. You have no open accounts with the army, but it remains to be seen if the parents of one of those kids files a complaint with the civil authority. We’ll turn over to you their schoolbags and other possessions, which contain nothing banned by our laws, nothing that threatens the general peace. Matus puts his feet into his boots without lacing them. Can I go? It’s not that easy, Mr. Matus, we’ve still got to take care of the question of the dead guy, we’ve still got to see what or whom we attribute it to. What dead guy? No one told you? Captain Argüelles replies, and Matus prays that it was the man who was about to celebrate his birthday.
Tell Matus that a bullet didn’t kill me, but that it also wasn’t my status as one of the enlightened ones because he knows it wasn’t my turn yet, but how, after staying until victory, can I return defeated to this swamp-filled world that I attempted to leave behind; how, after having conquered the Alamo, can I be reduced to picking up ashes and cigarette butts and empty beer bottles and to losing my freedom even to cross the street; how, after having taken up a rifle, can I be willing to take a smack on the head, an order to return to the institute, a box of crayons to draw trees and cats and clouds and suns and houses always with chimneys; how can I listen to more stories about little chicks that want to be kings with the only goal of informing us that even chicks attain things we can’t, because where is my crown, where is Matus’s medal, where is the monument to Cerillo, where are the gowns of Baroness González, where is the real story of the indomitable enlightened army that terrorized its enemies with bloodthirsty chavalry charges, where are the maps of the Mexican Republic with the border inland from the Rio Grande? I won’t accept it, I have lost the will to be like other enlightened ones, I won’t allow them to humiliate me for nothing, for the domino tile I don’t know how to play, because I didn’t know how to duck before the other side’s artillery, because of my triple layer of fat, for my pants all worn out in the crotch? No
t after having dedicated myself to a task in which I offered my blood, not after having been greater in spirit and guts than all the others who will want to judge me, classify me, condemn me.
So long, Comodoro, Azucena says, blessed are you with the bullet in your belly.
Azucena sees them taking Comodoro off down a white hallway on a bed with wheels. A nurse comes up and offers her a piece of candy. I heard what your little friend said, but don’t worry, his condition is not serious, it’s a routine operation and Dr. Azael Delgado is the best surgeon in the city. Azucena goes down the stairs until she reaches the first floor. She finds a lot of chairs there, the majority of them occupied by people who are waiting. She supposes that this is her job: to wait. She settles into a plastic chair and hands the piece of candy to a child who is staring with curiosity at her.
In the chaotic files of the Regional Hospital of the city of Monterrey, a medical report can be found that was signed by Dr. Azael Delgado, duty physician, from which one can piece together the following information: the patient Comodoro arrived at the institution with a bullet wound with an epigastric entry point. The bullet split into two fragments, one of them lodging in the transversal colon and the other in the hepatic tissue. Both of them were life-threatening, for which reason the possibility of removing them in separate operations was discarded. The procedure lasted a little more than three hours and was complicated by the thick layer of fat that had to be dealt with in order to reach said fragments. An illegible sentence follows in the report, in which the only recognizable word is anesthetic. At the end of the document, in a different handwriting, there is a note to the effect that eleven units of type O negative blood were required.
The Enlightened Army Page 15