Fortunately, I then spoke with Mama Licha. My mother-in-law is solid as a rock: there’s not even a tremor in her voice in the face of all these catastrophes. She affirmed that the colonel supports the general on principle, because for him authority and order are the most important things; but he is also a human being, a father and a grandfather, and as such he suffers in silence; she wanted to let me know that the colonel will do everything in his power to help Clemen escape, but that if he is arrested, nothing will save him from the general’s fury. Then she asked after Pericles; I told her it was impossible to visit him at the Central Prison. She encouraged me to be strong, to not lose faith. She knows of what she speaks: when she was a young girl of twelve, she watched her father’s execution in the main square in Cojutepeque.
I hurriedly transmitted Mama Licha’s message to Father, hoping he would find a way to pass it on to Clemen. Father told me that under the circumstances he didn’t trust the colonel, but we would talk about it later, in a few minutes the general’s radio message would begin, he’d call me as soon as the warlock’s tirade was over. I had turned off the set because my nerves were already frayed; I asked María Elena to turn it on right away. I sat in Pericles’s chair, something I rarely do, and suddenly I found myself mimicking him when he’s paying close attention to something; María Elena remained standing in the kitchen doorway, rubbing her hands together with a terrified look on her face. And while I was listening to “the man,” instead of concentrating on the content of what he was saying, I started counting in my head the number of times he said the word “treason,” and by the way he pronounced that word I sensed the rage of omnipotence defied, the exultation of a man who is about to exact revenge. When, in conclusion, he announced the immediate imposition of a state of siege and martial law, I stood up and went to the kitchen to get something to drink. María Elena moved aside for me and as I passed by her she muttered in despair: “Poor Don Clemen.”
Father came over for a while before dinner: he told me that nothing is yet known of Clemen’s whereabouts, that most of the rebels have been racing desperately from embassy to embassy looking for asylum, that many have already been captured, and that the population is terrified because the Nazi warlock will reconvene the war council to sentence all those who betrayed him to execution by firing squad; however, several friends are willing to give a helping hand in whatever way they can; he warned me that anything related to Clemen would be better discussed in person, not over the phone. I told Father that we should never stop reminding friends and acquaintances who are close to the general that Pericles has had absolutely nothing to do with the coup, he has been in isolation for more than fifteen days, and moreover at the palace, where everybody remained loyal to the general; I already told my mother-in-law and my brothers-in-law the same thing, that this could never be repeated too often, given these dire circumstances.
Later I got a call from Angelita, Pericles’s first cousin. She was in despair and sobbing because she has heard nothing from Jimmy, the government forces have already taken control of the airport, and they have not mentioned her son among the rebel officers captured. I told her I was in the same situation with Clemen, I have heard nothing about his whereabouts since noon, before he left the station. We must pray to God, she said, for the general to forgive them; I agreed, but I also warned her that most importantly they must escape, and I told her what my mother-in-law had said about the firing squad that awaits anyone who is captured. It is vaguely comforting to know that someone else shares my anguish, though it brings no peace. Where is Clemen right now? What will become of my son and my husband? I feel as if my soul were being stripped bare, and I’m completely exposed, raw. I’ve had a cup of lime-blossom tea to settle my nerves, and so I can sleep a bit. I’m grateful to have this outlet where I can write down my sorrows.
Holy Tuesday, April 4
A day from Hell. Despair, anguish, rumors, helplessness. And terror everywhere. Still absolutely nothing about Clemen: friends call to tell me they heard somebody saw him somewhere; others tell me they’ve heard he’s been seen somewhere else. The telephone hasn’t stopped ringing: everyone asks after him, gives advice, tries to offer me words of consolation. On the radio they keep repeating the names of the officers who have been captured, and they call on those who have fled to turn themselves in, to have faith in the general’s mercy. Diario Latino and the other opposition newspapers have been shut down. Father and his friends are planning something, but it’s all top secret, and they don’t include me at all. Poor Mila called me early this morning to say that if Clemen gets in touch with me, I should convince him to turn himself in, there’s no point in running away, she will also try to convince him; then she called back, hysterical, because a detachment of policemen had come to the house looking for my son, they wreaked havoc, terrified my little ones, and the cowards killed Samba, that beautiful dog, Nerón’s daughter, who never did anything bad to them or anybody else. I wouldn’t be surprised if they burst in here any moment now. Those rumors about Don Jorge turned out to be true: the poor man is hovering between life and death and has undergone very complicated surgery. I went to the Polyclinic to keep Teresita and her family company; I left, deeply moved. By the afternoon, I thought I was going to collapse, I felt like I was having a nervous breakdown: I got into bed and slept deeply for three hours. I woke up feeling like a zombie. Right now I wish I were in a bubble, in another world, far away from all this and alone with Pericles, so he could caress me, and we could talk as we always talk; but then comes a wave of anxiety, and I feel like I’m drowning, and I must do something, though I don’t know what; I somehow believe my son and my husband will suffer terrible consequences unless I can muster all my strength. But the streets have been taken over by the general’s troops, nobody can get near the barracks, the government buildings, or the Central Prison; the authorities are telling people to stay at home. Thus my agitation flounders in a sea of impotence. I will finish knitting Belka’s sweater.
Fugitives (I)
1
“Hold still . . . ,” Jimmy says, startled, bringing his index finger to his lips to demand silence. He lies stretched out and lanky on a mat on the wooden floor; he’s barefoot and shirtless, wearing olive-green trousers and a belt with a silver buckle.
The knocks on the front door are gentle but insistent.
“Who could that be?” Clemen asks, wordlessly, gesturing with his mouth; he’s sitting on his mat, his arms wrapped around his knees, also barefoot and shirtless.
Jimmy presses his ear against a crack in the wooden floor.
“Just a moment! Coming!” shouts one of the girls from the back of the house.
Under them, they hear the slapping of flip-flops passing through the house on the way to the front door.
“Who’s there?” the girl asks.
They hear a woman’s voice but can’t make out the words.
“Seems like a neighbor,” Jimmy whispers.
They hear a loud bang.
Clemen is startled.
“Fuck! What was that?” he cries out, in a whisper, his face twisted in terror.
“The girl dropped the door latch,” Jimmy mumbles, without turning to look at him, his ear still pressed against the crack in the floor of the loft.
“I thought it was the Guard,” Clemen exhales, with relief.
They hear animated voices, laughter, goodbyes, then the latch drops again as the door closes. The slapping of the flip-flops passes under them, on the way to the back of the house.
“They brought a gift for the priest,” Jimmy says and lies back down, face up on the mat.
“How do you know?”
“I heard.”
“I don’t believe you,” Clemen says; he also lies down on his back on his mat, his hands clasped behind his neck.
“I gotta get out of here as soon as possible,” Jimmy says, talking to himself, pensive. “This is a hell hole.”
“Where are you going?”
“Better you
don’t know. Might bring bad luck . . .”
“I’m not budging from here, not unless that priest throws me out. They’ll catch us in a second out there.”
“Don’t have any illusions you’re safe here.”
“More than in the streets, we are.”
Then, suddenly, Clemen sneezes, making so much noise that even he sits up and looks scared.
“Sorry,” he says, “I couldn’t hold it.”
Jimmy turns to look at him disapprovingly.
“If someone happened to be walking by, the game would’ve been up,” he warns.
“I said I’m sorry. It’s all the dust in here,” he mumbles, and looks around at all the junk in the corners, the cobwebs, the layer of dust covering the floor.
They sit in silence, alert, but they hear no sounds from outside.
“I don’t think anyone could hear it in the street,” Clemen says. “Just a minute ago, we couldn’t hear what the women were saying at the front door, so outside they can’t hear what we’re saying, either.”
“I guarantee you, even the girls in the back of the house had a fright,” Jimmy says irritably.
“What time is it?” Clemen asks. “The priest should be back already.”
Jimmy pulls a pocket watch out of his trouser pocket, places it under the light from the skylight, and says, “It’s only five-twenty. He said he’d be back at six.”
“I’ve been shut up here for four hours, two more than you . . . I gotta take a piss.”
“Think about something else, because you can’t here.”
“It’s my nerves,” Clemen says. “I need a smoke, I need to stand up, walk around,” he adds, looking at the slanted ceiling a few feet above their heads. “This attic is like being in a dungeon.”
“Just be thankful we’ve got somewhere to hide, you ingrate. You don’t see me complaining, and I’m taller than you. Go ahead and tell me again how they dressed you up as a housemaid . . . ,” Jimmy asks, cracking a smile.
“I told you, it was Gardiner’s idea, the vice-counsel.”
“How the hell did you think to hide there?”
“I’m good friends with Tracy. Luckily, she was home. I spent the night in their guest room and this morning, after they dressed me up, they took me out in their car . . .”
“Were you wearing make-up?”
“You bet, and a wig, and I got plucked, just as pretty as can be. Look,” Clemen says, passing a finger over an eyebrow. “And I was wearing underwear and a slip, and a bra stuffed with wads of wet paper under the uniform. If the police had made me get out of the car, the only way they would have found me out is if they’d touched me between the legs . . .”
“And since your balls are probably about so small,” says Jimmy pressing his fingertips together, amused, “there’s no way they could have caught you.”
“You can make fun of me as much as you want, but it worked.”
“I wish I could’ve seen you: the ugliest housemaid in history . . .”
“Go ahead, keep making fun of me, see if I care. I wouldn’t have been here otherwise, that son-of-a-bitch general of yours would’ve been smashing my balls like he did to that dimwit Tito Calvo.”
“Poor guy . . . ,” Jimmy says, serious now, frowning.
“They’re a gang of fucking sissies . . .”
Jimmy looks at him disapprovingly.
“Only a bunch of ass-fuckers could have let that warlock slip through their fingers on the highway,” Clemen upbraids him bitterly. “Why didn’t the tanks blast the police headquarters when the bastard was there?” His voice has risen, impassioned. “Eh? Why did the airplanes drop their bombs on the streets around the barracks and not on the only target that mattered?”
Jimmy sits up and orders him firmly, “Lower your voice, they’re going to hear us.”
“Go order people around in the barracks, you turd,” Clemen answers.
They hear loud knocks on the front door.
Clemen sits up; all color has drained out of his face, and he swallows in terror.
Jimmy stumbles over to the corner where his jacket, gun, and infantry boots are lying; he picks up the gun and presses his ear against the crack in the wooden floor.
The knocking continues, insistently.
Nobody from the back of the house answers.
“Where did they go, those girls?” Jimmy wonders.
Clemen is terrified.
Now they hear somebody’s steps running from the back of the house, the noise of the latch, an exchange of greetings, laughter, the latch again, the steps return.
“What’s going on?” Clemen asks, anxiously.
“Maybe this is all normal. It’s a priest’s house: people are always visiting, bringing gifts,” Jimmy says as he puts the gun back in the corner and lies down on the mat.
“I’m worried those Indian girls will rat on us.”
“Supposedly they don’t even know we’re here.”
“Could they be that stupid . . .”
“That’s what the priest told me, they have no idea this loft even exists,” Jimmy says. “They didn’t see me. He brought me straight to the prayer room and showed me where I had to climb onto the wardrobe and push in the false tile on the ceiling.”
“You scared me to death . . .”
“You yellow belly.”
“They saw me. I even ate lunch here . . .”
“In your housemaid costume?”
“Uh-huh . . . When they cleared the table, the priest told them he had to confess me, and they should stay in the back of the house. I think they’d never seen a servant in uniform. Then we went into the prayer room, I took off the uniform and wig, stuffed them in a bag, he gave me these trousers, which are too long and baggy, and I climbed on top of the wardrobe.”
“You’re really fucked, you don’t even have clothes to leave with.”
“I already told you, I’ve got nowhere to go, unless the priest takes me to another hiding place. And you, you think you’ll be able to walk down the street with that officer’s uniform on without anybody recognizing you?”
“That’s how I got here,” Jimmy says. “Anyway, the priest’s clothes will fit me, we’re almost the same height, but you look like the village idiot.”
“I don’t understand how my grandfather could have sent you here, knowing I was already here . . . ,” Clemen wonders as he slowly tries to stand up, still bent over looking for the highest spot in the loft so he won’t bang his head on the ceiling.
“It stinks of whiskey here,” Jimmy complains, sniffing around him.
“Where?” Clemen asks, suddenly excited, looking eagerly at the pile of junk. “I can’t smell anything with all this dust and mildew.”
Jimmy stares at him, then leans over and sniffs.
“Oh, it’s you. You’re sweating whiskey.”
Clemen looks at him in disbelief; then he sniffs his own arm.
“You’re right,” he says with a smile, surprised. “Too bad I can’t drink it,” he adds, licking his arm.
“Some nerve you’ve got. Big rebels you civilians are,” Jimmy says indignantly. “While we were out there in the thick of battle, risking our lives, you guys were partying it up, guzzling the booze. And you still have the nerve to complain that things turned out the way they did . . .”
“Don’t give me that shit, Jimmy. You guys were much worse than us. When that Colonel Tito Calvo of yours got to the American Embassy, he was so drunk he was falling over himself as he got out of the tank . . .”
“You weren’t there.”
“But the consul told me, and he was. Falling down drunk and shitting himself he was so afraid, begging them to give him asylum. There you have your great military leader,” Clemen says disdainfully. “Don’t start on me with your sermons right now.”
“It wasn’t like that in the air force . . .”
“The coup failed because that spineless sissy was afraid to order the tanks to attack police headquarters. If they had, there’d be
a whole different ball game right now.”
Clemen lies back down on his mat.
“Things aren’t that simple,” Jimmy mumbles, moodily.
“Damn right, you gotta have balls.”
“I thought the same thing when I was in communication with the First Infantry Regiment, and I pressed General Marroquín to begin the armored attack on police headquarters, then he told me there were important political prisoners in the basement, friends of ours, people from good families, who might get killed, so he didn’t give the order.”
“Bullshit. They should have attacked right away, without giving them a chance to react.”
“Who knows. If your father had been there in the basement, you’d be singing a different tune,” Jimmy says; he picks up his folded shirt and places it under his head to use as a pillow, then settles in as if to go to sleep.
“That Marroquín is Tito Calvo’s half brother, and he’s buddies with that motherfucker, your general. I don’t know how they could have ever considered putting that pair of clowns in charge of the coup.”
“That wasn’t the idea,” Jimmy explains, then turns on his mat, his back to Clemen. “The idea was that Colonel Aguilar would command the coup, but things turned out differently. Let me sleep for a while, wake me up when the priest arrives . . .”
“I don’t think you’ll be able to sleep.”
“If you shut up I will.”
Clemen lies on his back, gazing blankly up at the tiny skylight; it’s a dirty pane of glass, about four square inches, surrounded by roof tiles, through which an increasingly faint light filters into the room.
“Good thing we have this skylight,” he says.
Jimmy breathes heavily and rhythmically with his eyes closed, as if he were sleeping.
“I hope the priest lets us sleep down below. It’ll be horrible here,” Clemen insists.
Some bells ring nearby.
Tyrant Memory Page 5