Leapfrog

by Guillermo Rosales

  “There’s still time, my boy,” the Madame said enthusiastically.

  “Perhaps,” Coro admitted. “I only need a firm grip, a heart of steel, and a lofty spirit capable of sending two explosive bullets into that revolting head.”

  “That’s difficult,” Danilo dared to say. “Cornelio Rojas is surrounded day and night by a strong security apparatus.”

  “Nonsense!” Coro said. “Every day a president gets killed. Besides, I have Cossack, who is capable of seeing even further than eagles. Let’s see, Cossack, what is that charlatan doing now?”

  Cossack rubbed the mirror in her compact again and a few seconds later revealed, “He’s deep-sea fishing. He caught an enormous swordfish and is bringing him to the surface right now.”

  “Deep-sea fishing, delectable women, beach houses, power and glory . . . all mine! Mine!”

  Coro banged the desk violently and started to whine like a child who has been denied a piece of candy.

  “All of you out!” He suddenly yelled. “Leave me alone. I want to again analyze the plan we made. Out!”

  The small troop left the room in a single file and all of them dispersed to different corners awaiting new orders. Danilo and the Madame sat down on the worn-out sofa and looked at each other in silence for a long while.

  “Do you like me?” the Madame suddenly asked, reaching one hand toward Danilo’s chest and caressing his nipples.

  “Very much,” the young man responded, beginning to shake thanks to the wanderings of that electrifying hand.

  “Do you want to make love to me?” the woman continued, lowering her hand to Danilo’s abdomen.

  “Here? In front of everyone?”

  “Don’t be silly. This house has seven rooms and 24 closets. Count to 100 with your eyes closed, and when you’re finished, come find me, I’ll be waiting for you someplace to become yours. Close your eyes and start counting.”

  Danilo closed his eyes and counted to one hundred without skipping. When he finished, the Madame had disappeared. The only trace of her was the strong smell of violets.

  Following that scent, Danilo went up the spiral staircase and opened the first door he found. There were only books there, moth-eaten books with the spines detached. He opened the closet and found more books. Nonetheless, the trace of the Madame’s perfume indicated she had been through there. He left the room and went to the following one, where the scent of violets also floated. But the Madame wasn’t there either. In her place was a crocodile tied to the wall who attacked Danilo when he approached it to get a better look. The third room was a small Napoleonic Museum. There was the death mask Napoleon’s head doctor had made of him, a bicorn with the colors of France, some letters from Napoleon to Josephine signed in Egypt, sabers, guns, and an enormous portrait of Napoleon on horseback made by some period artist. The Madame had also been there and her scent lead the young man to the contiguous room where there were dozens of hens pecking at bread crumbs and laying their eggs in nests made of old clothes. The other two rooms were empty. Danilo opened their closets and found several intact skeletons and mountains of skulls and loose bones. The Madame had also been through there. There was just one last room to search, and Danilo had the feeling that the game was coming to an end. The woman had to be there. He opened the seventh room, and found himself in Coro’s room where, as a matter fact, the woman was seated on the blind man’s knees, caressing his incipient bald spot and kissing his forehead with maternal devotion.

  “Who entered?” Coro asked the woman.

  “It’s Mr. Castellanos, who wants to fornicate with me.”

  “Ah!” Coro exclaimed with a ferocious smile. “That has to be earned my dear friend. In this bunker only the courageous have the right to love. But that speaks well of you. Sex and courage go together, I guarantee it. Perhaps you’re not what you seem. Let’s see.”

  Then Coro called out,

  “Whitey!” And from the side closet came the big, hairy man, who looked at Danilo with eyes full of hate and planted himself before him, ready for a fight.

  “Break his bones, Whitey. Let’s see how far courage gets this old-lady murderer.”

  Coro clapped his hands and Whitey leapt on Danilo, knocking him over immediately, and began beating him on the floor.

  “I surrender, I surrender,” Danilo blubbered with his nose broken by a punch. “I can’t take on this man. He’s stronger than I am.”

  When he heard this, Coro broke into sinister laughter and again ordered his thug,

  “Rape him, Whitey. Take over that faggot’s ass; he doesn’t deserve to belong in the world of men.”

  Danilo backed up against the wall, asking everyone for mercy. He was a coward, he confessed, but he had never given his ass to anyone. Whitey didn’t pay attention to his pleas. He threw Danilo to the ground again and with precise motions removed all of Danilo’s clothes. But something must’ve happened within Danilo’s soul when his virginity was endangered. Something annihilated his cowardice and infuriated him. He delivered a blow to Whitey’s head, and Whitey stepped back, surprised. Then Danilo delivered a kick to the big man’s testicles that made him double over in pain. Without wasting any time, Danilo grabbed an iron chair and brought it down on Whitey’s head, making him fall to the floor unconscious.

  Coro, duly informed by the Madame of each step of the fight, applauded Danilo’s victory for a few seconds.

  “Do you see, Mr. Castellanos? You’re capable of defending your ass like a tiger, and yet you’re not capable of reacting the same way to the daily rape to which Cornelio Rojas subjects you. Don’t you live like a dog? Isn’t it enough that the tyrant violates your most basic rights daily? You can’t speak freely. You can’t read whatever you like, you can’t travel around the world, you have to go to the agricultural fields without complaint, as the tyrant demands. You eat only potatoes and eggs, the only things that are abundant in this country. You have already been raped, my dear friend. Your only redemption is to participate in this conspiracy to execute Cornelio Rojas. Take this!”

  And Coro removed a Colt 45 pistol from a drawer and handed it to Danilo.

  “Play with it,” Coro continued. “Practice your aim killing rats in the basement. Imagine that each smoked rat is Cornelio Rojas himself. Take it, caress it, remember that God made each man different, but that that Colt makes them equal forever.”

  “What do you want from me?” Danilo asked holding the beautiful pistol in his hands.

  “I’ll tell you,” Coro said. “In two days, Cornelio Rojas and the Arab tyrant Moammar Qaddafi will be part of a convoy four blocks from here. They’ll go slowly because both characters like the fanfare, and being cheered on by the crowd. You will be posted on the corner of First and Fourth, blending in with the large crowd that will go to pay homage to both tyrants. You need to stay in the heat of the moment, keep your pulse firm, and your eyes on the prize. When the convoy is just a few steps away from you, you will take the weapon from your waist and shoot the nine explosive bullets loaded in the pistol. You will die without a doubt. But it will be a much more dignified death, a thousand times more elegant, than the firing squad death awaiting you for killing an old woman.”

  Danilo remained pensive for a few seconds. “Ferryman, ferryman, you’re to blame.”

  “I can’t,” the young man reacted brusquely, putting the pistol back in Coro’s hands.

  “Come on, don’t be a coward. I guarantee that you will be remembered forever by the people as the savior of our national dignity. Statues all over the place, your name in the history books, ballads that troubadours will sing in every town. A magnificent end! I envy you.”

  “I’m not interested in any of that. I want to live. Do you understand? I want to live!”

  “Fine, there you have the door to the street. You can do what you want. Go out, I assure you that in less than an hour you will be behind bars, surrounded by miscreants of the worst kind and, what’s worse, awaiting your death in some dark prison courtyard.”


  Danilo hung his head in his hands and moaned softly.

  “Don’t cry, Castellanos. If I still had my eyes, I wouldn’t hesitate to act.”

  “I just can’t. Send someone else.”

  “Someone else would be impossible. Melanio Webster is nervous and would shoot before it was time. Manzano the poet is very manly, but he’s half-mad and would stand out with his wrinkled frock coat and enormous Afro. Whitey is a good soldier, but he’s clumsy and only acts when he hears my voice. I wouldn’t be there. I could only utter some curse at the tyrant that would get lost amid all the people’s voices. That leaves just you, my friend. And you only have two days to decide.

  When he said this, Coro handed the pistol back to Danilo and ordered the Madame to take him to the basement to practice his aim.

  The woman took Danilo by the arm and led him out of the room, giving him an encouraging pat on the back.

  “There’s more for you, darling,” the Madame whispered in the young man’s ear. “If you accept the role of assassin, you’ll have the right to deflower Nefertiti, the most sought-after little whore in every bar of the port.”

  They went down rickety stairs to the damp, dark basement that smelled of rats. The Madame lit an oil lamp and immediately hundreds of rats started to shriek and run from side to side, fleeing from the light.

  “Let’s go,” the Madame said. “Fire on them. Try to kill as many as you can. Imagine that each rat is Cornelio Rojas and take out all of your hate on them. Shoot!”

  Danilo aimed at a rat that was gnawing on an old shoe. He shot.

  “Good shot,” the Madame said. “You pulverized him. Shoot, shoot, I brought enough ammunition in my pocket.”

  Danilo began to shoot left and right. Sometimes he missed, but most of the time he made a direct shot on the vermin who were scattering in all directions through the holes in the walls. When the ammunition ran out, the Madame counted the dead rats. There were eleven.

  “Good aim,” the woman said.

  “When I was a boy, I shot birds with a shotgun.” Danilo explained.

  “Magnificent!” the Madame exclaimed. “Coro should know that.”

  “Does Coro need to know everything?”

  “Everything. Coro is my official husband. We were married before a notary. My soul belongs to him. And only my soul, because I can do whatever I want with my body.” And with that, the Madame undid the straps of her dress, and was completely naked before Danilo’s eyes.

  She had the monumental figure of a Greek goddess. Little by little, she undressed Danilo and they ended up rolling around on the damp floor, merged together in an embrace of legs and arms as they bit each other like fiends.

  “That’s enough,” the Madame said when they achieved their fourth orgasm. “You’re a real man. Another reason to trust you with the mission we’ve given you.”

  They got dressed and left the basement, holding on to each other’s waists. Danilo Castellanos placed the pistol at his hip. He was starting to receive the privileges that only the most manly of men were given. He was definitively now a member of the bunker. Perhaps the most important one from now on.

  That night Danilo Castellanos didn’t sleep. He laid on the tattered sofa going over all the day’s events. Coro was right. Cornelio Rojas had raped the country’s boldest men, stealing their freedom. A suicidal act was necessary, but somebody who would grow some balls and execute the tyrant despite the risk. Danilo pondered the pistol in his hand for a long time, and remembered a story by Borges. It was the story of a dying man who was complaining before God of the stupid end he would endure in a low-end hospital bed. God then saved him and sent him to the South, where the land was hot and men fought each other for the pleasure of seeing blood. There a cattle farmer killed him with one shot in a duel and the young man had the dignified death he had requested of the divine. Danilo Castellanos was now in a similar situation. Did life really matter to him in that enormous jail that was his country? How long would he keep dealing with his own fear and withstanding the dictatorship of that cruel man? Yes, he had to kill him. He had to accept the idea that the story of the South was a good one and to face death once and for all instead of dying every day.

  When the sun rose he went up the stairs directly to Coro’s room. There was everyone; waiting for him, for his final word, for his decision.

  He went over to Coro and said in a resolute voice:

  “You have convinced me. I will kill Cornelio Rojas.”

  The group immediately burst into applause; it lasted several minutes. Coro stood up from his chair and went over to Danilo to kiss him on the cheek. The women threw themselves at him and kissed him long on the mouth. Yes, his fate was decided. Danilo Castellanos had chosen the Borgesian South over the slave’s life he had been leading for thirty years.

  When the applause ended, Danilo asked Cossack to give him a new report on what Cornelio Rojas was doing just then.

  After the ritual with the compact and the cotton ball, Cossack revealed:

  “Cornelio Rojas is in a pool right now with his extraordinary guest, Moammar Qaddafi. Young women dressed as ancient Romans are pouring bottles and bottles of champagne over both men’s heads.”

  “Enjoy it, enjoy it,” Coro said meanly. “Enjoy it, Cornelio, since you don’t have much time left.”

  The Madame turned on her wireless radio, and the announcer could be heard telling the people to gather the next day along First Street to welcome our friend Qaddafi and to wildly applaud Cornelio Rojas.

  “Grab your flag and your poster, and show up at eleven a.m. sharp on First Street. It’s a question of honor. Don’t miss it.”

  “We’ll be there,” Coro commented. And, turning to Danilo with an obsequious smile, he wanted to know:

  “What would you like now, my prince? All of the women in this house belong to you for 24 hours. Or perhaps you’d like to drink to delirium. Or perhaps you’d like to practice the action you’ll be involved in, live.”

  “What do you mean?” Danilo asked.

  “A pantomime,” Cora said. “A dramatic representation of what you will do tomorrow on the corner of First Street.” And, turning toward the bunker’s members Coro enthusiastically ordered:

  “Come on, all of you, make a line across this room, simulating the line of people who will applaud for Cornelio Rojas. You, Whitey, go to the crocodile room and put on the uniform with gold decorations. You’ll come into this room again when I call for you. Go!”

  Whitey disappeared through the door and the rest of the conspirators made a line across the room and started to yell “Cornelio, Cornelio, we love Cornelio!” Danilo stood at the end of the line with the pistol at his hip.

  “Are you ready, my prince?” Coro asked.

  “Ready,” Danilo answered firmly.

  Then two knocks came at the door, and Coro, who was the first one in line, said in a resounding voice:

  “Enter, Cornelio Rojas!”

  Whitey came in dressed in a uniform very similar to the one Cornelio Rojas always wore. All of them started to applaud and to yell “Cornelio, Cornelio, we love Cornelio!”

  Whitey moved forward with very short steps and paraded in front of Coro, waving and smiling. Then he passed in front of Cossack and the Madame, who threw kisses at him with the tips of their fingers. He passed in front of Manzano the poet, before Melanio, before Nefertiti, but when he passed before Danilo, the latter took the pistol from his hip and planted himself in front of Whitey with a face full of hate.

  He was supposed to imitate the shots with his mouth, but Danilo’s rage was such and he was playing the role with so much passion, that he pulled the pistol’s trigger and the bullet wounded Whitey in the foot.

  “Fool! Fool!” Coro howled when he heard the shot. “You shot for real. You wounded Whitey. And what’s worse, the noise could have been heard by anyone. You, Cossack, go to the window and see if there are any busybodies milling about. You, Madame, tend to Whitey’s wound however you can. And you, Cas
tellanos, give me that pistol. I’ll give it back to you a few minutes before we go to action. You’re a fool.”

  Cossack went out to the street and came back with disturbing news. There was a patrol car on the corner, and the police kept looking at the house.

  “Fine,” Coro said, bitterly. “They’ve discovered us. It’s this bunker’s last hour. We made an oath one day and will see it through now. We’ll die before we become Cornelio Rojas’s prisoners.”

  Then, Coro took a bottle of white pills out of the drawer and started handing them out one by one to the bunkers members.

  “Cyanide,” Coro said when he gave Danilo his pill. “Don’t swallow it. Don’t chew it. Just let it dissolve in your mouth. In five seconds we will all die.”

  Danilo took the pill with an air of seriousness, and accepted that there was no possible alternative. Through his mistake, the assassination would not be carried out. That was what bothered him so intensely. Much more than dying of poison.

  Coro took his pill with two fingers and gave the last order of his life,

  “Ready? Set? Go!”

  And they all put the pills in their mouths and waited, livid and silent, for death’s arrival. Ten, fifteen, thirty seconds passed, until Coro let out another one of his terrible guffaws and exclaimed, “Gentlemen, what a bunker I have here! What loyalty to your principles! What courage under fire! Don’t worry, comrades, it was just aspirin. But keep in mind that someday if the police dare to enter this room, they will only find the corpses of nine courageous people.”