Tyrant Memory (6 page)

A few minutes after three this afternoon, Father called the house to
tell me the rebels had just surrendered. “That warlock broke the backs of those
spineless sissies,” he said bitterly; he told me a white flag was flying over
the barracks of the First Infantry Regiment. “The elation lasted less than
twenty-four hours,” he said. I didn’t know where he was calling from, but I
could hear his friends shouting in the background, they were surely drinking and
bewailing the turn of events. He told me we now had to find a hiding place for
Clemen, help him escape. He asked me if I had spoken to him in the last few
hours. I recounted to him the conversation we’d had at one in the afternoon.
Then he suggested that Betito stay with them, Mother was hoping he’d spend the
night there, the worst thing would be if the warlock’s henchmen decided to take
it out on him that his brother had participated in the coup; I told him Betito
is at his friend Henry’s house, and he will stay there where he is safe. Father
insisted I remain at home, in case Clemen called again. It wasn’t Clemen who
called, though, but rather his wife, Mila; it was the third and last time I
spoke to her today; she was completely out of her wits, ranting on and on, a
whole litany of complaints, insulting Clemen for his total lack of
responsibility. She said that neither she nor the children should have to pay
the price for that exhibitionist getting mixed up in such stupidity just to
impress his secretary at the station, whom she said is his lover. I “turned off
the lights,” as Pericles calls it, when one’s mind simply departs from where it
doesn’t want to be and doesn’t hear what it doesn’t want to hear, until I heard
Mila say that if the general condemns my son to death, he deserves it. “You are
talking nonsense, Milita, and you are going to regret it,” I said, and
immediately asked her if she had spoken to Clemen in the last few hours. She
answered that that “you-know-what” hadn’t called since noon, but that she had
taken that opportunity to rub his face in how stupid she thinks he is, just look
at what he’s done, even getting his own grandfather, Colonel Aragón, in trouble;
she said she told him she’s going to ask for a divorce once everything settles
down. I didn’t say a word: it never rains but it pours.

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.

“Is it five thirty or a quarter to six?” he asks. “I wasn’t paying
attention. Jimmy . . .”

“Leave me alone . . . ,” Jimmy says, without moving or opening his
eyes. “You’re a real pain in the ass . . .”

“Don’t be so pigheaded, you’re not going to be able to sleep.
Anyway, the priest will be back any minute now.”

“He told me he’d try to get here by six,” Jimmy explains. “You slept
off your hangover all nice and cozy at the American consul’s house, so you’re
pleasantly rested. But I spent the night out in the open, don’t forget . .
.”

“What? Weren’t you at the Novoa’s house by the lake?”

Jimmy sits up, rubs his eyes, and looks at Clemen with
irritation.

“The worst part is that you’re a deaf pain in the ass . . . I never
said I slept at the Novoa’s; I told you that Lieutenant Peña and I managed to
break through the blockade of enemy troops and escape from the Ilopango Airbase
in the late afternoon, then we walked for three hours through the coffee fields
to the lake, then hid out near the Novoa’s vacation home until very late at
night, always on guard to make sure that nobody took us by surprise, that nobody
would even know we were there. Only then did I go to the caretaker’s, whom I’ve
known for years, and asked him not to make any noise or tell anybody we were
there, and to help us cross the lake. We left in a canoe at three in the
morning. Now you understand why I haven’t slept?”

“Nice guy, that caretaker. Hope he doesn’t rat on you . . .”

“It won’t matter now.”

“What if they find the canoe?”

“What stupid things you think of . . . Is that why you woke me
up?”

“I have a feeling I know that Cayetano Peña . . .”

“He’s brave, that lieutenant, determined, without him I wouldn’t
have been able to get through the blockade . . . I got out of the canoe in
Candelaria and walked for two hours toward Cojutepeque; he kept going all the
way to the other side of the lake, where he has a friend, near San Miguel
Tepezontes.”

“I hope he made it . . . ,” Clemen says and gets up again, bent
over, his neck pressing against the perpendicular ceiling. “And I hope that
goddamn priest gets here, my bladder’s about to explode.”

“That ‘goddamn priest’ is the person who’s saving our necks. Maybe
you could learn to show a little more respect.”

“Don’t start giving me one of your sermons,” Clemen says, pressing
his hand against his genitals. “I’ve known Father Dionisio for as long as I can
remember.”