Tyrant Memory (7 page)

Jimmy has lain back down on his mat; he takes the folded shirt out
from under his head and puts it over his face, covering his eyes.

“What I don’t understand is what the hell you, a cavalry captain,
were doing at Ilopango Airbase, instead of leading your troops against the
barracks where your general was taking cover. That’s why things turned out the
way they did, everything was badly organized, you people did everything ass
backwards.”

Jimmy doesn’t move.

“Be thankful I’m exhausted,” Jimmy mumbles. “If not I’d smack you
for being such an ass. The air force doesn’t have its own troops, and we went to
protect the airbase, it’s as simple as that.”

Clemen has sat down, his knees bent; his legs are moving around
restlessly.

“Maybe there’s a can somewhere I can piss in,” he says, looking
around.

“What a pig. You’ll stink the place up. Don’t you realize there’s no
circulation in here.”

“This is no joke. I can’t hold it any longer,” Clemen says as he
crawls over to the corner where the junk is.

“Keep your voice down, they’re going to hear us,” Jimmy urges.

Clemen rummages anxiously around through the broken furniture, the
rusty pieces of iron, the moldy clothes.

“Don’t make so much noise.”

“Fuck you, stop giving me orders. All you military bastards know how
to do is give orders.”

“Stop making so much noise, you dimwit. You’re putting us in
danger,” Jimmy insists, still lying down, not moving, his folded shirt covering
his eyes.

“Look what I found!” Clemen exclaims with excitement, lifting up an
empty paint can.

“What is it?” Jimmy asks without budging.

“A can I can piss in . . . ,” Clemen says as he returns to his
mat.

“That’s disgusting, you’re not going to . . .”

Suddenly, a pile of junk falls to the ground with a loud crash.

Jimmy jumps up; his head hits the ceiling.

“Moron!” he spits out between clenched teeth, furious, and starts to
come at him threateningly.

“It was an accident . . . ,” Clemen says apologetically with a
whine, lifting his hands to protect himself.

At that very instant, in the midst of that tense silence, they very
clearly hear someone’s footsteps running from the back of the house.

“We’ve been discovered,” Jimmy mumbles, still furious, sitting down
on his mat. “Let’s see how you explain your stupidity to the priest.”

Clemen brings his fists to his temples and rubs them, pressing hard,
his face twisted in pain and his eyes closed, as if his head were about to
explode.

“I don’t even have to pee anymore,” he says as he pushes the can
away and lies down on the mat.

“What are we going to do?” Jimmy wonders out loud, now looking
worried.

“What?”

“What if the girl got frightened and has decided to go out and tell
someone?”

“I don’t think they’d go out without the priest’s permission.”

“I’m not so sure. They might even think it’s the Devil,” says Jimmy
as he puts on his white undershirt.

“You think?”

“Put yourself in their place: a whole ton of weird noises coming
from the roof over the prayer room, over the altar.”

Jimmy buttons up his olive-green shirt and starts to put on his
boots.

“You’re right,” Clemen says, smiling, now confident again. “They
must be scared shitless . . . But what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to go down and tell them we’re doing some work for the
priest, repairs, and that they shouldn’t be afraid.”

“What if there’s someone with them who’s not to be trusted?”

Jimmy stops to think for a few seconds. Then he takes his watch out
of his pocket.

“It’s five to six,” he says.

“If you want, let’s both go down, then I can take a leak. But Father
Dionisio means what he says, and he made it very clear I wasn’t to go down until
he got back.”

“He told me the same thing,” Jimmy says, indecisively.

“We don’t want him to get angry and throw us out.”

“I don’t think he ever would.”

“Because you don’t know him. Let’s wait five more minutes, and if he
doesn’t come, we’ll go down.”

Jimmy lies down so he can press his ear against the crack in the
wooden floor.

“We’ll wait,” he says, “but if I hear one of the girls about to
leave, I’m going to go down and stop her.”

He moves over to the loose floorboard that covers the entrance to
the loft.

“Let’s keep quiet, then,” says Clemen in a circumspect tone of
voice.

“That’s what I say: keep your mouth shut.”

The light abruptly turns gray, as if the setting sun had been
obscured by a cloud or some foliage; a flock of parrots make a racket as they
fly over the house.

“Soon we won’t be able to see anything,” Clemen says.

Jimmy reaches for the edges of the board he’ll have to lift in an
emergency; he turns and gives Clemen a scornful look, but Clemen doesn’t
notice.

“We were left in the dark like this at the radio station,” Clemen
continues, “from one minute to the next they cut our electricity and, that was
that, the party was over . . .”

“Shh . . . ,” Jimmy demands silence.

“I don’t see how they could have forgotten to send troops to take
over and defend the power station.”

Jimmy looks at him in disbelief, then anger.

“You participated in planning the coup,” Clemen continues. “There
wasn’t anybody with enough sense to think of taking over and defending the power
station?”

“Are you going to shut up once and for all?” Jimmy mutters.

“Don’t worry, if the girls haven’t gone out yet they’re not going
to, the priest forbids them from going out without permission. They’ll wait and
tell him about the noise.”

Clemen sits down and grabs his genitals again.

“That was a major fuckup, but it wasn’t ours, it was yours, the
civilians,” Jimmy says. “None of you thought you’d need electricity to keep the
station running . . .”

“I can’t hold it anymore,” says Clemen, reaching for the empty can.
“I’m going to take a leak.”

“You’re a pig.”

“I don’t have time for niceties.”

On his knees and with his back to Jimmy, Clemen has unzipped his
pants and is peeing into the can; as the stream starts to flow, he lets out two
short farts.

“Sorry . . . ,” he says, looking relieved.

Jimmy shakes his head back and forth in disbelief. Then he puckers
up his face in a look of disgust and covers his nose with his palm.

They hear distinctly the front door opening.

Jimmy grabs the edges of the board, ready to lift it; Clemen hurries
to pull his pants up.

“I’m here, girls, and so is Doña Chon!” Father Dionisio exclaims in
his hoarse voice and his Castilian accent. “Come get the tamales!”

They hear the flip-flops slapping against the floor, a greeting, the
priest giving his blessing to Doña Chon, and the door closing.

“Father, Doña Ana brought you some cheese a while ago.”

Clemen and Jimmy remain still and alert, the latter without removing
his hand from his nose.

“Which Doña Ana, my child? There are several.”

“From the pharmacy, Father.”

“How nice, because we are going to have two guests for dinner. But
how many times have I told you not to open the door to anybody when I’m not
here.”

“I’m sorry, Father . . .”

“I don’t want it to happen again. Tomorrow I’m going to hear your
confession, because the Devil always has his way with you girls.”

Mockingly, Clemen makes an obscene gesture with his right middle
finger into a hole made with his left thumb and index finger.

“Father . . .”

“Yes?”

The voices sound as if they are right beneath them.

“There are some animals up above . . .”

“Where, my child?”

“There, in the roof, Father, in the prayer room . . . We heard some
loud banging.”

“Some rats must have gotten in. We’ll put out some
poison. Don’t you worry, my child. Go back to your sister and help her fix
dinner. And stay in the back, in the kitchen, until I call you. Don’t
disturb me.”

“As you wish, Father.”

The flip-flops walk away. The door to the prayer room has been
closed. A moment later they hear a light tapping under the floor of the
attic.

“Come down,” the priest says.

Jimmy picks up the board, climbs down through the hole, resting his
feet on the wardrobe, then jumping onto the floor; Clemen follows behind him,
being very careful; first he places the can on the wardrobe, then jumps
down.

“What’s that?” the priest asks, curious.

“I was pissing my pants, Father. Forgive me. I couldn’t hold it any
longer. Luckily I found this can.”

Jimmy makes a face of disapproval.

“You have no self-control, Clemen. Take it to the bathroom . . .
Make sure the girls don’t see you from the kitchen.”

Father Dionisio is a tall, hefty, ruddy old man with a gray beard,
bulbous nose, and knitted brow.

“Come to my room and I’ll give you some clothes,” he says.

Clemen goes to the bathroom while the other two enter Father
Dionisio’s room. The priest opens a wardrobe, takes out a shirt, a pair of
trousers, and a pair of shoes, and says to Jimmy:

“We’re about the same height. They’ll be a bit roomy on you, but
nothing noticeable. Try on the shoes, those boots of yours stink like the Devil,
they’ll scare people away.”

Clemen enters with the empty can.

“You are the same size as the colonel. I brought you two changes of
clothes and a pair of shoes,” the priest says, pointing to a brown paper bag on
the floor.

Jimmy has already quickly changed his clothes, as if he were getting
ready to leave right away; Clemen asks the priest if he brought any
cigarettes.

“Look inside the shoes,” the priest says.

Jimmy anxiously asks him what he’s heard about the
situation.

“I’ll tell you soon. It’s terrible.”

Clemen has finished getting dressed; he picks some matches up from
the priest’s nightstand and lights a cigarette.

“Father, please forgive me,” says Clemen, “but is there any chance
for a beer, a shot of something, anything?”

Jimmy turns around and looks at him in astonishment.

“Let’s go to the prayer room. Then I’ll get something for you.”

After closing the door and gesturing to them to have a seat on one
of the benches, the priest speaks quietly and in a grave voice: the coup has
been completely defeated, most of the rebel officers are in the hands of the
dictator, there’s no news of the civilians who took part, the National Guard is
patrolling the roads and conducting searches on the least suspicion; everybody
is terrified.

“But we’re safe here, aren’t we, Father?” Clemen asks.

“You are not safe anywhere, my son.”

“I’ve got to get out of the country,” Jimmy says. “If the general
gets his hands on me, I’m a dead man.”

“We are too far away from the border,” the priest says.

Then he tells them that the head of the National Guard in
Cojutepeque is an old enemy of the colonel, and even though the colonel is the
governor of the province, he wouldn’t be surprised if the chief were keeping an
eye on the colonel, knowing that Clemen participated in the coup and might try
to seek protection from his grandfather.

“We must find somewhere else to hide you, farther away from the
city.”

“But here on the outskirts, nobody would suspect anything,” says
Clemen, swallowing hard and taking a few final deep drags off the cigarette.

“The head of the Guards is shrewd, and a lout,” the priest says and
points to the plate under the candlestick where he can stub out his cigarette.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he suspected me because of my friendship with your
family, and took advantage of my absence during Mass to come and search the
house.”

“I have plans to leave as soon as possible,” Jimmy says.

The priest turns to him in surprise.

“Very good, son. You’ll tell me all about it while we eat dinner,
anxiety stimulates my appetite,” the priest says as he gets ready to open the
door, then adds, “This will be your last meal down here. From now on you must
remain above, I’ll leave your food on the wardrobe, and you can come down at
dawn and at night, once the house is all locked up, to take care of your
business.”

“What about the girls?”

“Don’t worry about them. They are my goddaughters. They talk only to
people I give them permission to talk to, and they never go out without me. I
will forbid them from coming into the prayer room. And they won’t know you are
here. Anyway, they spend most of their time in the back of the house, in the
kitchen, the washroom, and their quarters.

The priest goes out onto the patio and claps several times, his
signal that dinner should be served; Jimmy and Clemen pass into the dining room
and sit down across from each other at the rectangular table.

“The refreshments, Father?” Clemen asks.

“All in due time, son,” the priest says.

He opens a cabinet and takes out a bottle of rum; Clemen’s face
lights up. The priest pours out three glasses and sits down at the head of the
table.

Two girls, just barely adolescent, short and thin and with
indigenous features, enter the dining room carrying plates of food. They say
“good evening” but keep their eyes down, not daring to look any of the men in
the face. They place beans, rice, fried plantains, cheese, cream, and tortillas
on the table.

“What if someone knocks on the door while we’re eating?” Jimmy asks,
worried, once the girls have left.

“Everybody in the congregation knows not to disturb me during
dinner.”

“What about the National Guard?” Jimmy insists. “Is there a back
exit through the patio?”

The priest, who at that moment was helping himself to some
plantains, suddenly looks at him with fear; Clemen gulps down his whole glass of
rum.