Tyrant Memory (25 page)

Thursday May 4

The first thing I did when I got out of bed this morning
was call Carmela and wish her a happy birthday; every year since we became
friends at school I’ve done the same thing: we each try to be the first person
to wish the other one a happy birthday. Then, in this morning’s newspaper — the
official “yellow rag” as Pericles calls it — I learned that the government
announced the release of civilians who had remained imprisoned for their
participation in the failed coup. I immediately started calling everybody I
could think of to make sure it was true, for although my husband didn’t
participate in the uprising, the fact that they were freeing the coup
participants, who actually attacked the general, meant that they would also free
Pericles. None of the other women in the committee knew anything; we were all
quite excited, moving heaven and earth to find out what was happening. Until
finally Doña Consuelo learned that it was one of the warlock’s tricks: he
released those who had been arrested by mistake, those who were still in jail
but hadn’t actually participated in the coup and had no record of political
activity. I was so outraged I felt sick. How can he play with people’s feelings
in such a despicable way?! If I didn’t despair it was thanks to the intense
energy and excitement one feels in the streets, in every home, everywhere, a
kind of magnetism in the air, and also thinks to the fact that María Elena
brought me back to reality when she returned from the market and told me the
vendors won’t open their stands tomorrow, they all say the city will wake up at
a standstill, without banks or stores or hospitals or pharmacies, and of course
without a market, and many people were buying emergency provisions. Mother did
so for us: she went in the car with Don Leo and Juani.

Silvia’s salon was filled to overflowing, as if we were all
afraid the strike would catch us with our pants down, so to speak. I waited half
an hour, chatting with the other clients: rumor has it that several ministers
think the general should resign, and if he doesn’t in the next few days, they
will. Mingo doesn’t think they have enough guts. “They are afraid of what people
will do to them if the general is toppled, so they send their wives out to
spread rumors about them wanting to resign, but once they’re face-to-face with
the warlock, they start shaking in their boots,” he said as we enjoyed the
chocolate cake with walnuts on the front porch of Carmela and Chelón’s house in
the late afternoon. He also said, jokingly, that with the bankers spearheading
the strike, all the shopkeepers will join, because there’s not a single one who
doesn’t owe money or need a loan, “and if the people with all the money throw
themselves off a cliff, we’ll all follow because we’ll figure there’s more money
down there.” It’s amazing how friends can end up resembling each other so much,
because that comment could have come out of Pericles’s mouth, as I told Irmita,
who was looking much more hale when she came over with Mingo this afternoon.
What I’m worried about is the possibility that if the strike starts tomorrow,
the authorities may decide to suspend visits to the prison on Saturday; Chelón
was the one who brought that up, with some concern. God willing, that won’t
happen.

Betito returned home early tonight; I thanked him for minding me and
sparing me the worry. But he and his friends are going full steam ahead,
according to what he tells me, they haven’t stopped working on the strike for
the last two days: they have groups visiting every shop, block by block, trying
to persuade the owners to close their shops tomorrow; other groups are working
to persuade the bus, streetcar, and taxi drivers to join the walkout; he says a
secret committee of university students is coordinating all their efforts, and
he and his friends are in constant touch with them. Betito’s eyes shine as he
talks, he is bursting with enthusiasm. It is obvious women my age are
superfluous when there’s so much energy and youth, to the point where even
Father used him today as a messenger to distribute the funds, and he lent him
Don Leo and the car to make a few visits, which Betito calls “operations.” He
showed me a few of the strike circulars they have distributed all over the city.
I never tire of repeating to him that he should be careful.

I have prayed to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour from the bottom
of my heart for the strike to be effective, for the warlock to step down without
more bloodshed, for nothing to happen to Clemen, and for our family to soon be
reunited. Tomorrow I will go to Mass at El Rosario Church with Doña Chayito and
the other ladies. I am going to try to get some sleep because tomorrow will be a
very nerve-racking day.

Friday May 5

What a day! My goodness! So many emotions, hopes, fears.
The beginning of the strike has been a success! The city is paralyzed; the
warlock gave a speech on the radio a while ago, at seven at night, to be
precise, and denounced the strikers as “Nazi agitators” who are trying to wage
“a war of nerves.” Well, he has the nerve!? He must be in deep trouble; if he
weren’t, he wouldn’t have spoken on air, with that horrible voice of his, but
instead would have delegated it to Don Rodolfo or some other minister, so people
would see that he couldn’t care less about the strike. But that’s not what
happened. How I long for Pericles at these moments, how I miss his explanations
of the general’s secret thoughts and his state of mind based on the intonations
of his voice over the radio . . .

At precisely nine o’clock this morning, María Elena, Betito,
and I, all of us dressed in strict mourning, arrived at El Rosario Church. We
walked there, even though a few streetcars and buses were still running, because
the strategy is that nobody should use public transportation to make the drivers
join the strike. The church was packed; there were groups of young people in the
park and everywhere around. Expectation filled the air. We stayed near the
entrance; I recognized several friends and my fellow committee members; I
chatted with Angelita, Luz María, and Doña Chayito. But several minutes passed
and Mass didn’t begin. We soon learned that the priest was not going to come, he
had not been authorized to celebrate the Eucharist. Everybody started talking
about it, outraged. Then a student leader, speaking from the atrium of the
church itself, announced between cheers and applauses that the general strike
and walkout had begun. Groups of young people, including Betito and his friends,
fanned out around the downtown area to persuade the owners of the few shops that
had opened to close them immediately. On our way home, María Elena and I saw for
ourselves that the banks and the large department stores along our way were
shut, as were pharmacies, the Ministry of Health offices, and dentists’ and
lawyers’ offices. But many people were in the streets, and everybody seemed
excited and happy, as if it were a holiday, as if we all wanted to see for
ourselves that the strike was real; hours later, however, the streets had
emptied out; all the circulars stressed the importance of people remaining at
home.

Before noon I went to eat lunch at my parents’ house. It was a
hotbed of activity: against Mother’s will, Father and his friends had converted
the house into a kind of “center of operations,” as Uncle Charlie called it
several times, where family acquaintances came and went with information about
the strike and to report the latest rumors; whiskey was flowing and the
telephone didn’t stop ringing. When I entered the living room, Father was
talking on the phone to Don Milo Butazzoni, the owner of the Milán grocery
store, the most important one in the San José district, who was refusing to
close his business; Don Milo is an old grouch, an admirer of Mussolini and the
general, but he gets along well with Father, that’s why Father took on the task
of calling him, if not to support the strike, then at least to lower the metal
grate in the afternoon. I spent some time in the kitchen helping Juanita prepare
sandwiches for all the visitors. Mother was unable to contain her pessimism, and
she kept saying that the strike will plunge the country into chaos and the
warlock will remain on the throne. I learned that the bankers and the coffee
growers were applying enormous pressure on the civilian members of the cabinet
for them to resign this afternoon if the general did not tender his own
resignation, but the general’s response was the aggressive speech he gave on the
radio, and as of tonight, as far as I know, there have been no resignations.
Betito, Henry, Flaco, and Chepito showed up after dinner; they brought in their
beer and were wearing their passion on their sleeves; they showed us the new
circulars announcing that students and doctors in other cities, such as Santa
Ana and San Miguel, had joined the strike and that many government offices,
including the Customs Administration, are closed. Uncle Charlie said the
greatest challenge is to bring the trains to a standstill, and the fact that the
railroads are run by foreign companies means it will not be an easy task to do
so; Betito and his friends talked about the difficulty they were having
convincing the taxi drivers to support the strike, for most of them are police
informers. At one moment, in the midst of all the enthusiasm and activity, I
felt useless; I wondered how Doña Chayito and my other fellow committee members
were contributing — what I could do, other than helping to prepare sandwiches
and nervously biting my nails, because all my friends had already closed their
shops and businesses, and I had nobody else to talk into joining the strike.
After we ate, Uncle Charlie went to the embassy to find out firsthand, he said,
the Americans’ impression of the strike and to encourage them to offer their
support. I decided to come home. Mother insisted on Don Leo driving me, because
she didn’t think the streets were safe. It was then, as we were crossing Arce
Street, that the idea came to me as if a light bulb had gone on in my head: I
told Don Leo to drive toward Plaza Morazán, I needed to run an errand in the
vicinity. I felt like I had been hit by a lightning bolt, possessed by a burst
of energy that was leading me along with a clear head and a precise purpose.
When we got to the plaza, I asked Don Leo — without the slightest hesitation —
to take me to the taxi stand, as I was eager to carry through with the task I
had set for myself; I then instructed him to stop next to Don Sergio’s taxi,
told him to wait there, and said I trusted his discretion to say nothing to my
parents. Don Leo understood immediately; all he said was: “Be careful, Señora.”
I got out of the car and entered the other one. Don Sergio greeted me, a bit
surprised, but clearly pleased by my appearance, it seemed I was the first
customer of the day. “What a miracle, Señora Haydée. Tell me, where can I take
you?” he said. I told him to take me to Dr. Figueroa’s house, located on the
same block as Rosales Hospital, but I asked him to go very slowly, because I was
early, and that way I could use the opportunity to talk to him. He turned to
look at me in astonishment. “Talk to me? . . .” Yes, Don Sergio, I told him,
with inspiration from who knows where, and straight to the point, I launched
into my speech: I said I didn’t understand how they, the taxi drivers, can be so
ungrateful, so insensitive to injustice, how they can refuse to support a strike
the whole society is participating in, aren’t they part of that society, don’t
they care about the future of their children, their families, their country,
because if they are willing to go against the will of the entire people, who
will stick their necks out for them when the general leaves? Who will help them?
Where will they get the bank loans all respectable people need? Who will fix
their cars? Who will renew their drivers’ licenses? What doctor will attend to
them? What professional will offer them their services? With what scorn will the
average person view them? I told him it was shameful that even justices of the
peace and many other public employees have joined the strike whereas they, the
taxi drivers, carry on as if nothing were happening, as if the general were
going to stay in power forever. Even I was taken aback by my vehemence, and I am
even more so now as I review the sequence of events, Don Sergio driving, utterly
stunned, speechless, surely imagining the very black future I had just painted
for him. Furthermore, I told him, at any moment the ministers are going to start
resigning, I had just learned — thanks to those in the know — that in a matter
of hours or at most a few days the general will have to leave because nobody can
govern a country without money, and they, the taxi drivers, will be left in the
lurch. That was when Don Sergio mumbled something to the effect that that’s the
problem, they have families to support, and they don’t have the luxury of
walking away from their jobs, though, to tell the truth, this was his first ride
of the day. I told him there was a solution to this problem, thanks to the fact
that everybody supports the strike, honorable people are donating funds for
those most in need, and he should tell me how much he earns a day on the
average, and I will speak to the boys to get that money for the members of his
association, but he will have to persuade his colleagues, explain to them what I
had just said to him, and make them commit to a walkout, to going home. Again
Don Sergio remained quiet; he was driving slowly, glancing at me from time to
time in the rearview mirror. Finally, he muttered that I had convinced him, but
I should please not mention it to anybody, it is an agreement between him and
me; right away we spoke about amounts. We arrived at the Figueroas; I asked him
to wait a few minutes in the car. God heard my prayers, because Luz María
herself opened the front door. I quickly explained the situation: we had to find
Fabito urgently. She told me it would be difficult because he was running from
place to place. Since Luz María couldn’t drive me to where her brother was nor
did I want to scare Don Sergio, we agreed I’d go back to my parents’ house where
she or Fabito would bring me the money for the taxi drivers. Once back in the
car I told Don Sergio that while I was collecting the money, he would return to
the taxi stand and begin to talk to his colleagues, one by one, for it is always
easier to persuade somebody one on one, and as soon as I had the agreed-upon
sum, perhaps in a few hours, I would come find him, and if he got another
customer in the meantime he should leave word as to w
hen he would return; he
warned me about the risk at the stand, he said it’s being watched by spies and
police detectives, and he suggested we arrange a specific time when he would
come find me. My parents were surprised to see me back, so excited, and in a
taxi; I couldn’t hide the truth from them. Mother got upset, she said I was
taking unnecessary risks. But Father was clearly quite impressed: we don’t have
to wait for Fabito, he said, I can collect that amount of money from my friends
right away. And so he did: he made a few phone calls then left in his car with
Uncle Charlie. While we were drinking tea and I was praying that Don Sergio
would manage to persuade his colleagues, Mother proposed we let Luz María know
that we no longer needed the money, so she wouldn’t make the trip in vain; I
said it was better to wait, just in case Father encountered some difficulty
obtaining the funds due to the banks being closed. Mother insisted, frowning
sternly, that she didn’t think it prudent for honorable women, like Luz María
and I, to get involved in the affairs of men and common folks. Father and Uncle
Charlie soon returned. We shut ourselves up in his office: we counted out the
money that he then gave me in a manila envelope along with some instructions.
When the taxi arrived to pick me up, I was so anxious I was perspiring,
especially because now that the rush of inspiration had passed, I was haunted by
the thought of what could happen to Don Sergio if word got to the police;
however, once in the car, and after he told me excitedly that he had persuaded
four of his colleagues to join the strike, I again felt determined and full of
energy. He also told me that the strike was beginning to take hold at other taxi
stands. While he was driving me home, and we saw how deserted the streets were,
I explained that in the envelope was the amount of money seven taxi drivers at
his stand earn in three days, including him, of course, and this meant they
should immediately go to their respective homes and wait, without going anywhere
near Plaza Morazán. He asked me if the three days included Saturday. I answered,
with an edge of rebuke, that he shouldn’t be such a skinflint, most people were
making sacrifices, opposing injustice to follow their conscience and not for
monetary gain, and if the strike continues past Wednesday he should come find
me. I was thankful the policemen posted on our street had left that morning.