Tyrant Memory (8 page)

“You would climb into the loft immediately and without making a
sound,” the priest says after recovering his composure. “But I don’t think
they’ll come tonight; they’re only now getting organized. Eat quickly, then go
up.”

Nervous, but without saying another word, they eat their fill.

“What’s the plan you mentioned, my son?”

“To go east as soon as possible, Father. My idea is to reach
the Gulf of Fonseca. I have a couple of friends at the American base there.”

“The roads are all blocked,” the priest explains. “National Guard
soldiers are patrolling in pairs and the regional forces are everywhere,
demanding documents from anybody they don’t know, and they check the names
against the list of coup participants that was wired to all the command bases in
the country this morning. Your names are on that list, that’s what the colonel
told me.”

“May I pour myself another one, Father?” Clemen asks; from the look
on his face it’s clear he is undergoing a panic attack.

“Last one . . . Otherwise you’ll have to relieve yourself in
the middle of the night.”

“We have to find a way for me to leave,” Jimmy says.

“For you to leave together,” the priest says, still with his
mouth full.

Jimmy and Clemen look at each other in surprise.

“I don’t want to leave, Father,” Clemen says.

“And I don’t want him coming with me,” Jimmy adds.

“You won’t be able to be up there for long without being
discovered, son,” the priest warns Clemen, as if he hadn’t heard what Jimmy
said. “This house receives many visitors. Then we’d all be in trouble, even your
grandfather. We must find a way for you to leave together.”

Jimmy takes a sip of rum.

“With all due respect, Father, I think the military should go
one way and civilians another. It would be best if Clemen found a new hiding
place and I continued on my way. It won’t be easy to reach the gulf, I might
encounter dangerous situations, and my cousin here simply isn’t prepared . .
.”

One of the girls enters with more tortillas. They stop talking. She
asks the priest if she should bring three cups of coffee. He nods, without
looking at her, and keeps chewing.

She leaves quickly, her sandals making the same slapping sound as
she walks away.

“Maybe you know a guide you trust, Father, someone who could
take back roads to the train tracks in the middle of the night?” Jimmy asks in a
low voice, sidling up to the priest, as if he fears the girl has stayed behind
the door listening.

The priest wipes the plate with a piece of tortilla, sopping up the
remains of the beans and the cream; he scrunches up his face, as if mentally
searching through the roster of his congregants to find the man Jimmy needs,
then he places the piece of tortilla in his mouth and shakes his head.

“Wouldn’t do you any good,” he says, once he finishes swallowing.
“There’s a pair of soldiers on every train, and they inspect every car.”

Clemen nods in agreement with what the priest has said, throws Jimmy
an I-told-you-so look, then takes a tiny sip of rum, hoping this way it will
last all night.

“What’s up with you?” Jimmy says irritably. “The rum already went to
your head, didn’t it?”

“No, I just think you’ve got to be nuts to want to go out in the
middle of the night and get caught by a patrol.”

“If I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it, you hear?”

“Well, just in case you wanted it . . .”

“Boys,” the priest interrupts them, having heard quite enough.
“Right now it would be best for you to finish eating, take care of your
business, and climb back up to the loft. There’s nothing like a good night’s
sleep for the Lord to enlighten us with new ideas.”

At that moment the girl comes in, her head still down, carrying
three steaming cups of coffee; Clemen watches her carefully, and as she leaves,
he checks her out from behind.

2

“Jimmy, are you awake? . . . What was that?” Clemen
whispers.

The other keeps snoring.

“Jimmy . . .”

Clemen gropes around in the darkness until he touches Jimmy’s
shoulder; he gives him a few pokes.

“Jimmy . . .”

Jimmy opens his eyes like a frightened animal; it takes him three
seconds to realize where he is and with whom.

“What’s going on?” he whispers.

The darkness is almost total: the filthy skylight lets in barely a
trace of the night’s glow.

“Did you hear that noise outside?”

“No.”

“Sounded like soldiers marching.”

They are lying next to each other on the mats, a few feet apart.

“I don’t hear anything.”

“They went by while you were snoring, that’s why I woke you,” Clemen
whispers.

“Have you been up for a while?”

“I had a nightmare.”

“You sure you heard troops marching by or was it part of your
nightmare?”

“The nightmare woke me up a while ago, and the marching happened
just a minute ago.”

“Strange . . .” Jimmy whispers.

“Yeah, it is. I’m not imagining it.”

Downstairs they can hear Father Dionisio’s rhythmic snores; above,
the wind is whistling through the trees.

“What time is it about?”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to see in this darkness,” Jimmy
whispers, and he takes his pocket watch out of this trousers.

“I’ve got matches.”

“Are you crazy? The reflection will show through the skylight.”

“You think?”

“We shouldn’t risk it.”

Jimmy sits up and holds the watch face up to the skylight.

“I could light a match close to the floor and shield it with my
hands so nobody can see it outside,” Clemen whispers.

“It’s midnight. Twelve fifteen.”

“I thought it was later . . . We came up here really early.”

Jimmy has lain down again; he yawns and turns over to go back to
sleep.

“The priest is right,” Clemen whispers. “Anybody would lose their
mind stuck too long up here in this attic.”

“You’d better get used to it. It’s not going to be easy to find
somewhere else.”

Clemen sighs.

“This is fucked,” he complains. “How could everything have gone so
wrong?”

“Complaining won’t do you any good. Let’s just thank God they
haven’t caught us.”

“You aren’t married and you don’t have kids, so what do you care?
Poor Mila must be having a really hard time . . .”

“I don’t think they’ll do anything to her,” Jimmy tries to comfort
him. “They’re not going to involve either her or the kids.”

“And my poor old man, a prisoner . . . Who knows what they’ll do to
him . . .”

“He was in jail, so he couldn’t have known anything about the coup.
The general wants us, the rebel officers. He’ll never forgive us for betraying
him.”

“That damned motherfucking warlock has made a pact with the Devil,”
Clemen says angrily, raising his voice.

“Shh . . . quiet down, you’re going to wake up the priest.”

Clemen tosses and turns on the mat, restless.

Jimmy feels around on the floor to make sure his gun is by his side.
Then he whispers, talking to himself, as if trying to convince himself of
something:

“If they catch me, I’m a dead man.”

“Are you really going to go off on your own?”

“I’m going to rest tonight, recover a little. I’ll ask the priest
for detailed information about ways to get to the train tracks. And tomorrow at
this time I’ll start off . . .”

“You’re nuts . . . What if you meet up with a patrol?”

“That’s why I have this gun and why I’m a military man. I still have
two clips.”

“They’re going to kill you . . .”

“That’s the risk I’ll have to take,” Jimmy whispers. “When you get
involved in the affairs of men, you’ve got to have balls . . . I told you
Lieutenant Peña and I were surrounded, and we shot our way out. I’m not going to
let them capture me.”

“You should stay here a few days until the situation clears up,”
Clemen whispers, cautiously.

“The situation is already very clear. I’d rather take my chances on
the move than holed up here like a rat.”

They hear noises in the street; heavy footsteps approach the
house.

“Listen. They’re coming back.”

Jimmy has now sat up, wide awake, clutching his gun on his lap.

They remain silent while the marchers pass by; then they hear the
voice of the commanding officer repeating as they march away: “One, two, one,
two . . .”

“It’s a patrol,” Jimmy whispers.

“National Guard . . .”

“No, local forces,” Jimmy explains. “Didn’t you notice that some
were marching out of rhythm?”

“Fuck, I’m scared shitless.”

“Shh . . .”

They’ve gotten used to the darkness: Clemen can make out Jimmy’s
hand pointing down, toward the room where the priest was snoring a moment before
and that is now totally silent.

“Why are they out marching at this time of night?”

“Emergency patrols. There’s a curfew.”

“Don’t you think they’re trying to tell us they know we’re here?”
Clemen groans.

“Calm down and lower your voice,” Jimmy orders in a whisper. “If
they knew we were here they would have already come in and gotten us.”

Jimmy keeps listening intently, but the priest has started snoring
again.

“Let’s keep quiet for a while until the priest falls back to
sleep.”

“He must be scared to death, like we are . . .”

“Shh . . .”

Jimmy has lain down again; he places his gun next to the cushion
he’s using as a pillow. They each have sheets and a glass of water. And they
swept the floor.

“I’m not going to be able to fall asleep,” Clemen whispers.

“At least let me sleep.”

“I need whiskey.”

“Drink water.”

“It’ll just make me have to pee. And in this darkness, I might miss
the can and it’ll end up all over the floor.”

The priest coughs, clears his throat, then turns over in bed.

“I told you: shut your trap,” Jimmy whispers, irritated. “Let us
sleep.”

Clemen sits down. He feels around for his glass of water; he takes a
sip. He stares at the dirty skylight.

“I wish we could see the sky,” he whispers. “Looking at the stars
would distract me.”

Jimmy has turned his back to him.

Clemen stretches, then lies down, clasping his hands behind his
neck.

Jimmy’s breathing becomes heavier, more rhythmic; he seems to have
already fallen asleep.

“The minute I found out that the ambush had failed, and the warlock
had managed to get to police headquarters, I had a premonition everything would
fall apart . . . ,” Clemen mumbles, bitterly, talking to himself. “But it wasn’t
my fault.”

Suddenly, an owl hoots very close by, as if it were on the roof of
the house. Clemen listens carefully: he hears a buzzing from afar.

Jimmy moves around on the mat.

“What wasn’t your fault?” he asks, curious.

Clemen sits up anxiously.

“I need a smoke,” he whispers.

“You know the priest asked us not to smoke up here.”

“But I’m really anxious . . . Did you hear that buzzing?”

“Sounds like an engine . . .”

“Sounds like it’s coming closer.”

They both concentrate on the distant buzzing.

“It comes closer, then moves farther away,” Jimmy whispers. “But
anyway, what were you talking about?”

“That it wasn’t my fault the son of a bitch went to police
headquarters.”

“Who said it was?”

“That bastard Juan José, because I announced over the radio that
only the police and the National Guard weren’t supporting the coup, and that’s
why the bastard went straight to the Black Palace . . .”

“I heard you say that,” Jimmy whispers.

“But everybody was saying it. And that bastard Juan José was the
first to go on air when we took over the station, and he claimed that the
general had been killed in the ambush on the highway to the port . . .”

“You civilians always run off at the mouth.”

“And you military men don’t do jack shit. First you duped us with
your deadly ambush that never was, then you supposedly had the Black Palace
under siege, and then you let him slip right through your fingers like water . .
.”

“Shhh . . . keep your voice down.”

“That Juan José . . . accusing me . . . even Dr. Romero announced on
the radio that the general was dead, and the National Guard and the police
weren’t supporting us. We were all left in the lurch by you people.”

The priest clears his throat again.

“It’s a truck and now it really is coming closer,” Jimmy
whispers.

Clemen cups his hand behind his ear.

“You’re right,” he whispers, then swallows hard. “It’s the National
Guard . . .”

“Or the army . . .”

“It stopped . . . It’s about two hundred yards away.”

“Troop transport,” Jimmy murmurs, wide awake now. He sits up, pushes
off his sheet, and picks up the gun.

“You think it’s coming here?”

“I hope not,” Jimmy whispers.

“Why did it stop?”

Jimmy remains alert; he barely shrugs his shoulders.

“They keep revving it, as if they’re waiting for someone,” Clemen
whispers; he is squirming, anxious. “Could they be doing a house-to-house
search?”

“We must be prepared . . .” Jimmy says.

“How? What do you plan to do?”

“If they come in the house, we’ll retreat into that corner,” Jimmy
whispers, pointing to a spot in the back of the attic.

“Don’t go shooting off your gun or they’ll kill both of us,” Clemen
whispers, right then scurrying toward that corner.

As he moves, nervous, his knee hits the glass of water.

“Shit . . . the water spilled.”

“Was it full?”

“No . . .” Clemen whispers, curled up in the corner.

“I hope it doesn’t seep through the wood.”

“I don’t think it will . . . Here they come. Listen.”

The roar of the engine approaches the house.