Augusto Monterroso - Complete Works and Other Stories

4. “The Motives of the Wolf,” by Rubén Darío, performed by Her Excellency Doña Eulalia Fernández de Rivera González, First Lady of the Republic.

5. “My Fatherland’s Skies,” by the National Composer Don Federico Díaz, with the composer at the piano.

6. National Anthem.

She thought it looked fine. Although maybe there was too much music and not enough reciting.

“Do you like what I’m going to recite?” she asked her husband.

“As long as you don’t forget it halfway through and make a fool of yourself,” he answered, annoyed but incapable of seriously opposing her. “I swear I don’t know why you got involved in this dumb business. As if you didn’t know how stupid the boys are. Before you know it they’ll be making jokes about you. But when you get an idea in your head there’s no talking to you.”

Back when he was in love with her he had wanted her to recite and even asked her to do it so she’d like him more. But now it was a different story, and her public appearances irritated him.

“Atwhay Iyaay asay isay uetray, ightray?” she thought. “They can’t stand for his wife to have any initiative because then right away they start objecting and just want to complicate everything.”

“How could I forget it?” she said aloud, getting up to look for a handkerchief. “I’ve known it since I was a kid. What I don’t like is having this little cold. But I think maybe it’s nerves. Every time I have to do something important on a certain date I’m afraid I’ll get sick and I start thinking: Now I’m going to catch cold, now I’m going to catch cold, until I really have one. Yes sir. It must be nerves. The proof is I’m always better afterwards.”

Suddenly she saw herself in the mirror, raised her arms, and tried out her voice:

The maaan with the heaaart of a leely

soooul of a cheerub, celeeestial tooungue

the humble and sweeeet

Fraaancis of Asiiisi

zwith

a roooughan

fieeercean

imal.

She pronounced lily “leely.” It was a good idea to lengthen the accented syllables. But she didn’t always know which ones they were unless they had a written accent mark. In “soul of a cherub, celestial tongue” there was no way to know. Well, the important thing was feeling because without feeling knowing all the rules didn’t matter.

The man

the man with

the man with the heart

the man with the heart of a leely.

It was early when she got to the school, but she still felt discouraged because not many people were in the seats. But she thought in our country people always come late and when would we ever get rid of that habit? On the small stage, behind the improvised curtain, the girls from the Fourth of July School were quietly rehearsing the Barcarolle. The singing teacher was sounding “la” for them very seriously with a little silver whistle that played the single note. When he saw her there, smiling, he greeted her with a smile and stopped waving his arms, but because he was shy, or didn’t want to seem servile, or really wasn’t, he did not interrupt the rehearsal. She was grateful he didn’t, because in that brief time she was going over the poem in her mind and if they interrupted her she’d have to start all over again from the beginning. As if she were really using it, she cleared her throat every five or six lines even though she knew this only irritated it more, just like that teacher whose students, just to annoy him, said his eye was red and he began to rub it and rub it until it was so red they burst out laughing, or like monkeys, if you put a little bit of caca in the palm of their hand they keep smelling it and smelling it until they died. Oh these obsessions! What really made her angry was that she was sure it would be gone when she finished her number. Yes sir. But it was awful in the meantime to think she’d get a frog in her throat right in the middle of the recitation.

It would really be stupid to be afraid of the audience. Even if they didn’t like her reading, it wouldn’t be because of her but because people in general are very ignorant and don’t know how to appreciate poetry. They still had a lot to learn. But that was exactly why she would take advantage of every opportunity to present good poetry to the public and make herself known as a reciter of poetry.

“But Señora,” the worried Director General reproached her when he arrived in a sweat. “I was going to pick you up. You shouldn’t have come alone.”

She looked at him in an understanding way and politely reassured him.

Since becoming First Lady it always made her happy when she had the chance to show she was a modest person, possibly much more modest than any other woman in the world, and in the mirror she had even practiced a charming smile and expression that meant, more or less, “How could you think such a thing? Do you imagine I’ve become conceited because I’m the President’s wife?” But the Director thought he was being treated ironically, and in a state of depression began talking without rhyme or reason about one thing and another. As soon as the other artists had arrived and gathered around her, he took advantage of the opportunity to move away. Later he could be seen, round and plump, giving orders and arranging everything in accordance with the principle that if you don’t do things yourself they don’t get done.

He only came back to her to say, “Get ready, Señora. We’re going to begin.”

Since he’d had some practice, the Director explained calmly that they were gathered there moved by a strong feeling of human solidarity. That many children were undernourished, something the Government was the first to regret, as the President told him personally when he called on him to inform him of the fact we must do something for those children for the sake of the great destiny of the nation you move their consciences move heaven and earth move their hearts to support this noble crusade. That many people from all walks of life had already offered their disinterested help and our North American friends that noble and generous nation that we could rightly call the dispensary to the world had promised to make a new sacrifice of cans of powdered milk. That our task was modest at first but we were ready to take every step to turn it into not only a concrete reality in the present but an inspiring example for future generations. That we had the high honor of enjoying the support of the First Lady of the Republic whose exquisite art we would have the privilege of enjoying in just a few moments and whose generous maternal instincts had been moved to tears when she learned of those unfortunate children who because of drunken parents or mothers who had abandoned them or for both reasons could not enjoy in their modest homes the sacred institution of breakfast which endangered their health and impaired their ability to take advantage of the education that the Ministry which we have the honor to represent here tonight was determined to give them convinced that the book and only the book would solve the secular problems which confronted the nation. And I thank you.

After the applause the little girls from the Fourth of July School sang with their usual sweetness the la, lala, lalalalala of the Barcarolle while the pianist waited nervously, impatient to begin his waltzes that like so many other things that day in different parts of the world also began and ended with all happiness and glory.

She bowed her head, saying a silent thank you. She crossed her hands and contsemplated them for a moment, waiting for the right atmosphere. Soon she felt that from her mouth and through her words Saint Francis of Assisi was returning to the world — small, sweet, the most humble creature on earth. But then the illusion of humility was left behind because other words, somehow connected to the first, changed his appearance, turning him into an angry man. And she felt that it had to be this way and no other because she found herself warning him of a wolf whose fangs had horribly dispatched shepherds, flocks, and every living creature that crossed its path. Yes sir. Then her voice trembled and she shed a tear at the precise moment when the saint told the wolf not to be bad and why didn’t he stop spreading terror wherever he went among the peasants and was he perhaps from hell. Although immediately you could almost see a great peace burst from her lips when the animal, not without having reflected for a moment, followed the saint to the village where everyone was amazed at seeing him so gentle even a child could feed him from his hand. Then the words came out sweet and tender and she thought the wolf could also feed the child so he wouldn’t faint with hunger in school. But she was in anguish again because in one of Saint Francis’ careless moments the wolf returned to the forest to kill the country people and their flocks. Here her voice took on a tone of implacable condemnation, and she raised and lowered it as needed, forgetting about her cold and her damn nerves of the past few days, just as she had known it would be. On the contrary, a wonderful sense of security, security, security enveloped her, for it was easy to see that the audience was listening to her deeply affected by the barbaric actions of the beast, although she knew that soon, right now, they would change roles and the wolf would become the accuser not the accused, when with his usual confidence Saint Francis went looking for him again to tame him once more. Even if you didn’t want to you had to be on the side of the wolf whose words were easy to interpret: Yes, everything was just fine, wasn’t it? There I was all tame eating whatever they felt like throwing to me and licking everybody’s hand like a lamb while men in their houses gave themselves over to envy and lust and anger and made war on each other and the weak lost and the bad triumphed. She said the words “weak” and “bad” in such differing tones that no one could possibly doubt she was on the side of the weak. And she was sure things were going well and her recitation was a success because she really grew indignant at so much evildoing, it made the wolf’s seem small by comparison, after all he was not a rational being. Without even realizing it the time had come when she knew that soon, now, now the words must burst from her throat not too strong, not too tender or furious or gentle but full of despair and bitterness, what else could the saint feel when he conceded that the beast was right and finally turned to Our Father who aaart in heaaaven.