Evelio Rosero - Feast of the Innocents

So, Arcaín Chivo, emeritus educator, was sitting beside him, and his probable A-grade student was standing opposite them, swaying and listening, how much time had gone by? Am I imagining you, Chivo? — the doctor asked. You’re not imagining me, Justo Pastor, I was passing by and stumbled upon you celebrating Carnavalito like any other child in the park, and you look happy, but I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you: it sometimes falls to us to be the bearers of bad tidings. Matías has left us — departed — our dear Matías Serrano died in his sleep, last night. What were you doing, Justo Pastor? We’ve looked all over Pasto for you. The doctor shrugged, as if it did not matter. Just from that, Professor Chivo was able to judge the extent of his drunkenness, he reproached him: And what’ll we do when all our friends start dying, Justo Pastor, just shrug? The doctor shrugged again, but this time he spoke: We’ll die too, what if we didn’t? How would one go on living among strangers? The professor gave up, his eyes found the explanation in the empty bottles of aguardiente scattered around and the ghostly student swaying about listening to them, so he repeated his greeting: You look happy, Justo Pastor, and in the company of this disoriented soul, no less. Your name is Rodolfo Puelles, am I right? Thanks for reminding me, Puelles said, I needed the orientation, either I’m very young or you’re very old. Don’t mention it, Chivo replied, and became animated. Indignant? Well, yes, he said, the world is divided into young and old, would you like me to finish orienting you? I know very well who you are, you’re one of Enrique Quiroz’s merry band, am I right? More disoriented souls. What do you know about orientation? Puelles said, and spat. Chivo pounced: Would you like me to remind you of Kierkegaard? — he asked — disorientation ensues because one comes to speak highly of the opposite of what one would really like to, such as occurs when one moves abstractly within dialectic definitions, where not only does it happen that a person says one thing and refers to another, but one says the other: what one thinks one says, one does not say, but quite the opposite. Do you follow me? Do at least try to understand me, as you won’t later. Oh, what a hassle it is to catch your drift — Puelles said — and the doctor added: Chivo my friend, you seem drunker than we are — he was trying in vain to stand up — did Matías really die in his sleep? What a very wise way to die — and once again he could not get up. Let me help you, I’ll take you home, Chivo said. Leave him with me, I’ll take him, Puelles said. Nobody need take me, I’ll take myself — the doctor failed to get up — what was he dreaming about when he died? Either I get up or I’m done for, I must get back to the woman who doesn’t love me, my wife.

“You’re a good few bottles ahead of me,” Chivo said. “I’m in the way here.”

He left quickly, heading along the stone path. They no longer saw him; only his voice could be heard, in the night:

“See you tomorrow, Justo Pastor. It’s Black Day, you’ll have a sore head.”

And, still shouting:

“Watch the company you keep.”

Puelles and the doctor were hardly listening to one another anymore. Puelles was explaining to the doctor that death brought them together: it was death that was uniting them sooner or later, yes, Doctor, he repeated, if there’s one thing bringing us together it’s death, but were they talking about marriage or the deceased Matías Serrano? In marriage — the poet Puelles said, who had not known a woman — each partner thinks about the death of the other. I should say so — the doctor said — if you were to die, wife, I’d be the happiest man on earth, and then he did stand up, and he stayed that way with his index finger raised, in the pose of someone about to say something definitive — I wish you were my son, he said to Puelles in the end. Puelles burst out laughing: I don’t wish you were my father; tomorrow or the day after I’d be an orphan. The doctor said he wanted to give him a hug, but he did not do it; Puelles did, he hugged him, you’re a good bloke, he said, stressing each syllable as if telling off a surly child as he advised him: best fly to Singapore, stay there a century and only come back when the monsters disappear, you’re like my granddad, another good bloke, he’s stubborn, like you, the last thing we argued over was whether Pedro Infante had a purer voice than Javier Solís, a serious argument, two friends in Mexico settled it with pistols, my granddad said that to settle it in Colombia it would not be unusual for a grandfather to take it into his head to murder his grandson, funny, huh? One day he told me to take care: women’s legs are actually scissors, you already know what it is they’ll snip off, I really love that granddad of mine, I love you, what I’m telling you is a prophesy, I’m a seer, all I’m telling you is get out ; and after he said that, the poet’s face lit up with curiosity — as if a different Puelles was peeping out, the real one — Doctor, is it true you go to bed with all your patients? Now it was the doctor who burst out laughing: you’re too skinny, you need to get more sleep, and he moved off towards the street — at last he could walk — Puelles stopped watching him: either I’m very young or he’s very old, and he stayed on his feet, swaying about; if he sat back down on the bench, he would not get up again. He drank some more.

Alone. In the park. There was not even a passer-by to exchange a word with, a girl to offer this bouquet of words to, what great legs I saw today, what eager faces, what bums, and the day came back to him in flashes, events like a river passing before his eyes, fleeting voices, snapshots of fleeing girls with frightened faces, what did he say to them? Did he open his fly, did he show it to them? He had left Quiroz’s Vespa in a Pasto garage. Which one? Tomorrow I’ll go to Mandarina’s place, Black Day is perfect for it, tomorrow Paris will burn when I paint my face black, maybe I’ll bump into the doctor, happily surrounded by beauties. What else did we do for Carnavalito? We went past Santiago church, we drank a toast there, there the poet painted a sign in black on the white wall: R.I.P, GOD , and the doctor was not far behind: GOD BLESS THIS BUSINESS ; he had his funny side, and they saw the little nuns go by, flirted with them, three or four nuns who did not kick up a fuss. Did we chase them? They’re all wet between the legs, the doctor said, or was it him who said it? What a rotten memory: I’ve got gaps like black holes, I’ll crash Quiroz’s Vespa. Puelles’s face clouded over: fuck, he cried in terror, why did we leave the bar? He suddenly remembered eyes like blue-black globes, Ilyich from Cali, his profile reminiscent of twisted wire, sitting on the next seat along, listening to them all that time, had he heard the denunciation? Doctor they’re going to kill you , Ilyich had followed them into the furthest depths of the bar, Puelles greeted him with a wink, tried to explain: Enriquito ordered me to make friends with this good old doctor, let me introduce you, but Ilyich slipped away, without a word. Puelles let himself fall onto the grass, face up: “fuck,” he roared, overhead the whole park grew dark, the lamps were switching off, fuck, he murmured something, and passed out, he looked like a corpse.

Doctor Justo Pastor Proceso still had one more Carnavalito surprise to go — other than the surprise of his imminent death, which he had already forgotten about.

The surprise revived him in the nick of time, because he was no longer finding it easy to walk: the devout Alcira Sarasti, who that very morning had offered him achira biscuits, was passing by — or was there, close to midnight, at his front door, waiting for him.