Guillermo Rosales - Leapfrog and Other Stories

“Afterwards.,” he continued, in a serious voice, “history continued on its course. From the hospital where I was, I found out a coup d’état had been carried out. President Estrada had been killed. People were out in the streets cheering for the young, courageous men who had overthrown the Yankee puppet. And the leader of the revolution was none other than that lady-in-waiting Cornelio Rojas. Since then, thirty years have passed. Thirty years of him giving my speeches, enacting my laws, applying my foreign policy, doing at last all that I had taught him on those calm afternoons in the little University Plaza. Today Cornelio Rojas is a God while the train of history has rolled over me, crushing my bones.”

“There’s still time, my boy,” the Madame said enthusiastically.

“Perhaps,” Coro admitted. “I only need a firm grip, a heart of steel, and a lofty spirit capable of sending two explosive bullets into that revolting head.”

“That’s difficult,” Danilo dared to say. “Cornelio Rojas is surrounded day and night by a strong security apparatus.”

“Nonsense!” Coro said. “Every day a president gets killed. Besides, I have Cossack, who is capable of seeing even further than eagles. Let’s see, Cossack, what is that charlatan doing now?”

Cossack rubbed the mirror in her compact again and a few seconds later revealed, “He’s deep-sea fishing. He caught an enormous swordfish and is bringing him to the surface right now.”

“Deep-sea fishing, delectable women, beach houses, power and glory. all mine! Mine!”

Coro banged the desk violently and started to whine like a child who has been denied a piece of candy.

“All of you out!” He suddenly yelled. “Leave me alone. I want to again analyze the plan we made. Out!”

The small troop left the room in a single file and all of them dispersed to different corners awaiting new orders. Danilo and the Madame sat down on the worn-out sofa and looked at each other in silence for a long while.

“Do you like me?” the Madame suddenly asked, reaching one hand toward Danilo’s chest and caressing his nipples.

“Very much,” the young man responded, beginning to shake thanks to the wanderings of that electrifying hand.

“Do you want to make love to me?” the woman continued, lowering her hand to Danilo’s abdomen.

“Here? In front of everyone?”

“Don’t be silly. This house has seven rooms and 24 closets. Count to 100 with your eyes closed, and when you’re finished, come find me, I’ll be waiting for you someplace to become yours. Close your eyes and start counting.”

Danilo closed his eyes and counted to one hundred without skipping. When he finished, the Madame had disappeared. The only trace of her was the strong smell of violets.

Following that scent, Danilo went up the spiral staircase and opened the first door he found. There were only books there, moth-eaten books with the spines detached. He opened the closet and found more books. Nonetheless, the trace of the Madame’s perfume indicated she had been through there. He left the room and went to the following one, where the scent of violets also floated. But the Madame wasn’t there either. In her place was a crocodile tied to the wall who attacked Danilo when he approached it to get a better look. The third room was a small Napoleonic Museum. There was the death mask Napoleon’s head doctor had made of him, a bicorn with the colors of France, some letters from Napoleon to Josephine signed in Egypt, sabers, guns, and an enormous portrait of Napoleon on horseback made by some period artist. The Madame had also been there and her scent lead the young man to the contiguous room where there were dozens of hens pecking at bread crumbs and laying their eggs in nests made of old clothes. The other two rooms were empty. Danilo opened their closets and found several intact skeletons and mountains of skulls and loose bones. The Madame had also been through there. There was just one last room to search, and Danilo had the feeling that the game was coming to an end. The woman had to be there. He opened the seventh room, and found himself in Coro’s room where, as a matter fact, the woman was seated on the blind man’s knees, caressing his incipient bald spot and kissing his forehead with maternal devotion.

“Who entered?” Coro asked the woman.

“It’s Mr. Castellanos, who wants to fornicate with me.”

“Ah!” Coro exclaimed with a ferocious smile. “That has to be earned my dear friend. In this bunker only the courageous have the right to love. But that speaks well of you. Sex and courage go together, I guarantee it. Perhaps you’re not what you seem. Let’s see.”

Then Coro called out,

“Whitey!” And from the side closet came the big, hairy man, who looked at Danilo with eyes full of hate and planted himself before him, ready for a fight.

“Break his bones, Whitey. Let’s see how far courage gets this old-lady murderer.”

Coro clapped his hands and Whitey leapt on Danilo, knocking him over immediately, and began beating him on the floor.

“I surrender, I surrender,” Danilo blubbered with his nose broken by a punch. “I can’t take on this man. He’s stronger than I am.”

When he heard this, Coro broke into sinister laughter and again ordered his thug,

“Rape him, Whitey. Take over that faggot’s ass; he doesn’t deserve to belong in the world of men.”

Danilo backed up against the wall, asking everyone for mercy. He was a coward, he confessed, but he had never given his ass to anyone. Whitey didn’t pay attention to his pleas. He threw Danilo to the ground again and with precise motions removed all of Danilo’s clothes. But something must’ve happened within Danilo’s soul when his virginity was endangered. Something annihilated his cowardice and infuriated him. He delivered a blow to Whitey’s head, and Whitey stepped back, surprised. Then Danilo delivered a kick to the big man’s testicles that made him double over in pain. Without wasting any time, Danilo grabbed an iron chair and brought it down on Whitey’s head, making him fall to the floor unconscious.

Coro, duly informed by the Madame of each step of the fight, applauded Danilo’s victory for a few seconds.

“Do you see, Mr. Castellanos? You’re capable of defending your ass like a tiger, and yet you’re not capable of reacting the same way to the daily rape to which Cornelio Rojas subjects you. Don’t you live like a dog? Isn’t it enough that the tyrant violates your most basic rights daily? You can’t speak freely. You can’t read whatever you like, you can’t travel around the world, you have to go to the agricultural fields without complaint, as the tyrant demands. You eat only potatoes and eggs, the only things that are abundant in this country. You have already been raped, my dear friend. Your only redemption is to participate in this conspiracy to execute Cornelio Rojas. Take this!”

And Coro removed a Colt 45 pistol from a drawer and handed it to Danilo.

“Play with it,” Coro continued. “Practice your aim killing rats in the basement. Imagine that each smoked rat is Cornelio Rojas himself. Take it, caress it, remember that God made each man different, but that that Colt makes them equal forever.”

“What do you want from me?” Danilo asked holding the beautiful pistol in his hands.

“I’ll tell you,” Coro said. “In two days, Cornelio Rojas and the Arab tyrant Moammar Qaddafi will be part of a convoy four blocks from here. They’ll go slowly because both characters like the fanfare, and being cheered on by the crowd. You will be posted on the corner of First and Fourth, blending in with the large crowd that will go to pay homage to both tyrants. You need to stay in the heat of the moment, keep your pulse firm, and your eyes on the prize. When the convoy is just a few steps away from you, you will take the weapon from your waist and shoot the nine explosive bullets loaded in the pistol. You will die without a doubt. But it will be a much more dignified death, a thousand times more elegant, than the firing squad death awaiting you for killing an old woman.”