Horacio Castellanos Moya - Tyrant Memory

How strange this sensation of being an experienced veteran in the face of my neighbors’ anguish and grief; I know it is sinful to feel superior, but I can’t help it. Even stranger is this hint of pleasure at others’ pain that puts us all in the same boat, a dreadful emotion I should never allow in my heart.

Thanks to my nap in the afternoon, the discomfort of my period has lessened and I can sit and write in this diary. I was missing Pericles so much a short while ago, I opened his wardrobe to make sure Betito had put his black tie back in its place: there it was, hung up perfectly. A few moments later I found myself touching and smelling his suits, his guayaberas, his underwear. My poor husband must be in a sorry state indeed.

(11:30 at night)

I haven’t been able to sleep. I got into bed and soon found myself in the grips of great uneasiness, a horrible foreboding, as if something very terrible were happening to Clemen. I am riddled with fear so intense I had no choice but to get up and start writing. God willing, I am wrong, and my Clemen is not suffering; God willing this is merely a panic attack, the fruit of my imagination. I will find solace in praying for my son.

Thursday April 20

We human beings are bound together with invisible ropes. It was one in the afternoon when Mila phoned; I feared the worst, that my forebodings had come to pass and news of Clemen’s demise would reach me from the mouth of this treacherous woman. But no, she called to tell me — again, excited and tipsy, according to what I deduced from her tone of voice — that she hasn’t a penny to feed the children, they eat thanks to help from her parents, all because of Clemen’s irresponsibility, she has no idea how she will pay the rent on the house at the beginning of next month, most likely she will move out and go to live with her parents, because the general will never pardon Clemen and if he’s caught he’s a dead man. She said all this with such malice, as if she really didn’t care, or even that deep down this is what she is hoping for. I was outraged, but all I said was that she could bring my grandchildren to the house any time she wanted, that unfortunately I have no money to give her because I am in the same situation now that Pericles is in prison, I survive thanks to help from my parents, but these are the circumstances I have been called upon to live and it is no reason to dismantle my home. Then she exclaimed that my case was different, because Pericles might be set free at any moment, but in her case it was like waiting for a dead man, she was not willing to ruin her chances for the future for something so senseless and that’s why she has decided to make a new life for herself, because even if Clemen manages to leave the country, she would never consider going to live abroad. “As if the general were eternal,” I muttered without thinking, quietly, almost as if I were talking to myself. Mila got quiet for a few seconds. At that moment I felt like asking her what her Colonel Castillo had proposed to make her be in such a hurry to get out of her marriage to Clemen, but all I said was that I hoped her decisions were the result of reasoned reflection and not momentary upset, and I hung up. Chelón says the best method for calming the spirit is to try to put oneself in the place of the person who has upset us, attempt to mentally project oneself into the other person and understand his or her attitudes, but I must confess that this is impossible with my daughter-in-law — the more I think about her cowardice and treachery the more furious I become.

I recounted to María Elena my conversation with Mila, just to let off some steam, unburden myself of those injurious feelings. María Elena said that the best thing for me would be to accept that Clemen’s marriage is over, perhaps then it would be easier for me to deal with my relationship with “Señora Mila,” with ironic emphasis on the “señora,” as she said it. I asked her if she knew something I didn’t know, something she had recently heard from Ana. She answered that the love birds see each other every day at noon, the hour of day most convenient for Colonel Castillo, and that Mila returns full of sighs and with her eyes all glassy after each encounter. I asked her not to tell me more, because my blood was beginning to boil again; María Elena speaks about all this with a certain contained delight, as if her words concentrated the scorn of everybody who had always insisted that marrying Mila was my son’s worst misstep. But now that I am alone and thinking about it, now that I see so clearly how irreparable that marriage is, I tell myself that María Elena is right, I must find a way to let Mila know I am aware of her relationship with Colonel Castillo, because what infuriates me is that she thinks I am some kind of idiot, and for the future of my grandchildren it is in my interest to force her to lay her cards on the table. The only thing I pray for is that Clemen not find out about this vile treachery until he is safe and sound outside the country, my son is already suffering enough trying to save his own life on the lam, he doesn’t need to carry the additional burden of knowing that his wife is betraying him with the very man who is hunting him down so ferociously.

Exactly what I feared has happened to Chente: neither Raúl nor Rosita nor the appointed lawyers from the university were allowed to meet with him at the Black Palace. The same thing happened to the families of the other five students who were arrested. Raúl says Colonel Monterrosa informed them that orders came from the top to keep the young isolated for a certain period of time in order, that cynical man said, for them to reflect on their bad behavior, but he also guaranteed them that they were fine and would not be mistreated. Rosita is inconsolable. I stayed with her for a while this afternoon, to keep her company, share with her some of the difficulties I have faced every time my husband has been imprisoned; at a certain moment she said she now understands the burden I bear, she thinks it is admirable how I have been able to live through such situations. I answered her with a sentence Pericles often said: “Man is a creature of habit; woman is, too.” And I realized I wasn’t able to understand Rosita’s suffering when she lost her daughter; although Clemen has been sentenced to be executed by firing squad and death is relentlessly pursuing him, my heart refuses to imagine the pain his loss would cause me.

Toward evening my mother and sister and I went to the Polyclinic; I accompanied them to visit Dr. Ávila’s mother, and then they came with me to Don Jorge’s room, where we stood outside for a long time chatting with Teresita. I sensed a different atmosphere in the hospital among the doctors and nurses; I don’t know how to describe it: they seemed to move with a different level of intensity, a certain urgency and commitment. I suppose the capture of Dr. Romero, and the efforts to prevent his execution, as well as the general’s attacks on the association, have endowed them with the strength of solidarity, and a new kind of zeal.

1. THE AFTERNOON

Jimmy and Clemen, lying in hammocks side-by-side, are snoring through an after-lunch, after-whiskey, and after-conversation siesta. Suddenly, Sóter, the dog, jumps out of the lounge chair where he’s been dozing and runs off barking.

“Someone’s coming,” Jimmy says, stretching.

Clemen is in a lethargic stupor.

The blades of the ceiling fan squeal overhead.

Jimmy stands up: he looks through the large picture window into the sea’s shimmering glare; he can see some men jumping off a boat at the small dock.

“It’s Mono Harris,” Jimmy says. “He’s come with somebody.”

He goes out onto the terrace.