Horacio Castellanos Moya - Tyrant Memory

This is the second consecutive night I finish writing in this notebook and Betito still hasn’t arrived. He didn’t even come home for lunch: he called to say he was at Henry’s and would have dinner at Flaco’s. I don’t like quarrelling with him over the phone. While we were eating breakfast I asked him to be very careful, to come home for meals and early at night, but my warnings went in one ear and out the other. I asked María Elena if she knew anything about his activities, for I spent a good part of the day out of the house; she said he hadn’t returned since he left in the morning. Right now I have to think of the best way to confront him, try to figure out what Pericles would do in this situation.

María Elena regretted not being able to taste the cake; I also would have liked to have a piece to sweeten the wait for Betito. We both love chocolate, but María Elena collects recipes and asks me to buy ingredients for baking. A few months ago she told me she’d love to work as an apprentice a few hours a week at the Bonets’, if I could ask Montse if that were possible, but with all this turmoil, I simply haven’t had a chance. I admire her efforts to better herself. God willing, Belka, my lovely little girl, will inherit this and other virtues.

Thursday May 4

The first thing I did when I got out of bed this morning was call Carmela and wish her a happy birthday; every year since we became friends at school I’ve done the same thing: we each try to be the first person to wish the other one a happy birthday. Then, in this morning’s newspaper — the official “yellow rag” as Pericles calls it — I learned that the government announced the release of civilians who had remained imprisoned for their participation in the failed coup. I immediately started calling everybody I could think of to make sure it was true, for although my husband didn’t participate in the uprising, the fact that they were freeing the coup participants, who actually attacked the general, meant that they would also free Pericles. None of the other women in the committee knew anything; we were all quite excited, moving heaven and earth to find out what was happening. Until finally Doña Consuelo learned that it was one of the warlock’s tricks: he released those who had been arrested by mistake, those who were still in jail but hadn’t actually participated in the coup and had no record of political activity. I was so outraged I felt sick. How can he play with people’s feelings in such a despicable way?! If I didn’t despair it was thanks to the intense energy and excitement one feels in the streets, in every home, everywhere, a kind of magnetism in the air, and also thinks to the fact that María Elena brought me back to reality when she returned from the market and told me the vendors won’t open their stands tomorrow, they all say the city will wake up at a standstill, without banks or stores or hospitals or pharmacies, and of course without a market, and many people were buying emergency provisions. Mother did so for us: she went in the car with Don Leo and Juani.

Silvia’s salon was filled to overflowing, as if we were all afraid the strike would catch us with our pants down, so to speak. I waited half an hour, chatting with the other clients: rumor has it that several ministers think the general should resign, and if he doesn’t in the next few days, they will. Mingo doesn’t think they have enough guts. “They are afraid of what people will do to them if the general is toppled, so they send their wives out to spread rumors about them wanting to resign, but once they’re face-to-face with the warlock, they start shaking in their boots,” he said as we enjoyed the chocolate cake with walnuts on the front porch of Carmela and Chelón’s house in the late afternoon. He also said, jokingly, that with the bankers spearheading the strike, all the shopkeepers will join, because there’s not a single one who doesn’t owe money or need a loan, “and if the people with all the money throw themselves off a cliff, we’ll all follow because we’ll figure there’s more money down there.” It’s amazing how friends can end up resembling each other so much, because that comment could have come out of Pericles’s mouth, as I told Irmita, who was looking much more hale when she came over with Mingo this afternoon. What I’m worried about is the possibility that if the strike starts tomorrow, the authorities may decide to suspend visits to the prison on Saturday; Chelón was the one who brought that up, with some concern. God willing, that won’t happen.

Betito returned home early tonight; I thanked him for minding me and sparing me the worry. But he and his friends are going full steam ahead, according to what he tells me, they haven’t stopped working on the strike for the last two days: they have groups visiting every shop, block by block, trying to persuade the owners to close their shops tomorrow; other groups are working to persuade the bus, streetcar, and taxi drivers to join the walkout; he says a secret committee of university students is coordinating all their efforts, and he and his friends are in constant touch with them. Betito’s eyes shine as he talks, he is bursting with enthusiasm. It is obvious women my age are superfluous when there’s so much energy and youth, to the point where even Father used him today as a messenger to distribute the funds, and he lent him Don Leo and the car to make a few visits, which Betito calls “operations.” He showed me a few of the strike circulars they have distributed all over the city. I never tire of repeating to him that he should be careful.

I have prayed to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour from the bottom of my heart for the strike to be effective, for the warlock to step down without more bloodshed, for nothing to happen to Clemen, and for our family to soon be reunited. Tomorrow I will go to Mass at El Rosario Church with Doña Chayito and the other ladies. I am going to try to get some sleep because tomorrow will be a very nerve-racking day.

Friday May 5

What a day! My goodness! So many emotions, hopes, fears. The beginning of the strike has been a success! The city is paralyzed; the warlock gave a speech on the radio a while ago, at seven at night, to be precise, and denounced the strikers as “Nazi agitators” who are trying to wage “a war of nerves.” Well, he has the nerve!? He must be in deep trouble; if he weren’t, he wouldn’t have spoken on air, with that horrible voice of his, but instead would have delegated it to Don Rodolfo or some other minister, so people would see that he couldn’t care less about the strike. But that’s not what happened. How I long for Pericles at these moments, how I miss his explanations of the general’s secret thoughts and his state of mind based on the intonations of his voice over the radio.

At precisely nine o’clock this morning, María Elena, Betito, and I, all of us dressed in strict mourning, arrived at El Rosario Church. We walked there, even though a few streetcars and buses were still running, because the strategy is that nobody should use public transportation to make the drivers join the strike. The church was packed; there were groups of young people in the park and everywhere around. Expectation filled the air. We stayed near the entrance; I recognized several friends and my fellow committee members; I chatted with Angelita, Luz María, and Doña Chayito. But several minutes passed and Mass didn’t begin. We soon learned that the priest was not going to come, he had not been authorized to celebrate the Eucharist. Everybody started talking about it, outraged. Then a student leader, speaking from the atrium of the church itself, announced between cheers and applauses that the general strike and walkout had begun. Groups of young people, including Betito and his friends, fanned out around the downtown area to persuade the owners of the few shops that had opened to close them immediately. On our way home, María Elena and I saw for ourselves that the banks and the large department stores along our way were shut, as were pharmacies, the Ministry of Health offices, and dentists’ and lawyers’ offices. But many people were in the streets, and everybody seemed excited and happy, as if it were a holiday, as if we all wanted to see for ourselves that the strike was real; hours later, however, the streets had emptied out; all the circulars stressed the importance of people remaining at home.