by R. M. Koster
6
In the end he decided to meet the country halfway, which accounts for my being born in the palace. Alejo feared the moralistas might harm my mother if he left her at Uncle Erasmo’s, and my mother, who was nervous enough all by herself, panicked at the shooting and dropped me a week ahead of time.
An easy birth, according to Edilma. Squirted into the world just before midnight in a maid’s room at the back of the building. Alejo came in, gun in hand, as I came out, peered at my groin, thanked Doña Angustias for a second son, found the sack of bullets he’d been looking for, and went back to the action.
Edilma has always maintained that I was not the least frightened by my father’s warlike aspect or the fusillade without. Used to torment my brother Alfonso with it.
“Three years younger and more than a man Kiki didn’t cry the night the moralistas almost murdered us.”
Poor Alfonso got left in Remedios. He must have wished many times Alejo had made his attempt earlier.
As it was it was premature, but he could wait no longer. He was almost exactly Napoleon’s age on the eighteenth of Brumaire and had, besides, discovered amazing correspondences between his own horoscope and that of Mussolini. More, he had been listening so long and so acutely to the discontented rumblings of his own brain that he believed the whole country in turmoil. He led his group down to the capital to seize power.
My mother was then extremely pregnant with me, and she went along to deliver in the hospital. Actually she was supposed to be Alejo’s cover for making the trip, though he didn’t need one. No one paid any attention to his movements, which was why he wanted power in the first place, wasn’t it? In those days you went by road to Otán, then by narrow-gauge train to Puerto Ospino, then by boat, so that if the government had cared at all about Acción Dinámica, they would have been well-prepared for the putsch. Only one official in fact remarked the conspirators’ arrival, Licentiate Erasmo Sancudo, Vice Minister of justice. He knew his brother would scarcely tramp all the way to Ciudad Tinieblas just for a pregnant wife—was there not a doctor in Angostura, as well as several practiced midwives?—and all his lunatic disciples were in the capital—for the christening, no doubt—along with a score of their field hands, who never went anywhere unmacheted. Uncle Erasmo winked at Alejo and offered to do what he could, consistent, of course, with the delicacy of his position.
There is a story which illustrates Uncle Erasmo’s poise in delicate positions. When he was first practicing law, a bank clerk came to him with a sad but familiar tale. He had embezzled two thousand inchados and spent them on girls and lost them at the cockfights. Uncle Erasmo consented to accept him as a client on condition that he do exactly as told, then told him to take four thousand more and bring the money to his office. Uncle Erasmo then had coffee with the manager of the bank and after commenting on the weather, the political scene, and the price of bananas, got around to mentioning a client of his who had embezzled six thousand sound blue inchados from the manager’s bank. The fellow had been prodigal—contempt for husbandry is the gravest defect of our people, don’t you agree, Señor Gerente?—but was able to make immediate restitution of half and would gladly pay the rest back out of his salary if the bank agreed not to prosecute. If not, he was resolved to flee the country —you must surely be aware, Señor Gerente, that professional ethics forbid me most sternly from revealing a client’s name—in which case his poor mother—a saint, Señor Gerente, who takes communion every morning and never misses a funeral—would never see him again, or the bank its money. The manager accepted, the lad was saved, and the odd thousand stayed in Uncle Erasmo’s safe. So it is not strange that Alejo told his brother nothing of Acción Dinámica’s intentions—one cannot say plans, for all anyone, Alejo included, knew was that they were going to take power; no one had any idea how—until Uncle Erasmo guessed.
The first thing Uncle Erasmo could delicately do was take Alejo to a reception given by President Moral on the eve of the four hundred and fifteenth anniversary of the discovery of Tinieblas. We may imagine a slick black snake of Pierce Arrows and Packards threaded through the porte-cochère and looped about the statue of Simón Mocoso in the little park opposite, head and tail dangling through narrow streets to the Plaza Cervantes while the rain leaps upward from the pavement and chauffeurs swab the insides of windshields with balls of newspaper. In the open patio a bronze faun (destined to become, eleven years later, a target for BB’s aimed from the gallery) pisses superfluously into the pool installed by General Mojón to nest a quartet of piranhas (to whom he fed cats and puppy dogs) and now occupied by vegetarian goldfish, but only first-time guests pause to admire his tassel on their way to the ballroom. Let us forego the commonplace device of following Alejo down the receiving line toward an ironic handshake with President Moral, sashed in purple, green, and yellow and crucified with the Order of Palmiro Inchado de los Huevos, in favor of a portrait in the manner of Velázquez’s Meninas. An ignored Alejo regards himself in a full-length mirror. In the foreground we see his straight shoulders and the seal-sleek back of his brilliantined head; at middle distance his reflection from widow’s peak to wasp waist, eyes stern, thin lips firm under circumflex mustache as he paints an imaginary sash across his breast; and over his shoulder in the background a frieze of guests: ladies in silk print dresses of ankle length—hemlines have plummeted along with stock averages and coffee futures—men in white flannels cut very full in the trousers, the papal nuncio with a thick gold chain suspending a pearled crucifix over his cassock, an American naval officer from the Reservation in a high tight collar like Lieutenant Pinkerton’s, and, at the far left, emerging from the mirror’s rococo frame, the open carp’s mouth and boneless chin of Abúndio Moral.
Perhaps one or two of the more lascivious ladies wondered who was the slim, intense young man who came in with Erasmo Sancudo, but certainly no one else paid Alejo any mind, so while the three violins, cello, and bass that Moral’s protocol secretary had borrowed from the officers’ club at Fort Shafter sawed out selections from a four-year-old Madrid zarzuela, he slunk off into an empty suite of rooms and unlocked the windows. Then he left the palace and went—on foot, for the rain had stopped and the clouds thinned off enough to give snapshots of a rising full moon—to Uncle Erasmo’s, where he changed to black clothes and picked up his pistol, and then to the town house of the Oruga family, where his pack was gathering. Two hours before dawn members of Acción Dinámica adfenestrated themselves into the palace. They shot one guard and disarmed the three others while Alejandro Sancudo bounded up the marble staircase, kicked in the door of the presidential bedroom, pointed his pistol at Abúndio Moral, whose wife had pulled the sheet up over her head, and said: “You have served the fatherland, now go home.”
Moral left, but came back at dusk with a number of his cronies. They got as far as Simón Mocoso’s statue when the shooting started. Meanwhile both he and Alejo had called on the people to rally. In defense of the constitution or the revolution, depending on whose manifesto one read. These were printed in EXTRA! editions—it was a national holiday—of newspapers now defunct, Moral’s in one sheet, Alejo’s in another, and distributed around noon by boys on bicycles. The capital’s two radio stations were gagged by what was later called a mechanical breakdown in the steam turbine of the Compañía Tinieblina de Electricidad y Gas (a subsidiary of the Yankee and Celestial Energy Corporation), whose legal counsel, the firm of Anguila, Anguila, y Sancudo, had recently advised appealing a tax increase levied by the Moral Administration. Nor did the telephones, which were operated by the same company, work very well that day, and this may have contributed to Moral’s difficulties in recruiting followers for a counter-coup. He had, in the first place, delayed organizing this stroke, having been assured by his Vice Minister of justice that the Civil Guard would take all necessary steps. Don Abúndio had no idea until he read Alejo’s proclamation of a new era in Tinieblan history who it was who had thrown him out of bed, and office, and by that time my mothe
r and Edilma had been brought over to the palace and Uncle Erasmo had had coffee in the Civil Guard barracks with Colonel Miltíades Garrote. After lamenting the shameful fact that while the gringos had three generals and an admiral in the Reservation, the ranking officer in Tinieblas was only a colonel, Uncle Erasmo reviewed the carcers of the great captains of history, all of whom, it seemed, shared a concern for the welfare of their men, never allowing them to be uselessly slaughtered in unimportant skirmishes but rather holding them in concentrated readiness for the decisive blow. Colonel Garrote was persuaded that no steps were necessary at the moment; the Civil Guard remained in its barracks with the gates locked.
November 28–29, 1930, was amateur night at the palace. The moralistas blazed away from the park; the remedistas replied from the windows. At eleven-fifty three moralistas were riddled in a rush on the gate, the volley spurring my mother to her final contractions. Of the remedistas Santiago Pájaro was killed and Gaspar Oruga wounded in what he called the upper thigh and everyone else the buttock. A ricochet no doubt, for all the remedistas were men of honor. There were certain intranquilities in other parts of the city, particularly a cantina combat between hands from Enrique Marañon’s coffee plantation and a group of stevedores armed with bailing hooks, but the general uprising Moral had called for never took place, while the gringos in the Reservation stood neighborly aside because Hoover had already instituted the policy that Roosevelt would name and take all the credit for.
Around eight the next morning, when it was clear that the people would rally to neither group, Uncle Erasmo went to the palace and arranged a truce. First he promised Moral that he would get his crazy brother out of the palace; then he spoke to Alejo. Moral, he said, had forfeited all right to the presidency when he left his post, where he might have stayed and died like a man, but Alejo’s claim, which was proportional to his supply of ammunition, was weak. Governments ought to enjoy a little legitimacy or a lot of force, both if possible. Couldn’t Alejo content himself with having ousted Moral and yield to Efraín Anguila Ahumada, who was constitutional Vice President (and Uncle Erasmo’s brother-in-law and partner)? As men had died, no one could call the coup frivolous. People would say that Alejo was a brave man who had deposed a corrupt and retrograde despot. As for Acción Dinámica’s program, couldn’t he, Erasmo, expect to be a prominent member of the new regime, and wouldn’t he see to it that the spirit of the revolution did not perish?
Powerful logic, sustained by Doña Angustias’ pleas and the arrival of Garrote with a company of guards and Anguila himself, who had Garrote’s general’s stars in his pocket, along with a memo to have bars installed on all the palace windows. The remedistas retired in good order, with Alejo still brandishing his pistol, and little Kiki, traveling in Edilma’s arms, the last man out.
7
Jaime, who carries me now, comes for me at six. He shuts the door softly and stands squinting in the groom. Sees my eyes open and pads over, smiling.
“Good morning, Kiki.”
I blink to acknowledge, like a warship at sea.
He switches off the air conditioner and peels back the bedclothes from where they have lain all night just under my chin. Kiki’s no bed-making problem, except when he makes wee-wee. Don’t do it often, and I’m condomed each night to be fail-safe. Like stuffing soft tripe into a sausage skin, and the item’s furnished dildowise with latex thongs that tie about my hips. I like Elena or Marta to perform this sacrament, for old time’s sake. Not that I was ever partial to rubberized romance, but both ladies were—and no doubt still are—experts with the stick shift, each in her own style.
Short flight to the toilet in Jamie’s knotty arms. He holds my shoulder so I won’t fall off. Wipes me.
Edilma makes cooing sounds around infants. Marta would be disgusted, and might even show it. Elena, who plays every role with grace, has won international raves in the somewhat Disneyfied casting of mother hen to my broken-winged capon, but I don’t give her the bathroom scenes, which would cost the part much of its subtlety and weaken the memory of an earlier opus when I was cock of the walk. Jaime has to be around to fly me back and forth, and I feel no shame with him. Didn’t I scoop vomit from your mouth, Jaime, when you almost drowned at La Yegua? You went wading after my son Mito’s toy boat, stepped in over your head, and went down like a rock. I was hammocking on the terrace after a matinee row with his mother Olga—lucky for you we weren’t inside screwing things back together—and dolphined in after you with all my clothes on. Had to dive twice before I found where the current had filed you between two boulders. Pulled you off the bottom by your black hair, and when I asked you later if you’d been scared, you said, “No, Kiki. I knew you’d save me.”
8
Brown toes splayed on the tiles as he derricks me from pot to wheelchair. Our indians never wear shoes when they can help it, and I let Jaime dress as he pleases around the house. Loose shirt and trousers tied at the waist, revolver tucked in over his appendix. Used to carry it only in the street, but since my assassination it never leaves him.
Smith & Wesson .38 Special, nickel-plated with a six-inch barrel, the very weapon we’ll mate with Ñato unless I change my plan. A dealer in Alexandria, Virginia, gave it to me as a sample. It came in a a flat brown cardboard box with a cleaning rod and a wire brush and a scrolled guarantee which I suppose one’s heirs could forward to the factory with their reimbursement claim if, say, the firing pin broke at a touchy moment. Too fancy for my customers, but I took it anyway, thinking of you, Jaime. And when I returned to Tinieblas, we went to La Yegua. You drove the Cranston with me beside you and Olga in the back with Edilma and the kids, and the revolver in my briefcase though no one knew it.
That was in 1957, the year before you almost drowned, just after I’d bought the ranch. Eighty thousand dollars—he wouldn’t take inchados—into my father’s Panamanian bank. It was Uncle Erasmo who showed him how he could have a hank in a steel filing box in the closet of an accountant in Panama City: officers, shareholders, assets and liabilities, all in that little box, and no one but the accountant to know who owned it. I paid without a qualm, for there’d been a lot of target practice in Costaguana.
When I took the gun out, Olga got up from the hammock and went inside and asked Edilma where she’d put the aspirin. Mito asked if it was real, and I smiled yes and said he could hold it. He touched the cylinder and backed away—Olga’s child—and I mussed his hair and sent him for you. We left kids on the terrace and walked down toward the river, you rubbing your palms on the seat of your pants, I dropping shells into the cylinder. You said I ought to fire first, and I laughed, thinking of feudal barons and droit de seigneur.
Olga had ordered a railing put on the terrace, and the carpenter had left a scrap of two-by-four on the grass. I flung it out into the river, thirty yards at least, a little upstream of where we were standing, and when it bobbed up and the current took it, I put my left hand in my pocket and thumbed back the hammer and held and squeezed once and the wood jumped like a tarpon.
Olguita squealed—she was only three—squealed with glee, “You killed it, Daddy! You killed the stick!” and Mito kept his hands over his ears even while we were walking back.
Rust at the butt where you’ve filed off the number; the nickel’s worn where it rubs your skin. But I taught you to keep the bore clean and the action supple, and I know you’ll sweep up my smashed life with it if I ask you to.
9
Jaime bastes me with lather from the badger brush, scrapes with my safety razor. His own flat mahogany face has never needed shaving, but he’s grown quite expert using mine. He suspected the barber’s blade at my throat and would lurk in the doorway, ready to blast at the first knick. Barber reluctant to visit me, and Jaime said he’d learned from watching.
Better with the razor than with comb or toothbrush; better with these than at dressing me. I’d rather Edilma did it, but it’s hard to tell him now. Angry when I see my legs now, thin and white like a notary’s, and J
aime lifts first one, then the other, fumbling with my shorts and trousers.
“On the left side, cretin!” grinding mashed words through fury. As if it matters now where he stuffs those dried prunes! Worthless, mirthless, helpless cripple! Can’t put on his own pants. Can’t wipe his own bung. Wasted, white, flaccid! Why isn’t he dead?
My head flip-flops like a gaffed tuna, acid foam around my teeth. You can get more exciting tantrums from a healthy baby, but it impresses Jaime, who frowns contritely.
“Sorry, Kiki.”
“Nothing.” Sane again, I make my smile. “Hard life, eh, brother?” Sounds like a pig rooting.
Jaime nods.
“Harder for El Ñato when we catch him.”
Jaime nods fiercely, showing teeth. “Yes, Kiki. Harder for him,” and he lifts the mannequin back into the chair to dress its torso.
Philippine shirt of yellow-white silk, Elena’s idea and very practical. Long sleeves for waxy forearms, french cuffs for shriveled wrists, closed collar to hide the scars. No tie needed for embroidered front, and tailored to hang outside the trousers in lieu of a jacket. Though in this case it doesn’t hang. Draped neatly in the dummy’s lap, display cloth for pink plastic fingers.
Jaime rolls me through the house to the front balcony, then slinks off to breakfast in the kitchen. The bay is a five-mile horseshoe with my house in the middle, right prong the naval docks in the Reservation, left prong the old city with the sunshine-bouncing gold roof of the President’s Palace. A few early cars zip along Avenida de la Bahiá. Sun still tame, affectionate like a lion cub who’ll grow up to maul you. Breeze enough to ruffle the bay and one cloud, size of a marshmallow, hung out over the departing shrimp fleet.
Pelicans wheel beyond the sea wall. Tuck wings and plummet. Surface to brood over bulged beaks. Thrash back into the air. Boomtime, thanks to the Humboldt Current. Six weeks till April brings deep water for the fish, rain for parched fields, elections for Alejo, a lien on Ñato for Jaime and me.
