"It's a long-barreled thirty-eight," the mayor specified.
He scrutinized the dentist. "It would be better if you said outright where it is," he told him. "We didn't come prepared to tear the house apart." Behind his gold-framed glasses the dentist's dull and narrow eyes revealed nothing.
"There's no hurry on my part," he replied in a relaxed way. "If you feel like it, you can go right on tearing it apart."
The mayor reflected. After once more examining the small room made of unplaned planks, he went over to the chair, giving sharp commands to his men. He stationed one by the street door, another at the entrance to the office, and the third by the window. When he was settled in the chair, only then unbuttoning his soaked raincoat, he felt surrounded by cold steel. He breathed in deeply of the air, rarefied by creosote, and rested his skull against the headrest, trying to control his breathing. The dentist picked some instruments up off the floor and put them in a pot to boil.
He remained with his back to the mayor, contemplating the blue flame of the alcohol lamp with the same expression that he must have had when he was alone in the office. When the water was boiling, he wrapped the handle of the pot in a piece of paper and carried it over to the chair. His way was blocked by a policeman. The dentist lowered the pot, to look at the mayor over the steam, and said:
"Order this assassin to go someplace where he won't be in the way."
On a signal from the mayor, the policeman moved away from the window in order to give free access to the chair. He pulled a chair against the wall and sat down with his legs apart, the rifle across his thighs, without relaxing his vigilance. The dentist turned on the lamp. Dazzled by the sudden light, the mayor closed his eyes and opened his mouth. The pain had stopped.
The dentist located the sick molar, using his index finger to push aside the inflamed cheek and adjusting the movable lamp with the other hand, completely insensible to the patient's anxious breathing. Then he rolled his sleeve up to the elbow and got ready to pull the tooth.
The mayor grabbed him by the wrist.
"Anesthesia," he said.
Their eyes met for the first time.
"You people kill without anesthesia," the dentist said softly.
The mayor didn't notice any effort to free itself in the hand that was holding the forceps. "Bring the vials," he said. The policeman stationed in the corner moved his rifle barrel in their direction and they both heard the sound of the rifle as it was cocked from the chair.
"Suppose there isn't any," the dentist said.
The mayor let go of his wrist. "There has to be," he replied, examining the things scattered on the floor with disconsolate interest. The dentist watched him with sympathetic attention. Then he pushed him back against the headrest and, showing signs of impatience for the first time, said:
"Don't be a fool, Lieutenant. With an abscess like that, no anesthesia will be any good."
Later, having suffered the most terrible moment of his life, the mayor relaxed the tension of his muscles, and remained in the chair exhausted as the dark designs painted by the dampness on the cardboard ceiling fastened themselves in his memory, to remain until the day he died. He heard the dentist busying himself at the washstand. He heard him putting the desk drawers in order and picking up some of the objects from the floor.
"Rovira," the mayor called. "Tell Gonzalez to come in and you two pick up the things off the floor until the place is the way you found it."
The policemen did so. The dentist picked up some cotton with his pincers, soaked it in an iron-colored liquid, and covered the hole. The mayor had a feeling of burning on the surface. After the dentist had closed his mouth he continued with his gaze on the ceiling, hanging on the sound of the policemen as they tried to reconstruct from memory the meticulous order of the office. It struck two in the belfry. A curlew, a minute behind, repeated the hour in the murmur of the drizzle. A moment later, knowing that they had finished, the mayor gave a sign indicating that his men should return to the barracks.
The dentist had remained beside the chair all the while. When the policemen had left, he took the cotton out of the gum. Then he explored the inside of the mouth with the lamp, adjusted the jaws again, and took the light away. Everything was over. In the hot little room all that remained then was that strange uneasiness known to sweepers in a theater after the last actor has left.
"Ingrate," the mayor said.
The dentist put his hands in the pockets of his robe and took a step backward to let him pass. "There were orders to level the house," the mayor went on, searching for him with his eyes behind the circle of light. "There were precise instructions to find weapons and ammunition and documents with the details of a nationwide conspiracy." He fixed his still damp eyes on the dentist and added: "I thought that I was doing the right thing by disobeying that order, but I was wrong. Things have changed now. The opposition has guarantees and everybody is living in peace, and still you go on thinking like a conspirator." The dentist dried the cushion of the chair with his sleeve and turned it over to the side that hadn't been ruined.
"Your attitude is harmful to the town," the mayor went on, pointing to the cushion, without paying any attention to the thoughtful look the dentist was giving his cheek. "Now it's up to the town government to pay for all this mess, and the street door besides. A whole lot of money, all because of your stubbornness."
"Rinse your mouth out with fenugreek water," the dentist said.
JUDGE ARCADIO consulted the dictionary at the telegraph office because his was missing a few letters. It didn't solve anything as he looked up pasquin, the word for lampoon: name of a shoemaker in Rome famous for the satires he wrote against everybody and other unimportant facts. By the same historic token, he thought, an anonymous insult placed on the door of a house could just as well be called a marforio. He wasn't entirely disappointed. During the two minutes he had spent in that consultation, for the first time in many years he had felt the comfort of a duty fulfilled.
The telegrapher saw him put the dictionary back on the shelf among the forgotten compilations of ordinances and decrees concerning the postal and telegraphic service, and cut off the transmission of a message with an energetic signal. Then he came over, shuffling the cards, ready to repeat the latest popular trick: guessing the three cards. But Judge Arcadio paid no attention to him. "I'm very busy now," he apologized, and went out into the roasting street, pursued by the confused certainty that it was only eleven o'clock and that Tuesday still had a lot of hours left for him to use up.
In his office the mayor was waiting for him with a moral problem. As a result of the last elections, the police had confiscated and destroyed the electoral documents of the opposition party. The majority of the inhabitants of the town now lacked any means of identification.
"Those people moving their houses," the mayor concluded with his arms open, "don't even know what their names are."
Judge Arcadio could understand that there was a sincere affliction behind those open arms. But the mayor's problem was simple: all he had to do was ask for the appointment of a civil registrar. The secretary simplified the solution even further:
"All that's necessary is to send for him," he said. "He was already appointed over a year ago."
The mayor remembered. Months before, when they communicated to him the appointment of a civil registrar, he'd made a long-distance phone call to ask how he should receive him, and they'd answered: "With bullets." Now the orders that came were different. He turned to the secretary with his hands in his pockets, and told him:
"Write the letter."
The clack of the typewriter produced a dynamic atmosphere in the office, which echoed in Judge Arcadio's consciousness. He found himself empty. He took a crumpled cigarette out of his shirt pocket and rolled it between the palms of his hands before lighting it. Then he threw his chair back to the limit of its springs and in that posture he was startled by the definite certainty that he was living out a minute of his life.
H
e put the phrase together before he said it:
"If I were in your place, I would also appoint a deputy of the public ministry."
Contrary to what he had hoped, the mayor didn't answer right away. He looked at his watch, but didn't see the time. He settled on the evidence that it was still a long time until lunch. When he spoke, he did so without enthusiasm: he wasn't familiar with the procedure for appointing a deputy of the public ministry.
"The deputy used to be named by the town council," Judge Arcadio explained. "Since there's no council now, the government by state of siege authorizes you to name one."
The mayor listened, while he signed the letter without reading it. Then he made an enthusiastic comment, but the secretary had an observation of an ethical nature to make concerning the procedure recommended by his superior. Judge Arcadio insisted: it was an emergency procedure under an emergency regime.
"I like the sound of it," the mayor said.
He took off his cap to fan himself and Judge Arcadio noticed the circular mark printed on his forehead. From the way in which he was fanning himself, he knew that the mayor hadn't finished thinking. He knocked the ash off his cigarette with the long, curved nail of his pinky and waited.
"Can you think of a candidate?" the mayor asked.
It was obvious that he was addressing the secretary.
"A candidate," the judge repeated, closing his eyes.
"If I were in your place, I'd name an honest man," the secretary said.
The judge caught the impertinence. "That's more than obvious," he said, and looked alternately at the two men.
"For example," the mayor said.
"I can't think of anyone right now," said the judge, thoughtful.
The mayor went to the door. "Think about it," he said. "When we get out of the mess of the floods we'll take up the mess of the deputy." The secretary sat hanging over his typewriter until he no longer heard the mayor's heels.
"He's crazy," he said then. "A year and a half ago they busted the head of the deputy with rifle butts and now he's looking for a candidate to give the job to."
Judge Arcadio leaped to his feet.
"I'm leaving," he said. "I don't want you to spoil my lunch with your horror stories."
He went out of the office. There was an ominous element in the composition of noontime. The secretary, with his sensitivity to superstition, noticed it. When he put on the padlock he felt that he was performing a forbidden act. He fled. At the door of the telegraph office he caught up with Judge Arcadio, who was interested in seeing if the card trick was in any way applicable to a game of poker. The telegrapher refused to reveal the secret. He limited himself to repeating the trick indefinitely in order to give Judge Arcadio a chance to discover the clue. The secretary also observed the maneuver. Finally he reached a conclusion. Judge Arcadio, on the other hand, didn't even look at the three cards. He knew that they were the same ones he'd picked at random and that the telegrapher was giving them back to him without having seen them.
"It's a matter of magic," the telegrapher said.
Judge Arcadio was only thinking then of the chore of crossing the street. When he resigned himself to walking, he grabbed the secretary by the arm and obliged him to dive with him into the melted-glass atmosphere. They emerged onto the shaded sidewalk. Then the secretary explained to him the key to the trick. It was so simple that Judge Arcadio felt offended.
They walked in silence for a spell.
"Naturally," the judge said suddenly with a gratuitous rancor, "you didn't check the information out."
The secretary hesitated for an instant, searching for the meaning of the sentence.
"It's very hard," he finally said. "Most of the lampoons are torn down before dawn."
"That's another trick I don't understand," Judge Arcadio said. "I'd never lose any sleep over a lampoon that nobody's read."
"That's just it," the secretary said, stopping because he'd reached his house. "It isn't the lampoons that won't let people sleep; it's fear of the lampoons."
In spite of its being incomplete, Judge Arcadio wanted to know what information the secretary had gathered. He enumerated the cases, with names and dates: eleven in seven days. There was no connection among the eleven names. Those who'd seen the lampoons agreed that they'd been written with a brush in blue ink and in printed letters, with capitals and small letters mixed up as if written by a child. The spelling was so absurd that the mistakes looked deliberate. They revealed no secrets: there was nothing said in them that hadn't been in the public domain for some time. He'd made all the conjectures that were possible when Moises the Syrian called to him from his shop.
"Have you got a peso?"
Judge Arcadio didn't understand. But he turned his pockets inside out: twenty-five centavos and an American coin that he'd kept as a good luck charm ever since his university days. Moises the Syrian took the twenty-five centavos.
"Take whatever you want and pay me whenever you want to," he said. He made the coins tinkle in the empty cash drawer. "I don't want twelve o'clock to strike on me without having heard God's name."
So at the stroke of twelve Judge Arcadio entered his house laden with gifts for his wife. He sat on the bed to change his shoes while she wrapped up her body in a swathe of printed silk. She pictured her appearance in the new dress after the birth. She gave her husband a kiss on the nose. He tried to avoid her, but she fell on top of him across the bed. They remained motionless. Judge Arcadio ran his hand over her back, feeling the warmth of the voluminous belly, even as he perceived the palpitation of her kidneys.
She raised her head. Murmured with her teeth tight:
"Wait and I'll go close the door."
The mayor waited until the last house was set up. In twenty hours they'd built a whole street, wide and bare, which ended abruptly at the cemetery wall. After helping place the furniture, working shoulder to shoulder with the owners, the mayor, smothering, entered the nearest kitchen. Soup was boiling on a stove improvised from stones on the ground. He took the lid off the clay pot and breathed in the vapor for a moment. From across the stove a thin woman with large, peaceful eyes was observing him silently.
"Lunchtime," the mayor said.
The woman didn't answer. Without being invited, the mayor served himself a plate of soup. Then the woman went into the bedroom to get a chair and put it by the table for the mayor to sit on. While he was having his soup, he examined the yard with a kind of reverent terror. Yesterday it had been a barren vacant lot. Now there was clothing hung to dry and two pigs were wallowing in the mud.
"You can even plant something," he said.
Without raising her head, the woman answered: "The pigs will eat it." Then, in the same plate, she served a piece of stewed meat, two slices of cassava, and half a plantain and took it to the table. In an obvious way, into that act of generosity she put all the indifference she was capable of. The mayor, smiling, sought the woman's eyes with his.
"There's enough for all," he said.
"May God give you indigestion," the woman said without looking at him.
He let the bad wish pass. He dedicated himself entirely to his lunch, not concerned with the stream of sweat pouring down his neck. When he had finished, the woman took the empty plate, still not looking at him.
"How long are you people going to go on like this?" the mayor asked.
The woman spoke without changing her apathetic expression.
"Until you people bring the dead you killed back to life."
"It's different now," the mayor explained. "The new government is concerned with the well-being of its citizens. You people, on the other hand--"
The woman interrupted him.
"You're the same people with the same--"
"A district like this, built in twenty-four hours, was something you never saw before," the mayor insisted. "We're trying to build a decent town."
The woman took the clean clothes off the line and carried them into the bedroom. The mayor followed her w
ith his eyes until he heard the answer:
"This was a decent town before you people came."
He didn't wait for any coffee. "Ingrates," he said. "We're giving you land and you still complain." The woman didn't answer. But when the mayor crossed the kitchen on his way to the street, she muttered, leaning over the stove:
"It'll be worse here. But we'll remember you people from the dead out back there."
The mayor tried to sleep a siesta while the launches were arriving. But he couldn't fight the heat. The swelling on his cheek had begun to subside. Still, he didn't feel well. He followed the imperceptible course of the river for two hours, listening to the buzz of a harvest fly inside the room. He didn't think about anything.
When he heard the motors of the launches he got undressed, dried his sweat with a towel, and changed his uniform. Then he hunted for the harvest fly, grabbed it between his thumb and forefinger, and went into the street. Out of the crowd waiting for the launches came a clean, well-dressed child who cut off his path with a plastic submachine gun. The mayor gave him the harvest fly.
A moment later, sitting in Moises the Syrian's store, he watched the docking maneuvers of the launches. The port had been boiling for ten minutes. The mayor felt a heaviness in his stomach and a touch of headache, and he remembered the woman's bad wishes. Then he calmed down and watched the passengers coming down the wooden gangplank, stretching their muscles after eight hours of immobility.
"The same mess," he said.
Moises the Syrian brought him to the realization of something new: a circus was coming. The mayor noticed that it was true, even though he couldn't say why. Maybe because of the poles and colored cloth all piled up on the roof of the launch, and because of two women completely alike wrapped in identical flowered dresses, like a single person repeated.
"At least a circus is coming," he murmured.
Moises the Syrian talked about wild animals and jugglers. But the mayor thought about the circus in a different way. With his legs stretched out, he looked at the tips of his boots.