"If they don't, then I'll make them…"
"We got where we are with the chief, and we'll go down with the chief."
"He's done for. The new boss has him all boxed in."
"So what are you going to do?"
"Put in an appearance with the new guy."
"I'd sooner let' em cut off my ears. Are we men or what?"
"What do you mean?"
"There are lots of ways to do things."
"Maybe, but I don't see any easy way out of this one."
"Right. But you just can't keep saying no to everything."
"I'm not saying no, I'm not saying anything."
"Now it sounds like yes and no at the same time…"
"What I say is that we go down like men, with one or the other…"
"Wake up, General, sir, it's daybreak."
"Well?"
"Well…that's how I see it. Everybody's got his work cut out for him."
"Well, who knows…"
"I think I do."
"So you really think our chief's not going anywhere?"
"That's what I think, my opinion."
"Why do you think so?"
"I don't know. It's just how I feel."
"And last but not least, what about you?"
"I'm starting to think the same thing…"
"Okay, but when the time comes, just forget we ever had this little talk."
"Who's going to remember, when we didn't say anything?"
"I'm just saying, just in case."
"Just in case, that's what it's all about."
"Shut up, Saturno. Bring us something to drink, go on."
"Just in case, monsieur."
"So we're not going to stick together on this one?"
"Sure we'll stick together, but each guy's got to figure it out for himself."
"The answer's always the same; it's just how you get to it that's different."
"That's it."
"General Jiménez, wouldn't you like something to eat?"
"Everybody's got his story straight, right?"
"Sure, but if somebody squeals…"
"Where do you get that stuff, man? We're all pals here."
"Yeah, sure, but then somebody starts thinking about his old gray-haired mama, and then he gets ideas."
"Just in case, as Saturno says…"
"Just in fucking case, Colonel Gavilán."
"Just one guy starts thinking…"
"One guy starts thinking for himself, and that's it."
"Yeah, but a guy might want to save his skin, right?"
"Skin, yeah, but his honor, too, Congressman, sir."
"His honor, too. Right you are, General."
"So…"
"This little meeting never happened."
"Never, never, never."
"But do you think the chief's done for?"
"Which chief, the old one or the new one?"
"The old one, the old one."
Chicago, Chicago, that toddlin' town: Saturno takes the needle off the record and claps her hands. "Girls, girls, line up over here…" while he got in the carriage and pulled back the curtains, laughing, and only saw the girls out of the corner of his eyes, dark, but powdered and creamed, with beauty marks drawn on their cheeks, their breasts, next to their lips, their velvet or patent-leather slippers, their short skirts, blue eyelids, and the hand of the bouncer, also powdered: "A little something for me, sir?"
This business was going to turn out fine, he knew it, rubbing his belly with his right hand, stopping in the little garden in front of the whorehouse to breathe in the dew on the lawn, the coolness of the water in its spring of muddy velvet. By now, General Jiménez would have taken off his blue glasses and would be rubbing his dry eyelids, the dry skin flaking off from his conjunctivitis and making his beard snowy. He would be asking for someone to help get his boots off, someone take off his boots, please, because he was tired and because he was accustomed to having someone take off his boots, and everyone would laugh because the general would take advantage of the position the girl was in to lift up her skirt and show her small, round, dark ass covered with lilac silk. The others would rather see the rare spectacle of those eyes that were always hidden, open for once like big, insipid oysters-and all of them, the friends, the brothers, the pals, would stretch out their arms and have their jackets taken off by Saturno's young acolytes, who would be buzzing like bees around the ones in army uniforms, as if they had no idea what might be underneath the uniform, the buttons emblazoned with the eagle and serpent, the gold oak clusters. He'd seen them fuss like that, damp, just barely out of the cocoon, their mestizo arms waving powder puffs in the air, powdering the heads of the friends, brothers, pals leaning back on the beds with their legs spread, their shirts stained with cognac, their temples dripping and their hands dry, while the rhythm of the Charleston filtered through, while the girls undressed them slowly, kissing every part they uncovered, squealing when the men stretched out their fingers. He looked at his fingernails with their white tips; white fingertips were supposedly proof of telling lies, and the half-moon on his thumb, and a dog barked near him. He turned up the lapels of his jacket and walked toward his house, though he'd prefer to go to the other place and sleep in the arms of those powdered bodies and release the acid that had his nerves on edge, that forced him to stand there with eyes open, gazing needlessly at those rows of low gray houses surrounded by balconies decked out with porcelain and glass flowerpots, rows of dry, dusty palm trees on the avenue, needlessly smelling the leftover smell of chillied corn and vinegar dressing.
He ran his hand over his rough beard. He picked through his ring of uncomfortable keys. She would be down there right now-she who went up and down the carpeted stairs without making a sound, who was always frightened to see him walk in. "Oh! What a fright you gave me. I didn't expect you. No, I didn't expect you to be back so soon. I swear I didn't expect you to be back so soon." And he wondered why she went through this act of complicity just to throw his guilt in his face. But complicity and guilt were, at least, words, and their encounters, the attraction that repelled before it began to move them, the rejection, which at times drew them together, were not expressed in words, neither before being born nor after being consummated, because both acts were identical. Once, in the darkness, their fingers touched on the banister, and she squeezed his hand and he lit the lamp so she wouldn't trip, because he didn't know that she was going down the stairs while he was going up, but her face did not reflect the feeling of her hand, and she put out the lamp, and he wanted to call that perversity, but that wasn't the right word for it because habit cannot be perverse, unless it stops being premeditated and exceptional. He knew a soft object, wrapped in silk and linen sheets, an object to be touched because the bedroom lamps were never burning during those moments: only in that moment on the stairs, when she neither hid nor masked her face. It happened only once, which was not necessary to remember but nevertheless wrenched his stomach with a bittersweet desire to repeat it. He thought about it and felt it after it had recurred, when it was repeated that very dawn, and the same hand touched his, this time on the handrail that led to the cellar, although this time no lamp was lit and she merely asked him: "What are you looking for here?" before she recovered herself and repeated in an even tone, "Good heavens, what a fright! I didn't expect you. I swear I didn't expect you so early"-an even tone, with no mockery and he could only breathe in that almost fleshly smell, that smell with words, with their own musical cadence.
He opened the pantry door and at first could not make him out, because he, too, seemed made of incense. She took the sleeve of her secret guest, who was trying to hide the folds of his cassock between his legs and diffuse the sacred smell by waving his arms, before he realized how useless it all was-her protection, his black gesticulations-and lowered his head in an imitative sign of consummation which must have comforted him and assured him that he was carrying out, for his own satisfaction, if not for that of the witnesses who were in fact looking not at him but at each other, the time-honored motions of resignation. He desired, requested that the man who had just walked in look at him, recognize him. Out of the corner of his eye, the priest saw that the man could not tear his eyes away from the woman, nor could she tear hers from him, no matter how she embraced and shielded the minister of the Lord. For his part, he could feel a spasm in his gallbladder, in the yellowness of his eyes and tongue the promise of a terror which, when the moment came-the next moment, because there would be no other-he would not know how to hide. All he had left, thought the priest, was this moment to accept destiny, but in this moment there were no witnesses. That green-eyed man was asking: he was asking her to ask, to dare to ask, to take a chance on the yes or no of chance, and she could not answer; she could no longer answer. The priest imagined that on another day, in sacrificing this possibility of answering or asking, she had sacrificed, from that day on, this life, the priest's life. The candles highlighted the opacity of his skin, matter that withstands transparency and brilliance; the candles created a black twin for the priest out of the whiteness of his face, neck, and arms. He waited to be asked. He saw the contraction of that neck he longed to kiss. The priest sighed: she would not beg, and all that was left to him, standing before this man with green eyes, was a moment to act out his resignation, because tomorrow he would not be able, it would doubtless be impossible, tomorrow resignation would forget his name and would be named viscera and viscera do not know the words of God.