The House of the Spirits (45 page)

“Did you two know each other?” Miguel asked in surprise.

“Yes, a long time ago,” Jaime replied.

He felt it would be useless to discuss the past and that Alba and Miguel were too young to understand the sense of irreparable loss he was feeling at that moment. With a single brushstroke the image of the gypsy girl he had treasured all those years had been erased, the only love in his solitary fate. He helped Miguel lay the woman on the sofa she used as a bed and put a pillow under her head. Amanda held her robe with both hands, weakly trying to protect herself and mumbling incoherently. She was shaken by a series of convulsions and panted like a tired dog. Alba watched in horror. Only when Amanda was lying still, with her eyes closed, did she recognize the woman who smiled in the little photograph Miguel always carried in his wallet. Jaime spoke to her in a voice unfamiliar to Alba and gradually managed to calm her. He caressed her with the tender, fatherly touch he sometimes used with animals, until the woman finally relaxed and allowed him to roll up the sleeves of her old Chinese robe, revealing her skeletal arms. Alba saw that they were covered with thousands of tiny scars, bruises, and holes, some of which were infected and full of pus. Then he uncovered her legs: her thighs were also tortured. Jaime looked at her sadly, comprehending in that moment the abandon, the years of poverty, the frustrated loves, and the terrible road this woman had traveled before reaching the point of desperation where they now found her. He remembered her as she had been in her youth, when she had dazzled him with the flutter of her hair, the rattle of her trinkets, her bell-like laughter, and her eagerness to embrace outlandish ideas and pursue her dreams. He cursed himself for having let her go and for all the time they both had lost.

“She's got to be hospitalized. Only a detoxification program can save her now,” he said. “She's going to go through hell.”

— TWELVE —

THE CONSPIRACY

J
ust as the Candidate had predicted, the Socialists, in alliance with the other parties of the left, won the Presidential election. The balloting proceeded without incident on a shining September morning. Those who had always won, accustomed to being in power since time immemorial even though their strength had greatly waned in recent years, spent the weeks before the elections preparing for their triumph. Liquor stores sold out their stock, marketplaces sold their last fresh fish, and bakeries worked double shifts to meet the demand for cakes and pastries. In the High District there was no alarm at the first partial returns from the provinces, which favored the left, because everyone knew that it was the votes from the capital that would be decisive. Senator Trueba followed the returns from his party headquarters, perfectly relaxed and good-humored, laughing disdainfully when any of his men showed signs of nervousness at the unmistakable advance of the opposition candidate. In anticipation of victory, he had broken his strict mourning and placed a red rose in the buttonhole of his lapel. When he was interviewed on television, the entire country heard him say, “We who have always won will win again,” and then he invited everyone to join him in a toast to “the defenders of democracy.”

In the big house on the corner, Blanca, Alba, and the servants were sitting in front of the television, sipping tea and eating toast. They were intently following the election returns, jotting down the results as they were announced, when they saw Trueba on the screen, looking older and more stubborn than ever.

“He's going to have a fit,” Alba said. “Because this time the other side is going to win.”

Soon it was evident to everyone that only a miracle would alter the results, which were growing clearer throughout the day. In the white, blue, and yellow houses of the High District, venetian blinds were lowered, doors were bolted, and the flags and portraits of their candidate, which people had already hung from balconies, were hurriedly pulled inside. Meanwhile, in the shantytowns and working-class neighborhoods whole families—parents, children, and grandparents—took to the streets in their Sunday best, gaily making their way toward the center of the city. They carried portable radios to follow the latest returns. In the High District, a few students, afire with idealism, made faces at their relatives huddled before the television screen with grim expressions and went out to join the procession. Marching in orderly columns, their clenched fists raised, workers began to arrive from the industrial belt on the outskirts of the city, singing campaign songs. They converged in the center of the city, shouting in a single voice that the people united would never be defeated. They took out white handkerchiefs and waited. At midnight it was announced that the left had won. In the twinkling of an eye, the scattered groups filled out, swelled, and lengthened, and the streets filled with euphoric people jumping up and down and shouting and hugging each other and laughing. They lit torches, and the jumble of voices and dancing in the streets became a disciplined, jubilant procession that advanced toward the well-tended avenues of the bourgeoisie, creating the unaccustomed spectacle of ordinary citizens—factory workers in their heavy work shoes, women with babies in their arms, students in shirtsleeves—calmly marching through the private, expensive neighborhood where they had rarely ventured before, and in which they were complete foreigners. The noise of their songs, the sound of their footsteps, and the glow of their torches penetrated the shuttered, silent houses where those who believed their own prophecies of terror trembled in fear, expecting at any moment to be cut to pieces by the masses or, if they were lucky, to be stripped of their possessions and packed off to Siberia. But no roaring crowd forced their doors or trampled their flowerbeds. People surged forward without so much as touching the luxury cars that lined the streets—pouring into and out of squares and parks they had never entered in their lives and stopping to marvel at the shopwindows, which sparkled as if it were Christmas and in which were displayed objects they did not even know how to use—and continued peacefully on their way. When the columns passed in front of her house, Alba ran out and joined them, singing at the top of her voice. The people marched all night, beside themselves with joy. Inside the mansions of the rich, the bottles of champagne remained unopened, lobsters languished on their silver trays, and pastries swarmed with flies.

At daybreak, in the crowd that was finally beginning to disperse, Alba glimpsed the unmistakable figure of Miguel shouting and waving a flag. She pushed her way toward him, calling his name in vain, because he could not hear her in the confusion. When she was standing in front of him and he finally saw her, he passed the flag to the person next to him and threw his arms around her, lifting her off the ground. They were both exhausted, and while they kissed, they wept with joy.

“I told you we'd win, Miguel!” Alba said, laughing.

“We've won, but now we'll have to defend our victory,” he replied.

The next day, the same people who had spent the night in frightened vigil in their houses poured out onto the streets like a crazed avalanche to storm the banks, demanding their money. Anyone who had anything of value decided to keep it under the mattress or send it overseas. Within twenty-four hours, property values had been halved and every available flight out of the country was booked in the hysteria to escape before the Russians came and strung barbed wire along the borders. The people who had marched in triumph went to watch the bourgeoisie standing in line and fighting to get through the doors of the banks, and roared with laughter. In a few hours the country had split into two irreconcilable groups, a division that began to spread within every family in the land.

Senator Trueba spent the night in his party headquarters, forcibly restrained by his followers, who were convinced that if he went outside the crowd would recognize him and immediately hang him from the first lamppost they could find. Trueba was more surprised than angry. He could not believe what was happening, even though he had been singing the same old song for years about how the country was crawling with Marxists. But he was not depressed; far from it. In his old fighter's heart fluttered a sense of elation he had not felt for years.

“It's one thing to win an election and quite another to be President,” he remarked mysteriously to his teary coreligionists.

The idea of eliminating the new President, however, was not yet on anybody's mind, for his enemies were sure they would put an end to him through the same legal channels that had carried him to triumph. That was what Esteban Trueba was thinking. The next day, when it was clear that there was no need to fear the festive crowds, he left his refuge and headed to a country house on the outskirts of the city, where a secret lunch was held. There he met with other politicians, a group of military men, and gringos sent by their intelligence service to map a strategy for bringing down the new government: economic destabilization, as they called their sabotage.

It was an enormous colonial-style house surrounded by a flagstone patio. When Senator Trueba arrived, there were already several cars parked in front of it. He was received effusively, because he was one of the undisputed leaders of the right and because, having prepared for what might happen, he had made the necessary contacts months in advance. After the meal—cold fish with avocado sauce, roast suckling pig in brandy, and chocolate mousse—they dismissed the waiters and bolted the doors to the dining room. There they sketched out the main lines of their strategy. When they were finished, they stood and made a toast to the fatherland. Everyone, except the foreigners, was willing to risk half his personal fortune in the endeavor, but only old Trueba was also willing to give his life.

“We won't give him any peace, not even for a minute. He'll have to resign,” he concluded firmly.

“And if that doesn't work, Senator, we have this,” said General Hurtado, placing his service pistol on the table.

“We're not interested in a military coup, General,” the head of Embassy intelligence replied in studied Spanish. “We want Marxism to be a colossal failure and for it to fall alone, so we can erase it from the people's minds throughout the continent. You understand? We're going to solve this problem with money. We can still buy a few members of Congress so they won't confirm him as President. It's in your Constitution: he didn't get an absolute majority, and Congress has to make the final choice.”

“Get that idea out of your head, mister!” Trueba exclaimed. “You're not going to bribe anyone around here! The Congress and the armed forces are above corruption. It would be better if we used the money to buy the mass media. That would give us a way to manipulate public opinion, which is the only thing that really counts.”

“You're out of your mind! The first thing the Marxists are going to do is destroy freedom of the press!” several voices said.

“Believe me, gentlemen,” Senator Trueba replied. “I know this country. They'll never do away with freedom of the press. Besides, it's in their platform: they've sworn to respect democratic rights. We'll catch them in their own trap.”

Senator Trueba was right. They were unable to bribe the members of Congress, and on the date stipulated by law the left calmly came to power. And on that date the right began to stockpile hatred.

*  *  *

After the election everyone's life changed: those who thought they would be able to continue as before soon realized that was an illusion. For Pedro Tercero García the change was brutal. He had managed to avoid the snares of a routine, living as free and poor as a wandering minstrel, having never worn leather shoes, a tie, or a wristwatch, and indulging himself in the luxuries of affection, candor, shabbiness, and the siesta, for he was not accountable to anyone. It had become increasingly difficult for him to find the requisite anxiety and sorrow for new songs, because in the course of time he had found great inner peace. The rebelliousness that had inspired him in his youth had given way to the gentleness of a man satisfied with himself. He was as austere as a Franciscan. He had no ambition for either money or power. The only blot on his peace of mind was Blanca. He had lost interest in having dead-end love affairs with adolescent girls and now believed that Blanca was the only woman he was meant to love. He tallied up all the years he had loved her clandestinely and could not recall a moment of his life when she had not been present—at least in his thoughts. After the election, his equilibrium was destroyed by the urgency of working with the government. There was no way he could refuse because, as it was explained to him, the parties of the left had a shortage of skilled men for the many positions to be filled.

“But I'm just a peasant. I have no training,” he argued, trying to excuse himself.

“It doesn't matter,
compañero.
You're popular. Even if you put your foot in it, people will forgive you,” they replied.

So it was that he found himself sitting behind a desk for the first time in his life, with a personal secretary at his disposal and a grandiose portrait of the Founding Father at some valiant battle hanging behind him. Pedro Tercero García stared out the barred window of his luxurious office and could see only a small square of gray sky. His job was not a sinecure. He worked from seven in the morning until late at night, and by the time he left work he was so tired that he was incapable of striking a single chord on his guitar, much less making love to Blanca with his accustomed passion. When they were able to arrange a meeting, surmounting all of Blanca's usual obstacles in addition to the new ones imposed by Pedro's job, they would find themselves more full of anguish than desire. They made love wearily, interrupted by the telephone and harried by time, of which there was never enough. Blanca stopped wearing her risqué lingerie, because she decided that it was an unnecessary provocation that made her look ridiculous. In the end they met only so that they could sleep in each other's arms like a pair of grandparents, and to hold friendly conversations about their daily problems and the serious matters that were shaking the country to its core. One day Pedro Tercero realized he had gone a whole month without making love and that, what was even worse to him, neither of them had really wanted to. This shocked him. He knew there was no reason for him to be impotent at his age, and was forced to attribute it to the kind of life he was leading and the bachelor ways he had developed. He imagined that if he could lead a normal life with Blanca, one in which she would be waiting for him every evening in a peaceful home, everything would be different. He announced he would marry her once and for all, because he was fed up with furtive love and too old to continue living like this. Blanca gave him the same answer she had given him so many times before.

“I have to think it over, my love,” she said.

She was sitting naked on Pedro Tercero's narrow bed. He studied her dispassionately and saw that time was beginning to ravage her beauty: she was fatter and sadder, with hands deformed now by rheumatism, and the magnificent breasts that years earlier had kept him awake at night were slowly but surely approaching the broad lap of a matron firmly settled in her years. Still, he found her just as beautiful as he had when he was young, when they had made love in the reeds along the banks of the river at Tres Marías, and it was precisely this thought that made him regret that his exhaustion was stronger than his passion.

“You've been thinking it over for almost half a century,” he said. “That's long enough. It's now or never.”

Blanca was not surprised, for it was not the first time he had given her an ultimatum. Each time he broke off with one of his young mistresses and returned to her side, he demanded that she marry him, in a desperate attempt to hang on to her love and find forgiveness. When he agreed to move out of the working-class neighborhood where he had been happy for years and to resettle in the middle-class apartment, he had said the same thing.