Timote: A Novel

32

 The night of the thirty-first, Gaby Arrostito spent almost an hour looking at the typewriter. She has to type up the last communiqu é. Fernando already wrote it and one supposes that she must obediently get it out. There’s a problem. She doesn’t like it. It’s long. It’s solemn. It’s boastful. “Our organization has thus fulfilled the will of the people, which is ours also. If we have taken the life of this blood-stained general, it is because we are disposed to offer ours in the defense of our country so aggrieved by the enemies from without and the traitors from within. We would have preferred not to spill this blood. But so much has been spilled by those in power, by the enemies of the people, that all that was left to us was violence as the language to express ourselves. It is in the midst of this tragedy that the executioner Aramburu has died.” No, this won’t do, Gaby decides. The final communiqué must be a cross to the jaw, which is what Robert Arlt sought from literature. Short, dry, tragic, definitive. Fernando is going to become enraged. “Why didn’t you send out the communiqu é I wrote?” “First, because it’s no good. Second, because I write better than you do. You can’t come to the point, Fernando. You have too many words to have killed a general. Say ‘We killed him, we buried him,’ put the date and sign it. That makes an impression. t i m o t e| | 179 That hurts. No words for the deceased. Only the bullets necessary to polish him off.” She likes the idea: short, dry. There’s a measure of disdain in that dryness. We don’t give any explanations , sirs. We only inform. Understand that it’s better to forget about Aramburu. A large table made of rustic planks contains the dailies that she has been saving since last Friday, when it all began. La Nación from Saturday the thirtieth carries in large letters on the first page, “Former President Aramburu was kidnapped yesterday .” Beneath it, “The government strongly condemns the act.” President / strongly. What a shitty rhyme in Spanish. The newspapers of the regime use god-awful prose. They don’t even know how to write. There’s also a photograph of the crow Rojas. Short, with those sunglasses he wears to hide his macabre look, he is walking surrounded by other bastards wearing suits and ties, their hair short, with briefcases in which they carry documents no one should read, documents about illicit business dealings and million-dollar bribes. The legend under the photo reads, “The former provisional vice president, Admiral Isaac F. Rojas, as he arrives at the home of Lieutenant General Aramburu.” What could the assassin dwarf have said? “Just imagine. This takes me by surprise. This expression of barbarism. Make no mistake: it’s the work of Peronistas.” Next to his is another photograph. Gaby becomes indignant. She has this guy marked. If it weren’t for the fact he’s a worthless asshole, she’d like to blow him away at the first chance. Next week. The guy calls himself a socialist. A socialist! With good reason the Peronista nation spits on anyone who talks to them about socialism. It’s Américo Ghioldi. He’s more furious than all the rest. His mouth is wide open. That’s be- josé pablo feinmann 180 | | cause he’s shouting. That’s the bastard who said, no sooner than they had shot Valle and his comrades, “The milk of clemency is gone.” They call him “Norteamérico Ghioldi.” A bullet up his ass would do him good. Or a good scare. Grab him one night when he’s just getting home. When he’s getting out of his car. Jab a gun in his gut right then and there. Hey, Ghioldi, do you remember the milk of clemency? There’s none left. It ran out again. Just yesterday, can you imagine. If it had lasted until today, you’d be saved. But no, old man, so we’re going to have to shoot you three times in that bourgeois socialist gut of yours. It’s nice to see him beg, go down on his knees, plead for his children, for his wife, for the institutions , for the fatherland! Stop begging, scumbag...