Timote: A Novel

30

 Aramburu watches him walk in. What is this hothead going to tell him? He looks more and more like a madman, like a Jacobin. A Jacobin without a people. Without the French Revolution. He invented the Revolution. He can’t contain himself. He asks, “So? What did you decide? Are you going to join my project or are you going to sink into the latrines of clandestinity?” “What a sentence, General,” Fernando says with irony. “I’m going to remember it.” “When?” “Whenever I remember you.” “So you’re going to kill me.” “How can you think we’d join your project?” “Because I can’t suppose you want to commit suicide. I’m going to put it to you plain. Even if it’s the last time I do it.” “Go ahead and talk. No one is listening. No one will ever know what we say in this room.” “I’m paying for Valle’s spilled blood. That’s the way history is. A chain of revenge. My blood will demand yours. By killing me you condemn youselves to die, by making them kill you. Someone will avenge me. Don’t doubt it for a second. Someone is going to feel he has the same right as you do now. This country still does not know the fury of the Argentine Army. We have an army t i m o t e| | 163 trained by the OAS and the School of the Americas. If you really knew in detail what’s taught there, you would waver.” “We, too, have been trained for war. Not by torturers, but rather revolutionaries. Make no mistake. You are not going to succeed in scaring me. Or making me waver.” “Ask yourself this question. It’s the one Gutiérrez de la Concha asked Castelli when the latter was preparing to shoot Liniers. He asked him . . .” “Don’t waste your breath, General. I’ve known that question for some time. It surprises me you know it.” “That shows your prejudices. You think we military men are animals.” “I could spend the night providing you with proof. Going back to Castelli, he was a lawyer. Gutiérrez de la Concha asked him on the basis of what point of law was he authorized to kill prisoners . A silly question. Castelli was a revolutionary—he and his friend Moreno. They were the law. Every revolution creates its own law. Did you do anything differently? The counterrevolution also makes its own law. Or invalidates those of the revolution.” “Gutiérrez de la Concha had something else to say.” “Come on, General, let’s hear it. Did you read it in a children’s magazine?” “I’ll overlook that offensive statement. Let’s forget Castelli. If you think my quotations come from children’s magazines, then I will avoid them. I’ll ask you the question.” “I’m all ears.” “You present yourself to me as a revolutionary. You want to change the regime into which I pretend to incorporate Perón. You, on the other hand, want to use Perón to destroy it. Castelli josé pablo feinmann 164 | | also wanted to change a regime. Executing Liniers was part of that change.” “A substantial part of that change.” “Gutiérrez de la Concha asks him, ‘Doctor Castelli, what kind of system is it that starts out like this? What sort of system begins by executing defenseless prisoners?’” “Don’t try to make me misty-eyed, General. Those are all too many arguments to defend just one life—even if it is yours. Gutiérrez was full of crap, if you’ll excuse me. A revolution has the right to kill those it wants to get out of the way. If it starts out that way, it starts out on the right foot. You pose for me a question of political ethics. Liberal pap. Any system that begins by killing ends up bad. Is this what you want to propose to me? Aramburu the executioner? Any emergent revolution that does not kill when it has to kill is lost.” “So you’re going to kill me.” Fernando doesn’t answer. He takes so much time to answer that it seems like an eternity to Aramburu. Then, without solemnity , but with a certain martial air or with harsh clarity, he says, “General Aramburu, the tribunal has sentenced you to death. You will be executed within half an...