oblivious to his son on his shoulders, who’s instinctively tilting backwards as his father tilts forward, but then his father straightens as if he’s been pricked and shrieks. Anda que te parió un burro. My back. Bread, roof, and employment. With León it can be done. The rally ends. León wins. His father flees in the wake of an embezzlement scandal. Leopoldo finds himself one night, groggy and cold, in the dark living room of the old Centenario house. His mother is gone and the bald domestic is watching troglodytes on a screen that flickers like a lantern on a boat. They’re clobbering each other and sniffing the bark of giant palm trees. The living room smells like burnt veal. Then a tidal wave rises like a hand that’s also a spider and swallows everything. The end. Go back to sleep, Negrito. León’s tubercular coughing worries him. And yet today Leopoldo didn’t intercept León dashing down the hall. He had too much to coordinate before the press conference about El Loco. Besides, León was busy giving audience to that Jacinto Cazares individual (known at San Javier as Funky Town, Excrement, Thief).
León tries to contain his coughing with his fist, which seems pointless, although this thought strikes Leopoldo as pointless too, for what else can anyone do? How ungenerous of him. And how ludicrous to make yet another vow of compassion toward his fellow men. As if to rebuke him, León’s coughing ends. He grimaces, irritated at having Leopoldo witness his coughing, or trying to discern why this dark kid’s standing so close to him. León shakes Leopoldo’s hand with both hands as if campaigning at a kindergarten, but before Leopoldo has time to consider the absurdity of León’s gesture he starts coughing again. Down the hall two reporters are peering at them. Leopoldo shields León from the reporters by shifting sideways, placing one hand on León’s shoulder and the other on León’s back, patting it three times, soothing him, before Leopoldo realizes what he’s doing. León doesn’t mind or hasn’t noticed but Leopoldo pulls back nevertheless. The reporters still need an interpretable gesture. Leopoldo leans to León’s ear, cupping his hand as if blinkering them from what he’s conferring about with León, and if Leopoldo could he would blinker himself from seeing León like this, for even the most generous bystander would agree that León looks like a disheveled Santa, or a one eyed wheezer, or a strained Lear unlike the King Lear that Leopoldo’s grandmother, on her farm in the outskirts of Manabí, would perform for Leopoldo after baking him his favorite sugar rolls, tying a white plastic bag on her head like a wig and then hobbling while she proclaimed, in unintelligible English, blo win, crack you cheek, rage!, blo!, her voice steeped in the same excitement she will use years later when Leopoldo’s about to deliver his valedictorian speech, sharing with the distinguished parents in the audience how as a boy, barely reaching the veranda of her balcony, little Leo would spend hours giving speeches to the passing trucks and sometimes even an ambulatory salesman would stop and clap and try to sell little Leo pink ceramic piggy banks — los chanchitos la alcancíaaa — and while Leopoldo delivers his speech his grandmother hears León saying to his wife carajo, that kid sounds just like me.
El Loco’s people are arriving as planned. I have everything under control.
You? You have everything under . . .?
León sidesteps him so Leopoldo has to scramble behind like a domestic who should’ve known better, a domestic who’s carrying León’s briefcase, which contains the Cohiba cigars that Fidel still ships to León, a recommendation letter so Alvarito Rosales can be admitted into Babson College, a stockwhip from León’s ranch that León plans to unleash on El Loco’s people, brown shoe polish for his cowboy boots, double chocolate wafer crumbs from La Universal, called Tango for no good reason.
How are the horses, Mister President? Marcial still on a winning streak? How are the Dobermans? The bonsais growing nicely? Shooting at the range this weekend?
It’s never easy to tell when León’s in the mood to chat with reporters. Definitely not today. The reporters and the film crew arrange themselves on the floor, by the one rolltop oak desk.
León preempts questions about the human rights lawsuit against him by lecturing them about antiterrorist practices around the world.
Leopoldo, following the press conference from the side, by the wall with the chomped wallpaper, has heard all about it before. By now everyone else has, too. León had secretly contracted an Israeli antiterrorist expert during his presidency and together they eliminated so many people that, unlike in Colombia and Perú, we have no more of those terrorists here, no more of those antisocials whose dissatisfactions were irrelevant because that’s why we installed a democracy here, carajo, if they wanted change they should’ve run for office, a strong hand had been needed and that was the end of it, and yet if Leopoldo never hears another word from strong armed despots like León (no, León isn’t looking over this way), if he doesn’t read another word about these autocrats or caudillos or patriarchs or whatever you want to call them, he would be the, bah, he doesn’t know if he would be the better for it. He just doesn’t want to hear about them anymore.
León’s strong arm performance, interrupted by his coughing, continues. Leopoldo tries not to think about El Loco’s people waiting outside. What does he care about El Loco’s people anyway? With his handkerchief he wipes his face slowly, careful not to appear desperate, but not too slowly so as to appear like he’s applying face powder. Should he have his initials embroidered on his handkerchief? Light gray would be the best color. Because light gray goes with everything. He could do it himself, too. Unlike Antonio, whose longhand was as uneven as his flare ups, which ranged from sobbing on the soccer field after losing a game to hurling his calculator against the back wall of their classroom after supposedly botching a physics exam — hey, the Snivel’s here, watch your calculators, fellows — Leopoldo excelled in calligraphy. He still has a few of those lined notebooks with the translucent paper. Though of course excellence in calligraphy does not equate to excellence in embroidery. Just as excellence in history does not necessarily equate to being chosen to write León’s biography. Just as extreme intelligence does not necessarily equate to a nomination from León for the upcoming elections, or any elections, even a little one, ever. There’s even a rumor that Cristian Cordero, also known as the Fat Albino, that pretentious agglomerate of flab, one of the laziest students at San Javier, who would only show up at Leopoldo’s doorstep to borrow the answers to their calculus homework, and who also happens to be León’s grandson — don’t think of you groveling after the Fat Albino to obtain a recommendation for the post as León’s domestic, Microphone — might be running for president. At San Javier, Antonio lost two out of three fights against the Fat Albino. Does Antonio remember those fistfights at the Miraflores Park? Does he remember teaching catechism in Mapasingue with Leopoldo? Does he remember their work at the hospice Luis Plaza Dañín? From a wicker basket they would hand bread to the bedstricken inside rooms the size of hangars. The elderly waited for them along the hallway, one of them waiting for Antonio at the farthest end. Rosita Delgado? Once, before Antonio arrived at the hospice, Rosita unwrapped for Leopoldo a photograph Antonio had gifted her: Antonio as a boy in a cardboard penguin costume. Years later that boy in the costume became a Stanford economist who has come back to discuss their role in the upcoming presidential elections. Leopoldo checks his watch. He will be meeting with Antonio in thirty two minutes. They’re just meeting to talk, nothing definite yet, the country’s too unstable for León to find out, not that he’s going to let León find out, that he’s conspiring with Antonio to run in the upcoming presidential elections. Antonio’s probably expecting an audacious plan from him. Which Leopoldo actually has. Sort of. He pockets his handkerchief. Calligraphy and embroidery are probably not related at all.
Mister President, are you reconsidering your party’s position of not nominating a presidential candidate for the upcoming elections? Mister President, are you ever going to run for president again? Mister President, are you ever going to buy furniture for this building?
I won’t buy anything for this building, Leopoldo hears León say, indignant as ever, narrowing his eyes, or at least one of them, and like a priest denouncing the stench of sin he points at the vacant corners of the room, as if the corners had anything to do with it, as if once upon a time León flunked
