dumb funeral feast: but she didn’t feel like giving him that satisfaction. Later that night, at her apartment, she was to recite those lines out loud to herself. They’re opening a new crêpe place on Gough, she said. I’m sorry I didn’t call you about the party, Masha. I figured you would hate it anyway. Or that you would expect to find painters like you, pianists and poets, a salon. All last minute anyway. I’m leaving. I was going to call you and tell you. To Ecuador? Where else, Masha? Berlin, Barcelona, New York? Guayaquil has one performance arts center named after one of our presidents who was praised by Reagan for his strong armed tactics. The shows mostly comedies there? Antonio laughed. Then he sat down on the bench by his bed and cried. Was this another ploy of his to embarrass her? To expose her callousness? To repulse her with his self pity? No. He probably would have cried even if she wasn’t there. Or wouldn’t have cried if she was there but hadn’t dismissed his manuscripts. Or if she would have asked him to tell her more about Alvin Lucier. How easy it is to discourage aspiring writers. Because of his flower pants and his ruffled shirt she still expected him to turn his crying into a joke. He didn’t. She didn’t know then that this would be the last time she would see him. That her last gestures toward him would be nongestures: no sitting next to him on his bench, arms around his shoulders, trying to convince him to stay. Imagine a different life in Berlin or New York, where you could walk out of operas like Messiaen’s every week. Goodbye, Antonio.
III / LEOPOLDO AND THE OLIGARCHS
Along the empty municipal hallway León Martín Cordero dashes to a press room that will have no chairs, no lamps, no bouquets of microphones like those favored by El Loco, no podium but instead a rolltop from where he will enact Leopoldo’s idea of summoning the two thousand four hundred and ninety pipones that El Loco indiscriminately added to the previous payroll. Prostitutes and junkies who would only materialize on payday and whom he wiped from the books on his first day as mayor of Guayaquil, carajo, summoning them now under the pretext that they’ll be reinstated to the payroll, please bring your official letter with you, not knowing that he has also summoned the press so that their cameras will remind the nation of El Loco’s repulsive brand of graft, and yet as Leopoldo waits for León Martín Cordero to finish dashing along the hallway, Leopoldo’s sure León’s not thinking about Leopoldo’s idea or about the lawsuit against him for his alleged human rights violations during his tenure as president, no, not thinking that now they have the nerve to complain, conclave of ingrates, now because they think that I’ve been enfeebled by a minor eye surgery (his right eye was replaced by a glass one) or by a routine coronary bypass (his third in ten years) or because of rumors that I have lung cancer and even
(Doctor Arosemena cannot yet confirm to Leopoldo if León has Alzheimer’s)
all of which I’ve survived just as in my youth I survived three bullets unscathed, carajo, now they have the nerve to complain instead of thanking me for ridding this country of terrorists like Alfaro Vive Carajo, now they like to pretend they weren’t panicking about what could’ve happened to their husbands, ay mi Luchito, ay mi Alvarito, all of whom were at risk of being kidnapped like Nahim Isaías had been kidnapped by that tracalada of thieves who called themselves guerrilleros, ay Mister President, ay Leoncito, do whatever it takes to weed them out, now they like to prattle about so called truth panels instead of thanking me like Reagan thanked me by gifting me a miniature .38 caliber automatic that I still carry under my
(an articulate champion of free enterprise)
and yet as Leopoldo waits for León Martín Cordero to finish dashing along the hallway, Leopoldo’s sure León’s not thinking about Leopoldo’s plan or about El Loco’s graft or about the lawsuit against León for his alleged human rights violations but about Jacinto Manuel Cazares, who an hour earlier had asked for permission to write León’s biography, arriving precisely when Leopoldo opened León’s door, as if this Cazares individual, a former classmate of Leopoldo who nevertheless looks like the son of a horsekeeper raised by law clerks, had synchronized himself to León, courtesy of some municipal snoop who’d relayed the data from León’s wristwatch, some sneak who shook León’s hand and managed to extract León’s data to the millisecond, some groveler or someone posing as a groveler just like this Jacinto Cazares individual who showed up with Volume III of León’s Thoughts and Works, which had been published by the National Secretariat of Public Information when León was president and that León probably overlooked as a prop of ingratiation because that impossible to find volume describes the most ambitious highway system the country had ever seen, plus it was tagged with so many sticky notes that it looked like a flattened sandwich or a
(León’s daughter Mariuxi used to collect centipedes)
look Son, three foreign publishing houses and one international television network have offered me large sums of money to allow them to write about me and I’ve always refused because I’m not going to begin at this stage in my life to have the vanity of having someone write about my life when the only merit I presume to have is that I have fulfilled my duty and above all other considerations have abided by a strict respect for the law.
Mister President the reporters are here.
But you are the one leader of this nation who could serve as an example for our youth.
Mister President?
From afar León’s leaning on Leopoldo’s shoulder probably looks like gesture of camaraderie, although of course Leopoldo doesn’t care if this is what it looks like, nor does he care that unfortunately no one’s around to witness what this looks like, León’s right hand man here, folks, Leopoldo Arístides Hurtado, nor does it matter if he cares because everyone at the municipality already knows he’s León’s right hand man. What Leopoldo does care about is León’s tubercular coughing. Not that he knows what tubercular coughing sounds like. Although he’s heard something like it before. At the hospice Luis Plaza Dañín that Leopoldo and Antonio used to visit when they were sophomores at San Javier the coughing of the old and the infirm sounded tubercular. Like a calling, too: talk to me, visit me, and at the same time like a refusal: we’re still here! Today León’s coughing is partly Leopoldo’s fault though. Leopoldo knew that if he didn’t intercept León on the way to the press room, if he didn’t slow him down with administrative checklists, León was likely to swagger down the hallway at an overtaxing speed. The same speed León’s been brandishing since he was prefect. The same swagger of someone who could afford to leave his post as head of Industrial Molinera to become senator of Guayas, president of Ecuador, mayor of Guayaquil, of someone who once campaigned on horseback, who once ordered tanks to flank a congress that wouldn’t stamp his decrees, who once traversed the country atop caravans that would quadruple in size from Machala to Naranjal, from Babahoyo to Jipijapa, who toward the end of his presidential campaign gathered at a stadium abloom with signs and flags and chants of bread, roof, and employment in which he swore, in front of god and the Republic, that he will never betray them. Leopoldo grew up with those words. That stadium. León wreathed by a procession of children. Sweating as if inspirited by his people or by a sorrow he must overcome to swear, no, in that stadium León’s voice breaks off, as if allowing the echo of his voice to reach as far as Esmeraldas and Calceta, Macas and Junín. I swear, in front of god and the Republic, but then León breaks off again, as if taking in the gravity of his promise. I swear, in front of god and the Republic, that I will never betray you. On the field and on the stands the crowd bursts. Some are chanting León / León / León. Others are jumping in unison and waving their flags. On his father’s shoulders, Leopoldo waves his flag, too. It’s yellow like the others and tiny like his hands. His father isn’t waving his sign though. He’d been flapping it tirelessly since they boarded a pickup at La Atarazana but now he doesn’t move. Because of the commotion around them Leopoldo cannot tell why his father shivers as if he’s cold. It’s not cold. It’s hot and humid and the headlights are exacerbating the heat and everyone’s soaked and screaming along or in spite of the loudspeakers that are unburdening themselves of songs. His father’s sign is
