“Well sir, what brings you here?” he insisted. “I’ll bet you’re already having problems at the Ministry.”
“Well, to tell the truth, I am.”
“Izzat so?” said the President triumphantly, approving his own cleverness.
“But, if you’ll permit me, that’s not why I’ve come. I’ll tell you about that another time. Look, I won’t waste your time, I’ll be completely frank. The thing is, there have been several cases of children fainting with hunger at school, and I’d like to see what we can do about it. I prefer telling you directly because if I don’t it means just running from one office to the other. Besides, it’s better for me to be the one to tell you because there’s bound to be somebody else who’ll say I’m not doing my job. My idea is for you to authorize me to try to get some money and set up a kind of semiofficial Milk Fund.”
“You’re not turning communist on me, are you?” he interrupted, laughing out loud. Here is where you could see the wonderful mood he was in that day. They both laughed a good deal. The Director joked and warned him to watch out because he was reading a little book on Marxism, to which he replied, still laughing, that he better not go to see the Director of Police because he might really get fucked over. After exchanging more witticisms on the same subject, he said it seemed like a good idea to him, that he should see who he could get money from, that he should say he agreed, and maybe UNICEF could give them a little more milk. “The gringos have milk up the ass,” he declared finally, standing and ending the interview.
“Oh, and listen,” he added when the Director was already halfway out the door, “maybe you want to talk to my wife about helping you. She likes that kind of thing.”
The Director told him fine and that he would speak to her right away.
It really depressed him, though, because he didn’t like working with women — least of all officials’ wives. Most of them were strange, vain, difficult, and you always had to worry about being polite enough, making sure they were always sitting down, and becoming nervous if for some reason you had to tell them no. Besides, he didn’t know her very well. But the smartest thing would be to take the President’s suggestion as an order.
When he spoke to her, she accepted immediately. Could there be any doubt? She would not only help by talking to her friends, but she would personally work enthusiastically and take part, for example, in any benefits that would be organized.
“I can recite poetry,” she said; “you know I’ve always done it as an amateur.” “How nice,” she thought as she talked to him, “that I have this chance.” But at the same time she regretted the thought and was afraid God would punish her when she reflected on the fact that it wasn’t nice for children to faint with hunger. “Poor things,” she thought quickly to placate heaven and avoid punishment. And aloud she said:
“Poor babies. And they keep on fainting?”
The Director explained patiently that the same ones did not keep fainting regularly, but sometimes it was one, sometimes another, and the best thing was to try to give breakfast to the greatest number possible. They would have to set up an organization for collecting money.
“Of course,” she said. “What will we call it?”
“What do you think of ‘School Breakfast Program’?” said the Director.
She ran her hand over the program, an elegantly printed rectangle of satinized paper:
1. Introductory Remarks by the Honorable Hugo Miranda, Director General of Education of the Ministry of Public Education.
2. Barcarolle from the “Tales of Hoffman,” by Offenbach, performed by students from the Fourth of July School.
3. Three Waltzes by Chopin, performed by René Elgueta, student at the National Conservatory.
4. “The Motives of the Wolf,” by Rubén Darío, performed by Her Excellency Doña Eulalia Fernández de Rivera González, First Lady of the Republic.
5. “My Fatherland’s Skies,” by the National Composer Don Federico Díaz, with the composer at the piano.
6. National Anthem.
She thought it looked fine. Although maybe there was too much music and not enough reciting.
“Do you like what I’m going to recite?” she asked her husband.
“As long as you don’t forget it halfway through and make a fool of yourself,” he answered, annoyed but incapable of seriously opposing her. “I swear I don’t know why you got involved in this dumb business. As if you didn’t know how stupid the boys are. Before you know it they’ll be making jokes about you. But when you get an idea in your head there’s no talking to you.”
Back when he was in love with her he had wanted her to recite and even asked her to do it so she’d like him more. But now it was a different story, and her public appearances irritated him.
“Atwhay Iyaay asay isay uetray, ightray?” she thought. “They can’t stand for his wife to have any initiative because then right away they start objecting and just want to complicate everything.”
“How could I forget it?” she said aloud, getting up to look for a handkerchief. “I’ve known it since I was a kid. What I don’t like is having this little cold. But I think maybe it’s nerves. Every time I have to do something important on a certain date I’m afraid I’ll get sick and I start thinking: Now I’m going to catch cold, now I’m going to catch cold, until I really have one. Yes sir. It must be nerves. The proof is I’m always better afterwards.”
Suddenly she saw herself in the mirror, raised her arms, and tried out her voice:
The maaan with the heaaart of a leely
soooul of a cheerub, celeeestial tooungue
the humble and sweeeet
Fraaancis of Asiiisi
zwith
a roooughan
fieeercean
imal.
She pronounced lily “leely.” It was a good idea to lengthen the accented syllables. But she didn’t always know which ones they were unless they had a written accent mark. In “soul of a cherub, celestial tongue” there was no way to know. Well, the important thing was feeling because without feeling knowing all the rules didn’t matter.
The man
the man with
the man with the heart
the man with the heart of a leely.
It was early when she got to the school, but she still felt discouraged because not many people were in the seats. But she thought in our country people always come late and when would we ever get rid of that habit? On the small stage, behind the improvised curtain, the girls from the Fourth of July School were quietly rehearsing the Barcarolle. The singing teacher was sounding “la” for them very seriously with a little silver whistle that played the single note. When he saw her there, smiling, he greeted her with a smile and stopped waving his arms, but because he was shy, or didn’t want to seem servile, or really wasn’t, he did not interrupt the rehearsal. She was grateful he didn’t, because in that brief time she was going over the poem in her mind and if they interrupted her she’d have to start all over again from the beginning. As if she were really using it, she cleared her throat every five or six lines even though she knew this only irritated it more, just like that teacher whose students, just to annoy him, said his eye was red and he began to rub it and rub it until it was so red they burst out laughing, or like monkeys, if you put a little bit of caca in the palm of their hand they keep smelling it and smelling it until they died. Oh these obsessions! What really made her angry was that she was sure it would be gone when she finished her number. Yes sir. But it was awful in the meantime to think she’d get a frog in her throat right in the middle of the recitation.