On the night of the fifth they had resisted an attempt by hooded men to blow up the float, who besieged them without order or agreement, and who — following their strange engagement — took flight, in the rain. They threatened them with blowing the float sky high in the procession—“and you’re responsible for putting the citizens of Pasto at risk”—but nothing more, only words; they fled, the gun that one of them was holding went off in his hand, which made the women laugh. Two more fired without consequence: one hit the ceiling, above his own head, and a cascade of falling plaster turned him white, and the other struck Boozy, Maestro Abril’s dog, and did not even hurt him, it was just a graze, but they heard him yelp, which inflamed the children. “It’s not the dog’s fault,” they cried, and the fight began. The youngest artisans easily took care of those in hoods, who outnumbered them. When the makers entered the fray, genuinely determined to defend the float from the destroyers, the hooded ones were already “scampering away like guinea pigs”—according to Maestro Abril. And, yet, the winds of victory did not stay the course: now it was not a matter of hooded men — more amusing than dangerous — but the army itself. “Sonofabitch,” they said, this is serious: the army was pointing guns at their chests; they were surrounded.
They confiscated the float, along with the truck carrying it and everything: Martín Umbría’s truck.
General Lorenzo Aipe considered the mission accomplished. He regretted the military deployment, and that was what upset him most; he ordered the soldiers to return to base, “quietly,” and climbed into the jeep waiting for him; a cinch, the only tricky bit had been finding out where the float was hidden. Now all he thought about was his Simón Bolívar costume, and blonde Primavera Pinzón, naked. He retired, leaving an officer and seven soldiers in charge of transporting the float; he did not even want to look at it in any detail, but he did order it to be covered up as soon as possible: “Don’t let anybody see it,” he said, “that’s the main thing.”
The soldiers proceeded to cover it up immediately, even though it was early and all Pasto was sleeping. Shrouded, the float looked like who knows what kind of folly-surprise, advancing through the streets of Pasto in the early morning of the sixth.
They were taking it to the barracks to dismantle it.
There were seven soldiers and their officer — later people would say there were twenty, fifty, a hundred and many more. They were not far from the barracks when Martín Umbría, Tulio Abril, Cangrejito Arbeláez and the rest of the artisans caught them up — backed up by their wives and children. The soldiers did not suspect the attack. They thought it was a parade group arriving in Pasto to join in White Day: they were dancing, throwing streamers and drinking. Perhaps the only peculiar thing was the time: too early in the morning for such larks. But anything was possible at carnival.
It was the same early hour that in another part of the city the secret poet Rodolfo Puelles confused with dusk.
Now it really was getting dark, but the carnival was still in full swing, and it danced in front of the Spinning Top, in that Pasto street where Rodolfo Puelles still lay, not moving.
“Okay, Puelles, wake up,” a voice said. “We’ve been looking for you.”
And a different voice:
“The moment of truth has arrived, Puelles. Get up. They’re here, and they want to meet you; on your feet, Puelles. The time has come to walk.”
He opened his eyes. Suddenly he saw Quiroz: his head. Quiroz moved to the side to allow Ilyich’s head to appear.
They had both shaved off their hair.
Platter Ilyich laughed, his mouth very wide open.
“They want to meet the chosen ones, and you are a chosen one, of course.”
He bent down and placed a hand like a bird’s talon on Puelles’s shoulder:
“Let’s go. It’s getting late.”
Quiroz looked at his watch:
“They’re not far away.”
Puelles started to get up: the bird’s talon weighed his shoulder down, rather than helped him. It must be five o’clock; it was getting dark. Puelles panted, gulped down air. He still felt exultant:
“And where did you leave the donkey?”
Quiroz did not miss a beat:
“We showed off the donkey this morning,” he said. “We got delayed by a monkey.”
It was the only time they ever laughed, all together. In his delirium, the secret poet did not imagine what monkey they were referring to; Rodolfo Puelles did not imagine anything at all.
The carnival blazed up more brightly, right across the street. The music strolling past got louder: a group of revellers were dancing a step away from them. All of a sudden, as if obeying the impulse for one last burst of joy, or because a suspicion of the sacrifice entered his head for the first time and he wanted to run away, Rodolfo Puelles threw himself into the centre of the human wheel and began to dance, transfigured, pop-eyed, shouting “viva!”
Quiroz and Platter stayed at the edge, looking at him in astonishment: they had not expected him to do that. Platter took a step forward, to catch hold of Puelles.
“Leave him,” Quiroz said. “Let him finish dancing.”
The little carnival band was playing “La Danza de la Chiva”: it finished with a clatter of cymbals, the trumpet bade farewell, and a sea of applause came crashing down. The people dancing offered Puelles a bottle, and Puelles drank, he drank and went on drinking, down to the last drop.
“That’s it, that’s it,” Platter told him, “have one for the road, because we’re taking you to paradise now.”
“Follow us,” Quiroz said.
And Puelles followed them.
He thought that he did not mind.
The light from the sun became reddish, a cold red light, eerie at this hour of explosions. They made their way quickly through the streets, despite the crowds.
They left the carnival, which meant, in effect, leaving Pasto.
It had been Zulia Iscuandé who called on the artisans to put up a fight — they had already given the float up for lost. “We can’t end on bad terms with the doctor,” she said, “and it’s not about his money; the fact is that we made the carriage ourselves and those heartless bastards are going to wreck it.” Cangrejito Arbeláez had no illusions: even if they did get the float back it would be difficult to exhibit it, with the army in the way plus the balaclava boys, who would soon surround them, pop up where they might; the Pastusos were the only hope, he thought, the people of Pasto might defend the carriage, but how? It was unlikely they could count on this defence: this was a fiesta, people went out to dance, how does one arrange a battle overnight for the sake of a carnival float? A float that only seemed like a bit of fun at the outset. The urgent thing was to hide the carriage from obliteration, it would have to bide its time for all Pasto to come to its defence.
He heard the artisans shouting “viva!” for the doctor. “Thanks to him, on behalf of the float-makers,” he heard: “We’re not going to abandon him, dammit,” “Let’s get a move on,” “Here we go.” The sculptor observed the makers’ large, deeply lined hands, which looked carved from stone; they had painted their faces; they got out bottles of aguardiente and pretended to start the January 6 binge, but they were off to recover the carriage from the hands of the army, no less. And they set off at a run through the sleeping streets, in pursuit of the stolen float.