“Is a box of dynamite going to be booby-trapped? You’ve watched too many shoot-’em-up movies.”
It was just like in the movies: long, russet-coloured bars, with a little thread at the end where you lighted it.
“How many can you carry?”
“Let me see how much they weigh.”
They weren’t heavy and, in fact, were thinner than they looked.
“Four for each of them?”
“There are going to be eight holes. We can put two in each hole.”
“Okay.”
Each of us stuck four pieces of dynamite into his belt, and took two more in each hand. We peeked out before we left: the ruckus on the beach seemed to be even bigger. The watchman in the tower was asleep with his head resting on his crossed arms.
“What do we do now?”
“I’m going to explain it to you quickly. This is a circle, so you already know I’m going to do the four cardinal points. You do the others, even if you don’t know their names.”
“Okay.”
“Over there where there are those round holes for planting trees later, that’s where we put the dynamite. Dig, bury it, but leave the wick exposed.”
“Are we going to light the wicks now?”
“Now, with a pile of soldiers and police on the beach? Of course not; but be ready.”
“When you’re finished we’ll meet on Dona Libânia’s sidewalk.”
“Okay.”
“And nobody tells on anybody if we’re caught.”
“Agreed. Courage, Comrade!”
We took off running, each of us heading in the direction of the cardinal points of his mission. I rounded a corner, found the first hole. The sand was soft. I dug and saw that I had lingered too long because I was burying the two sticks of dynamite standing up, and that was a waste of time. At the second hole I had already decided to bury the bars lying down, like two people who lie close to each other in the cemetery, but here the sand was harder and digging bruised my fingers.
When I was on my way to the fourth hole — I think it was the point between south and west, maybe you could call it south of the west — in my sweaty-fingered rushing around the dynamite fell out of my hand and went rolling off on its own like a cat running away in fear. I heard voices at the gate. I hid, trying to see where the dynamite had stopped rolling. I heard footsteps on the other side of the wall and I started to shudder with fear. I was going to get caught and they were going to find the dynamite, too.
“Unexpected problems, Comrade?”
3.14’s voice had never hit me so clearly. He laughed as he looked at me, because he could see that I was terrified. He handed me the missing stick of dynamite.
“Are yours already done, Pi?”
“Yeah. The sand was really hard but I had the wire cutters to dig with. Let’s go place your last one.”
“Yeah, let’s go. There’s nobody here?”
“I don’t think so. All quiet. But we have to step on it, we still have to finish the most complicated part of the plan.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute. Hey, I buried mine lying down so I didn’t waste time.”
“Yeah, me too.”
With the wire cutters acting as a spade it went a lot faster, but the sand at the final point was still soft. 3.14 looked up from where we were standing, pressed right up against the central part of the Mausoleum. That peaked mountain of cement looked just like a rocket that was ready for lift-off.
“It’s a lot of cement.” 3.14 looked worried.
“Should we set more dynamite?”
“We don’t have time.”
He moved closer to the wall and looked inside through a window without a pane, which opened on pure darkness. Then he looked at his feet.
“This is what I was looking for. I knew I’d seen this trench.”
“What trench?”
Right around the Mausoleum was a kind of small groove, cut into the cement, as though it were a path made so that the ants wouldn’t have any doubts about where to go, or invent new paths with twists and turns, as they liked to do. It was a flaw in the cement, a sort of narrow mini passageway that had been laid out in an enormous circle that linked up those holes where we had placed the dynamite.
“You see? A great idea of those Soviets — they don’t even know how they’re helping us. It must be for irrigation, to allow the water to circulate.”
“So?”
“So the problem of our fuse is solved.”
“But we don’t have any wire to light dynamite to join up the cardinal points.”
“We don’t need wire. We just need ‘hod drink,’ as Gudafterov says.”
“I get it!”
“That’s all we’re lacking, Comrade. Then we make a fuse with the drink linking up with the hiding-place of our choice. And then we light it.”
“They do it with gasoline in the movies.”
“But ‘hod drink’ will do it, too. I saw a house get set on fire in a movie with half a bottle of whisky.”
“There aren’t any leftovers in granma’s house. Every last drop was drunk at the farewell party.”
“But I know of someone who can help us.”
“Who?”
“Comrade Charlita. It’s time for a change of venue.”
We ran again, slipping out through the hole in the fence, turned into the alley and only stopped when we reached Dona Libânia’s sidewalk.
“Are you playing, children?” Sometimes Dona Libânia was like Granma Catarina: she appeared without making noise.
“Yes, Dona Libânia.”
“Then you’ve already been to see what’s happening out there on the beach?” She was looking for information.
“We’ve just come from there. The Soviets are trying to forbid everybody from entering the beach. They say they have orders from some general to close the beach because of I don’t know what-all about the expansion of the construction site.”
“You heard that over there on the beach?”
“Yes, just now.”
“But the sand you have on your feet doesn’t come from the beach.”
“Goodbye, Dona Libânia. We’ve got to get going.”
We moved along a short distance and took the opportunity to sit down on Senhor Tuarles’s sidewalk to see if it was possible to speak to Charlita.
Dona Isabel sat on the veranda of their house, holding the AK-47 in her lap as though it were a baby. This happened a lot, I don’t know why; Senhor Tuarles never went looking for his AK-47, not even when he was in a rush. One night we were woken up by loud noises in the chicken coop. It seems that Granma Catarina had seen figures moving around in the yard and had phoned Senhor Tuarles to warn him and see if he could come and take a look at what was going on. Granma Nineteen saw everything from the window of her room: Senhor Tuarles came out in his boxer shorts as far as the wall of his house — I figure it must have been about two in the morning — and peered into Granma Nineteen’s yard. Then he whirled around and said in a loud voice that was heard by alclass="underline" “Isabel, go upstairs and get the AK-47.”
When he went to beat the shit out of the priest, I think the same thing happened: he went on foot as far as the church, he was nervous the whole way there, warning everybody that he was going to kill the priest because he had “done it” with the little girls of Bishop’s Beach. Dona Isabel walked behind him, pleading with him to calm down, but only once they were close to the Kinanga Cinema did he remember to say: “Isabel, go get the AK-47.”
I figure that memories are invisible restless tinglings that stay inside people. When I remember that stuff I start to laugh to myself until 3.14 asks me if I’m crazy to laugh alone like that.
“I’m just remembering stuff.”
“But you’re not an elder yet; you can’t have much to remember.”
“They’ve already told me lots of things about the old days. I’m laughing at old things, Pi.”