“Through lands of gold, I’ve walked without sorrow
and everywhere I found people that be
in their entirety, completely free,
paying homage to Hermenegildo Coro.”
The third person Coro introduced was Nefertiti, a teenager with a sensual face, dressed in a shiny cloak that covered her from the neck to her feet. She was an exotic dancer in the capital’s clandestine bars and was famous for moving her hips and gyrating her body with more dexterity than Josephine Baker. Many men had offered her their fortunes to spend a night with her, but that young girl rejected money — for handing herself over, her only condition was that the man must have the courage to join the conspiracy to kill Cornelio Rojas. As soon as they heard that, the most braggadocio of men would quickly distance themselves from her and would never proposition her again. She was, therefore, a virgin. Although when it came to masculine genitals, she had been an expert with her mouth since the age of eleven. She also gave a brief demonstration of her art, removing her cloak slowly and dancing a few steps completely nude before Danilo’s bulging eyes.
“That’s enough!” Coro grumbled from his desk, bitter because his blindness prevented him from seeing the magnificent show.
“Get dressed and go to the foyer to await orders.”
Nefertiti put on her cloak quickly and left the room, but not before going over to Coro and giving his thigh an electrifying caress.
“My big, big boy,” she said in his ear. “Your every word is sacred to me.”
And she left. Coro remained in his chair, his shoulders slumped, looking toward the ceiling with an expression of intense sadness.
“Cossack.,” he then said: “Go see what Cornelio Rojas is doing right now.”
The disheveled woman took a compact from between her breasts, and opened it with the utmost care. Then, she took out a cotton ball that she wet with saliva, and rubbed it three times over the oval-shaped mirror. After a few seconds of complete concentration, the woman informed him:
“Now, I see Cornelio Rojas on a luxurious yacht, surrounded by young, semi-clad women, who are fighting among themselves to put lotion on his thighs and shoulders and to comb his beard.”
“The vile man!” Coro said, in a rage. “That yacht should’ve been mine. Those women belong to me. He stole everything from me! This revolution was mine, mine. Do you understand, Mr. Danilo Castellanos? I was the strongman who was going to come to power thirty-two years ago. Cornelio Rojas was no more than a lady-in-waiting to whom I transmitted my wisdom and political projects from a little plaza set beside the University’s law school. Back then, I wasn’t blind. It was enough for me to stare firmly at men for them to obey me without hesitation. I already had a clandestine army of fifty young men willing to die for me. I had already developed the plan to attack the presidential palace and execute President Estrada. The date for the action had been set. And one day, Mr. Castellanos, when I was alone in that same little plaza, pondering the final touches of our attack, a masked son of a bitch — surely Cornelio Rojas himself — came out from behind some trees and, with two fingers as hard as nails, took my eyes out in one blow. I was left blind. Do you understand, Castellanos? Blind!” As he said this, Coro removed his dark glasses and showed Danilo his horrible, empty sockets that still oozed blood.
“Afterwards.,” he continued, in a serious voice, “history continued on its course. From the hospital where I was, I found out a coup d’état had been carried out. President Estrada had been killed. People were out in the streets cheering for the young, courageous men who had overthrown the Yankee puppet. And the leader of the revolution was none other than that lady-in-waiting Cornelio Rojas. Since then, thirty years have passed. Thirty years of him giving my speeches, enacting my laws, applying my foreign policy, doing at last all that I had taught him on those calm afternoons in the little University Plaza. Today Cornelio Rojas is a God while the train of history has rolled over me, crushing my bones.”
“There’s still time, my boy,” the Madame said enthusiastically.
“Perhaps,” Coro admitted. “I only need a firm grip, a heart of steel, and a lofty spirit capable of sending two explosive bullets into that revolting head.”
“That’s difficult,” Danilo dared to say. “Cornelio Rojas is surrounded day and night by a strong security apparatus.”
“Nonsense!” Coro said. “Every day a president gets killed. Besides, I have Cossack, who is capable of seeing even further than eagles. Let’s see, Cossack, what is that charlatan doing now?”
Cossack rubbed the mirror in her compact again and a few seconds later revealed, “He’s deep-sea fishing. He caught an enormous swordfish and is bringing him to the surface right now.”
“Deep-sea fishing, delectable women, beach houses, power and glory. all mine! Mine!”
Coro banged the desk violently and started to whine like a child who has been denied a piece of candy.
“All of you out!” He suddenly yelled. “Leave me alone. I want to again analyze the plan we made. Out!”
The small troop left the room in a single file and all of them dispersed to different corners awaiting new orders. Danilo and the Madame sat down on the worn-out sofa and looked at each other in silence for a long while.
“Do you like me?” the Madame suddenly asked, reaching one hand toward Danilo’s chest and caressing his nipples.
“Very much,” the young man responded, beginning to shake thanks to the wanderings of that electrifying hand.
“Do you want to make love to me?” the woman continued, lowering her hand to Danilo’s abdomen.
“Here? In front of everyone?”
“Don’t be silly. This house has seven rooms and 24 closets. Count to 100 with your eyes closed, and when you’re finished, come find me, I’ll be waiting for you someplace to become yours. Close your eyes and start counting.”
Danilo closed his eyes and counted to one hundred without skipping. When he finished, the Madame had disappeared. The only trace of her was the strong smell of violets.
Following that scent, Danilo went up the spiral staircase and opened the first door he found. There were only books there, moth-eaten books with the spines detached. He opened the closet and found more books. Nonetheless, the trace of the Madame’s perfume indicated she had been through there. He left the room and went to the following one, where the scent of violets also floated. But the Madame wasn’t there either. In her place was a crocodile tied to the wall who attacked Danilo when he approached it to get a better look. The third room was a small Napoleonic Museum. There was the death mask Napoleon’s head doctor had made of him, a bicorn with the colors of France, some letters from Napoleon to Josephine signed in Egypt, sabers, guns, and an enormous portrait of Napoleon on horseback made by some period artist. The Madame had also been there and her scent lead the young man to the contiguous room where there were dozens of hens pecking at bread crumbs and laying their eggs in nests made of old clothes. The other two rooms were empty. Danilo opened their closets and found several intact skeletons and mountains of skulls and loose bones. The Madame had also been through there. There was just one last room to search, and Danilo had the feeling that the game was coming to an end. The woman had to be there. He opened the seventh room, and found himself in Coro’s room where, as a matter fact, the woman was seated on the blind man’s knees, caressing his incipient bald spot and kissing his forehead with maternal devotion.