She had the monumental figure of a Greek goddess. Little by little, she undressed Danilo and they ended up rolling around on the damp floor, merged together in an embrace of legs and arms as they bit each other like fiends.
“That’s enough,” the Madame said when they achieved their fourth orgasm. “You’re a real man. Another reason to trust you with the mission we’ve given you.”
They got dressed and left the basement, holding on to each other’s waists. Danilo Castellanos placed the pistol at his hip. He was starting to receive the privileges that only the most manly of men were given. He was definitively now a member of the bunker. Perhaps the most important one from now on.
That night Danilo Castellanos didn’t sleep. He laid on the tattered sofa going over all the day’s events. Coro was right. Cornelio Rojas had raped the country’s boldest men, stealing their freedom. A suicidal act was necessary, but somebody who would grow some balls and execute the tyrant despite the risk. Danilo pondered the pistol in his hand for a long time, and remembered a story by Borges. It was the story of a dying man who was complaining before God of the stupid end he would endure in a low-end hospital bed. God then saved him and sent him to the South, where the land was hot and men fought each other for the pleasure of seeing blood. There a cattle farmer killed him with one shot in a duel and the young man had the dignified death he had requested of the divine. Danilo Castellanos was now in a similar situation. Did life really matter to him in that enormous jail that was his country? How long would he keep dealing with his own fear and withstanding the dictatorship of that cruel man? Yes, he had to kill him. He had to accept the idea that the story of the South was a good one and to face death once and for all instead of dying every day.
When the sun rose he went up the stairs directly to Coro’s room. There was everyone; waiting for him, for his final word, for his decision.
He went over to Coro and said in a resolute voice:
“You have convinced me. I will kill Cornelio Rojas.”
The group immediately burst into applause; it lasted several minutes. Coro stood up from his chair and went over to Danilo to kiss him on the cheek. The women threw themselves at him and kissed him long on the mouth. Yes, his fate was decided. Danilo Castellanos had chosen the Borgesian South over the slave’s life he had been leading for thirty years.
When the applause ended, Danilo asked Cossack to give him a new report on what Cornelio Rojas was doing just then.
After the ritual with the compact and the cotton ball, Cossack revealed:
“Cornelio Rojas is in a pool right now with his extraordinary guest, Moammar Qaddafi. Young women dressed as ancient Romans are pouring bottles and bottles of champagne over both men’s heads.”
“Enjoy it, enjoy it,” Coro said meanly. “Enjoy it, Cornelio, since you don’t have much time left.”
The Madame turned on her wireless radio, and the announcer could be heard telling the people to gather the next day along First Street to welcome our friend Qaddafi and to wildly applaud Cornelio Rojas.
“Grab your flag and your poster, and show up at eleven a.m. sharp on First Street. It’s a question of honor. Don’t miss it.”
“We’ll be there,” Coro commented. And, turning to Danilo with an obsequious smile, he wanted to know:
“What would you like now, my prince? All of the women in this house belong to you for 24 hours. Or perhaps you’d like to drink to delirium. Or perhaps you’d like to practice the action you’ll be involved in, live.”
“What do you mean?” Danilo asked.
“A pantomime,” Cora said. “A dramatic representation of what you will do tomorrow on the corner of First Street.” And, turning toward the bunker’s members Coro enthusiastically ordered:
“Come on, all of you, make a line across this room, simulating the line of people who will applaud for Cornelio Rojas. You, Whitey, go to the crocodile room and put on the uniform with gold decorations. You’ll come into this room again when I call for you. Go!”
Whitey disappeared through the door and the rest of the conspirators made a line across the room and started to yell “Cornelio, Cornelio, we love Cornelio!” Danilo stood at the end of the line with the pistol at his hip.
“Are you ready, my prince?” Coro asked.
“Ready,” Danilo answered firmly.
Then two knocks came at the door, and Coro, who was the first one in line, said in a resounding voice:
“Enter, Cornelio Rojas!”
Whitey came in dressed in a uniform very similar to the one Cornelio Rojas always wore. All of them started to applaud and to yell “Cornelio, Cornelio, we love Cornelio!”
Whitey moved forward with very short steps and paraded in front of Coro, waving and smiling. Then he passed in front of Cossack and the Madame, who threw kisses at him with the tips of their fingers. He passed in front of Manzano the poet, before Melanio, before Nefertiti, but when he passed before Danilo, the latter took the pistol from his hip and planted himself in front of Whitey with a face full of hate.
He was supposed to imitate the shots with his mouth, but Danilo’s rage was such and he was playing the role with so much passion, that he pulled the pistol’s trigger and the bullet wounded Whitey in the foot.
“Fool! Fool!” Coro howled when he heard the shot. “You shot for real. You wounded Whitey. And what’s worse, the noise could have been heard by anyone. You, Cossack, go to the window and see if there are any busybodies milling about. You, Madame, tend to Whitey’s wound however you can. And you, Castellanos, give me that pistol. I’ll give it back to you a few minutes before we go to action. You’re a fool.”
Cossack went out to the street and came back with disturbing news. There was a patrol car on the corner, and the police kept looking at the house.
“Fine,” Coro said, bitterly. “They’ve discovered us. It’s this bunker’s last hour. We made an oath one day and will see it through now. We’ll die before we become Cornelio Rojas’s prisoners.”
Then, Coro took a bottle of white pills out of the drawer and started handing them out one by one to the bunkers members.
“Cyanide,” Coro said when he gave Danilo his pill. “Don’t swallow it. Don’t chew it. Just let it dissolve in your mouth. In five seconds we will all die.”
Danilo took the pill with an air of seriousness, and accepted that there was no possible alternative. Through his mistake, the assassination would not be carried out. That was what bothered him so intensely. Much more than dying of poison.
Coro took his pill with two fingers and gave the last order of his life,
“Ready? Set? Go!”
And they all put the pills in their mouths and waited, livid and silent, for death’s arrival. Ten, fifteen, thirty seconds passed, until Coro let out another one of his terrible guffaws and exclaimed, “Gentlemen, what a bunker I have here! What loyalty to your principles! What courage under fire! Don’t worry, comrades, it was just aspirin. But keep in mind that someday if the police dare to enter this room, they will only find the corpses of nine courageous people.”
Cossack dispelled any remaining tension when she went back out to the street and returned with the news that the patrol car had left.
“God is with us,” Coro said. “You, Madame, put on some music. You, Nefertiti, dance for everyone. May these last hours be filled with enjoyment and happiness. Rum! Bring the rum!”
Again, it was Cossack who left the room and came back dragging a box of liquor.
“Hand it out, hand it out,” Coro said. “Let everyone drink, let everyone laugh, let everyone fornicate.”
An hour later, Coro’s room looked like a Roman hall in the time of Caligula. Salsa music was playing, the people were emptying bottles in three swigs and opening more. Manzano the poet was rolling around in the corner with Cossack. The Madame was riding Coro’s flanks completely naked. Melanio Webster, Whitey, and Danilo watched Nefertiti’s striptease in fascination, as she moved her hips with more panache than the fabulous Tongolele. Thus, dancing, the adolescent girl went over to Danilo and started to remove his shirt.