I began to write:
TEGUCIGALPA (HONDURAS) PAP JULY 14 VIA TROPICAL RADIO RCA TODAY AT 6 PM WAR BEGAN BETWEEN EL SALVADOR AND HONDURAS SALVADORAN AIR FORCE BOMBARDED FOUR HONDURAN CITIES STOP AT SAME TIME SALVADORAN ARMY CROSSED HONDURAN BORDER ATTEMPTING TO PENETRATE DEEP INTO COUNTRY STOP IN RESPONSE TO AGGRESSION HONDURAN AIR FORCE BOMBARDED IMPORTANT SALVADORAN INDUSTRIAL AND STRATEGIC TARGETS AND GROUND FORCES BEGAN DEFENSIVE ACTION
At this moment someone in the street started shouting ‘Apaga la luz!’ (‘Turn off the light!’) over and over, more and more loudly with increasing agitation. I blew out the candle. I went on typing blind, by touch, striking a match over the keys every now and then.
RADIO REPORTS FIGHTING UNDERWAY ALONG FULL LENGTH OF FRONT AND THAT HONDURAN ARMY IS INFLICTING HEAVY LOSSES ON SALVADORAN ARMY STOP GOVERNMENT HAS CALLED WHOLE POPULATION TO DEFENCE OF ENDANGERED NATION AND APPEALED TO UN FOR CONDEMNATION OF ATTACK
I carried the dispatch downstairs, found the owner of the hotel and began asking him to find someone to lead me to the post office. It was my first day there and I did not know Tegucigalpa at all. It is not a big city — a quarter of a million people — but it lies among hills and has a maze of crabbed streets. The owner wanted to help but he had no one to send with me and I was in a hurry. In the end he called the police. Nobody at the police station had time. So he called the fire department. Three firemen arrived in full gear, wearing helmets and carrying axes. We greeted each other in the dark; I could not see their faces. I begged them to lead me to the post office. I know Honduras well, I lied, and know that its people are renowned for their hospitality. I was sure they would not refuse me. It was very important that the world find out the truth about who started the war, who shot first and I could assure them that I had written the honest truth. The main thing now was time, and we had to hurry.
We left the hotel. It was a dark night. I could see only the outlines of the street. I do not know why we spoke in whispers. I tried to remember the way and counted my steps. I was close to a thousand when the firemen stopped and one of them knocked on a door. A voice from inside asked what we wanted. Then the door opened, but only for an instant so that the light wouldn’t be seen. I was inside. They ordered me to wait: there is only one telex machine in Honduras, and the president was using it. He was engaged in an exchange with his ambassador in Washington, who would be applying to the American government for military assistance. This went on for a long time, since the president and the ambassador were using uncommonly flowery language and, besides, the connection kept breaking every so often.
After midnight I finally made contact with Warsaw. The machine typed out the number TL 813480 PAP VARSOVIA. I leapt up joyfully. The operator asked, ‘Is Varsovia some country?’
‘It’s not a country. It’s a city. The country is called Polonia.’
‘Polonia, Polonia,’ he repeated, but I could see that the name didn’t actually interest him.
He asked Warsaw, ‘HOW RECEIVED MSG BIBI?’
And Warsaw answered, ‘RECEIVED OK OK GREE FOR RYSIEK TKS TKS!’
I put my arms around the operator, told him I hoped he got through the war in one piece and started back to the hotel. Barely had I set foot in the street when I realized I was lost. I found myself in terrible darkness — thick and clotted and impenetrable, as if a heavy black grease had been smeared over my eyes, and I could see nothing, not even, literally, my hands when I stretched them out in front of me. The sky must have clouded over, because the stars had disappeared and there was no light anywhere. I was alone in an unfamiliar city that, as I couldn’t see it, might well have disappeared into the earth. The silence was piercing — not a voice anywhere, not a sound. I moved forward like a blind man, feeling the walls, the drainpipes and the mesh shutters over the shop windows. When I realized that my footsteps were sounding like drumbeats I went up on tiptoe. Suddenly the wall at my fingertips ended; I would have to turn into a side street. Or was it the beginning of a plaza? Or was I on a high escarpment with a long drop in front of me? I tested the ground ahead with my feet. Asphalt! I was in the middle of the street. I moved sideways and bumped into another wall. I no longer knew where the post office could be, let alone the hotel; I was floundering, but I kept going. Suddenly there was a powerful boom! I was losing my footing and was being thrown to the pavement.
I had upset a tin garbage can.
The street must have been on a slope, because the garbage can rolled away with a frightful din. In an instant I heard windows snapping open on all sides above me and hysterical, terrified whispers: ‘Silencio! Silencio!’ A city that wanted the world to forget it for one night, that wanted to be alone in silence and darkness, was defending itself against being given away. As the empty garbage can clattered down the hill, more and more windows kept opening as it passed with plaintive, insistent whispers: ‘Silencio! Silencio!’ But there was no way to stop the metal monster, it was like something possessed, banging against the cobblestones, smashing into lamp-posts, thundering and booming. I lay on the pavement, hugging it, frightened, sweating. I was afraid that someone would open fire in my direction. I had committed an act of treason: the enemy, unable to find the city in this darkness and silence, could now locate it by the racket of the garbage can. I had to make tracks and run. I got to my feet and found that my head was throbbing — I had struck it on the pavement when I fell — and I sprinted like a madman until I stumbled over something and fell on my face, the taste of blood in my mouth. I picked myself up and leaned against a wall. The wall arched above my head and I had to stand hunched over, feeling more and more imprisoned by a city I could not see. I watched for the light of a lantern: somebody must be looking for me, this intruder who had violated the military order not to go out at night. But there was nothing, only sepulchral silence and unviolated darkness. I crept along with my hands stretched out in front of me, bruised now and bleeding and bloody in a tattered shirt, lost in this labyrinth of walls. Centuries could have passed; I might have reached the end of the world. Suddenly a violent tropical deluge broke. Lightning illuminated the nightmare city for an instant. Standing among unknown streets I glimpsed a decrepit townhouse, a wooden shed, a street-lamp, cobble-stones. It vanished in a second. I could hear only the gush of rain and, from time to time, the whistle of wind. I was freezing, soaked, shivering all over. I felt the recess of a doorway and took cover from the downpour. Jammed between the wall and the door I tried to sleep, but without success.
An army patrol found me at dawn.
‘Silly man,’ a sleepy sergeant said. ‘Where were you strolling on a wartime evening?’ He looked me over suspiciously and wanted to take me to city headquarters. Fortunately I was carrying my papers and managed to explain what had happened. They led me to my hotel and on the way mentioned that the battle at the front had gone on all night, but that it was so far away that you couldn’t hear the shooting in Tegucigalpa.
Since early morning people had been digging trenches, erecting barricades — preparing for a siege. Women were stocking up supplies and criss-crossing their windows with masking tape. People rushed through the streets directionless; an atmosphere of panic reigned. Student brigades were painting outsized slogans on walls and fences. A bubble full of graffiti had burst over Tegucigalpa, covering the walls with thousands of verses.