Jimmy sits up and orders him firmly, “Lower your voice, they’re going to hear us.”
“Go order people around in the barracks, you turd,” Clemen answers.
They hear loud knocks on the front door.
Clemen sits up; all color has drained out of his face, and he swallows in terror.
Jimmy stumbles over to the corner where his jacket, gun, and infantry boots are lying; he picks up the gun and presses his ear against the crack in the wooden floor.
The knocking continues, insistently.
Nobody from the back of the house answers.
“Where did they go, those girls?” Jimmy wonders.
Clemen is terrified.
Now they hear somebody’s steps running from the back of the house, the noise of the latch, an exchange of greetings, laughter, the latch again, the steps return.
“What’s going on?” Clemen asks, anxiously.
“Maybe this is all normal. It’s a priest’s house: people are always visiting, bringing gifts,” Jimmy says as he puts the gun back in the corner and lies down on the mat.
“I’m worried those Indian girls will rat on us.”
“Supposedly they don’t even know we’re here.”
“Could they be that stupid. ”
“That’s what the priest told me, they have no idea this loft even exists,” Jimmy says. “They didn’t see me. He brought me straight to the prayer room and showed me where I had to climb onto the wardrobe and push in the false tile on the ceiling.”
“You scared me to death. ”
“You yellow belly.”
“They saw me. I even ate lunch here. ”
“In your housemaid costume?”
“Uh-huh. When they cleared the table, the priest told them he had to confess me, and they should stay in the back of the house. I think they’d never seen a servant in uniform. Then we went into the prayer room, I took off the uniform and wig, stuffed them in a bag, he gave me these trousers, which are too long and baggy, and I climbed on top of the wardrobe.”
“You’re really fucked, you don’t even have clothes to leave with.”
“I already told you, I’ve got nowhere to go, unless the priest takes me to another hiding place. And you, you think you’ll be able to walk down the street with that officer’s uniform on without anybody recognizing you?”
“That’s how I got here,” Jimmy says. “Anyway, the priest’s clothes will fit me, we’re almost the same height, but you look like the village idiot.”
“I don’t understand how my grandfather could have sent you here, knowing I was already here.,” Clemen wonders as he slowly tries to stand up, still bent over looking for the highest spot in the loft so he won’t bang his head on the ceiling.
“It stinks of whiskey here,” Jimmy complains, sniffing around him.
“Where?” Clemen asks, suddenly excited, looking eagerly at the pile of junk. “I can’t smell anything with all this dust and mildew.”
Jimmy stares at him, then leans over and sniffs.
“Oh, it’s you. You’re sweating whiskey.”
Clemen looks at him in disbelief; then he sniffs his own arm.
“You’re right,” he says with a smile, surprised. “Too bad I can’t drink it,” he adds, licking his arm.
“Some nerve you’ve got. Big rebels you civilians are,” Jimmy says indignantly. “While we were out there in the thick of battle, risking our lives, you guys were partying it up, guzzling the booze. And you still have the nerve to complain that things turned out the way they did. ”
“Don’t give me that shit, Jimmy. You guys were much worse than us. When that Colonel Tito Calvo of yours got to the American Embassy, he was so drunk he was falling over himself as he got out of the tank. ”
“You weren’t there.”
“But the consul told me, and he was. Falling down drunk and shitting himself he was so afraid, begging them to give him asylum. There you have your great military leader,” Clemen says disdainfully. “Don’t start on me with your sermons right now.”
“It wasn’t like that in the air force. ”
“The coup failed because that spineless sissy was afraid to order the tanks to attack police headquarters. If they had, there’d be a whole different ball game right now.”
Clemen lies back down on his mat.
“Things aren’t that simple,” Jimmy mumbles, moodily.
“Damn right, you gotta have balls.”
“I thought the same thing when I was in communication with the First Infantry Regiment, and I pressed General Marroquín to begin the armored attack on police headquarters, then he told me there were important political prisoners in the basement, friends of ours, people from good families, who might get killed, so he didn’t give the order.”
“Bullshit. They should have attacked right away, without giving them a chance to react.”
“Who knows. If your father had been there in the basement, you’d be singing a different tune,” Jimmy says; he picks up his folded shirt and places it under his head to use as a pillow, then settles in as if to go to sleep.
“That Marroquín is Tito Calvo’s half brother, and he’s buddies with that motherfucker, your general. I don’t know how they could have ever considered putting that pair of clowns in charge of the coup.”
“That wasn’t the idea,” Jimmy explains, then turns on his mat, his back to Clemen. “The idea was that Colonel Aguilar would command the coup, but things turned out differently. Let me sleep for a while, wake me up when the priest arrives. ”
“I don’t think you’ll be able to sleep.”
“If you shut up I will.”
Clemen lies on his back, gazing blankly up at the tiny skylight; it’s a dirty pane of glass, about four square inches, surrounded by roof tiles, through which an increasingly faint light filters into the room.
“Good thing we have this skylight,” he says.
Jimmy breathes heavily and rhythmically with his eyes closed, as if he were sleeping.
“I hope the priest lets us sleep down below. It’ll be horrible here,” Clemen insists.
Some bells ring nearby.
“Is it five thirty or a quarter to six?” he asks. “I wasn’t paying attention. Jimmy. ”
“Leave me alone.,” Jimmy says, without moving or opening his eyes. “You’re a real pain in the ass. ”
“Don’t be so pigheaded, you’re not going to be able to sleep. Anyway, the priest will be back any minute now.”
“He told me he’d try to get here by six,” Jimmy explains. “You slept off your hangover all nice and cozy at the American consul’s house, so you’re pleasantly rested. But I spent the night out in the open, don’t forget. ”
“What? Weren’t you at the Novoa’s house by the lake?”
Jimmy sits up, rubs his eyes, and looks at Clemen with irritation.
“The worst part is that you’re a deaf pain in the ass. I never said I slept at the Novoa’s; I told you that Lieutenant Peña and I managed to break through the blockade of enemy troops and escape from the Ilopango Airbase in the late afternoon, then we walked for three hours through the coffee fields to the lake, then hid out near the Novoa’s vacation home until very late at night, always on guard to make sure that nobody took us by surprise, that nobody would even know we were there. Only then did I go to the caretaker’s, whom I’ve known for years, and asked him not to make any noise or tell anybody we were there, and to help us cross the lake. We left in a canoe at three in the morning. Now you understand why I haven’t slept?”
“Nice guy, that caretaker. Hope he doesn’t rat on you. ”
“It won’t matter now.”
“What if they find the canoe?”
“What stupid things you think of. Is that why you woke me up?”
“I have a feeling I know that Cayetano Peña. ”