Riding in the car, crossing the city on our way to the San José district, where she lives, Merceditas told me she was twenty-three years old, the mother of two children, and she doesn’t know what she’ll do if they execute her husband. Her mother-in-law has taken to her bed and hasn’t eaten a bite of food since Monday, Antonio’s execution has destroyed her. Merceditas says she still has hope her husband will be pardoned because of pressure from the Americans, for he received the highest possible marks in the training course he attended in the United States, where several military leaders had taken a real liking to him; she explained that the Gavidia brothers had been persuaded to participate in the coup by Captain Manuel Sánchez Dueñas, whom they executed along with Antonio. I realized Merceditas knows a lot about the coup, details only people in the military could know; I also discovered she is a young lady of very strong character (for a moment she reminded me of Pati), determined to do everything in her power to stop them from executing her husband and her brother-in-law, and if she seemed so withdrawn during the meeting it was because her grief is so devastating. Merceditas told me that this Captain Sánchez Dueñas, whom I’d never heard of, was the real organizer of the military coup: he was the top student in his graduating class and had been demoted for insubordination two years ago, and then there had been an order for his arrest, which forced him into exile; but he had returned clandestinely last Christmas to organize the conspiracy. My surprise was great when Merceditas said that this Sánchez Dueñas had been hiding out at an estate north of the city, where he’d been joined by other captains from his class, including, of course, her husband, Captain Gavidia, and that the estate is known as “La Layco,” and is owned by Mariíta Loucel. I didn’t have a chance to respond because at that moment we arrived at Merceditas’s house, but after saying goodbye to her, and while Don Leo was driving me home I kept thinking, with astonishment, that maybe Mariíta was the one who had organized the coup, and not the late Captain Sánchez Dueñas. Don Leo brought me back to the here and now when he said that a car with plainclothes policemen, according to him, had been following us at a prudent distance the whole way from Doña Chayito’s to Merceditas’s house.
Friday April 14
Doña Chayito dropped by at ten this morning; she was carrying a copy of the communiqué hidden under her slip. She reminded me that I needed to make as many copies as possible to distribute among my acquaintances, it was the only way to spread the word about us, and the printing presses are all controlled by the general’s spies. I told her I had tried to speak with Colonel Palma to find out if they were allowing visits on Saturdays, but he still wasn’t taking my calls; we agreed to meet tomorrow in front of the Central Prison. Doña Chayito stayed only a very short time. I suggested she be very careful, my house as well as hers was under surveillance. I immediately got down to work: I sat down in front of Pericles’s typewriter and churned out a dozen copies. At noon I went to my parents’ house. I asked Don Leo to come pick me up and take me there; I was carrying four copies folded up in an envelope, stuffed into my stockings on the inside of my right thigh. I told Father what I’d been up to; I listed who the copies are for: one for the business attaché at the British embassy, one for the board of directors of the coffee-growers association, another for him to take to Santa Ana, and another for him to keep; I asked him to make as many more copies as he could to distribute among his friends and acquaintances, especially in the diplomatic corps. He asked me if we’d already sent one to the American Embassy. I told him not yet, but I would find a way to personally give one to Mr. Gardiner, the vice-counsel, considering his friendship with Clemen. Father said he was impressed by my initiative; he said that the decision to sentence Don Agustín Alfaro, Dr. Guillermo Pérez, the director of Banco Hipotecario, and so many other respectable people to death has convinced everyone that we must overcome our fear and find some way to get rid of that criminal warlock. He then promised to send a copy to the American Embassy through his own contacts. He warned me to act with the utmost discretion.