My sister is spending the night at my parents’ house; Armando hasn’t shown up nor will he until he is completely inebriated. My father is furious; he will send her back to Santa Ana tomorrow with his chauffeur. I always remind Cecilia to offer thanks to God that her children have not inherited their father’s vice: Nicolás Armando is father’s most trusted employee at the coffee company, he married well and is a responsible man; Yolanda and Fernandito are also very decent young people.
Wednesday, March 29
Pericles’s friends called this morning, one after the other, as if they’d planned it, all asking the same questions, all receiving the same answers. The first was Serafín, who is running Diario Latino while Don Jorge remains in jail; then Mingo called, the poor man told me he was laid up with a migraine all day Sunday and Monday; and finally, Chelón, Carmela’s husband. All three repeated their regrets at not being able to visit Pericles because of the general’s orders that he be kept in isolation.
Serafín says he feels a bit guilty because he should also be in jail, he’s the one responsible for the newspaper, though Pericles is the one who wrote the article. I responded just as my husband had to Don Rudecindo, when he arrived at the palace under arrest: the authorities should have locked up Don Hermógenes, the censor, for not having done his job more diligently. “Your old man is incorrigible,” Serafín said, laughing, because it sometimes seems as if poor Don Hermógenes is Pericles’s employee, he is so intimidated by him. And Serafín knows as well as I do that neither he nor the censor really has anything to do with this, this is an issue between the general and my husband. Before hanging up, he said we should remain alert, many rumors are circulating in the city, and many people’s nerves are on edge.
It worries Mingo that Pericles is locked up in a cell in the basement. Years ago, Mingo was held for a few days in the room next to the police chief; at that time, he was the owner of the newspaper Patria, where my husband began working after he resigned as ambassador and we returned from Brussels. Mingo is a highly sensitive poet, his health is precarious, and he still trembles when he remembers his arrest; but the general showed him a lot of consideration, because Mingo also was practicing theosophy at the time, though he has now returned to the church. I told him not to worry about Pericles’s spirits, he is tough and resilient, it’s not for nothing that he graduated from the military academy as a second lieutenant; then I asked after Irmita, his wife, who suffers from chronic lung disease, some kind of asthma she got while living with Mingo in Geneva.
I told Chelón that if he was calling, it was because he had nothing better to do, surely he was lazing about, waiting for inspiration for his next painting. He knows better than anybody what is going on, thanks to Carmela, for she and I speak every day. Then I told him that my mother-in-law is hoping the general will enter his mystical period so he’ll free Pericles, and since he, Chelón, is also a mystic who believes in invisible forces, he should conjure them up and instruct them to enter the general and dispel all his anger at my husband. Chelón is a dear man, and an artist, but he knows nothing whatsoever about politics.
There is no news to report from my visit with my husband. I brought him the books he asked for. He gave me a letter for Serafín, who sent someone to pick it up at my house as soon as I told him about it. I told Pericles that my father is still pressuring Judge Molina, the president of the Supreme Court — a spineless coward who’s completely subservient to the general — to define his legal status, for it is illegal to hold someone under arrest for an unlimited amount of time for an alleged violation of the anti-defamation laws. Because Mr. Pineda, my husband’s and the newspaper’s lawyer, has come up against a brick wall in the courts. “Excuse the expression, Doña Haydée, but the law doesn’t mean a damn thing to that warlock,” he said, discouraged, the last time we talked. I asked him to keep applying pressure, to not give up, but inside I know that Pericles will never be set free until “the man” cools off.
Clemen dropped by this afternoon, tipsy, talking up a storm, as he always does when he has too much alcohol in his blood and is on the verge of doing something foolish. He assured me something is brewing, the general is going to have to leave, his days in power are numbered because the Americans are sick and tired of him. For a moment I suspected Clemen had some specific information about a plot or even that he might be involved in one, because his tongue starts wagging when he drinks, and he might just end up in jail like his father; then he told me he had come from a journalists’ luncheon held at the American Embassy. I made him a strong cup of coffee, but he started nodding off anyway and fell asleep in the armchair. My poor son, so like his Uncle Lalo. I let him sleep even though his absence from work might cause him problems; anything’s better than seeing him drunk.
I had planned to go to the bank then to visit Carmela after the worst heat of the day had passed, in the afternoon, but I chose to stay home until Clemen woke up; I feel uncomfortable leaving him alone with María Elena. He woke up an hour and a half later, complained that I hadn’t woken him up earlier, and rushed off to the radio station. I begged him not to stop on the way to quench his thirst with a beer. The reasons we have the children we have has always been a mystery to me: who could have predicted, when Clemen was a baby, that he would have so few of my traits, or those of Pericles or his grandparents, and instead would inherit all the good and the bad of his Uncle Lalo, my father’s youngest brother, charming and scatterbrained, always on the lookout for revels and women? I have accepted God’s will and have made my peace with it; Pericles has had a more difficult time doing so. My father claims that since Uncle Lalo was killed just a few weeks before Clemen was born, his spirit entered him.
Thursday, March 30
Pati called to tell me that she is pregnant; the doctor confirmed it this morning. She is happy, though she says that Pericles’s situation casts a pall over the joyous news; I warned her against confounding her feelings: one thing is her sadness over her father’s imprisonment and quite another the happiness that he himself will have when he hears the good news. And so it was: Pericles was delighted when I told him. What I didn’t tell him is that I have hopes he will be freed tomorrow, Friday, two weeks from when he was arrested, because then comes Palm Sunday and the Holy Week, and it is reasonable to expect the general to soften up and order his release before going on vacation; and I didn’t mention this to my husband because he has a particular dislike for creating false hopes, for what he calls weak minds who believe in “pipe dreams,” whereas he believes only in the facts.
My parents were also very gladdened by the news of Pati’s pregnancy. I stopped by their place after my visit to the Black Palace. My father shares the hope that Pericles might be released tomorrow; he said that if this happens, we’ll have a big party on Sunday at the finca and invite the whole family, to celebrate both events: my daughter’s pregnancy and my husband’s freedom. The next day, on Monday, my parents will leave for Guatemala, where they like to go for the Holy Week; when I was a teenager, I loved going with them to see the carpets of flowers in the streets, the massive processions, especially the one for the Holy Burial.