Colonel praises my punctuality:
-is punctual as Germans, "he says.
-O as the English.
The colonel's last name is German.
is a big man, gray-haired, broad face, toast.
"I read his stuff-proposed. I congratulate you.
While serving two large glasses of whiskey, I will report, incidentally, who has twenty years of information services, who has studied philosophy and literature, which is a curious art. No points at all, simply leave the field set in which we operate, an area common vaguely.
From the large window on the tenth floor is the city at dusk, the pale lights of river. From here it is easy to love, even momentarily, to Buenos Aires. But there is no conceivable way that we love Colonel reunido.El search has some names, some papers that perhaps I have.
I seek dead, a place on the map. Still not a search, it's just a fantasy: the fantasy kind of evil that occurred to some suspect it might.
Someday (I think in times of anger) I'll go look. She means nothing to me, yet will go after the mystery of his death, his body behind to rot slowly in some remote cemetery. If I find fresh high waves of anger, fear and frustration Love will rise, vengeful powerful waves, and for a moment and not feel alone because I feel like a dragged bitter, forgotten shadow.
The colonel knows where.
moves easily on the floor of ornate furniture, decorated in ivory and bronzes, Meissen and Cantonese dishes. Jongkind smile at the false, the Fígari doubtful. I think that it would face if I told you who manufactures Jongkind, but instead praising his whiskey.
The baby with vigor, health, with enthusiasm, joy, superiority, contempt. His face changes and changes, while their fat hands slowly rotate the glass.
"Those papers," he says.
I look.
"That woman, Colonel.
Smile.
"Everything is strung-philosophy. Poticha
A Vienna porcelain lacks a fragment at the base. Una lámpara de cristal está rajada. El coronel, con los ojos brumosos y sonriendo, habla de la bomba.
—La pusieron en el palier. Creen que yo tengo la culpa. Si supieran lo que he hecho por ellos, esos roñosos.
—¿Mucho daño? —pregunto. Me importa un carajo.
—Bastante. Mi hija. La he puesto en manos de un psiquiatra. Tiene doce años —dice.
El coronel bebe, con ira, con tristeza, con miedo, con remordimiento.
Entra su mujer, con dos pocillos de café.
Contale vos, Negra.
Ella se va sin contestar; una mujer alta, orgullosa, con un rictus de neurosis. Su desdén queda flotando como una nubecita.
—La pobre quedó muy affected, "says the colonel. But you do not mind this.
- How not to import me! ... I heard that Captain N and the higher X also something terrible happened to them after that.
Colonel laughs.
-popular fantasy, "he says. See how it works. But deep down do not invent anything. Merely to repeat.
lights a Marlboro, the package leaves my hands on the table.
"Tell me any joke," he says.
think. I can not think.
"Tell me any political joke, whoever wants to, and I'll show you was invented twenty years ago, fifty years a century. Was used after the defeat at Sedan, or purpose of Hindenburg, Dollfuss, Badoglio.
- What's this?
-The tomb of Tutankhamen, "said the colonel. Lord Carnavon. Trash.
Colonel dried perspiration with fat, hairy hand.
"But the biggest X had an accident killed his wife.
- what else? "He says, rattling the ice in the glass.
"I shot a dawn.
-La mistaken for a robber Colonel smiles. These things happen. "But the captain
N. . .
"He had a car crash, who has either, and more he is not saddled a horse when he gets a fart.
- And you, colonel?
-Mine is different, "he says. I have freaked.
He stops, goes around the table.
"They think I have the fault. These rusty do not know what I did for them. But someday you will write the story. Maybe going to write you.
"I'd like.
"And I'm going to stay clean, I'll be fine. Not that I mind a good impression on those rusty, but to history, you know? "I wish
depend on me, Colonel.
-walked hovering. One night, one is encouraged. Left pump in the shield and ran.
Put your hand in a cabinet, takes out a polychrome porcelain figurine, a pastor with a basket of flowers.
"Look. The pastor
lacks a little arm.
"Derby says. Two hundred years.
The pastor lost his fingers suddenly tender. The colonel has a face of iron on the night side, sore.
- Why do you blame?
"Because I got from where it was, that's true, and I took her where she is now, that's true. But they know not what they wanted to do, those rusty know nothing, and do not know it was me who stopped him.
Colonel baby passionately, proudly, fiercely, with eloquence, method.
"Because I studied history. I can see things in historical perspective. I have read Hegel.
- What did they do?
-anchor in the river, throw an airplane, burn and throw the remains down the toilet, dilute acid. How much waste has to hear one! This country is covered with garbage, you do not know where it comes from so much trash, but we're all up to the neck.
-all, Colonel. Because deep down we agree, right? It's time to destroy. Would have to break everything.
-up and urinate.
"But no regrets, colonel. Merrily flying bomb and the cattle prod. Cheers "I say lifting the vessel.
No answer. We sat by the window. The harbor lights shine blue mercury. At times, you hear the car horns, trailing far as the voices of a dream. The colonel is just the gray spot on his face white spot on his shirt.
"That woman" I hear him mutter. She was naked in the coffin and looked like a virgin. Her skin had become transparent. Were cancer metastasis, such as those little pictures that you do on a wet window.
Colonel baby. It's tough.
-Nude "he says. There were four or five and no wanted to watch us. He was the captain, and Galician that embalmed, and I do not remember who else. And when we took the coffin-Colonel passes his hand over his forehead, when we get it, that disgusting ...
Galician Sunset by degrees, as in a theater. The colonel's face is almost invisible. Only the whiskey in his glass shines like a slowly dying fire. Through the open door of the department reach remote noises. The elevator door closed on the ground floor, has opened closer. The huge building whispers, breathes, gurgles with their pipes, their incinerators, their kitchens, their kids, their televisions, their servants, and now the colonel has standing, clutching a machine gun that did not see him out of nowhere, and walks on tiptoe towards the shield, turn on the light hitting, see the ascetic, geometric, ironically bearing vacuum, elevator, staircase, where no There is absolutely no one and come back slowly, dragging the machine gun.
"I thought I heard. These rusty I will get sloppy, like last time.
sits closer to the window now. The machine gun is gone and Colonel rambles again on the great scene of his life.
- ... he pulled over, the Galician disgusting. I was in love with the corpse, touched her, fondled her nipples. I gave him a punch, look-the Colonel looks knuckles, I threw it against the wall. It's all rotten, do not respect or death. Do you mind the dark?
-No.
-Best. From here I can see the street. And think. I always think. In the dark it is thought best.
back to down a whiskey.
"But this woman was naked," he says, argues against an invisible gainsaying. I had to cover her mons, I put a shroud and belt Franciscan. Suddenly
laughs.
"I had to pay the shroud of my pocket. Fourteen hundred dollars. That shows you, eh? That proves.
Repeat several times "That proves," as a mechanical toy, without saying what that shows me.
"I had to seek help to change the coffin. I called some workmen who were there. Imagine as stayed. For them it was a goddess, I do not know the things they put in the head, poor people.
- "Poor people?
"Yes, poor people. "Colonel anger against an elusive interior. I am also in Argentina.
"I, Colonel, me too. We all Argentines.
"Oh, well," he says.
- They saw it?
"Yes, I said that this woman was naked. A goddess, naked and dead. With all the death in the air, You know However, with all ...
The colonel's voice is lost in a surreal perspective, that little phrase remove increasingly framed in its lines of flight, and the decline of the voice to maintain a divine proportion or what. I also serve whiskey.
"For me there is nothing," said the colonel. I'm used to seeing naked women. Many in my life. And dead men. Many in Poland, 39. I was a military attache, realize.
I realize, more men naked women sumo dead, but the result gives me, not me, not me ... With a single muscle movement I get sober, like a dog shakes off water.
"Me I could not surprising. But they ...
- Do you impressed?
-One fainted. I woke him up by smacking. I said, "Faggot," this is what you do when you have to bury your queen? Acordate of San Pedro, who fell asleep when he killed Christ. "Then I thanked him.
looked at the street. "Coca" reads the sign, silver on red. "Cola" reads the sign, silver on red. The pupil grows huge, red circle after circle concentric red, filling the night, the city and the world. "Drink."
"Drink," says the colonel.
Bebo.
- Can you hear me?
"I listen.
you cut your finger.
- Was it necessary?
Colonel is silver now. Looking at the tip of the index, demarcates the thumbnail and rising.
-Tantita well. For identification.
- Do not know who he was?
He laughs. The hand will turn red. "Drink."
-wise, yes. Things have to be legal. It was a historic act, see?
"I understand.
-Digital printing does not grasp if the finger is dead. You have to moisturize. Paste it later.
- And?
"It was her. That woman was her.
- Very changed?
"No, no, you do not understand. lgualita. Seemed about to speak, that would ... The finger is to make everything legal. Professor R. controlled everything, he took x-rays.
- Professor R.?
"Yes. That I could not do either. We needed someone with scientific authority, moral.
Somewhere in the house sounds, distant, breathy, a little bell. I do not go to the colonel's wife, but suddenly it's there, his voice bitter, unconquerable.
- I turn?
-No.
-Phone.
"Tell them I'm not.
disappears. "It's for putearme
" says the colonel. Call me anytime. At three in the morning at five.
-Willingness to fuck "I say cheerfully.
-changed three times the number of the phone. But always find out.
- What did you say?
"That my daughter would hold the polio. I'm going to cut the eggs. Trash.
I hear the ice in the glass, like a distant bell.
"I did a ceremony, the harangue. I respect the ideas, I said. That woman did a lot for you. I'm going to bury a Christian. But they have to help me.
The Colonel is standing and drinking with courage, with exasperation, with great ideas that flow back and high on him as big and tall waves against a rock and leave it untouched and dry, trimmed and black, red and silver.
-La we get in a van, had at Viamonte, then on May 25, always cared for, protected, hiding. I wanted it removed, do something with it. I covered with a tarp, was in my office, about a wardrobe, very high. When I asked what it was told it was the transmitter of Cordoba, the Voice of Liberty.
I do not know where the Colonel. The reflection looks for silver, the red pupil. Perhaps it has gone. Perhaps wanders among the furniture. The building smells vaguely of soup in the kitchen, cologne in the bathroom, diapers in the crib, medicines, cigarettes, life, death. "It rains
"Says his strange voice.
I look at the sky: Sirius dog, the hunter Orion.
"It rains every other day," says the colonel. It rains every other day in a garden where everything rots, roses, pine, Franciscan belt. Where
, I think, where.
- Stands! "Cries the colonel. The buried stop, as Facundo, because it was a male!
Then I see it, on the other side of the table. And for a moment when the glow of blue bathing, I think I cry, big tears down her face.
"Do not mind me," he says, sits. I'm drunk. And long rains
in his memory.
I stand, touched her shoulder.
- Huh? "He says Huh? "He says.
And look at me suspiciously, like a drunk who wakes up in a train unknown.
- Is out of the country?
"Yes.
- Do you got?
"Yes.
- How many people know?
-DOS.
- Old knows?
He laughs.
-Cree who knows.
- Where?
No answer.
"You have to write, publish.
"Yes. Someday.
looks tired, remote.
- Now! "I am exasperated. Did not concerned about the story? I write the story, and you are well, well, forever, Colonel!
The tongue hits the palate, teeth.
"When the time comes ... you'll be the first ...
" Not now. Think. Paris Match. Life. Five thousand dollars. Ten thousand. Whatever.
He laughs.
- Where, Colonel, where?
is to slow, I do not know. Perhaps you are wondering who I am, what I do there.
And while I'm defeated, thinking that I must return, or never come. As my index finger starts and that indefatigable itinerary with maps, combining isohyets, probabilities, complicity. While I know it does not interest me, and that just will not move a finger, even on a map, the colonel's voice reaches me as a revelation.
"It's mine," he says simply. That woman is mine.
("That woman" was published in "The land offices", Ediciones De la Flor, 1986).
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