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By Root 1173 0

they would appear in the doorways of the elegant shoe shops and jewelry stores on El Conde, doing their crazy act so that people would toss them a coin or something to eat. He had often seen Valeriano and Barajita, in their rags and absurd adornments. When Valeriano thought he was Christ, he would drag a cross; when he was Napoleon, he would brandish his broomstick, bellow orders, and charge the enemy. One of Johnny Abbes’s caliés reported that Crazy Valeriano had started to make fun of the Chief, calling him the Cop. He was curious. He went to spy on them from a car with tinted windows. The old man, his chest covered with little mirrors and beer bottle caps, strutted around with the air of a clown, displaying his medals to a horrified crowd that did not know whether to laugh or run away. “Applaud the Cop, you assholes,” screamed Barajita, pointing to the gleaming chest of the madman. Then he felt the heat run through his body, blinding him, urging him to punish their audacity. He gave the order on the spot. But the next morning, thinking that crazy people don’t really know what they’re saying and that instead of punishing Valeriano he ought to catch the comedians who had told the couple what to say, on a dark dawn like this one he told Johnny Abbes: “Crazy people are just crazy. Let them go.” The head of the Military Intelligence Service, the SIM, grimaced: “Too late, Excellency. We threw them to the sharks yesterday. Alive, just as you ordered.”

He stood, his shoes on his feet. A statesman does not repent his decisions. He had never repented anything. He would throw those two bishops to the sharks, alive. He began the stage of his morning ritual that he performed with real delight, recalling a novel he read when he was young, the only one he ever thought about: Quo Vadis? A tale of Romans and Christians. He never forgot the image of the refined and wealthy Petronius, Arbiter of elegance, who revived each morning thanks to massages and ablutions, ointments, essences, perfumes, and his slave girls’ caresses. If he had the time, he would do what the Arbiter did: spend the entire morning in the hands of masseuses, pedicurists, manicurists, barbers, bathers, after the exercises for stimulating his muscles and activating his heart. He had a short massage at midday, after lunch, and a more leisurely one on Sundays, when he could spare two or three hours from his pressing obligations. But the times weren’t right for relaxing with the sensual delights of the great Petronius. He had to be content with the ten minutes he spent applying the perfumed Yardley deodorant that Manuel Alfonso sent to him from New York—poor Manuel, how could he go on, after his operation?—and the gentle French moisturizing cream Bienfait du Matin, and the cologne, also Yardley, with the light meadow scent, that he rubbed on his chest. When his hair was combed and he had touched up the ends of the thin brush mustache he had worn for twenty years, he powdered his face generously until he had hidden under a delicate whitish cloud the dark tinge of the Haitian blacks who were his maternal ancestors, something he had always despised on other people’s skin, and on his own.

He was dressed, with jacket and tie, at six minutes to five. He checked this with satisfaction: he never went past the hour. It was one of his superstitions; if he did not walk into his office at five sharp, something bad would happen that day.

He went over to the window. It was still dark, as if it were midnight. But he saw fewer stars than he had an hour earlier. They were shining less bravely. Day was about to break and soon they’d run away. He picked up a walking stick and went to the door. As soon as he opened it, he heard the heels of the two military adjutants.

“Good morning, Excellency.”

“Good morning, Excellency.”

He responded with a nod. At a glance he could tell that they were dressed correctly. He did not allow slovenliness or disorder in any officer or man in the Armed Forces, but among the adjutants, the unit responsible for guarding him, a missing button, a spot or wrinkle