The Dissertation, page 45
part #2 of Tinieblas Series
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour (1848-1930). This scion of the famous Cecil family and former Prime Minister of Great Britain, whose dedication to public service has endured beyond the grave and who is presently a Special Assistant to the Director of Astral Activities, visited me tonight (8th May, 1974) in connection with inquiries Padre Celso Labrador has been making on my behalf concerning León Fuertes, During an hour’s conversation Balfour showed great charm, wit, and (alas) discretion, for despite all my pumping he released only a drop of information: Earlier this year León Fuertes stopped by Risk, wagered a century in Victim against an hour of True Love, and lost.
Now, my father gambled a bit in this world, but it is most unlike him to offer odds like that. I protested. I pleaded for more news. Balfour merely smiled his blue eyes at me, shook his moustache languidly, and turned away my pleas and protests with brilliantly phrased, inconsequential chit-chat. At length I grew somewhat hysterical, and he put me in my place—but even then he remained civil.
“My dear boy,” he said, climbing from the chair where he’d been lounging to stand loosely before me, his hands hung on his jacket lapels, “we don’t give out information concerning spirits assigned in Victim, The policy’s quite clear. It’s been in force for more than a millennium. The Director has shown you a good deal of consideration as it is. He might very well have ignored your queries. Or sent someone like Otto Bismarck to shout you down. Quite a competent fellow, Otto—we share a suite of offices, you know—but rather more iron hand than velvet glove. So you see, you’ve no call to throw a tantrum. I should have thought you’d show better breeding in any case.”
“But it’s a question of my work! I must talk with my father!”
“You’ll simply have to get along without that. Unless you care to wait a hundred years. In any event, we shall entertain no further inquiries about your father’s present status.”
For my part, I have been unable to inform Padre Celso on my brother Carlos’s whereabouts. I have, however (as the reader will have noticed), heard him out through another installment of his martyrdom.
45. Cruelty
The Civil Guard installation at Belém is on the edge of town, about two hundred meters from the restaurant where Liz and Sig and I lunched the afternoon of our trip to Mituco (see note 25). A high wall topped with electrified barbed wire encloses the District Headquarters, a jail, a barrack, and a motor pool. The Veldtmaster (with Padre Celso tamped down out of sight) drove in calmly, Sergeant Evaristo Tranca exchanging wisecracks with the guard at the gate, and pulled round to the rear of the district headquarters. Tranca jumped out and opened a door leading to the cellar. Sergeants Martillo and Tenazas hauled Padre Celso from the vehicle floor, dragged him to the door, but (since Tranca warned “Don’t mark him!”) did not throw him down the stairs but dragged-pushed-carried him instead. Meantime Tranca told Private Punzón to check the Veldtmaster back into the motor pool and disappear.
The main room of the District Headquarters cellar contained, among others, the following training aids: a wooden chair, a roll of telephone cord, some three-quarter-inch Manila rope, a selection of radiator hoses. Sergeants Martillo and Tenazas sat Padre Celso in the chair, and Sergeant Evaristo Tranca cut a piece of telephone cord and joined Padre Celso’s elbows behind the chair back. He tied another piece of cord around Padre Celso’s head so that a fold of burlap was held firmly in his mouth. Finally he looped a length of cord three times around Padre Celso’s thighs, binding him securely to the seat. He smiled at Sergeants Martillo and Tenazas and said thanks for their trouble, they could take off now. They said they’d stay and help, and Sergeant Evaristo Tranca said they didn’t have to, it wouldn’t be a long or tedious lesson, but they said it was still early and they didn’t know anyone in Belém and hadn’t much of anything to do, so Sergeant Tranca said all right, stick around. All this time Padre Celso sat with his thighs bound to the chair seat and his elbows joined behind the chair back and the burlap sack tied over his head.
Then Sergeant Evaristo Tranca picked out a three-inch truck radiator hose about two and one-half feet long from the pile in the corner and gripped it just above one end and swung it softly against his calf a couple times and walked over to the chair and stood at a diagonal to it, so that his crotch was over Padre Celso’s right knee, and started beating Padre Celso on the side of his left breast. Sergeant Tranca swung the hose crisply, with a good follow through though not particularly hard, at about the tempo used by circus bands to toot “The Skaters’ Waltz” for trapeze artists. He gave the padre thirty or forty swats, hitting without anger or enjoyment, like a housewife beating a rug. Then he stopped and massaged his right forearm and bicep. All this time Padre Celso made no sound, not even the crushed grunts and gasps one might have expected to leak out through the burlap.
Sergeant Martillo offered to spell him for a while, but Tranca said the lesson was probably over. He dropped his hose and untied the cord from Padre Celso’s head and plucked the soggy fold of burlap from his mouth and asked him (very much in the style of Major Lisandro Empulgueras) if he’d decided to be good. Padre Celso said nothing.
Martillo repeated his offer. Sergeant Tenazas suggested they use a thinner hose. Tranca said to wait and pulled the sack off Padre Celso’s head.
Now, when Sergeant Evaristo Tranca pulled the burlap sack off Padre Celso’s head, he jumped back as though smacked with a radiator hose, and Sergeants Martillo and Tenazas jumped back also, Martillo slapping his forehead with the heel of his right hand and Tenazas gasping, “Chucha madre! Coño! Carajo! La puta!” for Padre Celso, whom they had all seen get in the Veldtmaster clean-shaven and close-shorn, now had an auburn beard and hair that flowed onto his shoulders. Worse, much worse, the padre neither wept nor whined nor whimpered. The three sergeants had seen hard cases bleat and blubber after the kind of beating Tranca had administered, yet Padre Celso, who hadn’t seemed tough at all, merely regarded them with a wistful, infinitecompassion gaze. That gaze drilled into the three sergeants with fearful cruelty.
46. Twisted and hateful
This, sympathetic examiners—and if you have a scrap of human feeling you can scarcely fail to sympathize with me—is the most recent characterization of me offered by my loving helpmeet. The occasion was a comment so inoffensive that it does not merit reproduction here. Even if we credit her protests of good faith, even if we grant her claim that she thought I was awake already —a claim that is by no means proved—do I deserve to be called twisted at a time like this? Suicide, mass murder, the destruction of the world itself would have been perfectly justified responses to the Balfour Declaration (see note 44). My father is in Victim! My gift and all the agonies I’ve suffered perfecting it now count for nothing!
Momentum carried me forward, reeling, through notes 44 and 45, through a good portion of Chapter 9. Iron discipline enabled me to prevent my despair’s leaking onto the page. Two Seconals blessed me with dreamless sleep.… And then the inconsiderate drab comes in and wakes me, drags me back to my blind alley. She flits in humming, and boots me back to reality. She coos about its being a lovely afternoon, when it is surely the most hideous afternoon in human history, with the possible exception of the afternoon I lost my fellowship. She swoops at me—purportedly to kiss me, but if so, so what? And when I make a minor, inoffensive grumble, touching, it so happens, on her and her darling Siggy, but in any case too innocent to merit reproduction here, she dips into her bottomless well of unfairness and calls me hateful.
It was mainly habit that sent me back to work after she huffed out. That and the need for some distraction. The thought of my father’s sufferings, the news that I shall not have him as a source for this history, are too terrible to bear for longer than brief instants. Accordingly, I finished Chapter 9. I then spent a quarter of an hour considering emigration to the next world and a long enough enlistment in Victim to interview my father, León Fuertes. I was on the point—or rather on the edge—of doing exactly that when it occurred to me that certain people must be taught a lesson. Dr. Emil Vertilanz must be taught a lesson. Mrs. Elizabeth Cleaver Fuertes must be taught a lesson. Arthur James Balfour, Lord Balfour, must be taught a lesson, Smug morons must be taught that there are more things in this world and the next than are dreamt of in their philistiny, and that there exist a certain few human beings who simply will not abandon the work of civilization, no matter how many obstacles smug morons strew into their path.
47. Baseball
As soon as the three sergeants had recovered from their shock, they reacted to the cruelty of Padre Celso’s gaze. They began shouting at the padre and abusing him with curses. Sergeant Martillo smacked his forehead with the heel of his right hand and yelled, “He’s making fun of us, the freak! He’s mocking us! He knows he shouldn’t have his hair like that! You freak, you know we don’t allow that in this country, no hair like that, no filthy stinking beards!” He made as if to smash Padre Celso in the face, but Sergeant Tranca grabbed his arm and yelled, “Don’t mark him!” so Sergeant Martillo fell to cursing Padre Celso for a filthy stinking weirdo faggot freak. Sergeant Tenazas began to curse as well. He hopped about as though someone had put a blowtorch to his bottom, screaming about what they did to freaks if they caught them in Otán, until he and Martillo were so worked up they made a rush for Padre Celso, and Sergeant Evaristo Tranca, who was furious himself but not so furious that he forgot his duty, threw himself between Padre Celso and the two Otán sergeants, shouting, “Don’t mark him, carajo! Don’t mark the fucker up!”
All this while Padre Celso sat quietly, tormenting the three sergeants with his gaze. His composure cost him no effort. It was true he wasn’t tough. He had felt every one of Sergeant Tranca’s blows most keenly. But the pain of each blow confirmed that he was serving justice and reinforced the purpose of his life, so that he was now totally tripped out. Had he realized that his gaze was torturing the three sergeants, he would have looked away. He bore them no ill will. Insofar as he was conscious of their presence, he bore them gratitude, gratitude mingled with pity, since they would clearly never know his peace and sense of purpose.
At length the three sergeants calmed down. Martillo was right, said Sergeant Evaristo Tranca. The padre was making fun of them. He was making fun of the Guardia Civil and the Revolutionary Government and General Genghis Manduco. He hadn’t learned his lesson—far from it! Several things night be done in a case like this, and Sergeant Tranca felt the best would be to play some baseball.
48. The ball
While Sergeant Evaristo Tranca went to the barracks to recruit players, Sergeants Martillo and Tenazas took the following steps to provide a ball:
1. Martillo kicked the chair over with the padre in it and cut the cord that bound him to the seat and pulled off his trousers and underpants and bound his ankles firmly.
2. Tenazas selected a length of rope and put one end between the padre’s knees and pulled it through and drew the rope against the cord that bound the padre’s ankles.
3. Tenazas set the chair up and, standing on it, reeved both ends of the rope through a steel ring bolted to the ceiling beam near the big bulb that lit the room.
4. Martillo and Tenazas hauled the padre up so that he hung with his long hair just brushing the square drain in the center of the cement floor.
5. Martillo held the padre aloft while Tenazas made the rope fast to a steel ring set in the cement wall.
6. Martillo gathered the padre’s shirt and furled it so that it hung bunched about his neck and armpits.
Scarcely had step 6 been completed, when Sergeant Tranca emerged onto the field with half a dozen players.
49. The line-up
Leading off, batting right-banded, Sergeant Carlos Martillo, a twelve-year Guardia veteran from Aguascalientes in Salinas Province, who now makes his home in Otán. Though short and stumpy, Martillo gets a lot of power out of those thick wrists and heavy shoulders.
On deck, another Otán favorite, Sergeant Emilio Tenazas, in his tenth year with the Guard. Tenazas likes the whip-action of a two-and-one-half-inch Mopar baby, and there he is, limbering up, riffling a few practice swings.
Hitting third is Private Juan Calimba, out of Sombras in Selva Trópica. The big southpaw is only in his second year, but he gets a lot of respect at the plate.
Batting cleanup, from Bastidas in Tuquetá, Private Longino Horca. Before coming to Belém, Horca spent four years with the Guard detachment at Fangosa Island Penal Colony. He has power to all fields.
In fifth position, Private Alfonso Estilete, a farm boy from Remedios. This is Estilete’s first season with the Guardia, but you can’t call him a rookie, not with his four years sledging steers in the Angostura slaughterhouse.
Batting sixth, the nine-year veteran Corporal Elvio Bastón. Elvio’s a local boy from nearby San Carlos, and you can bet he’s not going to let his home province down tonight.
In the seventh spot, Private Alvaro Manopla, from the nation’s capital, Ciudad Tinieblas. The reason why Alvaro’s wearing clogs and skivvies is that be was in the shower when he learned there was a game tonight. He’s never missed a game in five years with the Guardia, and being out of uniform shouldn’t affect his hitting.
And rounding out the order, also from Ciudad Tinieblas, the seventeen-year-old rookie Private Casto Porra, in his very first Guardia game.
The old swamp fox himself, Sergeant Evaristo Tranca, will be doing the pitching. Catcher, of course, is anyone who isn’t up at bat.
50. The game
Sergeant Evaristo Tranca bent and grabbed two fistfuls of Padre Celso Labrador’s long auburn hair and walked back toward the wall, pulling the padre up and back so that he hung at about a forty-five-degree angle to the floor, and Sergeant Martillo stood in, crowding the plate (which was the square drain in the center of the floor), swishing the fat radiator hose back and forth in his big blue-veined hands. Then Sergeant Tranca let the padre swing down toward the drain, and Sergeant Martillo dipped his left shoulder and stepped forward with his left foot and whipped the hose around, clean and level, into Padre Celso’s stomach.
Thwap!
“Attaway!”
“Good hit!”
Corporal Bastón caught Padre Celso around the waist where be was swinging and took hold of the telephone cord that bound his elbows together behind his back and walked him to Sergeant Tranca. Tranca took him by the hair again and pulled him up and back as far as he would go, and meanwhile Sergeant Tenazas stepped in with his thin, switch-action hose. Then the padre went whizzing down again, and Sergeant Tenazas stepped out with his left foot, bailing out from the inside fast ball, and golfed the hose up across Padre Celso’s chest.
Thwunk!
“Good hit! Good bit!”
Sergeant Martillo caught Padre Celso where he swung and walked him back toward Sergeant Tranca, and Tranca came halfway down and grabbed the padre’s hair, and while he hauled the padre back, Private Calimba stepped up to the drain, with the others calling, “Come on, Juanchi! Get a piece of ‘im, Juan baby!” Tranca let fly again, pushing the padre so that his hair brushed right across the drain, and Calimba squared around and swung like an axman splitting cordwood on a stump and flailed the hose end down on Padre Celso’s testicles, which, since his legs were bound tightly together, were bunched forward by his thighs.
Thwop!
“’At’s it, Juanchi! Knock ’em up ’is ass!”
“Way to go, Juan baby! He doesn’t use ‘em anyway!”
Then Padre Celso began screaming. His left hip had knocked against Private Calimba’s shoulder so that he began spinning on the rope by which he hung, and as he spun he screamed. And as he swung, spinning and screaming, just as Private Estilete went to catch him and walk him back to Sergeant Tranca, he began to vomit. Private Estilete jumped back so as not to be vomited on, and the rest of the hitters, some of whom had been congratulating Private Calimba on what had to be scored a homer, groaned and shook their heads, like real baseball players surprised during a big inning by sudden rain. Padre Celso swung back and forth, vomiting the yucca and fried beans and rice with lentils of his supper. Vomit gushed from his mouth and flowed into his nose and eyes and splattered from the floor into his hair. Private Porra got sick and ran upstairs to vomit out of doors, and Private Horca grew so disgusted by the spectacle and stink he snatched the hose from Private Calimba and walked over to the padre and, taking care not to get ‘his boots splashed with vomit, drubbed the padre in the back and kidneys, yelling for him to be a man. Meanwhile the other hitters stood about, bored and annoyed.
What was Padre Celso thinking as he hung upside down and naked in the cellar of the Fourth Military District Headquarters, vomiting and retching, gasping for breath, his chest battered and his testicles bashed up into his abdomen and his head bursting from a weight of blood and his eyes stinging from the acid of his vomit? Well, he wasn’t thinking at all. One doesn’t think during that kind of nightmare. He could feel, however, and for one thing, his justice high was over. Private Juan Calimba bad fed him a real downer, and his high was gone. Padre Celso felt pain and dread and anguish, and beyond that he felt ashamed. Padre Celso felt disgusted—not with the men who beat him; with himself. It was his own fault, after all, that he was trussed up like a quail, choked and aching, fouled with his own filth, helpless and degraded among savages. He ought to have known he’d get a bill someday for having a sense of purpose, for hooking himself on justice. He no longer felt pity for Sergeant Tranca and the others. He felt envy. They seemed to get as big a rush, as much direction for their lives, passing out pain and degradation as he had got trying to distribute freedom and dignity, and no one knocked their nuts in for it either. He tried to say he’d learned his lesson, that he would be a good boy and behave, but his mouth was full of vomit, and then he couldn’t get his breath. He made his mind up, however, and at that instant his enlistment in justice was dissolved.
