No One Writes to the Colonel Read Online Free PDF Page B

she said.
    ‘I’m taking careof myself so I can sell myself,’ the colonel said. ‘I’ve already been hired by a clarinet factory.’
    But in reality his hoping for the letter barely sustained him. Exhausted, his bones aching from sleeplessness, he couldn’t attend to his needs and the rooster’s at the same time. In the second half of November, he thought that the animal would die after two days without corn. Then he remembereda handful of beanswhich he had hung in the chimney in July. He opened the pods and put down a can of dry seeds for the rooster.
    ‘Come here,’ she said.
    ‘Just a minute,’ the colonel answered, watching the rooster’s reaction. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers.’
    He found his wife trying to sit up in bed. Her ravaged body gave off the aroma of medicinal herbs. She spoke her words, one by one, with calculatedprecision:
    ‘Get rid of that rooster right now.’
    The colonel had foreseen that moment. He had been waiting for it ever since the afternoon when his son was shot down, and he had decided to keep the rooster. He had had time to think.
    ‘It’s not worth it now,’ he said. ‘The fight will be in two months and then we’ll be able to sell him at a better price.’
    ‘It’s not a question of the money,’ thewoman said. ‘When the boys come, you’ll tell them to take it away and do whatever they feel like with it.’
    ‘It’s for Agustín,’ the colonel said, advancing his prepared argument. ‘Remember his face when he came to tell us the rooster won.’
    The woman, in fact, did think of her son.
    ‘Those accursed roosters were his downfall!’ she shouted. ‘If he’d stayed home on January 3rd, his evil hour wouldn’thave come.’ She held out a skinny forefinger toward the door and exclaimed: ‘It seems as if I can see him when he left with the rooster under his arm. I warned him not to go looking for trouble at the cockfights, and he smiled and told me: “Shut up; this afternoon we’ll be rolling in money.” ’
    Shefell back exhausted. The colonel pushed her gently toward the pillow. His eyes fell upon other eyesexactly like his own. ‘Try not to move,’ he said, feeling her whistling within his own lungs. The woman fell into a momentary torpor. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her breathing seemed more even.
    ‘It’s because of the situation we’re in,’ she said. ‘It’s a sin to take the food out of our mouths to give it to a rooster.’
    The colonel wiped her forehead with the sheet.
    ‘Nobodydies in three months.’
    ‘And what do we eat in the meantime?’ the woman asked.
    ‘I don’t know,’ the colonel said. ‘But if we were going to die of hunger, we would have died already.’
    The rooster was very much alive next to the empty can. When he saw the colonel, he emitted an almost human, guttural monologue and tossed his head back. He gave him a smile of complicity:
    ‘Life is tough, pal.’
    The colonel went into the street. He wandered about the town during the siesta, without thinking about anything, without even trying to convince himself that his problem had no solution. He walked through forgotten streets until he found he was exhausted. Then he returned to the house. The woman heard him come in and called him into the bedroom.
    ‘What?’
    She replied without looking at him.
    ‘Wecan sell the clock.’
    The colonel had thought of that. ‘I’m sure Alvaro will give you forty pesos right on the spot,’ said the woman.‘Think how quickly he bought the sewing machine.’
    She was referring to the tailor whom Agustín had worked for.
    ‘I could speak to him in the morning,’ admitted the colonel.
    ‘None of that “speak to him in the morning,” ’ she insisted. ‘Take the clock to him thisminute. You put it on the counter and you tell him, “Alvaro, I’ve brought this clock for you to buy from me.” He’ll understand immediately.’
    The colonel felt ashamed.
    ‘It’s like walking around with the Holy