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

house at four to wait for the mail, but the rain made him take refuge in Sabas’s office. It was still raining when the launches whistled.
    ‘Everybody says death is a woman,’ the womancontinued. She was fat, taller than her husband, and had a hairy mole on her upper lip. Her way of speaking reminded one of the hum of the electric fan. ‘But I don’t think it’s a woman,’ she said. She closed the cupboard and looked into the colonel’s eyes again.
    ‘Ithink it’s an animal with claws.’
    ‘That’s possible,’ the colonel admitted. ‘At times very strange things happen.’
    He thought ofthe postmaster jumping onto the launch in an oilskin slicker. A month had passed since he had changed lawyers. He was entitled to expect a reply. Sabas’s wife kept speaking about death until she noticed the colonel’s absent-minded expression.
    ‘Friend,’ she said. ‘You must be worried.’
    The colonel sat up.
    ‘That’s right friend,’ he lied. ‘I’m thinking that it’s five already and the rooster hasn’thad his injection.’
    She was confused.
    ‘An injection for a rooster, as if he were a human being!’ she shouted. ‘That’s a sacrilege.’
    Sabas couldn’t stand any more. He raised his flushed face.
    ‘Close your mouth for a minute,’ he ordered his wife. And in fact she did raise her hands to her mouth. ‘You’ve been bothering my friend for half an hour with your foolishness.’
    ‘Not at all,’ the colonelprotested.
    The woman slammed the door. Sabas dried his neck with a handkerchief soaked in lavender. The colonel approached the window. It was raining steadily. A long-legged chicken was crossing the deserted plaza.
    ‘Is it true the rooster’s getting injections?’
    ‘True,’ said the colonel. ‘His training begins next week.’
    ‘That’s madness,’ said Sabas. ‘Those things are not for you.’
    ‘I agree,’said the colonel. ‘But that’s no reason to wring his neck.’
    ‘That’sjust idiotic stubbornness,’ said Sabas, turning toward the window. The colonel heard him sigh with the breath of a bellows. His friend’s eyes made him feel pity.
    ‘It’s never too late for anything,’ the colonel said.
    ‘Don’t be unreasonable,’ insisted Sabas. ‘It’s a two-edged deal. On one side you get rid of that headache, andon the other you can put nine hundred pesos in your pocket.’
    ‘Nine hundred pesos!’ the colonel exclaimed.
    ‘Nine hundred pesos.’
    The colonel visualized the figure.
    ‘You think they’d give a fortune like that for the rooster?’
    ‘I don’t think,’ Sabas answered. ‘I’m absolutely sure.’
    It was the largest sum the colonel had had in his head since he had returned the revolution’s funds. When he leftSabas’s office, he felt a strong wrenching in his gut, but he was aware that this time it wasn’t because of the weather. At the post office he headed straight for the postmaster:
    ‘I’m expecting an urgent letter,’ he said. ‘It’s air mail.’
    The postmaster looked in the cubbyholes. When he finished reading, he put the letters back in the proper box but he didn’t say anything. He dusted off hishand and turned a meaningful look on the colonel.
    ‘It was supposed to come today for sure,’ the colonel said.
    The postmaster shrugged.
    ‘The only thing that comes for sure is death, colonel.’
    His wife received him with a dish of corn mush. He ateit in silence with long pauses for thought between each spoonful. Seated opposite him, the woman noticed that something had changed in his face.
    ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
    ‘I’m thinking about the employee that pension depends on,’ the colonel lied. ‘In fifty years, we’ll be peacefully six feet under, while that poor man will be killing himself every Friday waiting for his retirement pension.’
    ‘That’s a bad sign,’ the woman said. ‘It means that you’re beginning to resign yourself already.’ She went on eating her mush. But a momentlater she