be our pleasure to welcome you into our home. They waited almost three hours. The two bathed as serenely as could be, and not before they had first counted up their day’s receipts. We must also take into account the slow pace at which they adorned themselves with fripperies and the preparation of a laborious tea. Also their art of table arranging, the placing of their least dinged pewterware. And other such trifles.
34
Action at dawn: the theft. Over the course of that week, Liborio, Zacarías, Egipto, and Gonzala had become the best of chums. Egipto was the one who proposed the robbery. Let’s begin with the toughest part: the pool hall personnel, those two wimpy, scatterbrained hicks, we know who they are: and: what about this and what about that, convictions, during the first nightlong conversation when Egipto repeated more than nine times the periphrasis: “It’s a golden opportunity,” just a question of encouragement. But those in charge of the pool hall were rather reticent, they hesitated, they swore, honor and dignity should always triumph over corruption, also they were Catholics who crossed themselves frequently, hence their sense of guilt never left them any peace, and stealing—horrors! Their policy was to toe the line and seek new horizons morning, noon, and night, always holding their heads up high. Nevertheless, “It’s a golden opportunity,” persuasion, temptation. During the second conversation Egipto emphasized how fucked their lives were in that harsh, unchanging landscape, with its perpetual component of darkness and unthinkable squalor; he waxed eloquent, that is, on similar subjects. All rotten; images, scenes, simulations, which all came down to how fucked they were, but no, not even then did he convince them. It took till the third conversation for him to be able to touch their souls: the future of their families back at the ranch—how about eternal smiles?, not bad, eh? To leave the worst behind them, like abandoning a filthy nest. Moreover, the robbery would occur at dawn. To wit: do it soon, before Don Demetrio returned. It was a matter of taking all the money from the safe and jamming it lickety-split into a bag, any bag. Then running off and vanishing—come on! It was not easy to push them into sin, he had to talk and talk, in a tone of voice that really softened the edges of the most horrendous ideas. We won’t take the balls or the cues, just the money, okay? We must say, there was a lot, because the billiards business was growing at an almost demented rate, in just a few days—wow! so many vagrancy-prone customers. It’s a golden opportunity, don’t you see?! Finally Liborio and Zacarías, conscious that they were wavering and seeing the glint in each other’s eyes, were persuaded to throw in their lots. They would cross themselves while they burgled. Midnight action. When all was calm, because in Parras there wasn’t a lot of surveillance, and what little there was: why would they get out of bed at that hour. So: a stellar robbery. Yes, oath taken: from here on out, almost like a trick. Once those two eagerly agreed to go along with the robbery, Egipto invited them to the house. Celebration. A lavish meal for four, prepared by Gonzala, she who would steal Doña Telma’s jewels, a huge quantity in a safe, an artifact that several blows would open. She and Egipto had already talked it over extensively, moreover these two were in love and for both of them the robbery would mean fleeing Parras to live their love somewhere distant and unknown—right? Then they would kiss each other as much as they wanted far away, very far away, perhaps somewhere with good weather. They imagined themselves, therefore, very much in love and bedecked with jewels, maybe even drinking delicious wine in supine satiety. Indistinguishable from the aristocracy, part effort, part merit. A shared dream discussed in frenzied details we’d do better to leave unspoken. During the meal Egipto outlined the scheme while they toasted and wished each other one hell of an awesome life. Nevertheless, a few casual details; to the beat of clanking cutlery and chewing, Egipto explained that everything they took from the pool hall and the house would be divided equally; split five ways because a man with a pickup truck had to be cut in; a man, also a thief, whom Egipto had hired two days earlier, and who was now in on the plot, pretty exciting development, this business of