using passwords and the like. When to brake and when to accelerate (not much) the truck: like a shark in the dark, right? The hack couldn’t make it, had other things to do … Everything was working out, thank God. It’s true, few people would be able to resist such a thrifty theft; when the golden opportunity arrives nobody doesn’t want to be a thief … To (gently) steal in order to gain access to a more praiseworthy life, who wouldn’t, especially if no danger is detected. Naturally! anyway nerves get racked, so moving quickly is recommended, to get it over with, or whatever.
All four got along during the meal, which was delicious. Better not to list each thing they ate so as not to make the narrative too bourgeois, but it was all delicious.
Chorizo?
Buttery bits?
A motley mix of meats?
Wines so fine, the four were hanging from the rafters, once they were in their cups?
That’s what we found. And we also found that they were pigging out. All the rest we must merely assume: a long dissertation about the meaning of an augural robbery: jewels and money, big-time; corruption seen as fireworks, a fleeting and luminous spectacle, and its consequences: the lasting embers, those that linger long: life, period, embers, and again, casually, the word “corruption” appeared, so revealing, therefore, crush that word, destroy it, in order to raise it to the loftiest heights: corruption, corrup, corru, co, conquest, insofar as the theft itself would be the same as a silent then smiling flash of lightning. Finally came the good-byes: many good nights many thank yous, see you tomorrow; careful! tomorrow at dawn the robbery will take place, so we’ll meet at the house at exactly twelve midnight; agreed; say no more; good-bye.
We will give only a few details about the sinister implementation: four in the morning; not a sound in the entire town, so the fortune Liborio and Zacarías removed from the safe, bah, just a matter of stuffing that many bills into a large oilskin bag, and magic and speed to load it stealthily onto the truck, then vroom to Doña Telma’s house; there, the fortune the lady of the house left trustingly in Gonzala’s hands was placed in a bag, apace; all the jewelry in another, yes, in the twinkling of an eye, and the escape from Parras, everyone scrambling in. So it came to pass. Worth mentioning that none of the five thieves were from Parras but rather from several different hamlets: past the farthest reaches of the desert, like scattered grains whose names, well, someday we’ll name each hamlet, but for now only one: Paila—and that’s all! Also worth noting something else: the thieves left the door ajar in the pool hall as well as at the house. Carelessly or with intentional malice so that others could go in and take what was left. The first to notice the doors open the following day closed them, that’s right, in both cases they were quite decent. Bam! problem solved. Now all that’s left to speculate about is where the pickup loaded with thieves would go; how they would scatter, questions that belong to the mysterious disappearance of all five, who perhaps ended up fighting among themselves in some desolate spot, under a sky of abstruse hues, between chestnut and orange trees; that there were deaths, perhaps; one person who kept it all, the smartest one, of course, let’s dub it with “perhaps” and move on to something else.
35
Rehearsal. So much practicing of apologies there on the bench, the ones Doña Telma and Doña Zulema were ready to offer up in distressed tones, as if for a theatrical performance. One corrected the other, and vice versa, though not the big guy, who watched them impatiently but without a single word of reproach; he also kept turning to look at the house, to see if by now, but no. It was as if the delay made the coming solemnity more robust. More and more stammers popped up during rehearsals. Each word seemed to drag; each sentence seemed pressed on like a stamp; the rest was rhythm and delirium, a mopey flow. Three hours later Renata appeared, as if she’d been quite put out, though shining like never before. You had to see her: gorgeous, though a bit submissive. She was gesturing, “Please, please, come in,” and the tense but enthusiastic trio advanced toward the site of the apologies: they didn’t go through the stationery store (strange) but rather