Read Online The Shadow of the Shadow by Paco Ignacio Taibo II - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Paco Ignacio Taibo II
Ads: Link
from Ericsson Telephone halfway between workers and
skilled technicians. The two friends cordially ignored the poet
caught up in his conquest of the beautiful Odilia, and went on to
look for the Chinaman, lost somewhere in the dancing, chattering
multitude that filled the street. They found Tomas at a literature
table arguing with Ciro Mendoza, a young anarchist leader from
the textile mills.
"But we've got to be patient, Tomas," Ciro was saying.
"Patience is fol the bosses," answered Tomas, and noticing his
two friends he waved them over.
"Cilo, I want you to meet a couple of fiends of mine. This is
Pioquinto Mantelola, and this is the illustlious licenciado Veldugo. Veldugo tlanslated Malatesta. Why don't you ask him what
Malatesta had to say about patience?"
"Sorry, Tomas, I don't quote Malatesta at parties."
"This isn't a party. Or well, sure, it's a kind of party, but you
can quote Malatesta here and nobody's going to mind," said the
union leader.
The music was picking up steam and the journalist separated
himself from the conversation and drifted off to mingle with the
dancing couples. At one of the stalls, partygoers threw baseballs
at a caricature of Napoleon Morones, eternal leader of the procapitalist unions. The prize for hitting the effigy three times was
an anarchist songbook. A little farther on they were raffling off the
complete works of Bakunin, and beyond that the Estrella strikers
were raffling off a goat.
A thin young man with a bow tie was in the middle of a fiery
speech. He had the sort of intensity about him that came from
endless days and nights dedicated to the struggle.
"The movement doesn't try and tell you how to think, the
organization isn't looking for sheep. What the movement needs is
militant activists. Criticism isn't something we want to silence, it's
something that has to run free like a rushing river..."
V E R D U G O THE LAWYER stuck one foot in through the
window, grabbed his hat, and slipped into the darkened house.
After leaving the anarchists' ball, and over the journalist's
objections, he'd decided to make a pass by the widow's mansion.
He carried a map of the layout in his head and figured that if
he were caught, at the very worst, he could bow out more or less
gracefully with a story about a midnight rendezvous with his
friend Conchita.
He closed his eyes and waited for them to get used to the dark.
He counted to ten, took a step, and tripped over a chair that shouldn't
have been there. Groping tentatively, he headed for the banister
which would lead him down the stairs to the main floor. Finally,
after a few more collisions and a decidedly unpleasant encounter
with something that could either have been a cat or a giant rat,
he found the stair rail and started to descend. His prodigious
memory told him there should have been twenty-one steps, so
when he got to the twenty-fifth he started to think that either he'd
broken into the wrong house or that, despite his calculations, he
was somehow heading down into the basement. Finally, well past
the thirtieth step, he was forced to conclude the staircase wasn't
the same one he'd seen on the evening of the picture show. Most
likely it was another staircase that led from the front of the house
into the kitchen, or something like that. He was thinking so hard
he hardly noticed when the stairs suddenly ended, the floor leveled
out under his feet, and he found himself standing in front of the
main fireplace, with its marble mantelpiece, just where he would
have expected to find it. He cursed himself, swearing never to trust
his treasonous memory again. Then he reoriented himself in the room and with his arms outstretched groped for the door next to
the swinging door to the kitchen, which Conchita had told him
led to her room. Finally his fingers touched wood and, imitating
the cat he'd run across upstairs, he scratched on the door with his
fingernails. If Conchita was out he
skilled technicians. The two friends cordially ignored the poet
caught up in his conquest of the beautiful Odilia, and went on to
look for the Chinaman, lost somewhere in the dancing, chattering
multitude that filled the street. They found Tomas at a literature
table arguing with Ciro Mendoza, a young anarchist leader from
the textile mills.
"But we've got to be patient, Tomas," Ciro was saying.
"Patience is fol the bosses," answered Tomas, and noticing his
two friends he waved them over.
"Cilo, I want you to meet a couple of fiends of mine. This is
Pioquinto Mantelola, and this is the illustlious licenciado Veldugo. Veldugo tlanslated Malatesta. Why don't you ask him what
Malatesta had to say about patience?"
"Sorry, Tomas, I don't quote Malatesta at parties."
"This isn't a party. Or well, sure, it's a kind of party, but you
can quote Malatesta here and nobody's going to mind," said the
union leader.
The music was picking up steam and the journalist separated
himself from the conversation and drifted off to mingle with the
dancing couples. At one of the stalls, partygoers threw baseballs
at a caricature of Napoleon Morones, eternal leader of the procapitalist unions. The prize for hitting the effigy three times was
an anarchist songbook. A little farther on they were raffling off the
complete works of Bakunin, and beyond that the Estrella strikers
were raffling off a goat.
A thin young man with a bow tie was in the middle of a fiery
speech. He had the sort of intensity about him that came from
endless days and nights dedicated to the struggle.
"The movement doesn't try and tell you how to think, the
organization isn't looking for sheep. What the movement needs is
militant activists. Criticism isn't something we want to silence, it's
something that has to run free like a rushing river..."
V E R D U G O THE LAWYER stuck one foot in through the
window, grabbed his hat, and slipped into the darkened house.
After leaving the anarchists' ball, and over the journalist's
objections, he'd decided to make a pass by the widow's mansion.
He carried a map of the layout in his head and figured that if
he were caught, at the very worst, he could bow out more or less
gracefully with a story about a midnight rendezvous with his
friend Conchita.
He closed his eyes and waited for them to get used to the dark.
He counted to ten, took a step, and tripped over a chair that shouldn't
have been there. Groping tentatively, he headed for the banister
which would lead him down the stairs to the main floor. Finally,
after a few more collisions and a decidedly unpleasant encounter
with something that could either have been a cat or a giant rat,
he found the stair rail and started to descend. His prodigious
memory told him there should have been twenty-one steps, so
when he got to the twenty-fifth he started to think that either he'd
broken into the wrong house or that, despite his calculations, he
was somehow heading down into the basement. Finally, well past
the thirtieth step, he was forced to conclude the staircase wasn't
the same one he'd seen on the evening of the picture show. Most
likely it was another staircase that led from the front of the house
into the kitchen, or something like that. He was thinking so hard
he hardly noticed when the stairs suddenly ended, the floor leveled
out under his feet, and he found himself standing in front of the
main fireplace, with its marble mantelpiece, just where he would
have expected to find it. He cursed himself, swearing never to trust
his treasonous memory again. Then he reoriented himself in the room and with his arms outstretched groped for the door next to
the swinging door to the kitchen, which Conchita had told him
led to her room. Finally his fingers touched wood and, imitating
the cat he'd run across upstairs, he scratched on the door with his
fingernails. If Conchita was out he
Similar Books
