Mona and Other Tales by Reinaldo Arenas Page B

appears, all dressed in black. She’s the mother of one of the henchman’s victims. The woman stops the group. “Please, I beg of you,” she says, “don’t kill him, don’t kill him. Punish him, but don’t kill him!” Shedding profuse tears, she keeps pleading. But all of you, and all of us, start walking. The woman is being left behind, in the middle of the street full of flags. We get to a children’s playground. Someone has fixed the town’s power lines, and the lampposts light up. All the radios are blaring now with the latest anthems, which I had not yet heard. A group of rebels take the henchman to their headquarters. You stay in the park, surrounded by people. The women from La Chomba offer you cigarettes. They take you to a bench and begin asking you questions. You talk, always smiling, always showing off your rifle, but you don’t allow anyone to touch it. I keep watching you. The crowd around you is growing by the minute, asking you questions, offering you praise. I raise my hand. I try to say good-bye, to tell you, “I’ll see you around.” But I can’t get close enough. You are surrounded. It seems they are about to carry you on their shoulders. Now the military marches are louder. Near me, someone is mocking them at the top of his voice. “Viva, viva,” some raggedy boys shout from the top of the fountain with the turtles. I am making my way on one side of the park, where the crowd is thinner. It is night already. I hear the first rockets. Suddenly the sky explodes in fireworks. I turn on Diez de Octubre Street and reach my neighborhood. Everybody is very excited; some of my neighbors greet me enthusiastically. I rush to get home. My mother and my grandparents are on the porch, waiting for me. The three of them embrace me at the same time. “Son,” they all say. I go in. “You must be starving,” Grandma says. “Can I fix you something?” “No,” I say. And I sit in the dining room. Right then, Tico and Lourdes come in. “Hey, big man,” Tico tells me. I shake his hand and hug Lourdes. Over the radio, which Mother has just turned on, a woman recites a patriotic poem. The anthems keep resounding in the streets. And now Grandpa comes in from his produce stand, carrying a red-and-black flag with a big number 26 in the middle. “Say, young man!” he says, and hands me the flag. “Go out in the street with it,” Mother tells me. “All the neighbors are waiting for you.” I stand there for a moment, holding the flag. “I’m tired,” I finally say, and throw the flag into the bathroom. And I turn on the light. I take out the knife under my shirt and put it on the edge of the john. Before undressing, I take a look at my miserable civilian clothes, sweaty and muddy. Over the radio, the woman keeps reciting in a thundering voice. The marches reverberate in the street along with the rejoicing from all over town. “Hurry,” my mother says outside the door. “We are waiting for you.” I don’t answer. Naked, I go under the shower and open the faucet. The water falls over my head, slides down my body, and is completely reddened with dust when it reaches the floor.
    1965

In the Shade of the Almond Tree
    â€œWE’VE GOT TO CHOP IT DOWN,” one of them says. And I rush out to the street. The other two burst out laughing, let out a snort of relief, and applaud. “We’ve got to chop it down,” they echo in a circle around the first one. Finally they leave the dining room and head toward the patio. But I’m already on the street. It’s cool. The brutal September sun is gone, and autumn settles in the trees. It feels almost pleasant to stroll on these streets. From here I don’t see their prancing about, their intolerable shouting, their constant running back and forth through the house, unsettling everything, questioning everything,