The Black Minutes by Martín Solares

yourself and the salvation of your soul.”
    Chávez looked at the bottle with an expression of disdain. What a disaster! I said to myself. Cabrera couldn’t have been moretroublesome, and now they were surely tailing him. I wondered if there was any way to warn him. Later, Cabrera did things one would never have expected of a person like himself, and there wasn’t a way on earth to prevent it.
    Fritz, I said to myself, everything has been in vain. You ought to retire. Look at the agents: you’ve spent years working with them, and they’re just the same; it wasn’t so easy to raise their consciousness. And since I was feeling worse by the second, I took up the bottle of vodka and went off to the bishop’s residence.
    That night Sister Gertrudis came and knocked on the door of my room. I didn’t answer and went on staring at the ceiling, lying on my bed. Since I didn’t answer, she opened the door a crack and said, “We made
chucrut
.”
    Sauerkraut, I thought, sauerkraut! The sisters cook German food every time they see me overwhelmed. I enjoy this twofold because His Excellency doesn’t like
chucrut
. He says, “Cabbage again?” And during supper he spreads the food all over his plate in an attempt to conceal his aversion to German food. At such times, as I serve myself a second or third helping, I tend to ask him, “Are you done with your plate? Shall we serve you a bit more, Your Excellency?” He invariably says, “No, a morsel more would be gluttony.” I reply, “It’s a shame, the sisters deserve some recognition.” And the Lord Bishop, with a queasy expression on his face, picks up his utensils and goes back to playing with his food. But there are days when not even the culinary guerrilla war can succeed in lifting my spirits. And still less on a day like this, with a dead man on my conscience and another ex-student risking his life. All of it my fault, and my guilt materializes darkly, in Sister Gertrudis’s habit, still waiting at the door.
    “I’m not having dinner.”

    “No?”
    “No.”
    And the sister leaves. I wish my worries were so obedient.
    What are you doing, Fritz? I reprimand myself. Don’t you find your attitude childish? At your age you can’t abuse yourself like this! Put something in your stomach,
mein Gott!
You’ll pass out! I say to myself, I’m on a hunger strike. Resist irrational bishops,
und ihre unterdrückenden Maβnahmen!
I told myself this, but I wasn’t convincing anyone. In my head was a mob of people allied against me. One of them stood up and rebuked me. Fritz, you sinner, you’ve got blood on your hands and you must do something. Can’t you hear Bernardo’s soul crying out for justice? Yes, I’ve heard it, I tell them, I’ve heard nothing else these last few hours. Well, then? Well, then, just wait. And there the colloquy ends, since talking to yourself is bad for your mental health.
    I asked myself, What are you going to do if Macetón comes back with a search warrant for your desk? He could do that . . . or worse. What makes you so sure that Macetón isn’t closing in on the Williamses or old Romero right now, putting his life in danger? That would be
two
dead people on your conscience. El Chaneque’s words still tormented me—“I have to go buy some knives”—and I thought about Macetón, risking his neck in vain.
    Around eight I heard the Lord Bishop’s car pull in. I heard him walking into the kitchen to check the dinner menu and yelling, “What?
Chucrut?
” and then muttering something incomprehensible.
    A minute later he knocked twice on my door and I yelled back, “Silence, damn it! I’m praying!”
    But he opened the door anyway. As always when he oversteps in reprimanding me, he wanted to tender a veiled apology, but I was too angry.

    “What do you want, Your Excellency?”
    “You’re not coming to dinner?”
    “No.”
    “They made that thing you like . . . the cabbage.”
    “No. What you said has set me thinking. I have to