The Big Switch by Mario Benedetti To hell with them. They’re going to pay for everything once and for all. It doesn’t matter that, just now, when I’m about to sign the eighteenth arrest warrant, my ballpoint pen breaks. Shit on the holy whore. And the imbecile who asks: “Should I find you another one, my colonel?” Seventeen is enough for today. Yesterday, Vélez regained his freedom converted into a gloriously wrecked person: the battered kidneys, a broken arm, swollen eye, the back covered with sores. Naturally, I’ve already assigned a suitable investigator to report on the irregularities denounced by certain factions of the national press. Some day they will have to learn that Colonel Corrales isn’t a coward like his predecessors, but a police chief with everything it takes hypnotized in front of the television set, Julita doesn’t even dare to blink. And with good reason. Lito Suárez, with his angelic face and his little closed fists, has sung “The Sown Light,” and immediately afterwards, “My Hearth Has a Patch.” Little screams similar to those of the young television audience also come out of Julita’s mouth, who for better vocalization shifts the mint candy to the side of her molar. But now Lito becomes solemn: “Today I have something new, and it’s called ‘The Big Switch.’ It’s a song and also a game. A game that we’ll play on a mass level, by town, with the youth. What do you think? I’m going to sing 'The Big Switch’ for you. There are only four verses. During the week that will begin tomorrow, we’ll sing the song everywhere: in the shower, in the classrooms, in the street, in bed, on the bus, at the beach, in the café. Agreed? Then, next Sunday, at this same time, we’ll change the first of the four verses. From the written suggestions you send me, I’ll pick one. Does that sound good?” Yesssssssssss, scream the addicted, fanatic, coherent adolescents. “And that’s how we’ll continue every week until we completely transform the stanza. But keep in mind that during each stage of its transformation, the stanza will have to meet two requirements: vary one of its verses, but maintain a unified meaning. It’s clear that the stanza which finally emerges might not have the same significance as the initial one, but that’s exactly the allure of the game. Are you with me?” Yesssssssssss. “And now I’m going to sing the first verse.” Julita Corrales finally swallows the candy so as not to be distracted and, furthermore, to concentrate on memorizing the Gospel according to Saint Lito. “So that no oooooone impedes it, so that your loooooooove awakens, for you I render my vooooooooice, for me ooooooooonly loving you.” Julita slides over to the chair where she has left the pen and the writing pad, nervously jots down the first variant that comes to mind, and, before the angelic face of the singer disappears amid the titles and final credits of the Lito and His Boys and Girls program, she’s ready to mumble it to herself: “So that you’ll coooooooome my dear, so that your loooooooove awakens, for you I render my vooooooooice, for me oooooooooonly loving you tell me, you little wretch, do you think I’m stupid? Isn’t it true you wanted to cause the blackout? I’m sure you would have done this to good-natured Ibarra. But I’m a police chief, not a coward. It’s advisable that you learn that. You’re scared, huh? I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t just be scared, but petrified in front of Colonel Corrales. But it turns out that I’m Colonel Corrales, and you’re Menéndez, the great revolutionary. And you’re also the one who’s shitting himself with fear. And the one who grabs his stomach in laughter is again Colonel Corrales. Does this sound right? Tell me honestly, because if this doesn’t sound right we’ll go back to talking about electricity. It so happens that I don’t like blackouts. I like the little electrical shocks. I guess you still have testicles. Of course, they’re a little small, right? Who was going to tell you that the testicles of an idiot could turn into the testicles of a dove? And so a blackout. A fine event. I guess that when you conceive these beautiful scenarios in which you’re so ballsy, you also keep the risks in mind. You’re now at the risk stage. Question number one: Who was the connection for the blackout? Question number two: Where were you last Thursday, between six and seven twenty-five? Question number three: How long do you think you’ll remain quiet? Question number four: Did the rats eat your tongue, my treasure? Julita bites her nails, but she does so with personality. She starts along the sides, so as not to terribly ruin the acceptable crescent moon created during the fine work of the manicurist. At any rate, she eats her nails, and she has her reasons. Lito Suarez is going to announce how “The Big Switch” sounds after the first transformation. “For one week we’ve all sung the song I taught you last Sunday. I even heard it sung in the stadium and in the dentist’s waiting room. Very good. That was exactly what I wanted. I received 5,473 suggestions to change the first verse. In the end, I selected this one: ‘So that the wound will ooooooopen.’ Yaaaaaaaaaaaay, says the channel’s young audience. “And so behave yourselves and sing ‘The Big Switch’ from now until next Sunday, just as I am going to sing it now: So that the wound will oooooopen, so that your looooooooove awakens, for you I render my vooooooooice, for me ooooooooonly loving you.” Disappointed, Julita stops eating her nails. Her brilliant suggestion ended up among the 5,472 rejects. “Within a week we’ll replace the second verse. Agreed?” Yesssssss, scream the audience the colonel displays his teeth. “Yes, Fresnedo, I’m with you. The new songs are idiotic. But what’s wrong with that? The truth is the kids enjoy themselves, become youthfully hysterical, ask for autographs, kiss photographs, and in the meantime, don’t think. I guess you’ve also heard this week’s stupidity. What does it sound like? Wait, wait. Even I know it by heart: ‘So that the wound will ooooooopen, so that your loooooooove awakens, for you I render my voooooooice, for me ooooooooonly loving you.’ It’s always better they sing that and not “The Internationale.’” “Excuse me, my colonel, but you’re not up to date. The second verse has changed since last Sunday. Now, it’s: ‘So that the wound will ooooooopen, so that we’ll uuuuuuse destiny, for you I render my voooooooice, for me ooooooooonly loving you’ Julita has finally found a picture of Lito. An angel, is what he is. She kisses the photograph with passion, tenderness, but also with care so as not to dampen it too much. Dad makes fun, sure. Dad is old and doesn’t understand anything. Poor dad is in the military, and concerns himself with prisoners, politics, and fixing the country. Dad has no sense of rhythm; at most he hums some very silly tango. Dad doesn’t understand young people, nor does Aunt Ester. The difference is that Aunt Ester doesn’t even understand old people. Lito is divine, divine, and how he understands us! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. What was dad like when he was sixteen? Did he have the same wrinkles and manias he has now? And what do I care. The important thing is to devise the third verse. It has to end in a noun. For example: for you straaaaaaaanger, or also: for the inflamed niiiiiiiight, or perhaps: for your faith myyyyyyyyy shelter. No. It sounds confusing. And besides, it doesn’t go well with the fourth verse, and Lito recommended that it should always be coherent. And what if it was: for your deeeeeeeeestiny my wound? How stupid! The first verse already contains the word wound. It would have to end, let’s say, with surprised skin. That’s it, done: For your suuuuuuuuuprised skin. It sounds marvelous, marvelous the heat softens everything. Even the epaulets, the belt, the short jacket, the cap. Only the decorations remain solid, undeformable. The heat penetrates the Venetian blinds and settles on the colonel’s face. The colonel is sweating like some sergeant, like the negro woman — was she called Alberta? — who he conscientiously mounted a long time ago (when he was only Lieutenant Corrales) in a crummy brothel, over there, near Tacuarembó. A rotten life, after all. When his father sent him into the army, his line of argument made reference to inflamed patriotic issues. His father was an atheist, but only in regard to the poor church; he was religious about everything else. To him, the fatherland was an equivalent of the Virgin Mary. The only thing left for him to do was to cross himself when he sung the hymn. He became stirred up with sublime enthusiasm. And in the end it turned out that being a soldier of the fatherland didn’t exactly mean defending the land, the borders, the famous national dignity, the enjoyment of civil laws, the code of loyalty — no, being a soldier of the fatherland, or to be more precise, the colonel of the fatherland, is to aggravate the young people, visit the ambassador, mistreat the manual laborers, receive the visit of the undersecretary to the ambassador’s secretary, pester one or two rebel leaders, to allow the esteemed collaborators of this regime to freely develop into sadists: to allow them to insult, harm, and torment — always torment — others, while also, deep down, tormenting themselves. Yes, it must be the heat which softens everything, even pride, the joy of power, of abuse. Colonel Corrales, sweaty, soft, and flabby, thinks about Julita in the same way someone thinks about a puppy, a cat, or a small colt he had when he was a captain in the border forces. Julita: sole daughter, and furthermore, the daughter of a widower, because Maria Julia died at an opportune time — before this chaos, this confusion — when the young officers still had the opportunity and desire to attend the Solís Theater, especially during the foreign seasons, showing the nice little quadrangular medal at the entrance, and proceeding to sit in the box where there was already a cautious and punctual frigate captain who would always find the best available seat. Like, for example, the night of the sneeze, during which Ruggiero Ruggieri was performing his Pirandello in an atmosphere of silence and tension and the captain’s nose started to itch and he realized that the sneeze was imminent and inevitable, and remembered Maria Julia’s method of always holding back her sneeze by placing her thumb and index finger along the sides of the bridge of her nose and in this manner only a faint, velvety breath escaped, barely audible twenty centimeters away. He attempted to do the same and actually boldly completed the entire external ritual and squeezed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger, but when the sneeze finally arrived at the exact and dramatic moment during which Ruggiero was in the middle of his most emotional pause of the second act, it was heard in the theatre. The acoustics of the Solís being quite remarkable — only comparable to Teatro Alla Scala in Milan according to the experts — a kind of piercing and grating whistle or horn or hissing was heard, loud enough to cause the entire orchestra and Ruggiero Ruggieri himself to direct a hostile look out of the corner of his eye at the military box, where the frigate captain was doing everything possible to ensure that the audience unequivocally understood he wasn’t the owner of the horn. Yes, Julita: a widower’s daughter; in other words, Julita, or rather, her entire family; how can one understand what is happening with Julita. She doesn’t study or sew or play the piano or even collect stamps or matchboxes or little bottles, but instead, from morning till night listens to records by that vile moron, that Lito Suárez with his indecent spit curl, indecent sideburns, indecent little finger, his spinning little eyes, straight-legged pants, his abetting winks and if that wasn’t enough, one has to endure him every Sunday during the four hour show, Lito and His Boys and Girls, like a new member of the family, installed in the television screen, inciting the children to sing that idiotic song, that “Switch,” and afterwards, all the little faces, more or less hysterical, the obligatory yaaaaaaaaaaay, and Julita’s no less indecent sigh, nearby, sweating as well, but happy, already having forgotten that her third suggestion has also been rejected like the first two and singing along with Lito and all the others the new version of the “Switch”: so that the wound will oooooooopen, so that we’ll uuuuuuuuse destiny, for uuuuuuuuus life, for me oooooooooonly loving you Julita turns off the light. She’s tried to read but hasn’t been able to. Despite the rejections, she can’t abandon her efforts at creating the fourth and decisive verse. But the presence of Lito, the angel, is now something more than a stanza. The heat doesn’t abate and she’s between the bed sheets, with her eyes wide open, trying to tell herself that what she wants to do is create the fourth verse, for example: for you my stroooooooooong hand, but in reality it’s something more than that, something much better that relates to the endless heat, which ignites everything. Julita comes out from beneath the sheets and, like that, in the dark, without turning on the light, she walks towards the door and locks it, and before returning to bed, she takes off her pajamas, removes the top sheet and lies face down. Then, while crying, she kisses the photograph, without caring that it’s becoming damp at least it’s cooled off. Fresnedo stands at attention. “Come now, forget about discipline for today,” says the colonel. At least it’s cooled off. When it cools off, Colonel Corrales usually feels optimistic, confident, in control of his future. “Since we prohibited public functions, we live more peacefully, don’t we?” “Still, today there was a function, my colonel, and it was authorized.” “Which one?” “The singer’s.” “Bah.” “I’ve just come from the plaza. There were thousands and thousands of children, especially little girls. Really amazing. They were commenting that he was going to complete the song there, that he was going to select the fourth verse. You might say I’m very fearful, my colonel, but don’t you think they should be watched more closely?” “Believe me, Fresnedo, they’re little idiots. I know them well, you know? Because, unfortunately, my daughter Julita is one of them. They’re harmless idiots, starting with that Lito. Don’t you think he’s feeble-minded?” Fresnedo’s eyes widen disproportionately, as if that is suddenly going to help him hear better. In reality, the clamor has begun like a distant murmur. Then, it begins to slowly introduce itself into the impregnable office. The colonel stands up and tries to understand what they’re screaming. But the only perfectly audible voice is that of someone in the street, near the door. Maybe it’s the official, or an exterior guard. “Don’t shoot, they’re children.” The first shot sounds unexpectedly close and comes from outside. The colonel opens his mouth to say something, perhaps give an order. Then, the window shatters. The colonel receives the third shot in his neck. Fresnedo manages to hide behind the desk piled with dossiers, and only then can he understand what the children outside are screaming, what it is those snotty-nosed boys and girls, with their angelic and rough, determined and ingenuous faces, are screaming as they burst into the office: “So that the wound will ooooopen, so that we’ll uuuuuuuuuse destiny, for uuuuuuuuuus life, for coooooooorrales death.”