In Evil Hour by Gabriel García Márquez, Gregory Rabassa Read Free Book Online Page A

Carmichael saw that his clothing was intact. Then he closed his umbrella and went into the barbershop, directly to the chair.
    “I always said that you were a prudent man,” the barber said.
    He tied a towel around his neck. Mr. Carmichael breathed in the smell of lavender water, which produced the same upset in him as the glacial vapors of the dentist’s office. The barber began by trimming the curly hair on the back of his neck. Impatient, Mr. Carmichael looked around for something to read.
    “Don’t you have any newspapers?”
    The barber answered without pausing at his work.
    “The only newspapers left in the country are the official ones and they won’t enter this establishment as long as I’m alive.”
    Mr. Carmichael satisfied himself with contemplating his wing-tipped shoes until the barber asked about the widow Montiel. He’d come from her place. He’d been the administrator of her affairs ever since the death of Don Chepe Montiel, whose bookkeeper he’d been for many years.
    “She’s there,” he said.
    “A person goes on killing himself,” the barber said as if talking to himself, “and there she is all alone with a piece of land you couldn’t cross in five days on horseback. She must own some ten towns.”
    “Three,” Mr. Carmichael said. And he added with conviction: “She’s the finest woman in all the world.”
    The barber went over to the counter to clean the comb. Mr. Carmichael saw his goat face reflected in the mirror and once more understood why he didn’t respect him. The barber spoke, looking at the image.
    “A fine business: my party gets in power, the police threaten my political opponents with death, and I buy up their land and livestock at a price I set myself.”
    Mr. Carmichael lowered his head. The barber applied himself to cutting his hair again. “When the elections are over,” he concluded, “I own three towns, I’ve got no competition, and along the way I’ve managed to get the upper hand even if the government changes. All I can say is: It’s the best business there is; even better than counterfeiting.”
    “José Montiel was rich long before the political troubles started,” Mr. Carmichael said.
    “Sitting in his drawers by the door of a rice bin,” the barber said. “The story goes that he put on his first pair of shoes at the age of nine.”
    “And even if that were so,” Mr. Carmichael admitted,
“the widow had nothing to do with Montiel’s business.”
    “But she played the dummy,” the barber said.
    Mr. Carmichael raised his head. He loosened the towel around his neck to let the circulation through. “That’s why I’ve always preferred that my wife cut my hair,” he protested. “She doesn’t charge me anything, and on top of that, she doesn’t talk politics.” The barber pushed his head forward and continued working in silence. Sometimes he clicked his scissors in the air to let off an excess of virtuosity. Mr. Carmichael heard shouts from the street. He looked in the mirror: children and women were passing by the door with the furniture and utensils from the houses that were being carried. He commented with rancor:
    “Misfortune is eating at us, and you people still with your political hatreds. The persecution’s been over for a year and they still talk about the same thing.”
    “The state of abandonment we’re in is persecution too,” the barber said.
    “But they don’t beat us up,” Mr. Carmichael said.
    “Abandoning us to God’s mercy is another way of beating us up.”
    Mr. Carmichael became exasperated.
    “That’s newspaper talk,” he said.
    The barber remained silent. He worked up some lather in a mug and anointed the back of Mr. Carmichael’s neck with the brush. “It’s just that a person is busting with talk,” he apologized. “It isn’t every day that we get an impartial man.”
    “No man can help being impartial with eleven children to feed,” Mr. Carmichael said.
    “Agreed,” said the barber.
    He made