" In that night, neither Velasco, nor Alvarez, or Belmonte could close their eyes. The idea that he must face the enemy terrified them.
None of them had ever experienced the death. Velasco had been, all his life- an aristocrat accustomed to refined manners, and double- edged whips. This things with "honor, battles, sweating, dust " they were new themes to him.
Until then, he had only met this, on the books covers of Salgari. Belmonte was the son of a spanish from Asturia, who ran his cloths store, and he had educated his progeny according to the concept that reality is measured in square footage, and reduced to woman's clothing.
It must also said that Belmonte had stuck near Velasco, because he found that beheaded bodies were more future than headless mannequins from the paternal shop.
Therefore, none of the three had any interest in the matter of the social pay of the revolution, nor any particular motivation, to put on killing the felow citizens".
Arriaga brings before us a lawyer- aristocrat- merchant, - who lives the turbulent times of the mexican revolution. Which has nothing better to do than present an invention, to the general Pancho Villa. What kind of invention ?
An improved version of the French guillotine.
The novel is historical only on the surface ; The real characters, that are portrayed here from an assumed- ironic perspective - like Porfirio Diaz, Zapata or Pancho Villa - serve excellent to understand the context in which a guillotine becames a revolutionary weapon, glued to the public.
Arriaga's style is as clear so shocking, when you realize that you will laugh when innocent heads fall, you will realize what I'm talking about.
When I'm think the last guillotine took place in '70s, in France, I cannot help but conclude that Arriaga's novel may raise some question marks.