No One Writes To The Colonel

Towards the end of a very hot July, Rebecca, a proud widow who lives in "an immense house with two galleries and nine bedrooms" (122) notices that the screens on her windows have been torn. At first, Rebecca thinks to tell Argenida, her "servant and confidante since her husband died" (122) but then decides to go straight to town to report "the attack" (122). There, she finds the mayor shirtless, repairing the window screens in his own office. Rebecca also notices a pile of dead birds on his desk.

Rebecca tells the mayor she's come to file a complaint about neighborhood boys breaking her window screens. The Mayor replies that it's not the boys, "it's the birds" (123). The mayor says he's surprised Rebecca hasn't noticed dead birds inside her house, since the problem has been going on all over town for three days. Embarrassed, Rebecca leaves town hall.

During the July of record-breaking heat, Father Anthony Isabel, the 94-year-old "bland parish priest" (124) begins to notice the birds. Father Anthony, who claims to have seen the devil thrice, blames the first two birds' deaths on neighborhood cats. After finding a third dead bird, though, Father Anthony begins to believe something is "happening" (125) with the birds. Father Anthony also notices "a nauseating stench" (125) coming from the dead birds. He begins to formulate a "dramatic sermon" (125) on Satan's ability to "infiltrate the human heart through any of the five senses" (125). However, Father Anthony cannot form a coherent sermon, and instead gives one on charity.

Nine days after the birds have started falling, Father Anthony is out on a walk to the train station during the town's siesta hour when a dying bird falls at his feet. Father Anthony realizes he's in front of Rebecca's house and decides to try saving the bird. Inside her house, Rebecca is undressing for her siesta. She hears Father Anthony's knocking and, annoyed that Argenida is sleeping, goes to answer the door. When she opens it, Father Anthony says if they give the bird a little water "then put him under a dish" (129),the creature will get well.

Father Anthony has never stayed in Rebecca's house for more than five minutes. Rebecca's few signs of piety and evasive answers about her husband's "puzzling death" (129) during confession make Father Anthony uneasy. Father Anthony also recalls how Rebecca's house hadn't been peaceful since José Arcadio Buendía was shot there. When Father Anthony recounts this story to Rebecca, she doesn’t pay attention, doubting him ever since he gave his three sermons on seeing the devil.

Rebecca treats the bird roughly and Father Anthony observes that she doesn't like birds. Rebecca said she did once but not now that "they've taken to dying inside of our houses" (130). Father Anthony leaves Rebecca's house and walks back to the train station, realizing he's "forgotten entirely about the Apocalypse" (131), to which the dead birds might be related. Father Anthony swelters in his cassock as he sits at the train station, pondering the birds' possible significance. When the normally empty train pulls into the station, Father Anthony yells out "in horror, 'The Wandering Jew!'" (133).

Father Anthony leaves the station without seeing if anyone debarks the train. As he leaves, a "quiet boy" (133) on the train spots Father Anthony leaving. The boythinks that if the town has a priest, it must also have a hotel. Having not eaten since the previous day, the boy debarks the train and follows the scent of food to a building across the street from the station, the "Hotel Macondo" (134). Inside, the boy orders lunch "as quick as" (134) the pregnant proprietress can make it. The proprietress brings him a meager bowl of soup. The boy eats quickly, hoping to catch the train before it leaves again, but he doesn't make it in time. Returning to his seat in the hotel, the boy removes the hat his mother gave him and continues to eat. He sees a girl sitting by a gramophone, picking out records to play. She tells him that it's cooler on the veranda and usually people "pull a chair to the veranda since it's cooler" (135). The girl's attempts at conversation make the boy nervous. Still, the boy begins to drag his chair towards the veranda.

Seeing this, the proprietress asks what he's doing, then tells the boy she'll bring him a stool. The girl says the boy might be frightened by "the birds" (135). The proprietress tells the girl to be quiet but the girl explains to the boy that this is the time of day when dead birds fall onto the veranda. The proprietress dismisses the girl's comment. The girl, however, says that just yesterday the proprietress swept two dead birds from off the veranda. Exasperated, the proprietress says that some boys left the two dead birds then fooled the girl by telling her they fell from the sky. The proprietress leaves the room and the girl tells the boy, in a low voice, that "everyone" (136) has seen the birds fall from the sky. The boy tells the girl he's seen them, too.

The boy goes to sit on the stool outside, where it's cooler. He begins to think of his mother, back in Manaure, his hometown that he left recently. Before he left, the boy, now 22, spent his days in the schoolroom, where his mother taught. Back then she was "a sad and uncommunicative woman" (137). After she retired from teaching, the boy and his mother moved into a two-room house with a patio where his mother raised chickens "with ashen legs" (137).

The boy's mother decides her son has become "wise enough" (137) to file a petition for her retirement pension. The boy collects the necessary documents and along with them packs twelve pesos and a change of clothing. He boards the train for the city, hoping to use his mother's retirement money to "set himself up in pig breeding" (138). As he naps on the veranda, the boy realizes that he left the documents and his change of clothes on the train he missed. He drags his stool back into the dining room and marvels at the electric lights, which he's never seen. The proprietress leads the boy to his room, where he sinks into "a miasmic and feverish sleep" (139).

Meanwhile, Father Anthony lies facedown on his cot, thinking about the sermon he'll deliver the next morning. Before he'd gone to bed, Father Anthony, having just given a dying woman "extreme unction" (139), placed the sacramental objects beside his cot. When he rises at dawn, Father Anthony trips over a bell and lands on the stone floor. He lies there for a while, "without even remembering to pray for a good death" (139), then gets up, remembering "the words of his sermon perfectly" (139). On his way outside, Father Anthony finds three more dead birds. He picks them up and tosses them into a pitcher.

At the hotel, the boy rises and waits for his breakfast in the already stifling heat. The proprietress serves the boy a fried egg and green banana and tells him, with "belated commiseration" (140), that he missed his train. The boy tries to eat but feels panic. Seeing the proprietress' dress, the boy remembers it's Sunday and asks whether there is a Mass. The proprietress says there is but not one goes anymore because no one will send a new priest, adding that the current priest is "a hundred years old" (141) and "half crazy" (141). The proprietress tells the boy that the other day the priest said he saw the devil and "since then no one goes to Mass" (141). The boy decides to go, partly out of "desperation" (141) and partly out of curiosity "to meet a person a hundred years old" (141).

At the church, Father Anthony has just ascended to the pulpit to give his sermon. He looks out into the pews and notices the boy, sitting with his hat on, in the last pew. Father Anthony observes that the boy has "dirty and wrinkled" (142) clothes, as though he slept in them. Excited to deliver "the greatest sermon of his life" (142), Father Anthony prays that the boy will remember to take off his hat. Father Anthony begins to speak without "listening to himself" (142), allowing the words to flow freely.

At her house, Rebecca has begun to rearrange her closet and also to write a letter to her cousin, "the Bishop" (143), asking for the church to send a younger priest. Just then, Argenida shouts that people are saying Father Anthony has "gone crazy in the pulpit" (143). Rebecca counters that Father Anthony's been crazy for "at least five years" (143) but Argenida says this time Father Anthony claims to have seen the Wandering Jew. Rebecca, becoming grave, tells Argenida that it's true, this is why the birds are dying. Rebecca puts on "a black embroidered shawl" (143) and walks to the church.

Father Anthony, on the pulpit, swears that he saw the Wandering Jew that morning, as he was returning from performing extreme unction. Father Anthony begins to feel ill and tremble as he realizes the church has filled with people. Even Rebecca now walks up the nave with open arms and "her bitter, cold face turned toward the heavens" (144). Emboldened, Father Anthony says that when he saw the Wandering Jew, he held up his hand and told him to halt, as "Sunday has never been a good day for sacrificing a lamb" (144). He finishes his sermon then tells his acolyte to take around the collection plate. They haven't used the plate in so long the acolyte no longer knows where it is. Father Anthony tells the boy to use a sack instead and tell the congregation he's taking up alms to "expel the Wandering Jew" (145). When the acolyte returns with the sack, Father Anthony puts his hand on the boy's shoulder and tells him that after he takes the money, he should give it to the boy in the last pew and tell him it's from the priest, and then tell the boy to buy a new hat.