Un día de estos: Translation

The Monday dawned warm and without rain. Don Aurelio Escovar, a dentist without a title, and early riser, opened his office at 6 am. He took a false tooth, mounted but still in the plaster mold, from the window, and put a handful of instruments on the table in order from largest to smallest, like in an exposition. He was wearing a collarless striped shirt, buttoned up with a gold button, and pants held up by elastic "cargadores". He was stiff, lean, with a look that rarely corresponded with the situation, like the look of the deaf. When he had the things prepared on the table, he rolled the "fresa" until the spring seat and he sat down to polish the false tooth. He appeared like he was no thinking about what he was doing, but he was working with stubbornness, pedaling on the "fresa" even when it was not in use. After 8am, he took a break to look at the sky through the window, and saw two pensive vultures that were drying in the sun on the ridge of the neighboring house. He continued working with the idea that before lunch, it would return to rain. The discordant voice of his 11 year old son stole him from his abstraction. "Dad." "What." "The mayor says that he wants you to take out a molar." "Tell him I'm not here." He was polishing a gold tooth. He put it out to the end of his arm and examined it with his eyes half-closed. In the waiting room, his son returned to shout. "He says that yes you are here because he hears you." The dentist continued examining the tooth. Only when he put it on the table with the finished works, he said: "Better." He returned to operate the drill. From a cardboard box in which he kept things to be done, he took a "puente" of various pieces and started to polish the gold. "Dad." "What." He had still not changed his expression. "He says if you don't take out the molar, he'll shoot you." Without hurrying, with an extremely calm movement, he stopped pedaling the drill; he withdrew from the chair and fully opened the lower drawer of the table. There, there was a revolver. "Good," he said. "Tell him to come to shoot me." He turned the seat around until he faced the front of the doorway, his hand rested on the edge of the door. The mayor appeared on the threshold. He had shaved his left cheek, but on the other, swollen and sore, he had a beard five days old. The dentist saw many nights of despair in his faded eyes. He closed the drawer with his fingertips and said smoothly: "Sit down." "Good day," said the mayor. "Good," said the dentist. While he boiled the instruments, the mayor rested his head on the pillow of the seat and felt better. He was breaking a cool smell. It was a poor office: an old wooden seat, the pedal drill, and a window with china jars. In front of the seat, there was a window with a fabric shutter up to the height of a man. When he felt that the dentist was coming close, he planted his heels and opened his mouth. Don Aurelio Escovar moved his face to the light. After observing the damaged molar, he adjusted his jaw with a cautious precision of his fingers. "You have to be without anesthesia." He said. "Why?" "Because you have an infection." The mayor looked into his eyes. "It's okay," he said, and he tried to smile. The dentist did not respond. He brought the pan with the boiled instruments to the table and took them out of the water with cold tweezers, still without hurrying himself. After he rolled the spit receptacle with the point of his shoe, he went to wash his hands in the basin. But the mayor did not lose sight of him. It was a lower third molar. The dentist opened his legs and pressed the molar with the hot trigger. The mayor grasped bars of the seat, releasing all his strength on his feet and felt an icy void in his kidneys, but did not let out a sigh. The dentist only moved his wrist. Without bitterness, rather with a bitter tenure, he said: "Here you pay for twenty deaths, lieutenant." The mayor felt a crunch of bones in his jaw and his eyes filled with tears. But he did not sigh until he felt the molar was out. Then he saw through his tears. The pain seemed so strange that he couldn't understand the torture of his five previous nights. Leaning over to spit into the spit bucket, sweaty, breathless, he buttoned his tunic and rummaged for a handkerchief in his pants pocket. The dentist gave him a clean rag. "Wipe your tears," he said. The mayor did that. He was trembling. While the dentist washed his hands, he saw the bottomless satin sky and a dusty web with spider eggs and dead insects. The dentist came back to drying his hands. "Lie down," he said, "and swish with mouthfuls of salt water." The mayor stood up, said goodbye with a lackadaisical salute, and directed himself to the door, stretching his legs, without buttoning his blouse. "Hand me the bill," he said. "To you or to the town?" The mayor did not look at him. He closed the door and said, through the metal grating, "It's the same crap."

d