"How?" Hall asked.
The driver vigorously pointed to the street. "You will miss your train,
Senor," he said.
"I'll hurry." Hall dressed quickly, shaved, and went downstairs with
Pepe. They got into the car and Pepe headed in the direction of the
railroad terminal.
"Fielding was run down by an automobile near his house," Pepe said.
"Was it a Rolls-Royce?"
"I don't know. There was only one witness. An old woman. She said that
he was walking across the street and the automobile just hit him and
kept on going. She said it looked as if he walked into the car."
"Who is the old woman?"
"A farmer's wife. She was on her way to the market with a wagon of
meal."
"Didn't she describe the car?"
"I don't think so, Mateo. The Englishman died instantly. He had a gun in
his pocket when they found him. Didn't have a chance to use it against
his murderers."
"Where are we going now?"
"No place. I just pointed our noses toward the railroad for the benefit
of anyone watching us from the hotel."
"Oh. I have an appointment at the beach at eight o'clock. Let's have
some coffee until we're ready to go."
Pepe drove to a cafe near the Transport Union building. They found a
table in the back of the place. "Do you know any of the Englishman's
friends?" Hall asked.
"Not many."
"Did you know his friend Harrington?"
The name left Pepe cold. He was certain that he had never met Harrington
or heard the name mentioned. Nor did he know anything about Fielding's
employees. "His secretary is a middle-aged Hermanita. She lives alone
with a parrot and minds her own business. I knew a man who was her lover
once, but that was fifteen years ago."
"Do you know much about Felipe Duarte?" Hall asked.
"Sure. But why?"
"I'm to meet him at eight this morning."
Pepe looked at the clock. "Then let's go," he said. "Sometimes Duarte is
like a crazy man, but he is a good friend."
"Does he know you?"
"We have met many times. Did you know him in Spain?"
They went to the car, and Hall told Pepe about some of Duarte's
legendary feats in the war against the fascists. He was in the midst of
a story about the Ebro retreat when they reached Duarte's cottage.
Duarte came to the door wearing a towel around his middle. "So you got
up?" he laughed. "And you got Pepe up, too! Come in and fill your guts."
He led them through the small living room, put on a pair of shorts and
mismated huaraches.
"We'll all eat in the kitchen," he said. "I'll bet you forgot that I'm a
wonderful cook, Mateo." He served a twelve-egg omelet whose pungent
fires brought tears to Hall's eyes.
"This is really going to kill me," Hall said.
"The lousy gringo," Duarte said to Pepe. "He's got a gringo stomach."
Pepe defended Hall loyally. After he had his coffee, he rubbed his
bristling beard and asked Duarte if he had a razor that could cut
through steel wire. Duarte took him to the bathroom.
"Shave and bathe while I talk to Mateo," he said.
When they were alone, Hall asked him if he knew Fielding. "Sure, I do.
He's the one English planter in South America who knows that the world
is round."
"He's dead." Hall told Duarte all that he knew about Fielding's death,
and what little he knew about Fielding himself. Duarte listened in
stunned silence.
"And you still think that attempt on you last night was a bluff?" he
asked when Hall was done.
"I'm more convinced than ever that it was a bluff. But whoever drove
that car knew that an hour later Fielding was going to be killed by a
car. And I'll bet that it was not the same car that made a pass at us
last night."
"Then you're hiding something from me, Mateo."
"The hell I am. I'm going to tell you everything I know. Just give me a
chance. Do you know Juan Antonio Martinez?"
"The young teacher?"
Hall told Duarte about Juan Antonio's phone call to _Mundo Obrero_ and
how it reached the Cross and the Sword in a matter of minutes.
"Fernandez and his boy friends told me about the phone call at the
Embassy last night. They warned me that it meant the Reds were going to
prepare an attempt on my life. Now my cue is to run to them for help
because of the Rolls-Royce in the Plaza."
"Will you go through with it?"
"Tomorrow. But I don't like the idea. They don't act as if they knew
about my record in Spain. But it's crazy to think they're going to
remain in the dark."
"What are you doing today?"
"I'm catching the eleven o'clock train to Juarez. I have an idea I'll
come back with a pretty good line on the Cross and Sword camarilla."
Duarte laughed. "I have an idea you'll come back from Juarez with
something else," he said.
"Not today, Felipe. I'd like to, but not today."
"She's a good piece."
"Forget it. I'm after stronger meat today."
"Like that nurse with the red hair?"
"I'm serious, Felipe. And we haven't got much time. Listen, did you ever
hear of a guy named Harrington? Fielding said he was his associate, and
that he knew a lot about the Falange at the waterfront."
The name meant nothing to Duarte. "But then, I didn't know Fielding too
well. I've only talked to him once; he wanted to find out if I had known
his son."
"Well, you've got to find Harrington, if he exists," Hall said. "And one
other thing: Fielding had dinner with the new British Naval Intelligence
officer for this port the night before last."
"Commander New?"
"That's the guy. You've got to see New this morning. Better send a
messenger to the British Embassy with a sealed note. Don't use the
phone."
"What do I say in the note?"
"Anything. The idea is that you've got to stop the British Embassy from
raising a stink about Fielding for at least a week. Let the Falange
think the British Embassy accepts the police verdict on Fielding's
death. In the paper this morning the police described it as an
unfortunate accident."
"Some accident!"
"Act as if you know plenty when you see New. You'd better have him visit
you, Felipe. Tell him that in a week you'll have the true facts."
"Will I?"
"I don't know. Well, tell him you think you'll have the full facts. And
find out all you can about Harrington, if New knows anything. See if you
can arrange for me to meet Harrington."
"I understand." Duarte looked at his watch and shouted to Pepe to get
out of the bathroom. "We've got to get started," he said to Hall. "If
I'm to stop Commander New, I'd better not lose any more time."
"Good. Where will you be tonight at about nine? That's when the return
train gets in."
"Call me right here. What name will you use? Pedro?"
"Pedro is O.K."
"If we have to meet tonight, I'll tell Pepe where we can do it. I'd
better tell him now. Have some more coffee while I dress, _chico_. And
don't worry." Duarte went upstairs.
Hall endorsed a hundred-dollar money order and ran after Duarte. "One
other favor, Felipe. Ride to town with Pepe and me, and after I get out
at the railroad station, please force that Asturian mule to accept this
check. He's refused to take a cent from me since I'm in town--and I
found out how much gasoline is selling for in San Hermano."
* * * * *
The train to Juarez was on the line to the north which had been built in
Segura's time. The graft which had gone in to the building of the road
was now scattered over the far corners of the earth. Somewhere in Paris,
one of the chief contractors still lived on his share of the booty,
paying varying fees to the Nazis for butter and woolens. In New York,
one of Segura's army of illegitimate sons was studying medicine on the
proceeds of some shares in the line which had belonged to his mother.
Estates whose rolling lands touched the rails on either side belonged to
old Seguristas who had bought the lands with the money they had managed
to steal from the project. The money was gone, but the steel cars the
builders had bought in Indiana and Pennsylvania remained. It was still a
good railroad, and even though it now belonged to the government, the
trains not only ran on time but were much cleaner and charged lower
fares than before.
Hall watched the green countryside until the rolling landscape and the
rhythm of the wheels made him drowsy. He turned away from the window,
opened his newspaper to stay awake. The news was vague. The bulletin
from the Presidencia stated simply that Ansaldo had spent four hours
with Tabio but had issued no verdict. Those were exactly the words, "no
verdict," and reading them again Hall grew angry. He tried to figure out
some foolproof way of cabling to Havana, but the censorship hazards were
too great.
The inside pages had little of interest. Bits of international and
Washington news. A feature story from Mexico City on the great religious
revival that was sweeping Mexico and threatening the Marxist forces in
the government. This was in _El Imparcial_, and Hall recognized the
byline of the author, a prominent lieutenant of the Mexican fascist
leader, Gomez Morin. There was a full page of local society items, dry
stuff about weddings, dinners, parties, the goings and comings of the
smart set. And the inevitable puff story, this one about the "great and
noted lawyer" Benito Sanchez, about whom no one had ever heard a thing
and who would sink back into obscurity until he paid for another
personality feature at so much per column, cash on the barrel. Hall
forced himself through this flowery account of the lawyer's ancestry,
wit, humanitarianism, piety, fertility, education, patriotism, skill in
court, and kindness to his mother. Try as he could, the hack who wrote
this story had not been able to completely fill three columns, the
accepted length for such compositions. The bottom of the third column
had therefore been filled with a stock item in small type: "Ships
Arriving and Leaving Today and Tomorrow."
Mechanically, Hall read the shipping notes. The _Drottning-holm_ was in
port. The _Estrella de Santiago_ was returning to Havana. Tomorrow, the
_Marques de Avillar_ was due from Barcelona. Tomorrow the _Ouro Preto_
was sailing back to Lisbon. The _City of Seattle_ was now six days
overdue; U. S. Lines, Inc., had no explanation. Mails for the _Ouro
Preto_ closed at midnight.
Hall turned the page and stopped. The rustle of the paper struck a
hidden chord in his mind. He turned back to the shipping news, read it
carefully. The _Marques de Avillar_ became as great as the _Normandie_
and the _Queen Mary_ rolled into one. He recalled the conversation he
had overheard between Ansaldo and Marina. _Find out if they came
today.... Too dangerous to come by Clipper._ But by Spanish boat?
He went back to the conversation. Yes, that was exactly the way they
talked. And after the talking came the rustling of a paper. Not
evidence, of course, and even in wartime you couldn't shoot two bastards
like them unless you knew more. But was it worth following up? Perhaps
Margaret Skidmore would be able to supply another piece of the jigsaw.
She had a sharp tongue, and this meant a sharp head. Sharp and tough,
and Felipe was probably right about her other value, but if it happened
at all it would have to happen when this mess was cleared up.
The train pulled into Juarez on time. Hall got off and gaped at the
station. It was covered from ground to roof with the blazing "tiger
vines" whose orange orchid-shaped flowers were the unofficial flag of
the country. Margaret was waiting for Hall under the station shed. "Hi,"
she shouted, "have a nice trip?"
"Swell. Let me look at you under the sunlight." In a tennis eye shade,
green sports dress, and rope-soled _zapatos_ she seemed to be more of a
woman than she was in evening clothes.
"Well?"
"You'll do," he laughed. "It's just that evening clothes rarely reveal
more than the size of a woman's shopping budget."
Margaret laughed easily. "You mean that you can't tell whether a girl in
an evening gown has knock knees or a wooden leg. I have neither. There's
my car. That little jalopy."
"How far is your place from the station?" Hall asked.
"It starts right here." Margaret pointed to a green field to the left of
the road. "I have four thousand acres between the tracks and the main
house, and then there's a lot of scrub forest behind the house that
belongs to me."
"All yours?"
The car was raising great clouds of dust on the dry dirt road. "Uh huh.
The money came from Mother's side of the family. Since she died, I more
or less keep the old man in embassies. She left him only cigarette
money." She was very cold and matter of fact about it.
"I see," he said.
"Don't be so shocked. I always talk the way I feel. The old man's a
stuffed shirt and you know it. If he hadn't married money the best he'd
get out of life would be a career as a floor-walker in Macy's. No, he's
too aristocratic for Macy's. In Wanamaker's Philadelphia store. Do me a
favor. There's a big heavy ledger in the side door pocket. Take it out
and put it on my lap. No, with the binding facing the radiator. Thanks."
"What's it for?"
She opened the front ventilator in the cowl. The gush of wind which
poured in lifted her skirt to the edge of the book. "See?" she said.
"Keeps my skirt from blowing over my head when I open the vent."
Hall glanced at her bare legs. "Some day you'll catch cold," he smiled.
"What have you got planted on your land? Looks to me like soy."
"It is soy. Three thousand acres."
"That makes you a farmer."
"The hell it does. That makes me an Ambassador's daughter. The
Rockefeller committee planted it, with local help, of course. It's part
of a demonstration project. The idea is to teach them how to grow new
crops so that after the war Detroit can keep the home price on soy down
by importing just enough soy to keep it growing in South America. All I
did was donate my land."
"What happens to the proceeds when you sell the crop?"
"Oh, I suppose the old man will make a big show of donating the proceeds
to the Red Cross in San Hermano."
"That the house?"
"That's my hideaway. The old man can't come out here. He's violently
allergic to soy beans."
She started to talk about the soy-bean project and the by-products of
its crop. The words flowed without effort. She knew the facts, the
theories, the statistics, the chemistry of the soy-bean industry as well
as she knew the road to her house. She discussed them as she might
yesterday's weather, or a neighbor's dog. I don't give a damn about soy
beans, she seemed to be saying, I just know about them because I was
roped in to lend my land and I'll be damned if I'll give my land without
knowing why.
"Well, that's enough talk about soy, I guess," she said when she turned
off the road to the lane leading to her house.
"I don't imagine there's anything else to know about it," Hall said.
"Here we are, Matt."
"Say, it is a nice house."
"Hollow tile and stucco. I found the plans in an old issue of _House and
Garden_."
"I'll be damned. It looks as Spanish as the Cathedral."
"Oh, it should," Margaret said. "It's supposed to be an authentic New
Mexican ranch house. Let's go in and get a drink."
Like the railroad station, the house was also covered with tiger vines.
It was built around a flagstone patio. Leaded glass doors opened from
the patio to the two-story-high beamed living room, the kitchen, and the
back corridor. This corridor opened on both the living room and the
stairs to the upstairs quarters. Inside, the living room was furnished
like a quality dude ranch--hickory and raw-hide furniture, Mexican
_serapes_ and dress sombreros hanging on the walls and over the large
stone fireplace, a Western plank bar with a battered spittoon at the
rail and a lithograph of the Anheuser-Busch Indians scalping General
Custer. The saloon art classic, of course, hung in a yellow oak frame
behind the bar.
"Holy God," Hall said, "when I was a kid this litho used to give me
nightmares. It used to hang in the dirty window of Holbein's saloon on
West Third Street in Cleveland--that's my home town--and every time I
passed it I used to see more gore pouring down old Custer's throat."
Margaret took off her eye shade and went behind the bar. "A drink should
drive away that terrible memory," she said. "Scotch?"
"Black rum, if you have it."
"Coming right up. That's a pirate's drink, though. Although when you
come right down to it, you do look like a freebooter."
Hall had his foot on the bar. "Better smile when you say that, Pard," he
said.
She smiled out of the side of her mouth and laughed. "Here's to Captain
Kidd," she said, raising her Scotch.
"This is good rum."
"Wait. I can improve it." She reached below the bar for a small wooden
platter and a lemon. Deftly, she carved off a slice of thick skin,
twisted it above an empty glass, dropped the peel into the glass and
covered it with rum. "Try it this way."
"It is good. So you're a bartender, too!"
Margaret refilled her own glass and sat down on the edge of a wheeled
settee. "Right now I'm farmer, bartender, chambermaid and cook. If you
must know, outside of the dogs in the yard and the horses in the shed,
we're the only living things within five miles. All my help is in the
next town celebrating some saint's day or something."
"You'll manage to survive," Hall smiled.
"I'm a pretty self-sufficient lady," she said. "Or hadn't you noticed?"
"I'm not blind."
"Hungry?"
"I could eat. What's cooking?"
"Sandwiches. Cold beef sandwiches and coffee. And if you're nice you can
have some _montecado a la_ Skidmore."
"Real ice cream?"
"No. But a reasonable facsimile. Let's go to the kitchen. You can help
me carry the tray and stuff."
They ate at the monastery table in the living room. Margaret told Hall
the story of how she had supervised the building of the house and then
ordered her furniture from a dozen different stores between Houston and
San Hermano. She spoke of plumbing and artesian wells and wiring systems
with the same detailed knowledge she had displayed of soy-bean culture.
"Do you know San Hermano politics as well as you know soy beans and
housing?" he asked.
"Better," she smiled. "I'm closer to it. But we've got plenty of time to
talk about San Hermano. I thought we'd saddle up two horses and go for a
ride in the backwoods. Do you ride?"
"After a fashion. I spent a summer vacation as a ranch hand in Wyoming
once."
Margaret concentrated on Hall's feet for a minute. "Oh, I can fix you up
with boots and breeches. You sit here and I'll go on up, change, and
find you riding things. Just turn on a radio and relax or fix yourself a
drink while I'm changing."
She went upstairs to her room. Hall lit his pipe, turned on the radio.
He found a program of Mexican marimba music.
"That's swell," Margaret shouted through the open transom of her door.
He could hear the water splashing into the bath upstairs. He lay back
and closed his eyes, the radio keeping him awake. In San Hermano, the
announcer looked at the studio clock, gave the station's call letters,
and read another "no change" bulletin on the health of the President.
"Matt ..."
"Ready so soon?"
"Come on up to my room. It's the third door to the left of the stairs."
"Sure."
"Would you shut off the radio, too?"
He flipped the radio switch and climbed the stairs to the upper landing.
Margaret's door was slightly ajar. "That you, Matt?"
"The old pirate himself." He pushed the door open.
Margaret was standing near her bed, freshly bathed and completely naked.
"I changed my mind," she said, thickly.
"Margaret ..."
"No. Don't talk." She had her arms around him, her mouth against his
lips. The pine salts of her bath and the sharp perfume in her hair and
behind her ears choked in Hall's throat.
"You're biting my lips," she said.
He picked her up and carried her to the bed while she undid the buttons
of his shirt with closed eyes and steady fingers. "I knew you were a
pirate," she smiled.
Hall kicked his shoes off, drew the blinds.
"Are you surprised?" she asked.
He locked the door and joined Margaret. "Don't talk," he said. "You kiss
too well to talk in bed."
There was the pine scent and the perfume and the savage odor of whisky
on hot breath and then there was the faint saline taste of blood on his
tongue and the rigid breasts of the girl pressed against his bare skin
and she was trying to gasp an insane gibberish of love words and sex
words and sounds that were not words at all. He shut off the gibberish
with his hard mouth and then he started to lose himself in the devils
that were coursing through his blood and the sharp pain of her nails
digging fitfully into the back of his shoulders and the taut smoothness
of her writhing thighs. For a searing moment the emptiness and the
agonies of the past four years rose to the surface like a two-edged
razor in his brain, rose slashing wildly to torture and torment, and
then, as suddenly, they were lost in the devils and the blood and the
white, pine-scented thighs of the girl and Hall stopped thinking and
gave himself completely to the one, to the only one, to the only thing
that could answer the devils and the pain and the moment.
Then she lay at his side, limp, whispering, "God, oh my God, oh my God,"
and smiling at him with tear-filled eyes.
"Hello."
"Was I good? Was I, Matt?"
And he realized how adept she actually was at it. Sex was a soy bean,
something you used, developed, exploited. "You're very good at this sort
of thing," he said, "and you know it."
"I'm not always good," she said. "This is one thing that takes two for
perfection. Like now." She reached into the drawer of the night table.
"Cigarette?"
"No."
"Light mine for me, darling. I'm half dead."
She smoked her cigarette in happy, satisfied silence, moving closer to
Hall and putting her free arm under his neck. Then, with an abrupt
movement, she ground the butt into the ash tray and kissed the scar on
Hall's chin. "Who cut you up?" she asked. "Some Frenchwoman's husband?"
But before he could answer she was lying on his chest with her open
mouth pressing heavily against his lips.
This time he could ignore the devils until the hot furies that
drove the girl finally moved him to respond. But what had earlier
been an experience which reached in and shook the guts was now a
performance--overture, theme, variations, theme and soaring climax and
maybe it was what she wanted and maybe it wasn't but baby that's the
best you get this trip. When it was done she seemed happy enough. She
smoked another cigarette and then she fell into a light sleep, her head
nuzzling under his arm pit like a puppy's.
Hall lay watching the sun rays as they stretched between the shuttered
windows and the smoothness of Margaret's glistening back.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked when she awoke.
"Really want to know?"
"Uh huh."
"About a girl from Ohio."
"Your wife?"
"No. Just a girl I know. I've been wondering if she has freckles on her
back."
"Well, anyway, you're frank."
"When are you going back to San Hermano?"
"Tonight. I'll drive you back. I think we should get ready. The help
might start straggling back in an hour or so." She kissed him tenderly,
then savagely. "No, but this is silly," she said. "We'll get caught."
She rolled away and got out of bed.
Later in the living room, Margaret made two rum drinks. She had changed
her tennis dress for a dark suit, and her fingers now carried three
elaborate rings. "Now I'm dressed for town again," she laughed. "Without
my rings I'd feel naked." One of them was a wedding ring; Hall asked no
questions about it.
"Are you still interested in San Hermano politics?" Margaret asked.
"Sort of."
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything. Fernandez and his friends had one set of ideas. I guess you
know what they are. The Tabio crowd speaks differently. What's the
lowdown?"
Margaret went to the wide window of the room. "Look," she said, "see all
that land between the fence and the top of that hill? I've got some of
it in soy and the rest is just lying fallow. What do you think it's
worth?"
"I couldn't say."
"Neither can anyone else. That all depends on the politics down here."
"That's true back home too, isn't it?"
"In a way, yes." She poured another drink for herself and sat down on
the settee. "I'll let you in on a secret, Matt. I'll tell you how I came
to buy this place. Sit down. It's a long story. And it leads right into
the thing you're interested in."
"When did you get it?"
"Two years ago. A young mining engineer in San Hermano met me at a party
given at the University. He wanted me to put him in touch with an
American financing outfit. On a field trip he had undertaken as a
student, the young engineer inadvertently stumbled across a treasure in
manganese. The deposits lay in an area he alone could reveal, and for a
consideration and a share in the profits, he was willing to lead the
right parties to the site of his discovery.
"I became the right party," Margaret said. "The soy is growing over a
fortune in manganese."
"What happened to the young engineer?"
"He's in the States. I got him a scholarship in a good mining school.
When he gets out, he'll be able to run the works down here."
"You don't miss a trick, do you?"
"Darling," she laughed, "my grandfather didn't come up from a plow on
his muscles alone. But why don't you ask me why I'm not mining my
manganese now?"
"I suppose that's where the politics comes in," he said.
"Now you're catching on. You see, Matt, anyone who didn't know the score
down here might start mining like mad. There's a war on, the Germans
have grabbed most of Russia's manganese fields, and Russia had a
practical corner on the world's manganese supply. It's almost worth its
weight in platinum today."
"Then why in the hell don't you cash in?"
"Because I intend to live for a long time after the war, darling. And
I'd like something for my old age. Not inflation-swelled war dollars,
but real hard money. That's where the politics comes in, Matt. It costs
like hell to start a mine. I'd have to dip into my reserves to get it
started, or get partners and let them pay for the works. But they
wouldn't do it for nothing. They'd wind up with an unhealthy share of
the profits. This is my baby, and under certain circumstances I can run
it by myself and make money at it. But those circumstances are
determined by the politics here."
"By that," Hall said, "I take it you mean Tabio's politics?"
Margaret was not smiling now. Her eyes had narrowed down to sharp slits,
and although she talked as fluently about the mine and Tabio as she had
earlier discussed soy beans, her voice had taken on a sharp, metallic
edge. "I most certainly do," she said.
"Then you agree with Fernandez and the Cross and Sword crowd?"
"Now don't tell me," she said, wearily, "that they are all a bunch of
dirty fascists."
"I'm not telling you a thing. I'm here to get the lowdown, not to hang
labels on everyone in San Hermano."
"Thank God for that," she said. "I can give you the lowdown, if you
really want it."
"That's what I'm here for."
"I'm so sick of these smart-aleck pundits who are so quick to hang the
fascist label on everything they don't like," Margaret said. "I'm not
afraid of labels. I'm only interested in the facts. I'm interested in my
manganese operation. I'm interested in protecting what I have. And I'll
fight against anyone who tries to steal what's rightfully mine."
"You've been threatened?"
"Not directly. That's the hell of it. If not for me, or someone else
with as much money to risk as I'm risking, this manganese would be
useless to everyone. But I'm not going to sink a fortune into the mine
only to have the cream taken away from me."
"By Tabio?"
A slight smile touched Margaret's lips. "Not exactly," she said. "I'm a
little more rational than Fernandez and his friends. It's not Tabio I'm
afraid of, darling. It's the thing he's started. You don't open a few
thousand schools all over a backward country and then expect the people
to remain the same. It's not only the kids who go to these schools;
grown-ups pack the same school houses every night. People don't want
things they don't know about. But when they go to school they start
learning about a million things they'd like to have--and none of these
are free. They begin to want modern houses and radios and refrigerators
and pianos--you have no idea what they begin to want, Matt!
"The schools are only the beginning. Once the miners learn how to read
and write, the unions come along and flood them with printed propaganda
about higher wages. They tell the miners that higher wages mean higher
standards of living."
"Don't they?" Hall asked.
"Not for the mine owners, dear," she said. "Higher wages mean lower
profits. And when you run a mine, the idea is to keep the profits up.
That's where the politics come in, Matt. You don't pass laws--as the
Popular Front has--forcing employers to bargain with the unions without
making the unions so powerful that they can and do elect whole blocs of
union deputies and senators. And then these blocs push through laws on
hospitalization and social security and death benefits that cut into a
mine owner's profits nearly as much as the wage increases.
"In other words, Matt, it all boils down to dollars and cents. Tabio and
his ideas are great vote-catchers--but the costs are enormous. And these
costs don't come out of the pockets of the people who vote for the
Popular Front candidates."
Hall watched her in fascination as she spoke. This was no mystic Pilar
Primo de Rivera, he thought, no hyper-thyroid hysteric falling on her
knees in the cathedral and then rushing out with blood in her eyes and
emptying a Mauser full of bullets into the warm bodies of housewives
shopping in the Madrid slums. Margaret's voice had not risen by one
note. Her hands were calm, she was still relaxed in the settee. If not
for the hard sharpness of her voice now, she might still be discussing
soy-bean culture or anything else as remote from her true interests.
"Fernandez and the Cross and Sword crowd might be hysterical," Margaret
said, "but they are on the right track. The government has to change
quickly, or it will be too late for all of us. The Cross and Sword crowd
aren't really natives, you know. They're Spaniards. They got the scare
of their lives when Tabio's Spanish counterparts took over in Spain."
"But why? They live here. Spain is an ocean away."
"Money has a way of crossing oceans," Margaret said. "They all had
plenty invested in Spain. If Franco hadn't come along, Vardieno and
Davila and Quinones and a lot of other men you haven't met would have
been wiped out."
"Isn't Franco a fascist?"
"Labels don't mean a thing. I think democracy is the phoniest label in
the world, Matt. When it means a stable government, like we used to have
back home before the New Deal, I'm for it. But when it means the first
step on the road to collectivism, I'll take any Franco who comes along
to put an end to it. That goes for the Cross and Sword crowd, too. Or am
I all wrong?"
Hall laughed, softly. "That's a rhetorical question," he said. "Let's
skip the rhetoric. Then things are really bad down here, aren't they?"
"They couldn't be much worse. I know it sounds harsh, but I think the
best thing Tabio could do for his country would be to die. With Gamburdo
in the Presidencia, you'd see a return to something resembling sanity
down here. He has a very sound approach."
"But wouldn't he be too late? What could he do about the school system,
for instance?"
"The Cross and Sword crowd want the schools closed down at once. They
want education returned to the Church. But Gamburdo is a good
politician," Margaret said. "He'd keep the schools open, but he'll clean
out the Ministry of Education from the very top down to the personnel of
the village schools. He'll simply turn it over to the Jesuits. They
won't have to open their own parochial schools; they'll control
Tabio's."
"Have they enough teachers?"
"Gamburdo told me that if they need teachers they'll import them from
Spain."
"How about the labor laws?"
"A law is no better than its enforcement. That's what I learned in law
school and it still goes. Can you imagine what would happen to the
Wagner Act if Hoover were back in the White House?"
"You don't need too much of an imagination to figure that one out," Hall
said.
"Of course," Margaret said, "Gamburdo will need more finesse than a
Hoover." There was the little matter of the arms everyone knew were in
the hands of the miners in the north. There was also the still painful
memory of the one-day general strike called by the transport workers and
the longshoremen when the Supreme Court delayed its decision on the
validity of the Tabio labor codes. Gamburdo, she explained, would have
to plan his acts like a military strategist. "Because unless he does, he
will need a military strategist to pull him out of the hole."
"You don't mean a civil war?"
That was exactly what Margaret did mean. But Gamburdo had a plan for
averting such a war, or, if it had to come, to guarantee the victory for
the forces of sound government when the issue was drawn. He would begin
gradually by restoring to their army commissions the old officers
trained in Segura's military college. This he would do before attempting
to circumvent the labor laws. "Then, when the war ends in Europe, a lot
of good professional military leaders will be out of jobs," she said.
"Gamburdo plans to give them jobs."
"How about the troops? Will they be loyal to the new order?"
Gamburdo had provided for this, too. The army would have the best of
everything; it would be made more attractive than life as a miner or a
soy-bean cultivator. "But a boy will have to have the O.K. of his priest
before he will be taken in. And what a priest learns at confession is
nothing to be ignored. The Church will keep the unreliable elements out
of the army." Once he had an army, Gamburdo would then be ready to
restore sound government in the nation.
"He's a clever guy," Hall said. "I had a hunch he was the coming strong
man on the continent when I applied for an interview."
Margaret thought that this was very funny. "Don't be a child," she
laughed. "He won't admit to anything like this for publication."
"That doesn't matter. What counts in my business is that I'll be on
record as the first American to interview him, and that I'll get the
credit for discovering him before his name is a household word."
"Right now all he'll talk is platitudes. But you might get him to talk
off the record. He's gotten around to telling me things. And stop
looking at your watch. I'll lock up and we can start back to town at
once. You'll be back in plenty of time to sleep with her tonight."
"With whom?"
"Whoever you have that date with. I know I should be nasty about it. But
I never demanded fidelity and I always hated men who demanded it of me.
That's the way we both are, darling, and as long as it goes off as good
as it did upstairs today we can expect to do it often." She left the
settee, walked over to Hall's chair, and kissed his ear. He slapped her
trim buttocks, shouted, "Cut it out!"
"Let's get going," she said. "Time's a-wasting."
Hall thought, as Margaret drove him back to San Hermano, that Pepe
Delgado would have approved of her skill as a driver just as much as he
would disapprove of her politics. The ledger on her lap, she pushed the
roadster through hairpin curves and back-country roads with a confidence
as cold as her reasoning about her manganese properties.
"I'll walk to my hotel from the Embassy," he said, when they reached the
suburbs of San Hermano. "I could stand a little walk."
"So you're meeting her in the lobby," Margaret laughed. She kissed him
fondly when she stopped the car near the Embassy. "Darling," she said,
"don't ask me to the Bolivar. But I have to go back to the farm in a few
days. I'll let you know ahead of time, and we can have a night
together."
"Call me," Hall said. "Or I'll be calling you."
An hour later he met Duarte in the home of one of the secretaries of the
Cuban Embassy. The Mexican had borrowed the home for the evening. "We
have at least two hours to talk here," Duarte told Hall. "My friend is
at the cinema."
Duarte opened two bottles of cold beer, set one before Hall. He took a
long look at Hall and burst into laughter. "Did she give you any
information, Mateo?"
"You bastard," Hall said.
Felipe Duarte doubled over with laughter. "Mateo the Detective!" he
chortled.
"O.K.," Hall laughed. "So I was raped."
"Raped is the right word, _chico_."
"When did she take you into her bed, Felipe?"
"Long ago. My first week in San Hermano. Then once more after that. I
gave way for an American aviator who came here to sell planes to the
government. He was succeeded in a week by two men, a local _senorito_
named Madariaga and the First Secretary of the French Embassy. After
that I just stopped noticing."
"Who is her husband?"
"She has no husband."
"She was wearing a wedding ring, Felipe."
"That's a new development. I never heard of her having a ring or a
husband."
"She's a very clever girl, Felipe. And a confirmed fascist."
"She's only a rich _puta_, Mateo. The hell with her."
"She might be useful, Felipe. What happened to you today? Did you learn
anything?"
Duarte shrugged his shoulders. He had little real information. "I saw
Commander New. He looked down his nose at me during our whole interview,
and then, like an English trader, he started to bargain with me. About
the week, I mean. He said that a week was too long. He would only give
me three days. Then--if I gave him no more information than you got from
the _puta_ today, he goes to the police."
"That's not so good."
"Who knows? The counsellor of the British Embassy spent the whole day
going through Fielding's files with the widow. If they found those
reports you saw that night, maybe the Intelligence officer will give us
that full week."
"Did you find out anything about Harrington?"
"Commander New never heard of him, he says. Then I thought I would make
a real surprise for you. Souza arranged with some smart boys to search
Ansaldo's room with a fine comb. But they combed not a louse, Mateo.
They found nothing of interest except that Ansaldo's _maricon_ is a
morphine addict."
Hall lit a black cigar from the Cuban's private collection. "Where the
hell is my letter from Havana?" he said.
"Take it easy, _chico_." Duarte opened a fresh bottle of beer for his
friend.
"I'll be all right," Hall said. "I won't explode tonight."
Duarte recalled an earlier occasion in a Madrid hospital, when a phone
call from the Paris office of the AP had made Hall lose his head. "To my
dying day," he told Hall, "I'll never forget those curses that shot out
of your guts."
"Don't remind me," Hall said. "I get sick when I think of it again. That
was the time they held up my story on Guadalajara because they weren't
satisfied that I had definite proof that the troops captured by the
Republic were Italian regulars."
The Mexican laughed. It was a laugh made bitter by the silver plate in
his skull. It covered an injury he had suffered in fighting the Italian
regulars at Guadalajara.
Hall understood. "There are too many bastards in this world," he said.
"I wish curses alone could stop them. But we've got work to do. Pepe
didn't bring me here. He was busy on something else. I'll have to use
your driver. Have him drive me to some decent restaurant. I wish you'd
come along too."
"Why didn't you tell me you're hungry?"
"I forgot. But there's one thing your driver can do for us. Do you know
where the Compania Transatlantica Espanola pier is located? Good. Just
have him drive very slowly past the pier on the way. I want to look it
over."
_Chapter eight_
Shortly after eight in the morning, Hall sat down at a table in a
waterfront cafe and ordered coffee and rolls. It was a small place with
a zinc bar in one corner, patronized largely by longshoremen and petty
customs officials. Hall chose a table which gave him a good view of the
Compania Transatlantica Espanola dock diagonally across the street.
On the dock there were the unmistakeable signs that the _Marques de
Avillar_ was coming in on time. Minor customs officials in their blue
uniforms stood around in small, important looking knots, their hands
filled with papers and bundles of official forms. The passenger
gangplank, with the line's name splashed on its canvas sides in crimson
and gold letters, had been hauled on to the pier and lay waiting like a
rigid, outstretched hand for the incoming ship. A row of motley cabs
were lined up facing the pier, their drivers dozing or reading the
morning papers behind their wheels as they waited for the business from
the ship. Pepe was not only one of these drivers, but through the
transport union he had arranged to fill the cab line with trustworthy
anti-fascist drivers.
Hall could see Pepe slouched behind the wheel of the LaSalle, his white
cap pushed way to the back of his massive head. The cab strategy was
Pepe's inspiration. It did away with the necessity of following any of
the cabs which picked up passengers whose moves might be of interest to
Hall. As a further precaution, Souza had arranged through members of his
union to get an instant line on any of the _Marques de Avillar_
passengers who registered at a San Hermano hotel that day.
A letter written in Spanish with purple ink in a fine, delicate woman's
hand lay on the metal table between the butter pat and the carafe of
water. Hall read it again as he stirred his coffee.
"Beloved Mateo," the letter began, and Hall chuckled at Santiago's
current dodge, "Why did you leave me so suddenly without even giving me
a chance to explain? It is you and you alone whom I love, _carino_, and
any thoughts that you have to the contrary you must banish from your
dear head at this instant. Oh, _carino_, since you left without a
further word I have had no rest, no peace, no sleep...." He skimmed
through the first two pages of such protestations, then carefully reread
the casual lines: "You are so wrong; it is true that I did know the
doctor before, but he was never my lover. I knew him only because he
treated dear Carlos, but as a man I hate and detest him. How can I tell
you again that you are wrong, that he is an abomination not only in my
eyes but also in the eyes of my entire beloved family?"
Nearly three lachrymose pages of love frustrated followed these lines.
"And so before I close my letter, I must beg you to drop everything if
you love me and fly back to Havana, even if only for a day. Oh, my
beloved, if you would only come back to Havana for one day, I am sure
that I can resolve all the doubts that are in your mind, Mateo. In the
name of all that we have shared, of all that is dear and sacred to us,
please fly back to my arms, my love, my kisses--and then you will know!"
The letter was signed, "Maria."
Hall folded the letter carefully and put it in his wallet. It told him
what he wanted to know about Ansaldo. _He treated dear Carlos--he is an
abomination in the eyes of my beloved family._ Santiago's style as a
writer of love letters might be a little on the turgid side, but he knew
how to make himself clear. And nothing could be clearer than his line on
Ansaldo. An abomination. A man who marched with the men who put that
fascist bullet through the throat of Uncle Carlos. A bastard.
The dock was growing more crowded. Over the near horizon, a ship pointed
its high white face at San Hermano. A long throaty whistle came from its
front funnel. Then five short blasts, and in a moment the tugs which had
been getting up steam in the harbor were heading out toward the growing
ship.
"The _Marques de Avillar_," someone at the bar said. A customs man at a
near-by table gulped the remainder of his coffee and bolted to the pier.
At the bar, a laughing longshoreman pushed a five-centavo coin into the
nickeled red juke box, pressed the "_Besame_" button. Johnny Rodrigues
_y su_ Whoopee Kids. Two guitars, a cornet, maracas, sticks and a
lugubrious baritone. "_Besame, besame mucho_ ..." the raucous blaring of
a klaxon at the pier ... "_la ultima vez_" ... again the horn drowned
out the words.
Hall looked up at the cabs, ignoring the Whoopee Kids' baritone. A
slender young man in a green jacket and cream-colored slacks was
standing near the foot of the gangplank. Pepe had taken off his white
hat. Hall kept his eyes glued on Pepe until the man in the green jacket
turned around, revealing himself as Dr. Marina.
One of the white sedans of the Ministry of Health pulled up at the pier.
A doctor and two assistants, the three men wearing the light tan uniform
of their service, got out and started to talk to a customs man. He
pointed at the white ship being shoved toward the pier by the little
tugs.
Hall drank in the tableau, his eyes following Marina's every move, his
ears deaf to the next record being played in the juke box.
"_Otro cafe, senor?_"
"_Si, gracias._"
But the fresh pot of hot coffee remained untouched. Hall was still
watching Marina, but Marina did nothing except shift from foot to foot
while he watched the Spanish liner draw nearer the pier with every turn
of the heroic little engines in the two tugs. Hall thought of Jerry. He
had missed her again last night, but they had a date for dinner at
seven. Doctor had promised her a night off. The messages at the hotel:
Jose Fernandez had phoned, wanted Hall to call him back this morning.
O.K., Don Jose, as soon as I get a good look at the rats Marina is
awaiting. I want to hear more about the Red menace hanging over my head.
And Souza had an interesting tab on Androtten. The little Dutchman had
stayed out all night. Naughty, naughty, Wilhelm, gadding about with
_putas_ the whole night through and God knows where you are sleeping it
off but I guess your little dog is watching to see that no one rolls you
for your wad. Or wasn't it a debauch that kept you out all night?
Anyway, I'll bet you made your rounds in a Renault you rented from the
Phoenix Garage.
The _Marques de Avillar_ was being eased into its dock. The cab drivers
were waving at the passengers lined up at the rail, and Marina was
hopping up and down, shouting and waving a big yellow handkerchief like
a banner. The coffee _por favor_ has grown cold and _por favor_ a pot of
hot _por favor_ and that's the idea _muchas gracias_ and you could have
docked the _Marques_ in my last yawn. Hall drank a steaming cup of hot
coffee.
The gangplank was being wheeled to the ship. There was a knot of ship's
officers on the lower deck. They shook hands with the customs men and
the medicos who trotted up the gangplank, led them inside to the main
salon. Men in blue uniforms with official papers under their arms. A
press photographer and a bald roly-poly reporter. They'll be out in a
minute, and damn it the morning sun is growing too bright for a pair of
tired old eyes, and dipping his napkin in the fresh cold water on the
table Hall shoved the cold compress against his heavy eyes.
Two cups of coffee later, the first of the passengers from the _Marques
de Avillar_ emerged from the salon and walked down the gangplank.
Priests--Hall counted twenty--followed by scrawny stewards with their
bags. A few of the priests were old, but most of them were young men who
carried themselves erect, their shoulders squared well back, their walk
the off-duty walk of the officer on leave from the front. Hall wondered
how many of the younger men in clerical collars were really priests and
how many of them were used to wearing other uniforms. He remembered the
day, less than two months earlier, when the C.T.E. liner _Cabo de
Hornos_ had docked in Havana and one of General Benitez' men had grown
suspicious of two of the Spanish priests on board; a brief discussion of
theology had been followed by a thorough search of their luggage, and
the young travelers woke up the next morning to find themselves learning
theology in the concentration camp on the Isla de Pinas.
Hall was humming "Onward, Christian Soldiers." He watched two young
priests get into Pepe's cab and be driven away. The priests, and later
four nuns, entered the cabs in pairs. Then, following some customs men,
one of the ship's officers came out of the salon with a man in a black
suit and a Panama hat. They carried thick portfolios under their arms,
and behind them followed a steward with two heavy hand trunks.
There was a blur of green and yellow on the gangplank, and then Marina
was on the lower deck, exchanging wild embraces with the ship's officer
and the man in the Panama hat. The three men walked down the gangplank,
Marina happily bringing up the rear behind the officer. He darted in
front of his friends when they reached the pier and signaled one of the
cabs. The first cab in line rolled up to the curb and picked them up.
The sun shone into Hall's face. He washed his eyes with cold water, had
another cup of coffee. Thick, the air is growing thick and heavy. Hell
with it. Olive oil and garlic, coffee, squids, mussels, saffron,
mackerel, heat. "_Besame_" on the juke box again. Don't run off just
yet. Look at the watch. Start to get impatient. _Hombre de negocios_
waiting for a colleague to work out a deal. A ton of coffee, three box
cars of ore, a round ton of sugar. He's way overdue and you're getting
impatient, but you don't leave yet. You don't leave and show the little
dog wherever he or his partners are hiding that you had breakfast here
this morning just to keep an eye on the _Marques de Avillar_. No, senor,
you would not be as careless as the faggot. No, senor, oh no, senor,
only the air is getting thicker and somewhere in the kitchen someone is
looking at me and laughing I swear it I swear it only I can't help it
this is the only face I have.
Soft laughter. Eyes looking in his direction. The now blazing sun. The
flags on the mast of the white ship; crimson and gold of Fernando e
Isabel, the triangular pennant of the C.T.E., and the mucking five
arrows of the Falange floating insolently in the breeze over the heart
of a democracy. Don't leave too soon. Look at your watch again and curse
the mucking _hombre de negocios_ who's holding up your big deal. And
what was the name of the C.T.E. radio officer from the _Ciudad de
Sevilla_ whom poor old Fielding had in his report? Jimenez, Eduardo
Jimenez, thank God, my memory for names is like a sponge and what would
you say if the ship's officer who got that _abrazo de amor_ from the
faggot was C.T.E. Radio Officer Jimenez and damn the sun and damn the
olive oil on the hot stove chunks of garlic and squid floating in the
hot oil and stinking up the thick murky air and it's cooler with the
collar open.
Eyes looking at him from the kitchen. Soft laughter. Some joke. Hall is
cockeyed on _cafe con leche_ and what's that it's the cup you lug and
what's that it's the coffee spilling all over your pants and if those
empty-faced bastards in the kitchen don't stop laughing I'll get right
up from the floor and put a right cross through their lousy guts. That's
just the ticket. Clip them with the old right, like the time in San
Sebastian when the gonzo with the feather in his hat made the mistake of
getting within range. Watch the old right, keed, watch the old K.O.
sockeroo. Watch it, watch it, don't forget to duck. WATCH IT!
* * * * *
The driver of the rickety four-wheeled bus was thumping time with fat
brown fingers on the rim of the heavy wheel. He didn't sing, just sat in
his bucket seat with the faded flowered cretonne slip cover (bet you a
good dinner his wife sewed it for him when he got the job) and thumped
time. The kid with the guitar in the front seat was doing the singing.
"Ay, Jalisco, Jalisco." He was a nice kid and drunk as a loon, but sweet
and happy drunk. Nothing ugly about the kid. "Ay, Jalisco, Jalisco."
"Why is he singing?" Hall asked.
Behind him, someone in the rear seat answered, "He's happy. His favorite
baseball team won the San Hermano tournament."
Hall turned with a start, faced an impassive-looking farmer in blue
jeans.
"You were fast asleep, senor," the farmer said.
"Ay, Jalisco, Jalisco." A bad dream. Go back to sleep. Or better yet,
wake up and put the light on. But the light was on. The dim yellow
lights inside the bus. "Ay, Jalisco, Jalisco." Scots wha hae wi' Wallace
fled. Scots wha ... God, no! A new song. No more Jalisco. The farmer
came into the town his cheeses ripe his mangoes brown he spied a maiden
by her stall she ... God, no!
"Ay, Muchachita, Muchachita." The kid was still in the groove.
Four-string chord, six-string chord. _Un beso, un beso! Reflecciones de
otros tiempos._ More nice chords. The farmer remembers other times,
other maidens who pursed their lips and gave him _un beso_ when he
begged. What am I to the farmer and what is he to Hecuba?
"For a _borracho_ he sings well."
"Yes, with a skinful he is a virtuoso." The sound of his own words
startled Hall. He turned around to the man who had spoken to him. The
farmer smiled.
"Pardon me, senor," the farmer smiled, "but tonight you are a little of
the virtuoso yourself, no?"
"No." God, no!
"I apologize, senor. You are not well?"
"No. I am well." But where in hell am I? _Ay, muchachita, muchachita._
Cigars in the coat pocket. Broken, all of them. Smashed to shreds. I
fell on them. When I fell they were smashed. Cigarettes in the side
pocket. Black tobacco, thicker than the cigarettes back home,
brown-paper package. _Bock, La Habana._
"Have you a match?" That's a good one. Felipe's been waiting three years
for J. Burton Skidmore to say it. "_Tiene usted un fo'foro?_" Very
welcome. Yes, they are Cuban. No, I am not Cuban myself. I dropped the
_s_ in _fosforo_? I have recently spent some time in Cuba. Yes, Batista
is a fine man. Where are you going? Is this your village?
"Good-bye, friend." This from outside, the farmer standing on the dirt
road, Hall's gift cigarette glowing in his mouth. A tiny village.
Houses, store, the whitewashed village school, a cast-iron statue of San
Martin and Bolivar shaking hands, an open-front cafe, the small church.
"Hello, friend." The kid with the guitar waved at Hall. "When did you
get on the bus?"
"I don't remember," Hall said.
"Good. Neither do I. What's your favorite song?"
"_No Pasaran._"
"I know it," the kid said. "It is a good song." His fingers flew over
the strings, found the right chords. Hall joined him in the words of the
Spanish Republic's song of resistance.
Night, deep-blue night, the yellow mazdas of the farmers' village way
behind them now, and the _gua-gua_ rolling down the highway between
plowed fields and fields of sugar and nothing in sight but the broad
fields.
"Hey, driver!" That was me. I can talk now. I can stand, too. If I grip
the tops of the seats I can walk to the front without taking a pratt
fall. "Driver, _gua-guero_ ..."
"Jump, it's not high, senor ..."
Feet on the ground once more. Black blue soft chill night air. There
goes the _gua-gua_. Red tail light bouncing around the bend in the road.
No ship. No sun. No garlic broiling in olive oil. Nothing. Get off the
road. Get up. Off the road. Get to the fence. Get up, get up, here comes
the blackout again, here it comes, watch it, men, this is it.
He remembered the kid with the guitar, the rich voice of the driver.
_Jump, it's not high._ It was still night. He was lying in a field,
about fifteen yards from the highway. The taste of black earth at his
lips had awakened him.
He turned his mouth away from the plowed earth. There was no sense in
trying to get up. He knew that much. All in. He was all in. Every bone,
every muscle ached. He closed his eyes, sank into a deep dreamless
sleep.
Thirst wakened him. It was a thirst that started in his throat, spread
to his dry cottony mouth, sank deep into his drying insides. They were
drying out, drying out fast. He had to have water, or they would dry up
completely, and then he would be dead.
I am now an animal, he thought. I must have animal cunning. I must sense
water and then I must get to it. Where things grow there must be water.
A stream. A well.
He got to his knees, started to crawl deeper into the plowed field,
putting another few yards between himself and the road. He crawled into
a clump of weeds. The dew on their leaves brushed against his face.
"It's water," he said, and he licked the dew from the weeds. The thirst
remained.
Fire. Build a fire and attract a watchman, a farmer, another bus rolling
along the deserted road. No, don't build a fire. Cane burns like oil.
Remember what poor old Fielding said? No fire. You'll be roasted alive.
Find water. It's a sugar field. Must be an irrigation ditch around. Find
the ditch.
More ground gained by crawling. Then the sleep of exhaustion, no dreams
only sleep until the thirst becomes stronger than the exhaustion and
then more crawling until ... God! there is a ditch. Hear it, smell it.
Must be water, couldn't be this much mulepiss. Now drink your fill and
bathe your face and get your head away from the top of the ditch before
you fall asleep again and drown in two inches of it. It has a name. It's
water.
This time Hall rolled over on his back when he felt that sleep was
overtaking him.
There were a million bugs on the mud walls of the ditch. They crawled on
Hall's hands, on his face, and one column of intrepid bugs slithered
into his mouth and got caught in his throat and he was sick. He moved
away from the mess, tried to sit up. He could see a mound of rocks near
the road. With all his remaining strength, he started to crawl toward
the mound.
It took him two hours to negotiate the twenty yards between the ditch
and the rocks. He lost count of the number of times he collapsed to his
face and fell asleep on the journey. All he knew was that when he woke
up, he had to get to the rocks. He could sit on the rocks and wait for a
truck or a bus to pass by. Then he could hail the driver.
But when he reached the fence, he saw that the mound was on the other
side of the road. Fall asleep in the middle of the road and the next
truck that rolls along crushes you like a roach. _Putas y maricones!
Maricones y putas!_ Blood will run in the streets of the city when I get
up, the brown blood, the black blood, the blue blood. _Arriba Espana_ in
a pig's eye. You mean _Deutschland Erwache_, senor, and come a little
closer, you with the yoke and the five arrows on your cap, come a little
closer and get your filthy head bashed in. God, when I get up I'll kill
them I'll kill them if these chills ever go away I'll kill them I'll
kill all the baby killers when these chills go away oh God look at the
baby killers marching through Burgos with the holy men shaking holy
water on their lousy heads. Whores and faggots! Faggots and whores! I'm
getting up!
* * * * *
He was asleep when the army lorry roared by and then stopped down the
road, brakes screeching, rubber biting into macadam.
The sergeant's brandy did no good. Neither did the fresh water they
poured on his face, the brandy they rubbed into his wrists. All this
they had to tell him later.
He remembered nothing about the lorry. The bus he remembered; the
driver, the flowered-cretonne slip cover on the driver's seat, the
farmer, joining the kid in _No Pasaran_. He remembered jumping from the
bus, crawling for water, giving up the ghost when the bugs crawled into
his throat. And the rocks. There was that mound of rocks.
Now there was a narrow bed in a small room. A man's room, obviously a
man's room. Desk, lounging chair, worn grass rug. For some reason
Fernando Souza was sitting in the lounging chair. Another man was
standing near the bed, looking down at Hall, his fingers pressed to
Hall's pulse.
"Is that you, Souza?" Hall asked, and the night clerk of the Bolivar
left the chair and joined the doctor.
"You will be well now," Souza said.
"The pulse is coming back," the doctor said, to Souza. He let go of
Hall's wrist. When he went to the desk, Hall could see the military
trousers beneath his white coat.
"Can you talk, Don Mateo?" Souza asked.
"I think so. Where am I? What day is it?"
The doctor went to the door. He held a whispered conversation with a
soldier who was waiting on the other side of the door. Then he took
Souza's chair. "Such cursing," he laughed. "When they brought you in,
Senor Hall, you had no pulse, you had the temperature of cold beer, and
your heart had just about three beats left. You were biologically more
dead than alive. But I swear, before I gave you the first ampule of
adrenalin, the curses were pouring out of your lips like the waves of
the ocean. How do you feel now?"
"Very tired."
"Are you hungry?"
"I don't know."
"You'll be able to eat soon. I've been feeding you through a needle for
seven hours. How would you like a steak?"
"What time is it?"
"Five o'clock," Souza said. "I've been here with you all afternoon, Don
Mateo."
"What's this 'Don' business?"