A Flag for Sunrise

by Robert Stone

  Praise for ROBERT STONE’S

  A Flag for Sunrise

  “One of the best books of the year.”

  —Time

  “At once a high-tension adventure tale, a densely plotted political novel and, at its heart, a meditation on the availability of God.… Robert Stone writes as if announcements of the death of the novel had not reached him; A Flag for Sunrise shows narrative confidence, criss-crossed motives, a moral sense and sustained inventiveness of an amplitude we have almost given up expecting from fiction.”

  —Newsweek

  “[Robert Stone is] one of the most impressive novelists of his generation.”

  —The New York Review of Books

  “[A Flag for Sunrise] has the pace and suspense of a first-class thriller.… It catches the shifting currents of contemporary Latin American politics … [and] shows, among other things, the human condition driven to extremity by Americans.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “The romantic and moral elements of [this] novel recall Hemingway … A Flag for Sunrise offers splendid description of primordial landscape and ocean.… [Stone’s] tone and vision have the purity of ice and something like the cruelty of truth.”

  —Saturday Review

  ROBERT STONE

  A Flag for Sunrise

  Robert Stone’s first novel, A Hall of Mirrors, won a William Faulkner Foundation Award. Dog Soldiers received a National Book Award, and A Flag for Sunrise won both the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award. He is also the author of Children of Light. His other honors include a Guggenheim fellowship, an award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the John Dos Passos Prize for literature, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and a grant from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Both A Hall of Mirrors and Dog Soldiers were made into major motion pictures. His most recent novel is Outerbridge Reach. Mr. Stone lives with his wife in Connecticut.

  ALSO BY ROBERT STONE

  A Hall of Mirrors

  Dog Soldiers

  Children of Light

  Outerbridge Reach

  FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, MARCH 1992

  Copyright © 1977, 1978, 1981 by Robert Stone

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1981.

  Portions of this book have been previously published in American Review, Harper’s, and TriQuarterly.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stone, Robert.

  A flag for sunrise / Robert Stone.—1st vintage international ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-81418-0

  I. Title.

  PS3569.T6418F59 1992

  813’.54—dc20 91-50278

  Author photograph © Jerry Bauer

  v3.1

  for Deidre

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  First Page

  Father Egan left off writing, rose from his chair and made his way—a little unsteadily—to the bottle of Flor de Cana which he had placed across the room from his desk. The study in which he worked was lit by a Coleman lamp; he had turned the mission generators off to save kerosene. The shutters were open to receive the sea breeze and the room was cool and pleasant. At Freddy’s Chicken Shack up the road a wedding party was in progress and the revelers were singing along with the radio from Puerto Alvarado, marking the reggae beat with their own steel drums and crockery.

  As Egan drank his rum, his inward eye filled with a vision of the Beguinage at Bruges, the great sculptured vault overhead, the windows inlaid with St. Ursula and her virgins, the columns gilded with imperial red and gold. It had been many, many years since he had seen it.

  The Coleman lamp cast the shadow of his desk crucifix across the piles of books, bills and invoices that cluttered the space around his typewriter. He took a second drink of rum and considered the cruciform shadow, indulging the notion that his office space suggested the study of some heterodox doctor of the Renaissance, a man condemned by his times but sustained by faith in God and the Spirit among men.

  The work on which Father Egan was engaged would fail of imprimatur, would be publishable only by a secular house. When it appeared he would be adjured to silence. He would resist, appeal to Rome if only to gain a wider hearing. When Rome thundered condemnation, he would turn to the Spiritual Church, the masses so hungry for comfort in a violently dying world.

  It was the composition of this work that had led to Father Egan’s intemperance in drink. For over thirty years as a Devotionist Father he had been a moderate man in that regard—but writing was hard for him and the cultural deprivations of his voluntary mission posting had rendered his life difficult by the day. He had rewritten the work six times and had reached the point where he could no longer endure it without alcohol. Yet without the work, he had found, life itself was not endurable. As for his faith—it was in a state of tension, the dark of his soul’s night was such that he could not bring it to bear. And if that faith seemed moribund, he could only hope that it had returned to the seed to grow, to be transmogrified, dried and hardened in the tropical sun, destined to rise like a brilliant Tecanecan phoenix from Pascal’s fire.

  He had put by him the thought of a third slug and was halfway back to his desk when he heard the sound of a jeep’s engine on the beach below the mission buildings; he stopped to listen as the jeep drew closer. At length, he heard the brakes squeal and the engine die, and then a man’s ascending step on the stairs that led from the beach to his veranda.

  “Oh my fucking word,” Father Egan said aloud.

  He quickly took the bottle of Flor de Cana, put it in his shower stall and drew the curtain that closed off the bath. Then, popping a mint candy in his mouth, he stepped outside to the veranda.

  It was the night of the full moon and the ocean before him was aglow. The tips of coral along the reef, the wind-driven whitecaps beyond were edged in silver shadow, the very grains of sand on the beach sparkled faintly. In the dispensary wing, an oil lamp burned behind Sister Justin Feeney’s bamboo shade.

  At the foot of the steps a jeep had been parked, and a man was climbing toward the main house, humming along with the music from Freddy’s. He climbed very slowly, putting both feet on each step and shuffling to the reggae beat. On the last step, he raised both hands above his shoulders in a little flutter of stylized ecstasy and lurched onto the veranda. When he saw Father Egan in the moon-swept darkness, he stepped back, startled.

  The man wore a white guayabera and dark trousers. There was a holstered pistol on his hip, hanging from a webbed guard belt which he had buckled casually over his loose shirt. His hair was combed slickly across his skull; he was not a man of the coast, but a mestizo from the interior. Egan saw that it was Lieutenant Campos, social agent of the Guardia Nacional, uncharacteristically out of uniform and thoroughly drunk. Recognizing Campos, he drew his breath in fear.

  “Holy Father,” Lieutenant Campos said. He crossed himself and kissed his fingers as though Egan were an object of veneration. “Bless me, Father,” he said in Spanish. “Bless me, for I have sinned.”

  Egan, having coiled a sentence of greeting, released it without enthusiasm.

  “Good evening, Lieutenant, my friend. How may we help you?”

  “Yes,” Lieutenant Campos said. “And now you have to come with me.”

&nbs
p; Father Egan recoiled, in spite of himself. The words froze his heart. Campos was staring at Sister Justin Feeney’s lighted window. The two men stood bathed in the unrelenting moonlight, both of them swaying slightly with drink. At Freddy’s Chicken Shack, the beat went on.

  “Where is the nun?” the lieutenant asked with distaste. “The earnest nun?”

  “Gone to bed, I would suppose,” Father Egan said cheerily. God save us, he thought. We’re being arrested.

  “No no,” Campos said. “Because, see, her light is on. She’s staying awake. And who knows what she’s thinking?” The lieutenant had raised his voice over the distant music but from Sister Justin Feeney’s room there was no sound or stirring. Campos belched sadly and turned his attention back to the priest.

  “Come with me,” he said in his policeman’s voice. “We’re going.”

  “It’s so late,” the priest said. “Does it have to be now?” He was aware of the lieutenant’s insane intelligent eyes smoldering in the moonlight.

  Campos laid a hand on his arm.

  “Come!”

  “Lieutenant,” Egan said, “please. A moment.” He went inside to get his stole and breviary, in case there might be some emergency.

  They went down the steps to the beach in silence. Campos stood by the side of his jeep and held the door open for the priest.

  The road, such as it was, followed the packed sand of the beach, descending now and then into a sea-flooded hollow that splashed phosphorescence as they forded it. Egan sat with the stole in his teeth, the missal between his legs, holding fast to the sidebar of the jeep. The lieutenant drove as fast as the vehicle would move; now and then he muttered something in a low voice which the priest could not understand.

  He did not brake for animals. If a cow, transfixed in the headlights, was too slow in heaving its flyblown bulk from the roadway, the lieutenant would unhesitatingly ram it bellowing into a ditch, throw the jeep into reverse and charge forward.

  In twenty minutes or so they came to the peninsula on which the lieutenant maintained his residence. In a country of frenetically gregarious people, Lieutenant Campos lived alone, without family or servants. The turnoff that led to his compound was barred by a chain link fence, its gate secured with a padlock. Campos kept his jeep motor running as he opened it; when they were inside he got out again and locked it behind them.

  Breathing deeply, Father Egan followed Campos from the jeep and stood by while he unlocked his front door. The lieutenant used more locks than one was used to seeing along the coast.

  Egan went in first; the presence of Campos, entering behind him in the darkness, touched the priest with terror.

  The lieutenant had electric light and his bungalow was very neat. There was a picture of the President of the Republic on one wall—the President appearing as the apotheosis of the nation-state, his full cheeks pink with retouching, his uniform inked in pastels, his peculiar ears unobserved—the whole swathed in the furled colors of Tecan. Beside it was a framed copy of the lieutenant’s commission, then a framed shot of a younger—perhaps a more reasonable—Lieutenant Campos, posing with his buddies at Guardia school.

  Below the pictures were two bookcases. One held bound logs and law books; the shelves of the other were stacked with American detective magazines arranged by name. True, Startling, Inside, Master and Underground Detective—Egan thought there must be a thousand magazines in the stacks. On the other wall was a picture of John Kennedy, below it was what appeared to be an electric freezer and next to that the only glassed window between Puerto Alvarado and the frontier, overlooking the moonlit ocean. In an alcove near it was the Guardia’s Hallstadt radio transmitter. The circuit was open, now and then picking up a Caribbean voice.

  “… up in Belize, mon.”

  “… well, you know … dat de British port, mon … dey goin’ to come down haard …”

  Egan turned toward his host and saw that the lieutenant had produced a bottle of Flor de Cana and was offering him a drink. He accepted with gratitude but the rum did little for him. Campos sat down in a wicker chair by the transmitter and asked him in strained English if he required another.

  “Yes, please,” Father Egan said, ashamed.

  Campos poured it slowly and as he proffered it, Egan had the sense that he might suddenly snatch it away again to torment him. Just as he was imagining the dreadful smile that might appear on Campos’ face if he did in fact snatch the glass away—the smile appeared.

  Egan polished off his rum.

  “You …” the lieutenant asked, “you are a queer? A maricón?”

  Egan was jolted stone sober. He stared at the lieutenant in outrage. He had been in the country for ten years and never—never had anyone, not even a drunken Baptist—addressed him in that manner.

  Yet the horrible word brought to his recollection a desperate sodden night. He had been in town, in Alvarado, and he had gotten tight. Something had happened in the bar of the Gran Atlántico hotel; he remembered the lights of the bar and the lights of the street outside—a boy in a death’s-head motorcycle cap, a European-looking boy with greasy long hair falling to his shoulders and the boy shouting at him scornfully—Maricón! Eres maricón!

  Was it memory? Had such a thing happened? Egan was not clear.

  “Lieutenant,” he asked humbly, “why are you speaking to me like that?”

  “I know what I know,” Campos said. “I know you’re good. You’re O.K. I want to confess to you.”

  Father Egan tried to clear his head.

  “Now, Lieutenant.… Is this the time? When you’ve been drinking?” He attempted a sympathetic chuckle. “I think you should reflect a little.”

  Lieutenant Campos raised his hand in a slow gesture that indicated the frivolousness of further conversation.

  “No,” he said. “I want to confess to you. It will be under the seal.”

  “I can’t …” Father Egan began. He had been going to tell the lieutenant that he could not give absolution to a man who was drunk. Contrition and resolve would be questionable. He took another drink.

  Lieutenant Campos was standing up; he was staring at Egan with a dreadful intensity. He walked to the red freezer by the window and lifted its top door open. With a slight raising of his chin, he signaled Father Egan to draw near. The priest advanced slowly, his eyes fixed on Campos’ face. The lieutenant looked down into the open freezer with an expression of stoic grief.

  Fearfully, Egan followed the lieutenant’s gaze and saw that the freezer contained an unplucked turkey and a great many bottles of Germania beer. Beneath them was a bolt of green cloth. Puzzled, he turned to Campos but the lieutenant had closed his eyes and was biting his lip, as though to control his emotions. Egan reached down, moved a few of the bottles of frozen beer and his eye fell on the maple-leaf flag of Canada. Father Egan was a native of Windsor, Ontario, and for the briefest moment he entertained the idea that Lieutenant Campos had devised some drunken ceremony of appreciation for him, some naïve filial gesture of esteem that might one day be the basis of a pleasant story. He glanced at the lieutenant and was confronted with the extreme unlikeliness of so innocent a notion.

  He scanned the surface contents of the chest, amorphous cubes of ice, the enormous turkey, the bottles of beer with their peeling labels, and saw at last—in one corner, partially concealed by ice—a human foot. Looking more closely, he saw that it curved downward from a turned ankle on which there was a small cut gone black. The outer side of the foot was visible, its callused edge pressed against the top of a South American sandal. The thong of the sandal divided the darkly veined front of the foot; caught between two of the toes was a tiny cotton pompon of bright red. Father Egan looked down at the foot and understood only its beautiful symmetry, its functional wholeness, the sublime engineering that had appended its five longish toes. The top of it, he saw, was suntanned.

  Then his knees buckled under him. As he reached out to steady himself, his hand clawed across the ice cubes and revealed a moist
matting of yellow hair, then a tanned forehead. Then below, the freckled bridge of a nose and an eye—blue with a foliate iris—the whites gone dark, an eye so dull, so dead with sheer animal death that Egan received the sight of it as a spiritual shock.

  He staggered back from the ice chest.

  “Oh my God,” he said. He reeled to the wall and leaned under the picture of the President, trembling with disgust and fear.

  A sad smile had appeared on the lieutenant’s face. He turned to Egan and the smile broadened until his features quivered to contain it. Looking back at him, Egan had the sense that he was in the presence of a man who, though obviously mad, understood him thoroughly.

  “Father,” the lieutenant said, “do your duty. You have to be cool and brave. You have to have mercy.” He moved closer to Egan. “The power of Christ commands.”

  Father Egan realized that he had no idea what the power of Christ was. Christ, it seemed to him, had no more power than he himself did and he had hardly the power to stand up. Panic rose in him like a sudden fever and he fought for his reason.

  “What happened?” he heard himself ask.

  Lieutenant Campos raised his eyes, yielding the question to heaven. Egan made himself go to the freezer. With a gentleness that he realized was only a studied part of his priestcraft, he moved some of the ice and beer from over the corpse.

  It was a young blond girl in khaki shorts and a Boy Scout shirt with the maple-leaf flag sewn to the back of it. Jackknifed into the chest.

  Egan’s revulsion was tempered by sorrow. He supposed she had been dead for a long time. Far from the lakes, he thought, trying to master his trembling, the tamaracks, the elm-lined streets.

  “How did she die, Lieutenant?”

  “I’ll tell you that,” the lieutenant said. “You’ll find out how.” He poured himself another glass of rum and extended the bottle toward Egan.