I took the phone from his outstretched hand. “Yes, excellency?”
The old man’s voice was bright and cheerful. “Did you have a good night’s rest?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m about to take a shower,” I said, “then meet the newspapermen downstairs. I guess I have to see them?”
“Yes, that is one of the hazards of public life. They never leave you alone.” He laughed easily. “When you are finished would you come over to the palace? There is someone here I would very much like to have you meet.”
“I shall be there as soon as I can, excellency.” Then my curiosity got the better of me. “Who is it? Anyone important?”
“That depends on one’s point of view. If I were you, I should think him very important. But I am not you. And we think differently about many things. It will be interesting to see how you react when you meet him.”
“Him?”
His easy chuckle came over the wire. “Yes, the man who tried to kill you last night. We captured him this morning.”
8
It was the man I had first seen at the ticket counter with Beatriz at the airport in Miami. But he was no longer so neat and dapper as he stumbled into the room between the two soldiers. Both his eyes were blackened and there was blood crusted on his cheek and around his mouth.
“Do you know him?” El Presidente glanced at me shrewdly. “Have you ever seen him before?”
The man raised his head and looked at me, a frightened expression in his eyes.
“No,” I said, “I never saw him before.” There was no point in my involving Beatriz in this.
“Let me tell you who he is,” el Presidente said. “He is the girl’s uncle, Guayanos’ brother.”
Suddenly the stupidity of the whole thing got to me. I strode over to him. “You fool!” I said. “Why?”
He did not answer.
“Even if you had killed me, what good would it have done?” I shouted. “Didn’t you realize that either of those two bullets might have killed Beatriz?”
An almost invisible change came into his eyes. “I did think of it,” he answered in a low tired voice, “and that’s why you are alive today. At the last minute I pulled the gun off target.”
I stared at him.
El Presidente laughed. “Do you believe that?”
I didn’t answer.
“The girl was probably in it with him. That’s why he tells you that story.”
“No! Beatriz knew nothing about it! She did not even know I was back in Corteguay!”
“Shut up!” el Presidente roared. He crossed in front of me and slapped Beatriz’s uncle hard across the face. His head snapped back and he almost fell. El Presidente hit him again.
“The guns?” he demanded. “Where are they being landed?”
“I know nothing about guns.”
“You lie!” This time el Presidente kneed him savagely in the groin.
He doubled over, falling almost to his knees, and gasped with pain. “I know nothing,” he said. “If I did, don’t you think your police would have found it out before this?”
El Presidente looked down at him. A look of contempt came into his face. He turned to me. “It is worms like these who think they have the strength to govern.”
I didn’t answer.
El Presidente went back to his desk. He pressed a button on his intercom. “Ask Hoyos and Prieto to come in.”
He looked over at me. “If it were not for the two of them, this miserable scum would have escaped us completely. They were following him from the moment he came ashore.”
The two came into the room and stood in front of el Presidente’s desk, their faces impassive.
“What else have you found out?”
Hoyos answered. “Nothing, excellency. There were no guns in the small boat. He came in alone.”
“Did he contact the girl?”
“No, excellency. She was not at home when he first went there. He hid himself in the bushes and waited for her return.”
“Why didn’t you capture him then?” I asked.
“We waited because we thought he would deliver a message to her about the guns. We did not expect him to try to kill you.”
I looked at Beatriz’s uncle again. His face was pale and lined with pain. “Why did you try to kill me?”
His eyes met mine. “My niece is a good girl. I realized what you hoped to do to her.”
“It was not a political plot then?”
He shook his head. “No, it had only to do with her. She is my brother’s only child. I warned her of your reputation but apparently she had not heeded my advice.”
“This is all nonsense!” el Presidente roared. “For the last time—where are the guns being landed?”
“I told you I do not know.”
“Liar!” el Presidente’s voice was hoarse with anger. “Why did you return if not for the guns?”
Beatriz’s uncle stared at him. “Where else do I have to go? Corteguay is my home.”
El Presidente glared at him for a moment, then turned to Hoyos. “Take him to Escobar. You know what to do with him.”
“Sí, excelencia.” Hoyos turned and started to lead the prisoner from the office.
“No!”
I knew what Escobar meant. It was the prison for those condemned to death. They all turned and stared at me curiously, el Presidente the most curious of all.
“Let him go!”
“Let him go?” El Presidente’s voice was shocked. “This man tried to kill you.”
“Let him go,” I repeated.
“You are a fool!” el Presidente shouted. “He will only try again. I know his kind.”
I didn’t answer.
“You have been too long in the outside world, you have forgotten what it is like here.”
I stared at el Presidente, remembering his words once long ago when I was merely a boy and had sprung for the throat of another murderer. “There is no need to kill, my son,” he had said. “You are no longer in the jungle.”
“Have we returned to the jungle so soon?” I asked. El Presidente stared at me but I could see that he did not remember. “Last night you appointed me to the Court of Political Action. You surrendered to me all its powers.”
He nodded slowly.
“Then the responsibility is mine. I have something more important for the prisoner to do than die.” I looked at him. “I give you this message for your brother.”
The prisoner looked at me suspiciously.
“In today’s newspapers you will read that a complete amnesty has been granted to all political prisoners and refugees. You will also discover that I am now in charge of the Court. I have asked all who disagree with us to come and settle their differences before the people in a free election. Tell your brother it applies to him as well as to all Corteguayans.”
Beatriz’s uncle sneered. “It is but another trick. We know what happened after other amnesties.”
“Then it is a good trick. Because it will allow you to walk from this room alive and a free man.”
He stood there nervously. He glanced from one to the other of us as if he did not know what to believe.
El Presidente spoke finally in a disgusted voice. “Throw the worm out. Let us pray he is grateful for such justice.”
There was a note of shock in Hoyos’ voice. “You mean let him go? Just like that?”
“You heard his excellency,” el Presidente said, “the prisoner is free.”
Hoyos turned silently and left the room, pushing Beatriz’s uncle before him. Prieto followed. A silence came into the room. El Presidente and I stared at each other for a long time, then finally he began to smile. In a moment he began to roar with laughter.
I was bewildered. “What are you laughing at?”
“Until now,” he gasped, “I was sure you had had her. Now I know that you have been no more successful than the others.”
I didn’t speak.
“What is beautiful?”
“Your plan.” He smiled. “I take my hat off to you. It is so subtle, so clever that I myself would have been proud to have thought of it.”
“Yes?” I wished to know how brilliant I had been.
“By freeing the uncle you gain her confidence, and by gaining her confidence you gain her person. Once you’re inside her she will deliver her father into our hands.” He looked at me shrewdly. “Have you ever known a woman able to keep her mouth shut while she was being fucked?”
9
Two weeks went by and still I had not heard from Beatriz. Several times I found myself reaching for the telephone but each time I stopped my hand. When she was ready it must be on her terms.
Yet these were not quiet weeks. All the days and many of the nights were spent in the office in the palace which el Presidente had assigned to me. Across my desk flowed the entire economic picture of the country, each chart and analysis, as soon as it had been completed by the respective departments. After a while it began to take shape.
One night as I was sitting in my office studying the final summary, el Presidente came in. He walked up to my desk and looked over my shoulder. “What do you think?”
I looked up. “If these figures the economists have reported are accurate, we have a chance.”
“We have a chance if we get financing. Have you heard from our friend yet?”
I knew he meant George Baldwin. “No.”
“I wonder why they are waiting.”
“I don’t know.”
“Perhaps you should leave for New York without waiting for their invitation.”
“The Americans are a peculiar people,” I said. “They don’t like people coming and asking for money unless they’re invited.”
“You’re not going to Washington,” he answered, “you would be going to New York. You have a right to be there; after all, you are the head of our delegation to the United Nations. And while you are there perhaps you can work on the other.”
“That might be a good idea.” I looked at the old man with respect. Not a day passed in which somehow he did not earn a little more of my grudging admiration. He was old but far from stupid.
“It is better than sitting around here doing nothing. When will you leave?”
“Tuesday or Wednesday perhaps,” I replied. “There are some personal matters I would like to attend to over the weekend.”
He smiled. “You haven’t heard from the girl yet?”
I shook my head.
El Presidente shrugged philosophically. “And nothing from her father either?”
“Nothing.”
“Not one of them will accept,” he said contemptuously. “They’re all worms, afraid of the daylight.”
I didn’t answer. There was no use in pointing out that his last two amnesties had resulted in the death of all who surrendered. Why should they think this one would be any different?
El Presidente put his hand on my shoulder and patted it gently. “You’ll learn. You should have killed the uncle when you had the chance. That’s the one thing they understand.”
He started for the door, then turned. “Good luck with the girl.”
I nodded as he closed the door behind him. There was no sense in telling him that Beatriz didn’t figure in my plans at all. This weekend there was much I had to do, and I wanted to do it alone.
I wanted to spend some time at my hacienda with the memory of my family. It would take at least two days’ work with my own hands to straighten up the little cemetery. At last it would be neat and clean and planted with flowers again, the way I knew my mother would have wanted it.
***
I heard the motor of the car before it came around the curve at the crest of the hill. I put down the shovel with which I had been working and straightened up. I crossed to the old iron fence and picked up the rifle leaning against it. I pulled back the lever, throwing a cartridge into the chamber, and waited. I could see much better from here than from the front of the house, and whoever was coming couldn’t see me.
Martínez had left for his shack almost an hour ago, and I didn’t expect Fat Cat until tomorrow. We had come up together on Friday but I sent him right back to the city to cover for me. If there was no answer in our suite I would soon be missed, and it would not take anyone long to figure out where I had gone. Then the soldiers would come, for Lieutenant Giraldo wasn’t about to risk his commission by neglecting his duties.
I watched the car come to a stop at the top of the hill, then give the two honks of the horn that Fat Cat and I had agreed upon as a signal. When it started down again I ejected the shell from the chamber into my hand and fed it back into the magazine of the rifle. Then, holding the gun loosely in the crook of my arm, I started slowly back toward the house. My muscles ached with every step. It had been a long time since I had worked like this. But it felt good, and the tiny cemetery was beginning to look as I remembered it.
I stood on the front steps and watched curiously as the car approached. It had to be something important to bring Fat Cat back a day early. As the car turned into the yard I could see that there was another person in the front seat beside him.
The car stopped in front of me and Beatriz got out. For a moment she stood there staring up at me. I suppose I was a horrible sight—half naked to the waist, covered with dirt, and with a rifle in my arms. But she spoke quickly before I could say anything. “Don’t be angry,” she said, “I made Fat Cat bring me here.”
I was too surprised to answer.
“I read in the papers that you were leaving for New York on Tuesday. I didn’t want you to go away without my seeing you. I called the hotel twice on Friday but there was no answer. Then this morning I got through to Fat Cat. He didn’t want to bring me but when I told him I would come anyway he reluctantly agreed.”
I didn’t move from the steps.
“You could have waited,” I said. “I would have been back in Curatu on Monday.”
Her eyes were as green as the leaves of the forest as she looked up at me. “I know,” she answered, her voice suddenly trembling, “but I couldn’t wait any longer. I almost waited too long as it was.”
I came down the steps. In the narrow-cut, clinging slacks, she was slimmer than I remembered. The open-collared, rolled-sleeved man’s shirt made her seem like a little girl dressed in her brother’s clothes. Except that the beautiful curve of her breasts would never allow a mistake like that. I stopped in front of her. “What were you waiting for?”
She returned my gaze almost defiantly. “For you to call me,” she said, “and then when you did not I remembered what you said. Only children need to be told what to think. Men and women think for themselves.”
“And what do you think?”
I could see the faint hint of color creeping up into her face from below the collar of her shirt. “I think—” She hesitated a moment. Her eyes fell, then came up to mine. “I think I’ve fallen in love with you.”
Then she was in my arms.
***
I held the match to my cigarro and watched her leaning over the railing of the galería looking up at the night sky. I shook the match out as she came back to me. “Now I know why you love this place. It’s so beautiful, you feel as if you were the only person in the whole world.”
I smiled at her. “It’s more than just that,” I said quietly. “This is my home. I was born in that room at the head of the stairs. My mother and father and sister sleep in the soft earth behind the house. My roots are here.”
She sat down opposite me and took my hand. “My father knew your father. He said he was a truly great man.”
I looked away out into the night. I could hear the soft breeze singing in the field grass. “My father,” I said, and stopped. How do you put goodness and warmth and love into words? I brought my eyes back to hers. “My father was a man, a real man. He found an excuse for everyone in this world e
xcept himself.”
“You’re like that too.”
I stared at Beatriz for a moment, then got to my feet. “Time for bed. We farmers have to be up at sunrise.”
Beatriz rose hesitantly. I saw her nervousness and smiled. She was still more of a child than she realized. “I’ve given you my sister’s room,” I said. “Fat Cat has prepared it for you.”
***
I lay stretched out on my bed in the dark listening to the hum of her voice and the splash of water from the pitcher in her room. This time the sound was real, not a dream. I listened carefully. Fat Cat had been right. There was not another sound in the house. The ghosts had all been freed.
I smiled to myself and turned over on my side and closed my eyes. After a while the humming stopped and I fell asleep. Suddenly I was wide awake again, for someone was in my room. I turned over in bed and my hand touched the full firmness of her breast. I felt the erect, bursting nipple through the thin nightgown.
Her voice was low. “They warned me about you. Didn’t anyone ever warn you about girls like me? I didn’t come here to be alone.”
The fire from her ran down my arm, inflaming my body. I felt the muscles tighten and harden. I pulled her over to me and kissed her so hard she almost cried out. It was the first time for her and in a way almost the first for me. Better than it had ever been, better than I had ever dreamed it could be.
It was the only time any woman had ever cried out to me in the midst of her initial pain and agony and delight: “Give me your child, my lover. Fill me with your children!”
10
I awoke as the first golden streamer of sunlight came in the window. I turned slowly, holding my breath so that I would not disturb Beatriz. She lay partly on her side, partly on her back, the thin light sheet caught around her legs. Her lustrous, long black hair was spread out on the white pillow beneath her head. Her eyes were closed, her mouth slightly curved in a secret smile as she slept.
I looked down at her full strong breasts and I could see the faint blue tracings of her milk veins, leading to her nipples set in their plumlike frame. I let my eyes trace the lovely curve of her narrow waist over her hip and down the tiny moist forest of her mountain to the straight strong swelling of her thigh.
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