by Warren Adler
"The perfect picture of the Chilean transvestite," she had said.
That had set him off and he doubled up in a spasm of laughter and she imagined what he might have been like as a young boy. For a moment, the burden inside him seemed lifted and he was unguarded.
"What was Santiago like when you were a boy?"
"Beautiful." His eyes seemed to probe backward in time. "We played soccer in the green fields framed by the snowcapped Andes. We wore white uniforms with red numbers, and red and white striped socks." He must be seeing it all in color, she thought, watching his face. "The field was actually on a high plateau and we could see the waves breaking in the distance along the white beaches."
"It sounds a lovely setting for a school."
"Yes." He paused. "Sometimes.... "he seemed reluctant to continue, as if he might reveal too much. "I can hear the sounds of the boys. Eduardo! Eduardo! Kick this way. This way." He imitated the voices in a high falsetto. "I was good, always in the center of the action. And sometimes, when I was very good, the boys would carry me on their shoulders. Nothing since has ever given me the same exhilaration, the same sense of achievement."
She tried to envision him as he saw himself, a heroic figure, his young hard body, muscles tight under a marble-smooth skin, white teeth shining in the sunlight. My God, I can see him, she thought, feeling his sadness. How far from home he is. Then the image seemed to fade inside him and no amount of questioning would restore it and his past slipped away from her. Sometimes, after they had made love, her own floodgates would open and she would talk endlessly about her childhood, wondering if he could imagine her.
"Braids," she began once. She could see herself so clearly as a child of twelve. "My entire childhood seemed built around braids. My hair was down to here then, and my father adored it and would not allow Mother to cut it. So she braided it, day after day, hour after hour. She would stand behind me braiding my hair and rolling the braids around my head. Sometimes the braids were allowed to hang down, but once some kids put the ends of the braids into an inkwell. We were in art class, and it wasn't until I got home that I saw what they had done." She paused, wondering if he was listening.
Finally he said, "Was that the end of the braids?"
"No." He is listening, accepting the gift of my life. It seemed a presumption on her part to think so mythically, but it was important to her sense of giving to tell him.
"The braids did not go until I was fifteen. I had a boyfriend named Lenny. And he was just like the Lenny with the rabbits, big and stupid, but beautiful to look at and touch. He didn't like my braids. So one day I let him cut them off."
"Why?"
"I wanted to prove my love," she said. Perhaps it had not been exactly like that, but it was the kind of romantic idea that heightened the meaning of her life for her.
"Will we have to cut off your braids now?" Eduardo teased.
Then she had tried on the entire disguise, complete to the white scarf and the Louis Vuitton brief case. She felt silly, but he inspected it with great care.
"Good," he concluded. "A typical middle-class glamour girl on her way to fun in the sun."
"You don't think it's too conspicuous?"
"Conspicuous, yes, but not to the people who watch. Definitely outside the realm of their profile for a conspirator, a terrorist."
"Is that what I am?"
"In a way," he mused.
A shiver of fear ran through her. He had warned her of danger.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure."
"This is not a game. It is quite dangerous."
"It is your game, Eddie. That's what is important. Will it be of help to you?"
"Of enormous help."
"Then that is what I want."
It was, indeed. She was part of him now, drawn in. And she made him repeat the assignment over and over again, as if she hadn't remembered every detail.
"You will simply take a flight to Miami. You will arrive at noon. Go directly to the Pan American waiting room. You will sit in the waiting room, in the row facing the counters. You will place the brief case next to you on your left side. And you will be reading a magazine. Vogue. That's all there is to it."
"And then?"
"Just sit there. Someone will sit beside you. A woman. She will be there only briefly. Then she will get up and leave."
"And switch the brief case."
"Yes. Then you go into the ladies' room, change into the clothes in the brief case, replacing them with the clothes you will be wearing. Then you will take the plane home." He paused. She could feel his reluctance to explain further. But she pressed him.
"And what's in this brief case?"
"It's better that you don't know."
"Why?"
"Then you can't be responsible."
"But I want to be responsible, Eddie. That's the point."
"I'm sorry, Frederika."
She unzipped the brief case and took out a flat package, holding it in the palm of her hand.
"Can I guess?" He took it out of her hand and replaced it in the brief case.
"Really, Frederika. You mustn't take this lightly."
"I don't, Eddie. It just seems that if I am carrying out an important assignment, then I should know what I am doing."
"I promise I will tell you. But not now. I prefer to spare you the danger of knowing too much. Perhaps if we tan achieve this without complications, then the next time."
She understood. There was to be more. She felt relieved. So now I am almost a part of it, she thought with pride. Defined purpose was what had motivated her before. There was a cause, and although the ultimate objective was unclear, she could understand the purpose and she could believe in the idea of it. The people! When Eddie said it, the old feeling welled up again and she felt that same sense of defined purpose.
"We do this for the people," he had said.
"The people of Chile?"
"Yes. But that is only the beginning. It must start on the mainland in Chile and then it will swallow up the rest of South America."
Yes, of course. But she could not decide whether her compassion was real or merely manufactured out of her love for Eddie, her willingness to sacrifice for him. Perhaps, she thought, it was best that she did not know what was in the package. Not yet. Not now.
She turned the pages of the magazine without comprehension. Her peripheral vision remained alert and her ears listened for every sound. She felt someone sit down beside her and she forced her head to remain motionless. It was a woman, as Eddie had said. The scent of her was distinctive. Then she was gone. Frederika waited the appropriate time. Eddie had said ten minutes. Then she rose, picking up the exchanged brief case. It was light. Walking across the airport lounge, she went into the ladies' room and opened the case. In it she found an outfit of blue jeans and sandals, into which she quickly changed, stuffing the jumpsuit and scarf and shoes into the brief case, along with the blonde wig and sunglasses. When she came out again, she felt more like herself.
It was late afternoon when she returned to her apartment, expecting that he would be there, waiting. He was not. She found it odd. She had assumed he would be there to share her experience. Besides, she was proud of herself. Finally she dismissed his absence, knowing, surely, that he had good reasons. Instead, she tuned her ear to the telephone, expecting his call, the ring shattering the silence. He knew when she would be arriving. Certainly, he also knew how necessary it was for her to tell him that she had succeeded, succeeded for him, for his cause. Yes, he would call soon and she put any sense of anxiety out of her mind. But when he had not called in the next hour, she felt the onset of doubt. Still, it was not enough to upset her and she decided, as he had instructed, to go to work.
She put on her waitress uniform, threw a light coat over her shoulders, and went out. In the elevator she imagined she had heard a phone ring, punched the next floor and ran up the stairs listening at her door. Silence confirmed, she went to the elevator again.
She had hoped that the night's work would be a distraction. Nothing seemed to help and she spent most of the evening looking through the window, wondering if he had chosen to meet her at work.
"That's the third time you misstated an order tonight," the omelet maker reprimanded.
"I'm sorry."
She went through three days of it. The anxiety became unbearable. Something has happened, she was convinced. Allowing herself that possibility somehow eased the pain, for it implied a third force was at work, beyond his control. She dared not think that there was another reason for his absence. Such a thought was too cruel for her to bear. Finally, she was afraid to leave her apartment, fearing that she would miss the phone's ring. She called in sick, spending her days and nights in bed listening. A number of times she dozed off and awoke hysterical, barely able to get her bearings, the thread of some forgotten nightmare clinging to her consciousness. He was being tortured and she was watching him. His screams filled the air and they were slicing away at his genitals with a knife and fork. My God, she cried when she had recovered her sense of place and time. Where is Eddie?
It had not seemed odd that he had never told her specifically where he lived. He has his reasons, she persisted. And she accepted his only explanation. It had been part of her earlier conditioning not to question.
"It is better that you don't know," he had told her. But was it?
Was she right in her acceptance? Or simply naive? What did danger matter now? She was committed.
When finally the phone did ring, she was so numb with anxiety that she could not believe the sound and did not answer until the fifth ring.
"Frederika." At the sound of his voice, she felt her chest heave and she could not respond.
"Please, Frederika. Are you all right?" He repeated himself until she felt herself quieting.
"Yes."
"I will explain," he said.
"I was out of my mind with worry."
"There was no other way. I had to be sure you were not followed."
"No, I wasn't. I am sure of it."
"I had to be sure." There was a long pause. "I will be there shortly."
"Please, Eddie."
"Yes. I am not far away. I will be there." The phone clicked dead.
She got out of bed, her head pounding, trying to recover a sense of balance. He was coming. That was all that mattered. For the first time in days, she looked at the apartment, which was a mess. Sniffing the air, she caught a staleness, some of which came from her own body. She dashed to the shower, cleaned herself quickly, tidied the apartment, and was just tightening her robe when she heard his key in the door.
He had barely set foot in the apartment when she reached for him, pressed him to her, clung to him, her lips tight on his, her tongue groping.
"My Eddie! My Eddie!" she cried, gasping for breath.
"I wanted to come, but I was afraid for you. I had to be sure you were not followed."
"Who cares?" she cried, opening her robe and putting his hand on her breast. Why did this man do this to her? she wondered, forgetting the pain. She began to undress him. As she removed his jacket, a flat package fell to the floor.
"Another?"
"Yes."
Again, she felt the joy of sharing his life and the idea of it made the touch of his flesh sweeter. When he was naked she began to kiss him, determined not to let a square inch of his body escape her lips. Then she crouched before him and pressed her breasts against his erection."
"My beautiful Eddie. My beautiful Eddie."
"You must understand," he said softly. She felt her pleasure coming from deep inside of her, sensing his urgency as he moved his body in swift jerking motions.
"I need you," she cried, feeling her orgasm begin, washing over her with the heat of an explosive force. She saw his eyes watching her and the joy of it was beyond even the experience of the other times with him. Am I just a bitch in heat? she wondered.
Later, they lay in her bed and she still clung to him.
"I'll never let you go. Never." Then she kissed him again from his head to his toes. "Every piece of you is mine." Soon she felt herself relaxing, a sensation of floating, and her eyelids grew heavy.
There was another voice in the room, accelerating her sense of wakefulness. He was still beside her and she was suddenly aware of a tension in him. The radio was on, and an announcer was reading the news. Rising on one elbow, she looked in the direction of the sound, noting the time on the clock radio. It was three A.M.
"I must have slept for hours," she said.
"Quite a long time."
"I was exhausted." He was alert, but not to her, she realized.
"What is it?"
He put a finger on his lips, emphasizing his concentration. Then a commercial came on and he relaxed for a moment.
"What is it?" she repeated.
"It is done," he sighed, swallowing hard. His eyes had misted and there was a strange sadness in him.
"What?"
"We have eliminated Benotti." He paused. "Raoul," he whispered, turning toward her, hugging her.
"It had to be done," he said.
"I don't understand."
The man's voice on the radio began again. She felt his body tense.
"Listen."
"Still no further information on that crash of a DC-9 in Venezuela. Sixteen Americans were on board. More than one hundred people are said to have perished. Initial reports indicate that there were no survivors...."
He sat up quickly.
"It was the only way." He tapped his finger on the edge of the night table. "We are fighting back now. It was the only way we could get him."
"Who?"
"Benotti. Raoul Benotti. He was the head of DINA." He cleared his throat. "He had become something other than what he once was."
"Did you know him?"
He looked at her strangely.
"Yes."
She sensed that he wanted to say more. He must have checked himself. Instead, there was a long silence.
"He was on that plane."
He turned to her and nestled her head in the crook of his arm. After a long pause, in which he seemed to have gathered strength, he said, "You are a genuine heroine. An authentic Chilean heroine. He was the worst of the lot, the most bloodthirsty. Don't think there won't be reprisals. We welcome that. The real war has begun again." He kissed her hair. But something had begun to intrude. What had she done? The monotonous radio voice blared on, and again she could feel his concentration drift toward the voice. When there was no repetition of the story, he switched off the radio and continued to stroke her hair.
"They thought we were scattered and defeated," he said, his inflection revealing the hard edge of stubbornness and determination. "This is the opening shot of our return. We will show them our courage, our resourcefulness. We can play their game."
She remembered the voices she had once heard in the hills around San Luis Obispo before she had thrown the bomb into the bank's window. In that act, she could detect the same singularity, the hard-as-flint tenacity, the reaffirmation of courage. She could have walked through a hailstorm of bullets. Throwing the firebomb seemed simple, hardly dangerous. But something nagged at her, spoiling the moment. She knew it was there, but it would not rise to the surface of her consciousness.
"I can see them meeting now at the palace, worried about their own skins," he was saying. "They will shake the trees to dislodge what they think is the rotten fruit. They will think that their own people are disloyal. That is always their first consideration. There will be shakeups, chaos, revenge. It will get all mixed up." Then he turned toward her.
"And, yes, some of our people will die. Maybe me. Maybe now, you."
She could find no fear in herself. Only the sharing of it with him mattered, she told herself.
"I told you, Eddie, I'm not afraid."
He was silent, gathering his own thoughts, and once again she felt a tugging of some errant disturbance, faint, like the tracks o
f a tiny bird.
"What I did.... "she began. Perhaps she was seeking more tribute for herself, more reaffirmation to make her participation of some special importance. "Did it matter?"
"Matter?"
She knew he could see her clearly in the dark and he looked at her for a long time. She watched him. The lines of his face were softer in the darkness and he looked younger, more mysterious, strong, powerful.
"You provided the proof, the absolute validation of the essential information. What plane? What time? The route of the journey. He was traveling under a pseudonym and was using three different airlines. He was to meet with the American CIA people on the coast of Louisiana."
"You knew all that?"
"It was on the tapes."
"Tapes?"
"That's what was in the brief case."
"I see." Her role was considerably expanded, even in her own mind.
"In this kind of work, the proof, the validation, is essential. And the delivery of the information must be carefully planned. One cannot trust the airwaves, the mails, the telephones. Information is transmitted hand to hand. A chain. You were an important link in a chain."
"You are mine," she whispered, her teeth poised like the jaws of a shark around the flesh of his earlobe. She bit hard, with just enough reserve not to break the skin. And then she joined him on the summit of pleasure.
He left sometime before the sun came up. He had given her another flat box, which, she knew now, contained additional tapes. Tomorrow afternoon she would go to the Miami airport again and repeat the action of the previous time.
"Exactly the same."
"Exactly."
She thought of the wig and the jumpsuit in her closet and wondered if she would experience the same exhilaration now that she knew the specifics of her role. It seemed so simple, so unheroic and pedestrian, although she enjoyed the idea of stepping outside of herself, living a role. After he had gone, it occurred to her that she had not asked him where he could be reached. How could she possibly endure an ordeal similar to what she had gone through in the last few days? Suppose he was killed, or kidnapped, or simply had to go underground. She vowed to confront him with these things. It was too painful not to know more.
