by Ray Bradbury
“Yes.”
“Speak up!”
“Yes!” Clayton said.
“Coming for the same reason you have come, yet have not told me why?” Gomez cried, staring at the hills and hearing the sound of motors that rose and fell in the wind.
“I got a head start on them,” said Clayton. “I—”
At which moment with a great razor of sound that cut the sky in half, a squadron of jets shrieked over Santo Domingo. From them, great clouds of white paper fell in blizzards. Gomez, with a maniac stare, swayed at the bottom of the steps.
“Wait!” he cried. “What the hell!”
Like a white dove, one of the pamphlets fell into his hands, which he dropped, repelled. Clayton stared at the litter at his feet.
“Read!” said Gomez.
Clayton hesitated. “It’s in both languages,” he said.
“Read!” Gomez ordered.
Clayton retrieved one of the pamphlets. And the words were these:
SECOND NOTICE
THE TOWN OF SANTO DOMINGO WILL BE PHOTO-
ATTACKED SHORTLY AFTER NOON JULY 13TH. WE
HAVE GOVERNMENT ASSURANCE THAT THE TOWN IS
EVACUATED. THAT BEING SO, AT ONE FORTY-FIVE
PROMPTLY, THE FILMING OF PANCHO! BEGINS.
STERLING HUNT
DIRECTOR
“Attacked?” said Gomez, stunned. “Pancho? A director of films? California, a Hispanic state, dares bomb Santo Domingo? Gah!” Gomez ripped the pamphlet in half and then quarters. “There will be no attack! Manuel Ortiz Gonzales Gomez tells you this. Come back and see.”
Gomez shook long after the thunders left the sky. Then he struck a glare at Clayton and lurched into action. He lumbered across the plaza with Clayton in pursuit. Inside, in the sudden midnight darkness at noon, he floundered along to the top of the bar, feeling rather than seeing, the newspapers in neat piles riffling under his clutch. He reached the far end of the bar.
“This should be it? Yes, yes?”
Clayton looked down at the stack of newspapers and bent close.
“What, what?” said Gomez.
“A month ago,” said Clayton. “The first notice. If you had bothered to read the papers as they came, maybe—”
“Read, read!” cried Gomez.
“It says …” Clayton squinted, took the paper, held it up to the light. “July first, 1998. The government of Mexico has sold …”
“Sold? Sold what?”
“The town of Santo Domingo.” Clayton’s eyes roved along the line. “Sold the town of Santo Domingo to—”
“To who, what?”
“To Crossroads Films, Hollywood, California.”
“Films!” Gomez shouted. “California?”
“Jesus.” Clayton held the paper higher. “For the sum …”
“Name the sum!”
“Christ!” Clayton shut his eyes. “One million two hundred thousand pesos.”
“One million two hundred thousand pesos? Food for chickens!”
“Chicken shit, yes.”
Gomez blinked at the newspapers “Once I bought glasses in Mexico City, but they were broken. I did not buy them again. What for? With only one paper a day to read. So I stayed in my empty place, my country, free to walk that way to this, across and back, meeting no one, making it mine. And now this, this.” He rattled the paper. “More words? What?”
Clayton translated. “A Hollywood film company, Crossroads, it says. They are remaking Viva Villa, the life of your rebel or whatever he was, this time titled just Pancho! Pamphlets have been dropped on Santo Domingo, making sure of what has been promised, that the town has been in the grave during the term of six American and two Mexican presidents. Rumor has it—”
“Rumor, what rumor?”
“Rumor has it,” Clayton continued, his eyes moving along the stories in each paper, each day, “that Santo Domingo, long ago abandoned, is the hiding place of thieves, murderers, and escaped criminals. Drug trafficking is suspected. The government of Mexico will send an official party to investigate.”
“Thieves, murderers, escaped criminals!” said Gomez, with a great laugh, raising his arms up and then out to embrace himself. “Do I look like one who steals, kills, escapes, traffics in drugs? Where? From this plaza to the port where we throw cocaine to the fish? Where are my fields of marijuana? Lies!” Gomez crumpled one paper in his fist. “Bury this! Within a week it will grow more lies! The next paper! Read!”
Clayton read:
“Notices have been delivered. Warnings were dropped on the town on May ninth from the air. There was no life to be seen. The film company indicates that when Pancho! is finished they will use Santo Domingo for another film, Earthquake, to appear in ruins.”
“I saw no papers in the air,” said Gomez. “If they were dropped they fell into the sea to be read by sharks. Mexican aviators, yes. That is it!”
Sweeping the newspapers off the bar in one grand sweep, Gomez lurched out into the hot sun. Along the way he seized a rifle off the wall, found a sling of bullets. He loaded the weapon and sighted it at the plaza.
“Your camera, gringo,” he said. “¡Andale!”
Clayton, at his Jeep, brought forth the best Leica, snapping it once at Gomez, who looked at Clayton and the Leica, laughed, and held the rifle across his chest.
“How do I look?”
“Like the dictator of a village, no, a country!”
“And now?” Gomez stood at attention and stiffened his neck. “Yes?”
“Yes!” Clayton snapped the Leica, laughing.
“Now.” Gomez aimed at the sky. “Do you see the enemy arriving at, how do they say? Four o’clock?”
“Five.” said Clayton, and snap!
“Now lower! Now higher!” Gomez aimed the rifle. This time he fired. The shot knocked birds off the trees in bright explosions. A family of parrots protested. Gomez fired again, commenting, “This gives you many fine shots, liar with the camera? It is all lies, yes? Those California people, liars with cameras? They could not get war to stand still. Dead, they could photograph it. Here, now, let me aim this way.”
“Hold it, that’s good!” said Clayton. “Don’t make me laugh, I can’t hold still.”
“The only way to kill a man is to laugh. Now you, señor.” He aimed the rifle at Clayton.
“Hey!” said Clayton.
Click. The rifle fell on emptiness. “No ammunition,” said Gomez. “Have you enough pictures for your magazine? GENERAL GOMEZ IN ACTION. GOMEZ RETAKES SANTO DOMINGO. GOMEZ A MAN OF PEACE LOVES WAR!”
Click went the camera with a dull sound.
“Out of ammunition, that is, film,” Clayton said.
They both reloaded, bullets and film, film and bullets, laughing.
“Why are you doing this?” said the young man.
“Soon those sons of whores will fly back so fast you will not be able to trap me, I will move as quickly. We take the fine pictures now so you can put the lies together later. Besides, I might die before they return. The heart at this moment is saying bad things, like lie down, be quiet. But I will neither sit, die, nor be quiet. Thank God the plaza is empty. It is easy to run and fire, fire and run with the jets. How much ahead of them do I fire to kill one?”
“It can’t be done.”
Gomez swore and spat. “How much lead? Thirty feet? Forty out in front? Fifty?”
“Fifty, maybe,” said Clayton.
“Good. Watch! I will kill one.”
“If you do you will get two ears and a tail!” said Clayton.
“One thing must be certain,” said Gomez. “That I will never surrender and that I fought well and won the last battle even though I died. I should be buried in the middle of the ruins when the ruins come.”
“Agreed,” said Clayton.
“Now a final time, I will move more quickly, run, stop, aim, fire, run, stop, fire. Ready?”
“Ready.”
Gomez did all this and stopped, gasping.
“B
ring the tequila,” he said, and Clayton brought it and they drank. “Well,” he said, “that was a good war, yes, plenty of lies, but no one will know and you, the best liar, will be sure I appear in at least three editions about the Santo Domingo War and Gomez, the great! Do you swear?”
“It is sworn. But—”
“What of you now? Do you stay? Will you wait for your enemies?”
“No,” said Clayton. “I have my story. They will not see what I have seen. Gomez triumphant in the noon plaza. Gomez the hero of Santo Domingo.”
“You lie in your teeth, but you have fine teeth,” Gomez said. “Now, a pose with dignity.” He dressed his rifle to one side and tucked his right hand within his blouse solemnly.
“Hold it.” Clayton snapped his Leica.
“Now.” Gomez eyed a shining path beyond the plaza. “Take me there.” He slung himself into the Jeep, his rifle across his knees, and Clayton drove across the plaza. Gomez jumped out to kneel by the iron rail tracks.
“Christ!” Clayton cried. “What’re you doing?”
Gomez smiled, head down to the rail. “I knew they would come this way. Not the sky, not the road, those are diversions. Here. Listen!”
Gomez smiled and pressed his ear to the burning-hot rail. “They did not fool me. Not jets or cars. The train as before! Sí! I can hear them!”
Clayton did not move.
“I order you, listen!” said Gomez, eyes shut.
Clayton glanced at the sky, and knelt in the dust.
“Good,” Gomez murmured, and motioned with his free hand. “Do you hear?”
Clayton, his ear burnt by the noon iron, said nothing.
“Now,” said Gomez quietly. “Far off, yes? But near.”
Clayton heard something or nothing, he could not say.
“There. Closer now,” murmured Gomez, greatly satisfied. “On time. After sixty years, sí. What year is that coming? What time is it, at last?”
Clayton’s face agonized.
“Speak,” said Gomez.
“July …”
He stopped.
“July what?”
“Thirteenth!”
“So it is the thirteenth. And …?”
Clayton forced himself. “Nineteen …”
“Nineteen what, señor?”
“Ninety-eight!”
“July thirteenth, 1998. It has already arrived. It is already over. This I hear in the rail. Yes?”
Clayton’s whole weight forced him to the track. It hammered, and if the blows came from the earth or sky, his heart could not tell. For it was hurrying, rushing, hurling itself in great thunders that racked his body or his chest. Eyes shut, he whispered: “July thirteenth, 1998.”
“Now,” said Gomez, head down, eyes tight, smiling. “Now I know what year I live in. Brave Gomez. Go, señor.”
“I can’t leave you here.”
“I am not here,” said Gomez. “Your year arrives this day in July, I cannot stop it. But Gomez is where? Cinco de Mayo, 1932, a good year! They may come, but I am hidden where they will never think to look. Go. ¡Andale!”
Clayton stood up and looked at Gomez, whose head lay hard on the rail.
“Señor Gomez …”
“He has long departed. Go with God,” came the voice at his feet.
“I beg you,” said Clayton.
“Where all is emptiness,” said Gomez’s voice, “there is room to move. When you are gone, I will move swiftly.”
Clayton got in his Jeep and gunned the motor and began to drift away.
“Gomez,” he called quietly.
But there was just a body on the rail and much room. Seeking to hide in other years, Gomez had simply … moved.
Clayton drove out of town ahead of the thunders.
ONE-WOMAN SHOW
“How is it?” asked Levering. “Married to a woman who is all woman?”
“Pleasant,” said Mr. Thomas.
“You make it sound like a drink of water!”
Thomas glanced up at the critic, pouring black coffee. “I didn’t mean … Ellen’s wonderful, there’s no denying that.”
“Last night,” said Levering, “Lord, what a show. On stage, off, on, off, a blaze of beauty, roses dipped in flaming alcohol. Lilies of the morning. The entire theater leant forward to catch her bouquet. It was as if someone had opened a door on a spring garden.”
“Will you have coffee?” asked Mr. Thomas, the husband.
“Listen. Three or four times in life, if a man’s lucky, he goes utterly mad. Music, a painting, one or two women, can send him stark staring. I’m a critic, yes, but I’ve never been so thoroughly hooked before.”
“We’ll drive to the theater in half an hour.”
“Good! Do you pick her up every night?”
“Oh, yes, I absolutely must. You’ll see why.”
“I came here first, of course,” said Levering, “to see the husband of Ellen Thomas, to see the luckiest man in the world. Is this your routine, every night in this hotel, waiting?”
“Sometimes I circle Central Park, take the subway to Greenwich, or window-shop on Fifth Avenue.”
“How often do you watch her?”
“Why, I don’t think I’ve seen her onstage for over a year.”
“Her orders?”
“No, no.”
“Well, perhaps you’ve seen the act so many times.”
“Not that.” Thomas lit a cigarette from the butt of his previous one.
“Well, you see her every day, that’s the answer. An audience of one, you lucky dog, no need of a theater for you. I said to Atterson last night, what more could a man ask? Married to a woman so talented that onstage, in an hour’s time, a pageant of femininity has passed, a French cocotte, an English tart, a Swedish seamstress, Mary Queen of Scots, Joan of Arc, Florence Nightingale, Maude Adams, the Empress of China. I think I hate you.”
Mr. Thomas sat quietly.
Levering went on, “The libidinous side, the philandering side, of every man envies you. Tempted to stray? Don’t change wives; let your wife change. Presto! She’s a chandelier with ten dozen different blazes of light; the very walls of these rooms must color with her personalities. Why, a man could warm his hands at a flame like that for two lifetimes. Farewell, boredom!”
“My wife would be flattered to hear you.”
“No, but isn’t that what every husband wants, really, in his wife? The unexpected, the miraculous. We have to settle for much less than half that. We marry what we hope are kaleidoscopes, and wind up with one-faceted diamonds. Oh, they gleam all right, no denying that. But after the thousandth playing, even Beethoven’s wonderful Ninth isn’t exactly a pulse-jumper, is it?”
“We’ve been touring, Ellen and I,” said the husband, finishing his pack of cigarettes and pouring a fifth cup of coffee. “Oh, some nine years now. Once a year, we vacation, for a month, in Switzerland.” He smiled for the first time and lay back in his chair. “I really think you should interview us then, and not now. It’s a better time.”
“Nonsense. Always do things in the spell that takes me.” Levering got up and put on his coat. He gave his watch hand a flourish. “Almost time, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I suppose,” said Thomas, rising slowly, exhaling.
“Snap into it, man! You’re going to pick up Ellen Thomas!”
“Now, if only you could guarantee that.” Thomas turned away and went for his hat. Coming back, he smiled faintly. “Well, how do I look? Like the proper setting for a diamond? Am I the right curtain for her to stand against?”
“Stolid, that’s the word for you, stolid. Marble and granite, iron and steel. The proper contrast to something as evanescent as touching a match to some shallow cup of vaporing cologne.”
“You are one for words.”
“Yes, sometimes I just stand here and listen to myself. Absolutely amazing.” Levering winked and clapped Thomas on the shoulder. “Shall we hire a coach, detach the horses, and pull the wife twice around the park?”
“Once would be enough. Just once.”
And out they went.
Their taxi pulled up before the empty theater lobby. “We’re early!” cried Levering happily. “Let’s go in for the finale.”
“Oh, no.”
“What? Not see your wife?”
“You must excuse me.”
“What an insult! On her behalf. Come into the theater or I’ll flatten you with my fists!”
“Please, don’t insist.”
Levering seized his arm and strode off.
“We’ll just see about this.” He flung a door wide, steered Thomas through, muttering, “Quietly.”
Ushers turned in the dimness, recognized Thomas, subsided. They stood in darkness. The stage was lit with bright spots of rose and lavender and a color like green trees in spring. There were six white Corinthian pillars stretched from wing to wing. The theater was drawn into itself; not a breath stirred in the night.
“Please, let go,” Thomas whispered.
“Shh, respect, man, respect!” whispered Levering in return.
The woman—or was it women?—onstage moved from dark to light, to dark, to light again. It was indeed the grand finale. The orchestra played softly. The woman, alone, danced with shadows, starting at stage right, waltzing in a self-made dream, turning all crystal light, in prisms and flashes, hands up, face radiant, Cinderella at the ball, the grand whirl, the happy never-to-wake vision. Gone, behind a white pillar. A moment later, appearing, another woman, dancing less swiftly, but still with a lilt, not Cinderella now, but a society lady, accepting life, a trifle bored and sad, face shaped of white bone, remembering some far time while moving with an invisible man who, by her very aspect, was a stranger indeed. The music whirled her on to another pillar, another vanishing, gone! Levering pressed to the standing-room barrier, staring. The music whirled. And from the second pillar a third woman spun, sadder yet, resigned to the music, the sparks dying, her own diminishing in splendor, a town woman, a street woman now caught between this pillar and the next, flashing a fixed death smile in and through them, leaning on the air, arms wide, mouth wet and bright. Gone again! A fourth, fifth, sixth woman! The music exploding in a carnival wheel of light! A chambermaid, a waitress, and, at last, at the far side of the stage, a witch, gray, weaving a flicker of tinsel in her bosom, only the eyes, faintly alive, burning coals, as she minced about, hands clawing night air, lips pursed, a silken death about her, turning to stare back down the years, across the chasm, like a tired, drained, and ancient beast, on hind legs, life done, still dancing, for there was nothing else to do.
