Part 11

"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.