The Adventurers (64 page)

She glared at him. "How can I be with your blood in me? Look at you. At your age most men would be glad to sit down in the evening with a cigar and a brandy. But no, you must have a new woman every week."

He glared back. "Men are different."

"You think so?" she taunted. "What makes you think I am not my mother all over again? And you know how she was."

He was suddenly silent. After a moment, he said, "I would have married her if she had lived."

"I don't believe you. If she had lived she would have fared no better than all the others. You would have tired of her and thrown her out."

He thought for a moment. "I have changed my mind. You will be married within the week, and Dax will not go to Paris. Instead I shall send him to Korea with the battalions I have promised the United Nations."

Amparo jumped to her feet angrily. "He will be killed. He is no soldier."

"He will be perfectly safe," el Presidente replied. "Colonels never get killed, they remain safely behind the lines at their headquarters. At least then you won't have to worry about him. There are no attractive women there."

"If there are, he will find them," Amparo said sullenly. Then she noticed the look on his face. "You would like to see him killed, wouldn't you? He has become too popular."

El Presidente met her eyes steadily. "How can you say that? Dax is like my own son."

"You are some father," she said sarcastically. "It is not enough to marry him off to me; no, that might make him even more popular. So you send him off to get killed."

El Presidente ignored her accusations as if he hadn't heard them. He glanced at his watch. "Come, it is time for us to get dressed. The ceremonies are due to begin at three o'clock."

"We are a big-shot country now. The people must see how important we are to the Naciones Unidos."

"We are important. The Secretary General does not visit each new nation when it is admitted."

"It is not the Secretary General who is coming, it is only his assistant."

"What difference does that make?" he retorted. "The campesinos will not know the difference."

Amparo got to her feet. "I need a drink, my mouth feels dirty."

"It is too early in the day for you to drink. It is not yet noon."

"Then I will not drink rum," she answered lightly. "I will drink a norteamericano drink called a martini. It is one o'clock in New York."

El Presidente watched as she walked to the door. He spoke just before she opened it. "Amparo?"

She looked back at him. "Yes, Father."

He was silent for a moment, staring into her eyes. "Trust me.

Amparo's head rose as if she were thinking about what he had said. Then she answered but there was a kind of hopelessness in her voice. "How can I, when I dare not even trust myself?"

A man shuffled along the crowded streets, his worn dark suit hanging loosely on his emaciated frame. He kept his face averted, his eyes looking downward toward the ground, for they were not yet accustomed to the bright sun of day after the many months in the tiny dark cell. He moved awkwardly in a kind of old man's shuffle because the broken leg had not set evenly, and he kept his right hand in his pocket to hide the ugly, twisted, broken fingers that were too repulsive for even his own eyes.

A passerby bumped into him and he apologized, revealing a mouth empty of teeth. The guards had knocked them out savagely with their rifle butts. He saw the expression on the passerby's face and quickly he averted his face again. Moving aimlessly he allowed himself to be caught up in the flow of the crowd and carried along.

He was free, though he didn't quite believe it yet. It had all come too suddenly, too unexpectedly. Just that morning the heavy steel door to his cell had opened. He had been lying on the small heap of rags that constituted his bed, and instinctively he had tried to make himself smaller as he peered up at the guard. Dully he had wondered what they were going to do with him now.

A small bundle had thumped to the floor beside him. "There are your clothes. Put them on."

He didn't move, wondering what trickery they were up to now. Brutally the guard kicked him. "You heard me, get dressed!"

Slowly, on his hands and knees, he crawled over to the bundle. He couldn't undo the knots in the string because of his maimed right hand. The guard swore and bent over. A knife flashed and the cord fell apart.

Trembling, he picked up the pants and studied them. They were not his; his suit had been new when they brought him in. These were old and faded and dirty and torn. He looked up at the guard.

"Hurry up! I haven't got all day."

As quickly as he could he got into the clothes. At last he was dressed. The guard grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him toward the door. "Outside!"

He half stumbled through into the corridor, and stood there waiting until the guard had locked the cell door. He had difficulty keeping up as they marched down the cell block.

Purposely he kept his mind blank until they had passed the stairway that led to the subterranean interrogation rooms. Only then did he allow himself to speculate about where they were going. At least there was to be no torture this time. Somehow the possibility that they might be taking him to his execution did not disturb him. Death seemed preferable to the room downstairs.

They passed through the steel door at the end of the cell block and turned down the corridor. Silently he followed the guard into the office of the warden.

A burly sergeant major looked up as they came in. "Is he the last?"

"Si"

"Bueno." The sergeant looked at him, his face cold and impassive, then down at the sheet of paper on the desk. "You are prisoner 10,614, otherwise known as Jose Montez?"

"Si, excelencia," he mumbled.

The sergeant major pushed the paper toward him. "Sign this."

He tried to pick up the pen. But the fingers of his right hand were of no use to him. He looked at the sergeant major questioningly.

"Use your left hand, make a mark. You probably can't write anyway."

Silently Jose picked up the pen and made a cross at the bottom. The sergeant major picked up the sheet of paper and studied it. He nodded and cleared his throat. The short speech sounded as if it had been learned by rote.

"In accordance with the wishes and the kindly beneficence of el Presidente, you hereby are granted amnesty for your political crimes in honor of the occasion of our acceptance this day into the United Nations. You are hereby released on your honor upon signing a written pledge of loyalty to the government. You hereby solemnly swear that you will no longer indulge in acts against the government under the penalty of the forfeit of your life."

The sergeant major looked at the guard. "Escort him to the front gate."

He stood there dully, uncomprehending, until one of the other guards shoved him. Then he began to understand. He was being freed.

"Gracias, excelencia." Unexpectedly the tears began to come to his eyes and he tried to blink them away. "Gracias."

The guard shoved him again, and he followed him down the corridor and out into the huge courtyard. The harsh sun burned into his eyes. Not until then did he remember the hat he still had in his hand and he jammed it down on his head so the brim would shield his eyes.

They crossed the courtyard and stopped in front of the huge steel gate. "This is the last," the guard yelled up to the man in the tower.

"It is about time. It is not easy opening and closing this fucking gate."

Slowly and with much creaking it rose up into the tower. Jose stood there watching but even when the gate was completely open he did not move.

The guard pushed him again. "Vaya!"

He turned to look at the guard.

The guard laughed. "He doesn't want to leave us. He likes us," he called up to the tower.

The man in the tower laughed. The guard gave Jos6 another shove and spun him halfway through the gate. "Vaya! I have not got all day."

He stood there on the outer side of the opening, staring as the huge gate lowered. Finally it settled into the ground with a loud clang, but still he stood there.

"Vaya!" the guard shouted. "Vaya!" He made a threatening gesture with his carbine.

Jose turned suddenly and broke into an awkward run. He moved desperately, clumsily, the sudden fear of a bullet in his back almost choking him. The burst of laughter from the guards followed along behind him.

He ran until he could no longer hear their laughter, until the breath was rasping in his throat and he was spent. Then he sank into the shade at the base of a building, slumped against the cool stone. There was nothing but the frightened beating of his heart sounding in his ears. He closed his eyes and rested. After a while he got to his feet and began to walk.

There was an air of gay fiesta about the city. Everywhere flags were flying. Corteguayan flags and the banners of the United Nations, side by side. And in every other window was a picture of el Presidente, smiling and resplendent in his bemedaled uniform. But Jose felt no part of it. He merely drifted with the flow of the crowd. Soon they were in the great square in the center of the city in front of the Palacio del Presidente.

The people were screaming as he came to an abrupt stop. There was no longer room for him to move. He looked up and a sudden cold chill came into him. He could taste the bitter bile of hatred rising up into his throat. The two of them were there on the balcony in front of him.

El Presidente, his medals glistening in the sun, and his whore-bitch daughter, her blond hair giving the he to her birth. Next to her stood a man he did not know, a Negro but a gringo by the cut of his clothes. Beside him stood Amparo's smiling, deceitful fiance, awkward in the new uniform tunic of a colonel.

I should have killed them when I had the chance, he thought bitterly. Now, if I had the gun . . . but even now what good would it do me? The hand that cannot grasp even a pen could not hold a gun, much less aim it and pull the trigger.

He turned and began to push his way through the crowd. Someday he would kill them, though. He would learn to use his left hand. To write. And to shoot a pistol. But first he must get home to the mountains. There he could find shelter and rest and regain his strength. There he would find friends and sympathizers.

Then a cold realization ran through his mind. By now they must know of his betrayal, that he had screamed their names when his fingers were crushed in the press. He had tried to still his tongue but the pain had opened his mouth.

He stopped and leaned against a building, trembling, but after a moment he regained control over himself. They would not know of his betrayal. By now they must all be dead. If any of them were still alive he would not have been let out of prison.

Slowly he began to walk again. A sense of relief flooded through him. Better they were all dead. This way no one would know. He would have another chance. And this time he would not fail.