The Assignment (21 page)

“Quite deeply.”

She braked at the opening in the stone wall. In front of the radiator stood a policeman with a machine gun held at the ready.

“It was nice of you not to begin asking about that sort of thing when you were playing truth and consequences last night,” she said.

He looked reproachfully at her, and she shook her head and said: “Sorry. I’m feeling generally rather ragged today. I get nasty then.”

They produced their identity cards for the policeman, who saluted and said: “Do you want an escort?”

“No, thank you,” said Manuel Ortega.

Then he thought that an escort was in fact exactly what he did want.

She drove along a crooked street between grayish-yellow stone houses. In the spaces between the leaning walls there were all kinds of temporary dwellings for human beings, from old metal drums to overturned truck bodies on trestles and ancient wheel-less buses. The street was seething with children, pigs, and dogs, but there were not many adults about. Danica used the horn incessantly and the children’s curses rained down on the car.

They came out into a large triangular marketplace which was relatively empty except around the well, where several women with clay jars in their hands were pushing and chattering. The square was not paved but covered with trampled clay, sun-dried and yellow and cracked into an uneven checkered
pattern. In the middle, pigs, children, and vultures rooted in the heaps of garbage. The vultures were frightened by the car and rose, flapping their wings heavily. They landed again ten yards away.

“We’ll stop here,” said Danica. “We can walk the rest of the way.”

She turned off into a narrow alley and went on down a few steps. It stank of urine and rotten garbage, and Manuel almost held his nose but manged to restrain himself. Instead he turned around and looked at Fernández, who was walking three yards behind them, hunched up, with long gliding steps, and his right hand resting on his hip.

Danica stopped at a low wooden door and knocked. The knocking was obviously some kind of signal but was hard to interpret since it was so short.

Someone pushed back the cover of a peephole. Soon after, the door swung open.

Danica stepped to one side and let Manuel go in first. Fernández followed. They stood in a bare windowless room with rough stone walls. The daylight that seeped in through the hole and the cracks in the door filled the room with a grayish, unreal light. The man who had opened the door was perhaps a little younger than Manuel and was dressed in rubber boots and carelessly buttoned overalls with a leather belt fastened tightly around his waist. His face was sunburned, with strong, heavy features, and his hair was brown and curly. His eyes were blue. Danica had shut the door and bolted it.

“Hullo, Ramón,” she said, patting the man on the cheek in a light and comradely way.

Manuel Ortega felt a faint twinge of jealousy, but it died away at once. They went up some stairs and into the next windowless room. On the far side stood a long table and two long wooden benches. Behind the table sat a man cleaning a gun. He was heavily built, powerful and had short, rather fair hair.

“This is Sixto,” said Danica. “He’s the regional leader.”

“And head of the Liberation Front politburo,” said the man, rising. “Please sit down.”

They shook hands and sat down.

Fernández retired at once to the wall. His glance flickered back and forth from one man to the other. The short-haired one looked at him, pushed the magazine back into the gun, and put it to one side.

“You sit down too,” he said. “There’s not going to be any shooting here. Only talking.”

“Sit down, Fernández,” said Manuel Ortega.

Fernández sat down eventually but hesitantly and on the very end of the bench.

“To be brief,” said Sixto, “we’re ready to negotiate. It’s what we’ve always wanted. But we demand real guarantees. First and foremost we want to negotiate on neutral ground, out of the country.”

“That’s impossible. We simply haven’t the time. The conference must be held within six days.”

“Where then?”

“Anywhere. In the town here.”

“That’s impossible for us. Perhaps some place out in the province with a six-mile demilitarized zone in all directions. No police or army within six miles.”

“That can be arranged, of course. I can’t believe the other side will have any objections.”

“If only we could agree on that,” said Sixto. “What’s the general position otherwise?”

“The first condition is that all acts of violence cease immediately. A truce will be declared from the moment it’s decided the conference will take place. All participants have the government’s guarantees of safe conduct to and from the meeting place.”

“How can we rely on that?”

“I am the representative of the federal authorities and you’ll
have to trust me. This is a binding promise from the government’s side. I officially represent the government, and I guarantee that the promise will be fulfilled. Otherwise I’d hardly be here.”

“We don’t know you,” said Sixto.

“You must trust me and the government. Otherwise all cooperation is impossible.”

“Listen. We find ourselves in a very difficult situation now that the supply route across the border has been blocked. That’s no secret, so I might just as well say it. So we can’t afford to take any risks. Anyhow, with whom shall we be negotiating?”

“The leaders of the Citizens’ Guard. With me and a couple of assistants, probably Señora Rodríguez here and someone else as presiding chairman. What I consider vital is that it should be a meeting at the highest level, between the real leaders within the respective organizations. So I had thought that each side should nominate three or four of their adversaries’ delegates.”

“That’s very unorthodox. Is it your own suggestion?”

“Yes.”

“Very unorthodox, as I said. But you’re right to the extent that if there is to be a meeting at all, it must be at top level.”

“Are you prepared to agree with this suggestion then?”

“We aren’t agreeing with anything. We can’t rely on you personally as a guarantee for the government’s promises. We must have further guarantees.”

“You will be receiving a detailed written document in which all conditions for negotiations are carefully laid down. If you like, signed by members of the government. As you don’t trust me personally.”

“Yes—well—by way of example,” said Sixto.

“How can I keep in contact with you?”

“As soon as we’ve come to a decision—and that decision is
dependent on the guarantees you have to offer, for the government and for you personally—well, then we’ll place a contact-man with you, a kind of liaison officer.”

“Who would it be?”

“A man called Ellerman, Wolfgang Ellerman.”

“Is he around here?”

“Yes, he’s around here.”

“I must point out that the most important condition is that all acts of violence cease and that the more active element is kept in check.”

The man behind the table gave him a tired look.

“We’ve been keeping a quarter of a million people in this province in check for a year and a half now, just to prevent them from being butchered by the army and the police.”

“The army has gone now.”

“And the police serve as shock troops instead. As recently as the day before yesterday the whole population of a village was wiped out. Three days ago, forty-two people, most of them unarmed, were murdered by the police and members of the Citizens’ Guard in the northern sector. The day before, eleven by one of the so-called blasting details. Before that—well, there’s no point in going on. Do you think it was the police who stopped the rioting three days ago? No, it was we. We who calmed the people and held them in check. Otherwise we’d soon have had a general bloodbath.”

Suddenly he clenched his fist and crashed it down on the table.

“But,” he said, “if we’d seen an opportunity of making some progress, then we wouldn’t have held them back, we’d have led them into the fight. As it was, the only result would have been a pointless sacrifice of human lives.”

Manuel Ortega looked straight at him and said: “We know about most of that. So certain measures have also been taken on our side. One result of the events in Santa Rosa is that
the police have orders to act in the future in accordance with the Federal Police regulations and they have been forbidden to apply military emergency regulations.”

Sixto glanced at Danica Rodrígeuz, who nodded in confirmation.

“You speak well, but the time when talk made any impression on us has long since gone by.”

He gripped the edge of the table to get up. Manuel said at once: “One moment. Two more points. A representative of the Citizens’ Guard has already been in contact with me …”

“Who?”

“Dalgren … and I have had certain discussions with him. To gain time, it would be to great advantage if you would not only suggest a meeting place but also provisionally nominate the four delegates from the Citizens’ Guard whom you would like to see at the conference.”

“Well,” said Sixto, poking at his gun. “A place—yes.”

He looked at Ramón, who nodded assent.

“Mercadal,” said Sixto. “Mercadal would be a good place It’s a little place about sixteen miles south of here. There’s a good building there too—an army post which could easily be evacuated.”

Manuel looked at Danica Rodríguez.

“Make a note of it,” he said.

“Then the four delegates—yes, that’s not difficult. Count Ponti, Dalgren, José Suárez, and of course Colonel Orbal.”

“Colonel Orbal?”

“Yes, he’s the founder and organizer of the Citizens’ Guard. Didn’t you know that?”

“No. I certainly didn’t.”

“And remember one thing. We may be fighting with our backs to the wall, but we’re far from being powerless.”

“I know that.”

“Those who betray us do so only once. We did not, despite
all the assertions to the contrary, kill the previous Resident, but that doesn’t mean …”

“I know all that, and you’ll gain nothing by threatening me either.”

“What do you know?”

“That you didn’t murder Larrinaga. But you’ve murdered plenty of others instead, if I’m not misinformed.”

Sixto seemed to be speechless. He frowned and rose to his feet.

“Will I be able to get in touch with you here?” said Manuel Ortega.

“Nothing in the whole wide world would persuade me to stay here ten minutes after you’ve gone.”

They shook hands. Sixto pocketed his gun. Ramón came with them to the door.

Later in the car Manuel Ortega said: “What kind of people are they? They’re not Indians.”

“Most of the regional leaders are poor whites or half-breeds who for various reasons have grown up here in the slums or in the villages out in the country. Ramón was born in the same village as I was.”

“Bematanango?”

“You’ve a good memory.”

“And Sixto?”

She drove diagonally across the square and stopped in front of the entrance.

“Sixto …”

She stopped and laughed a short, rather cold laugh.

“Ask me next time we sleep together. Then I’m defenseless.”

Ten minutes later Manuel Ortega had his first conversation of the day with Behounek.

“With the Communists? Who was there?”

“A certain Sixto.”

“Good Christ. Sixto Boreas. Just think—only three days ago I’d have surrounded that whole part of the town if I’d known he was there. Well, I’ll have to leave it now. He’s not a really top man, but he’s dangerous.”

“Who is José Suárez?”

“A journalist, chief editor of the newspaper here,
Diario
. A friend of Dalgren’s, a great gun in the Citizens’ Guard.”

“How were things last night?”

“So-so.”

“What do you mean by so-so?”

“Two people killed in the northern sector. One in the eastern. All found shot this morning. A partisan raid farther south, four people killed. That’s all I know at the moment.”

We must have a truce, thought Manuel Ortega. We must have a truce. Now. Today. At all costs.

Then he remembered the proclamation and what he was about to do.

He went over to the window and looked at the empty plaza and the palm trees and the square buildings in the distance.

The town had looked like this every morning at this time, and every time he had wondered whether he was looking at it for the last time.

It was five past eight. The heat stood like a wall outside the window, close and awful and blinding.

The faucets were not working. The officer in command sounded tired and resigned and demanded twelve hours more.

The telephone lines to the north were still cut. At the exchange they said that the break was near the border of the province in a blockaded zone in which army maneuvers were taking place.

The headquarters of the Third Infantry Regiment informed him that General Gami and Colonel Orbal could not be counted on to return within the next three days.

Colonel Ruiz had come down with dysentery and had been taken to the military hospital. His chief of staff reported that eight tankers out of twenty-five were in the workshops being repaired.