The Honorary Consul (27 page)

       "I wish you would not call me Father all the time. I am your husband, Marta. Your husband."

       "Yes, but I would be so proud if just once I could see you as you used to be... all dressed at the altar... turning to bless us, Father."

       The word slipped out again; she put her hand to her mouth too late to stop it.

       "You know I cannot do that."

       "If I could see you like I saw you in Asunci6n... in white for Easter..."

       "You will never see me again like that."

       Léon Rivas turned away. "Aquino," he said, "Diego, go back to your posts. We will relieve you in two hours. You, Marta, go back to the town and see if the newspapers have come yet from Buenos Aires."

       "You had better buy more whisky for Fortnum," Doctor Plarr said. "His sort of measure soon empties a bottle."

       "This time," Father Rivas said, "no one is to share it."

       "What are you hinting at?" Aquino asked.

       "I am not hinting at anything. Do you think I could not smell your breath yesterday?"

       ***

       At four it was Aquino who turned on the radio, but this time there was not a single reference to the kidnapping. It was as though they had been wiped off the world's memory. "They do not even mention your disappearance," Aquino said to Doctor Plarr.

       "They may not know of it yet," Doctor Plarr said. "I am losing count of the days. Is it Thursday? I remember I gave my secretary a long weekend off. She will be busy somewhere gathering indulgences. For the souls in purgatory. I hope we shall not have the benefit of them."

       An hour later Pablo returned. No one had shown any suspicion, but he had stayed away longer than he intended because he was bound to join the queue which was waiting to pay the last respects to the dead woman. When he left, the Archbishop's priest had still not arrived. The only anxiety he had felt was when José chatted to everyone about the radio. The old man was immensely proud because he was the only one there who had ever listened to a radio and he had actually held one in his hands. For the time being he seemed to have forgotten about the gringo.

       "He will remember soon enough," Diego said. "We ought to get away from here."

       Pablo said, "How can we go? With a wounded man."

       "El Tigre would say 'Kill him now.' " Aquino argued.

       "You had your chance," Diego said.

       "Where is Father Rivas?" Pablo asked.

       "On guard."

       "There should be two of you out there."

       "A man must have a drink. My mate was finished. It was Marta's job to bring more, but Father Rivas sent her into the town to buy whisky for the gringo. He must never be left thirsty."

       "Aquino, you go."

       "I take no orders from you, Pablo."

       If this inaction goes on much longer, Doctor Plarr thought, they will be fighting each other.

       ***

       It was evening by the time Marta returned. The papers from Buenos Aires had arrived and in the 'Nación' a few lines were devoted to Doctor Saavedra, though the reporter found it necessary to remind his readers who Saavedra was. "The novelist," he wrote, "who is best known by his first book, 'The Silent Heart'," getting the title wrong.

       The evening seemed interminably drawn out. It was as though, sitting there for hours in silence, they formed part of a universal silence all around them, the silence of the radio, the silence of the authorities, even the silence of nature. No dogs barked. The birds had ceased to sing, and when rain began to fall it was in heavy spaced drops, as infrequent as their words—the silence seemed all the deeper between the drops. Somewhere far off there was a storm, but the storm was happening across the river in another country.

       Whenever any of them spoke, the danger of a quarrel arose even over the most innocent remark. The Indian alone was unaffected. He sat and smiled with gentle content as he oiled his gun. He cleaned the crevices of the bolt with tenderness and with sensuous pleasure like a woman attending to her first baby. When Marta gave them soup, Aquino complained of a lack of salt, and Doctor Plarr thought for a moment she was going to throw a plate full of the despised soup in his face. He left them and went into the inner room.

       Charley Fortnum said, "If only I had something to read..."

       Doctor Plarr said, "There's not enough light to see by." Only one candle lit the room.

       "Surely they could give me a few more candles."

       "They don't want any light to show outside. Most people in this 'barrio' sleep as soon as it's dark... or make love."

       "Thank God there's still plenty of whisky. Have a glass. It's an odd relationship, isn't it? They shoot me down like a dog and then they give me whisky. This time I didn't even pay for it. Is there any news? When they put the radio on they turn it so damn low I can't hear a thing."

       "There's no news at all. How are you feeling?"

       "Pretty awful. Do you think I'll live to see the end of this bottle?"

       "Of course."

       "Then be an optimist and give yourself a bigger dose."

       They drank together in the silence which they had only momentarily broken. Doctor Plarr wondered where Clara was. At the camp? at the Consulate? At last he said, "What made you marry Clara, Charley?"

       "I told you—I wanted to help her."

       "You needn't have married her to do that."

       "If I hadn't she'd have lost a lot in taxes when I died. Besides I wanted a child. I love her, Ted. I want her to feel secure. I wish you knew her a bit better. A doctor sees only the outside—oh, and the inside too, I suppose, but you know what I mean. To me she's like... like..." He couldn't find the word he wanted and Doctor Plarr was tempted to supply it. She's like a looking glass, he thought, a looking glass which has been manufactured by Mother Sanchez to reflect any man who looks at her—to reflect Charley's fumbling tenderness with her own imitation of it and my... my... but the right word failed him too. It certainly wasn't "passion." What was the question she had asked him just before he left her? She reflected even one's suspicion of her. He was angry with her as though in some obscure way she had done him an injury. One could use her to shave In, he thought, remembering Gruber's sunglasses.

       "You'll laugh at me," Charley Fortnum rambled on, "but she reminds me a bit of Mary Pickford in those old silent movies... I don't mean her face, of course, but, well, a sort of... I suppose you might call it innocence."

       "Then I hope the child turns out to be a girl. A boy like Mary Pickford would hardly make his way in the world."

       "I don't mind which it is, but Clara seems to want a boy." He added with self-mockery, "Perhaps she wants him to take after me."

       Doctor Plarr had a savage des'ire to tell him the whole truth. It was only the wounded body which stopped him, stretched helplessly out on the coffin lid. To disturb a patient would be unprofessional. Charley Fortnum raised his glass of whisky and added, "Not as I am now, of course. Cheers."

       Doctor Plarr heard the voices rise higher in the next room.

       "What's happening out there?" Charley Fortnum aslced.

       "They are quarreling among themselves."

       "What about?"

       "Probably about you."

2

Just after nine o'clock on Friday morning a helicopter came flying low down over the 'barrio'. It went back and forth in regular lines, like a pencil along a ruler, up and down every muddy track, just above the trees, tireless and probing. Doctor Plarr was reminded of the way his own fingers had to make tracks sometimes along a patient's body, seeking the exact spot of pain.

       Father Rivas told Pablo to join Diego and Marta who were on guard outside. "The whole 'barrio' will be watching," he said. "They will notice if in this one hut people show indifference." He told Aquino to keep watch on Fortnum in the inner room. Though there was no possible way for Fortnum to signal his presence there, Father Rivas was taking no chances.

       Doctor Plarr and the priest sat in silence and watched the roof of the room as though the machine at any moment might come crashing through on top of them. After the helicopter had passed, they could hear the rustle of the leaves falling like rain. When that sound ceased they stayed dumb, waiting for the chopper to return.

       Pablo and Diego came in. Pablo reported, "They were taking photographs."

       "Of this hut?"

       "Of the whole 'barrio'."

       "Then they have seen your car," Doctor Plarr said. "They will wonder what a car is doing here."

       "We have it well hidden," Father Rivas said. "We can only hope..."

       "They were making a very careful search," Pablo told them.

       "It would be better to shoot Fortnum now," Diego said.

       "Our ultimatum does not expire till Sunday midnight."

       "They have rejected it already. The helicopter shows that."

       Doctor Plarr said, "Extend your ultimatum a few days. You have to give time for my publicity to work. You are in no immediate danger. The police dare not attack you."

       "El Tigre set the time limit," Father Rivas said. "You must have some way of communicating with him, whatever you say."

       "We have none."

       "You sent news of the Fortnum capture."

       "That line was cut immediately."

       "Then act yourself. Have someone telephone 'El Litoral'. Give them another week."

       "Another week for the police to find us," Diego said. "Perez dare not search too closely. He does not want to find a dead man."

       The chopper became audible again. They heard it from a long way off, hardly louder than a man humming. The first time it had traveled from east to west. Now it tracked above the trees going from north to south and back again. Pablo and Diego returned into the yard, and their long wait was resumed to the sound of the dropping leaves. At last silence came back.

       The two men returned. "They must have taken a picture of every path and hut in the barrio."

       "More than the city council ever did," the Negro said. "Perhaps after this they will realize we need more water taps."

       Father Rivas called Marta in from the yard and whispered instructions to her. Doctor Plarr tried to hear what he was saying, but he could hear nothing until the voices rose.

       "No," Marta said, "no, I will not leave you, Father."

       "Those are my orders."

       "Did you tell me I was your wife or your woman?"

       "Of course you are my wife."

       "Oh yes, you say that, it's easy to say that, yet you treat me like your woman. You say 'Go away' because you have finished with me. I know very well now I am only your woman. No priest would marry us. They all refused you. Even your friend, Father Antonio."

       "I have explained a dozen times to you a priest is not necessary for a marriage. A priest is only a witness. People marry each other. Our vow is all that counts. Our intention."

       "How can 'I' tell what your intention was? Perhaps you just wanted a woman to sleep with. Perhaps I am your whore. You treat me like a whore when you tell me to go away and leave you."

       Father Rivas raised his hand as though he wanted to strike her and then he turned away.

       "If I am not your sin, Father, why is it you will not say Mass for us? We are all in danger of death, Father. We need a Mass. And that poor woman in the 'barrio' who died... Even the gringo in there... He needs your prayers too."

       The old schoolboy desire to mock at León came back to Doctor Plarr. "It's a pity you ever left the Church," he said. "You see—they are losing confidence in you."

       Father Rivas looked up at him with the inflamed eyes of a dog who defends a bone. "I never told you I had left the Church. How can I leave the Church? The Church is the world. The Church is this barrio, this room. There is only one way any of us can leave the Church and that is to die." He made the gesture of a man who is tired of useless discussion. "Not even then, if what we sometimes believe is true."

       "She only asked you to pray. Have you forgotten how to pray? I certainly have. I can never get further than Hail Mary, and then I mix the words up with an English nursery rhyme, 'Mary, Mary, quite contrary.' "

       Father Rivas said, "I never knew how to pray."

       "What are you saying, Father? He does not know what he is saying," Marta told them, as though she were defending a child who had used some foul expression, picked up in the street.

       "A prayer for the sick. A prayer for rain. Do you want those? Oh, I know all those by heart, but those are not prayers. Call them petitions if you want to give that mumbo-jumbo a name. You might just as well write them down in a letter and get your neighbors to sign it too and stick it in a postbox addressed to the Lord Almighty. Nobody will ever deliver your letter. Nobody will ever read it. Oh, of course, now and then there may be a coincidence. For once a doctor will give the right medicine and a child recovers. Or a storm comes when you want it. Or the wind changes."

       "All the same," Aquino told them from the doorway of the other room, "I used to pray in the police station. I prayed I would have a girl in bed with me again. You are not going to tell me that was not a real prayer. And it worked too. The first day I was out I had a girl. It was in a field while you were off buying food in a village. My prayer was answered, Father. Even if it was in a field and not in a bed."

       Like me, Doctor Plarr thought, he is a picador. He pricks the bull's hide to make the beast more active before he dies. The repetitions of the word "Father" were like darts inserted to pierce the skin. Why do we so want to destroy him—or are we hoping to destroy ourselves?—it's a cruel sport.