The Last Western (39 page)

The guns made the night air tremble. The building where they sat shook. Willie looked at the cardinal’s upward-pointing finger.

Maybe it’s late but just call me,

Tell me and I’ll be around.

“I’ll try,” said Willie standing up. “I’ll try to say something.”

“I’m afraid, Bishop, I must insist upon a pledge.”

“Of what kind?”

“Not to discuss the temporal political situation.”

The sad eyes that were blue and brown-flecked narrowed, opened wide, then fell in a sort of weariness.

“Peace,” Willie said. “Isn’t peace a part of the temporal political situation?”

“We mean you should not criticize the government,” said Profacci briskly.

“I’m supposed to take sides?”

“Not at all, not at all,” the cardinal said, putting on his patient smile now, a little like a teacher trying to establish the correct order of the alphabet for a very poor first grade student. “We wish you to deplore violence on both sides, to call for an end to fighting and to remind all parties of the,” finger up, “spiritualities.”

Willie sighed. “It seems to me that I should ask the heads of both sides to come together, to discuss the causes of the situation,” he said.

“Ah,” said the Vatican secretary of state, “now that is an excellent plan.”

“The government people here—the governor and the military men—they will talk to the rebels?”

The cardinal smiled and shook his head as if to say, Do you think they are all monsters? Then he went to the door and asked Governor Borges, Cardinal Torres and the military men to come in.

“His Excellency wants to propose on television that the rebel leaders come to the city to discuss the situation with your honors.”

“Splendid,” said Governor Borges.

“Magnificent,” said General Sunglasses.

“Marvelous,” said Cardinal Torres.

“Truly viable,” said Mr. Cooter of the CIA.

“Of course,” said Willie, “the rebels would be given safe passage.”

All laughed good-humoredly.

“His Excellency,” said Governor Borges, “does not know it, but he insults us. That is because of his compassion.”

All laughed good-humoredly.

“I can promise the leaders of the revolution that if they come to the city to confer with you, no harm will befall them, even if your talks come to nothing?”

More good-humored, good-natured laughter. The slant-eyed black-brown-red-gold bishop was a wonderful, innocent, crazy man, who insulted you and did not even know it, and, well, what could be done with such a child?

So Willie went on the air, sitting at a plain wooden table with Cardinal Torres on one side and Governor Borges on the other, and made his plea for peace.

The lights were bright and hot, and Willie tried to see the faces of the people of Angola but he could not see faces, not even the faces of the officials before him or of his friends, Joto and Truman, who stood a little to the side, supporting Herman Felder by the shoulders as Felder gazed dumbly at the show, trying to fit it into the show that had just turned off in his mind.

In his speech Willie asked both sides to put down their arms.

Nothing, he said, could be gained by violence.

If representatives of both sides would come together tomorrow morning to discuss their differences, that would be the start of something, maybe justice, at least an end to the fighting.

“The men here, the people in charge, have promised safe passage to all of you who lead this uprising. They have given me their word that you will have safe passage into the city tomorrow morning. They have shown their good will. Now it is up to you.”

Cardinal Torres nodded approvingly with a smile. Governor Borges nodded approvingly with a fine smile also.

“So,” said Willie, “isn’t it worth it—at least to try to talk it out? If the dispute cannot be settled, then you will have safe passage back to the hill country, though I am sure if both sides have good will, that will not be necessary.”

Going inside himself, Willie spoke most urgently now.

“Please, my brothers and sisters, for the sake of all the children, for the old people and the sick people, for the people who will lose everything no matter who wins, whatever it is that is to be won, please put the guns away, and each side come to the other as true brothers and sisters.

“Remember, do not be afraid to trust. Do not fear being open even if it means giving in a little bit.

“Do not be stubborn, but rather try to see the other person’s viewpoint.

“And above all, remember that no viewpoint in Angola or anyplace in the world is worth the price of a child’s life.

“Lord Jesus come into your hearts,” Willie said, and then he blessed the people of Angola, and his blessing went out to them in the hills, and the blessing came down on bloodied faces and on the bones of the dead and on old people who could not think any more and on the blind and the starving and on listless children, moving dimly in man-created wilds.

The camera’s red eye closed then, and the studio burst with applause.

“A simple, eloquent plea!” sang Cardinal Torres.

“They cannot resist!” shouted Governor Borges, pumping Willie’s hand.

“Truly viable,” said Mr. Cooter of the CIA.

The cardinal had arranged a party at the episcopal palace. There would be a paraliturgical peace ballet, which would scandalize Giorgio and Ernesto, according to the cardinal, but which Willie, the cardinal thought, would certainly enjoy.

“The truth is,” Willie said, “I am very tired.”

He looked around for Joto, Truman and Felder but they had gone. So he left the officials, congratulations ringing in his ears, and went down to the streets.

It was quiet now. The guns had stopped firing. Only a few patrols moved about.

There was the fragrance of flowers in the air, and the sky was salted with cold, clear stars. Looking at them, Willie felt a bubbling joy in spite of his fatigue and in spite of his lack of faith in speeches.

When he got to the Vasco da Gama Suite at the Christopher Hotel, he found Joto ministering to the prone Herman Felder.

“At least he feel nothing now,” said Joto. “His pulse okay and he seem resting.”

Willie felt his brow. “What are we going to do, Joto?”

“Just before he go out, he seem halfway sane. Said we fly out tomorrow and hope mission go well.”

“Maybe he will be better then.”

“Maybe he hit bottom,” said Joto. “But hit bottom often before and crash through.”

“At least he is sleeping and seems calm in his head.”

“This is consolation.”

“I’m going to sleep awhile myself,” said Willie. “Let us praise God that the guns have stopped and that maybe peace is on the way.”

“Sleep well, Brother Willie. I praise God while watching Brother Herman. Then I, too, rest.”

“Where is Brother Truman?”

“Walking and thanking.”

Then Willie sprawled upon a bed and fell into a deep slumber and he dreamed his dream of the long, lone flight and he was above the earth and out among the stars, which were not cold anymore but were like fine, clear, true eyes of many old friends who loved the world even when it was crazy.

At nine o’clock in the morning the rebel leaders came to the capital city of Luanda, driving jeeps. They came up the long driveway of the governor’s mansion, six of them in all, the general of the rebel army and his five top officers.

Governor Borges himself met them, cordially inviting them to breakfast on the sun-drenched terrace that overlooked the fields where the yellow flowers were blooming.

As the rebel leaders took their places at the table, General Sunglasses appeared with a company of twenty-four officers, all dressed in their splendid white and gold formal dress uniforms.

A photographer was summoned.

Many pictures were taken that showed the government officials and the military men shaking hands with the rebels. Everyone was smiling.

When the photographer was finished, a platoon of government soldiers came through the wide French doors of Governor Borges’ mansion and moved quickly onto the terrace with machine guns drawn.

The rebels were too astonished to move.

They were permitted a cup of coffee while the governor read the indictments against them.

The attorney general of the republic and six justices of the national court were then summoned.

On the terrace in the harsh yellow light, the trial took twelve minutes.

The rebels were condemned to death on charges of counter-counterinsurgency, terrorism, sedition, theft, arson, murder and treason.

A priest was called to hear the confessions of the condemned men. Four of the six, weeping, told the priest of all the sins they had committed.

The revolutionary general also said he wished to confess his sins, but when the priest came to his side, he spat into his face.

A soldier then struck the revolutionary general in the genitals with the butt of his rifle.

Five of the rebel leaders were led into a grove of lemon trees and shot.

Their bodies were sacked, loaded into an army van, driven to a garbage dump that had been abandoned, and burned.

In one hour and forty minutes an extra edition of the 
Angolese New Day
was on the streets.

The paper carried many splendid full-color pictures of the happy revolutionaries shaking hands with the leaders of the government.

BLESSED PEACE! said the headline of the
Angolese New Day
.

In exchange for his life, one of the rebel colonels had promised full cooperation with the government.

This man went on television at midday to announce that reforms were underway and that all the men and women fighting in the mountains should put down their arms and surrender to the government.

The colonel made several versions of the speech, in several dresses of uniform and against several different backgrounds, so that the tape of his talk could be replayed and no one would become bored with it.

Governor Borges congratulated the colonel for his sense of practicality and recommended him for the Fatima Courage Medal.

Then the colonel was driven to the garbage dump where the bodies of his brother rebels were still smoldering and he too was shot.

As Willie left Angola late that afternoon, 18,000 people came to the airport to bid him farewell.

The international press gave extensive coverage to his leave-taking, and Willie’s picture appeared in newspapers and on TV screens across the world.

Singlehandedly he had brought peace to a war-torn nation.

Men of all faiths hailed it as a miracle.

That night as the plane flew into the continent toward the model nation of Etherea, where 300,000 people were starving, Herman Felder sipped tomato juice that was purple. He looked young and he spoke reasonably and he told Willie and Joto what he knew of the land they were flying to, where he had once made a film about a humanitarian who was in fact possessed by the devil.

“It was a comedy,” said Felder, “made at a time when nobody knew the funny from the sad.”

He spoke cheerfully, and Willie thought that perhaps he had hit bottom, as Joto said, and Joto rejoiced to see Herman Felder take the tomato juice, even if it had been doctored with the blue fluid.

It was the first time they had been even a little relaxed together, and they all wanted to believe that something fine had happened in Angola. They kidded Willie about the pictures in the
New Day
and the things that were said of him in the printed stories.

They had not seen Truman board the plane and they had not seen Truman prior to the takeoff and they did not know he was weeping again without making any sound and in exactly the same way as when the guns were firing except a little worse, because now it was the weeping of true shock.

Truman had not gone to bed the night before but had walked under the quiet sky, praying in the thanking manner and rejoicing that the guns had stopped firing.

He had made a complete circle of the town and had said many prayers, though he did not believe in God, and had done much listening, though he did not believe there was anyone speaking, and then he had seen the sun shy up over the palm trees and he had seen how the blue mountains took a fine, definite shape when the sun moved up higher in the sky and he had stood in a field watching golden flowers swaying to and fro in the slight breeze.

Then he saw many soldiers entering a grove of lemon trees at the edge of the flower field and the soldiers were forcing other soldiers to walk before them and the other soldiers were made to stand in a line and while they stood there, some of them raising their hands to the heavens, they were shot. He saw how they flew back as if hit by invisible hammers that drove them back suddenly in the air.

He had gone into shock and had walked back to the hotel, still in shock, and through the day he kept seeing the men being driven back by the invisible hammers and he saw the newspaper that day and he saw the faces of the men in the photographs of the newspaper and he knew then what had happened, but knowing what had happened did not take the shock away.

Truman’s natural state was shock and had been so for many years. Still this was a more perfect shock that was not getting any better, and every so often his body would jerk suddenly, as if electric wires were attached to his arms and legs sending a current through him.

He tried not to let these jolts interfere with the handling of the plane but in this he was not entirely successful, and once, when the hammers slammed swiftly through the air, the plane jerked downward and Willie and Herman Felder and Joto glanced out the window to see how near the storm was.

In the model nation
of Etherea, twenty-nine days old and the youngest country in the world, 1,000 people were starving to death every twenty-four hours.

All men were free in Etherea; all men had dignity; all that was missing was food.

Etherea was a country shaped like an exclamation point in the east central interior of the continent of Africa.

When people saw the new editions of the world map and saw that bright mark of gold, their hearts beat faster. Etherea proved self-determination did work after all, and men remembered their own best dreams of themselves.