“There will be peace now. El Condor was the last of the important ones. The others, they are nothing. We can pick them off like flies.”
“Perhaps the same arrangement could be made with them? They would be willing once they saw how el Condor was received.”
El Presidente dismissed this with a gesture. “They are not worth the bother. We shall take care of them.” He clasped his hands on the desk and leaned forward. “At any rate you will not have to concern yourself with such problems. I am appointing you consul at large. You are going back to Europe.”
Dax stared at him. “To Europe? What for?”
El Presidente opened his hands. “The war in Spain is drawing to a close. It is time we established relations with the new government of Francisco Franco.”
“But what of General Mola?” Dax asked. “I thought he was to be president.”
El Presidente shook his head. “Mola talks too much. I realized that as soon as I heard his statement about the fifth column before the siege of Madrid. With those words he lost his power, because Madrid did not fall immediately. The first thing a leader must learn is to keep his mouth shut. He must never let anyone, friend or enemy, know what he is thinking or planning.”
Dax was silent for a moment. He wondered how many men besides his own father had been deceived by el Presidente’s calculated silence. He pushed the thought from his mind. “What do you expect me to do in Spain?”
“Spain will need food. We have food to sell. Spain will also need supplies with which to rebuild. All kinds. The stupidity of the gringos will keep them from doing business with Franco. We can obtain whatever is required from them and transship it to Spain.”
Dax looked at the older man with a growing respect.
Suddenly he understood what had set him apart from the countless other bandoleros who had come down from the hills. Now he knew what had attracted his father. Right or wrong, selfishly or unselfishly, el Presidente always planned ahead. And no matter how much disappeared into his own pocket, Corteguay benefited.
“You will go to Franco,” el Presidente continued, “and you will make a deal with him. We will be the agents for Spain in the markets of the world.”
“What if Franco is not interested?”
El Presidente smiled. “Franco will be interested, I know the man. He is like me, a realist. He knows that he can no longer count on his allies Germany and Italy once his war is over. They will soon be involved in a war of their own. Have no fears, Franco will make a deal.”
“When do you want me to leave?”
“On the third of next month a ship sails for France. You will be aboard.” He got out of his chair and walked around the desk to Dax. “And now there is just one more thing.”
Dax smiled. “Yes?”
El Presidente did not answer immediately. He pulled a chair close to Dax and sat down. Subtly his voice changed. “You know for a long time now I have thought of you as my own son. I remember when my two boys died, when you came down from the hills with Amparo. I think often of you two.”
Suddenly Dax knew what was coming. He raised his hand to try and stop the older man. “We were only children then.”
But el Presidente was not to be stopped. “I remember even thinking how well you looked together. She so fair and blond, you so dark and fiercely protective. I recall turning to your father and saying, ‘Someday.’”
Dax got to his feet. “No, excellency, no. It is much too soon to speak of such things.”
El Presidente looked at him. “Too soon? Is it too soon for me to want a son to take my place? I am getting no younger. Someday I would like to lay down the burden of this office and retire to the peace of a small farm knowing that the country would be in the hands of my son.”
El Presidente’s face was sincere, his eyes warm. For a moment Dax was almost convinced that he meant it. But the very next words dispelled the illusion.
“The marriage of the two of you will truly unite the country. The respected name of your father joined to mine will convince the people of the mountains that we are sincere in our efforts.”
Dax did not answer, and el Presidente took advantage of his silence to continue. “Amparo is wonderful. But she is only a girl. And there is only so much a girl can do. What I need is a son. You. To be my right arm,”
Dax sank back into the chair. “Have you spoken to Amparo?”
A look of surprise came across el Presidente’s face. “What for?”
“She might not want to marry me.”
“Amparo will do what I wish. She will do whatever is best for Corteguay.”
“I still think she should have the right to choose her own husband.”
“Of course. Then you will ask her?”
Dax nodded. He would ask her, perhaps next year when he returned from Europe. By then many things might change. Even El Presidente’s mind.
“Excellent.” El Presidente went back behind his desk. The meeting was over.
Dax got to his feet. “Is there anything else, sir?”
“Yes.” El Presidente looked up at him, a faint smile around his eyes. “I would appreciate it if you spoke to Amparo as soon as you leave here.”
“Must we be in that much of a hurry?” A faint suspicion that he had been outmaneuvered entered Dax’s mind.
“Oh, yes. We must,” El Presidente replied, smiling. “You see I have already given out the story of your engagement. It will be in all our papers tomorrow morning.”
105
Dax thought he noticed traces of tears around Amparo’s eyes. “You’ve been crying?”
She shook her head. “You just saw my father?”
He nodded. “Congratulations, we’re engaged.”
She looked at him a moment, then turned and walked across the room to the window. When she spoke her voice was so low that at first he could scarcely hear her. “I told him not to do it.”
He didn’t answer.
She turned and looked at him. “You believe that don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“El Presidente has his own way of doing things. I told him that you should be allowed to make up your own mind.”
“What about you? I’m not the only one involved.”
She didn’t answer for a moment then her eyes met his steadily. “I made up my mind a long time ago.” A hint of a smile came to her lips. “Have you forgotten?”
He laughed. “I haven’t forgotten. I thought you would outgrow it.”
“I thought so, too. But when I came to see you in the mountains I knew I hadn’t.”
“Why didn’t you say something then?”
“Why didn’t you?” she retorted. “Girls aren’t supposed to suggest such things. Were you so blind you could not see?”
“I’m sorry. It never entered my mind.”
Suddenly there was a flash of her childish temper. “Oh, get out! You’re as stupid as all men!”
He reached out for her. “Amparo.”
She shook off his hand angrily. “You don’t have to marry me! Nobody has to marry me! I don’t have to beg any man!”
She ran out of the room. Dax stood for a moment listening to her angry footsteps on the stairway. Just as he started out el Presidente came in.
There was a smile on the older man’s face. “What’s wrong?” he asked slyly. “A lovers’ quarrel?”
Amparo had just finished repairing her makeup when she heard a knock at the door. “Who is it?”
“Me.”
She walked to the door and opened it. El Presidente followed her into the room, closing the door behind him. He peered at her from under his bushy eyebrows.
“I hope you didn’t make a fool of yourself.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t tell him?” Again she shook her head.
“Good,” he said, satisfaction in his voice. “De Ortega is gone. He won’t cause us any trouble.”
“You didn’t hurt him?” she asked, sudden concern in her voice.
“No,” he
replied, lying. A bullet through the brain never really hurt anyone. “I sent him to a station in the south.”
“It wasn’t his fault.”
He felt the anger rise in him. “Whose fault was it then? I placed you in his charge. He was supposed to protect you, not rape you.”
“He didn’t rape me.”
“That makes it worse,” he said wearily. He stared at her for a moment. “I don’t understand you. I sent you to the university in Mexico for five years. To become a lady. To be educated. Was it only to have you tumble into bed with the first good-looking caballero that came along, like any common puta off the streets?”
She didn’t answer.
“Well, thank God, it’s over.” He sighed. “Dax will make you a good husband. You will have children and there will be no more nonsense.”
She looked directly into her father’s eyes. “I am not going to marry him.”
“Why not?”
“I am already with child.”
His mouth hung open. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I am entering my third month.” She turned to pick up a cigarette from the dressing table. “I won’t marry him. He would know in a minute.”
El Presidente seemed paralyzed for a moment. Then he exploded. Viciously he slapped her across the face, tumbling her backward onto the bed.
“Puta! Whore!” he shouted. “Isn’t it enough that I must defend myself against my enemies? Must I also bear the cross of betrayal by my own?”
A photographer came over to them. “One more picture, your excellency, please.”
“Of course, of course.” El Presidente was very much the proud father. He moved closer to Amparo and stood on his toes. At least this way he appeared to be taller than she. Not as tall as Dax on the other side of her, but tall enough not to seem ridiculous.
The flashbulb popped. They blinked their eyes. “Thank you, your excellency.” The photographer bowed and moved away.
Dax looked at Amparo. She seemed pale and drawn. “Are you all right?”
“I’m just tired.”
“It’s too much, too quickly,” he said. “Just yesterday we were engaged. Today this—”
He gestured at the room. The large reception hall in the presidential palace was filled. For the first time he realized that a whole new society had sprung up since he had been away. There were so many people whose names he did not even know. New people who had become important. Many of the old families were still there, but they were the window dressing. It was the new people who really held the power.
“What you need is a vacation, Amparo.”
“I’ll be all right, Dax.”
“You’ve become a political adjunct to your father. The Women’s League. The Worker’s Association. The Children’s Society. It is too much.”
“Someone has to do it.”
“You can’t do it all yourself. It is unfair of your father to think you can.”
“I go where my father cannot. How else do you think he can retain the support of the people? I have to do it. Governing has a responsibility all its own.”
“The responsibility is your father’s.”
“It is mine also,” Amparo replied. “They look to me for the little things they dare not bring to him.”
Dax looked out over the hall. El Presidente was talking to a group of men. Every few moments he would glance toward them as if to reassure himself that Amparo was still there. He wondered what the old man would do after they were married. Amparo would be his wife, not el Presidente’s political assistant.
He turned back to Amparo but she was already deep in a conversation with a small group of women. He caught fragmentary snatches about a campaign for the improvement of certain health conditions. There was no doubt that Amparo dominated the small group. When she spoke the others listened with respect.
The women were all strangers to him, members of the new class that had evolved while he had been away. He took out one of his thin cigarros and lit it. So many things had changed. Nothing seemed the same any more.
The graciousness of the old society of his grandfather’s time, and even of his father’s, was gone. The new society just evolving from the middle and lower classes still carried traces of these backgrounds. But their speech, though carrying the stamp of education, still had overtones of the common people; and their manners were a curious overlay of form and style upon the rough directness of the campesino.
And their dress. He half smiled to himself thinking of the women of Europe and the United States whom he had known. Corteguayan ideas of fashion ran the spectrum of colors, and featured elaborate laces, frills and furbelows that reminded him of old photographs. But there was an energy and vitality about them that awakened his sympathy and pride. His father would have been proud of these people.
He looked again toward the men surrounding el Presidente. The men had not changed as much. They were still much the same. The fawning sycophants with the same inbred respect for power and carelessness about the privileges of others. They groveled to those above them, spat on those beneath them.
Suddenly he was glad to be returning to Europe. In a way he was more at home there than here. As a matter of fact he was more at home almost anywhere than here. He was Corteguayan. But he felt himself almost an outsider among a primitive people.
Amparo came toward him. “You have a strange expression on your face.”
“I was thinking,”
“About what?”
“How nice it would be if you and I, just the two of us, could go up into the mountains to my hacienda. Alone.”
She stared at him. “Father would not like it. He wants me near him.”
Dax shrugged. “Your father has had his way with us. Sooner or later he will have to get used to the idea. When we are married you will no longer be at his beck and call.” Amparo knew her father. That was not the way he thought at all. Things would not change with their marriage. They would only become more so. Dax, too, would join the circle which continually orbited around el Presidente.
“Tonight,” he said suddenly, mistaking her silence for consent, “after everyone has gone. We will leave quietly. No one will miss us.”
Suddenly she felt sorry for him. In many ways he was much more sophisticated than they and in others far more naive. He did not yet understand the demands of power. He did not appreciate how much her father dominated the people around him, how completely he controlled their lives. But he would find out. In time. For now, let him retain the illusion.
“It’s a wonderful idea. We can leave after the banquet tonight.”
106
Dax was sitting on the galería, the usual thin cigar in his mouth. He looked up as Amparo came out from the house. “How did you sleep?”
Her eyes moved out across the fields toward the hills. “Very well. It’s so quiet here. The mountains whisper you to sleep.”
He looked at her approvingly. In just the two days and nights they had been here the blue shadows under her eyes had disappeared. The color had come back into her cheeks and no longer was she so tense and strained. “I told you it would be good.”
She turned and looked at him. “If only it could remain like this.”
He didn’t answer.
She sat down opposite him as Fat Cat came out with a tray of coffee. He placed it on the table between them. She filled her cup. “Would you like more?”
He shook his head. “No, thanks. I’ve already had mine.” Amparo took a sip. The coffee was strong and hot and she was grateful for its warmth. “It is time we talked.”
“Yes?”
“It must seem strange to you after having been away so long to come home and suddenly find yourself betrothed.” She hesitated, waiting for him to answer, but when he said nothing she continued. “It was not so for me. Somehow I always knew, when I did marry, that it would be at my father’s own time, not mine.”
“And you do not resent it?”
“No. You see, duty has always been drille
d into me. Ever since I was a little girl. I wish only that you had been given more time. Perhaps we might have found our way to each other without his help. As we did when we were children.”
He took the cigar from his mouth and looked at it. “Perhaps that would have been better. Still…”
She felt surprise grow in her. “You feel as I do?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “But I wasn’t really as shocked when your father spoke to me as I thought I would be.” He began to smile. “I’m afraid I’m not being very romantic.”
She returned his smile. “Neither of us is.” Suddenly she felt shy. “But I am glad it was you.”
For the first time he reached out and touched her. She stared at him for a moment, then leaned forward, and he kissed her. She felt the light touch of his lips and there was something very young about it despite the faint aroma of the tobacco that clung to him. Suddenly a deep sadness welled up inside her and the tears came to her eyes.
“What is it?”
She shook her head violently. She could not stop her tears. She got up and ran back into the house.
A few minutes later she came out again. “I’m sorry, Dax.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“I think you’d better take me home.”
He looked up at her questioningly.
“I shouldn’t have come here, people will talk.”
“That’s not the reason.”
“Whatever the reason,” she said with a flash of temper, “I want to go home. Will you take me or must I go alone?” He got to his feet. “I’ll take you.”
Only once on the way back did he speak to her. “Sooner or later you will have to tell me what’s troubling you,” he said. “I have a feeling that the sooner you do the better it will be for us both.”
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes, wondering just how much he knew or had guessed. But his face betrayed nothing. And she couldn’t bring herself to tell him, not yet.
The small village of Asiento wore a festive air. The streets were decorated with the green and blue flag of Corteguay and bunting draped the doors and windows of the small stores along the dusty main street. In every other window there was a photograph of el Presidente.
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