The Assignment

by Per Wahlöö

  Fernández was chewing. Outside the world was white.

  It was quarter past nine. Then it was twenty past nine. No one telephoned, not even Behounek.

  Twenty-five past nine. He would go in ten minutes. He went to the bathroom. The steps of terror across the corridor. The Astra was like a lead weight against his heart.

  Danica had switched on the radio. The announcer’s voice was fraught with routine solemnity: We are about to broadcast an important message. At exactly ten o’clock the Provincial Resident will speak to the people. We urge everyone to listen.

  Music: brassy and shrill.

  When he laid his hands flat on the desk, wet prints appeared on the brown blotter.

  Fernández yawned and picked at his nails.

  A drop of sweat fell from Manuel Ortega’s forehead onto General Larrinaga’s proclamation.

  He wiped his hands on his trousers and large dark patches appeared on the material.

  We are about to broadcast an important message. At exactly ten o’clock the Provincial Resident will speak to the people. We urge everyone to listen. We are about to broadcast an important message. At exactly ten o’clock the Provincial Resident will speak to the people. We urge everyone to listen.

  He got up. Folded the proclamation and put it in his left inside pocket. Moved it over to the right one. Put on his sunglasses. Picked up his hat. Said to Fernández: “The radio station.”

  A woman in a white dress looked seriously at him. She said nothing and made no sign.

  Manuel Ortega walked along the white corridor, down the white staircase, through the white hall, past the white counter and a policeman in a white uniform, drove through the white town. He looked straight ahead and thought about nothing whatsoever.

  The same studio and the same announcer with red patches on his forehead and on his pale arms. The walls were wavy in the heat. Two technicians behind the glass wall. They had religious medals hanging on silver chains around their necks and they were talking to each other. One had hair on his chest and kept drinking out of a tin mug.

  The lights dead like blind eyes. Fernández by the wall. The announcer saying: “When the on-the-air signal comes through, I’ll stay here and announce you and then I’ll go. What kind of music would you like afterward? A march?”

  His heart thumped, heavily and unevenly, and the quivering in his diaphragm would not stop. He thought his voice had gone and he cleared his throat several times. The papers rustled in his hands.

  Green light. The technicians behind the glass were still talking to each other, but they were looking at something in front of them. Red light. The announcer leaned over his shoulder and said easily:

  “Hello. Hello. This is an important message to the people. Over to the Provincial Resident, Don Manuel Ortega.”

  While he was saying this, Manuel Ortega stared at the green felt cloth. A sunflower seed lay just beside the microphone. He was now quite certain that his larynx had ceased to function and that his voice would break down into a hoarse and inaudible croak at the first word.

  So he was surprised when he suddenly heard himself speaking, calmly and clearly and convincingly.

  “This is Manuel Ortega. As your Provincial Resident it is my duty to create peace and security in the district. It is also my duty to give all citizens in this area every opportunity for a richer and more worthwhile life, materially and spiritually. This task I shall try to fulfill to the best of my ability. My predecessor, General Orestes de Larrinaga, was a great and broad-minded man. Before his death he composed the proclamation which I am now about to read to you. It is directed to all of you, without exception, and it lays down the principles for my and my successors’ work. This is General Orestes de Larrinaga’s message to you, written in his own hand.”

  He read the seventeen paragraphs slowly and emphatically, the whole time in a state of unreality and isolation. The only things that existed were the letters and words and a little yellow spider which slowly, slowly crept diagonally across the paper.

  The moment he read out the words “Orestes de Larrinaga, General, Provincial Resident,” he knew he must say something more. He extemporized: “To this I must add that I have a sworn certificate from the General’s daughter, Doña Francisca de Larrinaga, which attests to the genuineness of this document. I must also stress that a great deal of evidence points to the view that this proclamation was the reason for the death of the General. My personal view is that he was killed so that he would not have the opportunity of publishing the seventeen points that you have just heard. From this it follows that the organization accused of his death is in fact not guilty of that particular crime.”

  He paused for a moment. The red light was still on.

  “The government has given me the task of following up General de Larrinaga’s plans for peace and reforms. The tense and difficult atmosphere will shortly be dispersed—will be dealt with at a peace conference. Details of this will be sent out in an extra communiqúe at midday today.”

  All the colored lights had gone out.

  Manuel Ortega remained sitting at the table with his head lowered. His hands on the green felt looked small and weak and ineffectual. The drops of sweat from his face fell onto the sheets of his script.

  Fernández was sitting by the wall with his legs outstretched, indifferently picking at his teeth with a broken match.

  The technicians behind the glass were gesticulating and talking excitedly to each other. Now and then they threw timid, curious glances at the man sitting at the green table.

  Manuel raised his right hand, placed his thumb over the little yellow spider, and squashed it. Then he rose slowly, leaving the papers on the table.

  The announcer came in. His face was excited. The heat spots on his cheeks flared angrily red.

  “Well … I couldn’t make any final announcement,” he said. “We were cut …”

  “When?”

  “I couldn’t tell you the exact moment.”

  Manuel Ortega took a paper out of his jacket pocket.

  “This is an important announcement about the peace conference,” he said. “It’s to be put out at midday and after that every hour.”

  “We must record it,” said the announcer nervously. “Nothing is to be broadcast direct from now on. That’s a new order.”

  “Who gave this order?”

  “The Military Governor, General Gami.”

  The little gray car drove through the empty town, oozing its way through the dazzling heat. There were very few people about. The streets between the dusty rows of palm trees were deserted. On each side stood the great white blocks of apartments, their white shutters closed.

  At the intersection of the Avenida and Calle del General Huerta stood four men with the yellow armbands of the Citizens’ Guard. They looked like middle-aged family men. One of them raised his rifle and aimed it at the car. Manuel Ortega saw him and thought: Now I’m going to die. He heard a long gurgling gasp and knew that it came from himself.

  “Don’t bother about stupidities like that,” said Fernández calmly. “It won’t be like that. He didn’t even bother to put the safety catch off his blunderbuss.”

  In the back Gómez sat with his short machine gun on his knee. Manuel wondered where he had come from.

  A white square with white monumental buildings, the white vestibule and counter and the patch on the floor where General Larrinaga had lain with his shattered chest and blood on his white uniform. The staircase and the white corridor and the white door of his fears. He dared not open it but turned and went through the other office, where there was nothing but a pile of statistical tables on the desk, and then on into the woman in the white dress.

  “They cut us off,” he said.

  “Yes, but not until the next-to-last sentence.”

  Fernández rustled with his seeds.

  The telephone rang.

  “One moment—I’ll answer.”

  She put her hand over the mouthpiece.

  �
�It’s Dalgren’s secretary. Do you want to take it?”

  He picked up the receiver. The girl connected him. Then Dalgren was there. His voice sounded very near, piercing, as if he were standing close to Manuel Ortega or had already stepped into his consciouness. It was dry and hard and rasping, like emery paper on rusty tin.

  “Young man, you have made a devastating mistake. I cannot protect you any longer. I don’t even want to. You’ve dragged my old friend Orestes’s name in the mud. You’ve betrayed us all. It would surprise me if you were still alive this time tomorrow.”

  A metallic click and then dead, empty silence.

  The conversation was over, and Manuel Ortega remained standing, holding the receiver, until Danica took it out of his hand.

  He frowned and shook his head slightly as if he were trying to concentrate on some serious practical problem.

  “They’re going to kill me,” he said.

  “That’ll be two of us then,” said Fernández, unmoved.

  He was standing with one foot in each room, his back to the doorpost.

  “No,” said Danica Rodríguez with conviction. “They won’t kill you. I don’t expect they’ll even try. They daren’t.”

  The telephone rang again.

  “No, the Provincial Resident will not be available until after one o’clock.”

  She picked up her bag from the floor and rose.

  “Come on,” she said.

  Behind them the telephone rang.

  In his bedroom he sat down on the bed and waited. She left him but soon came back and shut the door behind her.

  “Undress,” she said.

  He obeyed. His suit was crumpled and damp, his underclothes soaking. She emptied his pockets and flung the clothes into a heap on the floor.

  “Into the shower with you.”

  He went.

  “Lean forward. That’s right. Now your front.”

  Slowly she poured two jars of water over him and he shuddered with cold. Part of his still functioning cell system registered a surprising detail: that she lifted the heavy vessels with such ease and composure.

  “You’re strong,” he said.

  “Yes, I’m a strong, healthy girl.”

  She picked up a clean towel and began to dry him. Her movements were purposeful, swift, and precise.

  “You’re fine today too,” she said. “One doesn’t think that about many the day after.”

  She extracted a little glass vial from her bag, put a tablet in his hand, and said: “Swallow that now and drink a little water.”

  In the bedroom she took off the bedspread and blankets and turned back the sheet.

  “Get in.”

  He did as he was told, and she spread the sheet over him. He lay on his side, facing the wall, and said: “There’s something wrong with me. I’m sorry.”

  “Yes. You’re very tired and a little frightened. You’re beginning to feel worn out and you’re not used to it. And you’ve not had more than two hours’ sleep. Just think that you’ve actually achieved something today and be content with that.”

  “You’re looking after me.”

  “I’m not much good at looking after other people, nor myself, but sometimes one has to. Be quiet now and sleep, I’ll be here and Fernández is sitting in the room out there and Gómez is in the corridor. Nothing will happen anyway.”

  “The revolver,” he said.

  She got it and put it on the bedside table. The Astra. He stretched out his hand for it and put it under his pillow.

  She lit a cigarette, walked over to the window, and stood peering through the slats as she smoked. Now and again she bit at the cuticle around her nails. Without turning around she said: “If you like, I’ll get undressed and get in with you. Bruises and all.”

  When he did not reply she went over to the bed and saw that he was asleep. She walked up and down the room for a while. Then she put her cigarette out in the ashtray and left the room.

  “Yes,” she said to herself, “someone’s going to kill him.”

  She heard the telephone ring as soon as she reached the corridor.

  Outside in the square policemen in white uniforms drove away a crowd of shouting people who had gathered in front of the steps of the Governor’s Palace.

  When he woke up, the sheet was stuck firmly to his body. It was Danica who woke him and it was she too who once again poured water over him in the shower. Then she left, and for a few minutes he felt rested and relatively calm. But he picked up the white terylene suit to look at it, he remembered Dalgren’s voice and then, as he dressed, it stayed with him all the time, dry and rasping and implacable.

  You have betrayed us all. It would surprise me to find you alive this time tomorrow.

  He remembered too the member of the Citizens’ Guard who had taken aim at him on the corner of Calle del General Huerta and what he had thought of at that moment.

  But all the same he believed in his innermost self that he realized that it could not be serious. And he had not been alone either.

  When he opened the door to the outer room, López got up from his chair and went into the corridor. López moved silently and cautiously as if walking on his toes. Sometimes he looked like a servile head waiter who always wanted to be available but did not want to irritate his guests by his presence.

  The suit was light and comfortable. It fitted him fairly well and when he buttoned up the jacket he found it was full enough not to bulge over the revolver.

  When Manuel Ortega had established this fact, he took off the jacket again, unbuttoned his collar and went into the bathroom to shave. He had not done it in the morning, and he was also taking every opportunity to postpone contact with the corridor and the white door into his office.

  A quarter of an hour later and it was inevitable.

  He adjusted the revolver in the holster, opened the door and saw López sitting in the revolving chair. He took two steps across the corridor, laid his left hand on the knob, and thrust his right one inside his jacket.

  López had still not begun to get up. Manuel smiled at his inertia, pushed open the door, and stepped over the threshold.

  The room was empty and white and hot, and through the closed door to his secretary’s room he could hear Danica. She was talking on the telephone and her voice was stubborn and aggressive and only barely polite.

  He went across to the window and looked out. Below by the entrance stood two policemen in white. Five more were sitting smoking on the steps. In the middle of the square stood a little group of people, mostly women and youngsters. They looked as if they were waiting for something to happen.

  Danica Rodríguez came into the room.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Better, thanks.”

  “Is the suit all right?”

  “Yes, thanks. Have you been having some trouble?”

  “A lot of idiots have phoned and there’s been some commotion outside.”

  “Threats?”

  She nodded.

  “Letters too. Seven or eight.”

  “What do they say?”

  “Much the same as Dalgren said on the phone.”

  “Has Captain Behounek been in touch?”

  She shook her head.

  “But there is something positive as well. Sixto has sent a letter. A messenger brought it half an hour after the first broadcast.… They’re putting out the communiqué about the conference every hour,” she added.

  “Give me the letter and call Captain Behounek. Give me the threatening letters too.”

  The call came through before he had time to open the gray envelope with the red stamp of the Liberation Front on it.

  “Yes. Behounek.”

  “Ortega. I was expecting to hear from you.”

  “Well now, weren’t there enough people phoning you anyway? I’ve already got a list of twelve people who have threatened to take your life, ranging from a very high-up potentate with whom you yourself have had the pleasure of speaking, to a taxi driver
and the notorious female from the perfume shop. What do you think I ought to do with them?”

  “Are there really taxis here?”

  “Yes, a few, but I can’t think who might make use of them. There’s hardly anyone left in the center of the town. Sixty per cent of the apartments are empty. Partly because many people have gone and partly because the buildings are faulty. The ventilation is supposed to be all shot to hell.”

  Manuel Ortega felt that some of the tension had gone. The everyday tone of the conversation did him good.

  “Seriously, I hadn’t forgotten all about you. A moment ago I sent a couple of patrols to keep things nice and tidy outside your place. Thought that seemed more sensible than calling up and talking a lot of nonsense.”

  “People don’t seem to like me so much any more.”

  “Don’t say that. My men in the eastern sector report that you’ve got supporters who write “Viva Ortega” in red paint on the walls. That’s not bad. You certainly can’t count on equal enthusiasm from all quarters.”

  “The most important thing at the moment is the conference.”

  “Quite right.”

  “Do you think that this can jeopardize it?”

  “Hardly. On the contrary, I should think. But …”

  He stopped.

  “But what?”

  When Behounek spoke again his tone of voice had changed. Manuel had heard him speak like this once before, in the car on the way to the white villa with blue shutters.

  “Ortega, you must listen very carefully to what I’m going to say. You’ve taken a terrible risk. Personally I think you’re wrong, but we’ll leave that for the moment. I don’t think you’ve jeopardized the conference, but you jeopardized something else which you at least ought to consider worth something. Namely, yourself. Your position is dangerous. It’ll be even more dangerous tomorrow. But it’s possible the pressure will slacken within a few days. There are two solutions, but I’m afraid you won’t accept either of them. The first is that you get out now, immediately. I can give you an escort to the border and we can requisition a helicopter. The other is that you demand police protection. In which case I’ll take you into protective arrest.”