Thing to Love

by Geoffrey Household

  An untraditional road it was. The Avenida Gregorio Vidal had the blank desolation of modernity in the kindly subtropics. The escarpment of a smooth, heat-drenched headland, like a bronzed fist rammed down upon the table of the Pacific, was dominated and scarred by the seven purposeful kilometers. The rusty rock which had formed the surface of the headland was pimpled by pink, white-streaked boulders blasted out from the foundations. Cactus and brush thrust torn leaves through the scattered piles of gravel or died of their own contorted acrobatics among the drainpipes — for deep under the road ran the telephones, the power, the water and the petrol to serve the needs of twelve thousand men. In three or four years more the Avenida Gregorio Vidal would be a gracious ribbon of green and white decorating the hillside, its young trees refreshed whenever an orderly sergeant turned a cock in the Citadel. At the moment it was like a clean-picked skeleton carelessly bulldozed out of its grave.

  From a distance only the palms of the Citadel were visible. The quarters and arsenals of Fifth Division were all of one story; the fortifications themselves showed only as low mounds of grass and rounded shapes of concrete. On the site had been a voluptuous hotel — which accounted for the palms and a swimming pool — built by Vidal’s stockbroker as a wild speculation to attract foreign tourists. When the hotel failed, Miro could only agree that the site was exactly what he wanted. Its possibilities had been so delicately suggested that he could not even remember who had recommended it — a typical transaction of Vidalismo. But how much was paid and to whom was really no business of his. The position was formidable and the long, low hotel itself would do luxuriously well for Garrison Headquarters and the officers’ messes.

  The finished job had won the professional enthusiasm of even the foreign military attachés. Miro was congratulated on a fortress of really remarkable beauty, protecting the capital against any advance from the north and any attack from the sea. This, in his eyes, had been of primary importance. Guayanas had no navy beyond the antique Spanish cruiser Frente Unido, and would not have had that if Captain Salinas, still to that day inevitably in command of her, had not taken refuge in San Vicente after an epic voyage from Spain in 1939.

  Miro’s uneasy preoccupation with politics and symbolism led him nowhere until he came to the plain white gate of the Citadel. Seeing it with the new eyes of anxiety, he realized how unlike it was to the architectural pageantry which Guayanas preferred. There should have been a monumental archway with an inscription celebrating the patriotism of President Vidal and a lurid quotation from — well, Juan’s father on Independence Day, if not Juan himself, had no doubt said something suitable.

  But I did this, he thought suddenly — and then at last was able to analyze the vague feeling of guilt which oppressed him. What he had made was a little section of that Czech frontier which his regiment had been forced to abandon, without fighting, in 1938.

  Then was the Citadel honestly necessary? Had he been right? Or had he imitated an unsuitable standard of military efficiency just as Vidal was imitating the more flashy industrialism of the United States? Avellana would have used all this money for welfare, education and subsidies to the farmers. But that might well land him in an appalling unemployment problem. No, let these politicians live in their dreams. At least he, Miro, had created a reality, a thing of infinite value to the State however you looked at it — not the Citadel but Fifth Division.

  His useful, satisfying life closed round him as soon as he entered his Headquarters. A busy morning of paper. An afternoon visit to the Cadet School — no siestas yet for them — and two inspections in the cool of the day. It was all routine, which could be carried out efficiently while forming a background for thought about the decisions he would have to take: pretended exercise, units to be employed, officers to be let into the secret. The most able were not always the most discreet.

  When the day’s work was over, he kept Salvador Irala with him — or rather, as he gratefully recognized, Irala made no motion towards going.

  “Salvador, what is your private opinion of revolution?” Miro asked, opening his personal built-in refrigerator which had belonged to the well-recompensed former proprietor of the hotel.

  “A bore, my General.”

  “Then why the devil do you put up with it, and what sort of government do you want?”

  “Allow me — the ice should go in first. I want to be governed well and probably absolutely by a man I respect. I require him to pay lip-service to democracy, but so arrange the elections that he can remain in power as long as he believes he can serve. At the same time I reserve the right to throw him out when I get tired of him.”

  “And are you tired of Vidal?”

  “My General, when Vidal came to power I was tired of him already. And I was only eighteen. As I may have mentioned before, I am so made that to me all business tycoons are comic.”

  “Would you say that attitude was common among the officers of Fifth Division?”

  “We take nothing too seriously, my General.”

  Then it was time they did, he thought. This casual virility was no different from that of a leaf-thatched lodge of naked warriors in the remote jungle. On the other hand it was healthily familiar, not faintly disconcerting like Feli’s resentment of the Avellanistas which had grown impetuously for the last thirty-six hours. Her father’s reading of her character could be right. She certainly had none of the tame submissiveness of a Pilar. She chose her side savagely, and was on the verge of calling Avellana a Communist. Well, thank God for her loyalty — and for the Division’s! But, hell, theirs was disconcerting too! What on earth did he want?

  “In fact, you expect me to do your thinking for you,” he snapped at Salvador.

  “Sub-section 3 (a) dealing with the chain of command, my General, states that the commander in chief delegates his authority . . .”

  “Suppose I suggested calling an officers’ conference?”

  “The result would be to split the Division neatly into two until we saw which side you proposed to take, yourself. Most of the other side would then come over to you.”

  “But has the garrison no political opinions at all?”

  “My General, when a moment ago you asked me somewhat regimentally . . .”

  “I am sorry,” said Miro.

  “It was very natural. When you asked me if you had to do our thinking for us, you underrated our devotion. A good Catholic, for example, may do a lot of thinking for himself. But he does not decide what he will believe. He decides how he will believe it. You have told us so often that the Army has no business in politics. We accept it. And so the side which General Kucera backs must be the right side.”

  “General Kucera is at the orders of the legal government. He expresses no opinion.”

  “Then that is all we need to know.”

  “It’s really enough?”

  “If you don’t think so, we will give our vivas for free elections.”

  “It’s no business of mine whether they are or not.”

  “Very well! The government, right or wrong. No revolutions!”

  “But I don’t want to make a political stand at all.”

  “You can’t ask us to stand for nothing.”

  “The propaganda is Vidal’s business.”

  “Then may I suggest that it should be clear? One cannot exchange shots shouting Viva Coca-Cola! One has to work up a reasonable anger.”

  “What I want to avoid is reaching a point where one has to give vivas for anything at all,” said Miro. “The Division should be a machine, fast and silent. It hands back power to the government with the least possible disturbance, and returns to the Citadel.”

  “The least possible disturbance . . .” Irala repeated thoughtfully. “That would mean plenty of work for the street cleaners, and nothing for the ambulances.”

  “As I see it, there will be no extra work for street cleaners. The ambulances — well, it depends.”

  “Is this discussion academic, my General? Or shall I get out my
typewriter and telephone Doña Felicia that you will not be home for dinner?”

  “Neither, Salvador. For the moment I need only your genius for farce.”

  Miro Kucera rapidly sketched for his A.D.C. Vidal’s reading of the crisis, and his own intended action in support of the civil power. He was relieved to find that Irala, who had his ear to the ground and was a continually delighted connoisseur of rumor and scandal, was equally surprised that the Avellanistas were ready.

  “Now, there’s no difficulty in keeping a motorized battalion on the alert,” the general went on. “We’re doing it all the time in brigade exercises and it won’t arouse any suspicion. What’s puzzling me is how to hold a squadron of armored cars for a whole week ready for action at five minutes’ notice.”

  “At La Joya, my General, did you tell Gil Avellana that you intended to support Vidal?”

  “I told him that I should obey the orders of the legal government.”

  “It astonishes me that they don’t call the whole thing off after that.”

  “Perhaps they will. But the President believes they will trust to speed and surprise. Obviously, I can’t restore order if Vidal has vanished and people are dancing in the streets.”

  “How about a competition for the Armored Car Regiment?” suggested Irala.

  “What for?”

  “Cars in the garage. Rations, ammo and blankets in store. Crews off duty but standing by. Squadron which can parade in full battle order in the shortest time wins a cup.”

  “They’ll try every damned sergeant major’s trick. We’d get a squadron on parade, not fighting vehicles.”

  “Not if I let it leak that you’re going to pick cars at random, drive them across country to the range, and fire all guns. The competing squadron will bivouac for the night and go off duty after breakfast — say, seven-thirty, which is also zero hour for the next squadron. That gives us four days with a squadron ready for action at a moment’s notice. But it won’t look as if we meant business, since we shall always have three squadrons either stripped down to the axles preparing for the competition or returning ammo and equipment to store. But is one squadron enough?”

  “I think so, Salvador. The Palace is what matters. The police can do the rest so long as they have the support of a troop here and there. Thank you. It seems a brilliant idea if we can work it out. I shall brief Lieutenant Colonel Irigoyen and squadron commanders myself.”

  “Yet I cannot believe, my General, that the Presidential Guard will arrest Vidal. It has a tradition, tiresome though it is.”

  “The guard is the only key to a bloodless revolution, Salvador.”

  “Suppose Avellana doesn’t attempt to subvert them, but puts them in a position where they dare not use force?”

  “Morote? All in the streets?”

  “They’d fire on Morote all right. The officers of the guard, my General, are, as you know but have never said, the more halfwitted sons of the duller members of the Ateneo. They still think it their duty to fire on the poor. In the rest of the world it is more fashionable to fire on the rich. Unfortunately the rich do not march in procession. I wonder what Avellana has up his sleeve.”

  “Whatever it is,” said Miro, “it will be too late.”

  CHAPTER VI

  [November 9]

  JULIA CARRILLO was even more intolerable than usual. Her flat, monotonous voice went on and on. She must, Felicia thought, have deliberately trained it in imitation of earnest foreigners met during her cultural expeditions to Europe and the United States, for it was impossible for any Latin-American woman to be born with such a voice.

  The Women’s Committee for the Purchase of Infantile Literature was sitting, under the chairmanship of Doña Concha Vidal, in a ground floor conference room of the President’s Palace. Its object was excellent: to collect, by gifts and private subscription, the very simplest of books for the elementary schools, books intended to show the children that there was actual entertainment in reading — a fact which they could hardly guess from the dog-eared primers of the Ministry of Education.

  Nobody but Julia Carrillo would have thought it possible or desirable to keep the Church out of the distribution and selection. The Church might or might not attempt to overweigh the tiny library service with stories of six-year-old saints and seven-year-old visionaries, but what on earth did it matter? And what did Julia Carrillo know of those bright, brown eyes, so eager to learn, so continually frustrated, looking out through dripping leaves or blown dust from the doorways of the villages? Their priest, ignorant, primitive, but loving, at least knew who could profit by what.

  System, system — Guayanas was still years away from being able to use these solemn systems. Blast the woman! Felicia wished Concha would shut Julia up. But Concha listened with a fixed and courteous smile. She was a born chairwoman of committees. If she disagreed — and she certainly did — with the Señora Carrillo, the best thing was to let her go on talking. That ensured that even if Julia had been right ten times over not a soul would vote for her except the “lady-in-waiting.” The “lady-in-waiting,” as they nicknamed her, was also a professor’s wife, and Julia’s slave, secretary and disciple. She always reminded Felicia of a small and officious cock accompanying its formidable hen. She scratched around among conversation, kicking up bits and pieces for Doña Julia to eat.

  Middle-class, outdated intellectuals! . . . Felicia rebuked herself for snobbery. Well, was it exactly snobbery? After all she herself had taken on board all the Spanish and European literature that the university could teach her and was considered, she knew, a dangerously advanced female. But yammering in a void, when action, quiet and firm, was what Guayanas needed . . . ! Anybody who could take it efficiently was welcome. Even Vidal. Even the Church. The Fonsagradas had always known the right way to treat the Church — as a potentially very able department of State. When it was lazy and corrupt, you threatened. When you had it buzzing and intriguing and stinging itself, you calmed it down and handed out grants. The futility of this professional female’s burblings about biology! What the village priest knew or believed or misbelieved of evolution was of no conceivable interest to the committee. What he knew of the capacities and needs of the children was more than anybody else did.

  Julia Carrillo shut up at last.

  “I am sure we have all been fascinated, but . . .” Concha began.

  Felicia let the too emphatic, but now — thank God! — musical voice slide over her. Concha’s tact could be trusted. She certainly was not decorative, but she was a forceful consort for a President. Rumor had it that she beat him. Surely a lie — though there was no doubt that she was the more robust and outspoken of the two. Politically, the little man needed her; in private, someone like Pilar Avellana would have been a better wife for him; but Pilar steering a committee was unthinkable.

  The door of the conference room opened. A captain of the Presidential Guard, looking as inhumanly perfect as if he had just been unwrapped from a box of nineteenth-century toy soldiers, entered and saluted.

  “His Excellency presents his excuses and requests for a moment the gracious attendance of the Presidenta.”

  It was unprecedented on the part of Gregorio Vidal to interrupt his wife at her business. Concha rose with dignity, with indeed an air of setting an example of obedience to all good citizens. Only her thick, black eyebrows, though trimmed to the softness of velvet, betrayed what she was thinking by microscopically erecting themselves. If the mayordomo had come with the message, she might very well have dismissed him with the remark that she would be ready in half an hour, but that was difficult when the authority of the President was reinforced by so military an apparition.

  There was a buzz of conversation as soon as the Presidenta had left the room. Felicia noticed that Julia Carrillo did not join in. She seemed distraite and ignored the chirruped offerings scratched up by her lady-in-waiting. Since they were both incompetent actresses, something was probably worrying them. If it hadn’t been for Concha’s summon
ing, Felicia would have been prepared to bet that Doña Julia was unsettled by some intimate accident. She was quite incapable of taking minor embarrassments in her stride.

  Were politics suddenly boiling over? Miro had said little since La Joya. He seemed to have turned into an immensely affectionate machine for listening. Though bursting with curiosity, she had asked no direct questions. She did not at all want to be put in a position where it would be worthwhile for Juan to cross-examine her. By merely driving her into a temper (which the old beast could do with the utmost politeness and an air of desolated surprise) he could learn something.

  What did Vidal want Concha for? Could it be that he had found himself in some delicate situation with a woman which was political rather than emotional? Had Pilar walked into the Palace with some brilliant self-conceived idea of planting a bomb on him, or, softly maternal, informing him that the Blessed Virgin had told her that he ought to go? Fantasy, even for Guayanas at its most excitable . . . And yet . . . Politics, women! The association inspired Felicia with the conclusion, instantly and obviously true, that the restraint of Julia and the lady-in-waiting was not due to any failure of textiles or elastic, but to the fact that they both knew very well why Concha had been summoned.

  Ten minutes passed quickly. The committee gossiped with a lot more animation than it ever showed in the discussion of business. Otherwise the exquisite Palace was silent. The tall chairs around the table glowed with the ancient red of their Spanish leather in the clear dusk of the room, and with brown where the needlepoints of sun, evading the Venetian blinds, exposed their age. The traffic on the coast road was faintly audible, and the droning rattle of a helicopter penetrated the thick stone walls. It seemed very close.

  The hum of traffic grew louder and changed into a sound which was far too familiar to Felicia to be mistaken. It was the roar of the Saracens. Direction was hard to judge in the padded, paneled seclusion of the conference room, but the armored cars seemed to be coming down the coast road. Then there was no doubt about it. They had wheeled into the Glorieta in front of the Palace. She could hear the engines ticking over and, above them, a sharp verbal order.