Thing to Love

by Geoffrey Household

  But revolution had lost its sporting, amateur status. It was the good order which disconcerted them all. Vidal’s supporters should have been demonstrating, and they were not. In the open space in front of the Palacio Municipal the beds of cannas and roses ought to have been trampled down by the crowd. There should have been rifles wildly waved, not the slung Sten guns of quiet military avoiding publicity. Far back under the dark archways and in the thick belt of palms and evergreens down the center of the Alameda sections of infantry commanded the crossroads. Steel-helmeted, uninterested, their battle blouses spotted like jaguars, they were inconspicuous as outposts in a true forest.

  He was disinclined to join friends at a table. The surface gaiety of San Vicente, which normally delighted him, seemed for the moment to lack depth— though perhaps that was not quite a fair criticism since for once there was this nasty feeling of depth below depth. When at last he did sit down at a table, the companion who in his present mood attracted him was a man at home in any depth at all.

  Paco Salinas always gave the impression of having his feet firmly based in hell, as the only solid floor where one could be free of illusion. His mahogany face was so heavily lined that a straw would have vanished from sight if inserted between his cheek and upper lip. He lived on himself, hard and mercilessly, and was reputed to respect nothing but the remnant of his Spanish crew who had brought the Frente Unido to Guayanas and ever since had been responsible for training the insignificant naval force of the Republic.

  “A fine old mess we have on our hands now,” said the consul, nodding to Captain Salinas over his glass. “I should have expected more discipline of Fifth Division.”

  “With the intelligentsia dancing a jota on their Caudillo’s guts?”

  “All the same . . .”

  “Enrique, there are times when I understand that clown Goering — may his soul, if he had one, rot in hell! He is said to have remarked that when he heard the word culture he reached for his gun.”

  “The culture of our university is by no means excessive,” protested Henry Penruddock mildly.

  “Hombre, that’s the trouble! Look! Here I watch and what goes on elsewhere I read of. And what is wrong with our world is the contempt of the half-educated for the educated. I speak to you as a neutral, for I am not educated at all. The Jesuits and the Naval Academy don’t count. What I have, I have from life. And I tell you that we who pay the taxes, we of Europe and the Americas, have created a half-world. Indolent! Despising skill! Despising a man when they see one, for there’s nothing in their little books of science to tell them how to recognize him! What use is this froth without honor, without common sense and proud to be free of both? Friend Enrique, I have no gun to reach for. Unfortunately Fifth Division had. Tell me — who gave the order to fire?”

  “I haven’t heard that there was any. Would you expect it?”

  “Yes. I cannot understand that blast of automatic fire when a volley of single shots would have been enough.”

  “Perhaps Vidal lost his head and Miro is protecting him,” the consul suggested.

  “Vidal? Vidal shouting Fire! is beyond imagination. He wouldn’t order a baby to wipe her bottom. He’d get two bankers and the Minister of Hygiene to tell her it was advisable, or else.”

  “I get the impression that you prefer Avellana.”

  “Me? Not Jesus Christ would I prefer! I am loyal to the government. And if it changes I am still loyal to the government. A man who has once found himself alone with a band of bloodthirsty monkeys is not likely to risk it again. I draw my pay. I continue peaceably to teach Indians to tie knots. It is amazing to think that once in Peru they wrote and counted with knots. Mine would be incapable of counting two turds one upon another. On the other hand, they worship Mary and Joseph.”

  “Well, I suppose it helps discipline,” said the consul.

  “Quiá! They are the eight-inch turrets, Mary aft and Joseph forward. The padre doesn’t mind. For a cockroach of the most abandoned he has a good sense of history. In the grand caravels of Spain it would have seemed very natural to christen the swiveled brass bow-chaser Joseph and have the battery of Mary on the poop to sweep boarders off the half-deck. You should see our gunnery! Magnificent! My difficulty is to get the damned ship to sea for practice. What the engine room would like is for Vidal to set her in concrete and charge the public ten pesos a head to look at the paintwork.”

  “I am glad you approve of it.”

  Henry Penruddock had supplied the paint from surplus Admiralty stores and had not charged a tenth of the profit he reasonably might have taken. The Frente Unido amused him and he liked to keep the cost of her maintenance as low as possible. He was always welcomed on board by the two dozen Spaniards of her original crew who had sailored on after the rest of their companions had become farmers, fishermen and dock foremen. Captain Salinas was accustomed to offer him full honors as Her Britannic Majesty’s consul general. It was good practice, he said, for the cadets.

  “I do, amigo. And I want some more ammunition. Vidal will order it from my indent. And see that London does not send me something which has been in store since the Battle of Jutland.”

  “We used all that in 1941,” said the consul shortly. Both officially and personally he felt it his duty to resent derogatory remarks about the British Navy.

  “Rule Britannia! Cierra España! Liberty and Potatoes!” Salinas growled in a muted imitation of cheering. “Now you know what Spaniards have felt for the last sixty years! The Americans have more fleets than you have ships. It’s fantastic! Be a little rude to them, and there’s the Twenty-seventh Fleet over the horizon! And if the State Department says it is out catching mackerel, you’d better believe it. All is over, Enrique. Trafalgar and Lepanto — who won them and who cares? It’s a mad life! And here are these students backing Avellana when he belongs to our grandfathers, not to them!”

  “He does stand for social reform. You admit it’s needed.”

  “He’s less likely to find the money than Vidal.”

  “At least he won’t spend it on making San Vicente look like a bastard out of Barcelona by Chicago.”

  “Very good, Enrique! That will amuse my chief engineer! Where is Avellana? Does anyone know?”

  “I should guess Morote does.”

  “He won’t get away by sea. There are pickets of Fifth Division on the quays and the police launches are out. And the United States? What sort of sermon shall we hear from the dearly beloved brethren?”

  “If it interests you, come with me to Juan de Fonsagrada’s house. You may find out.”

  It occurred to Henry Penruddock that the captain’s streak of bitter common sense, exaggerated though it was, might be a useful solvent. Truth was what this eager, enigmatic American visitor was after, and he might not get it from Juan’s witty rotundities. As for himself, British consul and representative of trading interests, anything he said would be under suspicion from the start.

  “From whom?”

  “A journalist. And that’s quite true. But it is curious that he should want facts and not a story. By what I hear I think Washington is likely to listen to him. He arrived this morning, and he has already been to Vidal, his Embassy and me. He insisted on seeing Miro Kucera, but the doctors wouldn’t let him in. Now Juan has taken him over.”

  “To put Avellana’s case?”

  “One never knows. Juan is deep in with Avellana. But with his darling daughter suddenly hot for Vidal . . .”

  They crossed the Alameda into the recesses of the old city and rang the bell of the blank and secretive Fonsagrada gate. The consul could always tell from the porter’s expression what was going on. Pancho’s genial ape-face above the yellow-striped waistcoat was insinuating and confidential if Juan was giving one of his bachelor parties, immensely dignified if ushering guests into a formal dinner party, full of suppressed excitement if politics were in the air.

  “What he’d like would be an execution in the courtyard,” Penruddock whispered as the two
followed the porter through the house and into the patio.

  “Of course he would,” replied Captain Salinas. “It’s a dull life. At that level they have only three forms of excitement — bed, religion and bloodshed. But I won’t tell that to your American.”

  “He is probably convinced of it already. They tend to think us so much less civilized than we are.”

  What this Andrew MacKinlay thought could not in any case be told from his face. But it was certain that he did think — quickly and eagerly. Penruddock put him down as a New Englander, with one of their best universities behind him. He did not look at all the traditional newspaperman. He had the type of face which could belong to — well, a scientist with outdoor interests, or a tall farmer who had become an administrator. He spoke Spanish slowly and correctly. The consul hoped that Juan’s champagne would enable him to forget the correctitude and show his undoubted quality.

  He was certainly enjoying the peace and the low-branched beauty of the patio. Agueda, the red-haired pathologist, was playing housekeeper and serving drinks. Vita, that girl of black and luminous white — trying to compete with the blasted moon now, thought Penruddock jealously — was sitting with MacKinlay and Juan as if she were an adopted daughter. Another day the position might be reversed. Juan’s establishment always had an air of the most casual, well-bred ease; it was utterly impossible to tell whether his two hostesses were genuine assistants or not. About all that any man could guess — and for that he would have to be pretty sensitive — was that they were there primarily for decoration. Juan was perhaps right to claim that he was doing no more than follow the fashion of deep-carpeted, spindle-chaired offices. The only difference was that their receptionists and secretaries knocked off with the rest of the staff, whereas working hours in the Fonsagrada house might be anything at all.

  Juan obviously had realized that what his guest needed after a night in the air and a day crowded with visits was to relax. There was no hint of politics in the conversation. After introducing Paco Salinas, he sketched lightly for the American who he was and what he had done, involving them both in the flattering atmosphere of being part of history.

  “He recalls to me the tremendous manhood of our ancestors,” said Juan. “Do you ever think of the English as we do of the conquistadores?”

  “It’s hard to say,” MacKinlay replied. “In the last century, no. We were the men. They were the effete. Now, perhaps — Well, at least they make us wonder if we aren’t missing something, though that isn’t quite what you mean, Don Juan. They worry us. England is like Spain in one thing. Just when you think you have them taped, they throw incalculable individuals at you. The Mother of Democracy, but . . .”

  “You would think they had bought it on the Stock Exchange,” interrupted Paco Salinas. “Our towns had democracy while the precious Parliament of England was an Ateneo of illiterates in armor!”

  MacKinlay glanced at the consul with a half-smile of reassurance.

  “Don’t bother about me!” Penruddock said. “When they go too far I just remind them of Drake and Henry Morgan.”

  “And with relish!” Juan remarked. “Henry’s secret ambition is to sail from San Vicente with a shipload of screaming nuns.”

  “From what I have heard he would be gravely disappointed,” said Paco Salinas.

  There was an instant’s silence. All of them were conscious and thankful that they were not compelled to share the memories behind those calm eyes.

  “What did you think of Vidal?” Juan asked his guest.

  “May I speak frankly?”

  “In my house all is off the record, as you call it.”

  “Then I think Vidal is in the wrong country. He’s familiar to us in the United States. A politician all through. We can absorb that sort of man and make good use of him. Since he can work the elections, we find it difficult to get rid of him, just as you do. But sooner or later we have him out. So it’s hard for Americans to understand that down here it very often can’t be done without bloodshed. And the word ‘revolution’ doesn’t help. To us it means something big, like our own Revolution, or the French or the Russian. But to you it only means a change of government by methods which aren’t constitutional. If it hadn’t been for the brutality of Fifth Division —”

  “You never have to fire on a crowd in the United States?” asked Paco Salinas.

  “Things shouldn’t be allowed to get so tough.”

  “What about your own Civil War?”

  “Well, but you wouldn’t suggest Vidal was a Lincoln, Captain Salinas?”

  “Vidal is Vidal. What I do suggest is that Lincoln would have understood Kucera.”

  “If I could only talk to him for five minutes! The public wants the truth and — I’d like to put the Administration on the right lines if I can.”

  MacKinlay’s good looks aroused sympathy. Though a man in his late thirties, he had at that moment the expression of some charming youth quite unnecessarily concerned by the fact that he couldn’t fulfill his duty. It was that quality rather than any sharing of a common outlook which made Henry Penruddock feel that Salinas was harsh with him.

  “More important to us,” Paco commented drily, “is that Kucera’s internal hemorrhage should stop.”

  Juan de Fonsagrada smoothly comforted his guest.

  “If you want another angle to the story before you cable,” he said, “Captain Salvador Irala will be here soon. He is General Kucera’s A.D.C. and devoted to him.”

  The consul glanced quickly at Juan. There was nothing whatever to be seen in his dark and distinguished face but bland attention to hospitality. Did he realize that the impact of an agonized Irala upon MacKinlay was likely to be considerable? Did he understand the North American respect for generous youth? Irala had been — in principle if not in person — behind the Sten guns on the Palace steps. At the moment he could be a very powerful, unconscious ally for Vidal. Yet Juan was undoubtedly Avellanista.

  Paco Salinas had got up and was leaning on the parapet of the fountain talking to the black-haired Vita, playing the romantic and fatherly naval officer. A refreshing change for him, the consul thought. His usual contacts with the opposite sex belonged to the severely practical, undemanding world of the dockside. MacKinlay’s conversational Spanish was rapidly loosening up under the influence of the red-haired Chilean with the classic features and the warm, inquiring eyes. His absorption seemed more the American merry delight in beauty than a reconnaissance of the possibilities, but gave ample excuse for leaving them alone. Penruddock gathered up Juan, strolled with him round the outer path of the patio, and asked what in God’s name he was up to.

  “I don’t see why you shouldn’t know. I am showing my loyalty to the constitutional head of state, while strengthening the only possible opposition.”

  “It’s certainly going to need it. Does anybody know where Avellana is?”

  “Anything I tell you, Enrique, is in the strictest confidence. As between two business associates, shall I say?”

  “I am bound to report home.”

  “Tell them the truth — that Avellana is safe and the revolution far from over. When the plan to abduct Vidal failed, Gil took refuge here. He left last night on the back of a donkey with a small party of my own people and if he was picked up by plane at the rendezvous he should now be at Lérida. I believe in him. I think his ideas are worth a trial. At the same time I appreciate, while deploring, my son-in-law’s exaggerated sense of what is constitutional action. So all I was prepared to do for Gil was to assure his escape.”

  “He can’t do much up in Siete Dolores if San Vicente remains loyal to Vidal.”

  “That’s what we shall see, Enrique. The so-called Massacre of the Innocents — which they richly deserved for being ten minutes late in starting — is magnificent propaganda. Avellana now represents the country’s protest as well as its liberal ideals. And international protest is not beyond the bounds of possibility. You couldn’t arrange a march of students to Trafalgar Square, could y
ou?”

  “Is that what you’re up to with MacKinlay?”

  “I wouldn’t turn Salvador Irala loose on him if I was.”

  The consul threw out his hands in a gesture of despair.

  “It’s perfectly simple, Enrique. MacKinlay has been talking to his Embassy, who are all solidly in favor of Vidal. Having observed the quality of his country’s representatives in San Vicente he at once decided that they must be wrong, for which I do not blame him. He is also a cultured liberal in his tastes, so that for both reasons Gil Avellana would naturally be his choice. I am determined to switch his sympathies to Vidal.”

  “But why?”

  “Because, my dear and trusted friend, I am trying to imprint upon the unblushing cheek of Vidalismo the kiss of death.”

  “I see,” said the consul slowly. “At least I think I do.”

  “If there is one thing I am sure of, after watching and occasionally entering Latin-American politics, Enrique, it is that whenever the United States interferes in our quarrels the party which accepts its aid is doomed. We never forgive that. And my father would have said the same.”

  “Are you as sure of that in the nineteen-fifties as the nineteen-thirties?”

  “Tell me a case where it wasn’t so.”

  “I can’t, Juan. But that’s worth nothing. Sooner or later both sides are doomed. They swap about.”

  “Even you don’t quite understand us. Look at it this way, Enrique. If the Yankees declare openly that they approve of Vidal, while all Latin-America is demonstrating against the Massacre of the Innocents, what could be better for Avellana?”