by Warren Adler
"And you would give me money?" he asked.
"I would give you anything. Anything." she said, feeling a surge of happiness. "Anything," she repeated, her hand caressing his genitals now. "You are beautiful," she said.
"Beautiful?" he paused. "You are seeing something I do not comprehend."
"You don't understand?"
"No."
And me? she wanted to ask. How do you see me? An aging woman. What is more undesirable than an aging woman?
"You think I'm a silly love-struck fool?" She was sorry to have said it.
"No." Again she wanted to ask him. Do you love me? How do you see me? But she held back, her courage faltering.
"I mean it, Eduardo. I will give you anything within my power to give you." It was the sound of an old fairy tale, and she was the queen ... or the witch.
"Then I must ask you."
She continued to caress him, feeling his eyes on her, watchful. She waited. His sexuality lay dormant as his mind reacted.
"This thing cannot be done without money. It is essential. It must be funded from a private source. In that way, our bargaining power increases."
Gently, he put his hands on hers to freeze the caress. "You see. If we take the money from the Cubans, our bargaining power decreases. We lose essential control. Above all, we must not lose control. And this is the essential difference. We are not interested in the brotherhood of socialism. What we do must be indigenous to Chile. It must be completely Chilean. That is the essential difference." He was becoming agitated. "They, the Americans, think of this thing of Chile's as some worldwide conspiracy, based on the export of the Soviets and their urge for hegemony, the domination of the world, with Chile being the first phase of the domination of the South American continent. What we want is for Chile alone. Only Chile. You see. That is the point of the manifesto. Things will follow in their natural course. Just as in Chile. Indigenous."
She listened, but absorbed little.
"How much do you need?"
"A quarter of a million."
Perhaps I should be hesitant in my answer, she told herself, feeling suddenly an odd sense of power. Power over him. Like Biff. She savored the discovered moment, time suspended, a new and greater sense of herself than she had ever felt before.
"In gold Krugers," he said.
"Gold Krugers?"
"Coins. Each Kruger an ounce. A better exchange than money."
"When do you want it?" She felt his anxiety now. The frozen caress thawed. He removed his hand and she put her lips on his face, letting them roam over his eyes, his nose, finding his lips, then after a long kiss, his ear.
"Anything, my darling. Anything."
"I can't believe it," he whispered.
"Whatever is mine is yours, darling Eduardo."
"You see, Miranda," he said suddenly. The words were clear.
"What?"
He sighed.
"It is nothing." He moved over her. She wanted to ask him to explain, but she said nothing.
XIII
It was shame. Dobbs recognized the emotion, the same secretive guiltridden feeling that he had when he reached behind the bookcase in his own home to bring out that pornographic magazine he had once purchased in a Washington bookstore. For days, he had worried that he had been spotted by them, the watchers of the watchers, as they referred slyly to CIA internal control. He had even fretted over whether or not he had erred in locking the magazine in the trunk of his car. And when he got it into his house, slipped between the pages of the evening paper, he had racked his mind for a good place to hide it.
The bookcase in his study was, he was sure, an excellent place, although he lived in fear that in a frenzy of inspired housecleaning his wife would find it. Sometimes he hoped she would, evidence of his guilty secret, the symbol of his vulnerability. It would prove his lack of impotence. It would show her that there was still the old craving. How then could he better tell her how she had killed it in him by her disinterest? Eduardo, you sly bastard, he whispered, sure now of his presence in the room. How I envy you your passion? That was the question which described the nub of his shame, his personal shame.
His professional shame was that he could not have foreseen what was emerging between Eduardo and the three women. Never mind that it had aborted his carefully planned surveillance. He had been betrayed by himself. That was why he was searching through these papers, the random words that strung together to describe a life which he could not touch with his understanding. It haunted him now. And he knew it would obsess him throughout the rest of his dry, barren life. Why? Why had he been unable to foresee?
He reached for a file marked "Palmero-Valdivia." He had seen it once, glanced over it with little interest or comprehension. Now he opened its pages and began to study the transcript.
"Translated from the Araucanian dialect," the line above the text read and under it was a brief history of the Araucanian Indians. No matter how many of them were butchered by the conquistadors and by later "liberators," they had never surrendered. They were the only Indian tribe in the Americas that had never surrendered, the writer had pointed out with, it seemed to Dobbs, unprofessional pride.
"And you first saw Palermo when he came to write a story about your village?"
The old man had nodded. He was small and wizened, the interrogator had pointed out. There apparently was an interpreter present, and the interview seemed choppy.
"It was for the party magazine," the interrogator added. "And your daughter first saw him then?"
The old man had nodded again. His face registered no expression.
"She was working for the mission," he said, pointing to the mission wall, beyond which rose the ancient steeple of an old Spanish church. "She was fourteen and somehow she had remained pure, a virgin."
"How did you know this?"
"We knew."
"And she simply disappeared with him?"
"He said he wanted her." The old man turned his eyes away, looking into the ground with guilt.
"What did he give you?"
The old man shrugged.
"How much?"
"Two hundred. It was more money than I had ever seen at one time in all of my life."
"And he took her away?"
"Yes."
"And then?"
"She came back."
"And where is she now?"
The old man shrugged.
"I have money," the interrogator said. The old man began to talk again.
Eduardo had expected his anger at Miranda, at himself, to abate in Valdivia. Instead, it intensified, and although he threw himself into his work with vigor and zealousness, he could not wipe it out. Perhaps it was the anger that added the fire to his speeches to the dock workers, the farmers, and factory hands and gave more bite to the articles he wrote for the party paper. Allende and the other party functionaries sent him long letters of commendation. He worked tirelessly, more out of fear that, if he should slow down, he would be tormented by his memories of Miranda. He saw her face everywhere, imagined her body, even as he copulated with the whores of Valdivia.
Since he had not the constitution to drink heavily, he found his escape only in women. Somehow it was the only way he could escape the torment, as if he could lose himself in the imagined womb of Miranda.
"Say nothing," he would tell them. "I will pay you double if you do not speak." They looked at him with thickly made-up, startled eyes.
He had rented a small house in a decaying neighborhood not far from the city's center and just a few blocks from the party headquarters. Because it was so close, it became another meeting place for the party workers, who swarmed over the house as if it were their own. Sometimes, if offered drinks or food, they would stay long into the night. He hated to be alone. Yet he was deliberately aloof, except when it came to party matters. Luckily, the level of intensity among the party workers was high and their absorption in these matters could sustain their interest.
Because he was wealthier t
han the others, he was treated with exaggerated respect and he was able to deflect any attempts at intimacy, especially by the women, many of them young students who formed the bulwark of the party's support, after the workers.
It was not that he didn't want them. With all women now, he could feel a sense of Miranda in them, but the prospect of intimacy, communication, thwarted him. He preferred the whores. He could pay them to be silent, to offer nothing but their bodies.
His father, he discovered from others who came to the city on business, was so upset with him, his pride so offended, that one could not mention Eduardo's name in his presence. He had even forbidden his mother and sisters to communicate with him. This he had expected. Eduardo's betrayal had been deep, and he was certain that Miranda, who played the role of abandoned wife with great aplomb, had not helped the situation.
What did it matter, he told himself. Their lives were fantasy-ridden, dissolute with greed. The curtain was swiftly coming down on their way of life. It was tragic that they could not see it happening or, fearing its demise, did nothing to stop it. In his mind, he could wipe out much of his previous life. All except Miranda!
It was worse, surely far worse, than a physical affliction to ache for her, to want her. And yet she would do her "duty." To contemplate it made him ashamed of his manhood, his inability to control the focus of his desire. It was with Uno that he discovered the depths of his damnation.
He had seen her first in the mission, a child-woman not much older than her wards, emaciated children who played in a dust bowl at the far end of the mission wall. The old padre was showing him around the mission, his myopic eyes squinting into the sun-drenched courtyard. Eduardo had come to the village, a tiny hamlet wedged into the edge of the Cordillera about fifty miles north of Valdivia, armed with a writing tablet and his camera and bent on using the plight of the Araucanians as a symbol of the ultimate dehumanization of the Chilean ruling class. The government had declared the Araucanians a kind of protected endangered species, but that had done little to relieve their extreme poverty.
"They are children," the old padre sighed as his bent body labored to make the long hegira around the littered courtyard. It was the fashionable epithet of the Church, whose power had always been on the side of the oligarchs. Eduardo outwardly expressed sympathy with the old man's opinions. The objective, of course, was to portray the opposite view. He was beginning to learn the power of charm, dissembling to achieve a specific goal.
"The best they can look forward to is the kingdom of heaven," the old man said. As he approached the spot where the children were playing, they suddenly stopped and stood at attention. When he passed before them, they each bowed and kissed his ring, while he blessed them with the sign of the cross. Uno stood a few feet away, watching the spectacle approvingly. It gave Eduardo a chance to view her, a doll-like creature, barefoot, her skin the color of cocoa, hardly more than four and a half feet, but well proportioned. Her eyes watched him briefly, then turned quickly away as he concentrated his gaze on her. The ceremony over, she shepherded the children back to the dustbowl, where she seemed to be administering some kind of game with sticks and stones.
He continued to watch her as she moved. Considering her shabby gray smock, tied at the waist, there was an odd grace to her walk, and when she turned in a swift motion, her hair rustling as if a breeze had caught it, he knew why he had observed her with such interest. She seemed a tiny, dark replica of Miranda, a primitive doll carved from the petrified wood found beyond the last timber-line of the Cordillera.
The old man had moved away, and it was only when he called to Eduardo that he interrupted his concentration.
"I was curious about the game," Eduardo said, to cover his embarrassment. But his thoughts were with the small child-woman.
"A simple game," the old padre said. "They play it all their lives. They are the meek." he whispered. "The Son of God has put them in our care."
Eduardo checked his temptation to enlighten. Nothing had changed in this village for centuries.
"And do they still practice the old tribal customs?" he asked gently.
The old man shrugged. It was a question he deigned not to answer. A bell rang in the steeple and the children stopped their play and straggled into the church. Again he had an opportunity to watch the girl as she led the motley group toward them.
"May I take their picture?" Eduardo asked.
The old padre motioned to the girl, who came forward, her head bowed. He spoke to her in an odd-sounding dialect. She responded with a whispered word and lined the children against the sun-drenched wall, then stepped away.
"And her, too," Eduardo said. He motioned to her while the old man spoke to her.
He began to take their pictures, stepping closer as he snapped, finally capturing her alone in the lens as he moved forward. She seemed frightened, her lips tight, her eyes lowered.
"What is her name?"
The old padre mumbled her name. It sounded like Uno, but he knew that was not correct. It will be Uno then, he told himself.
"Tell her to smile," Eduardo requested, wondering how far he could go with the old man.
"She does not know what that means."
"Then tell her something funny that will make her laugh."
"They do not laugh," the old man said, his contempt showing now. Eduardo did not press the point, but snapped his pictures, then put his camera back in its case. The old man waved the children away and they continued their ragged march through a stone door, from which came the smell of food.
"Why don't they laugh?" Eduardo asked, wondering if the question would end his interview. The old man looked at him through his myopic eyes.
"Would you laugh if you were them?" It seemed an incongruous answer. He had expected something like, "It is God's will." The walk had wearied the old man and he sat down on the steps at the entrance of the broken-down stone church. He had hoped that the old padre would be his interpreter. He wanted to visit in the village, to take pictures. He had already shaped the story in his mind. There was enough squalor to portray their plight.
"Is there someone in the village who also speaks Spanish?" he asked the old man, who was beginning to drowse, oblivious to the flies that swirled about his nose.
"Terrano," the padre said, pausing. "The girl's father."
"Where is he?" He felt his palms begin to sweat.
The padre pointed in the direction of the village, a vague gesture. The old man, he could tell, was growing bored with him.
He started to go. Then, hesitating, he halted, watching the old man, the eyelids heavy with fatigue, the gray hairs sprouting on his face. The image of the girl hung in his mind. Uno! Although he had long been an atheist, he felt the sense of blasphemy in his thoughts about the girl, a corruption in himself. It is Miranda, he assured himself. Part of her curse.
"Could you ask the girl to show me to her father?" he said. He had already dipped his hand in his pocket and when the old man opened his eyes he saw the money.
"And this contribution," Eduardo said, "for your trouble." His hypocrisy was an obscenity.
The sight of the money revitalized the old man, confirming Eduardo's cynicism. The padre clapped his hands a number of times in quick succession. The girl appeared and the padre spoke to her in the strange language. Without looking at him, the girl nodded and began to move away toward the courtyard entrance.
"He is an old fox," the padre said to Eduardo. "Keep an eye on your pockets." Then the aged eyes closed again, and looking back as he reached the courtyard entrance, he saw the ancient head reposing on the old man's chest.
Outside the mission, Eduardo followed the girl closely, watching her swift, graceful movements, the easy swing of her girl-woman hips, noting how well formed her legs were, tapered at the ankles, her feet not yet swollen like those of the other Indian women. They came into a clearing, a clutter of litter and rusting junk. The stink was abominable. A small, dark, muscular man sat in the entrance of a makeshift shack with
a corrugated tin roof. From the interior of the shack came the cackling of women's voices in the strange dialect. Barefoot children roamed about the clearing with scrawny dogs. When they saw the girl, they clustered around her skirts, but she waved them away.
The dark man, his small body like rip cord except for a slightly distended belly, watched the oncoming man without interest. His daughter spoke to him and he looked up desultorily. The girl moved away and squatted some distance from them. Eduardo's eyes followed her. It was only then that he noted the man's engaging interest.
"You speak Spanish?" Eduardo asked. He did not use the same tone of deference he had used with the padre.
"Why?" the old man asked in Spanish. His teeth were rotted and his lips snarled as he spoke.
"I--" Eduardo hesitated, feeling the girl's father's eyes searching him. Is he reading my mind? Eduardo wondered. There seemed an edge of cruelty about the man's fierceness. "I am interested in telling the story of your village," Eduardo said. The words seemed hollow. He looked briefly at the girl, who turned her eyes to the ground. He tore his gaze away.
"What story?" the man said. He picked up a tin can from the hard ground and drank from it. It seemed a kind of beer, a greenish liquid that dripped from both sides of his chin. He did not bother to wipe it away, letting the droplets linger until they fell to his chest
"The Araucanians," Eduardo said stupidly. The man drank again. Eduardo felt Uno's eyes watching him.
The man's eyes narrowed. He emptied the can and threw it at one of the dogs. He was obviously drunk. The barefoot children had vanished into the air, along with the scrawny dogs. Eduardo took his camera out of its case and pointed it at the man, who put both his hands in front of his face. He had imagined that the man was ignorant of cameras. An old fox, he thought. The padre is right.
"I have money."
Eduardo felt his shame, looking briefly at the girl, who again turned her eyes to the ground. He fanned the bills in his hands.
At the sight of the cash, the man's eyes opened wide. "A story, you said," the man mumbled. It was obvious that he did not comprehend.