The Immigrant’s Daughter (39 page)

Could it be that out of today they had both come to a point where civilization had to be viewed as a mockery, where the embrace of the murder machine in this tiny country by a presumably modern, civilized government was a swan song for everything either of them had ever believed in? Was it some crazy, doomed passion play that was being enacted here as a prelude to an atomic holocaust that would end life on this planet forever? Or was it simply a nightmare? Was she here at all? Didn't it make more sense to accept this moment as a dream from which she would awaken safe in her bedroom on Green Street?

“I am so bloody sorry,” Abrahams said suddenly.

She didn't ask why. She was equally sorry, but it was tangled into so many knots that she knew no way to put it into words.

Whatever else was a dream, the heavy-duty Chevrolet four-wheel-drive wagon blocking the road in front of them was very real. They were about two miles from the slums on the outskirts of San Salvador. It was late in the afternoon. Three soldiers stood next to the wagon, which was painted in camouflage colors and bore the insignia of the National Guard. As they came up to the wagon and stopped, Barbara saw that one of the three was an officer. He was a fat, mustached man, sweating and wiping his face with a wet shirt sleeve.

“Get out of the car,” the fat man said in Spanish.

Abrahams, in a deliberately cheery voice, speaking English, said, “Right-o, old chap. We're a couple of correspondents out for a look-see at the countryside —” Climbing out of the jeep, he whispered to Barbara, “Let me handle this, love.”

“No English!” the officer said emphatically. “Out of the car!” pointing to Barbara.

As she got out of the car, Abrahams said, “My Spanish is rotten. Don't any of you speak English?”

One of the soldiers said, “She's an old crow.”

“You unwrap an old crow, you find a fat chicken.”

“Maybe.”

“You two horny bastards shut up,” the officer yelled. And to Abrahams, “You understand some Spanish?”

“Some.”

“You come from the Communists? A big story, the Communists. You tell the whole world about them. You know something,” he said, drawing his pistol, a heavy automatic, “I piss all over you filthy Yankee writers.”

“I'm British.”

“Worse. I shit on the British.”

During this, one of the soldiers walked up to Barbara, grinned at her, and then with one quick motion tore open her blouse and brassiere, exposing her breasts. After that, things happened very quickly. As the soldier cried, “How about it? Look at those tits! Am I right, stupid?” Abrahams leaped defensively toward Barbara, and the officer hit Abrahams savagely across the face with his pistol. Abrahams went down on his knees, holding his bleeding face. Barbara shouted at the soldier who had ripped her shirt. “You filthy pig! You son of a sow! Don't you dare touch me again!”

“Hey, listen to that fancy Spanish!” the other soldier said. “She has a lisp, like a real, high-class pig.”

His voice breaking with pain, Abrahams managed to shout, “You damn fools, she's the Spanish ambassador's wife!” The sentence was mangled. It came out indicating that the Spanish ambassador was Barbara's wife, and the two soldiers began to laugh. The officer looked at Barbara, who returned his gaze with utter contempt, so angry at this point that if she had had a gun, all her scruples would have disappeared, and she would have shot him. All the agony, fear and heartsickness at what she had seen during the past weeks took hold of her, and for the second time that day, and this time with all her strength, she struck a man, this time the National Guard officer. So unexpected was her action, so out of tune with anything the officer might have anticipated, that he was taken completely by surprise, both before the blow and after the blow. The slap was hard enough to rock him. The two soldiers froze, not moving, not speaking, and the officer raised his gun and pointed it at Barbara's breast.

“Go ahead,” she said, speaking clearly but lisping, recalling how the Mexicans at the winery would mock Castilian Spanish, and using every bit of Castilian pronunciation she could call to mind. “Shoot me. Shoot the wife of the Spanish ambassador — and how long will you live then? You pig, there won't even be a trial. They'll terminate you and they won't even mark your grave. I am Señora Francesca Dolores d'AragÓn Isabella”— and then, to herself, Oh, God, give me the name of the Spanish ambassador. She had met him, but right now, in this interval of seconds, in this matter of life and death, she could not recall his name. So having invented four given names, she topped them off with an equally desperate invention — “Castilla,” which could be either a Christian name or a family name. “So,” she continued haughtily, disdaining to cover her bare breasts, “if you desire an international incident that will end God only knows where, rape me and kill Señor Abrahams. If you dare. Not even your children will know where your corpses lie. No, the dogs will eat them!” With that, she ran out of ideas, names, notions and bravado as well, and simply stood still and straight, trying to look as arrogant as possible, and fighting with every ounce of determination she could muster to refrain from covering her breasts and bursting into tears.

Still the soldiers did not move, and the fat man stared at her thoughtfully. She was certain he was going to ask for her papers, and that would have ended everything, but he did not, and after a long, long moment, he said, brusquely, “I am sorry, but this happens. We are at war.”

“I understand that,” Barbara said gracefully.

“Can you drive?” he asked Abrahams, who was climbing painfully to his feet, his handkerchief pressed to the cut on his swollen cheek. “If not, I will give you one of my men to drive you.”

“I will drive,” Barbara said firmly, now pulling her blouse together.

“I am sorry for what my men did. They are pigs. But what can we do? We are pressed for recruits.”

Abrahams had climbed into the jeep, Barbara getting in on the driver's side. “I will try to lighten your punishment,” Barbara said, and Abrahams whispered to her, “Get us out of this bloody farce, and stop being Queen Isabella.”

She turned on the ignition and put the car into gear. The soldiers were moving to get their car off the blocked road, but without waiting Barbara drove behind the wagon and then back on the road, resisting the impulse to go tearing away at top speed. But the road was so bad that she had to drive slowly and carefully.

A few moments later, she asked Abrahams, “Have they gone?”

“Off in the other direction. They're about out of sight.”

She put the car into neutral, pulled up the hand brake, and burst into hysterical tears.

Abrahams watched her for a while, and then, rather impatiently, told her, “That's enough, Barbara.”

“We're dead,” she sobbed. “We're dead and buried.”

“Not buried. I agree that we're dead, but you're not a nun and I'm not a priest.”

“They only bury nuns and priests?”

“That's right. You and me, they leave us lying on the roadside in the rain. Now will you get this bloody car back to town before they remember that the ambassador's wife is in Madrid?”

“God Almighty, is she?”

“I think so.”

Barbara slammed the jeep into gear and sent it hurtling and swaying down the road to San Salvador. Her hysteria disappeared, and when Abrahams pleaded that she would kill both of them, the way she was driving, she hissed, “I hope so, you limey bastard. You put me right into that. Oh, yes! Here's the Spanish ambassador's wife. Suppose they had looked at my papers? I would be raped and dead because some smartass limey was creative!”

“Creative, hell! That fat little bastard was going to kill me. So I took a chance. You know why I did it?”

“Tell me.”

“Because I admire you. Because I think you're wonderful, because I think you can handle anything, and by God, you did. Oh, that was bloody wonderful! He wouldn't dare ask you for your papers. You know why? Because those National Guard creatures are the lowest form of human life. They could give points to the Nazis. Yes, they're bloody good when it comes to murdering nuns and unarmed men, but give them a proper tongue-lashing in a manner out of their own culture — if you can call it culture — and they'll crawl. Anyway, odds are he can't read, and every word I say is killing me, so please slow down and get me to a doctor.”

But once in the city, Abrahams changed his mind. “No doctor,” he said. “I don't trust any of them.”

“Your office?”

“No. It's too late and they don't have anything there. I don't think my jaw or cheekbone is broken. Let's get to your place. Do you have anything?”

“I have a sort of Boy Scout first-aid kit.”

In her suite, Barbara washed the cut with gin while Abrahams cried out in anguish. One whole side of his face was swollen, and the pain was so obvious that Barbara was filled with guilt. She had tongue-lashed him, her dear patient friend. She carefully squeezed antibiotic cream on the wound, which had now stopped bleeding, and she patched it together with two large Band-Aids. She assured him that it would hold through the night, but insisted that he see a doctor the following day. “There must be someone you can trust.”

“Maybe Joe Felshun. He's the dentist in town.”

“A dentist?”

“He's better than most of the doctors, and at least he has an x-ray machine.”

“I suppose so. He can tell whether any bones are broken. Are you hungry?” Barbara asked. “It's almost seven, and we haven't eaten all day.”

“I can't chew. Maybe some soup.”

“I'm starved,” Barbara said. “Room service is no good. I'll go downstairs and talk to your friend Angelo.”

She decided to shower and change clothes. Her blouse was held together by the single button that had survived. It was incredible that she could stand here like this, washing, looking at her face in the mirror, reasonably calm, after having escaped death a few hours before through a childish ploy that was both improbable and ridiculous. Death without dignity was matched by escape without dignity, and both events had taken place in a sadistic, sweating madhouse of a country. Well, one brushed one's teeth and changed one's clothes and reflected on how very much the brushing of teeth had become a symbol of one's bringing-up and of the bringing-up of millions of others, not an exercise of brotherhood or sisterhood or compassion or charity, but simply the brushing of teeth.

After Barbara had changed her blouse and substituted a skirt for jeans, she remembered that she had aspirin, and brought out three tablets for Abrahams. He lay on the couch, his eyes closed, and when she asked in a whisper whether he was asleep, he said, “No — no indeed, love. I have been contemplating life and death. You saved my life, old girl. I can never properly thank you for that.”

“What nonsense. You wouldn't have been out there if I hadn't talked you into it.”

“No one actually talks anyone into anything. What do you have there, love?”

“Aspirin. Three. Can you take three?”

“Always do.”

She gave him the aspirin and a glass of water. He grimaced as he opened his mouth.

“I'll go down now and pick up some food.”

“Right-o.”

“Just lie there and rest.”

Downstairs, in the dining room, the
Times
man rose from a table where he was dining with three other men and intercepted Barbara. “I hear, Miss Lavette, that Cliff Abrahams has been badly beaten.”

“We had a small accident in his jeep. Nothing very serious. I've patched him up and tomorrow we'll see a doctor.”

“You're sure — nothing very serious? I heard his face had been badly mashed.”

“Oh, no. Nothing like that.”

“If I can be of any help?”

“Thank you.”

Apparently there were no secrets in San Salvador, and the waiter Angelo said to her, “He's still alive, Señor Abrahams?”

“Very much alive. A small accident. His mouth was hurt. Do you have any soup?”

“Good black bean soup. Also, some mashed spiced avocado, soft and delicious. I'll bring it up to your room. He's there?”

“Yes.”

“And for you?”

“Anything. Chicken. Whatever.”

“I'll bring it.”

Back in her suite, Abrahams sat with his hands pressed to his forehead. “But I'm all right,” he said in response to her look of alarm. “Just a rotten headache.”

When Angelo came with the food, Abrahams was at first unwilling to touch it, protesting that whatever appetite he might have had was now gone. Barbara insisted that he must taste the soup, and after the first mouthful, he continued to eat until the bowl was empty. He ate slowly and apparently painfully.

“I can't talk, old love,” he said. “I mean, it hurts like the very devil. So forgive me if I simply shut up.”

“I understand,” Barbara said.

He refused her offer of the bed. Instead, he took the couch and chair cushions and laid them out on the floor. Barbara, more exhausted than she could remember ever having been, crawled into bed and fell asleep almost immediately. Sometime during the night she awakened, disoriented, her body warmed by the pressure of another body alongside. Reaching out, she felt the skinny chest of Abrahams. He lay beside her, unmoving, giving no clue as to whether he was asleep or awake; and Barbara did not test this, feeling that she understood only too well his loneliness and his need. She fell asleep again, and when she awakened, she was alone in her bed, and the door to the bedroom was closed. The night had done little to slake her weariness, a kind of fatigue that was as much mental as physical. She bathed and then dressed. In the tiny living room of her suite Abrahams was reading a copy of
La Prensa Gráfica
and muttering, half to himself, “Lies, bloody damn lies.” He looked up at Barbara and attempted a smile, which made him wince. “Good sleep?”