The Squares of the City (47 page)

“All I have secured is a postponement of what I most desired to avoid,” he said musingly. “And at what a cost to my conscience—perhaps to my soul. … But that is between me and my people. To you I will only say—
adios.
Forgive me.”

He must have read in my face that I would not have shaken his hand, for he turned on his heel and left the room.

In a few moments the butler returned, bearing the money—I didn’t trouble to count it. My car was at the door. I went to it with a sense of overpowering relief, as if I had been released from shackles I had worn since birth and never known I had on.

“The airport,” I said to the driver as I climbed in; he nodded and let the car roll forward.

I felt partly as though I were running away, partly as though I were escaping from unjust bondage. And that was parallel to the true situation. I was running away, because unknowingly I had helped to create this terrible situation; I was also escaping, because I had not understood.

Beyond the gatehouse, we could see out over the city. The flaring of the monorail central was like a red hole in the jeweled face of the city. There was a black hole, too—all the streetlights had been extinguished for an area of ten blocks near the Plaza del Norte. The driver stared incredulously for a moment—of course, I realized, he might not yet have heard—and accelerated slightly.

Then, about a quarter-mile down the road, a light leaped up and faded behind us. I swung around in my seat. Another flash followed, and this time I caught the trail before the explosion. It was a rocket.

Now the façade of Presidential House had two notches torn from it, like gaps in a row of teeth. The emplacement must be across the other side of the city, I reasoned, and the aiming was fantastically good.

“Hurry!” I snapped at the driver. He nodded and increased speed a second time. I was afraid of reaching the airport only to find that Vados’s authority no longer held good and the promised plane had been diverted to another purpose.

I was lucky. The plane was waiting, with its pilot, who was cursing the fact that he had to leave Ciudad de Vados at this of all times, but who respected an order direct from his president sufficiently to obey it regardless. Since Vados was quite possibly dead by this time, I judged it better to leave without waiting for my belongings. I gave a hundred dolaros to an overzealous customs officer to get him out of my hair, and within ten minutes of reaching the airport I was aloft.

The plane was a little side-by-side jet trainer, with the one cockpit for pilot and student pilot. I glanced at my companion’s round dark face.

“If you wish to circle the city… ?” I suggested. He gave me a puzzled look and then nodded, banking the little plane into a sharp turn.

“We may be shot at,” he pointed out. But he waited to say that until we were already swinging around the city.

The fire at the monorail station was dying bit by bit, and greasy smoke masked some of its glow. But it was no longer alone—we could see a dozen such fires now, some of them large and brilliant. A second rocket battery had opened up and was lobbing its missiles at random into the town; one of them by chance fell near the cathedral in the Plaza del Oeste and knocked the three-hundred-foot cross to a canting angle. A mob carrying huge flaming crosses (whose idea was
that.
I wondered) had descended on the shantytown on the Puerto Joaquin road to wreck and burn, and it was clear even from our height there were thousands of people in the crowd.

“
Madre de Dios,
” said my pilot simply and flatly. “Ah,
madre de Dios
!”

And then, as he disgustedly drove the aircraft into a fast, steep climb, another crowd began to detach itself from the lights of the city, like a snake winding slowly from an egg. This one was flowing up the hill to Presidential House.

So there was an end to the rules of the game. Now there would simply be slaughter.

The city grew smaller behind us. The height ticked up on the altimeter—five hundred, eight hundred, a thousand meters. I thought of everything I was carrying away with me—all the burden of knowledge that weighted me down. Knowledge without which any man, anywhere, any time, might be turned into a chesspiece and moved across some vast imaginary board, behaving and reacting with all the predictability of a lump of carved wood.

So maybe no one would believe me. So probably the files which detailed the incredible game played on the squares of Ciudad de Vados were buried under rubble in Presidential House. So maybe I’d have to carry that burden of knowledge by myself. Was that a good reason why I should also carry the burden of guilt? And I was guilty without realizing it. Anyone is guilty who has so far renounced his right to think and act rationally that someone else can press his buttons and make him dance.

I reached across and tapped the pilot on the shoulder. I said, “If you wish, you may turn back.”

There were phones in the lobby of the airport reception building; fortunately the system was still in full operation. I dialed with fingers that felt more like thumbs, and with a surge of relief I heard Maria Posador’s own voice, tense and urgent at my ear.

“Listen,” I said. “You’ve got to listen. You’re not going to want to believe me, but you’ve got to listen, because what I’m going to sav is very, very important.”

“Boyd!” she said, recognizing the voice. “Yes, go ahead. Please go ahead. I’m listening.”

Author’s Note

The persons, places, and events described in
The Squares of the City
are, of course, entirely imaginary.

The techniques whereby the human “chessmen” are described as having been moved are—regrettably—
not
entirely imaginary. Certainly they do not exist today as they are pictured here. Nonetheless, they are foreshadowed in the methods of present-day advertising, which are being more and more often applied to politics, and history is full of what one might call nonprofessional application of tricks like the Big Lie and guilt by association which in the hands of accomplished and determined men have served to direct and control the thoughts and actions of large populations.

The game of chess itself is not imaginary at all. It is Steinitz-Tchigorin (Havana) 1892, precisely as recorded in the Penguin handbook
The Game of Chess
by H. Golombek. Every move of the game has a counterpart in the action of the story, with the partial exception that castling is implied and not overt. The individuals who correspond to the “pieces” have powers roughly commensurate with those of the pawns and officers they represent.

Naturally, since none of the “pieces” are aware that they are being “moved,” including the narrator Boyd Hakluyt, many events not directly equivalent to the moves of the game are recorded in the story. But the moves are all there, in their correct order and—so far as possible—in precise correspondence with their effect on the original game. That is to say, support of one piece by another on its own side, threatening of one or more pieces by a piece on the other side, indirect threats and the actual taking of pieces, are all as closely represented as possible in the development of the action.

The game is three moves short as played in the story, owing to the failure of Maria Posador to kill Boyd Hakluyt and Hakluyt’s discovery of the truth. As originally continued, Black resigned on move 38.

For the benefit of the curious reader, I append a table of the “pieces” involved in the game, with a note—where applicable—of their ultimate fate.

Pieces

White

QR
Bishop Cruz
QRP
Estrelita Jaliscos

QKt
Luis Arrio
QKtP
Dr. Alonzo Ruiz

QB
Judge Romero
QBP
Nicky Caldwell

Q
Alejandro Mayor
QP
Andres Lucas

K
Juan Sebastian Vados
KP
Mario Guerrero

KB
Donald Angers
KBP
Seixas

KKt
Boyd Hakluyt
KKtP
Isabela Cortés

KR
Professor Cortés
KRP
Enrique Rioco

Black

QR
General Molinas
QRP
Fernando Sigueiras

QKt
Maria Posador
QKtP
Fats Brown

QB
José Dalban
QBP
Pedro Murieta

Q
Cristoforo Mendoza
QP
Sam Francis

K
Estebán Diaz
KP
Juan Tezol

KB
Felipe Mendoza
KBP
Guyiran

KKt
Miguel Dominguez
KKtP
Castaldo

KR
Tomas O’Rourke
KRP
Gonzales

(
el Jefe
)

Taken in the course of play—White

QKt (Luis Arrio) denounced to police by Pedro Murieta for killing Felipe Mendoza in a duel.

QB (Judge Romero) removed from office for incompetence at instigation of Miguel Dominguez.

Q (Alejandro Mayor) burned to death in television station following threats by José Dalban.

QRP (Estrelita Jaliscos) killed in fall from window in apartment belonging to Fats Brown.

QBP (Nicky Caldwell) suffered mental breakdown following exposure of his false charges against Pedro Murieta.

QP (Andres Lucas) imprisoned on charges of complicity in blackmailing of Fats Brown brought by Miguel Dominguez.

KP (Mario Guerrero) killed by Sam Francis for insulting the color of his skin.

Taken in the course of play—Black

QB (José Dalban) bankrupted and driven to suicide by Luis Arrio.

Q (Cristoforo Mendoza) jailed for contempt by Judge Romero following the closing of his newspaper
Tiempo.

KB (Felipe Mendoza) killed in duel with Luis Arrio.

QRP (Fernando Sigueiras) jailed after moving peasant family into Angers’ apartment.

QKtP (Fats Brown) shot by Angers when under suspicion of murdering Estrelita Jaliscos.

QP (Sam Francis) said to have committed suicide in jail while awaiting trial for murder of Mario Guerrero.

KP (Juan Tezol) jailed by Judge Romero for nonpayment of fine.