Thing to Love (3 page)

The trumpeter corporal looked desperately at all the objects to his immediate front, and then met the amused eyes of Irala.

“For the captain,” he said helpfully.

“Do you not know the name of your country?”

“Oh, yes, my General — Guayanas!”

“And would you die for Guayanas?”

“Oh, yes, my General, if you ordered it.”

Captain Irala pulled at his short, black mustache to hide his laughter.

“Your political opinions?”

The trumpeter corporal was silent. He was under the impression that he had definite political opinions. He wanted a change of government. For what purpose he could not say. Before the representative of government in the person of the general his reasons seemed inadequate. But a change — that was very necessary.

“Do you know what Communism is?”

“Yes, my General,” the trumpeter replied eagerly — he felt he was on safe ground at last. “It is what they are accused of, when they live in the Barracas and are against the Church and the police. But I have never had trouble with the law, my General. My General, the sergeant will tell you that I am a good soldier. I do not say we have not had words. One cannot always please a sergeant. That is why he is paid more. But you will speak for me, Verecundo, is it not true?” he added, turning his head to the sergeant in appeal.

“Eyes front!” the sergeant roared. His embarrassment at this use of his Christian name gave a purple patina to his dark bronze face.

Miro permitted the party to stand at ease. It was obvious that truth was now on the way, but only to be reached in a less formal atmosphere. He wondered at the change in himself since he had learned how to handle this Army of primitive individualists. He would never be able to command European troops again.

“Is it true that this man is a good soldier, Sergeant?” he asked.

“Up to now I had no reason to complain,” the sergeant admitted.

“Good! Now, Corporal, why did you spit upon the flag?”

“I spat upon the ground, my General,” Menendez wailed.

“At so solemn a moment?”

“I did not think.”

“That is no excuse. Why did you spit?”

“I do not know, my General.”

Pepe Menendez closed down desperately upon his secret for a moment. To lose his dignity was worse than to be shot.

“I believe anything. I see everything,” said Miro impressively, his dark blue eyes fixed so fiercely upon the trumpeter that Pepe Menendez had not the slightest doubt that his thoughts were being read. “And it does not seem to me ridiculous. Between comrades there is nothing you cannot say.”

“Well, it was like this,” stammered the trumpeter finally, in a rush. “The General knows that when one has blown there is a . . . a liquid in the trumpet, and it is . . . it is the custom to shake it out. Well, I shake it over the parapet, and . . . and according to where it falls . . .”

Pepe Menendez faltered.

“It is lucky or unlucky,” Miro guessed. “Go on, Corporal.”

The trumpeter's hand moved involuntarily to his chest. He let it fall. It was neither polite nor military to cross himself.

“My General knows everything,” he murmured. “Only the third stone, only the third stone this morning. And that is bad. So I blew a little spit — so little that not the Blessed Virgin would have noticed it — to see if it would go farther. And God sent a great puff of wind. And even so, my General, it fell very far away from the flag. I swear I did not mean it, my General.”

“You are alone when you blow the reveille?”

“Always, my General.”

“You are on duty every morning?”

“For four months, my General.”

“Is the guard short of trumpeters, Sergeant?”

“No, Excellency. But this man Menendez is much better than any of the rest.”

“I see. Trumpeter Corporal Menendez, I shall recommend to your commanding officer that you be reduced to the ranks and dismissed from the guard, of which you have shown yourself unworthy. You will be transferred to the Divisional artillery, where your interest in projectiles and their ranges may be of more service to yourself and the State.”

Pepe Menendez was marched out. There was a slight swagger
in his movements. He did not altogether understand the sentence. But he had been treated as a man by the great Caudillo — the leader, his leader.

“A sentence of Solomon, sir,” said Irala, laughing. “It will be all over the Division by this evening.”

“Well, I couldn't dismiss the charge. One mustn't let down the standards of the guard. They won't be at all pleased with me as it is. But how the devil do they expect him to have a proper sense of dignity when he's been blowing the reveille for four months without a break?”

CHAPTER II

[
October 20
]

T
HE
A
LAMEDA WAS
the social and political heart of San Vicente. Having reached accidental perfection, it had remained for seventy years without any rebuilding. Closing the vista at each end were the Chamber and the Palacio Municipal, ten minutes' stroll apart. Between them, down the center of the avenue, ran a broad strip of garden, dominated by tall palms under which the chocolate-colored earth and the botanical experts of the Ministry of Agriculture had grown every spectacular evergreen of tropics and subtropics. On one side of this somber fairyland were the beribboned confectioners, the glittering shopfronts of jewelers and luxury grocers, the women's shops, and the women themselves. On the other side were the men, the banks, the law courts, the headquarters of civil governor and police — both housed in the immensities of the Casa Consistorial — and the Club Ateneo. This separation of the interests of each sex applied only to the moneyed class. The mass of the public swarmed where it pleased.

The terrace of the Ateneo, raised two steps above the pavement and shaded by a deep awning, stretched for fifty yards along the Alameda. In the cool of the evening a well-spaced row of chairs and tables held all the influential masculine society of San Vicente — the senators, the bankers, the principal merchants and any big
landowners who happened to be in town. All were well-dressed and almost all were over forty, but family counted for as much as money. Some of those apparently prosperous citizens who from time to time put in an appearance on the terrace were unlikely to eat more that day than the saucer of shellfish presented with their drinks.

Close to the entrance of the club were sitting two men in their fifties whose bearing was rather more lively than that of their quiescent fellow members. Juan de Fonsagrada was dark and lightly built. His straight, glossy hair still showed as much black as gray, and the bronze skin, though sagging at the jaw, was tight over the high cheekbones. Henry Penruddock had a round face, still of a russet-apple quality in spite of years in the subtropics, and a bald head surrounded by a halo of white hair. Though he certainly weighed half as much again as his companion, he carried his good barrel of a body without effort. One of his large shoes was in the hands of a ragged mulatto bootblack.

“The Señor Consul has a tip for the races?”

The bootblack spat accurately on the shoe and flourished his polishing rag. His conversation was quite uninhibited, for he felt himself as valuable a citizen as any of his customers, though taking a reasonable pride in their distinction.

“You try farther along the line!” said the British consul general. “It's twenty years since I made any money at the San Vicente races.”

“They say that Yavera for the five o'clock —”

“Then that's where they want your money to go,” remarked Juan de Fonsagrada. “Try the favorite.”

The bootblack grinned, and worked away at the consul's other shoe.

“And about the revolution? What do the
caballeros
think?”

“What the devil do you want with a revolution?” demanded Fonsagrada genially. “Did we gain such a lot from the last?”

“All the same it's coming.”

“How do you know?” the consul asked.

“The price of fish has gone up.”

“What's that got to do with it?”

“When I was Vice President,” Juan explained, “the first sign was in the food markets. Three weeks later — pouff! I had taken refuge in the Mexican Embassy with a crowd outside howling for my blood.”

“Never, Don Juan!” protested the bootblack. “It was no more than a demonstration. You are the beloved husband of the Republic.”

“Well, it was one hell of a row with my wife,” Fonsagrada said. “How many windows did
you
break?”

“My friends and I were reasonable, Don Juan. We did no more than burn a tramcar.”

The consul looked along the line of his fellow members, every one of whom dabbled in the profitable game of politics. He found it difficult to believe that any of these prosperous or ambitious gentlemen had at the moment definite plans; none of them looked stuffed with the unbearable secret of his future importance. There was certainly some unrest in the country, and there could be no doubt that Vidal was nervously tying down the safety valve; yet the point where pressure had built up was by no means as obvious as usual. He knew the faces of the Ateneo, and could translate at once the comings and goings of the groups.

Guayanas was his home. Henry Penruddock had lived in San Vicente most of his life, and hoped to die in it — at leisure and after another thirty years, for his enjoyment of place and people showed no sign of flagging. He had started as a trader, not a career diplomatist. Coffee, mahogany, fruit, a sprinkling of precious stones and metals — nearly half the small trade of Guayanas with Great Britain had passed through his hands.

During the war, when he was in his middle thirties, he had been appointed acting consul, and now as consul general was for all practical purposes in charge of British interests. His country's official representation in San Vicente was erratic. Guayanas usually shared an ambassador with its southern neighbor. If married, he stayed down there across the frontier. The climate was cooler, and the servants less independent.

The consul general paid his bootblack largely, who vanished
immediately into the narrow streets behind the Ateneo without continuing along the line of shoes.

“He hasn't eaten yet today,” said Juan.

“Sometimes I am surprised that they are content with a single tramcar,” Penruddock answered lazily.

“If we had no poverty, we should lose the fullness of life that goes with it.”

Henry Penruddock made half a motion of sitting up indignantly.

“Must a full life contain the risk of unemployment and starvation?”

“I don't know, Enrique. I suspect it must. Does any man in the Welfare States of Europe enjoy a meal as much as that bootboy is going to do?”

“You might as well say that a man enjoys a fine, new poppet more than his wife. But you can't base social laws on enjoyment.”

“I wasn't thinking of basing any laws,” said Juan. “The administration to which I had the doubtful honor to belong was quite remarkable for its lack of legislation. I'm merely offering you the only possible defense of poverty — that it is a very disagreeable adventure, but still
is
an adventure. Vidal tells us that progress is also an adventure, but we should prefer it without poverty as well.”

“Nothing much wrong but his methods.”

“His methods are traditional, Enrique, and his corruption is the best we have ever had — streamlined, chromium-plated and leading to efficiency all round. His methods are not the real reason why we are tired of him — just a talking-point for chucking him out.”

“For whom?”

“Gil Avellana.”

“You don't take
him
seriously?” exclaimed the consul.

“Why not?”

“He sounds to me like a stage version of Perón.”

“Perón would have had something — if he had ever paid the slightest attention to economists. And Gil does.”

“Where's his backing?”

“He has no obvious majority, Enrique. But he does have 60
per cent of every individual. That means a bloodless revolution if he times it right.”

“And the Ateneo?” the consul asked.

“For the first time in the history of Guayanas, the Ateneo is being ignored. The issues are too big. Revolutions are becoming too important for professional politicians to control them.”

“What about the police and the Army?”

“Hats in the air, so long as it's quick.”

“There's no doubt where your sympathies are.”

“My sympathies, Enrique, are with the old gang. I prefer to have this country decently and humanely misgoverned by the Ateneo. But since it is now the fashion for politicians to be earnest, I prefer Gil Avellana to the rest.”

“You and Doña Felicia are both of the same mind, I suppose?”

“Of the same mind? My dear Enrique, I have brought up my daughter to think for herself.”

“I meant,” said the consul placidly, “your distinguished son-in-law.”

“Miro Kucera?” Juan exclaimed, turning to stare at his friend. “The last thing anybody wants is for Fifth Division to declare for Avellana! We can't have those complicated fireworks of theirs going off. Nobody minds a few rifles.”

“It was that escort at Felicia's wedding which impressed me,” the consul went on. “How they love him!”

“Not the escort, Enrique. After all it was a wonderful chance to show us all that armored cars can be just as gallant as horses. What frightened me was young Irala in tears.”

Henry Penruddock raised his eyebrows.

“You have a ponderous mind, Enrique, which plunges towards impropriety like a mating elephant. I have known young Irala since he was two. When he was thirteen, his sister's governess entered the Convent of the Sacred Heart after some slight medical attention. When he was fifteen he would devote himself at children's parties to the younger mothers. Irala was born without the slightest reverence for women, for his class, for any of the professions, or for his country. He reminds me of myself. There — following, I may say, some five years behind his precocity — goes
Juan de Fonsagrada. That is why when I saw him weeping at Miro's marriage to my daughter I realized the power of my son-in-law did not depend on an Armored Brigade.”

“Frightened you, you said?”

“Yes. The Caudillo who inspires loyalty and devotion — when he is of our race, we know how to win him and how to bring him down. In that long line of Ateneo chairs, Enrique, there is not a man who does not know it. By instinct. But a Caudillo who was born a foreigner?”

“Caudillos,” said the consul, “are the pest of Spain and South America.”

“You blame us because we are capable of love?”

“Because you won't set a limit to it. Anyway, Kucera isn't likely to set himself up as a president-maker, and you've admitted it. What about your own followers in all this?”

That was a question to which Juan de Fonsagrada was almost incapable of giving a serious answer. He cared profoundly for the interests of his own people, but his intellect refused to be engaged. Intellect, in any case, was too barren an instrument for politics. If he were to follow it blindly, he would have to come near to admitting — and in after-dinner conversation he sometimes did — that Communism would suit his own people, the Guayanas Indians, quite admirably. On the other hand, it wouldn't suit anybody else.

When he thought of the proletariat of Guayanas, Juan de Fonsagrada's mental image was not of dock workers and factory hands, or even of the cattlemen of the llanos and the agricultural peons, though all of them were of mixed blood. He thought of little family parties, hunched against the wind, moving across barren space to market with a tiny stock of barely saleable merchandise, or to church with a rich stock of misconceptions.

Of these people, his people, the Fonsagradas had been the unacknowledged chiefs for four hundred years. They were directly descended in the female line from the last of the Indian caciques. The family face, golden and fine-drawn, still preserved the features of the Children of the Sun.

But neither face nor descent would have kept the tradition alive if the Fonsagradas had not been active politicians. They had been
leaders of the liberal party since Independence, with a tolerant, watchful liberalism, never very violent against the Church or the great landlords, but powerful enough to prevent any extensions of conservative power. Their policy had not been notably pro-Indian; they had merely made it impossible for their opponents ever to be anti-Indian. In secret — for the thought had not occurred to anybody else — Juan saw himself as an imperialist, very unwilling that his patient clients of copper and gold should be dragged into the arena of democracy.

So what about his own people? At least Vidal was building schools, though half the money, if used to pay elementary teachers and run up adobe huts, would benefit the Indian provinces more than his classy air-conditioned
liceos
.

Typical Vidalismo. Forcing the country into a spectacular run before it could walk with dignity! He preferred the policies of Gil Avellana; they might be visionary, but they were traditional.

“My own people wait, Enrique.”

“You sound very sinister.”

“No. That is nothing new for them. They have no leader. I should have been born twenty years later. My old and dear friend, I am sad this evening.”

“If you would drink whisky instead of that damned rum . . .”

“It would remind me of my youth still more. Enrique, I realize that I am a typical Latin American of my class and generation.”

“I don't see much wrong with that.”

“Because you look on us as a source of entertainment.”

“That doesn't prevent affection.”

“I didn't say it did. But permit me to be regretful. What I might have done, if I had not spent my estates in Paris and New York! Opera singers, Enrique! Voices! Ghosts of women, whose utmost gesture of humanity is to clasp hands upon a bosom which in the end is nothing but a too decorative organ pump.”

“You should have tried ballet dancers,” said the consul.

“I did, Enrique. Eighty thousand legs of cattle sold in order to cherish two. . . . And so in my prime to politics — for sport.”

“At least it wasn't for money.”

“If it had been, I might have taken it seriously — and ended my
career in stone upon a horse, waving my sword or perhaps a copy of the Constitution, here in this Alameda which you see before you. The only original thing that I have ever done in all my life is to take to trade in my fifties and start selling patent medicines.”