Thing to Love (10 page)

“I do not agree or disagree with the Chief, or with President Vidal,” said Miro bluntly. “My duty is to obey orders. Start a revolution in San Vicente and I shall knock it on the head. I am not threatening you, Don Pablo. I know very well that your power is formidable. I am warning you because you are responsible for the lives of your workers as I am for those of my troops.”

“But in God's name why fight for that little bastard who keeps the hair on his face because lower down he has no . . . pardon me, Doña Felicia! A manner of speaking! But if there are to be warnings, I tell you frankly that your troops will fraternize.”

“Very few, and they would be immediately disarmed without my having to order it. You can do nothing against the garrison, which will at once take over docks, railways and power — at any cost, Don Pablo. You will create widows and starvation. Your strike funds will be exhausted in a week. And the rest of the country will be so frightened that it will keep Vidal in power quite indefinitely. That is not fair to either of us.”

“Later then — you might lead us?” asked Morote, puzzled by the last remark.

“Never! I am a servant of the State. I do not lead; I obey. I have never played politics and I would not try now if you and I did not trust each other. You can't bargain with me. You cannot bring Avellana to power without civil war. There remains Vidal. Don't use your General Strike to support a revolution which will fail. Use the threat of it to bargain with Vidal. Sooner or later he will be in your hands.”

“Excuse me, my General. In yours.”

“Very well. Put it that I am the referee.”

“You will see that we get justice?”

“No. I said I was the referee. I enforce the rules. I do not decide the winner. We have had worse Presidents than Vidal. You cannot deny that he is creating wealth. What you want is that it should be distributed. Well, show your teeth, now or later, but don't use them. Vidal will remember.”

“He can do his remembering in hell. Now you and I together —”

“Don Pablo, it would be an honor to command a militia of Morotistas; but after two years of it, which of us would have put the other against a wall? . . . A cigarette?”

Morote's grin was white in the flash of the lighter. He did not deny the implication.

After a silence he asked Felicia bluntly: “What will Don Juan do?”

“He will support you — provided Avellana is successful.”

“He should be a priest. He thinks his blessing is enough.”

“I think it will be just enough.”

“To carry the Indians for Avellana?”

“No. To ensure that Avellana escapes with his life.”

The tone of her voice was unfamiliar. Miro knew the ring of her retorts, especially in political discussion, but this one had a quality of incisive, relentless calm. It was more than a declaration of loyalty; it was a threat — as unexpected by the enemy as by him.

“In any case neither you nor Don Juan have an interest in the Barracas,” said Morote sullenly.

“You have not invited me to visit them and talk.”

“And I'm not going to! I have enough trouble already. Now listen, Doña Felicia, and you, my General! I refuse to keep this conversation secret. I shall put it to the Chief that you are prepared to use troops against us.”

“Put it how the devil you like!” answered Miro genially. “But tell him you will do nothing.”

“Nothing? I don't say that! But he cannot count on me to
fight Fifth Division.
Caray!
I warned him that his revolution was in the air. And now the one man I trust in this country is against me.”

“Don't you trust Don Gil?” Felicia asked.

“Yes and no. But better a Mussolini than no action at all! What I should like — Well, you say it is impossible. So, until we see each other again! Perhaps I shall know then whether to be grateful to you or not.”

Felicia strolled on with her silent husband. The intensity with which he had thrown himself into politics puzzled her. He was out of character.

“Your bluff worked, Miro — if it was a bluff.”

“Of course it was. Of course! You should know that. I won't use the Division against them unless they fire on my men first. You should know that. Call it pity, if you like. Or common sense. What use is the Army if it is hated by half the people?”

His excitement showed her that the danger signals were flying. It was very seldom they appeared — nearly always when the calm, professional European soldier was in conflict with the part which day after day he acted effortlessly before a fascinated audience. What he never understood was that he prided himself on the wrong thing. It was his character, his inborn natural qualities which made him loved by her as well as by that damned Division, not his astonishing performance as the genial, flexible Latin.

“Couldn't you avoid the whole trouble by letting Gil Avellana in?” she asked.

“I know that as well as he does.”

“But since you get on with him and prefer him to Vidal?” she persisted, ignoring his roughness.

“Feli, do you think I
want
to fight Juan?”

“You couldn't. He wouldn't be there.”

“And that is where they think I should be, too — nowhere. Climbing a mountain! Feli, I command the garrison of San Vicente.”

“You are really going to support Vidal?”

“No, I do not support him!” he exclaimed. “But Vidal is the
legal President. What else can I do? Can't any of you understand?”

When he presented his choice like that, it was clean-cut. To remind him of Avellana's policy was objectless. It wasn't a choice between Avellana and Vidal. It was between Avellana and legality.

“I do,” she said, “and Morote did, though for him you put it differently.”

“Well, Avellana didn't!” He suddenly dragged her off the avenue to a stone bench and table on the bank of the water channel. “Here — we were talking here! He called it ‘the honor of a mercenary.'”

For a passing moment she was frightened by her responsibility, but the mood of the last hour was in command of her. It was impossible to receive tribute as a Fonsagrada and feel that the mystique of Avellana, the solemn economics of Carrillo, the fanaticisms of Pedro Valdés had any ultimate reality. The conquerors as always were fighting among themselves, and the Fonsagradas let them fight until such time as chaos threw up some foul dictator like Orduñez — and then it took her grandfather to remove him. If the son-in-law of a Fonsagrada thought it his duty to set an example, he had the right.

Gill and his precious man of honor! How dared he split hairs with a phrase like
the honor of a mercenary?
The only way a sane woman could think of that indefinable masculine virtue was that honor was whatever her man said it was — provided he stuck to it and formed his conduct by it.

“You mustn't read too much into his disappointment,” she said, forcing herself into caution.

“Disappointment? He was confident! He could afford to be, if a General Strike was going to bring the workers into the street. That's why I put in my first attack against Morote. I must stop things going so far that I have to order your countrymen to fire on your countrymen.”

“Do you believe you can stop it dead without bloodshed?”

“That's up to them. But I can trust the Division. There won't be a shot fired without my order.”

“And afterwards? Have you thought about it?”

“Only about you, and if you would forgive me.”

If she would forgive him! Honor, emptiness, the preference for one conceited politician over another — what on earth did they matter and how could he think they did? She thanked heaven that she had hardly temporized, and had not — here, at the same place, in the same water-gleaming darkness — attempted the sort of arguments which Gil must have advanced. Far more than Guayanas and its wearisome ins and outs had been at stake. She linked her arms over his shoulders, carrying half her cloak with her. It was a passionate rather than protective gesture — a symbol of her unity with him, covering them both from all that was outside their marriage.

“And you think Juan, too, will understand?” he asked.

“Of course. He was ready for it. Miro, my love, the only person who will be astonished at your loyalty is Vidal.”

CHAPTER V

[
November 4
]

G
REGORIO
V
IDAL
was not a man to indulge in self-pity. He knew his own worth and did not expect exaggerated appreciation of it by any except the departmental chiefs. And yet, as he waited for his garrison commander, he could not help wishing that he had belonged to an earlier generation.

To live in the most romantically beautiful building of all the Americas, to have to work and work in it towards the organization of a modern state was hardly fair. Miranda had said that the first duty of the new Republic of Guayanas was to preserve the Palace — to which some damned Colombian pansy had replied that the Palace was the only excuse for the existence of Guayanas. Yes, the enervating influence of this cool, paneled room, the immemorial center of government, was hardly fair. Round the walls were the portraits of the viceroys, with their distinguished hands and beards, and of the more reputable Presidents — with a blank where the picture of the Dictator Orduñez had been. Or not exactly a blank, for the panel held a Gauguin of some fat and barbarous chief contemplating the rolls of his stomach. Every President had deeply disapproved of it; not one of them, however, was willing to face the inevitable comment if he should remove it. Needless to say, it had been presented to the Palace by Juan de Fonsagrada in his extravagant youth.

Any of his predecessors, Vidal thought bitterly, could make for himself a famous reputation merely by being dignified and a legislator. The Republic continued to run itself, unchanged in any essential. What would they have made of the modern state, those dilettantes, those generals of ferocious pomposity, those idle, pleasant, overfed
magnificos?
Would any of the early Presidents of the United States or the Cannings and Metternichs of Europe have been capable of dealing with the problems even of little Guayanas if they were suddenly dumped in this office, deceptively familiar to them except for telephones, and told to learn the job? No. The complexities of the State, its economics, its international obligations, its demand for ever higher standards of living, its busy Chamber indefatigably making more work, all this would have been utterly beyond them.

Vidal often saw himself as a circus juggler, keeping half a dozen balls in the air and adding to them whatever his assistants threw at him: bottles, tennis rackets, Indian clubs. All of them went up with triumphant ease. All of them kept whirling. It was a reasonable way to look at the running of a Managerial Society: calm, efficient, complex. But now — what happened if the audience started to throw things too?

The Vidal administration should not be interrupted by irresponsible revolutionaries. He had no doubt at all that it was the best Guayanas had ever had. The banks, the foreign press, the United Nations all agreed. If it were not for the government machinery he had created and the statistics which were at last available, Gil Avellana could not begin to build whatever crazy edifice of Socialism or feudalism he contemplated. That damned general was only too likely to be in it up to his thick neck, backed by Felicia and her father. Fortunately their influence was negligible outside the more primitive section of the population. All the same, Kucera was becoming too popular with the masses. Concha swore that he had no political ambitions, but he wasn't one of her intimates. She seemed to keep a motherly eye on him from an unusual distance, as if his were the one personality too strong for her.

He forced himself into casual cordiality as Miro entered the room.

“Good morning, General! Did you enjoy yourself at La Joya?”

“Not very much, Don Gregorio.”

“What a pity! I have always understood that Avellana was an excellent host.”

“Ideal.”

“Landowners . . . Well, their virtues are obvious, and none the less pleasant for that. But whether he can persuade the citizens of San Vicente that they all have the same noble character as he, I do not know. My own experience leads me to believe that most of them would sell their mothers for a thousand pesos.”

Too shallow a cynicism, Miro thought. Vidal's remark was true, and it was not true. There was mighty little that the average poor citizen of San Vicente would not do for a thousand pesos. On the other hand, he would take still more pleasure in dramatically throwing back the money like a man of honor if someone, anyone, reminded him that he
was
a man of honor. And that was Avellana's secret weapon.

“Not always in Fifth Division, Don Gregorio.”

“Your command is exceptional. I know it. Such professional pride — perhaps in our country it is only among the medical men that one finds it. I wish I could add my own profession of the law. But I still think I have more to offer to Fifth Division than Don Gil.”

Miro grudgingly admitted the tact of the little crook in mentioning the Division rather than the general himself. The distinguished little crook. The able little crook.

“You have,” he said bluntly.

“General, please do not misunderstand me if I ask — at this moment when so much depends on us both — frankly and as an old comrade — what it is.”

“Honor,” Miro answered — for he was feeling sufficiently annoyed to be melodramatically Latin, and the word was in the air.

“Would you be more explicit? Honor — I hear of it so often, and it has so many meanings to different people.”

“Don Gregorio, you are legally elected. You are the head of the State, and commander in chief. I should prefer to receive your orders through the correct channels of Don Jesús-María and his staff. But you are fully entitled to short-circuit them if you wish. Let me assure you, without any reservations at all, that I shall obey you so long as your orders do not violate the Constitution. In any case, so far as I can tell, the question is not urgent.”

Vidal had hardly dared hope for so uncompromising a declaration of loyalty. The lawyer in him protested, but the administrator knew very well that what General Kucera said was so. When he disagreed or was in doubt he didn't — unlike the rest of Vidal's public servants — say anything much at all.

The President relaxed. From now on he had a partner — a specialist in a different kind of power. The slight reserve forced upon him in all his dealings with Major General Kucera disappeared. That contrast in physical type, which had always worried him, now corresponded so plainly to their spheres of action.

“Don Miro, my friend, Gil Avellana's revolution is scheduled for this week.”

“Impossible!”

Vidal rose and opened his safe.

“You do not think a great deal of my special police,” he said. “I don't myself, if it comes to that. But read through this file. The reports all confirm each other.”

Miro read on and on. To anyone experienced in collating and comparing intelligence reports there could be no conceivable doubt. In the provinces Avellana was mobilizing conventional support — governors, police, mayors. In San Vicente he had the university and all the left-wing leaders. The Army appeared to be neutral, with the exception of some upcountry units, old-fashioned and safely inefficient. His own meeting with Avellana at Juan's house was recorded without comment. From La Joya there was as yet nothing, but he himself could now dovetail a report into all this evidence. What he had taken to be a groping for his character and intentions was a determined, last-moment effort to gain his approval of plans which were already settled.

“You agree?” Vidal asked, when Miro had leafed impatiently through a mass of flowery comment from the police commandants, and closed the file.

“Does Avellana know you have all this?”

“He must suspect it.”

“Then he is bound to strike very soon. But what a risk to take when he has no armed support worth anything at all!”

“You think as a soldier, friend. And that is what I want you to do. But the art of revolution is very different from the art of war. Avellana plans only one battle. If he loses, all fails. If he wins, all succeeds. Look, I will be generous! I will admit he has wide support. My countrymen have no patience. They always prefer to gamble that a short-cut leads somewhere. Very well! If Avellana wishes to sit at this desk, surrounded by past statesmen of whom the most futile was more responsible than he, then he must complete his revolution in one morning, or at most in one day. If he can do that, if the whole of San Vicente is in the streets shouting vivas, Army and police will be helpless. Even you would hesitate. You cannot lead your Division into the capital when it has already hung out the flags.”

That was true enough — provided Vidal was not there to give a legal order. Don Gil himself had said there would be no point at which Fifth Division could intervene. Miro asked what objectives Avellana was likely to choose for his morning's work.

“Posts and telegraph. Radio station. Meanwhile paralyze capital and police with a General Strike led by Morote and his Communists.”

It was not worth while to point out that Morote was a Socialist. Such subtle distinctions never meant much to a frightened American, whether he hailed from San Vicente or New York. It was true that, on paper, the difference between Socialists and Communists was chiefly evident to themselves. But since to them it was so evident, Vidal should surely accept it as a reality — and a reality reinforced by the fact that the northern democracies of Europe, those pillars of political respectability, were all of them Socialist in name or in practice.

“Morote won't move,” he said positively.

“You know? How do you know?”

“Oh — the freemasonry of the Army. Sometimes we can guess more accurately than the police.”

“What astonishes me, friend Miro, is that your information never seems to cost you anything. Now, here is something I will give you in return — from the freemasonry of the bankers. Two days after you asked him for leave, Don Jesús-María transferred half his capital abroad.”

Vidal waited for comment and examined his left hand, as if it were the delicate, surgical instrument which had probed the Captain General's intentions.

“Don Jesús-María is, I think, neutral,” said Miro, aware that he was out of his depth in evaluating such subtle tidbits, “by which I mean that his undoubted abilities will be at the disposal of the winning side.”

“And after he let you go to La Joya, he assumed that would be Avellana's side.”

“But he has nothing much to gain or lose either way.”

“Hasn't he? If you stood behind Avellana and if you wished for command of the Army . . .”

“You exaggerate, Don Gregorio,” Miro protested. “He knows me too well to think I would set myself up as a Caudillo.”

“But he would also see that there is nothing to stop you. General, here is the interest to me of Don Jesús-María's financial transactions. He is certain that if you declared for Avellana the whole Army would follow you, and that I could not count on any armed support.”

“I will guarantee that Avellana's revolution will be smothered before it starts,” said Miro, almost casually. “If a morning is enough for him, it is also enough for Fifth Division. After that, action is up to you. What else can you rely on?”

“Hombre!
I can rely on the police and the civil governors if they are not in personal danger. I can rely on every man who is honestly making money and wants freedom to make more. I can rely on every responsible citizen who wishes our Guayanas to reach the peace and plenty of a little United States. But they are none of them very fond of bullets.”

“They will not be exposed to them. But there is a risk which you haven't mentioned.”

“What is that?”

“The Presidential Guard. Please don't think it the prejudice of a professional soldier.”

Vidal rose from his chair, agitated and resentful.

“I have added to their pay from my personal —”

“Don Gregorio, I am not criticizing, but pay is not everything. Avellana's traditionalism is just the sort of thing to appeal to the guard — especially since they resent being included by you in my command.”

The President gripped his desk with fingers unnaturally white and stared at the calm, the now fatherly figure sitting opposite.

“I am horribly afraid,” he said. “But I dare not show it.”

“A soldier can nearly always say the same. That is what we call courage.”

“Really? You mean it?” asked Vidal, much relieved.

“Of course. I respect you and congratulate you, my President.”

It was quite true. Miro felt his first real affection for the absurd, able little man. He was living up to the traditions of his viceregal beard. After all, refusal to show fear was always due to the strength of a convention, social, religious or military. Inspire the tradition, and all the rest followed.

“To die at the end of a lance, Miro . . . That is what appalls me. I cannot look at the sentries of the guard without thinking of a red pennant in my stomach. To be shot is different. It doesn't hurt, I take it. One cannot struggle for consciousness with a bullet in one's heart. It is not the same thing as wriggling without dignity while one's hands grip the shaft.”

“A nightmare, Don Gregorio!” Miro protested cheerfully. “You haven't earned enough hatred for that. Gil Avellana wants you out of action, yes. But he is not a murderer.”

“Possibly. Indeed, I am sure of it. But in the heat of the moment? And the troopers of the guard are simple. Think what a pleasure it would be to boast, years after in a tavern, that with one's own lance one had killed a President!”

“Pleasure or remorse,” said Miro. “They get just as much
kick out of it. But, if you agree, we will not leave the decision to the guard. Any excuse will do. The divisional engineers could be detailed to repair the old gunports. And they do not move without their Sten guns. As for other tactical points, I think the Armored Brigade and one or two of my new Combat Groups will ensure the control of posts and telegraphs, the loyalty of the police, and the safety — shall we say? — of the civil governor. I shall try to avoid any provocation in the Barracas and to Morote's men.”