Andrew Klavan - If We Survive

“Ssh, Nicki.” Meredith put her arms back around her. “It’ll be all right.”

“I’m glad you think so,” said Palmer. His lip curled and the sardonic humor came back into his eyes.

“What do you think, Palmer?” asked Pastor Ron. “I mean, what do you think we should do?”

Palmer looked over at the guard by the front door, then over at the other guard at the rear. They grinned back at him unpleasantly. “Well, Padre,” Palmer said, “I’m looking at two men with AK-47s. Unless you’re planning to roll up a ‘Coexist’ bumper sticker and beat them to death with it, I’d say we’re going to pretty much do whatever they tell us to do.”

“It’s our fault! It’s just what we deserve!” Jim Nolan— who else? On his feet. Leaning in toward Palmer. His lean cheeks pink. His finger pointing. His voice bitter. “General Benitez tried to bring reform to this country. Thirty years ago. He tried to redistribute the land and we, the US, the CIA, they came down here and overthrew him. And now we’re paying for it. It’s all our fault.”

When he spluttered to a stop, Palmer looked at him— looked at him, I thought, with a look that said, Who is this idiot? He seemed about to say that out loud, in fact—or something like it. But the next moment, everyone in the cantina— Americans and locals alike—stiffened as a new sound reached us from outside.

Gunfire. Not far off either. Machine-gun shots rattling in the hills around us.

“I’m guessing that’s some land reform going on right now,” said Palmer. “Might be a good idea to change the channel on the television set, see if we can get some news, find out what’s happening in the capital. Because if the capital falls…”

Everyone gasped and tensed as another round of gunfire exploded outside—louder, closer this time.

Palmer didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t have to. We all knew what he was going to say:

If the capital fell, if the revolutionaries won, Mendoza would come back in here and kill us all.

What happened next was like a dream. If by a dream, you mean a nightmare. If by a nightmare, you mean the weirdest and scariest thing that ever happened.

Palmerturned to the old lady behind the bar. He spoke to her in a quick burst of Spanish. The lady—a tiny, stooped creature with a face like a raisin—picked up a remote control from below the bar and pointed it at the TV. The soccer game went off and the news came on. You could tell it was the news because a serious-looking man and woman were seated behind a desk looking directly into the camera. There was a map of the country behind them.

The man spoke in rapid Spanish—I couldn’t understand a word of it. After a couple of minutes, the picture changed and some film came on. The film showed angry people fighting in the city streets. I assumed they were the streets of Santa Maria.

What made it all so weird—so dreamlike—so frightening— was that we could hear the gunshots on the television and at the same time, we could hear the gunshots in the hills around us. And we knew that what happened on the TV would decide what happened here. It was like watching a zombie movie and suddenly hearing a slow, thudding knock on your front door… The life shown on the television and real life were becoming one dangerous thing.

I stared up at the TV screen. On one end of the street, men—most of them dressed like Mendoza in fatigues with red bandannas tied around their necks or foreheads—were firing machine guns or hurling hand grenades and flaming bottles. On the other side of the street, a ragged line of soldiers cowered behind riot shields or sometimes fired back with machine guns of their own. Sometimes mobs of other people, ordinary citizens, I guess, surged forward. They seemed to be supporting the rebels. They overturned cars and threw rocks and lit fires. Everywhere, buildings were in flames.

I felt my heart pounding hard in my chest. It looked like the rebels had the people on their side. It looked like the soldiers were being overwhelmed. And I knew that if the rebels won, Mendoza would come back here. And I would be killed. Me and Pastor Ron and Meredith and Nicki and Jim—all of us. All of us would be shot dead as brutally and suddenly as Carlos the waiter. I stared at the TV and I knew this was true—and yet somehow I couldn’t really get myself to believe it.

The newsman went on talking rapidly over the pictures.

“What are they… ?” I had to swallow—hard—before I could get the words out. “What are they saying?”

“They’re saying the fighting is intense in the capital but that the army has things under control and is moving steadily toward victory…,” Pastor Ron translated.

“The TV stations are run by the government,” Palmer said. “They say the army’s winning, but it sure doesn’t look like that to me.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. I tried to swallow again, but I couldn’t. My throat was too dry. “What do you mean?”

“Well, look at the video,” said Palmer. “The army’s in complete disarray. They’re right outside the government compound and they’re not even up to full muster. It looks to me like the army is deserting and the rebels have got the people behind them.”

Nicki let out a wail of misery. “Does that mean we’re going to die?”

Meredith patted her shoulder, but no one answered. A fresh round of gunfire started up outside. It wasn’t in the hills this time. It was closer.

I looked nervously toward the door. “It sounds like they’re fighting in the village here,” I said.

Palmer snorted. “That’s not fighting, pal. The fighting here is over. Those are executions. They’re killing anyone who didn’t support them.”

I went on staring at the door. Executions . Something sharp and rancid roiled in my stomach. I thought of the celebration in the plaza last night. The children singing. The women dancing. The men setting off fireworks. The priest thanking God that we had come to their village and helped them rebuild their school.

I wondered which of them—which of those men, women, and children—were being lined up against a wall and shot to death as we stood in the cantina, waiting to learn our fates.

I turned back to the television. The video was over now and they were back in the studio with the newsman and newswoman. It was kind of an awful sight. The looks on their faces… They were trying to go on as if nothing catastrophic were happening. But the anchorman’s brown skin had gone a funny off-color. He was licking his lips between words as if his lips were as dry as my throat. The anchorwoman had turned white and looked like she was on the verge of tears.

“What… what are they saying now?” I barely managed to whisper.

Pastor Ron’s voice didn’t sound much better than mine as he translated. “They’re saying they will continue to bring us the news for as long as it’s possible. They’re saying they won’t desert their posts until the very last minute and that they have full confidence the army will restore order soon…”

“But they’re lying,” I said. “Right?”

Pastor Ron nodded. “It sounds like it, yes. Now they’re saying President Morales will speak to the nation very soon.”

Palmer gave a short, cynical laugh. “Yeah. From his hotel in Los Angeles,” he joked sourly.

I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. Nicki. She had drawn back from Meredith. She was staring into Meredith’s eyes. The expression on her face was pitiful beyond description. The fear. The helplessness. Like a child lost in a crowd.

“I don’t want to die, Meredith,” she said. “I’m only seventeen.”

Palmer glanced over his shoulder at her. He gave a soft derisive snort—as if to say, Who cares how old you are? You can die anytime . Then he turned back to the TV.