Jon Cleary - Mask of the Andes

‘Captain Condoris tells me you were almost shot by the terrorists, Senor Taber.’

Well, I’m glad he didn’t call me Herr Taber. ‘I think it was a threat more than a real intention.’

‘Their intentions are real enough, Senor Taber. We have to stamp them out – ruthlessly.’

Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil. Hold on, mate, this isn’t Europe in the thirties. ‘ We , Herr Obermaier?’

‘It is the task of everyone who lives here in Bolivia. Or anywhere in South America.’

‘Does Herr Bormann believe that, too?’

There was just a faint stiffening of Obermaier’s face. ‘Herr Bormann?’

‘Martin Bormann. I understand he lives in Paraguay, on the Bolivian border.’

‘You should not believe the propaganda, Senor Taber. Martin Bormann died in Berlin at the end of the war.’

Dolores Schiller broke up the tension. Her voice faintly mocking, she said, ‘Senor Obermaier escaped from Berlin just at that time. He came here and helped train our army up till the revolution occurred. You were a panzer commander, weren’t you, Karl? He follows in an old tradition – Germans have always been popular here in Bolivia. Except Socialist ones, of course,’ she said with a tiny smile. ‘Captain Ernst Roehm trained our army before he went back to Germany and led the SS for Hitler.’

‘A panzer commander?’ said Carmel, thinking the baiting of Obermaier had gone too far. After what she had seen this morning she had become afraid of violence, knowing she would no longer be surprised where it broke out.

Obermaier waved a deprecating hand, but even that gesture looked cocky. He’s cocky, not arrogant, thought Taber. There’s a difference; and saw the difference when he looked around the room at Alejandro Ruiz and some of the older criollos. ‘What do you do now, Herr Obermaier?’

‘I run the brewery,’ said Obermaier. ‘I come from Munich. Naturally, I understand beer.’

‘Naturally,’ said Taber; but Obermaier was another man who did not understand irony.

‘Will the terrorists blow up the brewery?’ Carmel asked.

‘That could be one of their prime targets,’ said Taber.

‘Why should it be that, Senor Taber?’ demanded Obermaier.

Taber shrugged, looking innocent. ‘I don’t know. But one can never be sure what terrorists will blow up. I have had more experience of them than you, Herr Obermaier.’

He knew he had said the wrong thing as soon as he saw Captain Condoris look hard at him; he had thought the police chief did not understand English. ‘What experience have you had, Senor Taber?’

‘Only indirectly, Captain. I have worked in countries where some of my projects have been blown up.’

‘What countries were they?’

‘I never speak ill of old clients,’ said Taber.

McKenna got him off the hook. ‘The raid on the bank this morning was pretty stupid. I understand they didn’t even try to heist any of the money. Is that right, Captain?’

‘Heist?’ Condoris did not understand American slang.

‘Did they attempt to steal any money?’

‘No.’

‘So they killed a policeman and blinded the bank clerk. What good will that do their cause?’

‘No good at all. We should have more such raids.’ Alejandro Ruiz, tired of circulating, had seated himself in one of the monk’s chairs beside the group. ‘We should throw open the banks, let them overdraw on their account of what goodwill they have with the campesinos. The dead policeman’s father is a campesino. The clerk was a mestizo, with a dozen cousins who are campesinos.’ He read the expression on Taber’s face. ‘You are surprised at my knowledge, Senor Taber? I own the bank. Today’s raid was a demonstration against me personally.’

Carmel, still unsettled by this casual talk of terrorism, said, ‘Aren’t you afraid they might try to raid your house tonight? I mean—’ She gestured at the guests, every one a possible target for the revolutionaries.

‘Why do you think the chief of police is here? How many men do you have out in the plaza, Captain?’

‘Fifty,’ said Condoris. ‘Another thirty in the field behind your house. You are safe, Senor Ruiz.’

Ruiz nodded, taking his impregnability for granted. ‘We shall soon be rid of them. They will never succeed, because they are mostly outsiders and the campesinos will have nothing to do with them when it comes to full revolution.’

‘What if they raise a local leader, one of us?’ Dolores Schiller’s voice had risen a little: no one had to lean forward to hear her now.

‘Where will they get him?’

Dolores shook her head. ‘You are the only one who is so confident. The rest of us—’ The other guests drifted past, their small talk showing the smallness of their circle: they had no one to talk about but themselves. They had already exhausted the main topic of the evening, the bombing of the bank: it dignified one’s enemies to discuss them too long and too openly. But they were uneasy, moving restlessly throughout the house, as if to stand too long in the one place would only invite attack. ‘Have you asked the young men what they think, Francisco and Hernando?’

On cue Francisco came up, nodded coolly to Taber, then put his hand possessively under Carmel’s arm. ‘My friends want to meet you. Everyone on this side of the room looks so serious—’

Carmel went with Francisco, and Alejandro Ruiz laughed. ‘There is your answer, Dolores. The younger men want only to enjoy themselves.’

‘Tonight, perhaps,’ said Dolores. ‘But tomorrow—?’

No one was prepared to discuss tomorrow. Obermaier and Condoris moved off, bowing stiffly like twin automatons as they passed people; Taber wondered if Condoris had ever been a cadet under Obermaier. McKenna took Dolores’s arm. ‘I think I’d better go and pay my respects to the Bishop. He’s over there with his Jesuit buddy from the university. Maybe they can tell us about tomorrow.’

‘Not my brother,’ said Alejandro Ruiz. ‘He leaves tomorrow to God.’

‘And the Jesuit?’

‘He will prefer to discuss the past. He’s been fed on logic and logic is safer when discussing history. You’ll never find a crystal ball in a Jesuit’s cell.’

Taber and Ruiz were left alone. They looked at each other, Taber warily, Ruiz with the confident stare of a man master in his own house. ‘Have you improved anything since we last met, Senor Taber?’

‘Nothing,’ Taber admitted. ‘But I’ve only just learned you are chairman of the local Agrarian Reform Council. Perhaps you can help me improve things.’

‘How?’

‘I have a shipment held up by the local Customs chief. I think he is waiting for some graft.’

‘Did he ask you for money?’

‘You know he wouldn’t do that. But I know the system as well as you, Senor Ruiz.’

‘I pay graft to no one.’

I’m suffering from foot-in-mouth disease, Taber thought. ‘I did not mean to suggest that you did. But neither do I – pay graft, I mean. That’s why I have several thousand dollars’ worth of stuff stuck down at the railway yards and can’t get at it.’

Ruiz had seen his wife, across the room, nod peremptorily at him to begin recirculating. He got wearily to his feet, sourly aware that there were times when he was not master in his own house. ‘I shall see what can be done, Senor Taber. But I can promise nothing. There is room for improvement in our Customs.’

Taber had a sudden intuition: Ruiz was putting him on trial. Everything he was going to do for FAO here in San Sebastian province would eventually have to go through the Agrarian Reform Council. Nothing would come out of Customs till he had proved himself. And proving himself meant proving that he was not a radical, that he would not advocate too much change.