Robert Stone - A Flag for Sunrise

“There are agents and police all over the place,” Holliwell said. “For all you know they may be just waiting for you to make a move so they can come down on you.”

She did not answer him.

“Oh, for God’s sake, May. They can have their goddamn revolution without you. If they win, they’ll expel you anyway.”

“I didn’t come down here to see the world or make my fortune or be educated. I came in my simpleminded way to help people. I’m not going to pull out now.”

“Ah, shit,” Holliwell said.

“I don’t decide what the people here need from me. They decide and I try to do it. Those are the rules. I’ve always accepted them.”

“You’re just being used.”

“Damn right,” she said. “At last, thank God.”

He found another miniature brandy and opened it.

“I’m going to tell you something now, May, that I didn’t want to tell you. I’m telling you so you can have some idea of your situation.” He forced himself to look at her as he spoke. Her face still held a pale defiant smile. “When I came down here I was asked by a man I know to be in the intelligence community to check this place out. I was supposed to find out what you were up to. Do you know what that means?”

“Go on,” she said.

“It means that someone’s been reporting on you — all the way to Washington. Not very long ago I was sitting in a restaurant in New York talking to that man about you. Now go ahead and figure out what your chances are.”

She put her hand over her eyes and leaned against the window casing.

“Well,” she said after a while, “you’ll have a story to tell, won’t you? And a dirty joke to go with it.”

“I refused him, May. I said I wouldn’t do it. Then I was approached in Santiago by another agent. You again. You’re public property, you and your friends.” He finished the brandy and tossed the bottle into a metal GI can. It rang against the ribs of the can with an ugly sound that hung over the long room. “I refused them all. It was for my own purposes that I came here, believe it or not. Maybe I wanted to see somebody doing something they believed in. Maybe I was just curious. They came to me because I did a job for the Company in Vietnam. I don’t work for them now. I’m not making any reports.”

She was crying silently. She took her hand from over her eyes and walked up to him.

“You’re very convincing, mister,” she said. And then she punched him across the bridge of his nose, a hard stiff-armed punch that numbed him. She hit him twice more, right hooks with a windup. His nose began to bleed. He put his handkerchief to it.

“I’m telling you the truth. You can have me killed if you want to, you’ve got time.”

“Do you know something?” she said. “I almost went with you. I almost did.”

“I wish you had, May.”

“You’re just another one of those bastards,” she said. “I can see that now. I don’t care what you say.”

“You’re wrong. I told you I was in love with you and I meant it. I’m not sure what falling in love is. It’s probably something trivial and foolish. But for what it’s worth I love you, I swear.”

“I thought I was dumb,” she said. “You’re worse than me.”

“I didn’t want to tell you. I wasn’t going to. Apparently it wasn’t necessary.”

“Oh, but I’m glad you did. So we know who we are — just a little.”

They stood in silence, both of them looking at the scrubbed wooden floor of the dispensary.

“There’s not much I can do for you at the hotel. Just be warned. The people over there think they know why I’m here but they’re not taking me into their confidence.” He smiled. “I suppose they don’t trust me.”

“Well,” she said, “you’re in a bit of a spot. If you’re telling me the truth.” She looked at him as though she were ashamed. “I have to presume you’re telling me the truth about not working for them. I wouldn’t know what to do otherwise, I’m new at this.”

“I’m in a bit of a spot, yes.”

“We’re going ahead, Frank. I’m going where I’m told. This place is going to blow up and it’s you that better be out of it.”

She went to a refrigerator in one of the closets, brought out a shard of ice wrapped in gauze and handed in to him. He held it under his nose and brushed at the congealing blood.

“God doesn’t work through history, May. That’s a delusion of the Western mind.”

“Too metaphysical for me,” she said. “I don’t know how God works.”

“The things people do don’t add up to an edifying story. There aren’t any morals to this confusion we’re living in. I mean, you can make yourself believe any sort of fable about it. They’re all bullshit.”

“Like love,” she said.

“Yes. Like love.”

Justin smiled. She was looking at the ocean.

“When I was a little girl I was riding my pony up along the wire one time — and I saw this thing coming down the road and I couldn’t tell what it was. So I stopped and got down and watched and what I saw was an enormous house being pulled along by a truck. It was a big old farmhouse, Frank, it was set on a flatbed that took up the whole road and these old boys were pulling it along taking it somewhere else and all of them looking so tickled with what they were doing. Tickled at me watching them.” She turned toward him and laughed; his heart rose up as he watched her. “I was so thrilled! I couldn’t believe that men could move a house. It was like they were moving a mountain. It made me feel proud. It made me feel like people could do anything in the world if they put their mind and their strength to it.” She looked at him amused. “You don’t know what I mean, do you?”

“No,” he said. He laughed himself. “I don’t have a clue what you mean.”

“We don’t think much alike,” she said. She shook her head. “God, that was crazy of us hopping into bed like that. Strangers. Like a couple of rabbits. My fault, I guess. Land, that was unconscious.”

“I didn’t think so,” he said.

“You see, I don’t have your faith in despair,” Justin said. “I can’t take comfort in it like you can.”

He wet his handkerchief on the melting ice and threw the ice and the gauze into the GI can.

“It was a dishonest thing you did to me, Mr. Holliwell. You really ought to be ashamed.” He saw her passing beyond him, out of reach, out of life.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’m not sorry.”

“I believe everything you say,” Justin told him. “I don’t pretend to understand you though. Are you always going to be the way you are?”

He shrugged and she put out her hand and touched his face. He was surprised at the tenderness with which she touched him.

“I think despair and giving up are like liquor to you. You get high on it. But it’s not for me, Frank. I don’t have the temperament. I don’t have the sophistication to bring it off.”

When he started toward the door she came with him. She took hold of his hand for a moment and then let it go.

“We’ll both have to explain your being here if anyone saw,” she said. “We’ll both have to think of lies.”

“So you won’t denounce me to the revolution?”

“No,” she said. “I won’t denounce you. I want you to come back when we’re finished. I guarantee you won’t know the place.” She stopped and he stopped with her. “I’m trusting you now. Please tell me I’m doing right.”

“You’re doing right to trust me,” he said. “I love you, don’t I? I told you that.”

“What a funny word,” she said.

Holliwell learned that the Río de la Fe would bear no passengers that day. The boats had not come through from the city on the lake and in the tin-roofed offices of the steamship company there were not two who would agree as to the reason. A clerk from the offshore islands said the problem was paperwork. An Indian from the mountains said the river was bad that day. It was all in the hands of God, the Indian said.