Robert Stone - A Flag for Sunrise

“I hate to spoil his number,” Holliwell said, “but he’ll find it’s open if he tries it.” Holliwell was drunk and disgruntled but he was growing more and more fearful.

The Cuban looked at Holliwell and then at Heath. Heath had a soothing half smile.

His suitcase was indeed open and Mr. Soyer examined the contents deliberately. The contents were innocent enough; there were only toiletries, cigarettes and clothes. The clean clothes were neatly folded, the soiled ones in their hotel laundry bag. But Mr. Soyer took his time.

“You’re impatient with us,” Mr. Soyer said. “Anxious to be on your way. We understand.”

“He’s a bit pissed in the bargain,” Heath said.

“Yes,” Soyer said, affecting to sound the suitcase for false bottoms, feeling the lining, messing about with the laundry bag. “There is something — about our part of the world — that makes the North Americans — reach for a glass. Isn’t there, Holliwell?”

“Could we have it straight, Soyer? Without the flourishes and games?”

Soyer closed the suitcase.

“Straight?” he asked. “Straight is how you would like it?” The man’s eyes drifted to a point behind Holliwell’s head. Holliwell remembered that the Guardia lieutenant was behind him.

“I don’t think I want to talk to this man,” Soyer said to Heath. “I find him crude and insolent.” Heath grinned.

“In technology they are giants,” the Guardia officer behind Holliwell said in Spanish, “but in culture — pygmies.”

Mr. Heath spoke.

“Know what happened to Ocampo, Holliwell?”

“What?”

“He’s dead.”

“He was a friend of mine,” Holliwell said after a moment. “I was very fond of him.”

“This chap Cole you came into the country with — he’s dead as well.”

“Cole was just a reporter. There was no reason for anyone to kill him.”

“Think not?”

“I told him not to go up to Tapa by himself,” Holliwell said. “The guy was sort of unsound.”

“Was he?” Heath asked. “He’s sound enough now. But dead. We think someone may have mistaken him for you.”

“There isn’t,” Holliwell said, “a reason for anyone to kill me either.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Heath said. “Eh, Miguel?”

“Next to certain,” Soyer said.

“But the thing is, Holliwell — with Ocampo dead and Cole dead and you messing about with Mistress Feeney down coast — what the fuck is going on?”

“There’s no mystery,” Holliwell said. “Marty Nolan asked me to have a look at that mission when I came down here.”

“You declined. Remember?”

“I declined. But I got curious. I’m an anthropologist, after all.”

“And this was a field trip, was it, Professor? A sabbatical adventure?”

“Call it what you like,” Holliwell said.

Soyer rendered his dull smile.

“Be careful, Professor,” he said. “Be careful of what you allow us to call it. We may call it something you don’t like.”

“Ocampo also asked you to come down here,” Heath said. “Do you mean to say he didn’t tell you why?”

“He told me it was enough that I be seen to go. Those were his words. I was curious and I wanted to do him a favor to that extent.”

Heath grunted unhappily.

“Damn it,” Holliwell said, “I don’t know quite why I came.” He looked into Heath’s wine-dark face. “Come on, Heath! People do such things, you know. You may live in a world of absolute calculation but I don’t. For one thing I didn’t expect to get down here for the goddamn …” But by the time he cut the word off it was too late. He became afraid, really afraid — for the first time. It seemed to him that he had nearly talked his way out of it and then lost it all at the very last. He was drunk and he had vainly imagined that truth was on his side — but of course there was no truth. There were only circumstances.

“The goddamn revolution,” Heath said. “But you did. Sorry. And what you’ve been up to here, Holliwell — uncharitably interpreted — smacks of a double game.”

The Guardia lieutenant came forward and stood in front of Holliwell; there was a look on his face that suggested acute physical pain, manfully subdued. He lit a cigar and tossed the match, almost by accident it seemed, at Holliwell’s shirtfront. The extinguished match stayed there, resting in a crease. Holliwell did not brush it away.

“We’re not in a position to extend charity,” Soyer told him. “We interpret actions strictly. We’re trying to be serious.”

“It’s like this, Holliwell,” said Mr. Heath patiently. “While you’re observing the situ-a-shon actu-well and thinking deep thoughts, people are fighting quite desperately over things they believe in. I hope you won’t think I’m sentimental. But with you having all these moral adventures you can dine out on in the States — it’s really very difficult to wish you well.”

“But we do,” Mr. Soyer said, “because you are North American and all the world loves you. We try to understand.”

“And do we succeed?” Mr. Heath asked.

“ Claro que sí ,” the Cuban said. “Indeed we do. We know our good neighbors the North American people who are allied with us for progress. We know their profound concern for international morality. Their sense of brotherhood. Their dedication to human rights. Sometimes we find them difficult to understand, we who are only what we are. But understand we must.”

As Mr. Soyer concluded, he was unable to keep smiling.

“If you expected me to work with you,” Holliwell said, “you should have taken me into your confidence.”

“We couldn’t, you see.” Mr. Heath had a small metal flask half covered with worn leather. He took it from the side pocket of his dark lightweight jacket, shook it and drank from it. “We’ve had our fingers burned. They send some of you chaps down here — well honestly, it’s frustrating. You speak with two voices, frankly. Makes it very hard going for us. I mean — whose side do you think we’re on after all?”

“So,” Soyer said, “we couldn’t take you into our confidence. However, others did, am I right to think so? Sister Justin? We believe you know something about what she and her friends are doing tonight.”

“I don’t know anything about their plans,” Holliwell said.

Mr. Soyer’s jaw seemed to tighten with a little tremor. He turned to Heath. Heath sniffed and drummed his fingers on the desk top.

“Really, Holliwell, that’s very difficult to believe.”

Soyer moved closer to where Holliwell stood.

“Because we’re so ready to understand, Professor — that’s why we don’t believe you. But I assure you, sir, that you’ll tell us what you know.”

The Guardia lieutenant spoke for the first time.

“We have to know where the nun will be,” he said in Spanish. His air of stolid resolution was impressive, even daunting.

“I can’t give you the answers you want,” Holliwell said. “I don’t know them.”

Heath’s eyes went out of focus and he looked away. Soyer was tapping his knuckles against his own forehead.

“Holliwell,” he said, “not everyone will be alive in the morning. In Yanquiland it’s true that no one dies. Here life is sordid.”

“Sorry,” Holliwell said.

“Sorry,” Mr. Soyer repeated. “Sorry?” His pistol was out and he put the barrel gently against Holliwell’s lips. “The next thing out of your mouth, you overfed son of seven tits, will be God’s truth or I’m going to tear it out of your throat.”

When Soyer withdrew the pistol, Holliwell took a cigarette out of his pocket and put it in his mouth. He realized from the taste that the cigarette was in backwards, filtered end out.