Robert Stone - A Flag for Sunrise

“The man at Playa Tate was pretty nasty.”

“Do you know his name?”

Holliwell thought about the question for a moment and decided to stall. It was bad business.

“Didn’t catch it.”

“Cuban?”

“I think so.”

“I know who it was. He’s a big-time hardware person. He’s nice enough when I see him but I understand he has Fidel on the brain.”

“I think it’s all a bit frightening,” Holliwell said.

“They spy on me — the Guardia do. I don’t think they can do much more than that.”

Suddenly, he realized that she was frightened. Fear was one of the elements composing her state that evening. What she needed was a friend. And what she has, he thought, is me.

“I hope you’re being careful.”

“You better be careful too, you know.” He watched her glance about the room. “You don’t want to be here when it goes.”

“Is it imminent?”

“I only know what I hear. I hear … a lot.”

The beer came and Justin hastened to change the subject. She was a bit frantic, manic.

“You can’t drink both of those beers,” she told him. “You’ll be ill. I’ll have to drink one.”

“Sorry about that,” he said. “It is sporting of you.”

“You’re damn right it is, this horse piss.”

“You certainly don’t have the manner of a nun, do you?”

“Horse piss is in Shakespeare,” she said. “In The Tempest .” And then she suddenly looked sad.

Holliwell felt she would be easier to deal with that way, although she had broken his heart with horse piss in The Tempest . He was more in love than he could ever remember. And the beer was truly dreadful.

“Do you feel good about your six years here? I mean have you …”

“Have we brought spiritual guidance to the soul and temporal health to the body of our flock?”

He checked his impulse to apologize for the question, for bringing forth her impatient scorn.

“Have you?”

“I think it was all for us,” she said. “What we did we did for ourselves.”

“Everyone does for themselves finally.”

“Easy answer,” she said.

“You expected more from being here?”

“What I expected I don’t know.”

I know, Holliwell thought. But he realized he could know only in part. He avoided looking her in the eyes; it was harrowing because she could conceal nothing. Along with the fear, mastering it, was a mighty pride. More was what drove her. Whatever the world afforded in the name of virtue, sacrifice, good works — she wanted more, wanted it all, as though she deserved it. She could be clever, she could play a little homely poker but she had never learned to trim the lights of her pride.

“What will you do when you get back to the States?” he asked her.

“First laicize. I don’t belong in the church. I don’t believe in it. I’m a fake nun.”

“You’re not a fake, ma’am, whatever you believe.”

“We made a botch of it here,” she said. “You wouldn’t believe what a mess we made of it.”

In her eyes, the hunger for absolutes. A woman incapable of compromise who had taken on compromise like a hair shirt and never forgiven herself or anyone else, and then rebelled. She could, he thought, have no idea what that look would evoke in the hearts of smaller weaker people, clinging to places of power. She was Enemy, Nemesis, Cassandra. She was in real trouble.

When he looked out of the window and saw the fishing smack steaming for its berth, two deckhands with red and green flashlights playing at being running lights, he followed the rivers of his own past. There, in an instant was Dalat, the Perfume River, its banks disgorging Marty Nolan to a second, lesser life. Holliwell had the strange notion that Nolan had found this woman out by some magic of Lazarus, had found himself a new war and an enemy. Then watching Justin eat her charro steak, demurely, but one would have to say hungrily, he wondered if something like the same thing was not true of him, if he had not sought out war and nemesis. But he was in love past regret. Regret, his second nature, the very fluid of his veins, and it was not there.

“You probably asked too much of yourself. I think it must be hard to make a dent down here.”

“We tried. We were doing it the wrong way.”

“I wonder if there’s a right way,” Holliwell said.

She was puzzled. “There must be,” she said. Then she said: “I’m glad you stopped asking me questions. I felt on the spot.”

“I’m sorry,” Holliwell said. “Why do you think I was asking questions?”

She smiled a thin tense smile.

“You’re seeing our part of the world, aren’t you? You’re an intelligent tourist and you want your money’s worth. We’re local color.”

“You state my good intentions very coldly,” Holliwell said.

“Good intentions get a going over here. Am I right more or less?”

“No, you’re wrong. I’m asking you questions because I like you. And I’m an anthropologist. It’s my way of communicating. It’s all I know.”

“You’re supposed to gain people’s confidence first. Even dumb missionaries know that.”

“I would like very much to gain your confidence,” he said.

“And why? When you’re just passing through. What’s my confidence worth? I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m being difficult. I’m not very good company.”

“Madam,” Holliwell said, “you’re all the company I want, believe me.

“Who, me?” she asked. She seemed genuinely incredulous.

“I like you, I told you that. I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t so.”

“Are you lonely?” she asked. Strange question.

He smiled. “Always. So I’m the deserving object of your attention.”

She was staring at him again but her look was no longer so wild.

“It never occurred to me that someone like you could be lonely. I was thinking how interesting and full your life must always be.”

“You’re putting me on,” he said. He was fairly certain she was not but he had to ask. There was not another soul he knew who would make such a statement without irony.

“I’m not,” she said. “I most certainly am not. Do you know what fun this would be for me if it wasn’t for … things?”

“Let’s …” He sought words, the right words, he was desperately afraid of losing her. “Let’s put things aside.”

Her look was so sorrowful and so transparent that he could not bear to face it. She was shaking her head.

“They don’t put aside too well,” she said.

“Let’s go outside,” he said, “or I’ll make you drink more of the beer. Is it cool to walk by the river?”

To her eyes came a smile that made them dazzle, a very small mischievous smile that she slowly gave way to. He stopped breathing.

“You mean is it safe for tourists? Yes, it’s safe enough.”

When they were downstairs, and Holliwell peeling out soiled Tecanecan bills to pay for dinner, it seemed to him that he saw her place her paper napkin, correctly folded, on the edge of the counter. He was too addled to take note of it at the time, but the image would come back to him later.

Beside the Gran Mura de China was a sorry little park with the warped ruin of a railing between the uncut saw grass and the riverbank. A stand selling ices was drawn up beside it. A few children played on the overgrown lawns, dodging between the sprawled bodies of three unconscious cane-juice junkies. An old black man in a Panama who looked as though he had been there all day occupied the only bench.

Holliwell and Justin walked a small paseo along the fence.

“The coconuts are all that’s dangerous,” she told him. “They never pick them off the trees.”