Francisco Jose - Don Vicente - Two Novels

“Why are you so certain?” Luis asked, his interest aroused.

The coffee had been brought in, and the captain took a cup. “I am sure,” he replied, “because there is freedom in this country. Oh, you will disagree with me — this freedom works only for the rich, for people like you, and it does not work for the poor. But there is more to it than that — there is freedom to express opposition in words, even in action occasionally. There is a kind of mobility, too — is that the word? People are able to rise from their low origins. Look at me, sir. Maybe we will not go beyond a certain position, but we can move. And the government, for all its shortcomings, is an elected government. There is communication between the politicians and the people — open communication, sir.”

“There is one thing you miss,” Luis said. “Revolutions are not made by the masses. They are made by new men, by people like you — if you were on the other side.”

“And if I were there — thank God, I am not,” the captain said, his voice excited and high-pitched, “you know what would happen? I would get killed — or I would surrender in the end. Your brother, sir, will get killed, no matter how fast he runs — that is, if he does not surrender. It is not a question of the Army being a superior force. It’s a question of forcing a revolution upon a society that is malleable, that will change with the needs of the hour. This is what the Huks misunderstand, Mr. Asperri. They are blind to it. As the problem intensifies, the government will become frantic — it will institute reforms, try to win the Huks and their friends back to the fold, with promises, with concrete programs, and who can then fight the government and the powerful men who run it? These men — for all their corruption — are malleable too, Mr. Asperri. They will change, and when this happens the Huks will be destroyed. It is really as simple as that.”

“And in the meantime, while we wait for this change, there will be more people killed, more poor people sacrificed in the name of reform?”

“I suppose it has to be that way, Mr. Asperri,” the captain said.

“I thought,” Luis said, “that the war just over taught us at least one thing — the meaninglessness of violence. It did cheapen a lot of our values and this that is happening now. Do you really think it will strengthen our society?”

The captain sighed and slapped his thigh in a gesture of futility. “We have our favorite hopes,” he said. “You have yours — and I understand your views, your affection for your brother. You may even be giving the Huks aid, but if you do, please think it over. They are doomed, and you are simply lengthening their agony. You really cannot fight the government, which, in a way, is of our own making. This is what we often forget — whatever its shortcomings, this government is ours.”

The officer glanced at his wristwatch. “It’s time I went back,” he said. “I wish I could return and have a long talk with you and tell you about our side, too. Those boys out there, barely out of their teens, are farm boys — like I said — and they are not concerned with politics or philosophy. They are concerned about the money they will send home if they survive their patrols — fringe benefits. These are the things that interest them. The right formula for patriotism — love, duty, honor — it’s for the birds, isn’t it, Mr. Asperri? Or for people like you and me.”

Luis smiled wanly. The officer stood up, and Luis accompanied him to the stairs, where they shook hands again, this time warmly.

“You need not worry,” he said as he turned to leave. “A new detachment may arrive tomorrow or within the week. Our patrols are out every night, and if an attack should come, your town police is quite ready — and radio contact is very good. Assistance will be immediately available.”

It did not rain the whole day, and the heat had become oppressive — it rose from the earth, too, like some diaphanous spirit in possession of everything, and even the massive house seemed to have been conquered by it. Trining, who normally complained about the heat, now did so with vehemence. The generators had just been brought from the city. The air-conditioning and refrigerating units in the house had malfunctioned, perhaps from the excessive heat itself, and now there was no light as well. At dusk, however, it finally rained with a suddenness that was both welcome and soothing. The evening that came soon after was fragrant with the scent of green things.

For the first time since she got back from the hospital, Luis slept with his wife in their room. Luis went to sleep swimming in the pleasantness that had come with the July twilight. He had tried reading some of his new poems to her, but she had lost interest after the first two, had turned on her side and gone to sleep, so he had lain them down; soon he was dreaming that he was strolling in a field of water lilies and that as he stepped on the soft purple blossoms they were not crushed at all but yielded instead to his feet and sprang up, larger and prettier, as he moved on. He saw the field spread about him, a throbbing purple sea that melted into a bowl of glazed blue sky.

It was a shot that woke him up, sending consciousness coursing through him like fire. He opened his eyes and strained his ears. In the dark, somehow, all sounds seemed more defined. Now the shots burst again in quick fury. He turned quickly on his side, and in the dimness he saw that his wife had sat up. She reached out for his hand. It was cold and trembling.

“Something is the matter, Luis,” she whispered. “I called for the nurse, but there was no reply. She is gone. I called for one of the servants — there was no answer either. We are alone in the house. Something is the matter.”

Another burst of gunfire rang out, and Luis thought it did not come from afar but from the vicinity of the municipio .

“It’s the Huks,” Trining whispered hoarsely, her breath gusty on his face, her heart pounding against his chest. He held her, and although he had started to tremble, he assured her. “If they are Huks, they will not harm us. There is something I should have told you long ago — my brother, Victor, is one of them. The Huks know that we are brothers.”

The shots came nearer now, the inaudible cries and the howling of dogs. They were coming from the east, from the foothills, and the sounds were now at the entrance to the town. Whoever they were, the shouting was coming in a flood that could not be dammed. Their cries exploded sonorously in the quiet, as if the mob was now downstairs, taunting the silent ghosts, crying: Our moment has come.

“What shall we do?” Trining asked.

He tried to calm her, saying, “Do you know what they are really after? They will raid the municipio first, get the guns of the police and loot the municipal treasury and the stores, then they will leave. This is the way they always work.” He wanted to believe his words. “We will be safe — my brother …” But he did not finish what he wanted to say — that they would be safe because he had done harm to no one.

To no one? He turned the words briefly in his mind and tried to convince himself that they were true, but he could not now lie to himself, not in this hour of need. He had not harmed Ester and his mother and his grandfather and Victor — they who were closest to him; he had only denied them, and denying them, he had killed them. He had done harm to no one, and now rocks crashed through the panes, smashed into the room. Bullets ricocheted from the stonework and the aging wood and sang deep into the caverns of his redoubt.

“No!” he cried. “They cannot do this to me. I am their friend! Not to me!” He rushed to the window and flung it open, so that he was framed there, his arms flailing as he shouted to the huge and formless blackness before him. “Vic, it is I, Luis, your brother. You don’t know what you are doing!”