The Orchids (23 page)

“Only a few kilometers,” Langhof said. “But what I was saying. You know, about the Camp, about watching those people. I don't know what to make of it.”

“Perhaps a nice soufflé,” Ginzburg said with a wink.

“Please don't joke,” Langhof pleaded.

Ginzburg turned back to face the road. “So serious, Doctor,” he said. “It's not good for the heart.” He looked at Langhof. “Have you ever been to London?”

“No,” Langhof said dully.

“Beautiful city. Lots of nightclubs, that sort of thing. Plenty of places for a comedian to try out new material.”

Langhof pressed the accelerator. “I'm trying to learn something,” he said, “about this place.”

“Perhaps there's nothing to learn. Have you ever thought of that?” Ginzburg asked. He took a deep breath. “It happened. It's still happening. No need to chase your tail endlessly about it.”

Langhof shook his head despairingly. “I don't believe you mean that.”

“I'm tired of talk,” Ginzburg said. “By the time you talk about something, it has already happened, so what's the point?”

Langhof pulled a packet of cigarettes from his coat and offered them to Ginzburg.

Ginzburg withdrew a single cigarette and put it in his mouth.

“Take the pack,” Langhof said.

Ginzburg laughed. “The pack? Don't be so charitable, Doctor. I probably have more cigarettes in my room than you do.”

Langhof returned the pack to his pocket.

“Don't treat me like your personal object of guilt, Langhof,” Ginzburg said. “I don't like that. In fact, I loathe it. Your problem is with yourself, not me.” He lit the cigarette and took in a long draw. “What are we picking up in the village, anyway?”

“General medical supplies,” Langhof replied.

“Do you know what kind?”

Langhof shrugged. “Antibiotics. Aspirin.”

Ginzburg grinned. “Phenol?”

Langhof's lips tightened. “Yes.”

Ginzburg blew a shaft of white smoke into the rushing air. “You're depending upon the Allies, aren't you?”

Langhof looked at him. “For what?”

“To get you out of the Camp.”

Langhof nodded. “Of course. Aren't you?”

Ginzburg flicked the cigarette from his fingers. “The Camp is a rumor mill. We hear that Paris is in flames, that there is nothing still standing in London. What is left of Europe, I wonder?”

Langhof swerved to avoid a large puddle of icy water. “How long did you live in London?”

“Only a few months. A brief engagement at a small club in South Kensington.”

“Did you like it there?”

“The audiences are dull,” Ginzburg said. “Too much warm beer and tasteless food. They have the worst food in the world. Everything tastes like gruel.”

“You prefer Paris?” Langhof asked.

Ginzburg smiled. “I was almost married in Paris.” He turned to Langhof and winked again. “I may have relatives there.”

“Really?” Langhof asked. “Uncles, aunts?”

The corners of Ginzburg's mouth crinkled mischievously. “No,” he said, “but perhaps a little boy or girl with a rather odd sense of humor.”

They arrived in the village a few moments later. The train was puffing at the station, white steam billowing from the engine.

“You won't try to escape, will you?” Langhof asked almost playfully, as he stepped from the jeep.

“To where, Doctor?”

Langhof nodded and walked into the station. He returned with a large package and dropped it behind the front seat.

Ginzburg glanced at the box. “Well, I suppose we've done our assignment for the day,” he said.

Langhof shrugged and pulled himself in behind the wheel. “I wish it could have taken longer.”

“It was a pleasant excursion,” Ginzburg said.

Langhof started the engine, backed the jeep slowly into the road, and began to drive back toward the Camp.

After they had left the village, Ginzburg shifted around and looked back at it in the distance. “Pretty in the snow,” he said.

“Yes.”

Ginzburg continued to watch the village. “I've played a few little towns like that,” he said. He turned to face the road. “The worst ones are in Switzerland. The Swiss always make a bad audience for a comedian.”

Langhof continued to watch the road. “No sense of humor?”

Ginzburg glanced at Langhof. “None whatever. There's a saying in the trade. ‘The Swiss only laugh for comedians who hand out money.'”

Langhof smiled slightly. “Well, I'm not much better. I never had much of a sense of humor.”

“It's something you're born with,” Ginzburg said. “You either have it or you don't.”

“Were you always … well … a comic?”

“It's the only thing I ever wanted to be,” Ginzburg said. “It's quite an honored profession, you know, being a fool. Shakespeare loved us, of course, and Chaucer was a comic to the bone.”

Langhof buttoned the top button of his overcoat. “It's getting colder.”

Ginzburg did not seem to notice. “It's an aphrodisiac, you know.”

Langhof glanced at him. “What? Comedy?”

“Laughter,” Ginzburg said. “Really, it is. Get a woman laughing, and you're halfway there.”

“Perhaps that explains my lack of success in that area,” Langhof said, trying to bring a certain lightness to his voice.

“Haven't had much of a love life, Doctor?” Ginzburg asked.

Langhof shook his head. “Not much, I'm afraid.”

“Have you missed it?”

Langhof nodded. “Yes, I think I have.”

“Too bad,” Ginzburg said airily. He tossed his head to the right and watched the landscape flow past.

“I suppose you've always been covered with women,” Langhof said after a moment.

“Up to the eyebrows.”

“That must have been pleasant for you,” Langhof said and, to his surprise, felt a small jolt of envy.

“Very pleasant, as you might imagine,” Ginzburg said.

“Always kept them laughing, I suppose.”

“At least until they were naked,” Ginzburg said, “then I gave them what they wanted.”

“And I can guess what that was.”

“Not sex alone, if that's what you mean, Doctor,” Ginzburg said.

“Really? What, then?”

Ginzburg turned toward Langhof. “Well, just to be taken seriously,” he said, “just to be taken very seriously for one moment in their lives.”

“That's all?” Langhof said, smiling. “I should be able to master that.”

“Perhaps,” Ginzburg said. He suddenly seemed indifferent to the whole question.

For a long time they rode in silence. Ginzburg watched the snow-covered countryside with an expression of almost childlike longing, while Langhof allowed his mind to toy with ideas of miraculous escape.

“I once heard Piaf sing,” Ginzburg said finally. “My God, it was the saddest voice.”

“That woman in Paris,” Langhof said. “The one you almost married. What was she like?”

Ginzburg scratched his chin. “She was a teacher.”

“In the university?”

“Nothing so exalted. Just a public school teacher. An American, as a matter of fact.”

“Did you meet her in Paris?”

“Yes.”

“Where? I mean, under what circumstances?”

Ginzburg looked closely at Langhof. “Does it matter, Doctor?”

“I was just curious.”

Ginzburg turned back toward the road. “She saw my act at one of those little cabarets. She was a tourist, that's all. She came back to tell me how much she enjoyed it.”

“And you kept her laughing the whole time.”

“Laughing until she had to stop to catch her breath,” Ginzburg said. He smiled softly. “I used up all my best material on her.”

Slowly the Camp gate came into view, and Langhof saw Ginzburg's face harden.

“Have you ever been to America?” Langhof asked quickly.

“No,” Ginzburg said. He shifted his eyes away from the Camp and looked at Langhof. “I've always liked Americans. They seem to laugh a lot. I think I would have been a hit there.”

“Probably so,” Langhof said.

“They make good audiences, the Americans.”

“What about the woman? The American? What happened?”

“She went back home. What would you expect?”

“But surely this great love between you should have endured,” Langhof said, jokingly.

“Never overestimate the power of ‘great love,'” Ginzburg said. He allowed a smile to play briefly on his lips. “Have you ever had a ‘great love,' Doctor?”

“Just an adolescent infatuation,” Langhof said.

“Consummated?”

“I'm not a virgin, if that's what you mean,” Langhof said.

“That's always good to hear.”

“But I'm interested in this American woman of yours,” Langhof said. “Did you ever see her again?”

Ginzburg shrugged. “Of course not. She went back to the United States. I saw her off at Marseilles. She gave me lots of kisses, I can tell you. ‘You should come with me, Ira,' she said. ‘In New York, you'd be all the rage.'”

“Langhof smiled. “So that's your first name. Ira. May I call you that?”

For a moment Ginzburg's eyes seemed to lock on the Camp gate, then they drifted toward Langhof's face. “No,” he said. “You may not.”

T
HROUGH THE WHITE HEAT
of midday I see General Gomez's jeep bounce up the pocked and gullied road toward the compound. Even in the distance, the gilded falcon that adorns the hood looks massive.

I rise from my chair, steadying myself in the thick, pulsating heat.

The jeep glides to a halt below me, sending a cloud of dust tumbling before it. The General leaps jauntily from his seat and points toward the thick jungle across the river. The gunner in the back of the jeep immediately shifts around, training the sights of his turret machine gun in the direction the General has indicated.

The General stares up toward the verandah, shielding his eyes against the raging sun. “Buenos días, Don Pedro,” he calls to me.

I lift my hand in greeting. “Buenos días, General Gomez.”

General Gomez smiles and trots up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He thrusts out his hand. “So good to see you, Don Pedro.”

I take his hand and shake it gently. “And good to see you, General.” I nod toward the chair. “Won't you be seated?”

The General draws his pants up by gripping the wide belt of his uniform and tugging upward. Then he sits down. “The road to El Caliz is in disrepair,” he says.

“They are not well tended,” I tell him, “and the rains are very damaging.”

The General smiles broadly and folds his hands across his belly. “So, I understand that El Presidente is to visit you the day after tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

“You must be filled with anticipation,” the General adds. He is a short, muscular man with a broad, black mustache and small, gleaming eyes.

“Indeed,” I tell him.

The General watches me for a moment, then shifts slightly in his seat, raising one leg over the other. Several years ago he determined that the parrots were warning the guerrillas of the approach of his troops. He ordered their annihilation, and for weeks squadrons of helicopters combed the jungles of the northern provinces firing at anything brightly colored.

“Would you like some refreshment, General?” I ask.

“No, thank you, Don Pedro,” the General replies. “I'm afraid that I have only a little time to spend with you.”

“Regrettable.”

“Yes,” General Gomez says wearily. He is busy with the greatest task of his life, securing the northern provinces. He has ravaged the coffee fields and trampled the sugar cane. I see the fires of burning villages still leaping in his eyes.

“What brings you so far to the south?” I ask.

The General leans forward conspiratorially. “Don Camillo has no doubt mentioned the trouble in the north?”

“Yes,” I tell him, “but that is in the north, far away.”

The General closes his eyes languidly, the military martyr. “Unfortunately, no.”

“But surely we have nothing to fear as far south as El Caliz,” I insist.

The General runs his index finger over his mustache. “Rebellion is not a wave, Don Pedro,” he informs me, “it is a serpent. It may slither into any crevice.”

Over the General's shoulder I see Tomás emerge from the surrounding jungle. Instantly he spots the army jeep and retreats back into the brush. He is now old enough to be inducted into the General's army. Such an eventuality would deny him his trips to the whorehouses downriver. That much he is not willing to sacrifice for the glory of the Republic.

“Like a serpent, yes,” General Gomez continues. It is one of his habits to extend a simile beyond its immediate effectiveness. “As a serpent may creep and crawl and invade the deepest brush, the dankest cavern, so a rebel may invade any area of the Republic.”

“Well spoken, General,” I tell him.

The General smiles happily. He has written a great deal of egregious poetry for the army newspaper, and it is said that he sometimes reads his latest literary creations to whole regiments assembled for that purpose.

“Like a serpent, the rebel forces often go forth under cover of darkness,” the General continues.

In my mind I see the soldiers under his command as they stand, withering in the sun, the General's absurd warrior poetry sweeping over them like a noxious gas. Their eyelids grow weighty in the liquid heat. The straps of their packs eat into their shoulders. Later they will take out their unbearable anger and discomfort on the peasants to the north.

The General's eyes lift toward the sky, his shimmering muse. “Like serpents, the rebels coil in their holes and prepare to strike in one sudden thrust.”