The Squares of the City (25 page)

He acted remarkably promptly. On my breakfast tray at the hotel the following morning was an envelope containing two items: the first, a certified copy of an injunction issued by Judge Romero with, pinned to it, a slip of paper saying, “With compliments from Andres Lucas.” And the second, the morning’s issue of
Tiempo.

Today the most conspicuous item on the front page was a yawning gap, bearing a facsimile of the official censor’s stamp and a note to the effect that this section of the paper had originally contained material which contravened such-and-such a subsection of the Public Order Act.

This was more like it. As I found later, police had descended on the
Tiempo
office early this morning, acting on Judge Romero’s instructions, and had removed another article about me from the actual stone on which it was set up.

Looking through the rest of the paper, I discovered that Romero had had a busy day yesterday. Tezol, his fine unpaid, had been arrested on Romero’s order last night and was now in jail, without Dalban or his associates—who were supposed to be backing the National Party—lifting a finger to help him.

The Nationals seemed capable of some really bloody things on occasion. I had no doubt that so long as this illiterate peasant orator had been useful to them, they were only too happy to have him trust them; when it came to a pinch, they’d dropped him without a word.

I turned to the inside pages and there found an example of the Mendoza brothers’ cleverness, of which Lucas had spoken yesterday. Felipe Mendoza was at it again, hammering his well-worn theme of bribery in the treasury department and vested interests in highway corporations. Owing, I presumed, to the injunction Seixas had previously obtained against the paper, he wasn’t mentioned by name; nonetheless, all the “for examples” given in the article would have fitted him like a glove, down to the jug of sickly cocktail he kept on the desk in his office. This gave me cause to frown. So having an injunction against the Mendozas wasn’t as watertight as I had hoped. I’d have to go on watching for trouble in this quarter.

Well, there was hope in another direction. Lucas had spoken of investigations into Dalban’s part in the affair; if they paid off, I might be able to get on with my job in peace. Frankly, by this time I was wishing to God it was over and done with.

I made a mental note to call Lucas and thank him as soon as I got the chance, and finished my breakfast in a considerably better mood than I’d been in twenty-four hours before.

Sitting in the lounge with an air of extreme dejection, studying a chess problem and idly moving a pawn back and forth as though unable to decide what to do with it, was Maria Posador.

What the hell
did
she do at this hotel when she had a house a little distance away? Did she just like it? Come here for the company? Use it as an office for whatever she did with the National Party?

I went over to her. “Señora Posador! I’d like a word with you.”

“You are welcome, Señor Hakluyt,” she murmured without looking up. “Be seated.” She gestured at another chair, an unlit Russian cigarette between her fingers.

I sat down and leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Maybe I’m more welcome than what I want to say,” I said. “Are you responsible for what
Tiempo
has been saying about me lately?”

She dropped the pawn she was toying with, sat back, crossed her legs. “I am responsible for nothing
Tiempo
says or does. Who informed you that I was?”

“That’s beside the point. What is your connection with
Tiempo?”

“I have sometimes given money to Cristoforo Mendoza—no more than that.”

No evasion, so far as I could judge; a plain answer to the question. I relaxed a little. “If you’re a friend of the Mendoza brothers, maybe you can tell me why they’re picking on me at the moment.”

She was silent for a while, regarding me. She said finally, “Perhaps, Señor Hakluyt, you are thinking of news papers.” Two words; she made the distinction perfectly clear.
“Tiempo
is not a news paper. It cannot be, because
Liberdad
is not. These are tools for shaping the opinions of people. Let me put it this way.
Liberdad
is little more than a—spare wheel for the television and radio services; it carries extra weight among those highly literate and influential persons who, after all, are the operative factors in our country. Against this, the opposition has
Tiempo
—and word of mouth. It has been a great achievement of Vados, to retain public confidence in his propaganda services; often, after twenty years, government organs speaking for a regime have outworn their public acceptance. People say, ‘I no longer believe! I have read—or seen—or heard—too many obvious falsehoods.’ Not here, señor.”

“That explains nothing.”

“On the contrary. Are you an angel, señor?”

“What do you mean?”

“You would not claim to be an angel. Yet have you raised so many objections to the way the television service has presented you? Against this,
Tiempo
tried to present something less favorable, admitted, but perhaps nearer the true state of things. We are all human, fallible, not all-knowing. And of course, you deny permission to state this side of the case. I do not blame you. I wish only that we spoke for the same cause.”

“For the hundredth time,” I retorted, “I’m not taking sides in the internal affairs of Vados. I’m hired help, and treating me as though I were—were a hired assassin is unjustifiable.”

“Whether you recognize the fact or not,” she said calmly, “you are a symbol now. Better that you should leave with your work unfinished than that you should altogether lose your power of decision and perhaps be destroyed by the disaster that now impends.”

“You seem very certain that there will be a disaster,” I said. “And what are your friends the Mendozas doing to stop it? Nothing. They seem to be helping it along. I saw a knife fight on Sunday evening over that attack
Tiempo
published against Dr. Ruiz. Fortunately it doesn’t seem to have caused anything worse so far.”

“Only because the case collapsed, señor. Only because Señor Brown disappeared. I think Felipe was foolish to insist on publication of that attack; still, as I have told you, I have no influence on the policy of
Tiempo.
I merely believe it right and necessary for there to be counter-propaganda of some sort in Ciudad de Vados.”

“All right, so there has to be an opposition press. I grant that. What I want to know is: must it be libelous and irresponsible?”

“Under the circumstances, it must be as extreme as the law permits. Milk and water, señor, will not tempt readers away from stronger drink. As to Dr. Ruiz—well, his time of reckoning will come. I am glad Felipe did not continue as he had intended, though—otherwise there might now be barricades in the square, and perhaps you would have been knifed.”

She looked down at the chess problem on the table. “Believe me, Señor Hakluyt, I am sympathetic; our problems are not your problems, but they exist. And we in Vados cannot cease to fight our own battles merely because one stranger is involved, to whom we wish no harm. Is that reasonable? Will you agree with me?”

I threw up my hands. “I have to hand it to you, señora, you put up a most rational case. It still doesn’t make me happy about this treatment I’m getting. Just one more thing, though. Are you also acquainted with a man called José Dalban?”

Her eyes widened fractionally. She gave a quick nod.

“Then tell him from me next time you see him that if he lets out another peep about me I’ll have him hit from so many sides he won’t know what’s happening.”

“Explain further.”

“He’ll know what I mean. He’s threatened me more than once now; the third time I promise to spit in his eye.” I took a deep breath. “Frankly, Señora Posador, I was told it was a tossup who out of you and Dalban, was responsible for the attacks on me. I’ll accept your assurance; from Dalban I wouldn’t take an oath on a crucifix.”

Her voice kept carefully neutral, she said, “I will tell him. If I see him. You must understand, Señor Hakluyt, that again you have preconceptions. It is my impression that you think in terms of ordinary political parties; you mistake the similarities between our government and other governments for identities. There is a president, a congress, a cabinet which as in the
Estados Unidos
is appointed by the president—but these parties, the Citizens of Vados and the National Party, exist only in Ciudad de Vados. You knew that, possibly. But you did not go on to think that Puerto Joaquin has more than twice so many people as this city, and that our other two large cities, Cuatrovientos and Astoria Negra, combine to make as many people as live here. Beyond that, there is the whole country. It is against the isolation of this city that we fight—against the city as a privileged country-within-the-country. How long have you been here? Three weeks, is it not? This is a struggle that has continued for more than ten years, and in the course of its growth it has struck its roots in every corner of all our lives.”

Her long fingers sorted the chessmen on the table before her. “Almost,” she finished musingly, “it threatens to replace chess as the national obsession.”

I made no reply.

“I think it would be appropriate,” she said after a pause, not looking up from the board, “to play that game I suggested now. In token of our—friendly enmity?” She added the last two words on a rising, questioning note.

I hesitated before nodding. She smiled, deftly concealed a black and a white pawn in her hands, and offered their smooth gold backs to me. I indicated the right one; it proved to contain white.

“Your honor,” she said, and at last lit the cigarette she had kept waiting between her fingers for so long.

Well, she was bound to wipe the floor with me, I thought. I’d never played seriously, and probably most schoolchildren in this chess-mad country would make hay out of any opposition I could muster. Still—I tried pawn to queen four and lit a cigarette for myself.

Queen’s Gambit Accepted: that shook me a little, but I ploughed on, trying to remember the orthodox attack. I soon found that Black wasn’t doing anything orthodox at all, aside from developing major pieces brilliantly. After move eight, I leaned back, cogitating.

“I think I’ve done something rather stupid,” I said. “As far as I can see, I’ve laid myself open to massacre somewhere.”

Señora Posador nodded without smiling. “I regret that you have. This combination of mine was played against our champion Pablo Garcia in the Caribbean tournament last month—it so happened that I was discussing it with him yesterday, and I thought I might try it out.”

“Well, but Garcia is a grand master,” I said. “I suppose this was one of the games he lost.”

“Not at all,” said Señora Posador indifferently. “He won in twenty-seven moves.”

I looked at the board. I was faced with a choice between losing my Queen or putting her back on the home square; either way I got a move behind and lost material in a few moves’ time.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m no grand master.”

“If you will permit, then. …” She leaned over and delicately tipped pieces back to restore the position at move four. “I recommend this—you see why, of course. Then as previously; now so, so, so. Then take the pawn, and the situation is altogether different, no?”

“Is that what Garcia did?” I suggested, studying the new setup.

“Oh, no. That is what he decided afterward he should have done. It leads to a resignation by Black in fifteen moves or so. Garcia is a lazy man, he says. He only plays long games when it is unavoidable.”

“Well, the one that was acted out at the president’s garden party in his honor was long enough,” I said. “About ninety moves, I think.”

“His opponent refused the offer of a draw; he was stubborn. Which would you prefer, señor—to continue or start afresh?”

“Let me try again,” I said. “I haven’t played for months, and I never played well. But I ought to do better than that.”

We started over; this time I managed to hang on, and the game went to about forty-five moves before I found my queen neatly trapped and resigned to avoid systematic slaughter.

“Better,” said Señora Posador with clinical approval. “If you would permit me to give you some advice, Señor Hakluyt …”

“Of course.”

“It is a matter of combination. Each move must be seen in relation to the whole. And this applies also in real life. I suggest you consider this point. Good morning, señor.”

And with that final cryptic remark she rose, smiling, and was gone.

I told a waiter to take the chessmen away and bring me a copy of this morning’s
Liberdad
; having seen
Tiempo
, I wanted to know how the day’s news looked through government eyes.

As usual, here were substantially the same items in a completely different order of precedence. Almost half the front page was given over to an attack on Sigueiras’s slum, with editorial comment to the effect that now his rearguard action to preserve his notorious public nuisance had failed, the citizens of Ciudad de Vados should take vigorous action to hasten the process of clearing it away.

There was a change of attitude detectable here: almost, I thought, I could discern a note of hysteria. Up till now
Liberdad
had soothingly been at pains to explain that the matter was in hand and the paternal government would soon put things to rights. Today there was distinct impatience and more than one hint that the government wasn’t doing as well as it should. A heavy black box beside some pictures of the ragged slum-dwellers contained an accusation of the kind I thought was
Tiempo’
s prerogative here—Castaldo, deputy to Diaz in the Ministry of the Interior and one of the many officials I’d seen talking with Diaz at Presidential House, was supposed to have tried to shield Sigueiras from the long overdue clearance of his human pigsties. What he’d done, it seemed, was chiefly to nominate the substitute lawyer who took over Sigueiras’s case from Brown. Having seen this substitute in action, I couldn’t find that a particularly heinous offense—Sigueiras would probably have got on better with no lawyer at all. However, there it was; presumably, since
Liberdad
was the official organ, Señor Castaldo was being readied for dismissal.