Thing to Love (18 page)

The faces around him were a little set and pale. The flight had swooped on the mess and parade ground, and the blast of the jets from the steep climb had been a physical shock, insulting as a smack across the face.

“Condor squadron taking off,” said Salvador.

“Course as soon as possible, please.”

The Dakotas lumbered away inland without passing over San Vicente. Salvador put down the telephone.

“Lérida.”

“I'll have some lunch now if you've left any,” Miro said. “Gentlemen, those of you who are concerned with the support of the civil power should reinforce all posts and patrols. The usual discretion except at the university, where there is no need to hide your strength. The guard on the Chamber will pay special respect to your elected representatives. Elsewhere you will confine yourselves to co-operation with civil police if required. There will be a staff conference at twenty hours unless I cancel it personally.”

Miro lunched with a sense of well-being. His air of ease was no longer assumed; it was his normal relaxation. Uncertainty was over, and his plans were ready for that impossible situation in which, as Don Jesús-María had said, the legal government and its loyal garrison could only accept defeat. At any moment the Vergara radio would inform Guayanas, with a professional thrill in the announcer's voice, that the Air Force had declared for Avellana.

He drove down the Avenida Gregorio Vidal and into the Palace courtyard. He was told that the President was at the Chamber, holding a Cabinet meeting. That must mean that he now knew of Ledesma's perfidy. Of course he did. He would have had reports of the ground staff marching into the Dakotas of Condor squadron, even if he had no news as yet from Siete Dolores.

As Miro walked out of the Palace, a single plane came fast and low over San Vicente, showering manifestoes on roofs and streets. He hesitated. Should he return to the Citadel? Not necessary. He had a Rosalindo Chaves on the spot. Vidal had no one. Even Doña Concha would be saying
I told you so
.

On a hot current of air from the Glorieta a scrap of paper started up the steps — an impudent white imp with its tail cocked up following confidently in the path of the students and perhaps quite as dangerous. Miro picked it up, observed at the foot the name of Jesús-María de Hoyos y Alarcón and read it with the faint smile, compounded of deference and disrespect, with which he was accustomed to receive the old warrior's General Orders. It had been coarsely and quickly run off by some small Vergara printer — probably during the twenty-four hours after Ledesma had got his all-clear from the President.

The splendid example of the Air Force under its enlightened marshal had made it possible for the will of the people to prevail. . . . The Army too declared for President Avellana. . . . The glory of Guayanas and its history demanded an end to foreign influence . . . the corruption of Vidalismo . . . social justice . . . the nobility of the underprivileged. The armed forces, with their traditional chivalry, had drawn their swords in the defense of the Republic, only to return them to their scabbards when her liberty was restored.

It all seemed a little out-of-date. Gil Avellana and his Brain Trust must have raised their eyebrows but allowed Jesús-María to have his way. An old-fashioned
pronunciamiento
was no longer the way to impress the sophisticated citizens of San Vicente. As connoisseurs of public emotion they would appreciate the flavor but require more body.

As he got into his car to drive to the Chamber, he had a sudden anxiety lest he too had been politically inept. No need to bother about the Citadel, but what would the troops in town do? They might assume that he would obey Jesús-María. Had he trusted too blindly to their indoctrination? Could it be that they didn't know what their commander thought and intended? There had never been an opportunity for heroics. Perhaps he ought to have made it.

The car turned into the buzzing Alameda. There were groups on the pavement, groups in the road, heads down, reading the leaflets. Then, starting from one single woman, assumptions became reality. He noticed her near the dark arch which led to the
Fonsagrada house. As their eyes met he recognized that pathologist of Juan's. She dramatically tore up the piece of paper in her hand and stamped on it. In a clear contralto voice which cut through the animated mumble of conversation like a silver trumpet in a dancehall she cried:

“Viva Vidal! Viva el Generalisimo Kucera!”

The crowd took it up. An Infantry Company crossing the Alameda to relieve and double the posts on the public buildings broke discipline and cheered with the rest.

Generalisimo?
The people had seen it sooner than he. This promotion by yells was an inescapable fact. Like
Ave Caesar
. The rest of the ill-omened phrase was inescapable, too. In their enthusiasm for an ideal, these Spanish-Americans did not look forward, delaying until acceptance of death had become a point of honor.

Then they spotted his unobtrusive passing car and mobbed it. He had to stand up. The roar of the cheering was animal; but deeply human — some other association with Caesar there which he couldn't place — was the after-lunch breath of hundreds which yawned at him garlic and spices and alcohol. It was of the country which had won his love, of his men, contented and well-fed, of the Fonsagrada patio raised to infinity, of the cool alleys of San Vicente, and please God it would someday be the smell of the Barracas too! His people approved of him. They approved of what they knew, and what of the agonies of the last weeks they guessed. By the blessed customs of his dear land, he was allowed to weep.

The crowd massed at the head of the Alameda, standing back with a conscious collective sense of symbolism so that he could leave his car and pass alone under the portico of the Chamber. He was pleased at the turnout of the single platoon on guard, purely and carefully ceremonial, at the open gates — there was a whole company which was far from ceremonial out of sight — and still more pleased with the intelligence of its subaltern. Out of the corners of his eyes, Miro had seen him give a quick, informal instruction. When the men had presented arms, they were
allowed to cheer. And there was very properly no mention whatever of General or Generalisimo Kucera.

“Viva Vidal! Viva la legalidad!”

Miro had an impression that in another second they might start shouting “Down with the Army!” Well, all this would be fully audible at the Cabinet meeting. It seemed unnecessary to send Vidal any written note of reassurance. He contented himself with a verbal message that he was in the gallery.

It was a momentary shock to look down on the actual working of democracy after such manifestations of respect for it. So far as the people had a will at all, this — God help it! —was it. There below him were the heads, black and glossy or bald or gray, of Vidal's majority. And if the people hadn't really wanted them they could have thrown them out in spite of Vidal's management of the elections.

As it was, the empty seats of the Avellanistas did not number more than fifty. Most were on the left. But it was curious that some should be on the extreme right — the traditional place of the landed interests. That was proof of Avellana's claim that his movement was bigger than party affiliations. Yet there was that solid center, which certainly represented more than mere inertia. And just left of center were the Fonsagrada liberals, who had formerly given irregular support to Vidal and now abstained.

Juan Fonsagrada himself was up. He was at the top of his form: at his usual game of draining the value out of all emotions and convictions. It was astonishing to what heights his oratory could rise in the process of destroying all reasons for oratory.

Too much importance, he said, was being ascribed to a political maneuver familiar to them all. Whether the people expressed their will through the armed forces or at the polls, it was still their will. For who were those forces? The people! More so, perhaps, than they in that Chamber, bound, often against their will, by the chain of day-to-day politics, by their personal alliances, by the duty to preserve rather than the eagerness to reform. Young and virile, drawn from all classes, officers and men together, the armed forces, too, were the nation. . . .

Miro himself was carried away, and searching down a dozen blind alleys for the answer when he was saved from momentary confusion by an interruption from the center:

“Is a Fonsagrada forgetting that half the population do not serve in the armed forces?”

That checked Juan, but the only perceptible sign of it was his fencer's half-smile as he parried the attack and made it appear impatient and premature. He must have changed the construction of the sentence already pouring from his lips, for he led straight and smoothly into his peroration. Since when had the lovely and loyal women of Guayanas not followed husband and father and son, in every heroism and every ideal?

He got clear away with it. The applause was triumphant. Nobody asked which of these relations the women were to follow or guardedly suggested that Felicia could hardly support her husband and father simultaneously.

But it was a triumph of rhetoric only. When Juan moved the adjournment he was voted down. The obedient ranks of the Vidalistas, though they must be convinced that for some years to come they would have to make their money outside politics, were not going to await events in the streets or the Ateneo until they had heard what hope the President had for them.

The debate went on. It was the turn of the extreme left now. The deputies as usual were equally sincere and incoherent. They disassociated the party from both Vidal and Avellana. They would wait. Well, that had been Morote's line. It was comforting to Miro to have it confirmed.

“Fight it out and be damned! That's what half of us said in Spain.”

Miro looked round. Captain Salinas was just behind him.

“And what happens then? ‘Major, those bastards aren't cheering. Take 'em out and shoot a few'!”

“Which side is the Navy on, Paco?” Miro asked, half humorously.

“When there is a revolution, we are always repainting the engines. What a coincidence!”

Captain Salinas gestured towards the floor of the Chamber where
nerves, exasperated by the left, were beginning to fray. In the gallery it was now possible to talk in a normal voice without interrupting the proceedings.

“Miro, we have known each other for years. That's my excuse, though we are not intimate friends. If you are going to fight for democracy, don't do it! It doubles your chances of being shot.”

“For democracy? No!”

“I cannot believe that it would be for Vidal.”

“And you, Paco — didn't you fight for Azaña?”

“I was a little lieutenant. We are talking of the generalisimo.”

“What difference does it make? We're professionals. If the State cannot count on us, what is the good of us?”

“That from you! It's the creed of a sergeant of police!” answered Captain Salinas drily. “Listen. For the sake of ideas, disobedience is not justified. There are so many ideas. For the sake of a man, it is. There are so few.”

“Then choose Avellana! He is very much a man.”

“It's true that he has charm. He would run an excellent hotel. Avellana and Vidal are not worth a single corpse between them, Miro. And still less, their ideas. Look at those animals on the floor! The only calm one is your respected father-in-law, because he has no principles whatever. All the rest of them are losing their tempers, since they feel they ought to be sure of something and they aren't.”

“Put it that I am on the side of the women!” said Miro shortly, and himself none too sure of his temper. “They have a right to a State which shall be as secure as the home.”

“Quiá!
It wouldn't please Vidal's American friends if their State were only as secure as their homes. Miro, I beg you not to look for reasons. There are none. You will fight because you can't help it.”

“Captain Salinas,” said Miro stiffly, “may I assure you that I am entirely free to do as I like?”

“Generalisimo, I have never known a man less free than you. And thank God for it, for you could be dictator this afternoon if you wished.”

“It's true that I have to think . . .” began Miro more humbly.

“What's true,
amigo
, is that you don't! You are a man of honor. Why look for excuses? Out there” — he jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards the unseen, faintly heard crowd massed at the head of the Alameda — “they don't want any from you.”

“That's as it may be,” said Miro shortly, who had heard enough of honor from himself and Avellana, and in his present black night of doubt disliked to be told that his behavior was predictable. “Then what about yourself?”

“Me? I am a foreign expert. A trainer of seamen. I have no more to do with it than the harbormaster.”

An excellent excuse for surrender. The foreign expert. But even Avellana, he remembered, had refused to consider him that. Certainly Juan didn't. He doubted if either ever thought of him as a first-generation immigrant — apart from trying to calculate how his reactions were likely to differ from their own. He had been so involved by Vidal in the political and military life of the country that he couldn't be disentangled from it as if he were a Spaniard training seamen or an Italian building a dam or a North American adviser to the National Bank.

The representatives of the people were calming down. Some typical and respected voice of the Ateneo had taken control and imposed boredom. It was saying nothing very beautifully. It had turned the Chamber into a sleepy literary society. That was as good a way as another of wasting time peaceably until Vidal appeared.

At last a discreet messenger informed Miro that the President would like to see him. Captain Salinas looked up from the correction of a river chart with which he too was wasting time, and nodded.