Siege of Silence Page 14

  “What are they gonna do?”

  Abruptly he shakes himself.

  “Hell! What’s happening to me? I’m known as a closemouthed guy. Here I am shooting my mouth off like a kid to a favourite uncle!”

  Very quietly I ask, “You’re worried about my security, Mike?”

  He cups his chin on his palms. His twenty-twenty vision is getting a shade myopic.

  “No way, Silas. But you know I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”

  I take a slow breath. “That’s so. But if the President decides on the rescue, I’m likely to be the first guy floating in there. Maybe the first guy to die.”

  Another long silence, another cigarette lit. He’s reached the point when he wants to share the secret- I hope.

  “Okay . . . Using the agent in the compound they’re going to try to poison him?”

  “The Cuban?”

  “Peabody.”

  For a moment I don’t believe what I’ve heard. I look at his face; at his eyes. I believe and I want to throw up. He pushes himself erect. “I’m going to take a pee.”

  The whole obscene thing churns around in my skull. When he comes back, walking a bit unsteadily, I say angrily, “Are you telling me that the President of my country authorized the murder of one of his own Ambassadors?”

  He affects a shocked expression, shaking his head vigorously.

  “No, no, no. God no!”

  “Then the CIA are doing this without authorization?”

  Again the head shaking and the parody of shock.

  “No, no, no.”

  “Mike, you’re not making sense.”

  “But I am.” He leans over the bar. “Silas, did you ever hear of a man called Thomas à Becket?”

  I don’t hide my sarcasm.

  “Sure, why, din that ol’ cat play tight end fo’ the Dallas Cowboys?”

  Suddenly the myopic look is gone. He straightens up and says stiffly, “Sorry for the condescension . . . Anyway he was a great nuisance. The king, in front of his knights, and in exasperation said: ‘Won’t someone rid me off this cursed priest,’ or something like that. The knights give each other knowing looks and go off and kill Becket. The king is horrified . . . or professes to be. That’s why in CIA parlance there’s what’s called ‘Becket approval’. In this case there was a meeting. They waited for a key sentence or phrase. They spelled out the painful alternatives. There was much soul-searching and references to the realities of geopolitics. Eventually they heard the key sentence. Something like, ‘Sacrifices for freedom and our way of life’ . . . Becket approval.”

  “It stinks!”

  “I agree.”

  “You were at the meeting?”

  “Of course. I argued against it. . . every way I could.”

  I look closely again into his eyes and again believe him.

  “Did you talk to him afterwards? Try to get him to stop it?”

  “Sure.”

  “And?”

  “He’d switched off.”

  While I’m thinking about that he says, “To get to be President you have to do some rough things . . . and when you get there, things get rougher.”

  “Yeah . . . When does it happen?”

  “They have to get a special poison down there. They figure five to six days. Believe it or not they use nicotine- pure and concentrated. One drop and you’re dead in five minutes.”

  “I hope the bastards fail!”

  “So do I.” He looks at his watch. “God! I must get some shut-eye.”

  He drains his glass and looks at his cigarette. “Fucking nicotine!”

  He grinds it out.

  JORGE

  San Carlo

  Day 9

  There’s an on-shore wind and from the north-west the big rollers sweep in and crash on to the beach below, sweeping in from Cuba. It’s only five hundred miles away. It tugs at me. For two days I had talked of Cuba, stayed in the compound for two days and argued, cajoled, threatened. It came to nothing. It was a road I had to go down. After hearing that tape I had to examine the possibility.

  I am standing on the balcony of the hotel room. It is early evening. The light is soft. The sunsets here are like Cuban sunsets. Sudden, dramatic, vivid. Then darkness coming down like a warm black sheet. I am experiencing unhappiness. Not sadness, that is not the antithesis of happiness. Sadness is melancholy, unhappiness is mental discomfort. For a few minutes I indulge myself in semantics; then invariably I think of Peabody- part cause of my unhappiness. I cannot break him intellectually or logically. He is not my superior but he is my equal. After the tape, we talked for hours. On reflection I talked more than him. That was part of his skill. I talked more than I expected but it was also part of my purpose. An attempt to draw him close to me. So close that he would be vulnerable. He turned questions back on me. I found myself talking of my father. How I grew to hate him. How he wore his pride and selfishness like a well-tailored suit. How he reacted to the loss of unearned privilege like a child. How he turned his resentment into a weapon against my mother. Of course I used the parallel of capitalism. My father sucking off the milk of capitalism and then wailing like an infant when the milk dried up. But as I talked, I felt personal emotions. When I talked of the joy when he was able to leave for Spain, the joy was rekindled. When I recounted hearing the news of his recent death in a drunken car crash in Madrid, I felt again the indifference.

  Peabody prodded at me. He pointed to the gold signet ring on my finger and asked: “But was not that your father’s?”

  I told him no. From my grandfather and then I talked about him. Also a capitalist with vast landholdings. But not a man to wail when matters went against him. A good man, whose wisdom might have allowed him, had he lived, to accept that change that had to come.

  When I asked about his own parents he talked briefly of them as though they had been inanimate paintings on a wall. There was no feeling in him. No passion. They were just a mother and a father; like a left and a right foot.

  But mostly we talked ideology. I reminded him of his last words to Vargas:

  “The world of extremes is not flat. It curls around and melts into itself.”

  I took that as my theme. I explained that we, in Cuba, were not North Koreans or Albanians or even Russians. We pursued socialism hand in hand with humanism. I related my own life and experiences to illustrate my thesis. I pointed out our achievements and contrasted our society with what had been before. I searched in his eyes for a spark of sympathy- or even understanding. There was no spark. I reminded myself that this was the man who had once loved passionately. Who had recently damned the excesses of Vargas. Virtually called him sub-human. I played the tape again in front of him. Listened to his words; of children killed in blood lust. Of how an innocent killed as a communist will create five communists. Then with a chill I realized that the words coming off that tape were devoid of emotions. He was simply setting out conditions to force a dictator to be a more acceptable loan recipient.

  Now, for a moment, I’m close to despair. I have one formidable weapon. But if I misuse it it’s gone for ever. But to use it I need to draw him close; to depend on me. There must be a way. I think again about his trips to the airport. Scores of them. There was surely a vital reason. He spent hours. Last night I pored over an airline ABC trying to find a pattern. Trying to get a glimmer of who he was waiting for- or watching for.

  The door slides open behind me and I feel the cool of the air-conditioning on my back. She comes up beside me and rests her elbows on the rail. The sky is turning red- and tinting the sea. It reflects on her face. She is the other part of my unhappiness. I think I love her, and the terrifying realization is that she senses it. I am shamed by the absurdity. I know what she is. Moment by moment I can see the unsheathing of her claws. She showed the tips of them last night.

  Bermudez has taken to having working dinners late into the night. He gathers his acolytes around him like an inner court and they eat and talk-or mostly listen to him. Robe
rto Bermudez who would be the new Fidel. Last night we were invited- as we are tonight. He enjoys his power and enjoys showing it off He also competes with me for Inez. It is at once subtle and direct. He defers to me in a way so respectful as to be on the brink of parody. He calls Inez “comrade” with the inflection of a sensualist. She responds with a prurient twitch of her lips and a flick of her eyes in my direction. And I feel pain. Me! And because of the weakness of feeling pain I feel agony. Fidel was right. I should have listened to him.

  “Don’t you think it’s exciting, Jorge?”

  “What?”

  “What we are seeing. What we are part of. The transformation of a country. Being at the centre. Knowing what is being done- being planned. History is being made.”

  Irritably I say, “History is being made in Cuba. You never took much interest there.”

  “Ah, it’s different. This is young. This is now.”

  “It could also be very short. Bermudez is losing his sense of proportion.”

  She puts a hand on my arm.

  “Jorge, you are just irritable because of the American. Because he is not easy for you. You must try harder. Roberto was saying last night how much he hopes you succeed. We must go soon or we’ll be late.”

  I say gently: “Inez, I have to think a little more. Go inside and wait for me. I will come soon.”

  She squeezes my arm and kisses me on my ear. She never wears-perfume but the scent of her skin is in my nostrils. And the sense of my shame is circling in my guts. I wrench my mind away, back to Peabody. I must get it off the witch in the room behind me. I try to concentrate again about his trips to the airport. They have assumed massive importance. I try so hard to concentrate but the image of her face intrudes. The image of her looking at Bermudez. Her mouth smiling at him. Hell! The sheer loneliness of jealousy.

  Wait! Something has happened in a back recess of my brain. The loneliness of jealousy? The loneliness of envy?

  She is expunged.

  I know!

  I am flooded with excitement. The doors of my mind fling open. I am Jorge Calderon! I turn and slide open the door. She is not in the room. I call, “Inez!”

  She appears in the bathroom door.

  “I’m going to the compound.”

  Her eyes glitter.

  “Now? We must be at the palace in half an hour.”

  “Fuck the palace. I’m going to the compound. I must.”

  She walks forward stiff legged.

  “Well I’m not staying here alone. I’m going to the palace!”

  I pick up my bag. “Do what you want.”

  As I reach the door she says defiantly, “You will be sorry, Jorge Calderon.”

  She is standing legs apart, all claws showing. Her eyes radiating a single simple message. I am not unhappy. I am unbelievably sad.

  “Yes, Inez. I will.”

  Peabody is surprised to see me, but I think not displeased. He comes gingerly out of his cell. His grey beard is growing down more than out. It makes his face appear much thinner. His shorts are wet and I comment on this. Immediately he is hostile.

  “I washed them in the pitiful amount of water that remains after I drink and wash myself!”

  There follows the whole litany of complaints and protests in his own name and his Government’s. But I sense this time the words are said for form rather than purpose. I have ordered coffee and while we wait I give him the usual assurances that the other hostages are in good health. To his questions about the outside situation I am vague. Of course his Government has imposed sanctions and frozen assets. I don’t mention the blockade or the sudden diminished activity of the “Nimitz” and its aircraft.

  The Mestizo boy brings in the coffee. As Peabody takes his first sip he cannot keep the anticipation out of his eyes. I study him. Am I right? Was my moment of intuition correct? If so this old man in front of me is about to have his brain exposed as in a lobotomy, and will I be able to prepare him for the final phase? If I’m wrong he’s going to regard me as a fanciful idiot, and my task will be a thousand times harder. It’s a risk that’s been thrust at me. But first I have to get him in the right mental state. I want him confident and enjoying himself. I know how to do it. I will play the game to his strength.

  I start an ideologue again, taking up where we left off before. But this time debating from the points of view of several Latin American writers.

  We argue for an hour. I keep my voice modulated and my manner relaxed- none of the vehemence of past sessions. He is on strong ground, at least in his view, and obviously begins to enjoy himself. I throw Marquez at him. He counters with Borges. I thrust with Galeano and he parries with our own Cabrera Infante. After an hour he is on top, and knows it. He starts turning Marquez and even Llosa against me. He is a master in this field; able to quote whole pages from memory, and of course is remarkably adept at interpreting a thesis to favour his own philosophy. He even smiles on two or three occasions as he makes a telling point. I judge that the moment is right. He has the air of a professor who has just delivered a successful lecture.

  I shout for more coffee. While we wait and while the Mestizo is in the room I keep a deliberate silence, pretending to read something in one of my files. I am tense, vividly aware of the importance of the moment. As he raises his mug, I say very casually, and still looking down at the file, “Peabody, I know why you made all those trips to the airport.”

  I look up. The mug is suspended in mid air. There is a startled look in his eyes. Time is also suspended. Then his eyes drop to the file, and the startled look is gone. He visibly relaxes. The mug travels up and he drinks. He thinks that what I know is in the file. He is aware that such knowledge can be in no file. He sips again, puts the mug down and patiently waits for me to make a fool of myself. I close the file and in a sombre tone say, “I would not have believed that a human being, so intelligent, so widely read, so aware of the world, could be . . . so lonely.”

  He pulls his head back; his whole body shrinks away from me. His eyes narrow as if in pain and I know that I’m right. My own emotions are a blend of elation and pity. As I look at him, the elation fades.

  “Peabody, you did not go to the airport to meet or watch for any particular person. Your visits coincided with the flight arrivals from Madrid and Rome. Latins are emotional people . . . You went to watch the passengers being welcomed . . . Parents greeting children . . . and children parents . . . grandparents . . . wives . . . husbands . . . and lovers. Peabody, for a brief time each week you were on the fringe of emotion and love. You sat and watched those people embrace, and kiss, and sometimes cry with joy. You never went to the departure hall. You never went to see the tears of sorrow.”

  He is staring down between his thin knees. No artist or sculptor could create a vision of such melancholy.

  “Peabody . . . “

  He lifts his head. His eyes are wounds in his face.

  “Peabody. You who know everything, who know exactly how the lives of human kind should be arranged. You who are so strong to need no one. You had to creep close to the aura of love between strangers; like an animal creeping near to a camp fire at night; hidden by darkness. Frightened of the fire but from a distance absorbing a hint of warmth.”‘

  His head sags again. I push my chair back and stand up. Slowly I walk around the desk and come close to him. He stays completely immobile. I cannot see his eyes. I bend my knees and crouch beside his chair. He turns his head and in his eyes I see a pleading. It could be for me to vanish into the air. To vaporize for ever. It could be a plea for something else.

  His hands are resting on his knees. I reach out and cover one of them with mine. I can feel fine bones under dry skin. Many seconds pass. He doesn’t move. Then in a choking whisper he asks, “How could you know that? How could you have guessed?”

  I have no simple answer. I came to the knowledge through no logic. How did I guess? I realize that I had to be able to feel as he feels. There has to be something in me that is also in him. I
guessed because in spite of diametrical differences we have, in our cores, stunning similarity. I tell him.

  “I guessed only because I must have the same capacity to isolate my intellect from my emotions. To stoke the fires of one and smother the other. You took that capacity to an extreme. But you are more than twice my age, have travelled a longer road, have smothered until there is barely an ember still alive. I tell you now that it frightens me. If that can happen to you, so it can happen to me.”

  I would never have believed I could utter those words, still less that they are an exact expression of what I feel. I am confused by this. So confused that at first I don’t notice. Then my eyes focus and my skin feels. He has moved his other hand and covered mine with it.

  I am numb with emotion. I recall my grandfather dying. I was a child and unhappy. For hours I would sit by his bed trying to give him comfort. My hand, like now, would be between his. I drew more comfort than I gave.

  I look up at Peabody’s face. There is no change of expression. But he knows what has happened and so do I. From the beginning I had to set out to do it. Set out to crack through his exterior and expose to himself what is inside. I have succeeded brilliantly; but not how I imagined. In cracking him I have cracked myself. Does the influence of Inez have anything to do with this? I must leave here now and think.

  I withdraw my hand and straighten up.

  “Peabody, I will come to see you in two days. Until then try to think on something. Try to imagine that if a man warps his true instincts and for years presents a false face to the world, then the whole philosophy of that man could also be warped and false. Try to think on that and let us talk about it next time.”

  We are looking at each other. He smiles faintly and stands up. At the cell door he turns. “Calderon, understanding me is one thing. Using that to extract information is another. Good night to you.”

  He goes in and closes the door.

  As I cross the compound I try to decide when to use the concluding weapon. It will be devastating. I know he is close to being ready for it. Maybe the next session or the one after. I decide on the one after. I will leave him alone for two days.