Siege of Silence Page 15

  I had been looking forward to the moment; anticipating it. Now I’m deferring it; all anticipation gone.

  Fombona is talking to the guard at the entrance to the residence. I tell him. “I’m leaving in the morning.”

  He shakes his head. “There’s no deliveries tomorrow. You’ll have to go the day after.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He is grinning, “The deliveries tomorrow have been cancelled.”

  “By who?”

  He shrugs insolently. “Someone outside. Don’t worry, you won’t go hungry, we have plenty of food.”

  I realize Bermudez has sealed me off here. He is too subtle to move on Inez tonight. It would be crude. He knows crudeness will turn her away. He also knows that his isolating me here, his cleverness over me, will attract her. He understands her character.

  Anger and frustration threaten to overwhelm me. The ape Fombona must know what’s behind this. There’s no way I can leave the place except in the back of that van. I know there’s a radio link with Bermudez, but because of NSA eavesdropping, only to be used in dire emergencies. I don’t care.

  “Fombona, I will use the radio.”

  His foul grin widens. A shake of his head. “No chance. Orders are total . . . and they came from our leader.”

  Another rage of frustration- and jealousy. It’s a humiliating emotion. I stamp it down. As I go through the door I tell Fombona, “If your leader calls, tell him he’s going to regret this.”

  PEABODY

  San Carlo

  Day 10

  I know about the “Stockholm Syndrome”- about captives being drawn to their captors, sufferers to their tormentors. I think about it for a long time, trying to analyse my feelings objectively. It is difficult, alarming and sometimes painful to probe my own emotions, to face weaknesses the existence of which I had never admitted. In looking back over four decades I can only see the arid flatness of an emotional desert. But since I had created it, surely I wanted it? And wanting it, how could I be so devastated to have it shown me? Now I recognize the truth. I never did want it. I built it from bitterness and sustained it with false pride. I decide that what I am going through has nothing to do with the “Stockholm Syndrome”. Certainly I have drawn close to Calderon but the reality is that from the beginning he affected me in a remarkable way.

  Throughout the early sessions my rage at him was always overlaid by fascination. I count my scratch marks on the wall. It was only ten days ago that he sat in his chair looking at death down the barrel of Fombona’s gun as though he was examining a rare and exotic flower. When I threw shit on him the only thing he wanted to do was kill me, yet his expression showed nothing and when he talked his voice was natural. He has an intellect and the gift to express it the like of which I have never experienced.

  I analyse myself again, try to decide whether it is admiration that has drawn me to him.

  It is not. I have admired many men and women for gifts both natural and acquired, but never been emotionally drawn to them. It happened because, like nobody else, he understands me. I suddenly realize with a shock that the emotion I’m feeling is paternal. He understands me in the way a son will sometimes understand a father. More mental confusion as I try to work out how this happened. But then I decide not to care. Enough analysis.

  It is just after dawn. Natural light is replacing that from the bulb. I wonder again what is happening in the outside world. He was deliberately vague. Maybe that will change now. A rescue plan must be in process. The Special Forces will be training. Even with satellite surveillance alone they will know the disposition of the hostages and guards. The chances of success must be good. They will surely have learned from the Teheran attempt, and the “Nimitz” is only a few miles away. For a moment I yearn for the comfort and dignity of my home. Then I think about the Tessler factor and imagine the Mogul applying the pressure. Will the President resist it? My thoughts switch to Calderon again. If he is in the compound when the rescue is attempted he will be killed or captured. I picture his face at that moment. It will be calm, even sardonic.

  Such an ability has a profound influence on others. I remember my sole attempt about ten years ago to break out of my chains of loneliness. How I could have used such an ability then!

  Emma Grayson, a widow in her early forties, who worked in an office down the corridor from mine, a slender woman with lustrous black hair, not beautiful but a fine distinctive face, always modestly but elegantly dressed. She was an analyst of Latin American affairs and spoke excellent Spanish. For more than a year we merely nodded acknowledgment when passing. Then one morning she tapped hesitantly on my office door. She had a copy of my latest book and, shyly, asked me to sign it. As I did so I was very conscious of her standing beside my chair. The aura of subtle perfume. From the corner of my eye I could see the soft swelling of her breasts under a pale blue cashmere sweater. I felt sudden physical stirrings long dormant. During the following weeks she often dropped by my office, usually with a request for help in a difficult translation. After a while I realized that these were mere excuses. She was showing an interest in me and was looking and waiting for a response. I was in a quandary. That small part of my brain which, over the years, had still stored emotion and affection hammered at me, told me that this was a rare opportunity. We had much in common. Her work gave us shared interest. She had a good dry sense of humour, happily devoid of facetiousness. She came from a good family, was intelligent and neat about her person. Finally, I felt a rare and strong physical bond. Slowly, very slowly, I convinced myself there was another route than the one I had so rigidly mapped out. Weeks passed while I built up resolve and then one morning I went down to her office determined to ask her out for dinner. I paused at the door feeling callow, then drew a breath and tapped. She was talking on the phone in Spanish with much animation. She waved me to a chair and as I sat down the words she was saying penetrated and translated themselves and chilled my whole body. “Yes, darling, I will try to make it by eight o’clock.” Then I noticed the new ring on her finger. The old ones were gone, the thin worn gold one and its partner with the tiny diamond. The new one sparkled with the brilliance of large diamonds and emeralds. She had ended her conversation and hung up and was looking at me quizzically. I managed to stammer “Congratulations must be in order . . . I mean, best wishes . . .” She had smiled. “Thank you, it was quite sudden, you know him . . . Jaime Cortez.” Yes, I knew him, First Secretary at the Spanish Embassy, silk smooth, urbane and very wealthy. How could I have been so stupid and presumptuous? Again she was looking at me quizzically and I realized that I needed a reason for being there. A moment of panic, then I noticed a magazine on her desk. “I just wondered if you had read the article on El Salvador by Montez, it is very good . . .” She shook her head and smiled. “I have been very busy. Of course, I will have to leave the service. Jaime is being appointed Ambassador to Uruguay next month. There is so much to do.” I had risen and headed to the door mumbling words and good wishes for the future and wondering again at my presumption, but my final glance at her face gave me pause for thought. In her eyes was a definite message. “You were slow, Mr Peabody. Too slow and too timid.” That evening I went to the airport and again a couple of days later. The diversion was there but I was back on the well-trodden path.

  Calderon, you would not have been slow and you would never have been timid.

  I hear the sound of the outside door and clomping of boots. His boots. He walks with a heel-sliding swagger that I find comic. I get up as the key turns in the lock. He said two days. What is he doing here and why so early? The door is pushed open. I hear him clomping to his chair. There’s a little water in the bucket. I splash some on my face and go out.

  His face is different. Something is missing. His eyes are not alert as before. It’s as though they look in rather than out.

  “You said you weren’t coming for two days.”

  He shrugs and continues looking at me silently.

  “A
nd why so early? It’s barely dawn.”

  “I couldn’t sleep. That bed of yours is too soft.”

  “You said before it was comfortable. You can switch it with that palliasse in there if you like.”

  He doesn’t smile. His fingers are tapping on the desk. He drops his eyes to a burn mark beside them. He is obviously troubled and for a moment I think events are moving. Maybe freedom is on the way, but then he says, “Peabody, were you ever jealous?”

  “Jealous?!”

  He looks up, his eyes are now defiant. “Yes. Jealous.”

  “You mean over a woman?”

  “Of course.”

  “Sure.”

  “Often?”

  I think about that. Christ, it was so long ago.

  “I guess a few times.” “Why?”

  I can’t help but laugh. From anyone else it would be a ridiculous question, but he gives it the weight of earnestness. I answer, “It’s human nature to be jealous. With some it’s a disease. Others feel it less. I guess some very few never feel it. What’s all this about? Are you jealous of someone?”

  He ignores the question. His fingers are tapping faster. “When was the first time you were jealous?”

  “Listen, Calderon, this is stupid.”

  He looks up. “Tell me . . . please.”

  He spoke the last word softly, almost painfully. It’s the first time he has used it with me. He is surely troubled. I’m shocked again to feel paternal instincts. Here is this near genius complete in himself, struggling to discover what jealousy is, or is not. I delve into my memory and am astonished to find a crystal clear picture of her face.

  “I was fifteen. So was she. I dated her a couple of times. We were in high school together. She started dating a football jock who was seventeen and dropped me.”

  “You loved her?”

  “Hell no. I thought I did at the time.”

  “Thought you did!” He is genuinely puzzled. “It makes no sense. Either you did or you didn’t.”

  “Not at all. I thought I was in love three times before it finally happened and I found out what the word really meant.”

  “When you met Amparo?”

  “Yes.”

  He stops tapping and runs his hand through his hair, which has lost its usual studied disarray. It is now merely unkempt.

  “I don’t understand, Peabody. You were not genuinely in love with that first girl, but you were jealous about her. That’s not logical.”

  I smile. “Logic, love, jealousy. They don’t make a good triangle.”

  “True, but genuine jealousy over a woman can only be caused by genuine love. So if you only ‘thought’ you were in love with that girl maybe you only ‘thought’ you were jealous. What about the others?”

  “What others?”

  “The other two you thought you loved. Were you ever jealous over them?”

  Again I go back over the years and again I’m surprised how clear the memory is.

  “One, yes. We dated for five months and then I found out that she had been seeing another guy for at least the last two months. I was very angry . . . and yes, I was jealous.”

  “And the other one?”

  “No. After two months with her I broke it off”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Why am I telling you all this?!”

  “Please.”

  That word again.

  “She had bad habits.”

  “Oh yeah!”

  “Not like that . . . she wasn’t too clean . . . personal hygiene and so on.”

  For the first time he smiles slightly. “She sure picked the wrong chap to be dirty around. But, Peabody, what you’re saying is that it’s possible to be genuinely jealous, without being genuinely in love. That’s like a Zen monk who after years of study can drink tea from an empty cup and truly slake his thirst.”

  I consider that. There is a similarity.

  “Yes, of course. The emotion of jealousy in that context can be falsely stimulated. But you’ll only ever know that by hindsight.”

  I feel as though I’m helping a child put together the pieces of a picture puzzle, though God knows I’m hardly a qualified expert. He sighs and asks, “Did you fuck that fifteen-year-old girl?”

  “No. Morals were a little different then.”

  “But you did the others?”

  “Yes . . . But, Calderon, don’t think that jealousy over love has to have a sexual element. There’s certainly a possessive factor though. Don’t confuse it with envy.”

  He shakes his head. His eyes are focussed inwards again. He scratches his nose thoughtfully and says, “I know you don’t like to talk about it, but how long had you known Amparo before you got this revelation of genuine love . . . ? I’m not being sarcastic.”

  Strangely I find I don’t mind thinking or talking of her.

  “After about a month. At first I was attracted by her beauty, and her manner. Then after we had been out a few times I got an idea of her character. Then it just happened.”

  “Suddenly?”

  My mind goes back to the exact date. June 19th, 1958. I describe what happened. “We were sitting in a small bar in a side street off El Prado. A guitarist played softly in a corner, the lighting was subdued. She was wearing a blue and white blouse with a high collar. It was just a bit like a scene out of those corny movies they used to make. The guitarist finished a song. There were about a dozen people there. No one clapped: She started clapping defiantly. The others joined in. The guitarist smiled at her gratefully. She turned her head and smiled at me- and in that instant I crashed into love.”

  As I finished the story he looks morose.

  “That sudden?”

  “Yes.”

  “Had you made love to her?”

  I feel ridiculously grateful that he hasn’t used the four letter word.

  “No. The first time we made love was an hour later.”

  He sighs as if this information adds to his problems. My curiosity is acute.

  “What’s it about, Calderon? You’ve been here less than two weeks. Have you already fallen for a local girl?”

  “No.” He shakes his head sadly. “I brought my problem all the way from Havana.”

  “You brought a woman with you? Castro allowed that?!”

  His smile would have looked well on a skeleton.

  “Fidel warned me about her.”

  I can’t help being intrigued.

  “Castro knows her?”

  “Knows about her. He let me have my way, but he warned me.”

  “She’s so bad?”

  “She’s not like those girls you dated back in medieval days.”

  “What has she done?”

  He looks at his watch and sighs. “About now, it’s just possible that she’s climbing out of Bermudez’s bed. If not, it’s a certainty that by tonight she’ll be climbing into it.”

  It’s as though I’m hearing a précis of an unwritten Shakespearian tragedy. Certainly the characters are rich enough. Certainly the one in front of me is brought low from a tower of confidence. Stabbed through by a woman! But there’s a flaw in the plot. I point it out.

  “You said it’s possible she’s been with Bermudez. If it’s not certain, why don’t you go and try to stop it?”

  His expression instantly changes. Sadness becomes hatred.

  “Because that bastard, that pocket pint-sized little prick has cancelled the delivery van today! I can’t get out until tomorrow or even communicate.”

  A nice twist. The bard was on form. Calderon is breathing more quickly. In this session his poker face is absent. If Bermudez could see his expression at this moment it might well dampen his ardour.

  “This woman is very beautiful?”

  “Very.”

  “And very bad?”

  “A witch.”

  “And yet you are jealous over her, which by your convoluted logic means that you must genuinely love her.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
>
  “Dammit, man. If you’re not sure then you don’t really love her. Believe me. And your jealousy is nothing more than envy or anger that another man is using your possession or taking it from you. Especially a man like Bermudez. He’s charismatic.”

  “So am I.”

  “He’s got power . . . if only temporarily. Is she a communist?”

  He laughs bitterly. “Communist! I told you, she’s a witch- an animal even.”

  “So why did you get involved?”

  He looks me direct in the eye.

  “Peabody. I know you and I guess you know me. You can work it out.”

  I can for sure. This is the man whose sole reaction to possible death is fascination. He enjoys going to the edge. This woman must be something else again to pull him so close, to it. But I’m still puzzled.

  “Have you been in love before?”

  “No.”

  “Been jealous before?”

  “No.”

  “Are you being honest with yourself?”

  “Yes I am.” He sighs in disgust. “I’m attractive to women. I’ve got power with them. I’ve known many. You’ve slept with three in your whole life. I’ve lost count. Sometimes . . . occasionally . . . well . . . very occasionally, a woman has left me for another man. I never felt a twinge of jealousy . . . or envy.”

  I believe him and I’m intrigued as hell that it should have finally happened. I’m just wondering if he really loves her when he says flatly, “I’m indulging myself. I don’t just think I love her. I know it. Peabody, how could I fall in love with an animal?”

  “I can’t help you there. I’m not an expert on bestiality . . . So what are you going to do? I mean you don’t even know for sure if she’s done it . . . or will.”

  “I know. She knows. He knows.”

  “So?”

  I watch his face resume the normal Calderon expression. He’s probably holding a low pair but it could be four aces.

  “I’ll work it out. Anyway I’m not here to talk about damned women.”