The widows war, p.29
The Widow's War, page 29
Ryan knew — as did the rest of the party — that the city had been evacuated, while their own forces were pushing north from Santiago y Maria. They were not expecting to be greeted by a massive crowd; yet after the intoxicating atmosphere of yesterday, this wet abandoned airfield visibly subdued them — especially La Vuelva.
She looked exhausted. Behind her, a couple of soldiers carried the same set of smart luggage with which she had travelled from Europe; and she was wearing another close-fitting trouser suit of light chequered wool. In the rain her hair looked dank and lustreless.
Both Ryan and No-Entry Jones were in uniform — the Negro now established as Ryan’s aide-de-camp. General Romolo was still in his black suit.
The unshaven man in the terminal doorway tossed away his orange and now came to attention, bringing his hand up in a vague salute, evidently uncertain whether or not to clench his fist.
Ryan demanded to know if there was any transport. The man shrugged and spat out an orange pip, and Ryan slapped him hard across his dark jowls. He rocked backwards and blinked; his breath smelt of stale rum.
They walked past him, through steel gates in a high cantilevered barbed-wire fence. Outside the terminal stood a couple of empty jeeps and a very old Dodge with a flat tyre.
La Vuelva turned to Ryan. ‘Do you really expect me to ride into my capital city in one of these filthy vehicles?’
‘You can try hitchhiking, if you like.’
General Romolo growled from behind: ‘You will show more respect to La Doña Presidente!’
Ryan looked at them both wearily. This was their revolution, not his. From now on, Romolo and his boys would make all the running. La Vuelva would just be a figure-head — an elegant face on the new postage-stamps, and on the walls of the government offices, where she would look good next to the slim dashing portrait of Bolivar.
There was no further argument. No-Entry managed to get both jeeps going by crossing the wires in the engines; a few minutes later, they drove slowly into the silent city.
There was still a number of troops around, some disorderly and obviously drunk, others trying to prevent looting. As the party neared the centre they heard gunfire, echoing like whip-cracks under the arcades and off the shuttered house fronts. It was impossible to tell where it was coming from. No-Entry, who was driving the first jeep, with Ryan, La Vuelva and General Romolo, increased speed, shooting a couple of traffic-lights that had stuck on red.
They reached the central square, which was crowded with soldiers. As the jeeps drove through them, a few raised a cheer; but for the most part they stood mute and puzzled.
It began to rain again, and many hurried off the square to the shelter of the arcades. The rain blew in through the canvas side-flaps of the jeeps and La Vuelva’s face and suit were soon glistening with damp. It was a thin, clinging rain that only added to the atmosphere of desolation.
La Vuelva was swallowing hard, having difficulty checking her tears. It was more than a decade since she had last seen this city — once famed as the ‘Pearl of the Caribbean’ — now shabby and derelict; its fine white boulevards and squares grown grey and flaking; pavement-cafés gone, bright lights long extinguished; shop-windows flyblown and empty; its fountains dry and statues green with neglect.
They drove from the Plaza Bolivar straight to the Presidential Palace. Here there were many more soldiers, including several high-ranking officers. Ryan took charge and explained who they were. Except for a few sullen stares, they were generally welcomed — though the enthusiasm was at a markedly lower temperature than that in Santiago y Maria.
Accommodation was found for La Vuelva in one of the fine, musty rooms in the old wing, which had remained deserted since Gallo had come to power. Gallo himself, with a show of brutish simplicity, had usually slept on a camp-bed in his office, and made his ablutions in the guards’ quarters of the Palace.
La Vuelva was as shocked by the state of the building as by that of the city outside; but she restrained her emotions until she was alone. As soon as the dusty four-poster bed had been stripped and remade, and her luggage laid out in the rococo sofas, she summoned an officer from outside and gave a simple order.
He saluted and withdrew. Little did he know that he was about to commit one of the most fateful acts of the whole Revolution.
Meanwhile Ryan and his staff, together with General Romolo, had been ordered by La Vuelva to make their headquarters on separate floors in the Hotel Nacional.
Her attitude towards Ryan had remained remote, and there was now a distinct chill between him and her entourage. However, he was not a man to be upset by the changing moods of a woman. He was determined to fulfil the duties for which he had been so handsomely paid.
His first act on arrival was to confirm that the radio and television station was operating normally again, and that a fresh bulletin was being regularly broadcast, reassuring the population that the reports about Monte Xatu had been total fabrications invented by Gallo and his clique to confuse the people and distract them from the Revolution.
It was decided that La Vuelva should speak the next day, again at noon, in the city’s vast football stadium. By then it was hoped that a degree of normality would have returned to the city.
Ryan spent the rest of the day, and much of the night, working on the telephone, in a fury of frustration as he grappled with the imbecile incompetence of the now defunct National People’s Telecommunications, one of Gallo’s legacies to the city. By late afternoon, he had ensured that most of the evacuated population had either returned, or had means to do so; and that by tomorrow, all but a few thousand stragglers would be ready to acclaim La Vuelva as their new president and saviour.
Later that night a storm broke over the city, relieving some of the static tension. Ryan was in his hotel room eating a scrappy meal off a tray when he received the first reports that General Romolo had also been active, and his new police had started making arrests.
At nine o’clock that night, thirty-seven men and two women were executed by firing-squad in the square behind the former People’s Army Cadet College. They had been tried together, by a five-man tribunal headed by Romolo himself, and each accorded a three-minute hearing, with the assistance of a lawyer.
Ryan went up to the General’s floor, where he was greeted by dance music. The air was hazy with cigar smoke and Romolo was doing the tango with a large woman wearing a great deal of cheap jewellery. He laughed at Ryan and offered him some rum. Ryan tried to reason with him, then to threaten him, promising that he would bring in troops to stop such excesses which could only dirty the whole image of the Revolution. Romolo told him to go and drink his mother’s milk.
Ryan withdrew, called up No-Entry and told him to get the jeep out. They then drove to the Palace. Here Ryan was relieved to see that security had been tightened, with three armoured cars at the gates and a half-track at the main doors, while the rich shrubbery all round was being patrolled by armed troops.
He had difficulty getting in, since his identity was not immediately known to the troops at the doors; and he had also signed both his own and No-Entry’s safe-conducts.
Once inside, a major from the crack Paratroop Regiment, which was guarding the Palace, informed him, politely but firmly, that the Doña Presidente could not be disturbed.
Ryan was angry. He needed La Vuelva’s signature on a number of decrees. Above all, he wanted her authority to put an end to Romolo’s savage zeal.
Because Ryan — perhaps without even realizing it — had already been infected by a certain idealism. The Island’s six million inhabitants had suffered for ten years under a drab, cruel autocracy dictated by the interests of the Kremlin. Their miserable history, illuminated by so many shafts of hope that had been extinguished almost immediately, deserved better than men like Romolo.
He returned to the Nacional in a sour mood, finished what work he could without La Vuelva’s signature, then fell into a deep dreamless sleep.
Ryan was awakened by bright sunlight. It was still early, but the street outside had taken on a festive air. The national flag, with a hole cut in its side, was everywhere, along with red and green scarves and bandanas.
A few cafés had opened and there were even tables out in the sun. The people were reading the main newspaper, renamed La Tribuna del Popolo Liberado. It had appeared on the streets a couple of hours ago, carrying a full front-page declaration which had been drawn up, in La Vuelva’s name, by Ryan himself.
He went out, bought a copy, ordered a coffee and brandy, and read the page through. It contained a multitude of clichés, but considering it was his first excursion into journalism the result was not bad; and the people reading it around him seemed to draw encouragement from it.
An hour later, he checked that the preparations at the football stadium were complete. La Vuelva was to make her speech from the Presidential box; and Ryan’s task was to ensure that every possible precaution had been taken — all roofs, boxes, stands and terraces fully checked — and that plain-clothes men with concealed hand-guns would be mingling with the crowds.
For the two-mile ride from the Palace he had commandeered a fleet of closed cars — one of them armoured, in which La Vuelva would ride. She would leave the Palace at precisely 11.45 and reach the stadium only a few minutes before her speech was scheduled.
Ryan would not be collecting her. That privilege had already been claimed by General Romolo. Instead, he would greet her in the VIP room behind the Presidential box, and from then on stay in the background. Ryan, after all, was only a foreign mercenary — and an expensive one at that — who had won the war for them. When the Island’s history books came to be written yet again, he was likely to be deleted.
He had become dispensable.
Ryan had intended to be at the stadium an hour before the proceedings began, but he was interrupted at his hotel by one of the guards who announced that Commandant Moulins wished to see him.
The Frenchman was again dressed immaculately — riding breeches, white polo-necked sweater, black knee-high boots polished like dark mirrors. Ryan wondered why he was not in uniform, and he could only guess that the Frenchman considered the badge of a foreign army, and a rebel army at that, unbecoming to a former French officer — albeit one who had been cashiered for attempting to murder his Head of State.
He removed the long pipe from his mouth and bowed, without saluting. ‘Colonel Ryan, I am glad to see you. It seems that I owe you an apology.’
Ryan said nothing. The Frenchman looked at him through a coil of smoke. ‘I have been holding the southern tip of the Island. Fortunately — or perhaps unfortunately — I have still encountered no resistance.’
Ryan waited for him to go on; but the man just sucked at his pipe. ‘Why do you say “unfortunately”, Commandant?’
The Frenchman was still standing. He took his pipe from his mouth and smiled at the floor. ‘I am a soldier, Colonel, and I enjoy the fruits of battle as any other good soldier does.’ He looked up. ‘I am now looking for the rewards of this battle.’
‘Why don’t you discuss this with La Vuelva? Go and ask her for your pay-off.’
Moulins took a step back. ‘There is no need to be offensive, Colonel. I am a soldier — a soldier who has done his duty.’
‘Then continue to do it.’
The Frenchman shifted his weight from one boot to the other. ‘I was promised responsibility,’ he said at last. ‘I was promised the responsibility of leading La Vuelva to victory. Now I wish to be rewarded. And I do not mean by money.’
Ryan looked at him with a dull smile. He was too tired to argue with this ageing, arrogant officer who was more concerned with the trappings of triumph than with the spoils of victory. ‘Look, Commandant, it is too late to give you military glory. If you want publicity, talk to the press. Tell them how you commanded Operation Belladonna — that you held out against the superior forces of President Gallo — while I was merely leading a diversionary tactic.’
Moulins had removed his pipe again. He held himself very straight. ‘You know the truth, Colonel Ryan. I risked leading an incompetent and ill-equipped body of men to invade the Island. I undertook this venture against immense odds. While you had the good fortune to steal the victory, I was left in a filthy dungeon of a block-house, without even the honour of an attack.’
‘You appear, Commandant, to have preserved your wardrobe in remarkably good condition,’ Ryan said.
Moulins pulled back his shoulders. ‘You are in a good position to joke, Colonel. You were dealt all the good cards, and you played them well. I admit that.’
‘So?’
‘I want some reward. I want authority — command. I want a position in which I can influence events.’
Ryan yawned. ‘You took on this job, Commandant, either for power or for money. I am not going to act as your broker. Go and see the new president. Ask her either to promote you or to give you a cheque. But for Christ’s sake don’t bother me anymore. I’m busy.’
The telephone was winking on the emergency button. Ryan answered it.
A group of senior ex-SACA officers, under a Brigadier Gavra, was seeking a political arrangement with the High Command of the Revolutionary Forces.
A few seconds later he received another call, this time informing him that the Provisional Revolutionary Government had given permission for Gallo’s funeral to take place at three o’clock that afternoon, with the ceremony to begin at the Trade Union House of Recreation, in the working-class suburb of Barracas. The hour had been deliberately chosen in the middle of siesta time, so that numbers might be depleted and passions lulled. Nevertheless, several thousand mourners were expected, and extra riot police had been laid on.
Ryan looked up at Moulins. ‘So — you want a responsible job? Go and supervise this funeral. It won’t be easy, but it should be instructive.’ He scribbled the address and passed it over to the Frenchman. ‘And don’t go strutting around in those fancy clothes as though you were at Longchamps or in the Jockey Club. And take Hausmann — he’s at least reliable.’
Moulins winced at the oblique slur on his own ability, saluted and left.
Ryan now made several urgent telephone calls, satisfying himself that a sufficient number of riot-police were on hand for La Vuelva’s appearance; then he set off for the stadium.
He had been allowed the use of a chauffeur-driven, bulletproof ZIL limousine — the Soviets’ clumsy attempt to copy the Packard — a long black brute of a car which Ryan considered hardly tactful under the circumstances.
The chauffeur, a surly man with a bulging jacket, drove with the skilled, selfish defiance of one long used to driving those in authority.
The stadium stood on the site of the old Plaza de Toros. Under Gallo it had been enlarged to serve not only as a bull-ring, but also a football and baseball stadium — baseball having ironically been the late President’s favourite sport. The oval shaped structure had a capacity of more than a hundred thousand.
Ryan reached the building twenty minutes before La Vuelva was due to arrive. He made his way straight to the VIP lounge behind the president’s box, past steel-helmeted troops at all the gates, doors and staircases.
The crowd was enormous, swelling all the time. A match between the Island and Real Madrid would not have required half as many police to control the besieging fans.
Ryan watched the crowds taking their seats. For the first few minutes they were orderly; then scuffles broke out. There were flags, banners — the simple hieroglyphics of the extreme Left and extreme Right: ‘The Falangist Ramonista Movement!’ ‘Marxist-Leninist Ramonista Workers’ Brigade!’ ‘The Pan Socialist International!’ And everywhere the red-and-white slogan, ‘Gracias La Vuelva!’
For a few moments the crowd looked like a field of corn, swaying and rippling under a breeze. There were swirls, channels, eddies of shadow among the pools of sunlight. Occasionally a banner toppled and was trampled underfoot, while all round, in the callejón between the stands and the ring, stretched a grey-black belt of riot-police, shoulder-to-shoulder; batons drawn, faceless behind their Perspex visors.
Ryan turned from the Presidential box into the VIP room, and found No-Entry Jones. The Negro saluted and handed him a message. ‘This jus’ come in, Colonel. It’s from the Commander o’ the Barracas District — that’s where they’re buryin’ Gallo, so ah heard — at fifteen hundred hours. Seems they already got a pretty big turn-out. The commander says they gonna get trouble.’
Ryan read the message and handed it back. ‘Tell the commander that on no account is the crowd to be prevented from seeing Gallo off. And any counter-demonstrations are to be held back.’
No-Entry saluted and left.
The room was now filling with dignitaries, most of them in resplendent uniform. Ryan felt a little dowdy, out of place. A whisper went round; a young officer touched Ryan’s arm. ‘She is arriving, mi Coronel!’
Ryan looked towards the door of the little room. The news must have also reached the crowds outside, for the fighting seemed to have subsided, and all passions and energy were now directed towards the Presidential box from which an enormous banner was now draped, with the red letters on gilt-edged white: VIVA LA VUELVA!
There were no lifts in the stadium, and Ryan knew that she would have to climb five flights of stairs. Four minutes later, she had not appeared. He supposed that she was stopping to greet people on the way up, for the whole place would be swarming with ambitious officers greedy to insinuate themselves into her favour.
Five minutes later, there was still no sign of her. He went to the rear door leading on to the stairs. The whole place was unnaturally quiet. Then he heard footsteps, several of them, on the landing below. Steel-helmeted guards stood all round, gripping their Kalashnikovs. Ryan saw her a moment later, walking stiffly between two officers who stood so close to her that at first he thought they were supporting her.
