The Assignment

16

When he woke up, the sheet was stuck firmly to his body. It was Danica who woke him and it was she too who once again poured water over him in the shower. Then she left, and for a few minutes he felt rested and relatively calm. But he picked up the white terylene suit to look at it, he remembered Dalgren’s voice and then, as he dressed, it stayed with him all the time, dry and rasping and implacable.

You have betrayed us all. It would surprise me to find you alive this time tomorrow.

He remembered too the member of the Citizens’ Guard who had taken aim at him on the corner of Calle del General Huerta and what he had thought of at that moment.

But all the same he believed in his innermost self that he realized that it could not be serious. And he had not been alone either.

When he opened the door to the outer room, López got up from his chair and went into the corridor. López moved silently and cautiously as if walking on his toes. Sometimes he looked like a servile head waiter who always wanted to be available but did not want to irritate his guests by his presence.

The suit was light and comfortable. It fitted him fairly well and when he buttoned up the jacket he found it was full enough not to bulge over the revolver.

When Manuel Ortega had established this fact, he took off the jacket again, unbuttoned his collar and went into the bathroom to shave. He had not done it in the morning, and he was also taking every opportunity to postpone contact with the corridor and the white door into his office.

A quarter of an hour later and it was inevitable.

He adjusted the revolver in the holster, opened the door and saw López sitting in the revolving chair. He took two steps across the corridor, laid his left hand on the knob, and thrust his right one inside his jacket.

López had still not begun to get up. Manuel smiled at his inertia, pushed open the door, and stepped over the threshold.

The room was empty and white and hot, and through the closed door to his secretary’s room he could hear Danica. She was talking on the telephone and her voice was stubborn and aggressive and only barely polite.

He went across to the window and looked out. Below by the entrance stood two policemen in white. Five more were sitting smoking on the steps. In the middle of the square stood a little group of people, mostly women and youngsters. They looked as if they were waiting for something to happen.

Danica Rodríguez came into the room.

"How do you feel?"

"Better, thanks."

"Is the suit all right?"

"Yes, thanks. Have you been having some trouble?"

"A lot of idiots have phoned and there’s been some commotion outside."

"Threats?"

She nodded.

"Letters too. Seven or eight."

"What do they say?"

"Much the same as Dalgren said on the phone."

"Has Captain Behounek been in touch?"

She shook her head.

"But there is something positive as well. Sixto has sent a letter. A messenger brought it half an hour after the first broadcast.… They’re putting out the communiqué about the conference every hour," she added.

"Give me the letter and call Captain Behounek. Give me the threatening letters too."

The call came through before he had time to open the gray envelope with the red stamp of the Liberation Front on it.

"Yes. Behounek."

"Ortega. I was expecting to hear from you."

"Well now, weren’t there enough people phoning you anyway? I’ve already got a list of twelve people who have threatened to take your life, ranging from a very high-up potentate with whom you yourself have had the pleasure of speaking, to a taxi driver and the notorious female from the perfume shop. What do you think I ought to do with them?"

"Are there really taxis here?"

"Yes, a few, but I can’t think who might make use of them. There’s hardly anyone left in the center of the town. Sixty per cent of the apartments are empty. Partly because many people have gone and partly because the buildings are faulty. The ventilation is supposed to be all shot to hell."

Manuel Ortega felt that some of the tension had gone. The everyday tone of the conversation did him good.

"Seriously, I hadn’t forgotten all about you. A moment ago I sent a couple of patrols to keep things nice and tidy outside your place. Thought that seemed more sensible than calling up and talking a lot of nonsense."

"People don’t seem to like me so much any more."

"Don’t say that. My men in the eastern sector report that you’ve got supporters who write "Viva Ortega" in red paint on the walls. That’s not bad. You certainly can’t count on equal enthusiasm from all quarters."

"The most important thing at the moment is the conference."

"Quite right."

"Do you think that this can jeopardize it?"

"Hardly. On the contrary, I should think. But …"

He stopped.

"But what?"

When Behounek spoke again his tone of voice had changed. Manuel had heard him speak like this once before, in the car on the way to the white villa with blue shutters.

"Ortega, you must listen very carefully to what I’m going to say. You’ve taken a terrible risk. Personally I think you’re wrong, but we’ll leave that for the moment. I don’t think you’ve jeopardized the conference, but you jeopardized something else which you at least ought to consider worth something. Namely, yourself. Your position is dangerous. It’ll be even more dangerous tomorrow. But it’s possible the pressure will slacken within a few days. There are two solutions, but I’m afraid you won’t accept either of them. The first is that you get out now, immediately. I can give you an escort to the border and we can requisition a helicopter. The other is that you demand police protection. In which case I’ll take you into protective arrest."

"You must see that the one is as unthinkable as the other. The whole assignment would be jeopardized …"

"I know. I suggested them only so that you would understand that these possibilities are at hand and that they offer the only chance of saving your life. But then you’re choosing to stay and that means you’re living in a town where there are twenty thousand people prepared to kill you, as one would kill a prairie wolf or a rat. And it’s impossible to protect you, Ortega. I’m telling you this as a professional man. I’ve got seven hundred men in the province and not even with all of them collected here would I dare to guarantee your life. A political murder is the most inexorable thing there is-because the murderer doesn’t expect to save himself. He expects only to kill and to die. Even if you had a fortress and an army at your disposal, you still wouldn’t be safe."

He fell silent, but Manuel could still hear him breathing.

"Do you know if your secretary makes a habit of listening in to your calls?"

"Yes, she does."

"Excellent. Get your shorthand notebook out then, my girl."

He said this without a trace of humor or irony. Then he paused again.

"Don’t forget a single syllable of what I’m going to say. Never leave the building. Don’t go into other parts of the building either. Never let your bodyguard out of sight under any circumstances whatsoever. Never open any communications or parcels yourself. Never stand by the windows. Always have your bodyguard investigate your bedroom before you go into it yourself. Don’t ever receive visitors except those you really know. Never go about unarmed, not even when you go to the bathroom. Don’t put your gun under the mattress or the pillow. Put it on a chair on the right side of the bed at waist height. Make sure the gun is always loaded and the safety catch off. Check that the gun is always in a place where you can get at it in a fraction of a second. Never eat food other than that which I send in to you. Don’t take sleeping tablets or any other drug which reduces the speed of your reactions."

He fell silent and seemed to be thinking. Then he said: "Ortega, I’m not telling you this in order to frighten you. You really must remember all this, and you must also keep a cool head. Under no circumstances must you lose control. Your position is to look at the positive side of it, from several points of view. I’ll see to the outer guard and I’ll keep four patrols-that is, sixteen men-day and night in or in the vicinity of the palace. They should already be there by this time. One man will always be at the door leading to your corridor. That’s the only entrance and his instructions are absolutely rigid. That can be good to know, especially at night."

Manuel did not reply, and after a few seconds Behounek shot his last bolt.

"I am very concerned for your life … but this time they really mean it. And I understand them."

Manuel Ortega sat at his desk. The telephone receiver trembled in his hand. Several seconds went by before he could break the paralysis and replace the receiver.

Danica looked at him seriously from the doorway. He drew in a deep breath, shrugged his shoulders, and turned to the immobile López.

"Are you aware that the situation has become more serious?"

"Yes."

Manuel discovered that he was still holding Sixto’s letter in his hand. He opened it and read: "Prospects improved. Ellerman will be at Hotel Universal at about four today. Arrange police protection for him. Sixto. Acting Chief Politburo. Liberation Front. P.S., You can trust Ellerman. Show this message to your secretary."

The message was hand-written and the writing was large and firm and legible.

He went to Danica and gave her the letter. She nodded but otherwise made no comment.

"This could mean considerable progress," said Manuel Ortega.

"Yes, it’s a step forward. Your conference will come off."

"Our conference, I’d say. Old Sixto has evidently made contact with the party leaders."

"I doubt it."

"Why should he have changed his attitude then?"

"Don’t you really see why?"

"Yes," he said. "Yes, of course."

"Viva Ortega," she said, smiling a very small smile.

"But what I definitely don’t understand is my own inability to understand such a simple connection."

"It’s hot and you’re still tired and a little frightened," she said.

"Is there any special hidden meaning in his P.S., do you think?"

"There’s always a special meaning in everything Sixto does, says, or writes. In this case he means that I shall say: Yes, you really can rely on Ellerman."

"Do you know him?"

"Yes."

"And Sixto you evidently know very well. How did you get to know him?"

"Don’t ask me now. I don’t want to answer and I don’t want to lie to you."

Against his will he was angry, and she noticed it at once.

"I’m hopeless," she said resignedly. "Everything goes wrong. With people I really like I’m always babbling. I talk too much. Now I’ve got this all unrecognizably tangled up. You already know too much."

"You like me then?"

"Yes. Truly, I think."

"O.K. We’ll talk about it another time. We’ll get Ellerman here as soon as he shows up at the hotel, shall we?"

"Yes. Don’t forget to phone Behounek and warn him."

"Right. You’re not a bad secretary either."

He walked over toward the window.

"Manuel! Not the window! Remember the instructions."

"Of course," he said in confusion, and turned toward his own room.

"Manuel," she said again. "You’ve got to be careful now. Very careful. For several reasons."

At that moment he was thinking about something completely different. They were to talk about Sixto another time. Would there be another time?

When he thought like that the sweat broke out all over his body, and now it was different, cold and sticky, and he shivered as if he had been walking in the rain down Karlavägen in Stockholm. But perhaps it really was so, perhaps there would be no other time. Perhaps he had only a few hours left to recover all he had neglected to do during the long stretch of careless uneventful years. His wife, his children, his brothers and sisters, his career. And everything else: all the unplayed games of tennis, the boat he never bought, the unread books, the women he had wanted and probably could have had but never did. Manuel, all the soft parts of the body, all the warmth, all the unheard music, all the neglected communion services, all the unspoken truths. No, it must not be like that. He sat down and called Behounek.

"Yes, we’ll handle him like a soft-boiled egg. Who did you say-Ellerman?"

"Wolfgang Ellerman. Do you know who he is?"

"For once-no. But call in an hour and we’ll see."

"Despite everything, you are a human being! Good-by."

"One more thing, Ortega. Don’t forget Captain Behounek’s twelve points. For you they are considerably more practical than General Larrinaga’s seventeen."

Manuel relapsed into inactivity and immediately fear began to grind within him. Like a churning ache, round and round and round.

There was only one way out: work and more work. And to take the bull by the horns. He stretched out his hand to call up Dalgren, but the telephone beat him to it.

"Yes. Ortega."

"Oh yes, you filthy, lousy pervert of swine. Do you know what we usually do to Indian-lovers here? First, we cut their cocks off and then …"

The caller was a woman. He broke off the call and said to Danica: "Must you put that kind of lunatic through? Get through to Dalgren instead."

"Oh yes, you’re still alive then?" said Dalgren coldly. "That almost surprises me."

"I’m calling to talk about the peace conference, not to discuss personal antagonisms."

"This, young man, is not a question of personal differences of opinion. You’re a traitor and to get rid of you is-how shall I put it now?-a matter of national interest. Moreover, I’m none too anxious to talk to you at all. As the conference is going to take place all the same without your personal assistance, I prefer to leave the business to one of your colleagues."

"Of course, that’s fine. One moment and you can talk to Señora Rodríguez. I wish you a pleasant evening."

He succeeded in saying the last words in a lighthearted tone of raillery despite the fact that he was furious, and despite the fact that the churning in his diaphragm was becoming more painful every second.

Three minutes later Danica was standing by his desk.

"They agree about Mercadal as a meeting place," she said, "and they demand that the following shall be there: Dr. Irigo, El Campesino, Carmen Sánchez, and alternatively José Redondo or …"

"Or?"

"… Sixto Boreas. That’s wrong. His name isn’t that at all."

"What is his name then?"

"Also they’re willing to send the delegates whom the Liberation Front nominated, that is, Count Carlos Ponti, Don Emilio Dalgren, Don José Suárez, and Colonel Joaquín Orbal. They make one reservation in that Colonel Orbal is away at the moment and they’ve been unable to contact him."

"Did you hear what I said? What’s Sixto’s name?"

"Manuel, don’t force me to lie."

"Were you married to him?"

For some reason he said this very violently.

"To Sixto? Married? Good God, no!"

Manuel suddenly remembered that they were not alone. He glanced quickly at López, but he was sitting as still as usual and his face was completely expressionless.

The day was extremely hot. A white day which became whiter and whiter, hotter and hotter, which hour after hour was stretched out like a steel spring, more and more and more, toward a sudden explosion, as unforeseen as a catastrophe.

As if at a great distance, Manuel Ortega heard his secretary occasionally answering the telephone.

He moved like a sleepwalker into the bedroom and returned, frightened out of his life, with López behind him, his hand on the walnut butt and his heart thumping.

At six o’clock Ellerman came; small, thick-set, curved nose, white linen hat and narrow-striped light-colored suit. He seemed efficient and energetic, sharp, practical, and discerning. Altogether it took half an hour.

"The fundamental difficulty is naturally the time factor," said Ellerman. "One or more of our delegates are not in the country. They must be reached, and certain preparations are necessary too. Let me see, today is Friday the fifteenth of June."

He counted on his fingers.

"Saturday, Sunday, Monday-Wednesday then, at the very earliest Tuesday. The very, very earliest. Preferably Wednesday."

"We’ll try for Tuesday."

"But that’s really terribly short notice, almost absurdly so. All the preparation on the administrative level, the internal discussions. But we’ll try …"

"Let’s say we’ll open the conference on the evening of Tuesday the nineteenth at, say, seven o’clock. Then we can carry on for as many days as we like. I’m sorry I have to force you, Señor Ellerman, but the situation is extremely tense. At the breaking point."

Breaking point, thought Manuel Ortega.

"Yes. I must make a few contacts. You’ll have definite confirmation early tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. And the other details are fixed. Written guarantees from the government in my hand on Sunday. At the latest Monday morning. A six-mile demilitarized zone. Complete truce from midnight tonight on, no arrests, no armed action, nothing. It is unfortunately easier for the right-wing extremists to reach their … militia, than for us to reach our fighting forces. At the end of the conference, forty-eight hours’ grace. And then our delegates: El Campesino and José Redondo-well, why partisan officers at a conference table? But we’ll get hold of them, and Carmen Sánchez too, of course. The main problem is Dr. Irigo. But we’ll fix that. Otherwise we’ll have to postpone the whole thing a day. But you arrange all the practical details here; quarters, printing, broadcasts, and that sort of thing. All right? Excellent. Good-by."

Ellerman rose and picked up his briefcase. He stood looking out of the window.

"Awful lot of policemen," he said. "Very unpleasant. And a lot of demonstrators. Are the right-wing extremists going to kill you too?"

"Yes," said Manuel Ortega.

"Violence," said Ellerman. "I loathe violence of all kinds. And this struggle has to be carried on in this way."

He fell silent and poked at his nose with his little finger.

"Oh well, various people on our side take a different view of violence. There are different sets of values. If only the legal situation weren’t so depressingly obscure. You know, the Communist Party isn’t banned in the Federal Republic, but it was disbanded by the previous government, which was rather military. So the Party is, so to speak, neither permitted nor forbidden. And the Liberation Front is not officially a Communist organization. This is a matter which must be settled by the highest courts. The government can’t decide just like that that the Liberation Front is a Communist movement-and the President knows it. Such a procedure has no legal relevance at all. When Radamek took over, he submitted both matters to the federal courts with the recommendation that the Liberation Front should be declared to be Communist but that the Communist Party should at the same time be made legal. Since then the federal courts have made no move and the matter still stands way down on their list of cases. Here they’ve got around the whole business by declaring a state of emergency and applying martial law. The only thing I know about martial law after seven years’ work is that the generals do exactly as they please. In other words, it’s not easy to be afflicted with a socialist view of life in this country."

He stood silently for a moment, rubbing his nose. Danica, behind him, leaned against the doorpost, smiling.

"You know, our party has always been suppressed and has never been particularly strong in any of the other federal states. So the best forces were concentrated here in the south where there was a possibility of making some progress. Now many of them are dead-fine, strong people, real idealists. Only the top layer of the elite is left. The rest are stuck forever in this poor, frightful country. This miserable little feudal province with its millionaires and its military dictatorship. For a hundred years different politicians and different parties have scratched the feudal bosses’ backs to obtain backing for their election campaigns. For a hundred years career-mad generals have used this impoverished waste of stone as a springboard to the road to the presidency. And here the people have just starved and suffered and worked themselves to death. How otherwise could anyone earn millions from this desert of stones? And …"

"Wolfgang," said Danica Rodríguez.

He started and turned around.

"Aah-I beg your pardon. Talking too much again. Getting pathetic and long-winded, forgetting myself. Lucky I’m not going to be sitting at the conference table-what a lot of prattle-what a bad habit-well, good evening-and eight o’clock tomorrow morning …"

He backed out of the room with his briefcase in one hand and his hat in the other.

"He was a criminal lawyer to start with," said Danica, "but he talked every minor case to death. It would take three days to settle an ordinary fight, and then of course he had his political handicap. Now he devotes himself to land cases oddly enough, and to the Party … He can be extremely efficient if he puts his mind to it."

"I liked him."

From outside came shouts, the roar of voices, and whistles. Somewhere a windowpane was shattered, briskly tinkling. She looked out.

"Small fry," she said. "Mostly women and children. The police are driving them off. They’re carrying placards and streamers."

"What does it say on the placards?"

"Death to the traitor. What did you expect?"

Manuel Ortega lay on his back in the dark with his eyes open and his right hand on the butt of his revolver. He heard Fernández moving about in the room outside. It was half past three and he had been lying like that for four hours.

He had an exhausting day’s work behind him, a long and successful day. The conference was as good as settled. People he had never seen wrote "Viva Ortega" on the walls. The truce had come into force. For everyone, but not for him.

He was afraid of the dark but dared not put on the light for fear of what he might suddenly see. He was on the alert for every noise. Had Fernández gone? No, another rustling; he was still there. But could he rely on Fernández? Or López? Or on Gómez? On Behounek? On Danica. On anyone? The answer: No.

"Everything’s wrong, Manuel," he whispered. "Everything’s been wrong from the very beginning. You’re an official and not a hero, however much you’d like to be one. You’re no Behounek. Nor a Sixto. Now you must show them that this being normal can mean strength, not necessarily weakness. But you must inure yourself to it. You’re being ground between two millstone ideologies and you’re surrounded by experts in the art of killing. But are they also expert at dying? Does Behounek lie awake in his official bed too? Or Sixto in his cellar room? Or López at the hotel?"

After Sixto, he thought about the brown-haired Ramón and about the bruise and he was jealous. It came like a balm, but soon left him.

No one was right. Neither Dalgren nor Ellerman. Nor Behounek either. Certainly not Behounek. Nor Orestes de Larrinaga. Nor Ellerman. Not Ellerman.

Point 11. Because of the people’s low level of education, it is too early … But hadn’t every person a right to his own country irrespective of level of education? Should a small number of intruders be allowed to deprive everyone else of all their rights? On the other hand, could people born in this country be called intruders? They had, after all, grown up here, built towns and roads, created sources of energy and earning capacity …

This simplified reasoning was no help to him.

He was afraid.

Why could he not be like Behounek?

Or Sixto?

Why could he not hate with the ideological, orthodox person’s conscious and powerful hatred?

Manuel, where have your compromises landed you now? What is the formula for a compromise between fire and water? Steam. Yes, of course.

Suddenly he sat straight up in the dark. Cramped, sweaty grip on the revolver butt. Aimed in the dark.

He had heard steps and someone moving by the door.

Then rustling, chewing, and throat clearing, Fernández. He fell back against the damp pillow.

Then the voices came out of the darkness.

"You’re a traitor and to get rid of you is a matter of national interest."

"You filthy, lousy pervert of a swine. Do you know what we do to Indian-lovers …"

"And it’s impossible to protect you, Ortega. I’m telling you this as a professional man."

"They’re crazy; they’ll try to kill you, if only for the pleasure of it …"

"Manuel … be careful … they mean it."

"Anyone who betrays us, does so only once …"

"It would surprise me if you were still alive this time tomorrow."

"True, we didn’t kill the previous Resident, but that wouldn’t stop us …"

Voices, voices, voices.

At twenty to six his eyelids closed. His right hand slipped down toward the edge of the bed and the Astra slid out of his grip. It fell against the chair and then to the floor with a clatter.

A second later the door was open and Fernández had thrown himself into the room, hunched-up and wild-eyed, but several minutes had gone by before he realized what had happened.

He put the revolver back on the chair, stood in the half light, and looked down at the man on the bed. He shook his head.

"Poor devil," he said.

Manuel Ortega heard nothing and did not move. But he was not really sleeping; he had fainted and was unconscious.