She imagined, nevertheless, throwing it at him, leaping after it; Sucre somehow missing it and her, her grabbing his gun, perhaps knocking him overboard (though how to do that without losing the gun, strapped round his shoulders?), or just knocking him unconscious, still getting the gun from him in time to turn and fire before the man in the stern could reach for and fire his own machine-gun… yes, and she could swim away from the probably sinking Gemini, using the cello case as a life raft, and rescue all the others or get word to the outside world, and everything would be just fine. She swallowed heavily, as though consuming the wildness of the idea. Her heart beat hard, thudding against the cello case.
She wondered how often people had been in such a situation; not knowing what was going to happen to them, but so full of fearful hope and hopeless fear they went along with whatever their captors were arranging, praying it would end without bloodshed, lost in some pathetic human trust that no terrible harm was being prepared for them.
How many people had been woken by the hammering at the door in the small hours, and had gone — perhaps protesting, but otherwise meekly — to their deaths? Perhaps they went quietly to protect their family; perhaps because they could not believe that what was happening to them was anything — could be anything — other than a terrible mistake. Had they known their family too was doomed, had they known they were themselves already utterly condemned and without hope, destined inevitably for a bullet in the neck within hours, or for years — even decades — of toil and suffering in the camps before a cold and disregarded death, they might have resisted then, at the start, when they still had a chance, however futile their resistance might finally be. But few resisted, from what she knew. Hope was endemic, and sometimes reality implied despair.
How could you believe, even in the cattle trucks, that what had been the most civilised nation on earth was preparing to take you — all of you; the entire trainload and strip you, remove and sort artificial limbs, glasses, clothes and wigs and jewellery, gas you by the hundreds in a production line of death, and then pull the gold teeth from your skull? How? It was the stuff of nightmares, not reality. It was too terrible to be true; even a people inured over the centuries to prejudice and persecution must have found it hard to believe it could really be happening in the West in the twentieth century.
And the doctor or engineer or politician or worker in Moscow or Kiev or Leningrad, roused from sleep by the fists on the door; without knowing he was already dead as far as the state was concerned, who could blame him for going quietly, hoping to impress with his co-operation, to save his wife and children (which, maybe, he did)? Nervously confident in his knowledge that he'd done nothing wrong and had always supported the party and the great leader, was it any surprise he quietly packed a small case and kissed his wife's tears away, promising to be back soon?
The Kampucheans had quit the city, seeing some warped logic in it at first, thinking it best to humour the men from the jungle. How could they have known — how could they have taken seriously the idea — the glasses on their noses would bring the iron rods down on them, smashing them to bits, consigning them to mud?
Even knowing what was going to happen, perhaps you still hoped, or just could not believe it was really going to happen to you, in (in their times) Chile, Argentina, Nicaragua, El Salvador… Panama.
She looked away from her reflections on Sucre's smiling face. The distant land was green and squashed. Perhaps help would come from there. Maybe Orrick had succeeded in a way; somebody ashore might have heard the shots and explosions as they killed him. The National Guard would come and the venceristas would flee, leaving their hostages alive; it would be absurd to kill any more, wouldn't it? International opinion; outcry; condemnation, retaliation.
She hugged the case closer, felt herself shiver. The rectangular bulk of the Nukodo filled the sky in front of her, blocking off the sun.
She followed Sucre up the steps from the landing pontoon, still holding the cello in its case in front of her. Another vencerista met them on the deck and led them into the ship. She was ushered into the officers' mess. The curtains were drawn; two lights shone from the far end of the mess-room table. She could just make out a figure sitting there. A chair was drawn up a metre or so from the end of the table nearest her. Sucre motioned her to sit there, then went to the vaguely seen figure sitting behind the lights. She screwed her eyes up, peering forward. The lights were Anglepoise lamps, sitting on the table, shining straight at her. The air-conditioned room made her shiver again, making her wish she wore something more substantial than just the yukata.
'Ms Onoda, Sucre said, from behind the lights. She shielded her eyes. 'The jefe wants you to play for him.
She stayed as she was. There was silence until she said, 'What does he want me to play?
She saw Sucre bend to the other man, come upright again. 'Anything; what you want.
She thought about it. Even asking whether she had a choice seemed pointless. She could ask for her music and so delay things but she could see no good reason for doing so. She would rather do this and get back as soon as she could to Philippe and the others. Wondering who the man behind the lights was, and why he wanted to keep his identity secret, seemed just as useless. She sighed, opened the case and took out the cello and bow, laying down the case.
'It will take a little while to tune it, she said, adjusting the spike to the right height for the small seat, then drawing the cello to her, feeling it between her thighs and against her breasts and neck.
'Is OK, Sucre told her, as she drew the bow across the strings. The A string was a little flat; she brought it into line with the others, closing her eyes and listening. She had always visualised tuning. In her mind the sound was a single vibrant line of colour; a column in the air, changing like oil on water but always coherent and somehow solid. If one shade jarred from an edge, like a badly printed colour photograph, it had to be refocused, brought back into line. The cello sang, hummed against her; the column of colour behind her eyes was bright and definite.
She checked, fingering through a few exercises, finding her knuckles and joints were less stiff than she'd feared.
She opened her eyes again. 'This is… Tung Loi's "Song of Leaving", she told the lights.
No reaction. It wasn't a classical piece, and she wondered if perhaps her shy captor would object to a modern work, but the jefe behind the lights said nothing. Perhaps he didn't know enough to comment, or perhaps he knew the piece and approved; it was what had come to be known as New Classical, part of the melodic fin de siècle reaction against mathematical atonality.