The sallow blonde arrived first, carrying a camp stool and a cooking pot and a flashlight. "We're having a party, Brother Thomas! At your house!"
"So come right in, Sister Stella. Come right in," I said.
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10 They filled the room. They brought stools and cush ions, a gasoline lantern, food, and wine. Nine of them and one of me. Plastic paper plates and genu ine forks. Paper cups and a big container of coffee. Jolly and smiling. I knew Chuck, the patrol leader, and three of his six soldiers Nena and Stella and the Oriental. I learned that the Oriental was Sammy. The other three were Haris, a slender blond Englishman the name pronounced to rhyme with police and Barry, a young black with a shaved head and dusty tan coloring, and Ahman, who looked like a young Turkish pirate. Persival was there, and also Alvor, one I had not seen be fore. He was chunky, with a broad gray heavy face, 149
John D. I\fi&cDonald colorless eyes and lips, mouse hair, and huge shoulders. I made certain I got all the names right. Alvor had to have been in the van with Persival. Nicky was missing, and I overheard a comment that indicated he was down at the gate as a lookout.
I was sitting on the narrow mattress, leaning back against a cushion, with Nena and Stella on ei- ther side of me. I was the center of all attention. When I remarked that it had certainly seemed like a very strange Christmas day, they reacted as if I had said something profound and witty. We had Christmas toasts in a sharp California red. I was being touched by the young women beside me, not in any sensuous way, but with little pats of affection, of lacing. And when the men would squat in front of me to talk directly to me, they would slap me on the side of the leg, give my ankle a squeeze. Wherever I looked there was someone maintaining direct eye contact with me, projecting warm am proval. I tucked McGee's suspicions into the back of my mind. Brother Tom McGraw was a lonely man, of lonely habits. So I responded to warmth. And to Battery.
'A knew at once you are a highly intelligent and sensitive man, Mr. McGraw," Persival said. 'I could sense that about you. But you seem to feel the need to conceal the real you from the outside world. We are not like that here. We're together."
"In school I never got past "
"Public education in this country means less than
The Green Ripper nothing," Sammy said. "From the earliest grades, the children are taught to conform, to be good con- sumers, to have no interest in their government or the structure of their society. The rebels drop out. The rich get classified as exceptional students and go on to the schools which teach them how to run the world, their world. Never apologize for dropping out, Brother."
The stew was beef this time. I said it was great. Haris, the Englishman, had cooked it. "Whatever there is, we share. Always," he said.
"You're a worker," Nena told me. "You have a skill. You use your skill to feed the people. Even though you are exploited, it's still something to be proud of."
Mr. Persival said, with poetry and force, 'iWe can guess that there have been Christmas nights like this in mountain country all over the world, little groups of determined people, meeting together, all of them willing to give their lives for their beliefs. In the Cuban mountains. In the mountains of Honduras. Mexico, Yugoslavia, Chile, Peru, Rhodesia. Together, sharing, living the great dream."
'~Vhat's the dream?" I asked.
"The same as yours, of course," said Persival. "Freedom for all people of all colors. An end to imperialist exploitation. To each according to his needs. You are the kind of man who, once committed, would give his life for what he believes."
"I've been known as stubborn. I don't give up easy. But what you were saying there, sir, isn't that kind of Commie?"
He shook his head sadly. "Communist, Socialist, humanist, Christian Democrat, Liberation Army. The tags mean less than nothing, Brother Thomas. We do God's work. We are the militant arm of the Church of the Apocryphal We are the ones who have been tested. We work for mankind against the exploiters, deceivers, the criminal warmongers. We will win if we have to tear down the entire structure of society. Your daughter believed in the cause or she wouldn't have joined us."
"She wasn't much for destroying things."
"Most of the people in the Church are gentle people. We are the elite. We're pleased with you, Brother Thomas. We may have a mission for you."
It was at that point I began to feel very strange. At first I thought it was because the room was airless, even with the door standing wide open. Colors got brighter. People's faces began to bulge and shrink, bulge and shrink. My tongue thickened. They had popped me with something. It turned the world into fun-house mirrors. And I knew it could give me a better chance of getting my head blown apart. I made my tongue sound thicker than it was. I began to do as much inconspicuous hyperventilation as I could manage. More oxygen never hurt anything. I crawled across to the water jug, sat and upended it and drank heavily, and crawled back. I
The Green Ripper tipped over my wine by accident and held my glass out for more.
By then we were into recitations of training, with the freedom fighters standing up and declaiming their background.
Nena stood very straight and said in a paradeground voice, "Basic training at Kochovskaya. Guerrilla training at Simferopol. Selected by World Federation of Democratic Youth in Budapest. Transport arranged by World Federal Trade Unions in Prague."
When she sat down everyone applauded. Ahman stood up and said, "Basic and guerrilla training PLO Camp Three in Jordan and Camp Nine in Lebanon. Graduate, University of Maryland." Applause.
Barry had been trained in Cuba by the DGI and had been a weapons instructor at Baninah near Benghazi in Libya. Chuck had trained at a camp near Al-Ghaidha in South Yemen, along with people from the IRA. Sammy had trained in the U.S. Marine Corps and later in the Cuban training center near Bagdad, where the famous Carlos was an adviser. Persival interrupted to give Carlos's correct name, Ilyich Rameirez Sanchez. Stella had been in the Weather Underground and had trained in their mountain camp in Oregon, and later in Bulgaria.
"How," I said heavily, "how these great people get to go so many crazy places inna worl' anyhow?"
"We selected them, Brother Thomas. We tested them, and we selected them, and we sent them away to be trained and come back to us. We sent them as delegates, most of them, to the World Peace Council meetings in Helsinki, or the World Federation of Democratic Youth in Budapest. You see only a few here. There are scores of them, Brother Thomas. Travel is easily arranged for them. The Church provides the funds, of course. They are pledged to make this a better world. They are saviors of mankind."
I mumbled something unintelligible and slowly toppled over to my left to land with my head in Stella's lap, eyes closed, breathing slowly and heavily. I hoped the show would continue. I wanted to hear more. But my collapse broke it up. They picked up all their gear and the dishes and left, after covering me up and turning out the light. I heard the locking of my door. My head was still thick with whatever it was they had given me. I did some fast pushups in the darkness, and a series of knee bends. My knees creaked and breath came fast. But it helped a little. I slept heavily.