“Jobs!” I said angrily. “We can’t let something like that stop us.”
“We have no choice, Peter,” Anna said evenly.
I could see her evaporating before me, history erasing her from my life. There were no jobs in the village. That was the dictate of history, and because of it, this little love affair must end. For history was the truly great fire, adolescent romance merely cinerary.
“We cannot let this happen, Anna,” I said.
“But it has, Peter.”
I despised her resignation. “No,” I said loudly, “I won’t allow it.”
Anna looked at me. Her eyes were glistening. “I don’t want to go on with this. I can’t.”
And then she rushed away, with something of me still dangling in her hand, a little thread made out of my desire, unraveling me as she moved away. I watched her as she darted across the park, running like some teenage heroine of nineteenth century fiction, her hair swaying left and right as if pushed gently by invisible hands. I stood still and she grew smaller in the distance, like a wisp of paper falling from great height toward — who knows — oblivion.
I have no idea what became of Anna. I have no idea where she is, or if she is alive, or, if alive, how mutated by events. I take a piece of stationery from my desk, and then take up my pen.
Dear Anna . .
The page stares back blankly, my letter stopped in its course. I do not know what to say to Anna. And even if by some miraculous circumstance she were to receive my letter, who would it be who received it? Not the Anna moaning softly under the featureless gaze of the milkmaid dolls. Of that I may be sure. But if not that, then what? Could she have taken the road I took? Could there be pictures of her in some hideous archive, perhaps a grainy photograph in black and white of a woman standing black-booted before a wintry background laced by electric wire, a woman staring haughtily into the camera’s lens, posturing with her feet spread wide apart, slapping a leather truncheon at her thigh, guarding the vermin as they pass with enforced, truckling grace toward the fire.
I return to my letter:
Dear Anna:
I have come to love all things that move with stamina through pain.
I fold the letter carefully, then burn it in the ashtray beside my rack of pipes. Watching the smoke, I recall that moment once again when Anna and I faced each other in the park. Here in the Republic one can grow to hate such banal reminiscences. The aggrieved adolescent stands blank-faced in the park, watching his love abandon him, and feels the first touch of history, a mere chill around his shoulders, and then, that moment past, moves on to greater endeavors involving smoke and poison gas.
Greater things, indeed, for one and all. And yet the little prince, rubbing his eyes under the sculptured gaze of Frederick the Great, can feel nothing of his own loss, nothing but sudden drift, dull and anchorless, as if the world’s firm substance had suddenly exploded, scattering fragments of earth and bone throughout the universe, as if the seas were made of star-crossed lovers’ tears, as if the rising chorus of Fidelio were meant to orchestrate the strife of teenage infatuation. For the true romantic, there is no history or literature or art that does not pertain to him.
I gaze into the enclosing darkness. In the Republic, night is a signal for assault. The owls wait on their secret perches for the dark curtain to fall across the jungle floor, their eyes searching the blackness for the small rodents that must go forth, risking everything for food. Silently, they squeeze the branches with their talons and dream of small hearts beating within their grasp. In the blue, lunar glare of the searchlights Dr. Ludtz has installed about the compound, I see Juan puttering about the greenhouse, muttering prayers against the blight. He believes that darkness is the devil’s work, that it shields that unknowable miasma which will drift in to corrupt the orchids. To the left, the lights in Dr. Ludtz’s cottage are burning brightly through the barred and shuttered windows. Inside he reads Rilke and glances up periodically at the pistol that rests upon his nightstand next to his crucifix.
I turn and walk into my office. Sitting behind my desk, I pour a small amount of absinthe into my glass. Outside, I can hear the night creatures fill the air with calls of mating or distress. Beyond the rim of light that circles the grounds like a thin white wall, the world descends to elemental needs. Out there, small creatures scurry across the leaves, fleeing the swoop of gigantic birds; the great snakes coil around mounds of eggs orphaned by the owls; the beetles inch their way into the viscera of the dead or tumble over lumps of larger creatures’ waste. Here, doom is no more than prologue to further violation. Each night the libretto is the same, and things go forth and are cut down, and all things wait to be relieved.
Part II
SPLENDID TO SEE you again, Don Pedro,” Don Camillo says. He roots himself in his chair. I can see a revolver bulging slightly under each arm of his three-piece suit.
“Good to see you, also,” I tell him.
Don Camillo looks off the verandah at the light dancing on the river. “A beautiful morning. Absolutely beautiful.”
“Yes.”
Don Camillo turns to me. “Well, let me say that El Presidente is very much looking forward to his visit.” He smiles expansively. Don Camillo is a man of smiles and expansiveness, both closely related to his personal control of the Republic’s stock of copper.
“Please give El Presidente my regards,” I tell him.
“You will soon be able to give them to him yourself, Don Pedro.”
“Of course.”
Don Camillo glances about. “And where, may I ask, is my good friend Dr. Ludtz?”
“In his cottage.”
“I hope he is well.”
“Quite well. He is reading, I suppose.”
“A well-read man. I noticed that right away about Dr. Ludtz,” Don Camillo says.
“A product of culture’s refinements,” I add agreeably.
“Refinements, yes,” Don Camillo says, nodding his head thoughtfully. “A man of refinements.” He takes a deep breath and exhales with affected weariness. “Men of state, regrettably, have little time for such things, such refinements.” He laughs. “But then, I suppose we have our place in the world.”
“We?”
“Men of affairs. Like yourself. Like me.”
“My kingdom is rather small, Don Camillo,” I say.
Don Camillo shakes his head. “No, no. Don’t diminish yourself. To run an estate such as this — particularly with the rather backward population of El Caliz — that is no small matter, believe me.”
Here in the Republic, no man must be diminished. That would debase the sanctity of individualism upon which the totalitarian state is founded. Here in the Republic each man must be free to grab what he can, be it horse or maid — or copper.
“Speaking of men of affairs, Don Camillo,” I say, “how is El Presidente?”
“Very well,” Don Camillo replies delightedly. He leans forward, lowering his voice. “Of course, we’ve had a little trouble in the northern provinces.”
As he speaks, I can see the “trouble in the northern provinces” trudging wearily through the jungle, a small, bedraggled army infested with lice and infected with disease. They amputate their gangrenous limbs with penknives and machetes.
“I’m disturbed to hear about the trouble.”
“Nothing serious, you understand,” Don Camillo hastens to inform me. “Mere irritations, but they plague El Presidente. They keep him from the sleep he deserves, wear down his strength.” He slaps at a mosquito near his ear. “Damn pests.” He rolls his shoulder, the revolvers eating into his armpits. Here in the Republic, men of state must bear such aggravations.