“Well, perhaps his visit here will relax El Presidente.”
“I profoundly hope so, Don Pedro,” Don Camillo says worriedly. “As I say, he’s not been sleeping well. Bad dreams, I think. Do you ever have bad dreams?”
“Sometimes I dream that in the end all the innocent blood that has been shed will be gathered in a great pit and those who spilled it will be forced to swim in it forever.”
Don Camillo’s face pales. “Dios mío. How horrible.”
“One cannot help one’s dreams.”
The light seems to have withdrawn from the two gilded medals that adorn Don Camillo’s breast pocket. “Such dreams. Horrible,” he says. His eyes are full of imagined terrors.
“Perhaps El Presidente’s dreams are better suited to his person,” I say comfortingly.
Camillo glances apprehensively toward the river. The guards who stand below, near his limousine, stiffen as he looks toward them, then relax as he returns his gaze to me. “Such a vision. Horrible.”
“I am sorry to have disturbed you,” I tell him.
The monkeys have begun to screech wildly in the trees across the river. Don Camillo turns to his guards and instructs them to fire a burst into the trees. They do so, and I hear the bullets slapping into the thick foliage. One monkey drops from the tree and splashes belly down into the river.
Don Camillo turns slowly to face me. There is a smile on his face, but something dark behind it. “You seem to have become somewhat morbid of late, Don Pedro,” he says. “I hope you will try to be in better spirits when El Presidente visits.”
The monkey’s arms slowly rise from the surface of the water, then drop, then rise again. “You should kill it,” I tell Don Camillo.
Don Camillo’s eyes seem to recede into his skull. “What are you talking about?” he asks darkly.
I nod toward the river. “The monkey. It is still alive.”
Don Camillo turns toward the river and watches the arms rise and fall. Then he turns back to me. “Sometimes we catch one of those bastards from the northern provinces, those rebels. We tie a rope around his waist and hoist him up in a helicopter. Then we fly very low over the marshes, dragging him just above the water so that the reeds can do their work.” His lips curl down. “After a while there’s not much left to pull up, so we just cut the rope, you know?” He leans forward and stares at me menacingly. “You know why I am here, do you not, Don Pedro?”
“As always, my friend, you have come to make sure that all the proper arrangements have been made for El Presidente’s visit.”
Don Camillo traces his thin mustache across his lips with the tip of his index finger. “I must be sure about his safety, Don Pedro.”
“Why should he not be safe in El Caliz?” I ask. In the river, the monkey’s arms no longer rise and the body begins to drift downstream with the river’s lethargic flow.
“We are a free people in the Republic,” Don Camillo says. “People may travel as they like. Perhaps they may travel to El Caliz, perhaps enemies come here.” He smiles. “Perhaps already there are enemies living in El Caliz.”
“There are no enemies here, I assure you, Don Camillo.”
Don Camillo sits back in his chair. “The world is full of monkeys. Like the ones in the tree, you know. They chatter constantly. Big talk. Crazy talk. But one has to take it seriously.”
“El Presidente has always enjoyed his visits here,” I tell Don Camillo.
“Very much. Correct,” Don Camillo says. “He very much looks forward to it.”
“This will go well, I assure you.”
Don Camillo looks relieved. “I hope so.” He stares about as if looking for traces of copper. “I suppose you have already made plans for the visit?”
“Yes.”
“May I know what they are?”
“A large banquet. The whole village will be invited. I know how much they love El Presidente, and how much he loves them, as well.”
Don Camillo smiles happily. “Splendid. That should improve his spirits.”
“Such is my intent.”
Don Camillo eyes the wall of records inside my office. “There is a particular musician El Presidente admires, Don Pedro. I wonder if you might have any of his recordings.”
“What is the name?”
“Chop-pin.”
“Chopin,” I say gently.
Don Camillo smiles self-consciously. “Oh, is that how it is pronounced? I have only seen the name written on the albums. One does not hear such names pronounced very often here in the Republic.”
In the Camp, the orchestra was not permitted to play Chopin, because he was a Pole. “It wouldn’t matter if you did,” I tell Don Camillo.
“I beg your pardon?”
“It wouldn’t matter if you did hear such names pronounced here, Don Camillo. Pronunciations are of no importance.”
“Exactly,” Don Camillo says. “Although I’m sure El Presidente knows the correct form of speech.”
“A man of refinements,” I add.
“Profoundly so,” Don Camillo says. He slaps his thighs. “Well, I think my work is done here, Don Pedro. I’m happy to see that you have made the proper arrangements for El Presidente’s visit.”
“Everything will be taken care of, you may depend on it, Don Camillo.”
Don Camillo rises, draws a handkerchief from his coat pocket, and mops his brow. “This business in the northern provinces, it has exhausted me.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
“Ah, well, part of the job,” Don Camillo says. He replaces the handkerchief. “It’s those people up there. They are never satisfied. No matter what El Presidente does for them, they want more.”
“Perhaps if they had more copper —”
Don Camillo laughs. “Copper? No, there’s no copper to be had in that region of the Republic. Believe me, it has been investigated.”
“Something else then, perhaps.”
“No, nothing,” Don Camillo says with certainty. “It’s their nature, that’s all. Mountain people. Uncivilized. Sometimes I think that we will never have peace in the northern provinces until every last one of them has been killed.” He looks at me knowingly. “A process, I believe, in which you have some expertise, Doctor.”
My machine pistol rests in the top drawer of my desk. It is only a few inches from my hands.
Don Camillo laughs, but his eyes do not. “Perhaps you have a plan for the northern provinces.”
It would be a matter of opening the drawer, one quick, deft movement, and he would dance until the clip emptied.
“I would not want to be involved,” I tell him.
“Once is enough for anyone, I suppose,” Don Camillo says with a malicious wink.
I stand. “Tell El Presidente that I am waiting for him with great eagerness.”
Don Camillo wipes the shimmering beads of sweat from his mustache. “And you tell Dr. Ludtz that I regret not seeing him.” He offers me his hand. I take it and shake it briskly. “So nice to have seen you, Don Pedro,” he says.
“And you, Don Camillo.” In the Republic, civility is important.
Don Camillo turns and moves down the stairs. His bodyguards watch me, and two other bodyguards a little ways distant watch them. In the Republic, no one can be trusted.
I raise my hand. “Adiós, Don Camillo.”
Don Camillo turns before entering his mud-caked limousine. “Y usted, tambien,” he calls to me. Then he steps inside the car, surrounded by his sloe-eyed janissaries in their dark green uniforms. They stare out the window, their eyes cruising the river bank or rising to riffle through the trees searching for blue rifle barrels peeping from the vines like the heads of wary serpents.
Don Camillo’s car pulls away quickly, heaving up a trail of swirling orange dust. In the distance, I can see Esperanza watch the limousine. She is wearing a dark red rebozo that falls over her shoulders and drops almost to her knees. Ritually, she claps her hands three times as the car passes. I do not know if this is a blessing or a curse.