Well, there was hope in another direction. Lucas had spoken of investigations into Dalban’s part in the affair; if they paid off, I might be able to get on with my job in peace. Frankly, by this time I was wishing to God it was over and done with.
I made a mental note to call Lucas and thank him as soon as I got the chance, and finished my breakfast in a considerably better mood than I’d been in twenty-four hours before.
Sitting in the lounge with an air of extreme dejection, studying a chess problem and idly moving a pawn back and forth as though unable to decide what to do with it, was Maria Posador.
What the hell did she do at this hotel when she had a house a little distance away? Did she just like it? Come here for the company? Use it as an office for whatever she did with the National Party?
I went over to her. “Señora Posador! I’d like a word with you.”
“You are welcome, Señor Hakluyt,” she murmured without looking up. “Be seated.” She gestured at another chair, an unlit Russian cigarette between her fingers.
I sat down and leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Maybe I’m more welcome than what I want to say,” I said. “Are you responsible for what Tiempo has been saying about me lately?”
She dropped the pawn she was toying with, sat back, crossed her legs. “I am responsible for nothing Tiempo says or does. Who informed you that I was?”
“That’s beside the point. What is your connection with Tiempo?”
“I have sometimes given money to Cristoforo Mendoza — no more than that.”
No evasion, so far as I could judge; a plain answer to the question. I relaxed a little. “If you’re a friend of the Mendoza brothers, maybe you can tell me why they’re picking on me at the moment.”
She was silent for a while, regarding me. She said finally, “Perhaps, Señor Hakluyt, you are thinking of news papers.” Two words; she made the distinction perfectly clear. “Tiempo is not a news paper. It cannot be, because Liberdad is not. These are tools for shaping the opinions of people. Let me put it this way. Liberdad is little more than a — spare wheel for the television and radio services; it carries extra weight among those highly literate and influential persons who, after all, are the operative factors in our country. Against this, the opposition has Tiempo — and word of mouth. It has been a great achievement of Vados, to retain public confidence in his propaganda services; often, after twenty years, government organs speaking for a regime have outworn their public acceptance. People say, ‘I no longer believe! I have read — or seen — or heard — too many obvious falsehoods.’ Not here, señor.”
“That explains nothing.”
“On the contrary. Are you an angel, señor?”
“What do you mean?”
“You would not claim to be an angel. Yet have you raised so many objections to the way the television service has presented you? Against this, Tiempo tried to present something less favorable, admitted, but perhaps nearer the true state of things. We are all human, fallible, not all-knowing. And of course, you deny permission to state this side of the case. I do not blame you. I wish only that we spoke for the same cause.”
“For the hundredth time,” I retorted, “I’m not taking sides in the internal affairs of Vados. I’m hired help, and treating me as though I were — were a hired assassin is unjustifiable.”
“Whether you recognize the fact or not,” she said calmly, “you are a symbol now. Better that you should leave with your work unfinished than that you should altogether lose your power of decision and perhaps be destroyed by the disaster that now impends.”
“You seem very certain that there will be a disaster,” I said. “And what are your friends the Mendozas doing to stop it? Nothing. They seem to be helping it along. I saw a knife fight on Sunday evening over that attack Tiempo published against Dr. Ruiz. Fortunately it doesn’t seem to have caused anything worse so far.”
“Only because the case collapsed, señor. Only because Señor Brown disappeared. I think Felipe was foolish to insist on publication of that attack; still, as I have told you, I have no influence on the policy of Tiempo. I merely believe it right and necessary for there to be counter-propaganda of some sort in Ciudad de Vados.”
“All right, so there has to be an opposition press. I grant that. What I want to know is: must it be libelous and irresponsible?”
“Under the circumstances, it must be as extreme as the law permits. Milk and water, señor, will not tempt readers away from stronger drink. As to Dr. Ruiz — well, his time of reckoning will come. I am glad Felipe did not continue as he had intended, though — otherwise there might now be barricades in the square, and perhaps you would have been knifed.”
She looked down at the chess problem on the table. “Believe me, Señor Hakluyt, I am sympathetic; our problems are not your problems, but they exist. And we in Vados cannot cease to fight our own battles merely because one stranger is involved, to whom we wish no harm. Is that reasonable? Will you agree with me?”
I threw up my hands. “I have to hand it to you, señora, you put up a most rational case. It still doesn’t make me happy about this treatment I’m getting. Just one more thing, though. Are you also acquainted with a man called Jose Dalban?”
Her eyes widened fractionally. She gave a quick nod. “Then tell him from me next time you see him that if he lets out another peep about me I’ll have him hit from so many sides he won’t know what’s happening.”
“Explain further.”
“He’ll know what I mean. He’s threatened me more than once now; the third time I promise to spit in his eye.” I took a deep breath. “Frankly, Señora Posador, I was told it was a tossup who out of you and Dalban, was responsible for the attacks on me. I’ll accept your assurance; from Dalban I wouldn’t take an oath on a crucifix.”
Her voice kept carefully neutral, she said, “I will tell him. If I see him. You must understand, Señor Hakluyt, that again you have preconceptions. It is my impression that you think in terms of ordinary political parties; you mistake the similarities between our government and other governments for identities. There is a president, a congress, a cabinet which as in the Estados Unidos is appointed by the president — but these parties, the Citizens of Vados and the National Party, exist only in Ciudad de Vados. You knew that, possibly. But you did not go on to think that Puerto Joaquín has more than twice so many people as this city, and that our other two large cities, Cuatrovientos and Astoria Negra, combine to make as many people as live here. Beyond that, there is the whole country. It is against the isolation of this city that we fight — against the city as a privileged country-within-the-country. How long have you been here? Three weeks, is it not? This is a struggle that has continued for more than ten years, and in the course of its growth it has struck its roots in every corner of all our lives.”
Her long fingers sorted the chessmen on the table before her. “Almost,” she finished musingly, “it threatens to replace chess as the national obsession.”