I remember how afraid I was when Bharlina and I arrived in Managua that day, July 19, 1979, and how I couldn't eat or drink on the plane because of it. It was an early morning turnaround Air Canada flight from Toronto, a fancy Boeing 747 with a classy breakfast and free liquor. The flight had been arranged to pick up Canadian diplomats, or those Canadians who thought there might be open fighting in the streets, or those who had too-close ties with the Somoza Regime and their American supporters, or those who were escaping before the Sandinistas could question them. Bharlina and I were just out of our teenage years, and were not seasoned journalists by any means. This was always at the back of my mind. It was rumored that the revolution was rolling into the city even as we landed. We were excited to bear witness to a violent event, but frightened too, or at least I was.
Bharlina worked for the Canadian Tribune, a labor newspaper that I considered a propaganda rag. I was her cameraman, just as sure as she was my Pakistani princess. She was a good sport in bed and let me pretty much have my way with her. She had this stereotypical Asian female ideal of sexual sacrifice for a long-term cause. That pretty much summed her up politically as well. I think the long-term cause, in my case, was to convert me to Communism and then marry me.
She was a woman of means, as they say, and we checked into the Inter-Continental Hotel. It was a fine old place, and one of the few large structures in Managua that had survived the most recent earthquake. After we made out–I burn hot, especially when I'm nervous–we rented a jeep and rushed back to the airport. She wanted to interview the incoming Sandinista hierarchy and I wanted to take pictures of the famous Somocistas National Guard cornered on the tarmac, waiting for the Hondurans and Guatemalans–read, the CIA– to come and rescue them. We were authorized by the Sandinistas, or at least she was, but I remember how I felt when I found myself alone in the abandoned airport. The smell, the temperature, and the sounds were seeping into my body as though by osmosis. I was pretty darn scared.
I caught myself looking up through the holes in the roof of the airport that afternoon, and in the shifting perspective, I blinked away the bright Central American sun. I wondered again how safe I was, then glanced down to get equilibrium, scanning back and forth and verifying the footholds. I wore a loose t-shirt that fell well past my hips. It had a Montreal Canadiens logo. Cement debris littered the floor. The holes in the roof, made by mortar and bullets, looked recent, maybe even from this morning. The walls were pockmarked. In a strange way, I felt detached from my immediate surroundings. That's what fear will do to people like me if they try to ignore it: it comes back like a dream. And besides, the twisted paths to this story prohibit too much logical interpretation.
"Late last night, disorganized groups of the Sandinista rebel coalition poured into the city from all corners of the Central American country of Nicaragua," I said quietly into a recorder, which was strapped to a bag holding my camera equipment. I stopped and bent to pick up the pages that I had dropped, then started again. "The strong-arm dictator, President Anastasio Somoza Debayle, known here as Tachito, has fled the country. "
I stopped again and peeked around a corner and down a hallway, which was also strewn with rubble and litter. I saw no rebel soldiers. As I said, I wasn't afraid of them, only of being shot by accident. I stepped out into the hallway and continued to walk.
"The brutal and notorious National Guard is even now dissolving," I continued. "A neighboring country, Guatemala, has promised the United States of America to come with their air force and rescue thousands of National Guards, known here simply as Guardia. This will avoid the Guardia's almost certain slaughter at the hands of the unruly rebel forces."
A shot resounded from inside the building and I lowered my voice. "As I make my way to the roof of this quaint and shot-out airport structure, the remaining Guardia, by some miracle, still hold the airstrip to the north. Well, it's no miracle, really. It's known that while the international community watches, the Sandinista leadership, the FSLN, doesn't want the blood of the Guardia on their hands. FSLN is an acronym for Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, or Sandinista National Liberation Front. Since last July, just one year ago, more than 10,000 people have died in this civil conflict in a small country of three million people."
I made my way up the stairs. Two young men with rifles, wearing FSLN insignia, hurried in my direction. I pointed to my press pass and made sure that the Canadian flag sewn to my backpack remained in open view, but they completely ignored me.
Being neither a journalist nor a Canadian, I was happy about that. I had false papers and identification, but it would take little research to discover that I held American citizenship and had studied business, not journalism. I made my way to the roof to take pictures of the Guardia leaving or being killed, whichever happened. Those pictures might be worth a hefty sum in the days ahead.
"Here in Managua, it's already begun to get uncomfortably hot," I continued. "From beyond the airport, I can hear gunshots being exchanged between the Guardia and the rebels as high noon draws close. That's when the Guatemalans will start airlifting the Guardia. Barriers between the airstrip and the rebel positions around the airport keep the enemies apart–for now. The FSLN hasn't officially arrived in Managua: so far, their supporters are respecting the 'Free Zone' designated by the Red Cross. I can't see where the gunfire is originating yet, but the Guardia on the airstrip is in serious trouble if the airlift doesn't start soon. They must feel abandoned. They have been defeated by the Sandinista Coalition and betrayed by Somoza, who fled days ago."
I stopped in front of a wide brown sign, with 'ROOF' hand-painted on it in both English and Spanish. Behind me in the corridor, which led to the observation platform, another sign read 'Offices of Nica Airlines - Employees Only.' I peaked in and looked around. I saw that it had been ransacked, and heard a moan. In the middle of the floor lay a short, stout man in a pool of blood. He was partly obstructed from my view by a desk and a large open safe, but I went in and crouched beside him. "Can you hear me?" I whispered, staring at the blood on his clothes.
"I've been shot," he moaned with a whimper of pain, but managed with difficulty to lift his balding head to look at me. His English was without a trace of an accent. His body had blood coming from his legs, arms, and chest. I could see that he was possibly dying, and I was terrified by the sight of it.
"I'll get help," I promised.
"You're American," the man gasped. "Don't go. Sandinistas did this, after they robbed me. If you go to them, they'll come back and finish me."
I felt adrenaline rush through my body. Could it be true?
I bent toward the man's ears and lowered my voice. "The building is in rebel hands. I'll get a cart or something. I can't possibly carry you all the way out of here myself."
I hurried out and made my way down the hall. I remember being struck by my own mortality, and I thought fearfully of leaving him to die. "Reconsider what you're doing," I whispered to myself.
Indeed, I even stopped for a second. I had already heard whispers that the rebels had begun to arrest many of the old supporters of Somoza. "Perhaps this guy you are trying to help is one of them," I said to myself. I scratched my head. "Let the Sandinistas look after it," I urged my cowardly self. "It's really not your problem."
I began to walk again, dragging my feet, and soon I saw several small airport carts. I took one of these and returned to where I had seen the wounded man, cursing myself. Inside the room, I stepped over to him and again crouched. "What's your name?"
Although the man's eyes were closed, and he appeared to be listless, with a gasp he whispered, "Alfonso Memorio."
"Are there any blankets or towels in the office?"
He indicated a cabinet to his left with a weak gesture. I rose and soon found clean grey wool blankets. I placed a small filing box into the cart to level it out to its sides, and then placed one of the blankets over it. I put my arm under him and felt the wet blood. A shiver went through me. With difficulty, I raised him to the cart. He groaned in pain. I threw the other blankets over him and pushed him down the hall to the stairwell. His clothes were covered in blood, as now were mine. "There's no ramp," I whispered. "Hold on."
I counted fourteen steps, and could see that each one caused Alfonso immense pain. We reached the bottom of the stairs. I wiped his sweaty brow and my own with the corner of one of the blankets. "My jeep is a hundred or so yards away," I said softly.
"Christian, what are you doing?"
I turned guiltily around to see Bharlina. Her round and youthful face expressed exasperation, but her bold eyes always neutralized that unpleasing aspect. She wore a Guatemalan huipil shirt, with a blue design on white silk, worn loose, not tucked into her jeans and falling past her waist. Against her light brown skin, the stunning effect on her svelte body was evocative. She wasn't a hundred pounds, but her breasts stuck out unabashedly. It made her seem impossibly attractive, especially given that she wore no makeup except lipstick, and no jewelry except bangles.
"I've found a wounded man," I said apologetically.
She brought her hand through her thick black hair and gathered it at the back, a movement that indicated her anger. "He might be one of Somoza's men."
"You don't mean one of the lepers," I said, sorry about it as soon as it escaped my lips. My chances for more sex today had just disappeared. She swore in Urdu. I realized that she had called me a homosexual and the bastard son of a pedophile. I had been translating her expletives ever since our first fight, over two years ago. "Okay, what?" I asked.
"We're not in the safest place in the world, you know," she said. "He is likely one of Somoza's. You'd better check."
"There isn't time to check whether he is 'us or them,' is there? Help me get him to the hospital."
She looked at me in defiance. Again she swore in Urdu. She said my mother had mated with monkeys, and that my family was as ugly as a baboon's ass. "Let the Sandinistas worry about it," she added.
"He says the Sandinistas shot him."
"What did I say? Remember, we're guests here, but if we're caught helping Somoza's men, we will be asked to leave. I want to cover this story."
I grunted and bent over Alfonso. "Are you with Somoza?"
"I'm the President of Nica Airlines," Alfonso uttered in painful gasps, lifting his head to look at Bharlina.
"What did I tell you?" she asked.
"Did you want me to shoot him, girl, and we could both watch him die?" She spun on her heel and began to walk away from me.
"Does this mean you're not willing to help me?" I called after her. She turned around and came back, cursing again in Urdu. She said that my penis was like thread and was only good for flossing her teeth.
"I'll drive," she said.
I gave a little laugh and made to kiss her, but she pulled away. As we rushed to the jeep, I removed Alfonso's wallet from his back pocket and looked at the identification.
"Alfonso Memorio, just like he stated," I said. I put the wallet into my own back pocket.
"That doesn't prove anything," she retorted. "You would expect him to at least give his right name."
I laughed again. "You crazy bitch," I said to myself, then added aloud, "He said he wasn't with Somoza. That's good enough for me."
"Allow me the courtesy of thinking what I want about a stranger for whom we are risking everything so that you can fight against the left in your own pathetic way."
The open jeep came into sight. I turned the cart toward it and considerably picked up my pace. She hustled up beside me.
"Let me talk if we're stopped," she said. "Whatever you do, don't admit to anyone that you're an American, or that this man is the owner of an airline."
"Fraulein Chickadee, as you wish."
"If you hadn't suckled at the cock of the bull so long," she said in Urdu, "You would be half-human."
I laughed for a third time. Her sense of humor was crude, but it worked for me. "He said he was the president, not the owner."
Bharlina watched the blood drip out of the bottom of the cart without changing her expression. "Down here, it's the same thing," she said.
We laid down blankets and placed Alfonso in the backseat. She began to race out of the airport. "We'll have to avoid the streets that lead to the National Palace," she said. "I've heard they're blocked because of the celebrations. That's where we should be going, and we would be, if you hadn't gotten greedy and wanted those photos of the Guardia's escape." She looked over and pouted. In Urdu, she called me a stinky purple fart whose odor stays in the room all day. "They shouldn't be allowed to even leave anyway," she added. "They should be put on trial for what they've done. We'll have to avoid the roads monitored by the Rebels under the junta's control. They're checking for ID and arresting Somoza's people."
I looked at her with some sympathy and then looked back at Alfonso. "He's in rough shape. He'll be long dead before we get him help by that route. The sweat and blood are literally pouring from him. Isn't there a Red Cross Station near the airport?"
We screeched to a stop. "I forgot about that," she said. "It'll be in Sandinista control, though."
"If we want to save him, we'd better turn around." She looked uncertain, but after a second, turned the jeep around and drove along the airport road. "There won't be much there in the way of medical people, I think. You might have to sew him up yourself."
"Me?" I said.
"You're the one who's so concerned about him."
"You don't have to be so nasty–being disinterested will do. I know you dragged me down here to witness the glorious revolution and I'm ruining your fun, but really, I won't be able to forgive myself if I don't try."
"They'll kick us out if we're caught helping someone perceived as a Somoza supporter. I'll go back to Canada without a story for the Tribune, and after all, that's why we're down here–that's why they're paying us."
"The point is, if Alfonso was a rebel supporter shot by one of the Guardia, you would risk your neck to save him."
"And in that case then, you wouldn't care."
"That isn't true. It makes no difference to me. You just don't understand democracy."
"Democracy? Phew." She said the word with such disdain that I didn't know what to say. In Urdu, she accused my parents of uncapping my skull at birth and replacing all of the grey matter with shit. "I understand a great deal about the USA and what it stands for," she added. "Money. There's no democracy in America."
"Just as there is no political freedom in Soviet Russia."
A short silence followed. At length she pointed to a Red Cross sign about two hundred meters away. When we entered the airport service roads, the area seemed not to be bogged down in the confusion of the rest of the city. She pulled up in front of a man in bandages who wore the red and black colors of the Sandinistas.
"English?" she asked. He shook his head. In Spanish, she asked if there was a doctor in the clinic. The man pointed to a large tent, stuck like a tarpaulin between two old airport buildings, although one of the buildings remained no more than a shack. She pulled up in front of it. I jumped out of the jeep and peeked into the tent, flicking the sweat off my nose. Except for a few wounded men on cots, no one was present. I retrieved a medical dolly at the entrance, and with difficulty, I picked up Alfonso and placed him on it, rolling it into the tent. He was clammy and this time he made no sound: the pallor of death had set in. "I'm too late," I whispered to myself. "He's going to die."
A tall blond doctor in a clean white smock came over from the structure to the east and looked at Alfonso. He was also wearing the Sandinistas' colors. He seemed as though he would be standoffish, but to my pleasant surprise, his eyes were extremely friendly when they met mine. "English?" he asked with a Scandinavian accent.
"He's been shot many times," I said, "and is bleeding to death. Maybe he's already dead."
The doctor took a pulse, then began to take off Alfonso's clothes. "He isn't dead," he said with a calm voice.
"I thought this place would be swamped," I returned.
"Excuse me," Bharlina interrupted from behind, "I'm going."
I reached over and kissed her with a light peck, waving a good-bye as she stepped into the jeep and drove away. When I turned my attention back, the doctor had Alfonso undressed. Blood smeared his entire plump body so that his black body-hair was matted crimson red. "Who is he?" the doctor asked.
He spun the dolly into the reach of an intense light and turned it on. I looked at the bright red blood and felt as though I could smell it. "I don't know," I lied.
"Nat," he shouted. A tall blond woman with short hair and glasses peaked out from an enclosure at the back of the tent. She was attractive even in a dull white smock. She also wore the Sandinistas' colors. "Get the hypo," he said. "Where's Phyllis?"
"Is he going to be okay?" I asked like some frightened kid whose father was dying.
"Was he conscious when you found him?" he asked as he put on rubber gloves.
"No, but he has been, off and on, since. He has been sweaty, pale, gasping for air, and sometimes unable to talk."
The two other medical people now joined him. The one he had called Phyllis was a petit brunette with beaming blue eyes who, unlike her co-worker, wore her white smock closely fitted to her slender form. "I need pressure and pulse," he ordered.
He worked quickly, and in a moment, he had checked Alfonso's wounds by touch. He looked into Alfonso's mouth. "Did you say you knew who he was?" he asked again as though sensing that I had lied
"I don't know," I lied again. "I was headed to the roof to take some pictures of the airlift when I found him in the hallway. I'm a photographer for a Canadian worker's paper, The Tribune."
"Respiration is cold," the doctor said to his associates. "Behind the neck it's gritty. I think that the trachea is pushed over." He looked up and pointed to a long thin needle. "Is this the biggest that we have?"
"Pressure is seventy-zero," Phyllis said with a nod. "His pulse is one-forty."
I watched while he took the needle and actually pushed it deep into Alfonso's chest. I paled at the sight of it, and could hear the rush of air come out the end of the needle. "The lung is out," he said. "Pneumothorax. There. That's it."
The change in Alfonso's face became visible, like a man who has come back from the dead, and he stopped gasping.
"Pressure is eighty-ten," Phyllis said, "and the pulse is one twenty."
He then raised the left arm of Alfonso, cut a hole under his armpit and shoved a large plastic bore tube deep into his chest. Thick red blood poured out of the tube in great spurts into a basin, held by the one he had called Nat. I could see that I had placed Alfonso in good hands, but the sight of all the blood made me nauseous and the doctor must have seen it.
"Are you okay?" he asked. I nodded. "It's a good thing he's out," he added. "We haven't given him a thing yet."
"It looks like you have done this a few times," I said.
"I spent my first rotation in Emerge." He turned to his assistant. "Start blood stat, O negative," he said. His gaze then returned to Alfonso, with his attention half on me, although he didn't look up again. "I had an option here for my last rotation," he said softly. "They liked my surgery, you see, and in Sweden they're always sympathetic to any small group fighting the Americans. Nat here is handy with a knife, and they thought there would be a bloodbath."
I looked over at Nat, feeling faint. "Don't pass out on us," he said softly. "Look away and take a deep breath before you look back. The lung is better. This man has been shot once through the upper back, exit chest; through the hand, exit palm; through the upper leg above the knee, exit back upper leg; and through the back lower leg, exit front lower leg. Nat, look at this. You know what? All the wounds are from the same shot. What a mess. He must have been shot at close range."
I watched at this point in somewhat of a stupor. "Pressure is eighty over forty," Phyllis said. "The pulse is one-fifteen."
"We're getting there," he said. "Start second intravenous."
He began to sew and bandage Alfonso. I was amazed. Outside of being born, I don't think I had ever been in a hospital or clinic in my whole life. I hadn't required stitches, casts, or operations for anything–I never even needed antibiotics. There I stood, in the thick of gore and blood, and I hadn't even thrown up. I was downright proud of myself. Alfonso's blood had leaked everywhere, and I looked down at my own clothes. They were full of his blood. "It appears that I've helped saved someone after all," I whispered to myself.
The doctor gave me a quick smile. "One bullet, close range," he said. "Incredible isn't it? Listen, if you want to come back in one hour, maybe two, then you'll know whether all of this trouble you've gone through leads to the man's survival. What's your name?"
"Christian Hudson."
"You can see that he's stabilizing. His breathing has improved. I'll give him some morphine. He will sleep peacefully. If he stabilizes, he has to go to the hospital. The bullet appears to have taken out only minor arteries, but the next two hours will tell the tale."
"Pressure is ninety-sixty," Phyllis said, "and the pulse is one hundred."
"Does it look better all the time?" I asked.
"If you could arrange for a taxi later this afternoon, that would be the fastest way to the hospital in this present situation. The revolution has caused major traffic problems."
"Two hours, then?" I asked.
I tore myself away and raced to the roof of the airport, but the Guardia had gone. I took out my binoculars and looked out at the city, but from my angle there was little of the revolution to capture on film. I didn't know whether I would be safe wandering the streets, and decided to head directly back to the hotel. A ride would have been nice, but I didn't see any taxis for over an hour. Parts of Managua destroyed by the earthquake on December 23, 1972 had never been rebuilt for fear of a recurrence, and streets flagged and dropped out into open grassy areas. The earthquake had destroyed most of Managua, generating many fires and leaving about two hundred thousand people without homes. Then last year, Somoza had bombed parts of the city in desperation to hold onto power.
As I passed through the busier street, I saw that the FSLN was definitely stopping many people, especially older men. I got the feeling that they were searching for the Guardia's leadership. I saw no one killed that afternoon, but I saw a lot of people questioned at gunpoint. It wasn't a pretty sight. Managua wasn't pretty to begin with, but with everybody shooting their guns into the air, and with the confusion in the streets, by the time I saw a cab, I jumped in. I had seen all I had wanted of the revolution.
Although I was close to the hotel, on an impulse, I had the driver return me to the airport. He understood little English, but got me safely back and promised to wait.
For all the sights and sounds I had taken in, only three hours had passed when I next looked at Alfonso. He was pale, but looked much improved. "Christian, he's all set," the doctor said and came up behind me. I shook his hand. "No major arteries were severed. He can go to the hospital."
"Does anyone speak Spanish so as to explain to the driver what we're doing?"
The doctor and the cab driver spoke for a few minutes, and he sent a note with me. When we arrived, I didn't stay long with Alfonso, who wasn't conscious. He was placed into a room and I gave a nurse twenty dollars to look after him. She seemed nice, and I supposed that ended my responsibility toward him.
I had asked the driver again to wait, and when he delivered me safely to the hotel, I gave him forty dollars for his trouble.
Through the corridors and up the elevator of the hotel, everything seemed as usual. Few people were about, though, and there were absolutely no tourists. I threw my shirt on the double bed – the blood had all dried – and stepped out onto the balcony. I could see down into the bright blue water of the large swimming pool below. It looked inviting. I stepped into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and gave silent thanks that they still had warm water. I crawled under the clean white sheets and fell asleep for an hour.
When I awoke, Bharlina was getting ready to go out. "What's up?" I asked.
"My friends are having a celebration tonight, and we're going."
I told her what I had seen that afternoon: people being questioned at gunpoint. "It's not safe to be in the open streets," I added. "Too many people have guns."
"It will be an indoor event. It's nonpolitical." She only meant that there would be no speeches, but there would be plenty of guns. The bastard of it was that by about ten o'clock or so, they would be guns held by drunks. That night she wore a bright, ochre-colored Mexican sleeveless tunic with a white cotton skirt, and a straw hat hung behind her. The skirt fit her body in a manner which completely hid it. I was used to this modesty. I had even grown fond of her style: whether dressed in a bright silk Pakistani sari, Cantonese cheongsam, or Japanese kimono and obi, she could stun any crowd with her beguile–and what is more, she knew it.
She had expressed the belief to me on numerous occasions that female sexual appeal and modesty were closely linked, and that western men with the need for instant gratification had mistakenly shunned it. Moreover, short-sighted western women had lost sight of it. I didn't believe it for a second. It was as silly as anything she said; it had been manufactured from her anti-Western views. Her stunning beauty gave her license to spout whatever theory she wanted, as it does for any female born with it: beauty does what it wants, irrational or otherwise. What man is going to be stupid enough to argue with such beautiful creatures? I came out from under covers without clothes. She was sitting in a wicker chair on the balcony, looking over the book I was currently reading, In a Free State by V. S. Naipaul.
I pulled her into the room. Even after all this time, she got flustered when I was ready to go, what she called 'being perky.' It sometimes hurt her if I wasn't careful. I kissed her, and although she didn't exactly melt in my arms, she didn't resist either. I think she liked my body, but not the fact that I ran so hot and asked for sex so often. I think she thought that I was part of the white-imperialistic-male-exploiters' class, and that we were all potential rapists.
I had short hair and a clean-shaven face, but the rest of my skin, with the exception of a shot of black pubic hair above my genitals, was hairless. My body was taut, lean, but muscular too. I could easily give it a go three or four times a day. I was her first lover, and she was a sucker for me, but she hated it in principle as well. I think that she was a hostage to her own emotions; something has to account for what occurred later. I think that the seeds of hatred were planted by the license I took with her in moments like those, that is, especially sexually. While I burn hot, I try to be a considerate lover, but she had already had an orgasm earlier that morning, and nothing I had tried so far could get her up twice a day–not booze, rest, exotic places, fondling, visual stimulus, or anything else.
Afterwards, I dressed in dark green cotton pants and a white short-sleeve dress shirt that I had bought in Montreal with a logo on the pocket, 'Canadian Rocks.' I had thrown my bloody clothes in the waste basket. We walked from the hotel, past Somoza's old office buildings and down toward the Central Park. Everywhere, there was confusion. Crowds of people, mostly made up of young boys, were hanging huge black and red Sandinista flags off of the buildings. We whispered to one another about the over-exuberant masses. We were both nervous foreigners. The streets were crowded and the markets, busy, but we also saw people being taken away by the FSLN patrols, and others being beaten by young men while the crowds cheered them on. It was as lawless as you can imagine in that dirty hot city.
The fear must have crept from my heart to my face. "We are almost there," Bharlina whispered in my ear, and then squeezed my hand.
I saw that she wasn't happy about it either. We arrived at the Old Managua Cathedral, ruined since the 1972 earthquake but still standing. Near the doorway, a large banner hung depicting Augusto Ceasar Sandino, the namesake of the Sandinistas and Nicaragua's national hero in the resistance against American colonialism. He had been murdered by the American-backed Somoza family in 1937.
We were welcomed by several men carrying AK-47s and wearing FSLN colors, but inside, I took immediate satisfaction in the fact that no guns were allowed. I saw there was a makeshift bar, and the place was about twenty degrees Fahrenheit cooler than outside. I bought us cold La Toña beer. Bharlina introduced me to a skinny man with dark, dirty hair: Fernando Uressé. He wore a thin mustache and had pimples on his face. He was taller than me by about three inches. Although I smiled and shook his hand, he looked to me unwholesome, greasy, maybe even sneaky. I dismissed him in my mind immediately. He also had an unmanly handshake. He wore FSLN colors, but I would have never dreamed that he had the ear of the junta leadership. Several other men came and shook our hands. They all wore FSLN colors, and I bought them all beer. Fernando told me in Spanish that he had been four years in the bush, or at least that's what I think he said. "You must be happy today," I said.
His answer totally surprised me. "I understand you've met Alfonso Memorio?" he said in perfect English.
I looked over at Bharlina and felt my cheeks flush. "Not many people realize that they're arresting everyone connected with the Somoza government," I retorted hotly. "Your enemies will all soon flee."
I watched Bharlina's face turn red and felt some satisfaction. My views of the revolution, and what I saw as its drunkenness, had in hours radically hardened me. The experience earlier in the afternoon with Alfonso had opened my eyes to the obvious violence of the street–and I saw more than I wanted. This dark and gloomy church somehow symbolized it all: the smell of beer and smoke hanging in the air, the dried mud floor littered with dead bugs and cigarette butts, and Bharlina's friends, the ones who stood within an earshot, assessing me with haughty glances. Then, as if they had made a collective decision, they drifted away in silence.
I took a sip of beer and watched Bharlina hightail it to the back of the hall with the pimply, skinny Sandinista official. One man stayed, a teenager, and I caught his eyes and smiled. He had a brown complexion, and was perhaps five foot seven in height. He had dark short hair, and was trim, with a beardless face. "Do you think it was something I said?" I asked.
He gave a soft, forced laugh. "I think they don't want to hear what you had to say," he said. "But it's true. Are you American?"
I pretended to be flabbergasted. "Is that an accusation?" I asked.
Somewhere from behind the makeshift bar, Latin music began to play: "Maria," a traditional Spanish song. Some of the men sang it aloud, and some of the women swayed to the melody. I saw that the teenager's eyes were intelligent and filled with humor, but I saw fear as well.
"I hail from New York City," I continued in a hushed voice, "and I think that you're right: I alienated my audience. It's a good thing I didn't tell them that I think Solzhenitsyn is the true leader of Russia, and that Stalin killed more innocent people than Hitler ever dreamed of killing."
"A professor once told me that on the political plain, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Gabriel Marquez were mortal enemies."
"I read One Hundred Years of Solitude and I figured out by the end that it had been written by a Marxist, so I believe it–although I liked his book Glory and Power."
"Was that The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene, maybe?" he asked, as though embarrassed for me.
I took another sip of beer, eying him suspiciously. "I had forgotten about Graham Greene," I said. "Is he a Marxist? They're probably all Marxists."
"I think he's a Catholic writer."
"I'm Christian Hudson." I offered my hand and we shook.
"Nico Gilliez," he said.
"Where did you learn English?"
" It's common to learn English in Nicaragua if you get an education, but I also spent two years at the University of Miami."
"Do you live in Managua?"
"My dad worked with the Guardia here in the city; that's how I got to go to America."
"Nico, why are you celebrating?"
"My dad and I are close–we're good friends–and I know that he hates Somoza as much as anyone and is glad to see him gone. He called him Our Fat Little Pig."
Despite my concern for him, I laughed. "The word 'chubby' is much nicer than the word 'fat,'" I said, "especially when you're describing corrupt Central American dictators made in America."
"You're funny," he said without laughing.
"It's true, I am, but apparently, you're the only person in Nicaragua who thinks so. Is your dad in danger? I've already seen many people arrested, some publicly beaten."
"I don't think so. They've promised a general amnesty."
I could see the anxiety in his eyes. "I think revolutions are risky," I said. "The only successful one to ever occur was in England in the sixteenth century. It's often called the Bloodless Revolution. Of course, it wasn't without political violence, but the landowners overthrew the king and introduced a Bill of Rights. There were no mass arrests or public executions. It's quite British, if you think about it. I admire the English."
"The word in the streets is that the junta believes someone has to pay for the sins of Somoza since he's not here to do it. They say it won't last long."
"Talk like that is bad."
"If someone has to pay, I just hope it doesn't have to be my dad."
"Your father isn't in Guatemala, then?"
"He's in hiding. The junta promises not to fight with the Guardia and police, but everyone's afraid."
"Would you like another beer?"
"Thank you. I'm waiting for a neighbor–a close friend–to arrive."
"Then I'll get a few."
I walked over to the self-serve cooler, threw some American dollars into a metal bowl, and took six Triple X's. "Christian, is there any place in the world where you won't embarrass me?" Bharlina said in a low, urgent voice, stepping up behind me.
"Yes, in bed." In Urdu, she said that my mother was a whore who had given birth to a dozen illegitimate retarded baby boys and left them up for adoption all over New York State. She tried to pull away, but I grabbed onto her hand. "You started it," I accused, "and you know it. You turned in Alfonso, you little bitch."
"You smell like beer."
"Everybody here smells like beer."
"You've picked out the one person at this party who has a direct link to Somoza. No one knows why he's even here."
"Actually, he picked me out, and besides, who gives a shit?"
She looked at me with genuine concern and pulled her hands gently away. "Anybody in Managua with a gun."
"You mean everybody?" She called me her little muchacho and said I was too selfish to be a leftist.
"You've got to love the Left," I retorted, "especially when they act just like the Right. The two have become indistinguishable."
She smiled, but nervously. "If you can't see the difference, that's fine–Americans are like that. But you're being provocative on purpose. My friends in Managua are concerned for your safety."
I shook my head with incredulity. "I hope you're not threatening me." She sighed, and in Urdu said that all the brain cells had long ago gone to my penis. "It found you all right," I replied hotly, "didn't it? I should walk with my head bowed, fearful of the left?"
"Try to focus on your own safety. You could get us both hurt. The people are drunk on revolution–and one more thing: there's a lot of anger. Please, don't talk to the kid over there anymore. He has been identified as a collaborator."
"He told me that his dad was a Guardia, but he hated Somoza."
"Everybody hates Somoza now, but that kid's a fool to be here."
"Your fangs are showing, my Karachi girl."
In Urdu, she told me that I talked through my ass and that it sounded like a throng of lemmings. "You're cute, though," she added in English.
She returned to Fernando and I walked back to Nico, handing him a beer. "Is that your girlfriend?" he asked above a loud Reggae song. I nodded. "She's pretty," he added.
"I think so too."
"She's from India?"
"She's a Canadian Pakistani from Toronto."
"I know Toronto."
"Have you ever heard of Nica Airlines?" I asked. He nodded. "Let me tell you a little story about the President of Nica Airlines, Alfonso Memorio. Rebel bandits shot him today. Bharlina and I were at the Managua airport to scoop some photos of the airlift of your dad's friends, and we saved him."
"I've heard of him. I think he had trouble with Somoza. Is he in trouble with the junta?"
My eyes wandered the room, and I spotted a group of young men who stared at Nico with open disdain. "Boy, if looks could kill," I said to myself. For a moment, this made me consider Nico's question more seriously than I might have. "I hadn't thought of it," I said. "Maybe he is in trouble. I should have inquired, but we've been busy. At least I know where he is, since I brought him there myself. So, where is your friend, and why is he coming here?"
"His name is Esteban Colero. His fiancée, Beth Paleiro, is with the Catholic School Student Coalition, which supports the democratic changes promised by the Sandinistas. She's the reason why I was invited here."
"They invited her to this party?"
"Beth and Esteban met at school. Some of her family is rich and connected to the Chamorro family, but his family's income is inadequate. It hasn't gone smoothly between them."
"Esteban comes from the wrong side of town?"
Nico glanced at my face as though trying to understand the expression I had used. "They're neighbors in the Olè Parcos barrios," he said. "You've never heard of the Chamorro family?" I shook my head. "They are Nicaragua's Kennedys," he explained. "As I said, Esteban's family is less rich than Beth's, but he is connected to our family through our friendship and thus through my dad to the Guardia. So he has some respect. Do you see what I mean? Until last week that meant something. That meaning is gone, but the Paleiro family is still friends with the Chamorro family. The Sandinistas can't afford a fight with the Chamorro family. They were the only public opposition to Somoza through the years, and Pedro Joaquin Chamorro was assassinated on Somoza's orders last year. He was the editor-in-chief of La Prensa, the national newspaper that the Chamorro family owns. Under Pedro, it publicly criticized the regime, and he was arrested many times. Esteban and Beth will keep the engagement secret for now." He looked toward the entrance. "There they are now."
A young mestizo couple walked in our direction. They were both lithe and tall, and both had nervous smiles, as though they were conscious of the glances that came their way. To be sixteen again, I thought. "She's beautiful," I said aloud to Nico.
"Yes, she's hot; everyone's jealous of Esteban. She drives the men wild."
Esteban wore his hair long, past his ears, and his plain white t-shirt was tight and showed a developed chest. He stood a few inches taller than his friend, Nico, and to my eyes, weighed twenty pounds more. He had a tough-guy image. Beth dressed in a new flowered skirt and a white blouse that clung to her body as though to bring out every young man's attention. Her face had classic Spanish features; her rich black hair fell in thick waves behind her head, and accentuated her dark shining eyes. I could understand how she could drive men wild..
Nico hugged them both. He looked relieved that they had arrived. "This gentleman, Christian Hudson, has bought beer for us," he said by way of introducing me. I passed them each a cold one and we shook hands, then stood in silence for a moment. I caught Esteban's eyes. "You're Catholic, young, and in love," I said over the music. "What else could you possibly want?"
Nico translated my remark. This seemed to break the ice, and they laughed politely. "A job," Esteban returned with a thick accent.
"As of dinner-hour," I said, "there was full employment. They made it law this afternoon." This remark received no response. From across the room, I glance over at Bharlina, who I knew was surreptitiously watching me. I waved and winked at her. "Do you see my girlfriend over there, the tall Asian woman in orange?" I pointed through the smoke into the back of the Cathedral, where Bharlina was gathered with a group of Sandinista soldiers. "She's from Toronto, Canada," I continued, "a safe place. I'm from New York City, a not-so-safe place. Just before you arrived, I meant to tell Nico–as a joke, I mean–that considering the crime-rate in New York City, the shooting in the streets of Managua makes me a little homesick."
Nico translated my remark, but it received no laughter. "Darn, one bad joke follows another," I complained. "One has to work overtime to entertain the Spanish down here."
Beth put her hand on my shoulder, leaned over to my ear in a friendly manner. "Many people watch us with bad looks, " she whispered, "and it is hard to laugh."
Her English was excellent. I nodded. "Let's take our beer and go for a walk," I suggested.
They were dressed in their best, and we walked to the Inter-Continental Hotel. We drank with the leftist press in the lobby; they had come to watch the celebrations and, from a safe place, cover the news of the people rejoicing about violent revolution. I took Beth, Esteban, and Nico home by cab, and for the next few nights we met to discuss the developments happening around the city.
Five days later, in a dingy café near the hotel, I sat smoking and reading the FSLN's official newspaper, The Barricade. One of the lines in the cover story on Humberto Ortego stated, "Ortego declared in a speech to laborers that the junta could wipe out the bourgeoisie immediately if they so desired, but they didn't plan to do so."
I showed the quote to Bharlina, who shrugged. I showed it later that night to Esteban. "I think it would be foolish to believe any specific thing any of them say right now," he said wisely–his English was nearly as bad as my Spanish. "He's just playing to the left. But what about the man you saved, maybe he's the bourgeoisie whom they mean?"
I nodded and thought immediately of Alfonso. The next day, I asked Bharlina for the jeep. When I arrived at the hospital, I saw no FSLN presence, but I was careful not to ask about Alfonso at the reception. I went straight to his room. When I entered, I woke him. He was alone. The room wasn't much to look at, but it was clean and bright. "You recognize me?"
"Your face is superimposed in my mind, young man," he said in perfect English, "but you stand taller than I remembered, and a little thinner. You don't weigh over a hundred and fifty pounds, I would guess."
"One hundred and sixty-five."
"There'd be no mistaking you for Nicaraguan, or even South American, though. You look American with those grey, steely eyes and short brown hair. A godsend, I'm sure."
He sat up with difficulty and we shook hands. My glance must have wandered to the empty, stained bed pushed to the other wall, and the faded yellow curtains on the windows. "It's what Somoza has left us," he said softly, as though reading my mind, "but it's wonderful that you've come. I wondered if you would."
"How are you feeling?"
"I am much better. I had heard that you are a newsman?"
"I'm on assignment for a worker's weekly from Canada, as a photographer." We traded glances and I couldn't think of what to say. I felt ashamed. "It's not like that," I said. "I don't believe in Communism–it sucks, but not all the Sandinistas are communists."
"They are, son, as sure as they shot me: communist to the last man and woman."
"Are you still in danger then?"
He spread his arms to the right and left. "Do you mean from Nicaraguan medicine?"
I laughed softly and showed him the quote in The Barricade. "What are they up to? " he asked. "Are they going to start rounding up their enemies immediately? From my knowledge of what happened in Cuba at the time of Castro's Revolution, I know that the communists never defined what the word 'bourgeoisie means,' but I also know enough that at the very least, it includes me. As the President of Nica Airlines, the partial owner of Aeorzo Airlines of Guatemala, the operational Vice President to both Central American Airlines of Honduras and El Salvador, and a paid advisor to Tica Airlines in Costa Rica, I most definitely fall into that category. If the Sandinistas knew that I was alive, they'd arrest me as a traitor to the people whom I have always served. I've helped put Central America into the airline business. Yes, I think I better leave poor Nicaragua as soon as possible."
He looked up and smiled. I sat on the corner of the bed. After a moment's consideration, I rose and wrung my hands. "I agree with you, Alfonso, and to be honest, that's really why I've come today:–to help you escape Nicaragua."
His eyes brightened. "I'm glad to hear it," he whispered.
"Indirectly, because of me and Bharlina, they may know you are here." I told him what I knew.
"They're still in disarray," he said, "disorganized. Give them time. I'm fifty-two years old and I've seen it first-hand in Cuba. By Christmas they'll be rounding up their enemies wholesale, who for now so carelessly assist them–but I believe you are correct. I need to get out of the country. Are you my guardian angel?"
"I think you'll find me a skeptic on that front. Do you have any family?" I could see that he didn't understand the first part of my statement. He shook his head to the second part. "I have a jeep," I continued. "Bharlina and I were planning to visit San José anyway. I can get you out that way. I leave tomorrow, but I'm happy to wait for a few days if need be."
"Tomorrow is fine. I know some back roads where we could cross the border. We can start down the coast. Because of my wounds, we'll have to go slow, but I know the way. However, at the border they may be checking papers."
"Did you really own Nica Airlines?"
"Apparently not anymore."
"Doesn't a fellow like you have property and family in Nicaragua?"
"It's what you would call a long story. I will tell you later about those things. For now, everything must be left behind." I nodded. "As for Nica Airline's aircraft, I own some cargo planes and a few DC-9s. I had licensed routes and ran an Aero taxis service with six single-engine planes, and some Dovers, some Islanders. We did good business, but I still have them all."
"I don't understand."
"They are out of the country. I waited around, the fool that I am, to see if the Sandinistas would keep the promises made to the COSEP, the Superior Advisor of Private Enterprises–that's the business group that backed them against Somoza. Those promises included keeping their hands off of businesses and business leaders. It may seem odd to you, but at COSEP we were democrats stupidly supporting the Communist front, though we realized that no other group could have ousted that cruel and corrupt son of a gun. We thought the Sandinistas would understand where they had received their support. Well...I suppose we were blinded by hope. Already, though, the Sandinistas are confiscating businesses. It's time to leave. I should have left weeks ago as my business associates did."
"Costa Rica will be safe?"
"If I were you, I wouldn't come back, especially if you are going to help me leave."
"I know, it's getting bad. Already there is no food, but Bharlina thinks she'll stay. She will eat rice, but like Emerson, I'm a tapioca man." I laughed at my own joke, but Alfonso didn't understand it and only smiled politely. "That's what Frederick Nietzsche called Ralph Waldo Emerson, " I continued, "a tapioca man. You know, Emerson, the American poet and transcendental philosopher from New England."
"I've heard of him. During my university years, I read Nietzsche. He's an awful man."
"Anyway, Bharlina is in love with the idea of the revolution."
"She will manage okay with them, then; don't we see what we want in this life?"
I breathed in as though under a hard test. "She says that you were shot by bandits, and that the rest is in your mind."
"She is right on that count. They were Sandinista bandits."
"How are you so sure?"
"They understood who I was. They were operating on general orders not to let owners leave with their money, so they robbed and shot me–and left me for dead. It's simple enough, really."
"That's all, robbery?"
"To the victors go the spoils."
"But you were on their side."
"I'm sure they would disagree with my own assessment. I was opening the safe at gunpoint when they shot me. It's conceivable that the shooting itself happened accidentally: the rifle one of them held to my back just fired without warning. They were nervous and young, but they were Sandinistas–on that, you can be sure. They had the logos, the insignia, the lingo, and they knew who I was."
He looked over and smiled, waiting for further interrogation. I realized that the two young rebels who'd nervously passed me in the airport that day were the ones who shot him. "Maybe we should leave right now."
"Maybe we should."
"Come with me, then. I'll get my things and we'll start."
"Get your things and come back. I should be traveling through Managua as little as possible. Are you sure they aren't following you?"
I sure hoped they weren't. How could they be? I shook my head and left the hospital, driving directly to the hotel. The open anarchy of the streets had grown into mass rallies. The underlying sense of approaching disaster struck me as imminent, and left me in a state of apprehension–all the old order of a government swept away and destroyed in days. I understood it. After all, I wasn't like Alfonso. I was young and restless, and that's why I was here. I was angry that cancer had taken my mother in her prime, that my brokenhearted father was uncommunicative and didn't love me. I was miffed that my friends hadn't taken a shining to my strange but wonderful relationship with Bharlina. I was disappointed that I had found my university years as boring as a clerk's job. I was saddened that my country was viewed almost everywhere in the world as an exploiter instead of as a liberator, and that my religious views seemed quaint, unsatisfactory, and even undemanding.
Nevertheless, I experienced joy at the expectation of leaving the country. I liked the Nicaraguans, but could see that they were bleary-eyed and drunk at the wheel. Just beyond the old downtown area, two hundred or so yards from where a statue of Louis Somoza had been toppled and destroyed, I stopped and bought a cold Coke. The Sandinista Special Security soldiers eyed me, but not in an unfriendly way. I knew they were Tómas Borge's men. The station headquarters for the Ministry of the Interior stood just around the corner. I even waved to them, and they waved back.
At the hotel, I packed up. Afterwards, I perched on the balcony for a moment, looking down at the swimming pool and finishing my Coke. A few Nicaraguan children swam in the clear blue pool below. What would happen to them, and everybody else in Managua? Most guests of the five-story hotel had been foreigners, and they'd left. Violent revolution had definite economic downsides. Bharlina had gone north to Leon with some of her FSLN friends. I was randy and wanted to sleep with her before I left, but I knew that it was impossible now. It may have been true that even back then, I knew in my heart not to trust her in regards to Alfonso, but I left her a long note.
Anxiety for my future swept through me, making me melancholy. Music drifted through the hallways on a soft westward wind; the song on the radio, Echo Beach, had been remixed with a Latin beat and Spanish words. Carrying my own bags to the counter, I paid our bill in full and left, heading north out of the city toward the Lake. I hit no traffic while I made my way in the direction of Mateare, going through the busy streets. I drove to calle León and counted twenty-two houses from the turn off, and knocked on the door. The clean hacienda, though scenic enough, had no screens or doors. A young boy of about ten, dressed in only clean underwear, appeared at the entrance and stood looking at me. "Nico," I said.
"Nico," he repeated. His brown, shining eyes alighted, and he turned and ran back into the hacienda. From inside the single-floor, solid cement structure, I could hear "Nico" said by several young voices.
"How many people lived inside here?" I said to myself.
I had been here several times, but always in the dark and half drunk. Judging by the sound of the voices, at least five or six children were inside. Nico shambled to the door from the back of the hacienda. He was shirtless, and seeing me, hurriedly put on a muscle shirt. Modesty with strangers was a trait that I had noticed in Central America. From the front, I could see through to the back yard, but everything inside seemed cool and shadowy. Nico's hair, so vibrantly black, seemed nearly to have a purple tinge when he stepped into the sun. His eyes sparkled with life, and just as always, he had a sly smile for me.
"What are you doing in our neighborhood in the daylight?" he said in English.
"I'm leaving Nicaragua, and I wanted to know if you'd like to come."
This seemed to darken his expression rather than lighten it. I didn't know why. Maybe he was tempted but didn't want to be. "You're leaving in the middle of the mess?" he said. "Let's get Esteban and have a glass of wine. What do you say?"
I checked my watch. "I can't stay long." Together we walked toward Esteban's home, which wasn't far. "How many brothers and sisters do you have?" I asked.
"Just two sisters, the rest are my uncle's."
"Has he left the country as well?"
"He's dead."
"I'm sorry."
"We weren't too close, but he rose in the guard quickly and got promoted. The Rebels killed him last September in El Jicaro. His wife is nice, though, and helps out. The kids are wonderful but they're a lot of work too..." He turned and looked behind him as his voice trailed off. "Someone has to look after them," he continued, "and my mother doesn't seem to mind."
When we approached a front door to what looked, by North American standards, like no more than a one-level cement shell of a house, Nico cupped his hands over his mouth. "Esteban!" he shouted. Nico then pointed south to a freshly painted hacienda three doors down. "The one with the red blooms," he said.
I saw that the one he pointed to was twice the size of the one we stood before. It had doors and glass windows with screens, and had been recently whitewashed. A small portico held up the tiny figurine of a black Jaguar cat, and a freshly painted black metal gate encompassed the front yard. Azaleas and hydrangeas bordered the property, and I could see the tops of several pruned trees, maybe olive and fig, in the enclosed backyard. "That's Beth's place," he added.
Esteban came to the entrance and smiled when he saw me, alluring and athletic as always. "Our drunken American friend," he said in broken English.
"Si, amigo," I answered, "stupido touristo!"
They smiled. "Christian is to leave poor Nicaragua," Nico said. "Do we have some wine to share with him?"
Esteban nodded. "Last time we drank with you," he said, "we heard some storytelling. Tell us now, when you're sober, did you really leave home so early?" I nodded. "Are you truly a licensed pilot?" I nodded again. "You studied in business at Harvard?"
I turned red and nodded a third time, waving for them to stop. "The rest I can't vouch for," I said, "nor remember."
"Come around to the back," Esteban said. "We can sit out on the patio and talk in private."
Nico and I sat together while Esteban retrieved three glasses and a carafe of wine from inside his father's hacienda. "Where's your dad?" I asked when Esteban had returned.
"He works today."
"Let me leave some pesos so that he'll forgive us the wine," I said.
Esteban took the money, enough for several bottles. "Where's Beth?" I asked.
"What do young beauties do in the daylight hours?"
"I know this one," I said in strained Spanish, but showing off as well. "Stay home and pine for night." I realized that my remark drew a blank. "Sorry about my Spanish," I added. "I have a poem for you, since you speak English, and since, well..." My voice fell off. I was a little embarrassed. "You'll see," I continued. I had it folded in my back-pocket and smoothed it out to read. "It's called, Fascist Sunlight. I wrote it some time ago. It was a university thing."
I cleared my throat and began:
"The youth was led to the line of liquidation,
with the music, a mix of mediocre brass.
The insurgent son of a sunny nation,
Engaged his golden eyes on the green grass.
Breezes bore back the gallant hair on his head.
Sparrows sang in one cocking noise;
Then bolted from the flower-bed,
Not a swagger of swan-song in their poise.
Sun-rays ripped through the riddled post,
Its shadow slunk behind a sullen fence.
There it lay, maybe three minutes most,
The body was isolated in solitude so intense.
Later, dark clouds came to wash away the stain,
Piercing the horizon like bullets on the brain;
The sparrows rode the wings of ruin in a tailspin of rain,
As warm summer sounds floated through the lanes again."
Nico and Esteban ignored the poem, neither smiling nor commenting on it. They turned their eyes to the ground, and my face flushed red. I felt foolish, and perhaps even unmanly, but still I liked the poem and its images. "Why do you leave Nicaragua?" Esteban asked at length. He took the poem from me to read for himself and asked to keep it, out of curiosity or because he saw that I was embarrassed.
I weighed in my mind whether or not to disclose my plan to help Alfonso out of the country. Although they weren't overly sympathetic to the Revolution, they were like the rest of their countrymen: waiting for paradise. "I feel it is becoming unsafe," I said. "I'm taking a friend to Costa Rica. Would you like to leave with me?"
The friends looked at each other and Esteban shook his head. "We are needed by our families here," he said.
"Is it your friend who's in the hospital?" Nico asked.
"I've seen him again," I said, "and something draws me to him. It isn't just that I helped save him. He has no arrogance, and there's no superior attitude in his eyes. They're kind and generous. His heart truly holds love for all human beings."
"He's a spiritual person?" Nico interrupted.
"A rich spiritual person," Esteban broke in with a soft laugh, "That sounds like an impossible feat."
"I don't know if he is rich any longer," I said.
"That doesn't matter," Nico said. "There are people who are not affected by money. Their purpose goes beyond it."
"I would like to be spiritual like Alfonso seems to be," I said. "I don't think I can, though. I watch too many sports and drink too much beer. Besides, I really don't believe in God."
"Athletes are the best people in the world," Esteban said. "Pelé, Muhammad Ali..."
"Nicaraguan priests are the best," Nico interrupted.
"Most of them are drunks," Esteban rejoined.
Nico punched him in the arm and they began to wrestle. "Salute," I said, "to good men everywhere, even drunks." They ceased their bravado and glasses clicked. After I drained mine, I rose. "My God, it's boiling hot."
"This is nothing," Nico said. "On the Atlantic side it reached one hundred and twenty degrees yesterday."
"It's my sincere wish to meet with you again," I said, "but for now I must go." They walked me to the jeep and waved goodbye. When I got back to the hospital, I saw armed guards in the entrance. "Damn!" I swore to myself.
I made my way toward Alfonso's room and hoped I wasn't too late, but I saw two Sandinista officials, both with side arms, talking to him. One of them was the pimply-faced Fernando Uressé. "I shouldn't have stopped to see Nico and Esteban," I whispered to myself.
I walked past Alfonso's room and down the end of the hall to an open window. I kept the corner of my eye on the entrance to the room while I looked out onto a collection of rundown wooden homes, which further on spread out into a slum. Smoke curled up in different places, and I could almost smell the filth. I waited what seemed like a long time, but at length, the two men came out of the room. To my utter dread, they didn't leave; instead, the shorter one with the moustache and baseball cap stayed at the entrance, while Fernando walked up to the window where I stood.
He too looked out, and for some time stood uncomfortably close to me, even in my personal space. I wiped my brow. I could smell his body odor. "It's an ugly view, Christian, don't you think?" he said slowly in English, in an almost inaudible whisper. I was scared, and thought I could be in serious trouble. We again pretended to look out on the shanties and condemned buildings. My heart raced with fear. "Many people in poor Nicaragua live like this," Fernando said, "while others, few others, live in tremendous luxury. In America, the richest country in the world, whole segments of society live like animals in ghettos and slums, while others–many others, but still a minority–live like kings in palaces. It's disgusting. America is an ugly, violent society. It's inflicted with a split personality, with the rich, selfish elite on one side, and the masses of working poor and blacks on the other. We try in Nicaragua to build a better society."
He stopped for a brief moment to look over into my eyes, but I avoided his. "Why is it that you Americans think you can arrive anywhere in the world and demand," he continued, "even force, others into this disgusting, violent dichotomy?"
I made no remark to this. "I find that Americans always outstay their welcome," he added, "then they wonder, after they've interfered in other people's business, why they are imprisoned or even worse."
"I'll arrange to go to Costa Rica tomorrow," I responded, still catching my breath in fear.
"Americans are always more comfortable in places where the masses are subdued."
"Is that what you think of Costa Rica?"
"What I think is irrelevant. Just be sure not to outstay your welcome: the consequence wouldn't be altogether conducive to a pleasant state of affairs."
I stole a glance at him for the first time. His insignia revealed that he held a Commandant's position. His facial hair had a couple of days' growth, and he weighed less than me even though he was taller. Several of his facial pimples were bleeding as though he had recently picked at them. I had dismissed him out of hand when I first met him, but saw now that had been a mistake. I guessed him to be twenty-six years or so old. Besides the considerable acne on his face, he had bad teeth. Besides this, his face exuded an ordinary quality, except his eyes. Looking into them, I realized they held real evil, an insipid hatred for life and a resentment for everything. His eyes were filled with bitterness, revenge, and other dark pleasures. He was truly, openly creepy. If I didn't do something, Alfonso would be as good as gone from this world.
Fernando reached over and put his hand on my shoulder. I tried not to shudder. "Alfonso Memorio has seventeen of Nicaragua's commercial planes," he continued. "One wouldn't want to be the American agent caught trying to help a traitor escape before we got our planes back, would they?"
"Agent?"
"It couldn't be proved one way or the other."
"I'm here with the Toronto Tribune."
"In a pinch, they would cooperate with us. Christian, it's who you sleep with that brought you to witness our little revolution, not the Cause itself. Bharlina Peztif is a lovely flower, much more valuable than the weed you have become interested in. The government is pleased for what you did. We couldn't get our planes back if you hadn't saved Alfonso Memorio's life." The dampness from my underarms soaked through and I could smell my own dread. "I can see you want to be reasonable," he added, as though to point out my fear. "Come with me."
With my head down, I left the hospital following in his footsteps, looking neither left nor right. I didn't see into Alfonso's room as we passed it. I showed no further outward sign of concern for Alfonso, but only for myself. I used cowardly deference, for which, I'm not ashamed to say, I sensed the situation called. When we approached the jeep, I saw five soldiers armed with submachine guns searching through my personal belongings, tossing stuff such as my underwear or shirts this way and that. They stepped back in silence when Fernando came up. "This will get you safely out of Nicaragua," he said, and passed me a piece of paper. "Don't come back."
I saw that the document had two signatures at the bottom: one I couldn't make out; the other, Fernando Urresé. The Sandinista soldiers walked away, and a couple of them looked back with curiosity. I gathered up my things, putting them haphazardly back into my bags. The soldiers left with Fernando.
By one side of the hospital stood an old defunct freestanding grocery shop and restaurant, Jomaccos. I studied the place as I passed. It sat quietly in the dark, treed surroundings. I rode for ten minutes, chewing stick after stick of gum and watching behind me. The question in my mind wasn't whether I should go back and help Alfonso–I had already decided to–but whether I should go back that night or wait until the next day. I remembered that the Commandant had called Alfonso a weed, and realized that the next day might be too late.
When I became certain that no one was following me, I stopped the jeep, changed into warm clothes, and put on a light jacket. The wind had picked up and the moon rose on the horizon. I sped back toward the hospital, parking behind Jomaccos. I assumed that visiting hours had long ago ended. I feared that the hospital might even be locked, but that wasn't the case; the dark, unoccupied reception area proved that. I didn't see any personnel around, and walked passed reception into the hospital proper, seeing that a guard had been posted at Alfonso's door. I swore under my breath. Now it would be dangerous, even deadly, but I was determined.
The guard was asleep. I turned down a hallway, stood there in the shadows, and counted the doors down the main corridor to Alfonso's room, number eight. I hoped Alfonso was still alone in the room; a likely event since they presently guarded him. I exited the hospital and walked along the outside wall. I counted the rooms from the windows outside, and when I came to eight, I drew forward and pressed my face against the solid metal screen. None of the hospital windows had glass.
"Alfonso," I whispered several times.
Soon I heard a stir within, and then made out Alfonso's pale face at the screen. I saw that he smiled, and despite my own fear, I smiled myself. "I can't get rid of you," he whispered.
"I'm ready to pee my pants in fear, and you make a joke. The guard at the door is sleeping. Can you sneak past him and meet me out here?" He nodded. I returned to near the hospital entrance, still keeping out of sight. A moment later, Alfonso limped out of the building in a sheer hospital gown and in obvious pain. I helped him walk. "You look like an old lady."
"There's a truck coming this way."
I looked up the road. "I'm parked there behind Jomaccos." I said, pointing over at the dark abandoned building.
We stepped off the road behind the trees and kept going. Alfonso, almost naked, hobbled beside me and leaned on my shoulders. A military truck full of Sandinista soldiers passed on the road toward the hospital. I helped him into the jeep. "It's a good thing I hid the jeep out of view." Alfonso, now in severe pain, had paled even more. I opened my largest bag and found him a t-shirt and windbreaker. "I have no shorts or pants that'll fit you," I said. "Here's a large beach towel to keep you warm, a cotton blanket as well. As you can see, the jeep is all zipped up and ready to go."
The military truck had parked straight in front of the hospital. I passed Alfonso a bottle of Tylenol pills and headed out of Managua in a southern direction. I drove in a cautious manner so as not to bring any attention to us. "How are you feeling?" I asked after fifteen minutes.
"Not so good," he said weakly.
I cringed, reached over, and handed him my leather night bag. "Look through there, and see if there's anything besides Tylenol," I said.
He took some other pills with a swallow of bottled water. "Can you get me to the Inter-American Highway from here?" I asked. "Then you can sleep."
"Turn right just up there," he said with a terrible strain in his voice.
In five minutes we were on the coastal highway and Alfonso nodded off. It was a narrow, thinly paved road, and it twisted and turned in a shadowy havoc. I remained alert, but found the road discouraging. With no lights or signs, the highway seemed utterly black with a touch of fog. "It's about seventy miles to the border," Alfonso said sleepily an hour later. "Before we get there, we'll have to take one of the beach roads down to the Pacific. I've got no papers, and I'll have to walk or swim over to Costa Rica."
"I doubt that would be a good idea. Are you feeling that much better?" I reached into my pocket and handed Alfonso his wallet, which I had retrieved the day he had been shot.
"Heaven sent you to look after me," he whispered.
"Will that get us across the border, though?"
"I would suspect so–although they found me long before I thought they ever would, so your guess is as good as mine. Freedom is an hour away. We are close.
"They found you because of Bharlina. We may get arrested, though. What if the border points have been notified? Let's assume that truck of soldiers was coming for you. Will they notify the border guards?"
"I see what you're saying, but it's only an hour away. Will they figure out that you came back to get me, or will they suspect that I just left the hospital and escaped to a place in Managua? I think they'll never suspect that I had such a quick drive from the hospital to the border."
He smiled at me and displayed no fear. I, on the other hand, was scared. I showed Alfonso the paper that Fernando had given me.
"They want you out pretty badly," Alfonso said. "This is signed by Tómas Borg, but is limited to one person leaving the country alone."
"Borg? I couldn't make out the signature. They'd have never let you live, Alfonso. Why are they after you so badly?"
"It's Fernando. He's an intelligence agent of the ruling junta who has it in for me. I employed him for some time. It may have been Fernando who sent the Sandinista boys to rob and shoot me the day the FSLN marched into the city; he came to the hospital today, so as you can see, he's exceedingly motivated."
I relayed the conversation I had earlier with Fernando.
"I'm not entirely sure that he sent those boys, though," Alfonso continued. "We always got along at work, but he tried to start a union at Nica Airlines, and Somoza's people got wind of it. The Guardia raped his sister, and beat him nearly to death. When he was released, he went underground with Borg and the Sandinistas, but I had nothing to do with his troubles with Somoza. The regime didn't allow unions. They were rigid, and nothing could be done about it. Somoza enforced antilabor laws most severely."
I saw that he looked better, as though he might answer a question or two.
"How did you come to be the President of the Nica Airlines?" I asked.
"My father raised me in business. He had been in Somoza's father's good books for some time, and had started Nica Airlines. I had strong parents who raised me heavy-handedly, along with a sister and a brother who both became lawyers. We were born to a liberal home with the best of everything. I studied at the premier school in Nicaragua, the Instituto Pedagogico La Salle, and distinguished myself as an honor student. I went on to study at the Autonomous National University of Nicaragua, and then the University of Miami where I became a Doctor of Business on the proudest day of my life, July 10, 1965. I'll never forget it. Soon after, my brother died in a plane accident and my father retired, brokenhearted. I took the business over and began to build it up with the principles of modern commerce."
"Will they search the jeep with this piece of paper in my possession?"
"I think we can be sure they won't."
"Then let's hide you under the luggage."
For some moments, I drove through the black gulf of the highway. Alfonso again nodded off.
The tropical growth on the sides occasionally reached out and made their presence felt by becoming giant, shadowy claws reaching for us as we rushed by. I thought of my mother and my erratic upbringing. I knew that if she were still alive, she would approve of the risk I took to assist Alfonso. My father would call it stupid. He was a timid man, a man of little intellect.
I knew a strange, dangerous adventure had come my way, and it offered me a new way of looking at life. I thought of Bharlina and felt sorry that she wasn't as concerned for Alfonso as I was. Would she ever change? Did I even love her? I had met her in a department store in downtown New York City not far from my home, and when our eyes had met, I knew in a flash I would try to win her heart.
She had been raised a Muslim, and became a Communist sympathizer when her family was forced to leave Pakistan after General Mohammad Zia's coup d'état. This should have set off warning bells for me, but it had only intrigued me more. Whatever game we played, I was as guilty as she. When you are young, you don't realize how easily you can get locked into an unhealthy relationship that leads to much hardship, suffering, and even death.
We dated for over a year before she would sleep with me. She had never been with a man, and had always thought she would be married first–well, what Muslim-raised girl wouldn't? Would she even marry me now? It seemed like she would do anything for me except become a democrat. Our relationship had become a political wasteland. Each pushed the other to the extreme in their views.
Just past the village of La Virgen, I pulled over to the side of the road and emptied the bags out of the backseat. Alfonso lay down on the floor as comfortably as he could and I covered him up with blankets, then buried him with the luggage. "Don't snore now," I kidded.
"No chance of that."
I cringed at that. Alfonso was in obvious pain. He tried to laugh but couldn't produce even a moan.
I got back into the jeep, and when I pulled up to the border crossing some five minutes later, I showed my passport and the document I had received from Fernando.
Two guards were on duty, both armed with machine guns. I looked over at them with confidence. I didn't feel a thing, neither fear nor mental confusion; they hardly gave the jeep a glance. One of the guards returned my papers and waved me on.
Safely inside Costa Rica, I again pulled the jeep over on the side of the highway.
"Are you still alive?" I called, and with relief, pulled the luggage out of the backseat.
"Well, my friend," Alfonso said when safely on his feet, "I think we'll stay at the Sheridan tonight. I must tell you, I have a place in the heart of San José, and it's a beautiful little hacienda, but I'll need to get it ready for us before we can stay there. It's been closed for some months."