‘señor Esposa?’
‘Si.’
‘Señor Esposa,’ he paused and licked his lips, ‘tell your friends we will be leaving the hotel at noon.’
The phone did not immediately reply. Then with a sigh, señor Esposa said, ‘As you wish. You are sure – ?’
The phone was silent for a full minute. Then it was picked up again and the Manager said quietly, ‘My friends say they will be waiting for you on the far side of the plaza.’
‘We will meet them there,’ said John Webb.
‘And señor –’
‘Yes.’
‘Do not hate me, do not hate us.’
‘I don’t hate anybody.’
‘It is a bad world, señor. None of us know how we got here or what we are doing. These men don’t know what they are mad at, except they are mad. Forgive them and do not hate them.’
‘I don’t hate them or you.’
‘Thank you, thank you.’ Perhaps the man on the far end of the telephone wire was crying. There was no way to tell. There were great lapses in his talking, in his breathing. After a while he said, ‘We don’t know why we do anything. Men hit each other for no reason except they are unhappy. Remember that. I am your friend. I would help you if I could. But I cannot. It would be me against the town. Good-bye, señor.’ He hung up.
John Webb sat in the chair with his hands on the silent phone. It was a moment before he glanced up. It was a moment before his eyes focused on an object immediately before him. When he saw it clearly, he still did not move, but sat regarding it, until a look of immensely tired irony appeared on his mouth. ‘Look here,’ he said at last.
Leonora followed his motion, his pointing.
They both sat looking at his cigarette which, neglected on the rim of the table while he telephoned, had burnt down so that now it had charred a black hole in the clean surface of the wood.
It was noon, with the sun directly over them, pinning their shadows under them as they started down the steps of the Hotel Esposa. Behind them, the birds fluted in their bamboo cages, and water ran in a little fountain bath. They were as neat as they could get, their faces and hands washed, their nails clean, their shoes polished.
Across the plaza two hundred yards away stood a small group of men, in the shade of a store front overhang. Some of the men were natives from the jungle area, with machetes gleaming at their sides. They were all facing the plaza.
John Webb looked at them for a long while. That isn’t everyone, he thought, that isn’t the whole country. That’s only the surface. That’s only the thin skin over the flesh. It’s not the body at all. Just the shell of an egg. Remember the crowds back home, the mobs, the riots? Always the same, there or here. A few mad faces up front, and the quiet ones far back, not taking part, letting things go, not wanting to be in it. The majority not moving. And so the few, the handful, take over and move for them.
His eyes did not blink. If we could break through that shell, God knows it’s thin! he thought, if we could talk our way through that mob and get to the quiet people beyond…. Can I do it? Can I say the right things? Can I keep my voice down?
He fumbled in his pockets and brought out a rumpled cigarette package and some matches.
I can try, he thought. How would the old man in the Ford have done it? I’ll try to do it his way. When we get across the plaza, I’ll start talking, I’ll whisper if necessary. And if we move slowly through the mob, we might just possibly find our way to the other people and we’ll be on high ground and we’ll be safe.
Leonora moved beside him. She was so fresh, so well groomed in spite of everything, so new in all this oldness, so startling, that his mind flinched and jerked. He found himself staring at her as if she’d betrayed him by her salt-whiteness, her wonderfully brushed hair and her cleanly manicured nails and her bright-red mouth.
Standing on the bottom step, Webb lit a cigarette, took two or three long drags on it, tossed it down, stepped on it, kicked the flattened butt into the street, and said, ‘Here we go.’
They stepped down and started around the far side of the plaza, past the few shops that were still open. They walked quietly.
‘Perhaps they’ll be decent to us.’
‘We can hope so.’
They passed a photographic shop.
‘It’s another day. Anything can happen. I believe that. No – I don’t really believe it. I’m only talking. I’ve got to talk or I wouldn’t be able to walk,’ she said.
They passed a candy shop.