MAMista. Len Deighton
radiant.
Her face was not only calm but impassive, held so to counter the insolent stares and whispered provocations that women endure in public places in Latin America. She touched her hair. That it was a nervous mannerism did not escape Lucas, and he saw in her eyes a fleeting glimpse of the vulnerability that she took such pains to conceal.
‘Will I fly south directly?’ Lucas asked, hoping that the answer would be no. He too was something of a surprise, wearing an old Madras cotton jacket, its pattern faded to pastel shades, and lightweight trousers that had become very wrinkled from his journey. He had a brimmed hat made from striped cotton; the sort of hat that could be rolled up and stuffed into a pocket. His shoes were expensive thin-soled leather moccasins. She wondered if he intended wearing this very unsuitable footwear in the south. It suddenly struck her that such a middle-aged visitor from Europe would have to be cosseted if they were to get him home in one piece.
‘May I see your papers?’ She took them from him and passed his baggage tags to a porter who had been standing waiting for them. She also gave him some money and told him to collect the bags and meet them at the door. The porter moved off. Then she read the written instructions and the vague ‘to whom it may concern’ letter of introduction that the Foundation had given him in London. It made no mention of Marxist guerrilla movements. ‘Tomorrow or Thursday,’ she said. ‘Sometimes there are problems.’
‘I understand.’
She smiled sadly to tell him that he did not understand: no foreigner could. She had met such people before. They liked to call themselves liberals because they sympathized with the armed struggle and tossed a few tax-deductible dollars into some charity front. Then they came here to see what was happening to their money. Even the best-intentioned ones could never be trusted. It was not always their fault. They came from another world, one that was comfortable and logical. More importantly they knew they would return to it.
She read the letter again and then passed it back to him. ‘I have a car for you. The driver is not one of our people. Be careful what you say to him. The cab drivers are all police informers, or they do not keep their licences. You have a British passport?’
‘Australian.’ She looked at him. ‘It’s an island in the Pacific.’
‘I have arranged accommodation in town,’ she said. ‘Nothing luxurious.’
‘I’m sure it will be just fine.’ Lucas smiled at her. For the first time she looked at him with something approaching personal interest. He was not tall, only a few inches taller than her, but the build of his chest and shoulders indicated considerable strength. His face was weather-beaten, his eyes bright blue and his expression quizzical.
She reached for his arm and pulled him close to her. If he was surprised at this sudden intimacy he gave no sign of it. ‘Look over my shoulder,’ she said softly.
He immediately understood what was expected of him. ‘A horde of policemen coming through a door marked “Parking”,’ he told her. He could see the porter, waiting at the exit holding his bags. Beyond him, through the open doors, police vans were being parked. Their back doors were open and he could see their bench seats and barred windows.
Head bent close to his she said, ‘Probably a bomb scare. They’ll check the papers of everyone as they leave the ticket hall.’
‘Will you be all right?’
Keeping her head bowed so as not to expose her face she said, ‘There is no danger but it is better that they do not see us together.’
Policemen passed them leading two sniffer dogs. She lifted Lucas’ hand and kissed it. Then, as she turned her body, he put his arm round her waist to keep up the pretence of intimacy. ‘I will be all right,’ she said. ‘I have a Venezuelan passport. Walk me away from the policemen at the enquiry desk: they will recognize me.’
In that affectionate manner that is a part of saying farewell, Lucas walked holding her close, with her head lolling on his shoulder. They went to the news-stand, his arm still holding her resolutely. When they stopped she turned to him and looked into his eyes.
‘You must remember the address. Don’t write it down.’ She glanced across to where two policemen had taken control of the enquiry desk. Then she made sure that the porter was still waiting with Lucas’ bag. She leaned even closer and said, ‘Fifty-eight, Callejón del Mercado. Ask the driver for the President Ramírez statue. He’ll think you are going to the silver market.’
As they stood together, half embracing and with her lips brushing his chin, he felt a demented desire to say ‘I love you’ – it seemed an appropriately heady reaction. There were police at every door now. They had cleared the far side of the concourse. Two policemen with pass keys were systematically opening the baggage lockers one by one. The one and only departure desk had been closed down and a police team, led by a white-shirted civilian, was questioning a line of ticket-holders. Some had been handcuffed and taken out to the vans.
Lucas didn’t say ‘I love you’ but he did crush her close. She let her body go limp and put both arms round him to play the part she’d chosen.
‘The porter is paid already.’
‘I don’t like leaving you.’
‘Don’t pay more than the amount on the meter,’ she advised, gently breaking from the embrace. ‘They are all thieves.’
‘Will I see you again?’
‘Yes, later. And I will be on the plane when you go south,’ she promised.
He held her tight and murmured, ‘I love you.’
They say it’s the proximity of the Equator that does it.
The policeman at the door glanced at him, his ticket and his passport and then nodded him through. The porter opened the door of an old Chevrolet cab and put the bags alongside the driver. ‘Take me to the statue of President Ramírez,’ said Lucas. His Spanish was entirely adequate but the cab driver was more at home in the patois. It took two more attempts before he was understood. Lucas was determined to master the curious mixed tongue. He said, ‘Is the traffic bad?’
‘Are you Italian?’
‘Australian.’
It meant nothing to the driver but he nodded and said, ‘Yes, I recognized your accent.’ He sighed. ‘Yes: police blocks all round the Plaza. Checking papers, looking in the trunk, asking questions. I will avoid the Plaza. Traffic is backed up all the way to the cathedral.’
‘What is happening?’
‘Those MAMista bastards,’ said the driver. ‘They put a bomb in the Ministry of Pensions last night. They say people in the street outside were wounded. I hope they catch the swines.’
‘Your politics here are very complicated,’ said Lucas tentatively.
‘Nothing complicated about tourist figures being down sixty-eight per cent on last year. And last year was terrible! That’s what those mad bastards have done for working men like me. Visitors down by sixty-eight per cent! And that’s the official statistic, so you can double that.’
The taxi was making a long detour. Cabs did not usually bring tourists along this part of the waterfront. Here the militant residents of sprawling slums had declared them to be independent guerrilla townships. Painted warnings and defiant Marxist proclamations marked the ‘frontier’. Beyond that the police armoured carriers closed their hatches and, at night, watched out for home-made petrol bombs.
The Benz government refused to admit that there were any of these spots that foreign reporters called ‘rebel fortresses’. Regularly they proved their point by sending in the army to do a ‘house-to-house’. Soldiers in full battle order brought tanks, water cannon and searchlights. They closed off a selected section and searched it for arms, fugitives and subversive literature. Sometimes the army took reporters along to show them how it was done. The last such demonstration had encountered a rain of nail bombs and Molotov cocktails: two soldiers and a