The Fugitivities, стр. 79

hands, lead history like a naked man on a leash—when the man yanks, smack him with the stick, and soon enough he learns. The Arabs are stubborn as mules. I admire that. I admire men who are not persuaded by anything but death. Mark my words, the day the terror stops, you will miss them, your Arab terrorists. War is without end. It is also without limit. You will see. These tools will be turned on you and your neighbors. The soldiers will come home and turn on each other. The drones will patrol Colorado and Texas and Virginia. For the blacks, well, I’m sure you can guess how it will go. I’m not fooled, I can see it all clearly. Thank god, I’ll be long gone by then. In my day we fought for principles, for a way of life. But what do I know? I’m just an old painter. I only want the peace of an old man to live out his last days.”

The old man drank for a time in silence. The studio had slipped into darkness. Jonah could barely make out his own glass.

“I hear Laura met you over at the Basques’?”

“Yes, Miguel and Oscar…”

“Did you enjoy their company?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Did they enjoy yours?”

“I’m fine with where I’m at, if that’s what you’re asking, but frankly I also don’t plan on sticking around much longer.”

“Oh no, what about the cuisine—great cooks, eh? Their kind always are, no? Didn’t you like their food?”

“Yes.”

“Good, I wouldn’t want to have to tell them that you didn’t. Hah! The Basques—they’re liable to blow you up for far less. No, but I like them, I really do. In fact, I fully support them. Lots of good people around here do. They’ve got no better base anywhere in the world than right here in Uruguay. The Spaniards will never conquer the Basques, never I tell you. Spanish intelligence is a joke. Don’t you think so?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Of course they’re a joke. You ever hear of the Spanish Air Force? You can’t have good intelligence without a good air force. As an aviator, I had to learn how to dominate my instincts, in an environment where the slightest mistake, the slightest miscalculation, can be fatal. Omniscience is essential. Perfect eyesight, solid minds that stay cold. The same goes for the other game. We got our terrorists because we understood how to handle them. We wiped them out so badly it will probably be a hundred years before they ever come back. And it would be suicide even then. But something tells me they will come back some day. Those people have a death wish.”

“No, you have a wish to kill. Because you’re not just a painter, are you? You’re ex-military.”

“And proud of my service. Proud of my country. When I was a boy, even younger than you, I grew up dreaming of Jorge Newbery. The aviators were admired in those days, they were our celebrities. By the time I joined we were already in the process of national reorganization. The Communists were crawling all over the place like roaches. It was our chance to do something for our country. I volunteered for the counterterrorism missions, most of us did. I operated the Hercules, the C-130s, those big whales we got from America. We would fly out of Morón and hop down to Mar del Plata. We would land before dawn and the jeeps and trucks would come out to meet us on the tarmac. The Hercules is a magnificent aircraft. Up in the cockpit the airframe is so wide you feel like you’re at the helm of a flying cathedral. At Mar del Plata we refueled, and they loaded the cargo. I was always in the cockpit. It was cold out there with the sun about to rise, and cold gusts from the Atlantic pouring over the airfield. I went through my checklists, chatted with the ground crews on the radio. The loading took a long time. Sometimes I would see a chaplain in black robes walking around, talking to the officers on the ground. Everything was very orderly. When I got the signal to go, we would rev up the engines and barrel down the runway straight for the ocean. I would set a cap due east and we would fly out two or three hundred miles. That’s when the second officer would give the signal to take us down on a low pass over the water. I would straighten us out at twenty-five hundred feet. The cargo officer would open the payload doors and then he and some of the Naval Intelligence guys would go into the hold. My job was to keep the plane steady, and that’s what I did. We would fly like that for twenty minutes or so. Then the officers would come back into the cockpit and strap in, and I would take us in a long loop, circling back over the drop zone but this time headed back toward Mar del Plata. There were always dark shadows in the water there, and when I asked the Navy boys about it, they said they were sharks. We did the same sorties two, sometimes even three times a week, for a while. It became routine, boring. On the flights back, we would often discuss the Malvinas and how the war was going. Everyone found positive things to say, but we all knew it was hopeless. England was too powerful, and probably the most stubborn nation on Earth, more stubborn than even the Arabs. One day, when we got back to the base in Morón, as I was heading into the barracks, I realized that I had forgotten my sunglasses in the cockpit. Since the hold was open, I went up through the belly of the plane to get them. The belly of the Hercules is like a train tunnel. I found my glasses in the cockpit, but on my way out I stopped in the hold