“I am going away,” he said.
“When?” She sounded listless. She looked as if she had slept badly.
“Tomorrow,” he lied.
“Where?”
“I can’t tell you. Have you learned anything?”
She shook her head.
“Will there be any trouble because of me?”
She shook her head again.
“The man at the ballet will get a message to you. To authenticate me. Then he’ll tell you how we will communicate.” She shrugged. The conversation seemed to bore her. They walked another twenty steps before she said anything, and then her voice was thin. “I want to tell you something,” she said, seeming both defiant and afraid of him.
“Well?”
She folded her arms over her breasts. “I want you to understand that I am ashamed of myself. For last night. For—” She shut her mouth tight as somebody walked passed them, as if she feared to be overheard. “For saying that I loved you.”
“Well, at least today you know better.”
She laughed, and a flight of pigeons went up as if the sound had frightened them. “No, today I don’t know better. It’s that I am ashamed of.” He saw her watch another woman who was crossing the square ahead of them; she seemed to be assessing the other woman, perhaps comparing herself. “I am not a child. I am a grown woman. I have had lovers. I have been infatuated. I was married for two years to a beautiful pig. I know what love is supposed to be like. I know what it is like.” She took her eyes away from the other woman. “It is not like this sickness.”
“What do you want me to do?” he said.
“What can you do? You are going away, that is good.” She hugged herself more tightly. “You don’t love me.”
“No.”
They walked a few steps. Her head was down now, as if she feared to stumble. “I must see you again,” she said.
“I’m not likely to come back to Havana.”
“Then I will come where you are. Moscow. Wherever.”
“Maybe you’ll get over the sickness.”
“Or maybe I can give it to you.” The feeble joke seemed to cheer her a little. She ran ahead of him to a handcart where a woman was selling ices, and then they went on around the plaza licking the ice out of the cold plastic cups. When he got some on his chin, she laughed at him, and she was transformed — simple, delighted, loving — and he was hurt by a realization of the price he was making her pay, the price he always made people pay, for the way he lived.
“Listen to me,” he said. “I’m going to give you a way to reach me if the regular route breaks down. Memorize it; don’t ever put it in writing. Don’t ever use it except in an emergency.” He gave her an address in Paris. “Anything that comes there addressed to Monsieur Chimère will get to me. Sign it ‘Mimosa.’ I’ll know it’s you.”
“My problem would be to get it out of Cuba.”
“You can manage that.”
They had nothing more to talk about. She seemed angry again. He promised to see her again before he left Havana, knowing as he said it that he would not keep his promise.
Chapter 11
He took a bus to the airport in the twilight and bought a seat on the first outbound flight that had space. He used the Selous passport and had no trouble. He was wearing glasses and a rather silly mustache that had the odd effect of making him look both older and inconsequential.
The plane few to Jamaica. He went into the men’s room there, got rid of the glasses and the mustache, and bought himself a flight bag and a sporty wind jacket in an airport shop. He booked himself on a flight to Rio; while he waited for it, he dialed a number in Mexico City.
“Five seven seven five,” a masculine voice said in accented Spanish.
“I wanted Aatahualpa Curios.”
“Correct.”
“I’m looking for a one-armed buddha.”
There was a pause, then laughter. “Is this who I think it is?” the voice said in American English.
“Probably.”
“You looking for something with brass balls?”
“That’s the one.”
More laughter. “Hey, man, how the hell are you? Long time.”
“Long, long time. Can we talk?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no. Uncle’s got big ears. What can I do you for?”
“I need a piece. In Argentina.”
“Argentina’s a big country, m’friend.”
“Name a place.”
“Hold on.” Silence. “I gotta think. Hold on.” More silence. Then: “Fly to Santiago del Estero. Used to be able to get there from La Paz or Brasilia. You’ll be met. How do they recognize you?”
Tarp looked at the flight bag. “Brown shoulder bag. Cross on it in tape.”
“Okay. Cash on delivery.”
“Right.”
“What’s the purpose of this item you want?”
“Social work.”
“Got you. They’ll be looking for you. Hey, drop in ol’ May-hee-co sometime, you hear?”
“Will do.”
“Nice to talk to you. Hey, you ever see any of the guys?”
It was not like Tarp to hesitate, but that took him a fraction of a second. “There’s nobody left to see.”
“I thought — When I left, there were some. Weren’t there?”
“Later, there weren’t.”
Another silence. Then the man at the other end said, “I thought I might go look at this new memorial in D.C., you know? Look for some names.”
“They wouldn’t be there.”
“Yeah. Well, I sort of thought that. Well. Hey, listen, drop in sometime, hey? We’ll tip a few tequilas, talk over — some things. Hey?”
“Yeah.”
He bought a role of plastic tape to mark the shoulder bag, then ate, read a Spanish paper and a French paper, then flew to Rio and slept until morning, when another plane flew him to Brasilia for the change to Aerolineas Argentinas. At a little after noon, he came down the steps to the dry, hot field at Santiago.
A middle-aged woman had a 9mm Luger for him in an ancient shoulder holster. She led him into a baggage area, where they stood fifty feet from the clattering belt that was bringing bags past a few travelers. She handed him the gun in a paper bag.
“Cartridges?”
“There are eleven in the bag. All we had.”
“Are they the right caliber?”
“My husband said so.”
The gun was too big and too heavy, but there was nothing he could do about it. He gave her money. “Is it hard to get guns in Buenos Aires?” he said.
“No harder than here, maybe.”
“Not so hard, then?”
She seemed very ladylike. “Nothing is hard if you have the money,” she said. He thought that perhaps she and her husband had had money and had fallen on bad times. In Argentina that was not so unusual.
There was a night train to Buenos Aires. The train itself looked well intentioned but inadequate, which was perhaps a fitting symbol for a country in which so many things had started out well and gone so wrong. His sleeping car had once, perhaps, been up to the standards of a run-of-the-mill European train, but that would have been many years before. Now, layers of paint had been allowed to pile up on the inner surfaces, obscuring all detail; the sink gave only a trickle of water; the bed, when folded down, made noises as if it might collapse altogether. Through some mix-up, he had not gotten the private compartment he had paid for but was put instead into a small double with another man. When he showed his ticket, the conductor explained with some asperity that there were no private compartments on this train and it had been foolish of him to try to buy one. If he wanted a single, he would have to take the noon train tomorrow.