Another day passed and still Charlotte did not place a call to Warren. It was not possible to actually call Warren: it was necessary instead to place a call to Warren, to leave messages at various offices and apartments he frequented around New York and wait for him to call back. Usually he called back between one and three A.M. San Francisco time, or four and six A.M. New York time.
Wheres your interesting Jew husband, Warren would say if Charlotte did place the call and he did call back. He would say this if Charlotte had placed the call to say that Marin had a cold and he would say this if Charlotte had placed the call to say that Marin was going to tennis camp and he would also say this if Charlotte were to place a call to say that Marin was wanted by the FBI.
Im calling about something important, she would say.
She knew what she would say because she knew what he would say.
I said wheres your interesting Jew husband, he would say.
Leonard is not Jewish. As you know. Im calling
Theres nothing wrong with being Jewish. As you say. Has he made an anti-Semite out of you along with everything else?
I have to tell you
All you have to tell me is where the well-known radical lawyer is. Come on. Admit it. Hes at Bohemian Grove, isnt he. Hes let me get it right, hes making the revolution at Bohemian Grove.
She would not place a call to Warren just yet.
In any case Warren could not learn about Marin from the FBI because the FBI would not know how to place a call to Warren.
In any case there was no need to place a call to Warren because Marin was skiing at Squaw Valley.
In any case Leonard would place the call to Warren.
Charlotte settled many problems this way.
Leonard flew home immediately but because of an airport strike at Beirut and a demonstration at Orly it took him thirty-six hours to arrive in San Francisco, and by then they had sifted the debris and identified Marins gold bracelet attached like a charm to the firing pin of the bomb. They had also received the tape, and released Marins name to the press. Charlotte learned about the tape when she opened the door of the house on California Street and found a television crew already filming. On the six oclock news there was film that showed Charlotte opening the door, turning from the camera and running upstairs as a young Negro pursued her with a microphone. When this film was repeated at eleven it was followed for the first time by the picture of Marin, the famous picture of Marin Bogart, the two-year-old newspaper picture of Marin in her pink-and-white candy-striped Childrens Hospital volunteers pinafore. The newspaper had apparently lost the negative and simply cropped and enlarged a newsprint reproduction in which Marin was almost indistinguishable, clearly a complaisant young girl in a pinafore but enigmatically expressionless, her eyes only smudges on the gravure screen. In the weeks that followed the appearance of the picture those two photogravure smudges would eradicate every other image Charlotte had of Marins eyes. The day I finally saw Marin I was surprised by her eyes. She has Charlottes eyes. She has nothing else of Charlottes but she has Charlottes eyes.
5
YOU NO DOUBT HEARD THE TAPE.
This is not an isolated action. We ask no ones permission to make the revolution.
I heard only part of it, on a Radio Jamaica relay, but I read excerpts from it in Time and in Prensa Latina and in the Caracas Daily Journal, excerpts always illustrated by the impenetrable picture of the child in the candy-striped pinafore. I heard only part of the Radio Jamaica relay because Gerardo was at the house the night it was played, and he had arranged the evening as usual to annoy and discomfit everyone involved. I used to think the design of such evenings Gerardos only true amusement.
Or more accurately his only true vocation.
Since he was only fitfully amused by anything at all.
In the first place Gerardo had asked Elena to come for dinner that night. That Elena came was a tribute to Gerardos sexual power over her, because Elena was not speaking to me. Elena was not speaking to me because I had that morning advised her that she and Gerardo would be better off exhibiting their tedious interest in each others bodies in the Caribe ballroom than at political meetings under surveillance by both Victor and the Americans. I did not like hearing about Elena and Gerardo from Tuck Bradley. I did not like Tuck Bradley hearing about Elena and Gerardo from Kasindorf and Riley. As a matter of fact I had already heard about Elena and Gerardo, from Victor, and I did not like that either.
Elena said that Gerardo was the only person in the entire family who understood dancing or fun.
I said that this might be true but in this case Gerardos fun lay not in dancing but in embarrassing the family by parading the widow of a family presidente at meetings of people opposed to the family. It made no difference if Gerardo went to these meetings, because Gerardos image in the community, deserved or not, was that of someone worthless, and young. It did make a difference if she, Elena, went to these meetings, because her image in the community, again deserved or not, was that of someone virtuous, and older.
A national treasure as it were.
But Elena had stopped speaking. Elena did not even know that these events to which Gerardo took her were meetings. She believed them to be parties. I think she still does.
In any case.
In the second place.
Just asking Elena to dinner had not quite sated Gerardos craving for social piquancy. He had asked Elena and then he had proceeded to ask an extremely sullen girl he had been seeing off and on for years, an ambitious mestiza who had once gone to Paris with him and left him first for a minor Thyssen and then for an English rock-and-roll singer and had recently returned to Boca Grande to redeploy her resources. The girl was the daughter of the cashier at the Jockey Club and her name was Carmen Arrellano but she called herself Camilla de Arrellano y Bolívar and did not visit the Jockey Club. On this particular evening she was sulking because Gerardo was listening to the radio, and possibly also because I had told the cook to ignore her demand to be served a separate dinner of three boiled shrimp on a white plate with half a lemon wrapped in gauze. The cook had found this demand particularly offensive because her son was married to Carmen Arrellanos cousin.
All class enemies must suffer exemplary punishment.
The voice on Radio Jamaica was sweetly instructive.
When the fascist police think we are near we will be far away. When the fascist police think we are far away we will be near.
She lisps, Gerardo said.
She sounds like those Cubans at the party, Elena said. Elena had several times mentioned this party to which she and Gerardo had gone the night before, apparently thinking to annoy me and Carmen Arrellano in a single stroke. Doesnt she, Gerardo. Those dreadful Cubans who came with Bebe Chicago. I dont mean the lisp, I mean the words.
Im only listening for the lisp, Gerardo said. I wouldnt mention Bebe Chicago in front of Grace if I were you, shell cut off your clothes allowance.
I said nothing. Bebe Chicago was a West Indian homosexual who after some years at the London School of Economics and a few more organizing Caribbean liberation fronts out of Mexico had turned up in Boca Grande to see what he could promote. His name was François Parmentier but everyone called him Bebe Chicago. I have no idea why. He was said to have connections with the guerrilleros. I heard about him frequently, from both Victor and Tuck Bradley. People like Bebe Chicago come and go in Boca Grande, and the main mark they leave is to have provided inadvertent employment for the many other people required to follow them around and tap their telephones.
Grace thinks Bebe Chicago and I are using you, Gerardo said.
Delicious, Elena said. Do it.
Actually thats not the dynamic. Gerardo smiled at me and Elena. Actually Im using Bebe Chicago. Listen to this girl. I like the lisp and the pinafore together. Very nice.
All you think about is sex, Elena said.
You wish that were true, Gerardo said. But its not.
She bores me, Carmen Arrellano said sullenly. Carmen had been arranged since dinner in a corner of the room where she could gaze at herself in a mirror. It bores me.
Of course it bores you, Gerardo said. You dont like sex. You cant dress for it, there are never any photographers. Or is that what bores you?
The radio, Carmen said sullenly.
I didnt dream you were listening, Elena said. I thought you were devising a new makeup. Have you ever thought of bleaching your eyebrows?
I said this is boring me, Carmen said to Gerardo.
Gerardo held up a hand to silence her and moved closer to the radio.
This was really a terribly amusing party you missed last night, Elena said to Carmen.
Carmen picked up a magazine.
Steel band, Elena said. Actually Elena had not found the party amusing at all. Actually Elena had complained before she stopped speaking to me that Gerardos friends did not dance but sat around a filthy room watching a Cuban film about sugar production. Elena smiled at Carmen. Lots of Dominicans and these frightful Cubans. We danced until five this morning. Are you still bored?
Carmen is always bored, Gerardo said. Excuse me. Camilla is always bored. I want to hear this lisp.
We shall reply to repression with liberation. We shall reply to the terrorism of the dictatorship with the terrorism of the revolution.
Elena continued to smile benignly at Carmen.
Carmen dropped her magazine on the floor and stood up.
Were tiring your mother, Carmen announced to Gerardo. And your amusing aunt.
I should say, Elena said. Its nearly nine.
Ill take you home when this is over, Gerardo said. Meanwhile you might listen.
Pinched little parrot talking about capitalism, Carmen said. Who cares about capitalism.
Thats very interesting, Carmen. Gerardo was turning the radio dials to keep the relay from fading. Its very interesting because theres a body of thought that capitalism is precisely what ruined your character.
Pinched little parrot talking about capitalism, Carmen said. Who cares about capitalism.
Thats very interesting, Carmen. Gerardo was turning the radio dials to keep the relay from fading. Its very interesting because theres a body of thought that capitalism is precisely what ruined your character.