Gen put in the request but it was ignored. “No President, one opera singer,” General Benjamin said. “It’s a rotten exchange if you ask me.”
“She’s worth more with the piano player,” General Alfredo said.
“You couldn’t get a dollar for him.”
“We keep her,” General Hector said quietly, and the subject of opera singers was closed. Though Hector was the least likely to speak, all of the soldiers were most afraid of him. Even the other two Generals exercised caution.
All of the hostages, even Gen, were on the other side of the room from where Roxane and her accompanist were pressed against the wall. Father Arguedas said a prayer quietly and then went to help her. When General Benjamin told him to return to his side of the room he smiled and nodded as if the General was making a little joke and in that sense was not committing a sin. The priest was amazed by the rushing of his heart, by the fear that swept through his legs and made them weak. It was not a fear of being shot, of course, he did not believe they would shoot him, and if they did, well, that would be that. The fear came from the smell of the little bell-shaped lilies and the warm yellow light of her hair. Not since he was fourteen, the year he gave his heart to Christ and put all of those worries behind him, had such things moved him. And why did he feel, in the midst of all this fear and confusion, in the mortal danger of so many lives, the wild giddiness of good luck? What unimaginable good luck! That he had been befriended by Ana Loya, cousin of the Vice President’s wife, that she had made such an extravagant request on his behalf, that the request had been graciously granted so that he was allowed to stand in the very back of the room to hear, for the first time in his life, the living opera, and not just sung but sung by Roxane Coss, who was by anyone’s account the greatest soprano of our time. That she would have come to such a country to begin with would have been enough. The honor he would have felt lying on his single cot in the basement of the rectory just knowing that she was for one night in the same city in which he lived would have been a miraculous gift. But that he had been allowed to see her and then, by fate （which may well portend awful things, but was still, as was all fate, God’s will, His wish） he was here now, coming forward to help her with the cumbersome arrangement of her accompanist’s gangly limbs, coming close enough to smell the lilies and see her smooth white skin disappearing into the neck of her pistachio-colored gown. He could see that a few of her hairpins remained in place on the crown of her head so that her hair did not fall in her eyes. What a gift, he could not think of it otherwise. Because he believed that such a voice must come from God, then it was God’s love he was standing next to now. And the trembling in his chest, his shaking hands, that was only fitting. How could his heart not be filled with love to be so close to God?
She smiled at him, a smile that was kind but utterly in keeping with the circumstances at hand. “Do you know why they’re detaining me?” she whispered.
At the sound of her voice he felt his first wave of disappointment. Not in her, never, but in himself. English. Everyone said it would be important to learn English. What was it the tourists said? “Have a nice way?” But what if that was an inappropriate response? What if it was in some way hurtful? It could be asking for something, camera film or directions or money. He prayed. Finally, sadly, he said the only word he was sure of, “English.”
“Ah,” she said, nodding in sympathy and turning her attention back to her work.
When they had settled the accompanist so that he at least appeared comfortable, Father Arguedas took his own handkerchief and wiped the pale sheen of vomit away. He would in no way pretend to have any real medical knowledge, but certainly he spent a great deal of time visiting the sick and the sacrament he had most often performed was viaticum, and given those two experiences he had to say that this man who had played the piano so beautifully looked closer to viaticum than he did to the anointing of the sick. “Catholic?” he asked Roxane Coss, touching the accompanist’s chest.
She had no idea whether or not the man who played the piano for her had a relationship with God, much less what church that relationship might be conducted through. She shrugged. At least she could communicate with the priest this much.
“Católica?” he said, strictly for his own curiosity, and pointed, politely, to her.
“Me?” she said, touching the front of her dress. “Yes.” Then she nodded. “Sí, Católica.” Two simple words but she was proud of herself for answering in Spanish.
He smiled at that. As for the accompanist, if he was dying, if he was Catholic, those were two fairly big ifs. But where the matter of the soul’s everlasting rest was concerned, it was better to err on the side of caution. If he mistakenly gave last rites to a Jew who then recovered, what harm had he done but taken up a little bit of his time, the time of an unconscious political hostage at that. He patted Roxane’s hand. It was like a child’s hand! So pale and soft, rounded on the top. On one finger she wore a dark green stone the size of a quail’s egg that was surrounded in a fiery ring of diamonds. Normally, when he saw women wearing rings like that he wished they would make them contributions to the poor, but today found himself imagining the pleasure of gently sliding such a ring onto her finger. This thought, he was sure, was inappropriate, and he felt a nervous dampness creep across his forehead. And he without a handkerchief. He excused himself to go and speak to the Generals.
“That man there,” Father Arguedas said, lowering his voice, “I believe he is dying.”
“He isn’t dying,” General Alfredo said. “He’s trying to get her out. He is pretending to die.”
“I don’t believe so. The pulse, the color of the skin.” He looked back over his shoulder, past the grand piano and huge bouquets of lilies and roses arranged for a party long since over, to the spot where the accompanist lay on the edge of carpet like something large and spilled. “Some things one can’t pretend.”
“He chose to stay. We put him out the door and he came back. Those are not the actions of a dying man.” General Alfredo turned his head away. He rubbed his hand. Ten years those fingers had been gone and still they ached.
“Go back to where you were told to wait,” General Benjamin said to the priest. He was enjoying a breath of false relief seeing half of the people gone, as if half of his problems were solved. He knew it to be false but he wanted some quiet time in which to enjoy it. The room looked wide open.
“I would like some oil from the kitchen to perform last rites.”
“No kitchen,” General Benjamin said, wagging his head. He lit a cigarette in order to be rude to the young priest. He wanted the priest and the accompanist to have left when they were told to leave. People shouldn’t be allowed to decide that they wished to remain a hostage. He had very little experience being rude to priests and he needed the cigarette as a prop. He shook out the match and dropped it on the carpet. He wanted to blow the smoke forward but could not.
“I can do it without the oil,” Father Arguedas said.
“No last rites,” General Alfredo said. “He isn’t dying.”