The General

As the General spread his cards in his hand, the swords of the King and of the Jack of Spades glinted at him. He swore for a moment he saw a smirk in the corner of the Jack’s eye.

It had been a bad night for the cards and it was almost time to go upstairs to his room. The Advocate glared at him with the eyes of a rat. The General sighed and took another sip of rum and water. Despite winning his money all night, the Advocate was still in vitriolic mood. Even before the General went into disgrace and exile in Trinidad, they had hated each other.

The General adjusted his gun on his hip, and goaded now.

“How is the secret service treating you these days? I hear it is paying well since the communists left,” he said with a sardonic glint in his eye.

“ffffffsssssstttttt!,” Luis sprayed his drink over the table as he laughed.

Luis was one of the finest wits in the city. A scoundrel who had spent the greater part of more than one rich widow’s fortune on cards and women, there was something endearing in his ability to survive despite his sharp tongue.

Luis threw in all five of his cards. The General kept only his Jack and his King and the Advocate took two.

The General left his cards face down on the table for a moment as he looked out the window. The tempest continued to rage outdoors. He would not be taking the midnight stroll through the city streets that he had hoped to before he went to bed. The door to the adjoining bar swept open. A chill breeze snuck into the room.

The barman stepped over to the General and whispered in his ear.

“Sir, there is a woman outside, come in from the storm. She claims to be your sister and she insists she see you at once.”

For a moment the General was silent as he ran his finger over the corners of his cards.

“Gentlemen, please excuse and continue without me,” he said. With that he was gone, trailing the barman to the front room.

The Advocate and Luis smiled wryly at each other. Luis rose, went to the door and shut it. Without a word, they continued their game.

He entered the room. There before him, sat his windswept sister at a table near the window. She had not as yet seen him as she struggled to free herself from her drenched cloak and hat. She looked up, looked into his eyes and a smile came to her face.

“O how I have missed, you!” she said, as she rushed to him and hugged him.

“And I have missed you, my little sister.”

She looked at him with smiling eyes, “Are you sure it’s safe to come back?” she asked anxiously.

“Not to worry, my angel. Just this morning, I had words with the President and now all is well with our little misunderstanding. As of today, I am no longer an exile.”

“So how are the children?” she asked. “I hope that their papa is treating them well.”

“The children are quite happy on the island. They spend their time running around the estate and their English is better than mine. I have found an excellent tutor for them — a woman from London with the balls of an officer.”

Teresa sat back. Drops of water continued to stream gently down her face like tears. She looked more alive just then than the General had ever seen her.

“Let me order you a room for the night,” he offered.

She nodded her approval and he went up to the front desk and spoke to the concierge. In a couple of minutes they were following a man carrying her bags up to a room on the third floor next to the General’s modest cell. His short period of exile had reminded him how to live small, as he had for many years in the field. He still missed the life in the open; the feeling that you could die at any moment under the stars.

They entered a room with windows and a balcony facing east. The storm had abated and a gentle drizzle now spattered the window. A lantern flickered its tongues of light across the room hauntingly.

“There is something about this room, the smell, or the light perhaps, that reminds me of my first bedroom in Lara.” said Teresa.

“I hadn’t thought of it before, but I can see what you mean,” said the General.

He left her to settle into her room and went to his room. He avoided objects in the half-light as he made his way to the bed. He stretched out on the bed. He was tired. He was happy to be with his sister again.

He awoke with a start. His sister was standing above him with a lamp in her hand.

“So you still wake up screaming, my love,” she said absentmindedly.

“Was I screaming again?” asked the General as he sat up in the bed. Teresa sat on the bed next to him and stroked his cheek.

“You shall wake up screaming until the night you die.”

The General felt like crying then, but it had been several years since he had cried. He pressed his lips to his sister’s mouth and for the first time in many years they made love.

She awoke in the bluedark before dawn. All was silent apart from the rasping breath of the General – rising and falling with the rhythm of a foreboding drum.

She wept as she studied the mirror while she dressed. She adjusted her hair by the silhouette in the mirror; felt in her pocket for the cold glass of the empty vial and bent over the General and kissed his cheek. She left.

She made her way silently down the corridor, down the stairs and through the deserted lobby into the street. Only when she reached the cool air of the square did she realise that she had been holding her breath.

As she hurried across the square, Teresa took a last furtive glance up at the window of her brother’s room where he dreamt of the cards.