exploding firecrackers and the blare of the sound truck the Syrian storekeeper had hired to publicize his holiday specials.
There was a block of paved street where the houses had carports and painted fences, then the Gran hotel, the Texaco station—and they turned into the crowded plaza. Godoy eased the jeep through the crowds and parked against the church wall, behind a barrier of bicycle stands. As soon as the jeep was stopped, the six Carib boys leaped out and disappeared among the crowd.
Godoy watched them go and looked at his watch.
“Now,” he told Justin with a sad smile, “the trick will be to get them back.”
The two of them went past a line of helmeted Guardia and along the edge of the church steps.
In the center of the square, a ceiba tree had been hung with paper garlands and an elderly band in black uniforms was ranged beneath its branches. There were Japanese lanterns strung between trees at two sides of the plaza and the square itself was jammed with people. Men of property stood with transistor radios pressed against their ears, teen-aged parents in cheap cotton dress-up clothes clung to their several tiny children—and lone children by the hundreds puzzled their way through the crowd’s legs. The shoeshine boys had given over their space by the fountain and sat together with their boxes at the park edge, watching for flung cigarette butts, fallen change, loose wallets.
The sailors’ girls had marched uptown from the waterfront brothels and occupied their own space on one lawn where they sat on open newspapers, singing along to the music of the nearest radio and trading comic books with each other.
Along the fountain there were teen-agers, arranged according to social class—the boys watching the prostitutes and the girls, more or less demurely, watching the boys.
There were girls in hip-huggers and “Kiss Me, Stupid” tee shirts and girls whose fancy dress was their school uniforms. There were nearly white boys who wore Italian-style print shirts and lookedbored, stiff self-conscious mestizos in starchy white sport shirts, blacks who broke their Spanish phrases with “mon” and “bruddah,” practiced karate moves, swayed, danced with themselves in a flurry of loose wrists and flashing palms. Across the street, at the gate of the Municipalidad, a few Guardia leaned against the pillars and watched the crowd. They were given all the space they might require.
A little boy with an inflamed eye chased two smaller girls toward the church.
“ Mono malo, mono malo ,” he shouted after them. “Bad monkey.”
It occurred to Justin that she had been hearing children shouting “ mono malo ” at each other for weeks, and calling it also at such of the ragged wandering anglos who were still about. She had never heard an epithet like mono malo before.
In the street at the foot of the church steps, a squad of local technicians was struggling with an enormous antiaircraft searchlight, adjusting the dogs and swivels, playing out the wire that led up the steps and into the church interior. Nearby there were men and boys in the purple hoods and cassocks of the Holy Brotherhood, those who had carried the images in the afternoon’s procession.
Justin and Father Godoy stood together near the ceiba tree, facing the church. The air smelled of frangipani, of perfume and hair oil, above all of the raw cane liquor, barely rum, that was being passed in Coke bottles among the sports in the crowd.
At the stroke of darkness, the band broke into a reedy paso doble and the great searchlight sent forth an overpowering light. The light broke up the foremost ranks of the crowd, sending the people there reeling back, forcing them to turn away, hands to their eyes. Then it swept around the square, ascending until the beam was pointed straight upward, a pillar of white fire heavenward. A great gasp of joy broke from the crowd.
Spinning again, the column of light descended on the plaza, catching each second a dozen
There was a block of paved street where the houses had carports and painted fences, then the Gran hotel, the Texaco station—and they turned into the crowded plaza. Godoy eased the jeep through the crowds and parked against the church wall, behind a barrier of bicycle stands. As soon as the jeep was stopped, the six Carib boys leaped out and disappeared among the crowd.
Godoy watched them go and looked at his watch.
“Now,” he told Justin with a sad smile, “the trick will be to get them back.”
The two of them went past a line of helmeted Guardia and along the edge of the church steps.
In the center of the square, a ceiba tree had been hung with paper garlands and an elderly band in black uniforms was ranged beneath its branches. There were Japanese lanterns strung between trees at two sides of the plaza and the square itself was jammed with people. Men of property stood with transistor radios pressed against their ears, teen-aged parents in cheap cotton dress-up clothes clung to their several tiny children—and lone children by the hundreds puzzled their way through the crowd’s legs. The shoeshine boys had given over their space by the fountain and sat together with their boxes at the park edge, watching for flung cigarette butts, fallen change, loose wallets.
The sailors’ girls had marched uptown from the waterfront brothels and occupied their own space on one lawn where they sat on open newspapers, singing along to the music of the nearest radio and trading comic books with each other.
Along the fountain there were teen-agers, arranged according to social class—the boys watching the prostitutes and the girls, more or less demurely, watching the boys.
There were girls in hip-huggers and “Kiss Me, Stupid” tee shirts and girls whose fancy dress was their school uniforms. There were nearly white boys who wore Italian-style print shirts and lookedbored, stiff self-conscious mestizos in starchy white sport shirts, blacks who broke their Spanish phrases with “mon” and “bruddah,” practiced karate moves, swayed, danced with themselves in a flurry of loose wrists and flashing palms. Across the street, at the gate of the Municipalidad, a few Guardia leaned against the pillars and watched the crowd. They were given all the space they might require.
A little boy with an inflamed eye chased two smaller girls toward the church.
“ Mono malo, mono malo ,” he shouted after them. “Bad monkey.”
It occurred to Justin that she had been hearing children shouting “ mono malo ” at each other for weeks, and calling it also at such of the ragged wandering anglos who were still about. She had never heard an epithet like mono malo before.
In the street at the foot of the church steps, a squad of local technicians was struggling with an enormous antiaircraft searchlight, adjusting the dogs and swivels, playing out the wire that led up the steps and into the church interior. Nearby there were men and boys in the purple hoods and cassocks of the Holy Brotherhood, those who had carried the images in the afternoon’s procession.
Justin and Father Godoy stood together near the ceiba tree, facing the church. The air smelled of frangipani, of perfume and hair oil, above all of the raw cane liquor, barely rum, that was being passed in Coke bottles among the sports in the crowd.
At the stroke of darkness, the band broke into a reedy paso doble and the great searchlight sent forth an overpowering light. The light broke up the foremost ranks of the crowd, sending the people there reeling back, forcing them to turn away, hands to their eyes. Then it swept around the square, ascending until the beam was pointed straight upward, a pillar of white fire heavenward. A great gasp of joy broke from the crowd.
Spinning again, the column of light descended on the plaza, catching each second a dozen
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