And from the moment Pendel recognised Ana he knew exactly what she was telling him despite the fact that, like all good storytellers, she kept the best bit till last. Which was why he didn’t pass the telephone to Marta but kept it to himself, taking the beating on his own body instead of letting her take it on hers which was what had happened of necessity when the Digbats wouldn’t allow him to stop them smashing her to pieces.
All the same, Ana’s monologue had many paths and Pendel practically needed a map to get through it.
‘It’s not even my father’s house, my father only lent it to me reluctantly because I lied to him, I told him I would be here with my girlfriend Estella and nobody else, Estella who me and Marta went to convent school with, which was a lie, certainly not Mickie, it belongs to a foreman at the fireworks factory called la Negra Vieja, Guararé is where the fireworks are made for all the festivals in Panama, but this is Guararé’s own festival for itself, and my father is a friend of the foreman and was best man at his wedding, and the foreman said have my house for the festival while I go on my honeymoon to Aruba, but my father doesn’t like fireworks so he said I could have it instead of him as long as I don’t bring that slob Mickie so I lied, I said I wouldn’t, I would bring my friend Estella, who was my friend at convent school and is currently the chiquilla of a timber merchant in David, because in Guararé for five days you see bullfights and dancing and fireworks like you don’t see them anywhere else in Panama or anywhere else in the world. But I didn’t bring Estella, I brought Mickie and Mickie really needed me, he was so frightened and depressed and hilarious all at once, saying the police were fools, threatening him and calling him a British spy just like in the days of Noriega, all because he had got drunk at Oxford for a couple of terms and allowed himself to be talked into running some British club in Panama.’
And here Ana began laughing so loud that Pendel could only piece the story together patchily and with great patience, but the nub of it was clear enough, namely that she had never seen Mickie so high and low at once, one minute weeping and the next wild and full of fun, and God in Heaven, what made him do it? And God in Heaven again, what was she going to tell her father? Who was going to clear up the walls, the ceiling? Thank God it was a tiled floor, not floorboards, at least he’d had the decency to do it in the kitchen, a thousand dollars for a repaint was conservative, and her father a strict Catholic with views about suicide and heretics, all right he’d been drinking, they all had, what do you do at a festival except drink and dance and fuck and watch the fireworks which was what she was doing when she heard the bang behind her, where did he ever get it from, he never carried a pistol even though he talked a lot about blowing his brains out, he must have bought it after the police called on him and accused him of being this great spy and reminding him what had happened last time he went to gaol, and promising to make it happen again, never mind he wasn’t a pretty boy any more, the old convicts weren’t picky, she just screamed and laughed and ducked her head and closed her eyes and it wasn’t till she turned round to see who’d thrown the rocket or whatever it was, that she saw the mess, some of it on her new dress, and Mickie himself upside down on the floor.
All of which left Pendel wondering strenuously which was the right side up for the exploded corpse of his friend, fellow prisoner and leader elect of Panama’s now forever Silent Opposition.
He replaced the receiver and the invasion ended, the victims stopped complaining. Only mopping up remained. He had written down the address in Guararé with a 2H pencil from his pocket. A thin hard line but legible. Next he worried about money for Marta. Then he remembered the wad of Osnard’s fifties in the right-hand button-down hip pocket of his trousers. So he handed it to her and she took it, probably without knowing what she was doing.