chose a mola for me to give her, but this was to be stolen from her a few days later under odd circumstances typical of life in Panama City.
In the evening Chuchu came to see me. He told me that Omar wanted me to go with the Panamanian delegation to Washington in five days’ time for the signing of the Canal Treaty, the terms of which had at last after all these years been agreed. The Miami Herald that morning claimed that it was no different from the draft treaty of 1967, proposed before the General took power, but this was completely false – perhaps it was an attempt by the Americans to stir up internal trouble against Torrijos. The new Treaty would transfer immediately fifty times more territory to Panama than the old draft had done. The American military bases, it was true, were to remain until the year 2000 and only then would the Canal become entirely the property of Panama. However, the Zone, apart from these bases, would immediately cease to exist.
I felt unwilling to go to Washington. I had booked my return flight, and it was time I returned to France and to my proper work. I told Chuchu that I had no visa for the States, a white lie for it was no longer true. ‘That doesn’t matter,’ he said, ‘you will have a diplomatic passport, a Panamanian one.’
‘I don’t want to come back all the way here to catch my plane to Amsterdam.’
‘You won’t have to. The General will book you on the Concorde direct from Washington to Paris.’ He said the General was already being attacked because the Treaty was not as good as people had hoped. He had made a speech to the students, saying, ‘I am making what progress I can, but if I don’t have the support of progressives, what can I do more?’
I gave in. ‘If the General really wants me to go,’ I said.
‘He really wants it.’
That evening I went to the temporary home of a Nicaraguan woman writer who had been tortured by Somoza’s Guardia. Only the day before she had successfully had a baby. She would say little for fear of the repercussions on her family, and one could tell from her tormented face how much she wanted to forget the past. But there were others in the room who had also suffered and were ready to talk. An Argentinian woman described the electric torture which she had endured. Another Argentinian told of a bayonet thrust up her vagina. A Peruvian told of his expulsion, a Nicaraguan of his escape from a police ambush. For how many people, from how many countries in Latin America – Argentina, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador – Panama had become a haven of escape, thanks to the General. It had not been like this in the days of the Arias family.
5
I was suffering the result of my search in the woods of El Valle for a square tree. An irritation in my ankles kept me awake every night, so on Chuchu’s advice I went to see a young black doctor at the barracks of the National Guard. He gave me a wash, a cream and some tablets and told me I had been bitten by a tiny insect called a chitra only too familiar to the Wild Pigs. Afterwards we went to the airport to meet a Mexican film producer who was trying to arrange the co-production of an anti-military film. He had been offered support in Mexico, Colombia, France and Cuba, but Panama was the only country which was prepared to lend him troops.
I think Chuchu’s exuberance puzzled him. He had not been accustomed to deal with a security guard who was also a poet and a professor. He looked bewildered and innocent.
Camilo too was at the airport. He was smartly dressed and looked very much the young doctor, and he was off on a mysterious Sandinista errand to Mexico City. He had entrusted me some days before with a letter to an address in Paris which he wanted me to post on my return to France, but now that he knew I was going by way of Washington he was very worried about its security. ‘You mustn’t leave it in your luggage,’ he told me. ‘They are sure to search your luggage in Washington.
In the evening Chuchu came to see me. He told me that Omar wanted me to go with the Panamanian delegation to Washington in five days’ time for the signing of the Canal Treaty, the terms of which had at last after all these years been agreed. The Miami Herald that morning claimed that it was no different from the draft treaty of 1967, proposed before the General took power, but this was completely false – perhaps it was an attempt by the Americans to stir up internal trouble against Torrijos. The new Treaty would transfer immediately fifty times more territory to Panama than the old draft had done. The American military bases, it was true, were to remain until the year 2000 and only then would the Canal become entirely the property of Panama. However, the Zone, apart from these bases, would immediately cease to exist.
I felt unwilling to go to Washington. I had booked my return flight, and it was time I returned to France and to my proper work. I told Chuchu that I had no visa for the States, a white lie for it was no longer true. ‘That doesn’t matter,’ he said, ‘you will have a diplomatic passport, a Panamanian one.’
‘I don’t want to come back all the way here to catch my plane to Amsterdam.’
‘You won’t have to. The General will book you on the Concorde direct from Washington to Paris.’ He said the General was already being attacked because the Treaty was not as good as people had hoped. He had made a speech to the students, saying, ‘I am making what progress I can, but if I don’t have the support of progressives, what can I do more?’
I gave in. ‘If the General really wants me to go,’ I said.
‘He really wants it.’
That evening I went to the temporary home of a Nicaraguan woman writer who had been tortured by Somoza’s Guardia. Only the day before she had successfully had a baby. She would say little for fear of the repercussions on her family, and one could tell from her tormented face how much she wanted to forget the past. But there were others in the room who had also suffered and were ready to talk. An Argentinian woman described the electric torture which she had endured. Another Argentinian told of a bayonet thrust up her vagina. A Peruvian told of his expulsion, a Nicaraguan of his escape from a police ambush. For how many people, from how many countries in Latin America – Argentina, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador – Panama had become a haven of escape, thanks to the General. It had not been like this in the days of the Arias family.
5
I was suffering the result of my search in the woods of El Valle for a square tree. An irritation in my ankles kept me awake every night, so on Chuchu’s advice I went to see a young black doctor at the barracks of the National Guard. He gave me a wash, a cream and some tablets and told me I had been bitten by a tiny insect called a chitra only too familiar to the Wild Pigs. Afterwards we went to the airport to meet a Mexican film producer who was trying to arrange the co-production of an anti-military film. He had been offered support in Mexico, Colombia, France and Cuba, but Panama was the only country which was prepared to lend him troops.
I think Chuchu’s exuberance puzzled him. He had not been accustomed to deal with a security guard who was also a poet and a professor. He looked bewildered and innocent.
Camilo too was at the airport. He was smartly dressed and looked very much the young doctor, and he was off on a mysterious Sandinista errand to Mexico City. He had entrusted me some days before with a letter to an address in Paris which he wanted me to post on my return to France, but now that he knew I was going by way of Washington he was very worried about its security. ‘You mustn’t leave it in your luggage,’ he told me. ‘They are sure to search your luggage in Washington.
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