Chapter 10
Maria saw it all happening as a person asleep might feel or sense things going on around him in a dream, not really conscious, yet vaguely aware and alert. And disturbed.
This wasn't right ... none of this was the way it was supposed, to be, the way it had to be according to the carefully organized, well-learned patterns that she had laid out so carefully in her eager young mind. No, none of this was as she had learned it at the University, as Miguel had taught her so diligently with his polished intellectual words and his fierce revolutionary slogans. And who were these characters in her private nightmare? Mere actors, not the real people they were hired to represent. Surely this vicious snarling animal with a rifle in his hand is not the handsome Rafael who had flirted with her so daringly during their long arduous training together! Not the devoted revolutionary, the anxious guerilla, but some obscure actor surreptitiously slipped into his boots and clothes! And Juan, strong and brave Juan, where is he now with his innocent simplistic ideals of solving the problems of the capitalistic curses in the Americas, his unceasing child-like devotion to Miguel and to his cause? And who is this impostor hired to take his place!?
And these Americans, why are they not fat and soft from their lives of luxury wrung like blood from the oppressed workers who await only their freedom? Why does this man not grovel and beg for his freedom as those fawning Capitalists do in the posters and textbooks of Miguel's library? Where is the gleam of their selfish hunger for money that is supposed to fill their eyes? Is that perhaps the sparkle I see there in Rafael's empty stare? No, it can't be this way! It's wrong, it's all wrong!
And young Maria, virtually ignored now that the men had found someone new to toy with, sat quietly and undisturbed in the darkness beyond the circle of glowing light from the fire. Slowly, carefully, deliberately, a plan began to take its embryonic shape in her mind, clearing now of the drugs these men had forced her to take. Hardly a plan at all now, but growing, growing painfully as with its growth it forced another of her ideals, her dreams, aside as it struggled for room in her frantic, confused thoughts. But it did grow, like a young giant stretching for room as it broke the bonds of her mind like fetters, forcing her to think new thoughts, to perceive and to sense new feelings, new emotions. And suddenly, just as she vaguely noticed Juan and the dumb one, Antonio, leave, laughing, for their new-found sport with the American woman, Maria knew what she must do. Knew what had to be done. And then, like a sheet had been tossed over her there in the darkness, she relaxed again, content in the sureness of her decision.
Yes, I'll do it! No matter what it costs me, I have to do what is right. Or become ... She glanced quickly, furtively, at Rafael, still brandishing his weapon as he tormented a helpless bound man twice his age ... one of them!