A Flag for Sunrise Read Free

his embarrassment, Lieutenant Campos came and knelt on the floor at his feet. The lieutenant crossed himself and clasped his heavy hands prayerfully. Egan looked away.
    “She was a hippie,” Lieutenant Campos declared, his hands clasped.
    “I see,” Egan said in a quavering voice. The dreadful question lay squarely before him. Asking it, he was sure, would eventually cost him his life.
    “Did you kill her?”
    “No!” Campos shouted, startling the priest utterly. He climbed from his knees, brushed them off and began to pace the floor of his office.
    “She was spearing fish, understand? That’s not allowed. Everyone knows it’s not allowed.”
    “Of course,” Father Egan said.
    “Listen,” the lieutenant said, setting his chair beside Egan’s, “listen to this! She hid the spear gun under the dock at Playa Tate. The mayor there told us. We went out and we saw her. She had the spear.”
    “Yes,” the priest said.
    “We called her to come in. She pretended to be afraid. She teased us like a little whore. We said O.K., if she’s going to act like that we’ll tease her back a little.”
    Egan could see the scene quite clearly—the frightened girl in the water trying to ease over the inshore coral to the narrow shelf of sandy bottom, the drunken Guardia along the beach with their M-16’s unslung, Campos standing on the rotting pier, laughing at her.
    “And she drowned?”
    “She died,” Campos said vaguely.
    “I see.”
    “So I took command,” the lieutenant said. “It was my responsibility. I dismissed them. You see—I dressed her. These little clothes, they’re all she ever wore. I preserved her for ceremony.”
    “What ceremony?” No ceremony else, he thought. Her death was doubtful.
    Campos only laughed quietly, tears coming to his eyes.
    “How long ago was this?” Egan asked, feeling that he had wasted a question.
    “The winter.”
    “It was certainly wrong of you,” Egan said, “to keep her here like this. Her family has no knowledge of her, so think how they must feel. As a policeman and especially as a social agent, you should reflect on the violation of your responsibilities involved.”
    He looked into the warning that was composing itself in Campos’ eyes.
    “Don’t believe,” the lieutenant said, “it was easy for me to have her here. It was hard. Listen—it was very hard to have her in there all the time.”
    Egan found himself listening to the steady hum of Campos’ generator.
    “Why did you keep her, then?” He felt that it was important to put the question correctly, reluctant though he was to impute to Lieutenant Campos any further suggestion of weakness or dereliction. “Was it loneliness?”
    The delicacy of the priest’s question was lost on Campos. His features went cold.
    “What do you know about it?”
    Egan only nodded.
    “When I ask you a question, Father, I require you to answer it. What do you know about it?”
    While Father Egan was reflecting on what he knew about loneliness he saw Campos stagger toward him.
    “You—you maricón , you know nothing about it! You maricón! How can you question me?”
    “You’ve asked me to hear your confession,” Egan said mildly. “It’s necessary that I ask questions.”
    “Confession is right,” Campos said. “It’s under the seal, understand? That means you keep your mouth shut. You keep it shut, understand me?”
    “The law is plain,” Egan assured him. “What you tell me is privileged.”
    “And don’t,” Campos said, “think I care a shit about priests and religion. I’m a man—not a woman or a maricón. You keep your mouth shut.”
    “You can be certain of that,” Egan said. It occurred to him that the promise was a rash one.
    “Look,” the lieutenant said, gentling. “I think it’s wrong for me to keep her here.”
    “I agree,” Egan said.
    “Very well,” Campos told him. “You can take her then.”
    “What?”
    “You can take her. Take her away.”
    “I take her? But, my dear