"What is it, Matt?"
"Come on. We're going to the Presidencia. It sounds like the end."
Chapter thirteen
The private elevator in the Presidencia was both carpeted and bullet-proof, as it had been in General Segura's day. But the magnificent bronze friezes of General Segura's capture of San Hermano had long since been melted down to make medals, and in place of the martial friezes there now hung a series of water colors painted by grade-school children in the small villages. Every year, Hall explained to Jerry as the car climbed to the fourth floor, a committee of the Republic's leading artists chose twenty water colors submitted by the schools for a place in this elevator. The students whose pictures were chosen received medals made from the bronze frieze which had originally hung in their places.
Gonzales was waiting for them at the fourth-floor landing. "Are you all right?" he asked Jerry, and without waiting for an answer he took Hall's arm and started to walk down the long gilded corridor toward the private library of the President.
The library was large, perhaps forty feet square, the four walls were lined with books from floor to ceiling. In one corner was an immense mahogany writing table, clean now except for a drinking glass packed with sharpened pencils and a large yellow foolscap pad. When Tabio was well, this table was always piled high with books, most of them opened and kept in place by an inkwell, a heavy watch, or another book. Today there were no books on Don Anibal's table; instead, almost as if in explanation, a padded steel and aluminum wheel chair stood empty near the little corridor which led to the door of the President's bedroom.
"Please, sit down." Gonzales indicated two leather chairs.
"I'm in the way," Jerry said. "I don't belong here."
"I had to take her along," Hall said. "It was a matter of her life. Is there some place where she can rest while we—while we talk?"