Free Getting to Know the General by Graham Greene

great reserve the Bayano Dam had been constructed with the help of the Yugoslavs. We reached it after having lunched at an army post for recruits – it was Sunday and a visiting day for their families and I was reminded of my English school on Founder’s Day with proud mothers and embarrassed boys.
    The dam had caused the displacement of at least one Indian village, which now lay below the water. We went up to see the new village which had taken its place and in the assembly hut we were greeted by the chief, an old man of immense dignity who wore two feathers in his hat and a length of green material slung over one shoulder. A number of villagers sat on the floor and listened in silence while an interpreter voiced the chief’s complaints against the government. They were not going to let the opportunity of our visit pass them by.
    The government had not kept its promises, we were told – the payment which had been guaranteed them for their resettlement was three months in arrears; they had been moved to the new village too late for planting: they were short of sugar and grain: the wild animals which used to provide them with food had been driven away by the work on the dam and all the fish in the river had been killed. If they were to appeal to the General, the appeal would have to be co-ordinated through all the Indian chiefs, and the man who was likely to be chosen as their representative was a bad one who did nothing at all to help his people. We promised the chief that we would speak directly to the General and he believed us – though perhaps with a certain scepticism.
    Chuchu’s children listened with great gravity. It must have seemed to them a very long way from their home in the United States and from their stepfather on the campus. Chuchu was a professor too, but in his army uniform and his sergeant’s stripes he must have seemed very different from the professors whom they were accustomed to meet in the United States. Chuchu cleverly brought his son out. ‘Tell me a thought,’ he would say to him, and again, ‘Give me a thought about that,’ and his son promptly responded with little aphorisms.
    Later back in Panama City Chuchu and I went unwillingly to the Holiday Inn because it happened to be close by in order to drink three rum punches each – which as we feared proved to be poor ones – and discuss plans for the next day. We would take an army helicopter to one of the San Bias Islands in the Atlantic where the lobsters were good, according to Chuchu, and the Cuna Indians lived an independent life. Then we went on to the Marisco for dinner and Chuchu found that he had forgotten his spectacles and went to find them – he had in fact forgotten more than his spectacles, for he returned with ‘the little girl’ whom he hadn’t the heart to leave. She was charming and not nearly so simple as he made out.
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    In Panama City nothing ever happened as we had planned. Instead of taking the helicopter to the San Bias Islands we went shopping because the General wanted us to sit with him at Rory’s while he scrambled through his lunch (he hated to be alone while he ate). I thought I would try to change his taste in whisky. I bought a bottle of Irish whiskey (I wanted to teach him how to make Irish coffee and I had learned that he did not even know that Ireland produced whiskey) and a bottle of Glenfiddich to challenge his favourite Black Label. I also gave him one of the treasures which I kept in my pocket book – a fake dollar note with the reverse printed with propaganda against the Vietnam war. This pleased him more than the whisky, for he continued to be faithful to Black Label till the end. They were to be farewell presents, for next day my KLM plane would be taking off for Amsterdam.
    We told him of the Indian complaints at Bayano and he promised that they would be attended to and he gave Chuchu’s notes to his secretary. Then we talked at random while the simple meal seemed to be swallowed almost