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LETTER FROM EL SALVADOR Cynthia Arnson I remember El Salvador as a series of episodes—crystal-clear snapshot moments . At first brush one has to rely on intellect to realize that a war is going on, that the body counts in the morning newspapers have any bearing on this glistening airport in the midst of wide green fields. A pleasant female voice announces flights to Miami, Panama, and Guatemala City. I and others in my group arrive protected—an assortment of U.S. congressmen, church officials, and writers on a fact-finding mission. We walk up through Customs without incident. Waiting for our bags to clear, I watch the National Guardsmen in kneehigh boots strolling around the waiting areas carrying rifles. I think of the day—December 2, 1980— that Sisters Maura and Ita came in on their flight from Nicaragua and were met by Dorothy and Jean. I wonder if they sensed danger or foresaw what the night would bring. There is a confused cordiality in San Salvador among people who do not want to admit the existence of corpses in the countryside or the successes of recent guerrilla efforts. The man meeting us smiles a lot through tight lips, as does the woman from Hertz Rent-a-Car who rents us our bus knowing it hasn't any gas. It sputters and wheezes some five hundred yards down the highway; we are stranded for a moment and get out of the bus. The sun is hot and the sky blue with huge clouds billowing against the volcanoes. El Salvador is a country of remarkable beauty. We arrive at the hotel around ten o'clock. San Salvador's elegant Camino Real seems seedy, with the air conditioning off in the main lobby and a certain kind of mustiness rising from the carpets. I recognize one of the busboys from Cynthia Arnson is a candidate for the master's degree at SAIS. She visited Central America in late summer 1981. 213 214 SAIS REVIEW my previous visit who looks drawn —probably from long months of hauling suitcases and being man Friday and pretending all is well. A year ago the capital was calm, a place of business-as-usual while peasants were slaughtered on thefincas. This time the presence of war is unmistakable . The hotel restaurant is empty, only a smattering of journalists from the wire services and an occasional hometown paper. A week before we arrived guerrillas of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front hit fiftysix electric towers throughout the country. The second offensive, begun in July , was still under way. The lights flashed on and off unpredictably. San Salvador had been without power for three days. I take the elevator up to the fourth floor, which had been reserved entirely for our group. The emergency power makes the corridors dim and yellowish, enough, though, to read the numbers stamped on my key: 426. I notice two short men in sunglasses at the end of the hallway standing with their arms folded . Four twenty-six. The last room on the hallway. I stop scarcely five feet from the two men, who still say nothing, and notice large bulges under the shirts they pulled down over their hips. I utter a ridiculous buenos días and put the key in the lock. My room is stuffy so I open the windows. There are kids playing soccer below, beyond the thatched-roof cabanas and empty patio tables around the swimming pool. The Salvadoran Archdiocese has been relocated to another quarter of the city, off the Avenida Norte. SanJose de la Montana, the old, soft-gray building up a long stone stairway, has been closed down. Too many bombings, too many threats, a place too quemado, as the Salvadorans say, which means burned, in a political sense. From the grounds of the new building one can see the U.S. embassy just a few blocks away; last year it was surrounded by a huge black iron gate with electronic devices that let visitors in after the guards decided it was OK. The gate has since been replaced by a thick gray concrete wall, some eight feet high. Armed guards on the roof...

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