Every Secret Thing

The following is an excerpt from Patricia Hearst's book of the same title, starting with the period immediately after her release from a closet in which she was indoctrinated, psychologically tortured and raped, through her "conversion" to the S.L.A., ending with her description of the fiery shoot-out in Los Angeles. Hearst refers to the S.L.A. soldiers by their code names, so the cast of leading characters is: Cinque--Donald DeFreeze; Teko--William Harris; Yolanda--Emily Harris; Zoya--Patricia Soltysik; Fahizah--Nancy Ling Perry; Cujo--Willie Wolfe; Gelina--Angela Atwood; Gabi--Camilla Hall.

On the appointed Monday morning of April 15, 1974, our weapons for that day were lined up neatly in their proper order along the far wall of the bedroom. They were fully loaded, ready to go. When I woke up that morning, I simply could not believe that this day had arrived and that I, Patricia Campbell Hearst, was going to take part in a bank robbery. I could never have even imagined such a thing. Yet, in the past two weeks since my release from the closet, just about every moment of every day had centered on the planning and preparations for this day. I knew more about the Hibernia Bank branch at Noriega Street and 22nd Avenue than I knew about my parents' home in Hillsborough.

Except for me, all of us would wear disguises to confuse the authorities on exact identifications. This was to be, according to our general field marshal, a carefully planned, fully prepared military action. Inside the bank, we would communicate with one another by number rather than by name. Therefore, Cinque assigned each of us a number: Cinque was, of course, number one. Zoya was two, Fahizah was three, Teko was four, Cujo was five, Yolanda was six, Gelina was seven, Gabi was eight and, last but not least, I was nine. Cinque divided us into two combat teams. The inside team would enter the bank, take control of the 15 or 20 employees, as well as all the customers there at the time, while one of us would leap over the tellers' counter and scoop up the money from the cash drawers. The outside team would cover us from another car across Noriega Street, in line with the entrance to the bank. If the police arrived, the outside team would open fire on them, alerting those inside the bank to fight their way out. We would all escape together or not at all. Cinque reminded me in particular of the S.L.A. codes of war: In any action, any comrade who failed in his or her duty or who endangered the lives of other comrades would be shot on the spot.

After some deliberation, Cinque selected the ones he wanted on the inside team. He, of course, would be going into the bank in order to take personal command of the operation. Next, he picked me. Then he selected Fahizah and Zoya and Gabi. Five of us would be inside the bank; the four others would be posted as lookout and backup outside. I tried to get my assignment switched. There was no way I wanted to go inside that bank, threatening people with a gun, exposing myself to possible police gunfire or S.L.A. execution for any slip-up.

I tried to explain to Cinque that I was not the proper one to go inside the bank: I was too weak physically, I was the least trained, I might not be able to carry it off. But he simply stared me down. "You have to go into that bank, Nine, 'cause I want all the pigs to know you're really an S.L.A. soldier now. I want your picture to be taken by that bank camera, so there'll be no doubt, and I'm going to want you to make a little speech, saying who you are and what you're doing, so nobody can say you were brainwashed or anything like that. Understand?"

Of course I understood. Brainwashing had become a popular topic of discussion in our safehouse. Every bit of the controversy in the media was followed intently by the S.L.A. The comrades were aghast at the idea that some people did not believe I had voluntarily joined. I was so intent on convincing Cinque and the others of my sincerity, I wished the speculation would end and would not endanger my new-found "freedom." I wanted the S.L.A. to believe in me completely, and to that end, I told myself I would accept whatever they told me, and do whatever I had to do to survive. In any event, I had my assignment. I would go into the bank with the others.

When the plans were set, we practiced over and over exactly how each of us would enter the bank and what we had to do once inside. We rehearsed it as if it were a play opening on Broadway. Each day, we trained more and more. I was told how to grip my little carbine and swing it to and fro, constantly shifting my weight from one foot to the other. Cinque and Teko were my weapons instructors, but the others chimed in also. Zoya would sneak up behind me and kick me in the shins or behind the knees, like a drill sergeant, telling me, "Crouch lower . . . get your ass down . . . you're not trying hard enough." Every morning, I ran around that hot, dark room with the carbine in my hands, a heavy pack strapped to my back and thick hiking boots on my feet. I was always tired to the point of exhaustion. My nerves were frayed with anxiety. There was no rest for this determined liberation army.

"You're the people's army and you're a disgrace to the people," Cinque would say over and over to his soldiers in his incessant pep talks. Cinque himself did not do any calisthenics. He was the leader and he never hesitated to remind you of that. He told us on several occasions that our top priority in this or any other action was to protect our leader. "Where would you all be if I got shot?" he would ask, and the others would hang their heads. "I'm the black leadership of the S.L.A."

I could hardly believe he was serious or that the others would be so beholden to him. To me, he seemed to be a strutting egomaniac, swilling plum wine most of the day, pinching the girls, fondling a breast, doing whatever he damned well pleased, while all the others struggled mightily to shape up to his fantasy of an elite army of revolutionary cadre.

The women, as well as the men, often went about the room bare-chested. With the windows shut and heavily draped, the room was usually warm and sometimes stilling hot. The vigorous calisthenics would have us all sweating within minutes and oftentimes Cinque would urge us, "Come on, girls, it's hot . . . take your shirts off." At first, I was embarrassed as I followed along. But after a while, it became quite ordinary to exercise bare-breasted, even with Cinque ogling and grinning.

In any army, privacy is a luxury, but in this people's army, there was no privacy at all. Sex itself had a very low priority. Love was a manifestation of bourgeois mentality and, therefore, nonexistent or never admitted to in this determined little band. But sex was a natural need, and since we all were forced to remain underground in our safehouse, it was comradely to oblige a comrade in his or her needs.

Actually, there was not all that much sexual activity going on in the S.L.A. There were no orgies, no wild parties, no group activities. Usually, it was one of the women who would approach one of the men and say, quite matter-of-factly, "Let's fuck." Everyone knew what was going on at all times. Standing watch, one could not help but overhear the grunts and sighs and thrashing going on in the darkened room. It was hardly conducive to romance.

Despite all the revolutionary theories on the subject, however, there was within the S.L.A. a natural pairing off. Cinque usually slept with Gelina in the luxury of the Murphy bed. He obviously preferred her. But occasionally, he bunked in with Fahizah to oblige her. It was no secret that she adored him. Teko bedded down with Yolanda, despite all their daytime bickering and agreed-upon disdain of monogamy, and as often as not, the two of them climbed into bed with Zoya. Zoya, it seemed to me, was as nonchalant about sleeping with a woman as with a man. She had once been Gabi's lover, before the S.L.A. had gone underground, but now she slept with Yolanda as often as she did with Teko, and occasionally, she would approach Cujo to spend the night with her.

I became the personal property of Cujo. He was undemanding and a far cry from the young romantic lover the media would portray him as in the days to come. Cujo was a fanatic follower, mesmerized, as though his one desire were to grow up to be as tough and as clairvoyant as Cinque. Teko, listening to exploits described by Cinque, would often pound the floor or beat one fist into his other hand and mutter, "Oh, I wish I were black!"

I feared and despised Cinque. He conducted or supervised almost all of my training those first two weeks, and though we were together all day long, day after day, he never made an overt sexual advance toward me. I dreaded that it would come. But then I surmised that he was too vain to do the asking: He expected me to approach him. Only then would he bestow his favors upon me.

Diligently, I memorized and practiced the little speech I was to give in the bank. It was timed to last almost as long as the entire action inside the bank--one and one half minutes. In a loud, clear, determined voice, I was to announce my name, Patricia Hearst/Tania, and proclaim that this was not a robbery but an expropriation of capitalist funds for the Symbionese Liberation Army, which was carrying on a war against the United States on behalf of all the poor and oppressed people . . . that I had joined the S.L.A. voluntarily and I was fighting with them of my own free will. . . . Cinque gave me explicit instructions on how to act like a determined soldier in the S.L.A. He warned me to keep my carbine pointed at all times at the bank people in my own area. "Do not turn around and never point your weapon at any of the S.L.A. soldiers at any time or for any reason," he told me. "If you do anything funny, I'm going to blow you away myself," he swore. "Remember that!" I believed him without reservation.

While the others wore wigs different from their own hair, I was given one with long brown hair, so that I would look like the photograph of me as Tania. Although my hair color was blonde, it photographed much darker, so that the public was familiar with me as a brunette. Cinque said he wanted me to be recognizable in the pictures taken of me by the bank's camera, so that no one could claim the S.L.A. had substituted a stand-in for me at the robbery. It was essential that I be recognized, while it did not matter so much with any of the others. The S.L.A. certainly was media conscious.

•

The mood that morning was somber. We went through our usual line-up and calisthenics, washed up, and then got into our combat clothes and wigs. There would be no breakfast that morning. I think that surprised all of us. But Cinque explained that if anyone should be "gut-shot" by the police in the course of the bank robbery, he or she would not want to have a full stomach. What a thought!

We parked and, with a nod from Cinque. I walked into the bank, with Gabi holding the door open and then following right behind me. We strolled together the length of the bank to the rear writing desk, as if I were going to make out a deposit slip. Within seconds, all hell broke loose in a blur. I saw Zoya rush into the bank at a gallop, with little Fahizah right behind her. As Fahizah came through the door, her ammunition clip dropped from her submachine gun and clattered to the floor. She knelt down to retrieve the banana-shaped clip and Cinque, charging in, leaped over her, waving his own submachine gun at the startled people in the bank. As they came through the door. I got my own carbine out into the open and pointed it at the assistant bank manager at the rear desk, as well as at two women at nearby desks. At the same time, in a loud, strong voice that just about froze everyone in the bank, Cinque shouted: "This is a holdup! The first mother-fucker who don't lay down on the floor gets shot in the head!"

I don't remember saying or doing anything other than point my carbine at the people on the floor in front of me. The assistant manager said later that he had asked me where he should lie down and that I did not respond. On his own. he joined the others who were bunched together in a group on the floor, belly down, glancing up at me. I happened to notice at this point that the bolt of my carbine was off to one side rather than closed and flat. It struck me that the carbine was not operable. I remembered vividly, however, not to point it toward the front of the bank, where the other S.L.A. people were.

Everything seemed to be happening so fast, with the sounds of bedlam all around me, and yet it also seemed to be taking too much time. I was confused. Then I remembered suddenly that I was supposed to be making a speech. In the loudest voice I could muster, I managed to get out: "This is Tania . . . Patricia Hearst. . . ." And I could recall no more of what I was supposed to say.

I heard Cinque shouting out numbers and it was time to go. In the same instant, or so it seemed, I heard the rapid shots of a submachine gun and I caught sight of an elderly man stumbling out the doorway, his back to me. I actually saw his jacket rip open as the bullets struck him. Fahizah was in a crouch, firing away.

I don't really know what happened after that. My mind shut down, went blank. But I must have left the bank when my number, nine, was called. I remember stumbling into the station wagon and Cinque climbing over my lap. as he was the last one into the wagon. We sped away and within one or two minutes, we made our switch to a green Ford LTD, which was parked near a school no more than a half mile from the bank. At each intersection, someone would call out, "This street is clear," or, "Watch out for that car."

Cinque put a stop to all extraneous talk, but Fahizah did lean over and tell me, "It's a good thing you remembered to say your name."

Once back in the safehouse, they broke out in laughter, broad grins and congratulations. Gelina spilled the bills out of the stuffed bag onto a blanket spread on the floor. Someone switched on the radio to catch the first news bulletins. What we heard was the popular new rock song Money, Money, Money. My comrades loved every minute of it. Both our radio and our television set were kept on all day and late into the night. They flipped dials and adjusted the sound to take in every possible description of their exploit.

I felt sick to my stomach. It seemed unreal and degrading, seeing myself on television, being identified so publicly with the S.L.A. and with I that bank robbery. I sensed that I had, in fact, crossed over some sharp line of demarcation. Was I truly on the other side now, allied with the S.L.A.? Even though I had joined the S.L.A. before the bank robbery and recited that "stay and fight" tape, somehow seeing and hearing it proclaimed on television and radio, for all the world to know, made it official. For me, suddenly, it became plain: There was no turning back.

•

Some weeks later, Teko was installed as second-in-command by Cinque. From that time on, he became increasingly arrogant. He strutted about, lording it over the rest of us, criticizing everyone, with the exception of the general field marshal. Teko's fights with his wife, Yolanda, became so violent that the two of them came to blows on occasion and stopped only when Cinque interceded. And yet, only a few days later, when Cinque announced that he had drawn up a reorganization of the S.L.A. into three permanent teams, Teko and Yolanda banded solidly together in fighting Cinque and everyone else, because Cinque's plan would have separated them. His plan was the culmination of discussions on the future role of the S.L.A.

For the revolution, Cinque announced, the S.L.A. would divide itself into three teams, each with three members, based on each person's strengths and weaknesses. Cinque led his team, with Gabi and Gelina; Fahizah led Cujo and Zoya; and Teko led Yolanda and me. The teams would operate as completely independent, self-sufficient units, training together, taking actions together. Once we took to the streets, we would go our separate ways, never meeting again except for occasional war-council meetings of all the S.L.A. units. Each fire team would recruit followers and build itself into another full combat unit. From that moment on, we did everything by teams.

Our next combat operation was going to be our biggest one, Cinque announced, for we were to advance the revolution by going out on "search and destroy" missions to shoot down and kill policemen. During the night, we would roam the streets, ambushing policemen wherever we found them, on foot or in their patrol cars. This would be outright guerrilla warfare. We would strike fast with heavy gunfire and then disappear into the night. In the early-morning hours, each team would invade a civilian home, take control of it throughout the day, sleeping and standing guard in shifts, and then depart on another search-and-destroy action under the cloak of darkness that night. At first, of course, people would resent the invasion of their homes, but they would learn that the S.L.A. would never harm them. In the homes, Cinque said, we would explain the revolution to the people, even try to recruit them. The S.L.A. would attack only the police and other enemies of the people. Before long, "the people" would come to understand our mission and would welcome S.L.A. combat teams into their homes. Others would join in once it all began. Confined to that dank, dark safe-house, we lived in a world of our own.

•

Cinque had become totally paranoid about the police closing in on us in San Francisco. He believed that our search-and-destroy missions would be much more effective in sprawling Los Angeles, where we could strike fast and escape in that urban jungle that had no natural boundaries. His decision to move to Los Angeles caused considerable consternation among the others.

We studied maps of Watts and Compton, two black ghetto areas, and also Griffith Park, where Cinque thought we could hide when necessary in the heavily wooded areas. Apart from the combat drills and exercises, Teko and Yolanda spent most of the day together, planning future actions for our team, while I tried to stay out of their way. I sat most of the time slumped in a corner, reading weapons manuals or road maps, feeling-miserable and sorry for myself. As our team commander, Teko was impossibly arrogant and domineering, ordering us about and criticizing our work. I always did as I was told, like a whipped dog, but Yolanda almost always fought back. I had decided in my own mind that, of all the S.L.A., these two were the most evil as a matter of innate personality. I hated them.

We drove through the night down Route 99, the least traveled north-south highway, passing through California's farm country, Fresno, Bakersfield and dozens of small towns, encountering only light local traffic. Despite the highly publicized man hunt for us, we thought it unlikely that the state highway patrol would be checking this road or that the local police would be awake at this time of night. Nevertheless, on the floor in the back of the rattling, bouncing Chevy van, I felt like a caged animal--terrified.

I could see the backs of Teko's and Yolanda's heads and shoulders in the front seat and could hear the murmur of their voices. But, once again, they were ignoring me, as if I were a piece of baggage. Our automatic weapons were hidden beneath a blanket on the floor of the van, ready to be used. I alternately sat or stretched out on the bare metal floor, but there was no way, no position, in which I could make myself comfortable, much less sleep. There was an eerie strangeness to it all, passing through these unfamiliar towns in the deep of the night, leaving San Francisco behind me, presumably forever. How long would it be before I would be tested in the revolution that Cinque had prophesied? I could not face the terror of shooting at people--and of being shot at, I told myself that it simply could not happen . . . I would somehow survive. I could not go on with the contemplation of my own death. I taught myself to live without thinking beyond the present moment. One can function that way day by day. I did not think of my parents, my sisters, my friends. I did not think of escaping. It never occurred to me to pick up a submachine gun and blast the two people I hated so much, who sat there with their backs to me, unprotected. They were my comrades, and Teko was my general.

•

Cinque and his "army" found a safe-house in Los Angeles, where training in three-person teams continued.

While the feature-story writers in the news media were portraying the S.L.A. as a band of idealistic radicals, however misguided, who were involved in sex orgies and daring exploits against the establishment, conjuring up romantic tales of adventure, we ourselves were sinking into the depths of psychosis. We were cut off from the outside world and lived in an isolated realm of our own. We had only our battery-operated radio for news. The radio played all day long and most of the night, too, and Cinque would often hear song lyrics that contained, for him, special allusions to the revolution. Over and over, he would stop us all yell, "Hey, listen to this," and we woud all focus on a song's lyrics for a hint of our revolution. I never doubted that the hidden meaning was there, only that I was sufficiently knowledgeable to understand what our leader heard. We worked all day at our revolution with as much, if not greater, intensity as ever before--combat drills, calisthenics, weapons practice.

In retrospect, I suppose all of us were suffering from a combination of group hypnosis and battle fatigue, our anxieties and fears stretched to the breaking point. I had made my adjustment mentally to this fugitive life: I accepted orders and did as instructed, without questioning. But physically, I ached with a dull pain all the time. I was tired before the day was half over. My stomach cramped up in spasms at unexpected moments. My menstrual periods were so irregular I lost all track of them. I wept more and more each day.

At a meeting one day, I noticed for the first time just how gaunt and sickly all my comrades had become. Bereft of sunlight and fresh air, their skin had turned to the pasty color of flour. Cinque appeared more yellow than black. Fahizah's cheekbones protruded in clear outline from her face. I thought I was seeing her death mask when I looked at her. Death stalked the foul air in that safehouse. More than ever before, all of them talked of death. Hardly a day or a night went by but that someone mentioned death, and others quickly took up the subject. They went beyond the concept of death's being beautiful. It became a necessity. The only way the S.L.A. would ultimately prove to the people that it meant what it said would be by dying for the cause.

•

Having left on a "mission," which led to an incident at Mel's Sporting Goods Store at which Hearst covered her companions, Teko and Yolanda, by spraying submachine-gun fire over their heads, the trio eventually headed south for Anaheim. During their absence, the rest of the S.L.A. had moved out of their safe-house, and the plan was for Teko's team to hide out in a motel near Disney-land until they could join their comrades--wherever they were.

Disneyland, even from the outside, looked enormous and inviting. It had been years since I last visited it as a child, so young and innocent and carefree. But now I knew I could never see it again, as much as I may have wished, for there was too much risk that I would be recognized. It was well after five o'clock, perhaps nearer to 5:30, when we pulled into the motel parking. Teko told me to get under the blanket on the floor of the car in order to stay out of sight while Yolanda went in and registered for a room for two. They would sneak me into the room to save money and for security, in case the police had been alerted to look for two women and a man registering at any motel. After Yolanda had registered, we drove around to our room and moved in. We now had only our weapons with us, having lost the clothes and the groceries we had bought when we abandoned Cinque's VW. The room seemed marvelously big to me and clean, with two large double beds and a color-television set. Teko headed for the TV as soon as we got into the room.

"It's live . . . look, it's live!" he exclaimed, shaking all over, pointing. We gathered around the set and watched. There in living color, we could see what seemed like a regular cops-and-robbers show: an army of policemen, wearing gas masks and battle fatigues, surrounding a little white-stucco house. The announcer kept repeating that the S.L.A. was trapped inside and had refused the police's demand that they come out and surrender. Within minutes of our turning on the TV set, the shoot-out started. The emotional shock was devastating. Shots rang out and my body reverberated as though struck. Tear-gas canisters were fired into the house. Clouds of smoke and gas poured out the front windows, followed by a fusillade of submachinegun fire from the house in response.

"That's our people in there!" screamed Teko. Yolanda began sobbing. Teko changed channels and it was the same, perhaps a different angle, a slightly different scene, but it was all the same, like a war-news film out of Vietnam. As Teko impatiently switched channels, we saw the same scene over and over again, but we did get a variety of synopses of what had happened earlier, before we had reached the motel. Apparently, Cinque and the others had taken over that house at East 54th Street in the Compton area during the previous night or in the early hours of this morning. They were holding the black occupants of the house hostage, the newsmen said. But they were all trapped inside, surrounded by an overwhelming force of Los Angeles police, more than 100 of them. Furthermore, there were contradictory reports on how many S.L.A. members were inside the house. Neighbors who had visited the house before the police arrived reported that Patricia Hearst was inside. Others said she was not. Over and over again, the news reporters speculated, but no one knew for sure. Finally, the police had fired tear gas into the house and the shoot-out had begun.

I watched all this, trembling on the floor, leaning against the foot of one of the beds. Yolanda was propped up on the other bed and Teko sat on the edge of the foot of that bed, rocking back and forth, changing channels on the television set and screaming out in defiance his own interpretation of the shoot-out: The S.L.A. would not be holding black people hostage--the black people would have welcomed the S.L.A. and they were now fighting alongside the S.L.A. against the oppressors. The S.L.A. would never surrender. Cinque had already told the world that. This was a shoot-out to the death, as Cinque had prophesied. If our comrades had to die, this was the best way. They would take a lot of "pigs" with them. They would kill ten for every one of the S.L.A. slain. The "pig reporters" were interested only in Patty Hearst, not in what happened with all the others in the S.L.A. . . .

The truth was, as we learned from reports later, that Cinque and the others had gone to that house, at four o'clock in the morning, because it was the only one around showing a light at that hour, and he had bought his way in--for $100.

As the shooting continued, Teko swore he saw the silhouette of Cinque running past a window, bobbing and weaving in his own characteristic manner. At another point, the camera caught the fiery blast of a shotgun coming out one of the front windows and Teko identified the shotgun and the man behind it as Cujo. Cheering them on, Teko predicted that if they could just hold out until dark, at least some of them would be able to escape.

"We should go up there and help our comrades!" he cried out. "We could blast the pigs from the rear and fight our way in, so our comrades could escape."

"It's no use, Teko. We'd be so outnumbered, we'd just be killed and it would serve no purpose," Yolanda said sadly.

"We should go, anyway. We should die with our comrades."

"No," said Yolanda. "Cinque would want us to live and to fight on. That's what we've got to do."

"Oh, I wish I were there with them." Teko moaned, punching his fist on the bed.

It went on for a whole hour, a mini-war in the black ghetto of the city where movies are made, all of it in living color on television. It was barbaric, overwhelming, unbelievable. And then the house caught fire. It went up in flames in an instant. Teko screamed in agony. With flames shooting up through the roof and the television reporters saying that no one could live much longer inside the house, the police again and for the last time called upon the S.L.A. to surrender: "Come out. The house is on fire. It's all over. Throw your guns out the window. You will not be harmed." The reply was a burst of gunfire from the house. Teko cheered through his tears. A few minutes later, the gunfire from the house ceased and the police stopped shooting. Only the fire continued. Then one of the walls and finally the whole house collapsed in flames. It was all over.

Teko and Yolanda fell into each other's arms, clutching each other in grief and misery. Slumped on the floor below eye level with the television screen, I was mesmerized. Everything was happening around me and I was feeling nothing. Teko and Yolanda's wailing became louder and louder, blending with the incessant bleating of the TV news reporters, and I heard it all over a dull buzzing inside my head. Numbed but perhaps on the brink of hysteria myself, I crawled on all fours to the bathroom and locked myself in.

I sat in there alone for I do not know how long, with only the mumble of the sounds from the other room reaching me. I don't know for sure what I thought. I tried to collect my thoughts, but they ran through my head as through a sieve. I could not stand the two people in the other room. I could not believe what I had just seen on television. I could not resist projecting myself into that shoot-out, witnessing my own death. Some of the TV reporters had been saying I was in there. I knew that if I had been in there, the police would have behaved precisely the same way. Why would they do anything else? Cinque had told me it would be that way. If I had been there, I would be dead now. I could not believe Cinque really was dead. I just could not believe it. Yet it flashed through my mind that I was glad he was dead. Glad that all of them were dead. They deserved to the for what they had done to me. They had expected to die in this cause, but they had no right to expect me to die with them. But then I corrected myself: That was a bad thought to harbor. The shoot-out had been barbaric. I really did not wish them to die in that way. In fact, I really did not want them to be killed, because now I was left with the Harrises, for whom I felt no comradeship whatever. My fear of them intensified. My life in the S.L.A. would be even more miserable from now on.

I sat there on the floor in a stupor. I was a soldier, an urban guerrilla, in the people's army. It was a role I had accepted in exchange for my very life. There was no turning back. The police or the FBI would shoot me on sight, just as they had killed my comrades. . . . I sat there sobbing--not for my comrades but for myself.

Teko banged on the door with his fist. "What the hell you doing in there? Come on out here, now!"

Yolanda was displeased with my conduct. "You really are not showing the proper respect for our fallen comrades, Tania. You must stay here with us and watch the news. Perhaps one of our comrades got away." Shocked and subdued, the three of us sat on one of the beds, watching ghastly scenes from the "mopping up" operations. My empty stomach turned at the grisly horror of it all. My eyes wanted to see no more, my ears to hear no more about the fate I had so narrowly escaped.

Shortly after ten p.m., the television cameras picked up the scene of my parents, accompanied by my sister Anne, disembarking from an airliner at Los Angeles International Airport. They had come from San Francisco to be on the scene, to find out if I were dead or alive. Teko vented his fury at the attention given by the capitalist press to my family. It was as if no one cared at all about any of the others in the S.L.A., he said. To me, it all looked surreal. I felt no emotion whatever upon seeing them after so long a time. In fact, it occurred to me that they looked dead, as if they were in another world far apart from mine. The connection between us had been severed forever, I thought.

As we watched the 11-o'clock news summary, Yolanda talked of the future: We had to send our condolences to the families of our slain warriors; we had to return to the San Francisco Bay Area to recruit and rebuild the S.L.A.; we had to fight on in memory of the lives given in the cause.

She turned solemnly to Teko and said, "Do you realize that now you are the head of the Symbionese Liberation Army? You are now the general field marshal of the S.L.A.?"

"Yes," he replied softly. "I will do my very best to carry on the struggle as Cinque would have wanted. . . ."

"Tania," she said, turning to me, "we both have to give Teko all the respect that we gave Cinque, because he is our leader now. We've got to try harder than ever before to cooperate with one another. . . . We've got to work as a team all the time . . . and we've got to support Teko, because now he is our leader."

"Yes, of course," I said, "I'll really try."

When the 11-o'clock news ended, Teko announced that it was time for us to turn in and get a good night's sleep. We were all exhausted, red-eyed from weeping, spent.

Yolanda turned to me and solicitously asked, "Tania, do you want to make love with us tonight?"

"No, thanks," I said, and climbed into the other bed alone.