by Mary Morris
I loved his touch. There is no other way to say it. It wasn’t that he was so skilled with women or knew how to touch them, it was more that he touched me in such an odd, tentative way. He’d lie on our bed, his hand just resting on my shoulder. Have you ever seen a child who wants to pet a dog but is afraid that the dog will bite? That is how he touched me. No one knows how vulnerable and afraid he is the way I do.
I think Clarita would have stayed with him if the letters had not gotten mixed up when he was in prison. You see, no one writes to his wife and mistress on the same day. That just shows how arrogant he was. He wrote to me and he wrote to Clarita. But he had his share of enemies and the letters were switched. I didn’t mind getting her letter. I read how she was to enroll their son in the Jesuit school and how she was to handle the small amount of money that was left in the bank. He told her not to put the lights on at night and not to buy more than one chicken a week. He told her he wanted some books and an extra pillow.
But I can only imagine the letter she received. One in which he longed for my body to lie beside his. How his lips groped for mine in the nights, his hands reached for my breasts. How he lay awake at night, pretending I lay beside him.
That was the last straw for Clarita and she filed for divorce. Of course she lost her son. I don’t think she would have anticipated that, but in the custody battle she lost him. It wasn’t that El Jefe wanted his son; it was that he didn’t want anyone else to have him.
One morning a few months after he was back from prison I woke and knew I was pregnant. It never even occurred to me that it could be Umberto Calderón’s child because for years our lovemaking had been reduced to an obligatory Saturday-night intercourse, the raising of my nightgown to my waist, a quick, futile spurt that enabled him to sleep without the use of soporifics and rum with lime. My husband knew that it was not for him that I put on the almond creams and jasmine soaps, the oils scented with orange blossoms. It was for El Caballo that I put on the dresses of silk imported from China that lifted easily over my head. Though no matter how I scented myself, what permeated my flesh were the smells of his cigars, his rum.
I was a woman with Spanish eyes and aristocratic airs who lived in a house by the sea, whose cane furniture had been brought from Spain when la isla was still a colony, while El Caballo’s great-grandparents toiled an inhospitable Galician soil. He had walked through my parent’s house, filled with paintings of blue-eyed, fair-haired people who held their chins high, and this dark peasant had to have me. Everything about me, even my history, had to belong to him.
In that rented room in the late-afternoon light as we lay in bed, he told me that he saw a country where everyone had food and a roof over their head. Where children did not run naked through open sewers, but were in school all day long. He said, “Come with me, Rosa, and we will change the world.”
I felt the child within me start to grow and I told Umberto Calderón that it was his. He nodded and seemed to accept it was so. He was a dour, dull man, the son of a local bureaucrat and a missionary. He was a decade older than I was and never comfortable with my fiery passions, my temperamental ways. Nor was he passionate, as I was, about the plight of the impoverished, the misery of their island. He just thought everybody needed to work harder.
One night I served Umberto chicharrones de pollo and arroz con plátanos, I served him ropa vieja. And then I gave him his coffee with cream and sugar. He stared at me in disbelief. “I have never eaten these things,” he said. That night as he lay beside me, he said, “This is not my child.”
I pleaded and tried to convince him that it was otherwise, but I knew it was useless. “I know whose child it is,” he told me, “but I will accept it as my own, in name at any rate, as long as you do not humiliate me.” It was not that I did not love Umberto. I did. I loved him the way you love anyone to whom you are indebted. I was patient and loyal, grateful that he paid the bills, gave me a home, and cared for me. But it was not a great love. It was not a passion.
When I told El Caballo about the child, he seemed happy. But when I told him I could not go with him, I could not join him in his struggle because of my children, he turned away from me. Slowly I watched him slip away. He could not forgive me for wanting my children more than I wanted his revolution. People have misunderstood him; history may not be kind to him. But he has always been true to what he believed. He never came to me again after Isabel was born, though I have waited for him all these years.
When Isabel was born, I could not bear the thought that I might lose this child, the way Clarita had lost hers. I convinced Umberto to recognize her. I promised him that I would stay with him and no one would know. So he gave Isabel his name, but never his heart. It was the best he could do.
Her birth came, as they often do here, during the great storm. It was hurricane season, and though the moon was full, the seas grew wild and the sky turned yellow. As the storm tore the island apart, I felt my daughter being born. My husband turned his back and would not take me to the hospital, so Mercedes drove as the wind blew us across the road. The sea pulled back, then roared again to the shore.
As wind struck, the mangrove forest that had lined the beach for a hundred years was twisted and ripped to shreds. Toothpicks of trees remained and a strip of beach never seen from the apartment houses a half mile away was suddenly in clear view. The roof of the Sheraton was blown into a parking lot and a row of beach houses was leveled. The wall of a house across from ours was ripped off and one woman found a sofa belonging to someone else in her living room. When the waters receded a whale was found, bewildered and flailing, in a neighbor’s pool.
In the hospital I labored in the dark to the sound of shattering glass. Patients screamed in terror as palm fronds crashed into their rooms. The child was upside down in my womb and the doctors could do nothing for me. I screamed in agony until Mercedes forced her way in, shoving aside an orderly and two nurses who were pinning me down, and she lay her trembling hands on my womb. Inside me, I felt the baby turn.
In the darkness my dark child was born, shiny and slippery as a fish. In her black eyes, I saw two stars, shimmering there. I do not know when it was that those stars went out, but I have looked for them over the years.
Twenty-eight
A MAID comes by my room and asks if I can do her a favor. “I have dollars,” she whispers to me. She says she needs two pairs of shoes from the tienda. The natives are not allowed to have dollars and the tienda where the foreigners shop only takes hard currency. From behind her back she takes out a slip of paper; it is about four inches long. “I need a pair of red-and-black shoes this size; and another pair, two inches longer.” She tells me that the woman in the tienda knows who she is and there won’t be any problem.
The sight of this slip of paper four inches long moves me and I go to the tienda for her. After passing the jeans, the T-shirts, the straw hats, I find the shoes. There are children’s sizes; tiny red-and-black shoes, white shoes, pink shoes. Little dresses. I run my fingers over them, touching them all. I try to imagine Jessica in a crinoline skirt, a ruffled blouse; socks with lace on the side. But she is a tomboy, given to sweat suits and jeans. Todd says studies show that tomboys make happier marriages, but I don’t know.
It is late in the day and I miss her the most at this time. I decide to call her and say good night. I am the one who puts Jessica to bed. That’s my job, but more than that, it is what I have to do. I don’t remember anyone tucking me in, putting me to bed. I remember pulling back the covers and getting into bed. There was never a story or a song. I don’t remember a bath or a book.
But with Jessica it’s a whole ritual thing. The bath, the stories, the stuffed animals, the songs. It takes two hours and Todd says I am out of control. Excessive. He is often asleep when I patter into our room late at night. Before I left I made a tape of all the songs I sing to her. I wonder if she’s been listening to the tape. But it’s almost as if I am the one who can’t sleep without the songs.
Ju
st before I went on this trip, I lost my temper with Jessica. Todd had been working late and I must have been very tired. She wouldn’t go to sleep and I couldn’t get done anything I needed to. And then the dog sneaked into our room and peed on the bed. I screamed at Jessica that it was her fault and I never wanted a dog. I told her she was spoiled and never listened to what I said and if she didn’t listen I’d give the dog away.
She screamed at me, “No, Mommy, no,” and I had to go into my bedroom and shut the door. Afterward I knelt down at her bedside. I told her I wanted the dog and I didn’t know why I shouted at her like that because I never had before.
I buy the shoes and take them upstairs to the maid. She clasps them to her chest, tears in her eyes, and thanks me profusely. Then I pick up the phone and try to call Jessica to say good night, but all the circuits are busy. I still cannot get a call through. Try back in an hour, the operator says, but in an hour Jessica will be asleep.
On the roof deck that evening Enrique appears. He orders a beer and sits down at a table across from me. I have been waiting for Manuel, but it seems that Manuel will not appear. Enrique smiles and asks how my visit is going and I tell him as well as can be expected.
Then he tells me, “You should be careful.” He strokes his chin with his hand. “Be careful of where orders come from.” He strokes his chin again and I understand that he is shaping his hand into a beard. “Don’t trust,” and he taps his hand to his shoulder. He does this two or three times, pointing to his shoulder, but I do not understand. Don’t trust anyone, he tells me, slashing his finger under his chin. I can be arrested for telling you this, he says.
I stay on the roof deck a long time, hoping Manuel will show. After Enrique leaves, I order a daiquiri, which arrives the way I like it—bitter and frozen. Couples on the deck sit gloomily under floodlights; the music blares so loud that they cannot hear each other.
I go to the edge of the roof terrace and peer down. People are lined up to see a film; others are queued up for pizza. It is so peaceful and quiet down there; it is hard to believe that anything is wrong. There are lines in New York too, after all. For everything. There is a prison not far from the hotel, and through the prison’s smoky glass I can almost see hands gripping bars. The shadows of men or women pace in their cells. Their crimes are petty thefts or perhaps writing on the wall the initials of the general who was executed a year ago on a drug charge no one believed.
I think that I would like to go downstairs and walk out of this hotel. To take a cool walk in the Ciudad del Caballo night, perhaps amble down to the sea, where lovers, or the lonely, or men who are on work rotation, sit. From the terrace I can see them, lining the seawall.
Twenty-nine
THE CLUB TROPICAL was located a few miles outside of town, in the outer reaches of the Miramar. It was on an old estate, surrounded by palms that rose straight to the sky. A ceiling of fronds covered the stage. The night was hot and sultry as Isabel looped her arm through mine and we passed the bubbling fountain of nymphets, water coursing down their buttocks and thighs, cascading from their breasts and hair.
Heads turned as we entered the large entryway. Isabel looked straight ahead, clutching my arm. Her dress was sheer white silk with a shawl that trailed behind her. I felt under-dressed in my pink jumpsuit she’d asked me to wear, though Isabel said when she saw me that I looked “stunning.” That was her word. Not one I’d usually apply to myself. Tonight, instead of having her hair pulled back severely into a bun, as usual, she wore it down, flowing to her shoulders. Everyone turned to look at her.
Even emaciated, she could be a queen, the deposed ruler of an ancient land. The crowds looked at her, because she was so regal. And because they knew who she was. She was the movie star, the celebrity in town, renowned not only for who her father was, but because she hated him so. She would tell it to anyone who asked, particularly foreign journalists. Suddenly lights flashed. Cameras went off. So now they had my face. Now everyone knew who I was as well.
“Your table is this way,” the maître d’ said. Isabel had made the reservations, arranged for the table near the stage, but off to the side so we wouldn’t be disturbed. She had also arranged for the car to drive us from the hotel. My sense was that Isabel could arrange for anything, negotiate anything, except what she really wanted.
With a long drumroll the dancers rushed on. Swarthy men pranced with women dressed like aquatic birds. From our seats, I could see their painted-on eyebrows, smell their hair spray. Thighs, slightly flaccid, in mesh hose, were raised in my face. A long-legged woman in a peacock’s tail strutted across the stage. Isabel poked the ice cube in her Cuba libre.
At nearby tables patrons whispered, nodding our way. Men in polished silk suits stopped at our table, offering Isabel their hands. A man who looked like Xavier Cugat appeared on stage. He had a thin mustache and a baton in his hand. Raising the baton, he struck up the band and shouted, “Now, everybody dance.”
Grabbing me by the hands, Isabel pulled me to my feet. “Come on,” she said. “Dance with me.” She dragged me onto the dance floor, where she tipped her head back and began to sway. My face flushed as I felt the eyes of the room turn on us. Stroking me on the cheek, Isabel placed my hands on her waist. Then she drooped her hands around my neck.
Tossing her head back, she began to sway. I was surprised at how well she moved, how smoothly she led me across the floor. I tried to follow the steps, to move my feet in rhythm with hers. A few times I stumbled on her toes. Sweat appeared on her lower lip as she kept her gaze fixed on mine.
I wanted to look and see if other women were dancing together, but I couldn’t take my eyes away from Isabel. She held me, guiding me across the room, and I could imagine her as she was—a little girl of no more than eight—the night her father came to dance with her.
It was close to two in the morning when we got back to the hotel and Isabel said she wanted to use the bathroom. She wanted to come upstairs. I was hot and sweaty and we were both a little drunk. She told the driver to wait for her and followed me up the stairs.
Inside the room, she flopped down on the bed. “Oh, it’s so hot. I feel so dirty. Let’s take a shower,” she said. She pulled her dress over her head, stood there naked, then headed for the bathroom. I heard the water go on, the shower. Steam poured out of the bathroom. She called to me from inside. “Come,” she said, “it will relax you.”
As I passed the mirror, I couldn’t see my face because of the steam. I rubbed my hand on it. I looked well, dark and tan. My hair had golden highlights, but under my eyes were circles. I never stayed up so late. Isabel’s hand waved at me from behind the curtain. I slipped out of my dress and got in.
Water cascaded down her chest, her thighs. Her body was thin and yet round; there were soft curves, smooth lines. If she had more flesh, she would be beautiful, I thought. Here, she said, handing me the soap. I haven’t bathed with a woman since Lydia and I washed together as girls. I had forgotten the smooth softness of the skin, the hairless flesh. Then she took the soap from me and had me turn around. Her long thin fingers ran up and down my spine. I loved the smooth circles her hands made on my shoulder blades, the even strokes down the backs of my legs.
Afterward we dried ourselves off. Isabel threw her hair forward, drying it briskly with the towel. Then she wrapped the towel around her waist and walked to the balcony, where she opened the French doors. We stood for a moment, drying off in the breeze. Then, exhausted and hot from the shower and from the heat of the night, we stretched out on the bed. She lay with her head resting against my shoulder and I let my fingers stroke her damp hair. My fingers moved between the strands, separating them. Her hair smelled fresh and I breathed it in until my breath quickened as I felt her skin against my skin.
Suddenly she sat up, pushing my hand away from her face. “What is it?” she said. “What do you want?”
“I don’t know,” I said, startled by her abruptness. “I don’t want anything.”
“You must wa
nt something,” she said with an edge in her voice that left me feeling suddenly afraid. She was rising, staring at me from above. “You gringos are all alike. You are all selfish and afraid. You want adventures as long as there is no risk to yourself.” She flung the covers back and was shouting now, grabbing for her clothes. “You think you are brave, but you are just like the rest of them. You are all stupid cowards.”
She pulled on her dress and now she was sobbing, sputtering. I sat up, reaching for her across the bed, but she motioned me down. “Do you hear me?” she shouted, heading for the door. “You are all stupid, selfish cowards.”
“You’re wrong,” I told her. “Isabel,” I shouted, “don’t leave.” But she was heading, sandals in hand, for the door, which she slammed behind her. Wrapping a blanket around me, I went to the balcony and saw her car still waiting for her below. Her driver jumped out and opened the door for her. She slammed the door when she got in and the car sped off around the plaza, disappearing in the night.
Thirty
SOME MORNINGS I’ll get up with the birds. In the oak tree out back dozens of birds roost and their morning calls wake me. In the spring there are the crows. But there are also the grackles, the starlings, the sparrows. When they wake me with their caws and cries and twitterings, I can’t go back to sleep.
I’ll look at Todd, asleep beside me in the chiaroscuro light. He sleeps on his back, mouth opening and closing. There are these odds moments of intimacy. When you can see the other, but he doesn’t see you. Hair sticking every which way, the silly look of slumber on his face. Or a sudden flash of a dream passing behind his eyes. A glimpse of what he sees on the other side.
Then I’ll pad downstairs, make myself a cup of coffee. This is my favorite time of day. Five-thirty or six A.M., no one up. I’ll sip coffee, read the paper. There is a blue chair in the kitchen that looks out on the yard. I’ll sit there, listening to the birds, wondering what would happen if Todd and Jessica woke up and found me gone. I’ll wonder if I couldn’t just pack a bag and leave. Where would I go? Of all the places to which I’ve traveled, which one draws me the most? That place in Maui accessible only by boat? The altiplano of Bolivia and Peru? Could I breathe that rarefied air for the rest of my life, groom alpacas, be accountable to no one?
