by Robin Lloyd
At his request, Padre Uribe got off the carriage in the southern outskirts of Havana in an area of destitute poverty off the Calzada de Jesús del Monte, not too far from the city’s slaughterhouse. He said he went there once every few months to tend to the sick and dying because no doctors or priests dared set foot there. It was too dangerous. It was a human wasteland, a place where Cuba’s forgotten, lost souls went to spend their last days. After seeing the elegant mansions of El Cerro, Townsend couldn’t believe the portrait of human misery in front of him. Row after row of wood shacks were stacked up one against another. Amid mud and garbage, women and naked children were scavenging for scraps of food next to the pigs and the chickens. Emma and Townsend watched as the man waved farewell and walked into this community of misery with a purposeful stride.
Townsend looked behind them and noticed a closed carriage pulled to one side. The pair of chestnut horses looked familiar. Had he seen that same carriage drive by the Backhouse residence? He hoped they weren’t being followed. As they made their way down the busy road toward the old walls of the city, Townsend felt uncomfortable being alone with Emma in the carriage. The sound of the wheels and the clip clop of the horses’ hooves only accentuated the awkward silence. He wasn’t sure what to say. Each of them looked out their side of the carriage. Townsend rummaged through his mind for something to say that wouldn’t be stupid. Emma broke the tension for him.
“Mr. Savage passed on some of your information about the steamship and the two Confederate agents. He said you’d give me a more detailed description.”
Townsend was happy to oblige and gave her a full account of them.
“On a lighter note, have you gotten more news about your art work?”
At this, Emma’s eyes lit up. “Indeed, the editors at Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper want me to do more sketchings of Havana harbor, in particular the growing number of fast English blockade-running steamships. They may want me to travel to Key West to do drawings of all the captured blockade-running ships there as well as the steadily expanding fleet of Union gunships. My sister lives there with her husband, a local merchant, so I wrote the paper to tell them I might be interested.”
“Key West? Only . . .” Townsend stammered. “I mean won’t your mother be upset?”
“About what?”
“About your leaving?”
“Not really. It’s just for a short time. As I said, my sister lives there and my mother wants to know how she’s getting on. She’s just opened a boarding house there.”
“I see. But won’t it be boring there? It’s not much of a town compared to Havana. . . . There are some fine homes, but from what I hear it’s mostly wooden shacks, a few churches, muddy streets with drunks, soldiers, and sailors wandering about.”
She looked at him, confused.
“Is there some reason you don’t want me to go there, Captain?” she asked, her sharp-eyed gaze now clouded.
Townsend felt flustered, and began rubbing the back of his neck as he looked away. He felt like an idiot.
“Is there something you wanted to tell me?”
“I suppose . . . ,” he stammered, “well, I just wondered . . . if there was another reason you wanted to go there. Maybe your mother wanted you to go there for some other reason.”
At that point, Emma’s face blushed as it dawned on her what Townsend was trying to say. Her wide-eyed expression revealed a tentative delight.
“I see, Captain Townsend. Now I understand, or at least I think I do. Were you meaning to ask if I wanted to go to Key West to see a particular ship?”
He nodded awkwardly. What a stupid fool he was.
Emma’s face lit up with a glow.
“A ship that has visited Havana before? Perhaps a US Navy ship?”
“Yes, that ship,” he said emphatically. “I was wondering about that ship.”
“To answer your question. I have no need to see that ship or its captain ever again no matter what my mother has to say. I have made that quite clear to her.”
Townsend began to smile.
“If I might inquire then, what types of ships interest you?” Townsend asked, as he dared to hope he was reading her signals correctly. “I mean from the point of view of an artist, steam or sail.”
“I have a strong preference for sail,” she replied with a deadpan face, but then raised her eyebrows. “However, I’m quite particular. For instance, I like one of the ships here in Havana, but given the harbor’s polluted water, I think it needs some cleaning, scraping, and painting.”
“Oh,” he replied with a mischievous hint of a smile. “That’s a harrowing job but with proper oversight it can be done.”
“Good to hear. There is one other thing I like in a boat.”
“What is that?”
“Dependability.”
“I see,” said Townsend, his mouth wide open in surprise.
“Have you ever heard of the Dutch word howker, Captain?”
He shook his head, wondering what she was getting at.
“That’s what the Dutch call two-masted fishing boats, but that word has another meaning. It is also used to refer to sailors who have two or more girlfriends. It seems howkers, whether they are boats or men, are viewed by some of the Dutch as risky and unreliable.”
She paused and looked at him, her lips pursed. She brushed her hair off her face. Townsend squirmed under her piercing stare, his face reddening at this not-too-subtle verbal slap—but he was still greatly enjoying this word play with Emma.
“I see what you mean,” he replied with a mock serious tone of voice. “Those Dutch certainly understand their boats.”
“Apparently they do.”
At that point they both laughed, their eyes both twinkling. All Townsend could think of was how much he wanted to kiss her, even if it was just on the cheek or the forehead. He found his arm stretching out toward her across the seat, his fingers lightly touching hers. His heart pounded as he felt her respond to his touch. Slowly their fingers began to weave together until they were intertwined. Townsend hardly dared to breathe. They stayed that way, not moving or speaking, while the carriage rumbled through the Tierra gateway and entered the old city. As they neared the Cristina marketplace in the Plaza Vieja with the throngs of noisy vendors, Townsend finally spoke.
“You can let me out here. I’ll walk the rest of the way to the docks. It’s better not to risk being seen together.”
She banged the carriage twice to signal the postilion to stop. As the closed carriage slowed down near the corner of Teniente Street and San Ignacio, Townsend reached out for her and took her in his arms. He could feel her smooth skin through the thin cambric linen. The tickle of her wavy brown hair and the subtle smell of her lavender scent were intoxicating. He felt like he was floating in a cloud. They kissed each other cautiously, their lips only slightly touching. His breathing quickened and his heart sang. He drew back and looked at her.
“I’ve wanted to do that for the longest time.”
“What took you so long,” she replied.
“I almost did months ago on the terrace roof together at sunset.”
“It was a moment I’ll never forget,” she whispered with a happy sigh as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
28
For the next few days Townsend could think of nothing but Emma. He walked around the decks of the Gaviota in the hot sun lost in a daze, staring at nothing. The summer heat was far more oppressive than it had been at sea. They were anchored off the warehouse docks, but even out in the middle of Havana Bay, there was no breeze, no relief, just listless muggy air. The newly tarred seams on the wooden deck were a sticky hot paste that burned to the touch. But none of this mattered to Townsend. All he could see was her fixed stare with those brown eyes, and her long black eyelashes, her wavy, dark hair curling down the back of her neck. His thoughts were o
f Emma’s tapered body swaying with unconscious self-confidence as she walked through the old Backhouse residence. He could still feel her elegant thin hands, her fingers intertwined with his on the carriage’s leather seat, the light touch of her arms around his neck, the excitement of that first kiss.
With the rest of the crew ashore spending their money in gambling houses and bars, Townsend began to try to take an inventory of what they still needed on board. He wrote down more oakum, tar for caulking seams, extra replacement fastenings, more canvas for patching. To focus his mind, he studied old charts of the Florida coastline. Don Pedro had told him on this next trip they would be likely carrying arms and ammunition to a little-known Florida harbor north of the Suwanee River called Deadman’s Bay. But again his mind wandered, and instead of studying currents and tides and plotting possible rhumb lines, he found himself staring idly out the portholes at the swaying masts in the harbor.
Hendricks must have noticed something unusual about him and asked when they would be loading cargo. Townsend didn’t hear him at first, not until Hendricks asked the question a second time. Townsend mumbled it would probably be next week, as soon as Helm gave Don Pedro the go ahead.
“Wha’ happen to you. You lookin’ pale. Unhealthy.”
“No, it’s nothing.”
“Da’ cant be true. You pasty white. You getting fevah?”
Townsend shook his head and reassured him there was nothing wrong. But when Hendricks insisted again, he told him what he’d learned about Abbott from Emma and Padre Uribe.
“Lawd bless. I can’t believe dat Englishman still deh living,” the Bahamian said, shaking his head, his eyes wide in astonishment. “He must be a jumbie.”
“A what?”
“A jumbie man. A walkin’ dead man. If he be alive, you bes’ be thinking of what you gon do. Deh gon’ kill him, you know. Don Pedro and his people. They gon’ kill Abbott. I might not know much about Don Pedro, but I tellin’ you one ting, he’s a bad man. And dem two barracudas workin’ for him, Salazar and Nolo, deh be worse. They got killin’ in the eyes.”
Hendricks was right. Don Pedro had connected Abbott with the mysterious Englishman in Matanzas. It was only a hunch at the moment. But hunches were dangerous here in Cuba.
“You bes’ be careful. This time they might kill you too.”
Townsend didn’t reply because the heavy thundering of El Morro’s cannons signaled the latest arrival. The well-known Spanish-flagged sidewheel steamer, Isabel, was just coming in from St. Marks, Florida. She was one of the fastest of Havana’s blockade runners, and had made multiple successful trips across the Gulf. He wondered what information she would be bringing. Most of the news about the war was now reaching Havana by means of ships running through the blockade. Just a few days earlier, the Alice had brought in the dramatic newspaper reports from Mobile about the South’s surrender at Vicksburg. All the ship captains knew what that victory meant. With the Mississippi now firmly under Union control, more Federal gunships would soon be diverted into the Gulf. The blockade would tighten even more. Word was that the small harbor in Key West was already clogged up with as many as sixty blockade runners, now up for auction as captured prizes. Southern captains on those ships who refused to pledge allegiance to the Union were sent north to prison.
The next day Townsend got an unexpected invitation delivered to his rooming house. It was from his grandmother. She had just arrived in Havana. She wanted him to escort her to the Opera House for a special off-season performance to hear Maria di Rohan, a Donizetti opera about a tragic love triangle. It would just be the two of them in her theater box. The hand-delivered note had come with a complete set of formal clothes. Item by item, he laid out the clothes on his straw-filled sleeping cot: fine white pants, an ivory silk shirt, black tie, a burgundy waistcoat, a long dark satin coat with a black top hat, white stockings, and black patent leather shoes. His grandmother clearly wanted to dress him up like a fashionable Spanish Don from Havana.
In his new clothes, Townsend felt awkward and clumsy. He hoped he wouldn’t run into any of the sailors he knew. They would laugh at him, he knew. He hailed a volanta cab to take him to his grandmother’s house on Compostela Street near the Santa Catalina Church. It was on the other side of the old city, and Townsend sat back to enjoy the ride. For the first time, he took special notice of some of the colors and the architectural details of the buildings, the salmon-colored cornices, the light green mouldings, and the lilac trim. Havana was a city filled with many colors, he thought to himself, and many surprises.
His grandmother’s house was cream colored with a purple-blue trim painted around the windows. He walked up to a large iron-studded wooden door and a brass hand door knocker. Like all the older houses in Havana, there were floor to ceiling iron-grated windows, which allowed him to look inside. He imagined his mother as a child seated on one of the cane-bottom rocking chairs looking out at him through the iron bars. It was like looking into a painting. In his imagination, she was giving him a disapproving look. He knew she wanted him to walk away, but he didn’t.
The maid he’d seen at Mon Bijou let him in, politely nodding her head. He thought about saying something to her, but he couldn’t find the words. Her dream was to free her son, Julio, but Townsend knew his grandmother’s plans for the boy would mean he would never escape the plantation, free or not. He felt tremendous guilt about his silence. His attire somehow amplified it. He found his grandmother in the parlor, a large airy room with brightly painted fluted columns, black and white marble tiles and dark mahogany furniture. She had on a full-length silk dress with lace around the neck and the arms, a diamond comb in her hair, and six strings of pearls. She greeted him warmly, kissing him on both cheeks, and then stopped to admire his appearance, holding onto his hands.
“¡Ay, que hombre tan guapo y elegante! Un verdadero Don Juan,” she said in her soft voice, and then repeated it in English. “Such a handsome gentleman, you are, Everett, and so elegant! A true Don Juan!”
A white-jacketed butler brought him a guarapo with freshly squeezed cane juice, and gave Doña Cecilia a cup of Spanish licorice tea with salt that she said was to ward off any illness. As before, Townsend found her quiet, courteous manner disarming. It was still hard for him to understand how his mother had become so angry with her. He looked around the room. On one of the walls was a fresco painting of a plantation with the slaves bent over, working in the fields. On the opposite wall was a portrait of a Spanish-looking gentleman, stout and gray-faced, dark-haired, finely dressed in an older style. He was holding a riding crop with his thumb and forefinger much like a monarch might carry a scepter. In the background was a seaside plantation with its tall chimney, the mill and a cluster of sheds.
His grandmother saw his gaze lingering on the portrait, and she looked up at it.
“That’s my mother’s father, my grandfather. That would make him your great-great-grandfather. He was a Quintana, one of the old aristocratic Spanish families in Cuba.”
She paused for a few moments, her eyes lingering on the portrait. Then she smiled and turned her attention back to her grandson.
“I am so pleased you are here in Cuba, Everett. Fate works in unusual ways to bring people together, families together. ¿Te lo imagines? Just imagine, if your mother had remained in Cuba. Ay, Díos Mío, que pena que no haya sido así. If that only could have happened. You would have been born and raised at Mon Bijou just as she was, just as I was. It was such a joy to have you there. Me dío tanta alegría.”
She sipped on her drink slowly. Townsend could see a weariness in the lines in her face.
“Some say you can’t make up for lost time, but then maybe you can. ¿Quién sabe? Who knows? When you are older like me, you will learn that there are some things that cannot be changed. I believe you must look ahead, not behind. That is my way of thinking.”
Just then, the butler announced that the postilion had brough
t the volanta around to the front entrance. Doña Cecilia looked at the clock, and said they must be going. It was important to arrive early at the opera house to join the promenade of Havana’s prominent citizens.
“All of the city’s beau monde should be there for tonight’s performance.”
Soon they were outside the old walls and the horses were trotting alongside the rocky, windblown north coast on their way out of the old city, passing the solid limestone structures that housed Havana’s public sea baths. She began to talk about the plantation and how Don Pedro had been such a help to her. She spoke about the hard times of running the plantation by herself, and the difficulties of raising her daughter alone. Townsend noticed how his grandmother’s eyes were wet, but at the same time he could see behind the emotional façade, a look of steely determination. She wiped her eyes and turned her head as she restored her composure, and then abruptly changed the topic.
“I am sorry I haven’t asked you, Everett. How are you and Pedro getting along?”
Her eyes lingered on his face as if she was searching for something. He wondered what she knew. Again he replied diplomatically.
“Don Pedro and I have a good business relationship, I believe. The voyages have all been successful. He’s told me how much he values my efforts. I believe he thinks I would make a good merchant.”
“Pedro is such a caballero. So handsome and distinguished,” she said. “I am glad you are getting along with him. Did I mention he is related to a rich planter who is a friend of mine. I believe you met him, Don Eugenio Hernández.”
Townsend nodded.
“Yes, Don Eugenio took him on as an apprentice many years ago when as a boy he was sent here from Spain. He paid for Pedro’s schooling in New Orleans. Some whisper Pedro is Don Eugenio’s illegitimate son, but quién sabe, who knows.”
She looked reflective and sighed as she fingered the strands of pearls around her neck.
