The Long escape

by David Dodge

  I said to the maid, "Is dona Maria at home?"

  "She does not yet receive visitors, senor."

  "Don Fito?"

  "He is not at home."

  I swallowed.

  "Senorita Maria Teresa?"

  "I will tell her that you are here."

  She went away.

  I waited a hundred years. There wasn't a sound in the house, not even a clock ticking. It was like a tomb. I heard Terry's heels coming before I saw her. The sweat broke out on the palms of my hands.

  She was in solid black, like the maid. It didn't look ugly on her. There wasn't any kind of clothing that could make her look ugly.

  I didn't know what to say, because I didn't know how much she knew. I wouldn't have been surprised if she had spat at me, or turned her back, or had me thrown out of the house. Instead, she held out her hand, took mine, and let it drop quickly.

  "You were good to come, Ahl. You came all the way from Mexico?"

  "As soon as I heard."

  We were both uncomfortable. Her eyes shifted away from mine. She said, "Come sit down."

  We went into the big gloomy sala and sat down, three feet apart on a sofa.

  I said, "How is dona Maria?"

  "She will be better, after a while."

  "Fito?"

  "He is well."

  "How does he feel about what happened at the airport?"

  "He is grateful that you kept him from killing you, of course."

  She was as cold as one of the marble statues, on the surface. Underneath, something was stirring; fear, nervousness, hatred, maybe bottled-up grief. I didn't knou'

  what it was. But it showed in the way she kept from meeting my eye for more than a moment, and the stiff way she sat, like a good hostess entertaining a stranger at tea. She kept her hands clasped tightly together around a black handkerchief.

  We were talking Spanish, a fine language for the discussion of death and betrayals and sadness. I said, "I know very little of what happened. Does it distress you to talk about it?"

  "No. But I know very little myself. The administrador at the jundo killed him in a quarrel about the—the other death." I

  "Is it true that your father tried to turn the administrador over to the police?"

  "I don't know. I can't believe it. Chavarria could have exposed him. I think Chavarria himself must have threatened my father, for some reason."

  I thought my own thoughts. She began to roll the black handkerchief back and forth, back and forth, between her palms.

  "It was a terrible thing," I said.

  "It would have been more terrible if he had died with his mind troubled about his—difficulties, instead of in peace at last. Fito and I are both very grateful for what you did, Ahl. We know what it must have cost you."

  "What I did?"

  "The letter you wrote him. He told us about it."

  I didn't say anything. I couldn't.

  "As it turned out, you didn't have to lie. The affidavits are true, now. But it was wonderful of you."

  Sitting still after that was more than I could manage. I lit a cigarette and used the burnt match as an excuse to stand up and cross the room, where there was an ash tray on a table. It was the table where I had first seen the photograph of Terry as a child.

  Two photographs stood on the table now, hers and Fito's. My cellophane frame for Fito's picture had been replaced by a gilt frame matching the other one. The family was safe at home.

  I said, "The letter I wrote him relieved his mind, then?"

  "Of course."

  I thought: Wife deserter, bigamist, murderer and liar to his death. He hadn't done it to make me look good. He had done it so his family wouldn't know that he had baited Chavarria into killing him. But in doinsf it he had made me look like the cheat and liar he was, the cheat that Terry had tried to make me with her raspberry lipstick, the liar she must think I had been for her sake. That was why she sat there rolling the handkerchief nervously in her hands, afraid to look

  at me. She thought she had bought me off, and that I had come back to collect what she owed me.

  I said, "Terry 1"

  She kept her eyes on the black handkerchief.

  "Look at me, Terry. I want you to hear the truth and know it is the truth."

  She began to shiver. She still wouldn't look up. I took three quick steps, seized both her hands, and yanked her to her feet, making her face me. The minute I saw her face, I knew what had pulled me back to Chile. It knocked everything I had to say out of my mind. All I had left was enough sense to reach for her.

  We stood there, our arms tightly around each other, her head against my chest. It must have been five minutes before she said, "Ahl."

  "Yes."

  "I love you. More than my life."

  "I love you, too."

  "Truly?"

  "Truly."

  "I prayed that you would come back. And I did not know how to tell you when I saw you." .

  "I did not know until this minute."

  "I knew when you wrote to tell my father that you would not expose him. I knew that you did it for mc. That is when I loved you. But even before , . ."

  She tried to lift her face. I put my hand on her molasses-taffy head and held it where it was.

  After a while she said, "You will stay here in Chile, Ahl? I can not leave my mother now, and you must not go away from me."

  "I will stay as long as you want me to stay."

  "Forever, then."

  Her arms tightened.

  No, I thought. It won't be forever, nor for very long. Some day I'll have to tell you the truth. But not now. Later. Later, querida mia.