The Panama Portrait

by Stanley Ellin

  “It would allow him to continue with his work. You’re a fool, Tito. What use is a dead artist to himself or anyone else?”

  Tito’s face darkened. “A fool? Is that what you think?” Then he slowly nodded. “Yes, perhaps I am. Surely I am. I had forgotten where you came from. In your country, after all, honor is something that you buy and sell for money. How long can people do that before their souls are destroyed by their greed? For the sake of greed you can face pain and death with equanimity, but to face them for another reason, for an ideal, a vision, the hope of a miracle, that is beyond you!”

  “And what about you?” demanded Klebenau. “After all, you’re no more facing death tomorrow than I am. Strange, isn’t it, Tito, that the merchant wants to stop this crucifixion while the poet wants to witness it. Why? Because David might lay a miracle right in your lap? But what can another man’s miracle mean to any of us? The curse of the world since time began has been the willingness to swallow another man’s mystical experience as our personal truth. Yet, every self-professed prophet whose hallucinations we seize on as enlightenment leads us only to destruction. David has a better function than that. He prophesies through art. He enlightens us through the pictures he paints. His life is precious, not his death!”

  “He does not intend to die.”

  “No more than one of those idiots outside intends to crash his motorcycle into a tree. What do intentions have to do with it? I’m an old man, Tito. I have a great respect for death. He is always with us, that grinning skeleton swathed in his black cloak. From the day we’re born he stands outside the door waiting to enter and take possession of us. Only a fool opens that door willingly.”

  “So we must all be cowards for our lifetime. When we are not asleep we can sit all day like old women grinding corn in that metate.”

  “We must live as we are destined to. The old women will grind corn, and you will write poetry, and I will buy and sell art, and Smith here—well, he’ll try to prevent a tragedy from taking place tomorrow.”

  “What happens if I do?” said Ben. “Does that mean it becomes Chapin’s turn to raise holy hell with Bambas-Quincy?”

  “Don’t worry about it. The authorities are itching to toss him out of the country. If he’s barred from the festival I’ll see that he and Nora are on the plane out of here tomorrow. Let’s go. I’ll drive you back to the house and wait until you settle it.”

  “I still don’t think I can. But I’ll speak my piece, and after that it’s up to Bambas-Quincy. You can drop me off at the house. If there’s anything to report I’ll send a boy here to Luis’ with the message.”

  Back at the house where most of Port Buchanan’s elite now seemed to be congregated, Ben was told by Jerome that his sister had awakened a little while ago and was in her room waiting for his visit. In the hallway outside her door it was evident that other visitors had preceded him. Elissa’s mother and grandmother were just leaving, the old lady propelled as usual in her wheelchair by the chauffeur, and as she sighted Ben she signaled the chauffeur to a halt.

  “Stand here, young man,” she commanded in that thin voice which was barely louder than a whisper. “Here. Closer. Am I a vender of fish to shout at you?” But when Ben leaned over her she withdrew her head sharply. “Disgusting. You reek from woodsmoke like an Indian.”

  “Mama!” said Mrs. Bambas-Quincy in embarrassment.

  “Silence. He has been in the village, this one.” The reptilian eyes narrowed. “Why? For a woman?”

  “No,” Ben said. “Not for a woman.”

  “Good. When a man must play the animal it must not be with the Indian women who are all diseased. Have nothing to do with them. I am told that when you leave, you wish to take my child with you.”

  “What? Oh yes, Elissa. I’ve asked her to marry me, if that’s what you mean.”

  “And to live with you in the city of San Francisco?”

  “It’s not so far away. Travel is easy today.”

  “I do not approve of travel. A wife must stay in her home and have children. Her husband and children are her family, not the ones she left behind. From the time my husband brought me to Santo Stefano I have never left it. You find the child very beautiful, do you not?”

  “Very.”

  “And a little strange, perhaps?”

  “No,” said Ben, not altogether truthfully.

  “Good. But what of the difference in faith? Do you know that the archbishop must make arrangements?”

  “Yes.” He was entirely willing to pay the same lip service to Elissa’s Catholic God that he had hitherto paid his mother’s Baptist deity. And if it turned out that Elissa was a secret worshipper of Ajaxa, he would gladly turn any room of his home into a facsimile of Luis de la Horca’s cofradía. The advantages of being agnostic, Ben decided, were many. It didn’t matter what god you worshipped, as long as you kept possession of your own soul. “Yes,” he told his inquisitor, “I understand all this. I’ll do whatever Elissa wants done.”

  “And all without dote?” the old lady said, and when Ben looked puzzled she waved a finger imperiously at her daughter-in-law.

  “Dowry,” said Mrs. Bambas-Quincy. Her initial embarrassment had intensified steadily. Her cheeks were quite pink with it now.

  “Dowry,” the old lady said. “I have been told that you ask no dowry. Is that true?”

  “It’s not customary in my country. I’ll just settle for Elissa, if she’ll have me.”

  “She will.” The laughter emerging from that wrinkled throat sounded like steam hissing from a kettle. “And with dowry. A great dowry. You will be a rich young man living with your wife in the city of San Francisco.”

  She had said her say. She left him looking dazedly after her as she was wheeled down the hallway, Mrs. Bambas-Quincy smiling sadly over her shoulder and shrugging apologies for everything that had been said. As if any apologies were needed, Ben thought when he was struck by the full realization of what had been said.

  He entered the bedroom and found Elissa wanly reclining on a chaise longue attended by her father and Juana. She had been palming a cigarette, but when she saw who her visitor was she sighed gratefully and placed it between her lips. Her father, after an apprehensive look over his shoulder, leaped forward to light it for her.

  “How do you feel now?” Ben asked.

  “Well enough.” She luxuriously exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Poor Ben. Has grandmother been tormenting you?”

  “Hardly. She seemed to be telling me that you’ve accepted my proposal. Have you?”

  “Yes.”

  “On my terms? You know how I feel about it. If I can’t obtain the contract my company wants, I won’t be much of a marital prospect.”

  “As for that,” said Bambas-Quincy, “your terms are entirely honorable. And they offer no difficulty. Next week I shall review your contract, and I am sure we shall settle matters promptly. Why not? After all, my dear friend, you are no longer dealing with strangers. Your union with my daughter will make me very happy. Nothing will be permitted to stand in its way.”

  “Nothing,” said Elissa in a remote voice. “And now a drink, please, papa. The cognac is in that cabinet.”

  “Before dinner? Is it necessary?”

  “Very much so. We should certainly celebrate the occasion, should we not? And I’m cold. Uncomfortably cold.”

  “You must have another cover,” Juana said eagerly. “And tea. Hot tea. I will get it.”

  “No, it doesn’t reach deep enough.” Ben took her hand, and she let it rest icy and quiescent in his before gently withdrawing it. “How have you spent the day?” she asked him. “Has it been very dull?”

  “No, I went to Chicamayo to watch David Chapin prepare for the festival. He’s entering it, you know.”

  “I didn’t know. How strange. Does he understand the dangers?”

  Bambas-Quincy wheeled around from the cabinet where he was measuring out cognac in three glasses. “Does he understand the dangers? My dear child, who does
not? But his audacity is nothing compared to his agent’s. That man—no, that fat, graceless pig—dared approach the commissioner this morning and demand that his precious artist’s Certificate of Participation be withdrawn! Can you picture it? A ceremony practised with honor for almost three centuries suddenly becomes subject to the interference of onlookers! Well, well, it is a strange world we live in today when nothing is sacred. Thank God for men like Guzman who know how to stand off the enemy a little while longer.”

  It was not the time or place, Ben saw, to speak up on behalf of Klebenau. For that matter, it never again would be. What did he owe Klebenau anyhow? It was Klebenau who owed him everything. From the time he had met the man he had in some strange way been made his cat’s-paw, hauling one chestnut after another out of the fire. Talk of the devil! It was as if Klebenau had been invested with a power over him that even O’Harragh didn’t have. Enough of that. The time had come for him to be his own man and play his own game. He had traveled a long way from Aurelia, Kansas, for the winning hand he now held. He refused to risk it for anyone.

  So he said nothing. And when he tossed in bed that night, haunted by the vision of Klebenau’s doglike, pleading eyes, he comforted himself with the thought that nothing he might have said would have helped in the least. In the Bambas-Quincy family Max Klebenau had finally met his match. That was all there was to it.

  11

  The festival ceremonies in the arena outside Chicamayo were scheduled for late afternoon, and until the moment of departure for the arena Ben fully expected Klebenau to make an appearance and blow up a final storm on Chapin’s behalf. But it became evident that even a persistence like Klebenau’s had its limits. The man did not show up, there was no scene, no need to take sides one way or the other, and that was a relief.

  Most likely, Ben decided, Klebenau took it for granted that he had made the promised appeal to Bambas-Quincy and had been rebuffed. So much the better. What remained now was for Chapin to use his knife as quickly and efficiently at the ceremony as he had during that practise session in the cofradía. Let the trained Indians prove their endurance on the gallows. Anyone with the degree of self-preservation that Chapin had demonstrated was safe enough. After all, the object was not to die, but to survive the rope, and since the majority did survive, why not Chapin? And what was the sense of wrestling with this sickening consciousness of guilt before the event? Why, indeed, feel any guilt for Chapin’s madness? A man could be his brother’s keeper only when his guardianship was welcome. In this case, Chapin’s appointed keeper was Luis de la Horca, not Ben Smith, so let Luis bear the guilt.

  Such nagging doubts and feeble self-assurance are not likely to make anyone a gay companion. At lunch, which Ben shared with Elissa in the privacy of her room, she suddenly said, “There is something that disturbs you. Is it the thought of attending the festival?”

  “I’m afraid it is. I’ve got David Chapin very much on my mind. If anything happens to him—”

  “But that would be his own doing.”

  “It won’t make it easier to watch. Can’t we get out of it somehow? What if you said you still didn’t feel well enough to go?”

  “I have already said I would go. I suspect that even if I were half dead my grandmother would order me carried there on a litter. Dear Ben, you must learn that there is no escape from my grandmother, especially in a matter like this. She is fanatic about the festival. Thoroughly fanatic. And it has nothing to do with its cultural elements or the spectacular scene it provides or the opportunity it affords to gamble. Yes, she does gamble fantastic amounts on it and often wins. But all this means little to her. The truth is that she is an absolute sadist. Do you doubt that? Then watch her during the ceremony. See if the worst of it does not affect her like a transfusion of new life into her old veins.”

  “You make her sound monstrous. Do you really hate her that much?”

  “I hate and admire her in equal parts. I hate her because I am sometimes her victim. I admire her because I wish I could exercise the power she does. What a feeling it must be to command obedience with a whisper.”

  “And to be hated for it?”

  “Is one loved for weakness? Is that the reason for your devotion to me?”

  “I never said you were weak. I don’t believe you are.”

  “But I am. Childishly so. Yes, that is the word—childishly. Strength, I think, comes with age, but what if one is unable to grow older? What if she remains fixed in childhood, frozen there by a black magic? Time passes, everyone around her grows older, gains the assurance of added years, but for her the clock has stopped, and she lives eternally in the shadowy, frightening world of childhood. It is always shadowy in that world. The sunlight enters it only to make shadows.”

  “Then she should be glad to leave it.”

  “She cannot. I told you that there was a spell on her.” Ben saw with alarm that her hands had started to shake, the coffee cup she was holding jerking convulsively in her grasp so that coffee splashed on the table. “Oh, how clumsy!” she gasped. She hastily put down the cup and locked her hands together, trying to control that dreadful shuddering. “It’s nothing. A sudden chill. Nothing at all, I assure you.”

  “It’s more than that. I’ll call Dr. Mola.”

  “Oh, dear God, you’re as bad as poor Papa.” She managed a not very convincing laugh. “Please, sit down and finish your lunch. It was a chill, and it is gone now. Perhaps it was your own mood that brought it on, your unhappiness about attending the festival. I may prove to be a most disconcerting wife if I am so susceptible to your moods. Well, we can take comfort in knowing that this is the last festival we shall ever attend. The very last. That is a consolation, is it not?”

  “Very much so. But what makes you so sure that your grandmother won’t order us to attend the next one or the one after that?”

  “If she did, would you come?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose I’d be the proper norteamericano husband and leave it up to you. She’s your grandmother.”

  “She is, indeed. However, the problem will not arise. Once I leave Santo Stefano I shall never return.”

  Ben smiled. “You may change your mind. After all, you’re getting married, not being sent into exile.” Then he suddenly recalled something the old lady had said to him in the hallway the day before. Something about a woman’s obligation to remain permanently fixed in her home once she was married. He frowned at Elissa. “Or are you trying to tell me you won’t be welcome here if you ever want to return?”

  “Would you prefer your wife to remain bound to her family?” Elissa said lightly. “Most husbands would not.”

  “That doesn’t answer the question.”

  “There is no question. In the United States I will have you, I will have Juana, I will have Mama and Papa when they choose to visit us. That is sufficient. As for Santo Stefano itself, it will be a beloved memory. It will be part of my new life, but only in remembrance. But listen to me. I am becoming quite the poet, am I not? Enough of poetry. Let us finish lunch and prepare for our ordeal. Dear Ben, don’t put on such a long face about it. It may not be as bad as you anticipate.”

  He had anticipated, at least, that he and Elissa would be left to attend the ceremony on their own. He was dismayed to learn at departure time that they were to have Blas Miralanda and Penelope Kipp as companions. This proved to have been Blas’ inspiration. Since Mr. Smith and Miss Kipp were attending their first festival, he explained on the way to Chicamayo, he would be honored to instruct them in its mysteries. Too often the neophyte thought he was witnessing a mere contest of endurance, an athletic event. What a false view! It was like regarding the statue of Ajaxa as a painted woodcarving and nothing more. Deplorable. Actually, the ceremony was a vast drama in which the performers truly lived their roles. If it were not a little blasphemous perhaps, one might even see it titled The Passion of Ajaxa. And, of course, the only way to appreciate this drama was to be informed of its nuances, step by step.

 
Also, Blas pontificated, there were the scientific aspects to consider. Take the rope, for example. The thickness of the rope had long been a subject of the most heated debate among authorities. The thicker the rope, the more one was cushioned against its penetration into the throat. It would seem logical, therefore, that every contestant would choose the heaviest possible noose for his trial, would it not?

  Penelope swallowed hard at this, and Ben grunted something which Blas evidently took for assent.

  “But that is not so,” he said triumphantly. “Why? Because a man will have very little strength remaining to cut the rope when the time comes. A hair’s-breadth too much thickness of that line, and it will resist his knife. On the other hand, too thin a rope can become embedded dangerously deep in the flesh of the throat. It requires precise calculation to determine its proper diameter. The diameter of three-quarters of an inch used in legal hangings in your countries is no criterion at all.”

  “Who takes care of this for Chapin?” Ben asked. “Luis de la Horca?”

  “Of a certainty. And there is no greater expert in these matters than Luis. I have been told that Mr. Chapin spent the night with him. That means that Luis himself braided the ceremonial noose around the man’s throat at sunset. It is the Axoyac law that one must sleep in his noose the final night, just as he must live all his life with the invisible cord of fate fastened to his throat. If he sleeps well, they say he is unafraid of his fate and will perform bravely on the gallows. This often appears to be true. So much so, that most people will not place their bets until they have heard how the contestants have passed the night.”

  “Isn’t there a chance contestants would lie about it?” said Penelope. “Betting invites that sort of thing, you know.”

  “Never at the festival,” Blas said in a shocked voice. “You must remember the Indian belief that on the evening before the ceremony the gods meet together here on the Victorica to witness it. No Indian would dare lie in the presence of the gods. That is, not about something concerning the festival. He might not hesitate to sell you a piece of rotten fruit, but he would consider that a harmless deceit which even Ajaxa might approve.”