The Panama Portrait

by Stanley Ellin

  “I watched David fall. I saw him struggle against the rope. I knew the one thing left to do then was try to save him even if it meant my life, but at the same time I knew that I could never do it. I’m a physical coward, Smith. I always have been. I have too much imagination. Pain is real to me; it has color and form, and I back away from it as I would from something slimy crawling out from under a rock. Can you appreciate that?”

  “What difference does it make, Klebenau? You don’t owe me any apologies.”

  “I owe you much more. What you did was ill-timed and useless—it would have been far better to do it my way and put pressure on Bambas-Quincy before the event—but, at least, it restored sanity to my world. More than that, from the practical point of view, it convinced me that you have no place in the enemy camp. That’s why I’m here. You may not know it, Smith, but you’re very close to swinging from a gallows of your own making.”

  “What do you mean? Why do you put it that way?”

  “It was a figure of speech. Merely a figure of speech. It wasn’t intended to unnerve you. I’m sorry. I should have realized that your experience at the festival might be traumatic.”

  “I can do without the psychological lingo,” Ben said. “All right, I’m ready.”

  “Good. When you pass the desk at the end of the hall don’t pay any attention to the woman there. It’s always the best tactic, in breaking a rule, to do it with assurance.”

  The tactic worked. The nun at the desk watched with stupefaction as they entered the elevator, and by the time she thought to leap from her chair in pursuit it was too late. They made it to the car without undue haste, and Klebenau, handling it with a sort of wary respect, maneuvered it out of the driveway and along a dark street toward the lights of the Avenida Hermanos. For the first time since his arrival in Port Buchanan, Ben saw the avenue almost empty of traffic and with only a few loiterers on the sidewalks. The city seemed to lie in a stupor, resting in exhaustion from its celebration of the festival. But a new celebration was approaching, he saw. From store windows along the way came the flash and glitter of fresh decorations, and here and there a sign proclaiming Felices Navidades. Merry Christmas. The festival of death was over. Let a festival of birth begin.

  In the Plaza de Hermanos a spotlight illuminated the cold bronze features of the conquistador. Then the statue was behind them.

  “Where are we going, Klebenau?”

  “To a notable institution of this unlovely city. Madame Sophie’s. It’s a brothel on the other side of the plaza near the diplomatic corps. A whorehouse in the grand style. There aren’t many like it in the States any more. Nowadays we prefer to order from the catalogue and have the merchandise sent to us.”

  “But we’re not on any pleasure trip.”

  “No, to put it with brutal honesty, this is as painful a mission as you could undertake. You’re going to find someone at Sophie’s you’d never expect to find there. A young woman you hold in high regard. Do you have any idea who I mean?”

  “Not the least.”

  “You must. You know this woman. You cherish her. Think, man. Do I have to name her for you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Klebenau, so you can name her and be damned. I’m in no mood for games.”

  “If this is a game, Smith, it’s a deadly one. In your heart you know that, don’t you? That’s why you’re closing your mind to what I’m trying to tell you. That’s why you refuse to face the truth. You’re afraid to. You’ve been afraid to since the day you saw what this woman offered. You must have suspected there was something strange about her, something unhealthy, something almost psychotic. But when it came to weighing that against a castle of your own on the Victorica, against the wealth and power dangled before your nose, you did what every starving Axoyac does when he weighs the rope against the prize offered for hanging from it. You lied to yourself about it. You put on a blindfold to block out the obvious. Isn’t that the truth?”

  Rage exploded in Ben. Then it dissolved into panic. Then there was no feeling at all. Only an emptiness, an uncanny sense of moving nerveless and flaccid, drained of all strength, through a nightmare. He had known such nightmares before, where he was led through gelatinous depths to be confronted by unimaginable horrors. And always there was this knowledge that if he tried to run, his legs would refuse to move, and if he tried to drive his fist into the horror, his arm would be limp and powerless.

  But he had always awakened in time. Now, he wondered, where would he awake? At the hospital, to find a nun looking down at him with concern? In the hotel, because this was his first night on the island, and the strangeness of it made his sleep restless with this unholy dream? Or even back in his apartment in New York the night after his meeting with O’Harragh? That much of it, he knew, was real. It must have been afterward that the nightmare started.

  And it persisted. Klebenau said, “But you did suspect, didn’t you? You’re an intelligent man. You must have found some clues in things she said, the way she behaved—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Ben said. “Stop the car, Klebenau. This is where I get off.”

  “No. It can’t be settled that way.”

  “I’m getting out, Klebenau. I don’t want any company right now.”

  “I know how you feel, but you’re wrong. You must go through with this, Smith. That’s not my idea alone. When I told Nora about this she said the same thing. She said that for the woman’s sake as much as yours, you must see the whole picture. Nora has great compassion. You’ll never go wrong heeding her judgment.”

  Why was Klebenau pleading this way? Compassion. The whole picture. A castle of your own on the Victorica. None of it made sense. But it might, if the dream were followed to the bitter end.

  Beyond the presidential palace was a district of government buildings, embassies, and consular offices, all unlit. The house stood on the outskirts of this district. It was a graceful building, a small Alhambra, evidently designed for some long dead and forgotten grandee, and while its windows were discreetly veiled by heavy curtains, a pale glow could be seen behind them. In the rear of the house was a courtyard where a row of cars stood parked. As Klebenau drove up, Ben saw the Facel Vega resplendent in the momentary glare of headlights. Ver’ fine, the guerilla lieutenant had said, patting it affectionately. Ver’ fine. And then the captain had spat out an insult at the woman which turned her to stone. Now here was her fine car, translating the insult too late.

  An attendant—an Indian boy in oil-smeared overalls—came running up, but Klebenau made no move to leave his seat. He sat for a while in silence, drawing deeply on the remains of his cigar, then tossed it out of the window. As soon as it struck the ground, the attendant pounced on it and thrust it into his mouth.

  “It was my search for the Gauguin that led me to Sophie,” Klebenau said meditatively. “On my first visit here, she told me a strange story about a woman of breeding who occasionally used her premises, but she didn’t name the woman. I never knew until this afternoon that it was Elissa Bambas-Quincy. Possibly I would never have known at all, if Nora and I hadn’t been so anxious to get in touch with you. The trouble was you seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth. I called everywhere but could get no information from your hotel or from Jerome Bambas-Quincy in the mountains. Did you know you were being held incommunicado?”

  “No,” said Ben. Not that this provided any shock. There were some words that came alive in Santo Stefano. Incommunicado. Incognito. The Infanta had business elsewhere after leaving him to the ministrations of nuns. Flushed with the heat of the festival she was going to play temple priestess. A dangerous game while he was nearby. How wise of her to smell the danger, to make sure he was safely cloistered while she was at the game.

  “Anyhow,” said Klebenau, “as a last resort I called the Bambas-Quincy place here in town. That was my good luck. A servant answered, an old woman who, it turned out, has an ear at every keyhole of that house and knows all there is to know abou
t the family.”

  “Juana?”

  “Yes, that’s her name. The lucky part was that she’s faced by a desperate problem and saw in me the miraculous answer to it. We met later in one of those foul bodegas on the Calle Contenta and had a long session there. You see, she’s passionately devoted to the woman she serves, and at the same time terrified of leaving Santo Stefano. Your impending marriage meant an agonizing choice for her. Her solution was that she would tell me a secret about her mistress, I would reveal it to you, and so there would be no marriage. And if you refused to believe me, I could show you evidence of the truth this very night.

  “There are all kinds of courage, Smith. Do you know what Juana risks by this? That’s one reason for keeping yourself well in hand now. She’s in there. If you throw suspicion on her by as much as the flicker of an eye, you’ll have a lot to answer for.” Klebenau opened the car door. “Sophie’s expecting us. She doesn’t know who you are, so be careful what you say to her. I’m on good terms with Sophie, although hardly a friend. You don’t presume on friendship with a woman like that. In my youth, of course, I believed like any juvenile in all the hairy-chested legends about kindly madams and whores with hearts of gold, but it didn’t take me long to learn how hollow the legends were. All these people have a vital part missing from their emotional works. Sentimentality is as far as they can go. Sentiment is beyond them.”

  And how did that apply to Elissa, Ben wondered. What was the mainspring of her emotional works? That was what she had been trying to tell him on the road from Chicamayo. Guilt was her portion. The bodily needs had to be gratified, and everything had to be sacrificed to them. She lusted, and then wept over her lust. Pity me, she said, and now he could hear that anguished voice like a faraway echo in his ears. Pity me. If you want me, pity me.

  Sophie met them in a room which was loud with the chirping and twittering of birds, redolent with the scent of flowering plants. Cages of small, gorgeously plumaged birds were everywhere, framed against a green background of vines and creepers which covered the walls from floor to ceiling. The air of the room, almost unbearably hot and humid, made Ben feel that he was stifling. It seemed to have no effect at all on Sophie. She was a slim, sharp-featured, gray-haired woman, chic in simple black gown and string of pearls.

  “My dear Max,” she said smilingly, and there was a distinctly guttural note in her speech, “you have come at exactly the right moment. I am going to feed my sweet little ones, and you will help me. Have you ever fed a hummingbird? Here, take this vial of sugared water and I will show you how.”

  Klebenau ungraciously waved aside the proffered vial. “I don’t want to know how. I’ve already told you that I detest all birds, Sophie, especially the ones that pollute this island. Why must I escape their stench outside only to find it in here?”

  “There is no stench here. It is flowers you smell with that big nose of yours. And you have no feelings, Max. None.”

  “How true.” Klebenau turned to Ben. “You see, Sophie is pained by anyone’s lack of feelings for birds and flowers because she comes from Germany where the more tender emotions are a way of life. However, she is no fanatic nationalist. If you ask her, she’ll tell you that she is from Alt Wien, much as that rich Berliner accent disproves it. The sad thing is that she refuses to believe I admire her for the lie. But I do. It bespeaks a keen sense of the proprieties.”

  “Always eloquent, Max,” said Sophie unruffled, “and always insulting. Well, if you are in a bad mood, I can understand it. Your poor artist—”

  “We will not discuss him. He is gone, Sophie. All gone in the flesh. Dead, eviscerated, and buried. Spurlos versenkt. We will concentrate on the business at hand.”

  “So? And what arrangements do you wish?”

  “Do you remember once telling me about the sometimes occupant of your Room Nine? That is the arrangement we wish.”

  Sophie’s eyebrows went up. “And how do you know she is here now?”

  “One of your little birds told me. Shall I point him out so that you can have his neck wrung?”

  “Such talk. No one would dare hurt one of my little ones, no matter how noisily he sang. Sweet things. It would be worth one’s life to lay a finger on them. Your arrangement will cost money, Max.”

  “How much?”

  “One hundred dollars,” said Sophie pleasantly. “For each.”

  “Ridiculous,” said Klebenau, and Ben, listening to this remotely, thought of passengers haggling with the boatman over their fare to the Isle of the Dead.

  “Then we will plan other arrangements,” said Sophie. “But do not come to me later crying about this lost opportunity. The girl has found herself a rich and handsome innocent from New York who is going to take her away from here very soon. Ach, men. This is the one, Max, who jumped into the arena—” Sophie’s hand flew to her mouth. She looked at Ben with awestruck recognition.

  “Yes,” Klebenau said, “he’s the one.”

  She wheeled on him. “What does this mean? What are you trying to do, you old devil? Arrange a murder here?”

  “There won’t be any murder.”

  “So? Still you are a fool, Max. You delight in mischief. But you will not have it at my expense.”

  “The mischief is already done,” said Klebenau. He nodded at Ben. “Do you have that much money with you? Good. Here, look at it, Sophie. Beautiful, isn’t it? You’re not afraid of Bambas-Quincy, are you?”

  Sophie eyed the banknotes in his outstretched hand. “You know me better than that, Max. My money is safe in São Paulo, in New York, in Geneva. I don’t have to be afraid of anyone.”

  “Not even of his saintly old mother?”

  “That old cripple? All right, give me the money, Max, but remember that the police here are my friends, not yours. There is to be no scene, no excitement, no damage to my furniture.”

  She led the way through a labyrinth of corridors, heavily carpeted, dimly lit, closed doors along the way muting the sounds behind them, voices, a tinkling of glass, a shrill peal of laughter. Ben had the feeling that he was swimming through warm, sweetly scented depths where a strange and nauseous life proliferated. It could not be seen, but it was there. And Sophie. She could have been any one of a number of women he knew at Seaways, the aristocratic secretaries to the top echelon, but she was not.

  She stopped before a door. Gently turned the knob and opened it.

  “I’ll do this alone,” Ben said, and from a distance heard himself saying it.

  “So? But remember—”

  He walked through the open door. The room was even more dimly lit than the corridor outside. He stood, heart pounding, and saw Juana facing him. Only Juana. He looked around. It was a sitting room decorated in the period of the Empire, gold, black, and white, a sweep of red velvet drapery against one wall, a room with no place of concealment in it.

  “Where is she?” he asked Juana.

  She said nothing, only regarded him with terror in her eyes.

  “Where is she, Juana? You can tell me. I’m not going to hurt her.”

  “Ach,” said Sophie behind him, “that stupid Indian.” She brushed past and went to the velvet drapery. “Come here,” she said. “Now look.”

  She whisked open the drapery. Behind it was a door made of a single pane of clear glass which offered an unhindered view of a brightly lit room. A room which served one obvious function. A stage setting for the huge bed which, without headboard or footboard, was its stage. And stretched out on the bed, sunk in the oblivion of sleep, naked and exposed, was Elissa.

  Seen this way she seemed as unfamiliar to Ben as Chapin had when he entered the arena. And like Chapin, who had so pitiably failed to suggest the heroic in his display, this woman failed to suggest the wanton. There was no question that the effort had been made. The eyes and lustrous eyelashes were blackly outlined, the closed lids shone with the opalescent blue of cosmetics. Her lips were heavily reddened; they were the same garish scarlet as her fingernails and toenails. But al
l this had the effect of childish adornment. It was unreal and make-believe. The reality was the slightness of the undeveloped body, the small breasts and pale pink buds of nipples, the slender arms and legs outflung helplessly, the strands of hair damply clinging to the pale forehead, the whole appearance of a child in exhausted sleep, not of a woman replete with the act of love. All make-believe. Even the invitation of those open thighs which seemed to offer, not a partnership in lust, but a violation of helplessness.

  She lay like that, her face beneath its mask of cosmetics slack with unconsciousness, and, as Ben watched, he saw that she was snoring, her lips fluttering with each breath. Drunk and snoring. On the floor beside the bed lay an empty bottle of chicha and an overturned cup. There was a stain on the carpet beneath the cup, and Sophie gasped with outrage at the sight.

  “My carpet,” she wailed, “my beautiful carpet,” and pushed open the glass door to right the cup and pat her hand appraisingly to the stain. A repellent smell oozed from the bedroom, a stench of vomit overlaid by perfume, and Sophie returned through the doorway wrinkling her nose at it. “Sickening. But since no one goes in, it makes little difference. Otherwise—”

  “No one?” said Ben. He groped for the meaning of this. Granted, most men would want more for their money than what appeared to be a drunken child, but still there were some who might be highly intrigued by what was offered in that room. Was it because she was known to them and thus dangerous? Was all this an exercise in futility? An offering by a temple priestess who could find no devotees?

  “Of course, no one,” said Sophie. “The Indian, if she is needed, but who else?” She closed the door and tapped the glass lovingly with her fingertips. “Clear on this side, a mirror on the other. Do you know what such a thing costs? But what choice is there when you must cater to all tastes?” She let the drapes fall, and the sitting room became a sitting room again, far removed from the world on the other side of the door. “That is enough. Now I will treat you to a good drink of whiskey. I think you need it.”