Montega's Mistress

by Doreen Owens Malek

  Matteo covered the distance between them in a second, grabbing Helen and forcing her to look at him. “Be quiet!” he said in a frightening, lifeless tone. Helen fell silent, closing her eyes, unwilling to meet his pitiless gaze. Tears seeped from under her lashes, and he relented, pulling her into his arms.

  “Do you think I could touch her after being with you?” he whispered, holding her so tightly she almost couldn’t breathe. “I can’t bear the thought of your going, it tears up my guts to have to send you away like this.”

  “Then let me stay,” she pleaded, hammering on his weakening resolve.

  “No,” he said hoarsely, and released her.

  “What about your people, everyone here in the camp? They stay and take the risk.”

  “This is their country; this is the life they chose.”

  “What if I choose it now?” she countered, putting her hands on his shoulders and peering into his face.

  “Helen, this is not a high school debate!” he replied, shrugging her off. “The decision has been made.”

  “Oh, the jefe has spoken!” she said sarcastically, saluting. “I forgot that your orders must always be obeyed. Perdoname, lo siento mucho.”

  “Your Spanish is improving,” he observed, his lips twitching.

  Helen thought of something else. “Matteo, what if it’s a trap?”

  “What is?”

  “This thing with Alma’s brother. What if it’s a setup?”

  He shook his head firmly. “Alma wouldn’t do that.”

  “But she was with Olmos, lining up against you.”

  “She was just playing the angles, keeping in with him in case he came out on top. But she would never do what you’re suggesting, Helen. She knows how important you are to me.”

  “That’s just why she might do it. She resents me—you know that—and Theresa says she’s dangerous.”

  “She has been, to some. But not to me.”

  “Because she’s still in love with you?”

  “Because, despite what you’re saying, she’s loyal. She’s on the level with this, believe me.”

  Helen considered a moment and then said, “I have no passport, no papers. I left everything in the car we abandoned.”

  He smiled resignedly. “You don’t give up, do you?”

  “Not when I want something as much as I want to be with you.”

  “My people will get you what you need. Playa del Sol is an open country; travel is free. You’ll have no problem getting back to the States from there. I’ll give you money for the plane ticket. Once Alma’s brother gets you across the border you can leave from the commercial airport in Soledad, the capital. Flights run to New York all the time.”

  “Haven’t missed a trick, have you?” she said with a wry glance at his impassive face.

  “I try not to.”

  “So, when do we leave?”

  “In the morning.”

  “I see we’re not wasting any time.”

  “I could do without the cute remarks, if you don’t mind,” he said, passing a hand wearily over his forehead.

  “It’s the way I deal with terrible disappointment, Matteo, I make cute remarks. It’s either that or have an hysterical fit, and of the two, I thought you would prefer the one- liners.”

  He extended his hand and said, “Come here.”

  She hesitated, and he crooked his forefinger. Reluctantly she moved to his side and he put his arm around her.

  “Let’s not waste this night,” he said huskily, leading her to the cot.

  He got in with her and peeled his shirt off her shoulder, putting his mouth against her bare skin. She closed her eyes and forgot that it would all end soon. They had this moment, and she would have to engrave it in her mind for the time when she would be alone again.

  * * *

  Helen got very little rest that night. After their conversation, their positions were reversed: Matteo could sleep because he felt relieved, and Helen couldn’t because she was anticipating her departure. She lay awake, studying his face as he lay in her arms, trying to memorize it. She noticed that he had a mole at the corner of one black eyebrow and several faded scars on his jaw and chin, the results perhaps of schoolboy brawls or adolescent accidents. She tried to picture him as a child, running through the slums of San Jacinta, skinny probably, as he was still lean, with large dark eyes and the same wavy, unruly hair. What had happened to create this irregular lump of pinkish flesh gouged out of his jawline, or that thin slash above the slight cleft in his chin, whitened now with the passage of time? She saw these things as items of interest, not flaws; she was past the point where anything could make him look unattractive to her.

  The birds began to sing, and a dawn breeze blew through the tent, presaging the rising sun. Helen slipped out from under Matteo’s weight and got fresh clothes together, dressing in the thin light of early morning. By the time the familiar noises of the camp began and Matteo awoke, she was ready and waiting for him.

  “I want to say goodbye to Theresa,” she told him calmly, watching as he blinked and sat up, spotting her across the room.

  “All right,” he said quietly. “I’ll go with you.”

  He put on his clothes and picked up her single bag, a discarded army duffel that she had appropriated. They found Theresa already at work, preparing a makeshift breakfast in her tent since the cookhouse was a pile of rubble.

  Helen looked meaningfully at Matteo, and he withdrew, standing outside and lighting a cigarette. She turned to Theresa and said without preliminaries,“I’m leaving.”

  Theresa glanced quickly from Helen to Matteo’s still figure in the doorway, and then back to Helen.

  “¿Es verdad?” she said, lowering her voice.

  “Yes, it’s true.”

  “¿Por que? Why?”

  “Matteo wants me to go. He thinks it’s not safe for me to be here.”

  Theresa shrugged expressively. “It’s not safe for any of us to be here, but here we are, just the same.”

  “He says it’s not my fight, that I belong back home. In other words he wants to be rid of me.”

  Theresa moved her head slowly from side to side. “I don’t think so, nina. I think he wants very much for you to stay. It is his conscience that bothers him, for getting you involved.”

  “I wish he didn’t have a conscience,” Helen said, biting her lower lip, which was trembling dangerously.

  Theresa put down her cooking pot and embraced her.

  “Pobrecita,” she murmured. “Poor little thing. I remember what it is to be young, when the fires burn so hot. It’s like death to leave him, I know.”

  Helen swallowed hard, putting her head on Theresa’s shoulder.

  “How are you getting out?” Theresa asked, holding her off and brushing her bangs off her brow.

  “Matteo is taking me to Tres... Luces, and Alma’s brother is going to fly me over the border into Playa del Sol.”

  “Alma,” Theresa said, nodding sourly.

  “My sentiments exactly,” Helen replied darkly.

  “Eh?”

  “Nothing.” She threw her arms around Theresa’s neck and said, “I’m going to miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you, too. I’ll forget my English again.”

  They laughed, as friends do to cover a painful parting, and then Theresa said soberly, “Maybe it’s better this way. Matteo has only one love—his country, and what it could be. If you tried to compete you would lose in the end.”

  Helen didn’t answer, thinking how different Theresa’s attitude was from that of Elena, Esteban’s wife, who wanted Matteo to get married. But then, Theresa lived in the camp with Matteo, saw him every day, and knew him better.

  “I guess I’ll be going,” Helen said awkwardly. “Matteo is waiting.”

  “Vaya con Dios,” Theresa said, making the sign of the cross in the air above Helen’s head. “Go with God.”

  “Goodbye,” Helen said and hurried away out into the bright sunshine, where Matte
o met her eyes as she emerged.

  “All set?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “I asked Martin to make up a backpack for us. I’ll get it, and we’ll take off.”

  When Matteo went to pick up the provisions, Helen saw Alma standing outside her tent, watching their departure. As Matteo rejoined her, she walked over to the dark woman, who waited for her warily. Matteo observed the encounter, his posture alert, ready for anything.

  “Adios, Alma,” Helen said, sticking out her hand. “Buena suerte. Good luck.”

  Alma took her hand and shook it, her heavily lashed eyes unreadable. But as Helen walked back to Matteo, Alma looked at him over her shoulder, and then turned away, unable to meet his eyes.

  “You have a lot of class, do you know that?” Matteo greeted Helen quietly as she approached him.

  “Don’t bet on it,” Helen responded. “That was very hard to do.”

  “But you still did it,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Helen was surprised at the number of people who called to her as they walked out of the camp. Word had evidently gotten around that she was leaving, and they stood outside the entrances to their tents, waving and sending messages of farewell. One of the guards who first picked her up in Florida shouted something in his deep bass, and Matteo glanced at her, as if to see if she had understood.

  “What did he say?” she asked.

  “He said to remember him when you’re back in your beautiful country,” Matteo translated.

  Helen halted, touched. “But they don’t like Americans,” she said.

  “They envy Americans,” Matteo replied. “And they like you.”

  Helen started to walk again, looking around her as they left the cleared central path and entered the woods.

  “I’ll never forget this place,” she murmured.

  “When you’re an old lady you can tell your grandchildren about the time you spent in a rebel camp, and they’ll look at you in your shawl and think you’re making it up.”

  “Young people think old people were never young,” she replied, and he grinned.

  “Would you mind repeating that, please?” he said.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah. When I was a kid I used to ignore my grandmother. She was just a funny woman with a black mantilla on her head and a rosary in her hand. She loved me, though, used to kiss me every time I ran past.” He shook his head. “Now I wish I could talk to her.”

  “Your mother’s mother?”

  He nodded. “She died when I was eight. She lived in abject poverty all her life, but she could make the most beautiful lace. The nuns taught her when she was young, at the convent where she cleaned. She used to bring in extra money selling arm covers, things like that, to the people who could afford them. She kept it up until arthritis twisted her fingers so bad she couldn’t work the needles any more.” He jerked his head, as if to clear it. “I wonder what made me think of that.”

  “I never really knew my grandparents,” Helen said thoughtfully. “They were distant, formal, unreachable. I remember them as dressed up all the time, being served dinner in a big wainscoted dining room with a crystal chandelier, giving parties where all the ladies wore gowns that rustled and smelled good. These were my father’s parents; my mother’s died when I was too young to recall them. Except that I have one lingering image of Sophia’s mother, which everyone tells me I must have gotten from her portrait, but I swear I remember it: a black silk dress, white hair and diamonds.”

  “My grandmother had the black dress and the white hair,” Matteo offered dryly, “but I don’t recall any diamonds.”

  Helen glanced over her shoulder, where the view of the camp was already obscured by the enclosing foliage. “Shouldn’t Alma have left the same time we did?” she asked Matteo. “If she doesn’t contact her brother he won’t be there to meet us.”

  “Alma will do what she’s supposed to do,” Matteo answered briefly. “Don’t worry about her.”

  Helen let it drop, hoping that his faith in his former lover wasn’t misplaced. If she were really vindictive, there were any number of ways she could screw up their plans, but Matteo didn’t seem to consider that a possibility.

  They walked on through the morning, and Matteo kept Helen entertained with stories of his childhood and his transition to school in America, so that she wouldn’t think about their imminent parting. She couldn’t imagine how he knew where they were going; the paths they followed were hardly wide enough for a person to walk single file, and every tree looked like every other tree for miles around. It was obvious they were going on foot to avoid the police on the roads, but she didn’t know how he could keep his bearings without so much as a landmark or a sign. Toward noon he stopped and looked around, squinting into the sun.

  “There’s a clearing right around here,” he said, turning his head. He pointed. “There it is.”

  Helen followed him into a small grassy area. There he opened their pack and handed her a sandwich made of Theresa’s dark bread and thick goat cheese, which Helen had learned to tolerate.

  “You’re doing a lot better on the trip out than you did on the way in,” he observed, taking a bite of his lunch.

  “Hey, this experience has turned me into an expert hiker, climber, all round nature girl. I’m thinking of tackling the Appalachian Trail when I get home.”

  He smiled, taking out a bottle of water and drinking from it. His smile faded as he said to her, “Helen, I want to tell you some things you have to know about getting home.”

  She separated the crust from the slice of bread she held and asked, not looking at him, “Can’t it wait? There’ll be plenty of time for that, won’t there?”

  He studied her expression and then nodded, allowing her to avoid dealing with the reason for their outing until it was necessary. They ate in companionable silence until he wrapped up the remnants of their repast and said, “Siesta. You’ll be stronger this afternoon if you take a little rest.”

  Helen looked around. “No pillow?” she said, raising an eyebrow.

  Matteo settled with his back against a tree and slapped his thigh. “Right here,” he answered.

  Helen stretched out in the warm grass and laid her cheek on the denim covered surface of his leg. The large muscle tensed under her, and she looked up at him.

  “Don’t move,” he said, “or the siesta will turn into a fiesta.”

  She smiled devilishly. “You were the one who suggested a nap,” she reminded him.

  He sighed dramatically. “Sometimes I’m just too sensible for my own good.”

  “Not often,” she said sarcastically.

  He tapped the top of her head with his index finger. “Go to sleep.”

  She half sat and stared at him, annoyed. “You’re always telling me to go to sleep. What are you, a hypnotist?”

  “That’s because you talk when you should be sleeping. I’ve never seen anyone function on so little rest.”

  “Me! What about you?”

  “Are we going to fight, now, or what?”

  Helen shot him a look and settled down huffily, trying to find a comfortable position on his thigh, which was like a rock. But she was exhausted and could have slept on nails; she was asleep in no time and so was he.

  Matteo shook her awake about forty minutes later, and she sat up, feeling hot and sticky. She dampened a handkerchief with water from the bottle and dabbed her face and neck, screwing her hair into a makeshift bun on top of her head.

  “How much farther is it?” she asked, looking up at the sky, in which the sun shone like an open furnace.

  “Ten miles. We’ll make camp at dusk and walk the last little bit in the morning.”

  “The last little bit” was what she didn’t want to consider. That would be the beginning of the end.

  Matteo picked up the pack and slung the straps over his arms.

  “Ready?” he said, and she nodded.

  The remainder of the trek was worse; no longer as fr
esh as they’d been in the morning, they trudged along, battling the heat and their own fatigue. At about six Matteo held up his hand to silence Helen, and she watched as he moved forward and parted the foliage to look at something below. He glanced over his shoulder at her and gestured for her to come closer; he put his finger to his lips as he moved aside to let her see what he’d been observing.

  There was a road cutting across the mountain just under the rise where they hid. It was overrun with police, armored cars and cabos with their distinctive tunic uniforms. Helen’s heart began to beat faster as she thought about what these people would do to Matteo if they knew he was perched above them, overlooking their movements.

  They crept away from the scene, and when Matteo signaled that it was all right for her to talk she whispered, “Are they looking for you?”

  “They’re looking for anybody. Especially me. They lost five rocket launchers when Martin and I blasted their hideout, and they don’t have an unlimited supply. Your government is getting fed up with their human rights record and is holding back on the money.”

  “You shouldn’t have come out here with me,” she said miserably. “It’s too dangerous.”

  He shook his head. “As long as we keep to the bush, we’ll be okay. There’s not a cabo in the army who can get around in here the way I can. They lug their cars and tanks with them; they have to stick to the roads.”

  “What about everyone back at the camp?” Helen asked worriedly. “The cabos know where it is.”

  “It’s no longer there,” he replied. “Everyone’s gone, Helen; they moved as soon as we left. Don’t think about them; I promise you they’re okay.”

  They traveled for another two hours, and then as the light was fading from the sky Matteo pointed to a flat elevation outlined against the vanishing sunset.

  “Tres Luces,” he said. “In a little while you’ll see where it gets its name. Three stars hang in the sky just above it like lamps.”

  Helen wasn’t interested in tidbits of local color; she stared at the mesa, thinking that in the morning she would take her leave of Matteo there.

  “There’s a stream just ahead,” he added. “You can take a dip if you want.”