The Spanish Bow

by Andromeda Romano-Lax

  We worked our way through some simple Haydn as gowned women and tuxedoed men filled the room: a few dozen, then a hundred, then two hundred, by my estimation. During our first break a boy handed me a clear drink on a tray—gin—and I swallowed it fast, without thinking. Just as the juniper lit up my nose, a man whispered into my ear from behind, "That boy—he'll be the one to send for me, if that's necessary."

  I turned to meet the face of the messenger, but the man was already moving away. Another man stepped into his path, saying, "Excuse me, Don Pérez." Pérez—that was the minister. The gin boy stood to the side of the mirror, playing with the pearly buttons on his white gloves.

  When the King was announced, we struck up a rendition of the national anthem. Toasts and speeches followed: a cheer for Paris with the French lead architect lifting his glass, a louder one for Spain, and deafening applause for the King. I drank another slyly delivered cocktail during these, and started regretting it when the blazing wall sconces danced in the mirror. Endeavoring to focus, I studied the reflections for a blue dress. There was midnight, and there was turquoise, and there was a satiny purplish-blue that made me think of mussel shells. Only when the guests were applauding the final speech did I spot pale blue ruffles cascading to the floor, and above them, the deep V of a bare narrow back, the midline cleft as straight and deep as a well-plowed furrow. I felt as if I could reach into the mirror and run my fingers down her spine. I shook myself from the trance and raised a finger toward the boy.

  "Message for the minister?" he said, breathless.

  "No," I yelled, making him jump. "Otra ginebra."

  The number of guests had doubled again, so that the dance floor was a constant murmur of apologies—"Pardon my back"—each time a shoulder was turned toward a stranger. The tapestry-covered chairs that lined the sides of the room went unused. Everyone was too excited to sit.

  The violinist touched my sleeve, recalling me from a daydream. We struck up a waltz, and the center of the room became an agitated whirlpool, while the fluid edges did their best to pull back, to make more room. The King danced; not with the duchess, but with an older woman whose soft upper arms flapped as she spun. I kept my eye on the duchess, who stood to one side, talking with a circle of women, all elegant and young. Were these the other Donás Negras, stripped of their dour black husks? The room was growing warmer by the minute. The ladies' faces shone.

  Suddenly I noticed the hole in the reflection, the blank spot that had been pale blue. Just then, I spotted the edge of the duchess's dress, trailing out of the doorway and into the hall beyond. The Queen had assured me the duchess would stay to dance, but already she was slipping away. I wasn't sure what to do next. It didn't make sense to alert the minister when the King himself was still in the room.

  I nodded to the rest of the quartet—keep going—set my cello aside, and nearly tripped off the stage. The gin boy looked toward me but I waved him away. Down another hallway, a tight turn, and the tail of the dress again. Then, just as I made another turn, the huff of a closing door. I stood outside it, breathing hard. I rested my hand against the golden handle. Suddenly, the door pulled away as someone opened it again, from the other side.

  I backed away to the swell of women's voices and clouds of powder.

  "Ay-de-mi!" a portly woman shrieked. "The men's is down there!" Deeper within the perfume-scented sanctuary, feminine laughter erupted.

  I stormed away, face flaming. Passing the men's lavatory, I continued down the red carpet to the main exit and found myself standing outside the hotel, drinking in the cool night air. I reasoned that I could spare the time; the duchess would be indisposed for several minutes at least. Outside, I waited for the gin fizz in my head to recede, the buzz in my ears to quiet. I looked up at the velvet sky and the stars, and felt a momentary peace. Then I looked back toward the Ritz, to the light of chandeliers and sconces dancing in the windows. The windows had steamed slightly, so that every orb of glittering light had its own halo. Suddenly they looked like torches to me; torches flickering, borne by a mob. I inhaled quickly.

  Where would the men of Campo Seco be now—my old schoolmates, my old neighbors? Out of the dry wash where they had gathered, a group twice the last group's size. Having escaped punishment the last time, they'd be more brazen now, and the ambivalent ones would have joined them. They'd be heading downhill, strides lengthening.

  I felt a tug at my sleeve. It was the gin boy. "Come back, the violinist says."

  "Yes, I will."

  But I was still trying to remember and imagine each block: first, they'd pass a tool shop. Then a community spigot—maybe one of the men, thirsty, would stop to fill a leather bag. On the next block, they'd pass the closed newsstand, and the café. Maybe one of their wives or relatives would be sleeping lightly, and would call out to them, "Look at you all! Come in. I have some soup left, if you'll come off the street."

  The boy tugged again. "The violinist. He said—"

  "I'm coming."

  Back inside, another waltz was coming to an end and the audience was applauding the footwork of the King and his dancing partner, yet another elderly lady who had her hand to her chest, catching her breath. He smiled distractedly, a thin-lipped smirk, while his eyes searched the room. The duchess had returned and stood alongside the far wall, her face no longer shiny, two small reddish-brown curls fixed just in front of her ears.

  The violinist lifted his eyebrows and leaned toward me. It was more than a look of reproach. He wanted to know what we'd play next, since my exit had prompted a departure from the program. Men mopped their brows and ladies fanned themselves, waiting for the next dance to begin. The King bowed to several guests and made his way obliquely—shoulders hunched, face fixed in concentration—toward the doorway. From the other side of the room, the duchess headed in the same direction.

  I felt dizzy still, and indecisive. The dizziness would pass. The indecisiveness would take root, snagging dark ideas in its sharp-edged branches. I had advised Percival to steer clear of intrigues. I had looked down on Alberto for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, allowing his music to be a backdrop for something sinister. I had been moved by the Liceo's mottoes and had accepted the Queen's sapphire, believing it to be a symbol of purity and apolitical devotion—and perhaps she had meant it as such, at that grateful moment. But look how easily things became muddled. Look how impossible purity was, outside of Bach's elegant measures.

  And yet: What, really, could they do to the duchess? Nothing rough—she was a lady. And what would they do to the priest? Give him a second black eye to match the first. Frighten him back to Italy, perhaps.

  The gin buzzed in my head and the heat in the room seemed to grow. I remembered Quim trying to extinguish his torch and pictured him swatting it against a drapery this time, or smothering it in one of the cloths hanging off the altar, while another voice said, "Just let it burn."

  Someone else: "But the school next door."

  The first again: "There's no one in it now. Besides, what good did we learn there? Our catechism? 'What kind of sin is liberalism?' 'A grievous sin.' 'And what kind of liberal newspapers may one read?' 'Only the Stock Exchange News'"

  The men would be laughing at that; it was almost enough to make me laugh now. Then I imagined Father Basilio coming down the stairs in a white nightshirt, calling out in a tremulous voice, "I know who you are." And my own brother, Percival, responding, "So? You always did."

  In the gilt-edged reflection to one side of my cello chair, I could see that King Alfonso and the blue-gowned lady were heading toward their private reunion. The duchess, enveloped in an aura of mock humility, was ravishing. But what else does one do in this world except take advantage of one's natural assets? Besides, shouldn't it take more than beauty to persuade a king? Shouldn't it take more even than a private conversation with a bishop, or with a landowner, trotting side by side on fine horses through the woods?

  The duchess was closest to the doorway now, only a few strides away, a
nd the King was smiling on one side of his face. I'd never disliked him so much as in that moment.

  "Minuet in G," I mouthed toward the other three players, and scarcely gave them a moment to understand before I was playing the first two notes—a slur on the A string. By the fifth note, my fellows had joined in.

  I looked in the mirror. The King had stopped. Everyone was looking at him, anticipating him leading the noble dance. He was looking toward the stage. He had recognized the tune. He was remembering dancing to it with Ena, before she became the Queen. Perhaps he also remembered how she laughed at his jokes, how she hid her face in her hands when he recounted the gaffe he had made, explaining to a London crowd he was sorry for being constipated, when he'd really meant to say only that he had a cold. He remembered the lightness of her step, and her mention of loving the smell of orange blossoms, after which he 'd sent her an entire orange tree, all the way from Spain to England.

  The King would not exit the ballroom as long as the minuet played. It would be too dishonorable, even for him. We played to the repeat, and then to the end. The others reached the final note and paused, each one of them waiting with their bows resting on the strings, while they all looked to me. I started over. They were professionals; they joined me seamlessly. If the King simply stayed in this room, then nothing would happen; wouldn't that be the best thing?

  The flames were leaping over the altar now. "You were always a gambler," I could imagine Father Basilio saying to Percival. "I am betting you won't let this building burn. If we get water, if we wake everyone, we might still put it out."

  "Aren't confessions confidential?" Percival said. "Some priest you are."

  Another voice, from the back of the church: "Stone won't burn easily. It's all the claptrap he's worried about—the vestments and such. And the money, hidden somewhere."

  My mind wouldn't stop inventing the scenes, following the torchlight, trying to guess who would be saying what, who might stop things and who would advance them. But what about Father Basilio—what would they do to him? I prayed: Percival, walk away; let the Father walk away. Go home.

  The second repeat of the minuet was coming to an end. It closed with a frilly eighth-note, followed by an eighth-note rest. The anticlimactic ending made it easy to return da capa again, turning it into an endless loop. We could play it all night if we wanted to, though people were beginning to notice. The dancing crowd had thinned, and for the first time all evening, men were sitting in a few of the chairs alongside the wall. We were spoiling the party, or perhaps only allowing it to wind down to its natural end.

  My bow was heavy in my hand. I wiggled my ring finger and pinkie over the frog, a subtle flex, just to reset them more comfortably. The imbalance was bothering me still. We came to the final eighth-note rest and I paused—no longer than the rest required. But the first violinist interpreted the movement incorrectly. He thought I wanted a break. He took the lead. Ahead of me, he pushed his bow into the solo opening of another piece: Mozart.

  I looked up. The duchess was gone. And the King.

  I let my bowing hand fall. The boy was instantly at my sleeve, "Otra ginebra?"

  "No. Get the minister."

  From one of the church's back closets, Jordi would have emerged, his arms tangled in ropes. I recognized them. They were the ones Rivera and his brother and the other men had used to move the piano. I remembered them coiled like snakes in the church's side door. "Here," he'd be saying to Percival. "We'll lead him through town, that will be enough." And they were wrapping the rope around the priest's neck while his eyes flickered right and left, searching for a shamed face, someone who would stand up and choose, someone who might save him.

  I couldn't sit there without playing. I waited for one musical phrase to end and then slid into the next, trying to cover my shaking with a strong vibrato, until our music was interrupted by the tinkling of silver spoons and fan handles against glasses. Someone waved his arms from the center of the room: Minister Pérez, of course. Flanked by the duchess, red-cheeked, and the King, pale and sullen, like a young boy often warned and finally caught.

  "Here he is, here he is," called a voice, and a fourth figure joined them—the duchess's husband, the Duke of Montalbanil, who had been in the adjacent Salon Goya, which had been set up discreetly for cigars and cards. He looked flummoxed and annoyed.

  "It is appropriate," Señor Pérez boomed, as the crowd quieted, "to choose this evening to bestow a special honor, on behalf of the King and Queen. When else would so many close friends of the duke and duchess be present?"

  There was a chorus of jubilant "Hear, hear!" from the far corners, and a scattered suspicious whispering from nearer the center, where the more perceptive guests stood.

  Minister Pérez was well prepared. He pulled a medallion from his jacket pocket, attached to a blue ribbon. More whispers, as everyone leaned forward, trying to understand what the medallion represented.

  "The duke has so many fine natural qualities," Pérez intoned. The duke frowned. King Alfonso smiled queasily. "Often he has expressed desire to rule over more expansive lands." Only the duchess was smiling sincerely, a sweet, puzzled expression on her upturned face. "And so, on the King's behalf, I am authorized tonight to grant him a great honor. He inherits the title of Duke of Ortiz, and dominion over the isles of Puerto Cruz and Verillana. To take residence, and do the Crown's bidding, immediately...."

  The whispers escalated. The duchess's eyes widened. The King reached a hand toward the duke, who accepted it, with mouth open and jowls faintly trembling.

  I turned to the violinist. "Where are—?" But he'd had enough of me and my disappearing acts that night. The violist was more forgiving. He leaned forward and said, "Fly specks—little dry islets, southwest of Morocco. Uninhabited. Once a penal colony, I think."

  A week later, two items in the newspaper caught my eye. The first mentioned that the King had resolved again to press the Church to pay taxes. Several incensed patrons of the Church were quoted, expressing their consternation that the King had not "come around" as they had hoped and expected he would. Several liberal groups that had opposed the King now congratulated him in a lukewarm, cautious fashion.

  The other item was smaller, but of much greater interest to me. It reported an incident in Campo Seco—one of the few times our town would be mentioned in the national press. There was no mention of a fire, but there was mention of several deaths. The priest had been hanged by an unknown group of vandals in the town square. Three unidentified peasants had been executed by the Civil Guard in response. I scanned quickly again, looking for names. They weren't provided. Peasants' deaths didn't merit such detail.

  I allowed myself to hope and dream that Percival was not among the men caught. I tried to hold open an uncorrupted place in my heart, a place full of soothing uncertainty, at least until I heard the facts from home. But that uncorrupted place had already sprung a leak; no matter what I tried to pour into it—anger, fear, self-pity—it kept emptying and shriveling, folding back upon itself. If I had stayed in Campo Seco another few weeks, if I had not raced back to Madrid to serve the Queen in a task that bothered me still, I could have kept an eye on my brother. I had reneged on a family responsibility with the pretense of nonintervention. And only so that I would be in the proper time and place to help intervene in other matters, equally tainted.

  None of it should have had anything to do with me in the first place. I wasn't an outlaw. I wasn't a court opportunist. I was only a musician. Only a musician. How many times did I repeat that unsatisfying phrase in my mind? At least until the letter came, confirming the worst, informing me there would be no funeral, that I should not visit, that Percival's body had already been put to rest with other shamed corpses outside the cemetery gate.

  I requested an audience with the Queen. She kept me waiting for three days, busy with other things—medical visits, I later heard. I asked her to accept the return of the sapphire.

  "You don't care for it?"

  "I
don't deserve it. I don't feel equal to your confidences. I am not sure I can continue to serve you in the way you expect."

  "But Feliu, it was a personal gift." Her face was blank. "You're not mixing up the affair of the other night with this symbol of our friendship?"

  I didn't know how to answer, or what to think. In the silence that passed between us, I noticed the sound of ticking—not one clock but three in the room, not synchronized.

  She followed my glance and narrowed her eyes. "Yes, they're back from the restorer—every last one, plus an antique scrounged from Vienna to replace the one that broke. All with shiny new parts inside."

  When I started to speak again, she interrupted. "Keep the stone. I won't take it back. I continue to trust in your services."

  At that moment, she knew me better than I knew myself. Because I did want to keep her gift. I did want to serve her still, not because I believed in the monarchy, not because I believed in a king without integrity, whose views—conservative one day, liberal the next—could be manipulated so easily without regard for Spain's future. I wanted to serve her because of who she was: a struggling soul with whom my own slightly off-pitch sense of self could harmonize, passing for true.

  Then she told me her latest news, which only her closest attendants knew.

  "I'm with child again, Feliu. And you know what that means. I must be very careful—no wine or coffee or chocolate; no strong emotions. No music. That's what the doctors advise."

  PART IV

  The Road to Anual 1914

  CHAPTER 13

  "Are you permanently attached to that seat?" said a voice behind me.

  I couldn't make out the face, only a shock of thick dark hair in the rust-spotted reflection above the weathered headline—CATASTROPHE IN SARAJEVO—with a blurry, yellowing photo of the assassin, Gavrilo Princip, being dragged away by several policemen.