“Oh,” Hetty said, her mouth open. “Oh no.”
I didn’t cry until later, because I was so mad. Only a few hours before, the goat was happy with the horses, and then he’d had his throat gnashed by some horrid animal. Hetty said we had to run back because the animal was surely still around, probably a Bengal tiger, something just horrific, and I did get tears in my eyes then and we held our skirts up around the corners, and all the stupid stones. It was her fault that the helpless animal was ruined and he must have been so scared by whatever took him there.
When we got back, we brushed ourselves off outside the house, and Hetty reminded me that this was so unfortunate but not worth upsetting the others with the gruesome nature of the news; we would say the goat had escaped. And what a shame about it.
Then she pulled me to her chest, quite pleased about our pact. This made me feel good until Hetty went into the house and I remembered that no one knows what to do with all the kind things in the world.
Dear Stephan,
Things are terribly different at this house than they were at the casita, and it’s a shame that you’re not here. We’ve got everything in good working order, and the artists are advancing on their projects every day. I have designs to start riding a lot, but I haven’t been able to because of the rain but also because I am painting quite a bit! I have had to switch from oil to gouache because we’re almost out of oil paint—this isn’t a bad development as the oil took forever to dry in the hot air.
Has the war arrived yet? This is silly of course, but you’re so high up in the Alps there, I sometimes daydream about you seeing it, the way that you can see rain coming when you’re low on the flat ground. I wonder if you’ll hear it, and what you’ll see. We’re not getting much news here, and none about the boat, which has mother frantic even though she’s trying not to be. As you know, the situation isn’t helped by Hetty Coleman, who thinks very negatively and is convinced the boat will sink. I don’t know why she’s so worried about it; it isn’t as if she owns any of the art inside it.
All right, so maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit, things aren’t so organized at all. In fact, you remember how Papa had recommended a tutor, that nice Swiss girl from Bern? Well mother forgot to secure her exit papers, and so I’m stuck out here in the jungle without any schooling. I wasn’t lying about the painting, though, or even about the horses. It’s just hard to accomplish the ideas I have because of this great heat.
Oh and Hetty is an animal thief now; she stole somebody’s goat and it escaped from Occidente and got its throat opened by some tiger. I really wish you were with us instead of in that stupid school. Never mind, I know. You’ll become something terribly exciting and I’ll come and live with you forever. Please do marry someone nice enough that I’ll feel she’s like a sister. I feel this way about C., but of course I can’t really talk to her, and I’m not supposed to say anything flattering about her, as you well know!
I do hope for war sometimes, so that you’ll have to flee. There can be accidents, you know, even over Switzerland. All sorts of things can now be dropped out of the sky!
How stupid that I don’t have something interesting to tell him; all I do is complain. I can’t even write something cultured about the landscape because I don’t know their stupid names. Hetty has books on this, on fauna. I know she does because she carted a whole trunk of research items for her novel in the plane. I’ll have to have a look-see when she goes down for her drinks.
Oh! And the hairless dogs he was so excited about last time, to say that they’re not here. And that Caspar took a photograph of mother with a cherry over each of her closed eyes. Is he good at math, still? To send us a Swiss paper. And also, the stories Papa told us about the ropes they used to string up in the village to keep people from blowing away during the bora winds. Is it true? Has he held the ropes yet? Has he felt the wind?
Spanish:
Among Hetty’s books there was the nicest one called “Mexican Plants for American Gardens” by an intrepid little American named Cecile Hulse Matschat, who spent her time traveling around Mexico admiring pleasure gardens and writing everything down. She really seems to have the nicest way about her; perhaps she’s English, actually, because she talks a lot about tea, and the nicest places to take it. But really, she has the nicest writing style.
Lotus-scented pools, cement rings for irrigation, red-tiled roofs, forgotten gardens on the outskirts of town—these are the notes I’ve been taking; don’t they conjure up the most majestic world? She even describes the interior of buildings: “Broad, winning flights of stairs.” What a lovely way to call a staircase! I wish that I could write as joyously as that! I quite like writing, but only for myself and in my letters. When I see what crafting something did to Papa, it doesn’t make you want to share your private thoughts. But it’s a wonderful feeling keeping all my thoughts right here. They’re hidden, unlike paintings. Nobody can see them unless I want them to!
Chapters I shall read from Hetty’s book:
A Patio in Guadalajara with Potted Plants, Brick Benches, and Decorative Plaques 5
Tiled Fountain for Patio or Penthouse 38
Color with Bulbs! 8
Pink pepper
Jacaranda
Montezuma cypress
Mammillaria cacti?
Lantana
Wine-red morning glories
Vermillion bougainvillea
Ear flower?
Peaty bogs
And these are just the trees and plants and things I like the sound of.
Day?
The most terribly exciting thing has happened, diary. I have met Jack! I’d gone down to the stables to brush the horses and listen to the grooms sing, and there was a man and I knew it without knowing it that it was Jack.
He turned right when I arrived. He recognized me, I think! But first I want to describe the sensation of seeing him.
He didn’t look familiar and yet I definitely knew him, so maybe it is possible that Mum’s right (it’s rarely) and I have met him before. It was like the air went yellow and I got a funny feeling in my stomach. I blushed right away, of course—I can never help it, no matter what I try. He was angry, also, he was in the middle of yelling in real Spanish, not at the groom, but with him. He had a letter in his hand. Of course I would put everything together later, but right then I was stuck on the fact that it was him and that he spoke such Spanish.
Anyway, Jack was wearing a loose shirt with faded stripes and proper jodhpurs. Also, a belt of the most cheerful yellow. Boots covered in muck. He was tall, maybe even as tall as Konrad, but it is difficult to say, really, because the horses here are smaller than they were in Europe and they make everyone look tall.
I’ve never been good at describing people, but I’d like to say “distinguished.” You just felt right away that he was a very important man. He was wearing glasses and he had the whitest teeth. White and sharp like a line of something; how dull not to be able to properly explain it. I could paint it, though, a line coming through the dark. Thin lips and those lovely teeth that were almost childlike, I think.
He had a bird nose and a sharp chin, but these aggressions were lessened by his eyes, which were the softest shade of gray. I don’t know how to describe this, but he had a daring smile. As if he had been walking around with a secret, and I was just the person to tell.
“Mademoiselle Lara?” he said, both he and the groom looking at me. And then he walked over; in fact, he was quite tall.
“But you’re . . . you’re a princesa now!” He turned and said something to the groom that made him laugh. “The last time I saw you, you were a real child,” Jack added, done with whatever else he’d said before.
“Seven, eight,” I said.
“And now you must be twenty!”
This made me laugh because of course I wasn’t twenty; if I were twenty, I would be married and not down at the stables doing nothing by myself.
“I’m fifteen,” I said. “Just.”
&nb
sp; He raised his eyebrows.
“Dangerous age,” he teased. And I understood why many people must have liked, and also hated, him so much.
“Have you come to ride? Is your mother joining you?”
“Oh no,” I said. “She can’t with her ankles. They’ve gotten terribly worse. But we’ve got . . . Charlotte will ride. Do you know Charlotte?”
“Course I do,” he said. “Terrific horsewoman. Fiendish writer. How many of you are up there at that hellhole?”
“Oh, I think we’re . . . nine?”
“And which one of the imbeciles was it that stole my goat?”
I went even redder.
“Hmm,” he said. “I see.” Then he turned to the groom and said another thing in Spanish.
“It wasn’t me, sir,” I said quickly. “It was . . .”
“Tell away,” he said, pulling the letter from his front pocket. “I know who, exactly. Hetty sent this over. What a perfect fool. Do you know that goat was payment for my friend, here?” he asked. “A little deal between gentlemen. And now that idiot Hetty has left me in debt to him.”
“But,” I said, kicking at the ground a little. “To kill?”
“Yes, of course to kill!” he answered. “What do you want them to eat, flowers? Is that what Hetty has you eating with that swarm?”
“I doubt she meant real harm.”
“But of course she did,” said Jack. “She’s a meddler. She means harm before she causes it. That’s what fools are for.” He crammed the letter back into his pocket. “So how do I proceed? Shall I send Hetty out to find another goat for this good man?”
I heated even further thinking of what I knew, and that poor animal in the mountains, who was by now pecked to bits by the horrid vultures that are always hovering around.
“It would be better that she pay,” I dared, “because if you bring another animal, she’ll—”
“Her money’s your mother’s, and Leonora couldn’t have had anything to do with this, she gets anemic without meat. How is she?” he asked, the twinkle in his eye not dulling, which made me feel happy for my Mum.
“She’s well,” I said. “Or rather—anxious—because she has no news of her boat.”
“Is Hartnett down here, also? And your brother, his name, forgive me—”
“Stephan.” I responded. “No, they stayed in Switzerland. They’re not . . . my mother isn’t married anymore. I mean, to him.”
Jack covered his face with his hand. “Don’t tell me. Don’t.” He took a breath, dramatically. “Do.”
“She married Konrad. Konrad Beck? To get him out. Well, mostly.”
“Oh dear God, of course she did. Always saving souls.” He kept his mouth open to say something further, but he didn’t say it. It was like he changed directions at the helm of a small boat.
“I’ll tell you,” he said, crouching a little to be with my same height. “You’re fifteen. You should know. If you want to stay in love with someone, don’t ever marry them. Konrad’s a real artist. He’s going to make your mother miserable.”
“Yes, he’s doing that, I think.”
“Is he painting?”
“Trying to,” I said, pleased that I’d been clever. “He was in an internment camp, before.”
“Dear God.”
“All of them are degenerates now,” I blurted. “The Führer made a list.”
“And he’s right on that point, but that’s the only thing I’ll give him. I was kicked out myself, you know, but that was ages backward.” He stood.
I hadn’t had enough to eat and was less guarded with my talk than I might have been if I were full. Also, I knew enough to realize he’d soon mount and ride away.
“They’re eager to see you, it sounds like,” was what I came up with, so he’d stay. “They talked about you at a meal.”
“Well, I hope it was a good one. Because if it was a bad meal, they were bored. A good meal, they were feeling good and thinking of me fondly.” He pulled the letter out again. “So what am I to do?” He tapped the note against his pant leg. “You know it isn’t easy to find a goat here, not in February. She’s really put me in an awful place.”
“He’s dead,” I blurted. “Hetty brought him up to the house and he escaped.”
“Well of course he’s dead. As if anything could survive a night up on that hellscape. It’s amazing that you’re here. Why are you? Shouldn’t you be schooled?”
“We move too much. And Mum forgot a tutor.”
“For the love of all that’s . . .” he started. “What an awful mess. For God’s sake, and who knows how long you’ll be down here. You say she’s waiting for a boat? War is going to come, you know. There’s just no way around it. I respect your father but he’s an idiot to have stayed. And for your brother to not be with you.” He shook his head. “Leonora hasn’t changed.”
I blinked my eyes against all this information. But his words were also crumbs. It was exciting and also a little sickening to meet someone who had known my mother before I did. Probably Jack knew terrible things about her, like how she hadn’t wanted children in the first place, and killed some after me. Of course no one is supposed to know that, but Mum can’t keep a secret, not an important one like that. I think that she’s too proud. And in any case, I was always in the house during her and Papa’s fights.
“Well then, I’ll have to come up to the hellhole.” He looked skyward. “When?” he asked the sky. “Not tonight.” He shook his head. “Tomorrow. Tell them I’d like to come at nineteen hundred hours, and that I want my goat. That’ll put them in a state, the lot of them.” He went to ruffle my head, and then, I don’t know what. Realized how high my head was now.
He looked at me with his sharp, peculiar face. Like a great bird, but I don’t know what kind of bird because I don’t know anything!
“You look nothing like your mother,” he said. “Or do you? It’s so odd. There’s something in the attitude but it might be more your dad.”
When I look in the mirror, I don’t think I look like either of them either, and it was disconcerting to see someone look as unsure as me. Papa’s light and fair-skinned, and Mum is pale but freckled with her dark black hair, while I’ve got my hair and skin that tans if I’m not careful. My eyes are green, though. Like my mother’s. That’s one thing we have.
Jack did leave on a horse, you know. He already had one readied, and I guess he was taking it back to wherever it is he lives. He’d just come to see the man about the goat, but what nice timing for me.
Now I’ll rush back to the house and tell Mum about the dinner. She does love parties and things to celebrate, so I’m sure that she’ll be pleased. I have a few special dresses we brought over and won’t it be exciting to welcome someone new.
Domingo
Dinner was a real party, joyful and just bursting like they were before! Mumma even kissed me when I got to the palapa, and then she kissed Maria, who had helped me braid my hair.
Mumma went to all her efforts when she heard that Jack was coming. She laughed about the goat business and asked the cooks to cook some goat. Hetty was enlisted to make the place look festive, which mostly meant extracting the gnats from all the candles and the pineapples from the pool, but she did this without grumbling, my mother teasing her the whole time that she was sweet on Jack.
And I made a flan with Maria! It isn’t difficult, actually: just sugar (when you sift, you watch for ants), eggs with yolks as orange as an orange, fresh milk and sweetest cream, and of course the milk here already smells like flan, sweet and grassy, like hay that’s just been rained on.
There was a real shift in the group when they heard that Jack was coming. I discern that he’s well-liked. Even Caspar brightened, and Ferdinand made a pathway to the pool with the most charming stones.
Mumma thought it would be funny to cut shapes in all the napkins, but Legrand said that even with his Dadaism, Jack could be old-fashioned, that he liked collecting garbage but not ruining things. This was the first tim
e I have ever heard Legrand be sensible, so he must like Jack too.
The biggest surprise was learning that Konrad and Jack are close. And C., also, they shared the longest embrace when he arrived wearing the same jodhpurs that I’d seen him in and a funny coat. In fact, Jack sat beside C. at the table and they were touching the whole time, like my mother and Legrand do when they’re really into it, making sure the person’s arm is there every time they make a phrase. They’ve had some life together, before I was born, the all of them. It makes me think that Mumma must have been delighted in Vienna. This was way before Mumma married anyone.
Of course, they spent most of the evening talking about art. If you were to listen to the artists here, you’d think there wasn’t anything in the world but them. Except for Jack and C., and, I suppose, my mother, who likes to give everyone a chance, you’d be hard-pressed to hear a compliment out of Costalegre. Everyone and everything is “artificial” and “constrained.” Well, it isn’t true, you know. Out there in the French barns, my mother hid the strangest paintings. Collages with grim machinery bursting from human heads, violins that looked like corpses, naked female bodies separated into cubes. It gave you a sick feeling to look at them, seasick, almost. But I have learned from Mumma that the most important things are heralded by nerves.
The names of their belongings—cubism, Dadaism—it’s meaningless unless you’ve seen it: the scavenged, rough materials, the serrated edges nestled into glue. When you’ve seen it, and when you hear the makers talk, you get a sense of what the movement is, but when you are away from it, it’s like you have to memorize the same words that they’ve said, otherwise the meaning starts floating away, like when you are reading something wonderful but falling asleep at the same time.
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