A Masque of Chameleons

by Joan Van Every Frost

  Roberta laced on the contraption, like another corset but with soft bumps and bulges. The dress was too short and too big around even with her extra girth, but by gathering it at the waist with her hands, she could see the effect. Suddenly she had a full bust and ample hips, giving her a quality of lushness that Carmelita had had and taking away completely her own leggy, colt-like contour. However, her height also gave an appearance of largeness, like a shapely hippopotamus. She couldn’t help laughing.

  After a discreet knock, Emil entered to see how things were going. He frowned and shook his head. “Never do, never do,” he muttered. “There hasn’t been a Mexican girl born who’s near as tall as that. What to do, eh?”

  “I take if that it’s not possible for me to be in the room already seated?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Even if it could be arranged, there are a few, though they’re men, you would ordinarily rise to greet. Old friends of the general and so forth.”

  “I could always be carried in reclining in a sedan chair,” she laughed, a laugh that broke off suddenly. “No, wait! What if I were pushed in sitting in a wheelchair? A broken leg that mended poorly, perhaps?”

  Emil grinned, his white and perfect teeth strange in the gargoyle face. “Damme, I think you’ve got it! They’ll be thinking of you as the woman in the wheelchair, not as the tall woman with gray eyes. Capital, my dear, capital! I’m relieved, I must say, to see that Jason picked a woman with brains. You may well need them before it’s all over.”

  “Who are you?” Roberta asked him directly then.

  “Oh, my dear, it would never do to explain. Let us say I am sympathetic to the general’s expectations. Or rather, Jason’s expectations for the general.” His face hardened briefly. “Let’s say I don’t like vicious men, no, not at all. Come in, Jason. I think your lady friend here has the answer to our problem.”

  A sinister yet fawning creature entered the room. His baggy white cotton pants were dirty and gathered in at the waist by a piece of frayed rope. He had on a wide flat-brimmed hat that tilted down over his eyes, one of which was covered by a black patch. A ragged, brightly striped serape hung carelessly over one shoulder, partly covering a grimy shirt open almost to the waist. On his feet were a pair of leather-thong sandals. He looked as if he badly needed a shave.

  “Dear heaven, Jason, is it really you?” There was nothing about this dirty servile creature to put in mind the elegant Jason. Even the scar was obliterated. His smile in answer to her question was without doubt Jason’s, however. She must warn him about that.

  After a brief discussion, Emil went off to see if he could find a wheelchair, no mean feat in a city like Veracruz. Jason went over with her again the many details he had been able to give her of the general’s home life, his hacienda in Texas, his other hacienda near Guadalajara, friends, children, relatives, family servants.

  “Jason, I wonder if you've considered something,” she said at last.

  “What would that be?”

  “What if Carmelita was, well, made to tell all she knew, including about you?”

  “I'm sure she was,” he said evenly. “The trouble with torture, though, is that even if the victim knows nothing, he will tell you what he thinks you want to hear.”

  “Why are you bothering to disguise us, then? Surely they must know everything.”

  “We've disguised you both to protect you and to throw them off. Carmelita knew nothing about your involvement, after all. They will have to wonder if they killed the wrong woman or even possibly if Carmelita isn't dead after all. If Zaragoza himself didn't actually kill her but left it to underlings, he might begin to have doubts. As for me, his spies might guess at my presence, but they won't be sure. They may think I am hiding in another room, or that I was only a decoy right from the beginning, or any of a number of things. As long as they can't be certain, I'm safe enough. They don’t really want to call attention to themselves by murdering someone as well-known as I am, especially after Carmelita's demise, which then will hardly look like an accident. I was never the important one in any event; Carmelita was. No American could ever be very important in Mexican politics. If all they've got to deal with is me, the conspiracy will never get off the ground unless Alarcon himself changes his mind and actively enters into it.”

  Their conversation ceased abruptly when the door flew open to reveal a jubilant Emil pushing a heavy wheeled contraption into the room. “Jose and I filched it from the hospital over near the San Juan Church. During siesta hours I think we could have taken the beds as well, patients and all.”

  They seated Roberta in the awkward contrivance and arranged her clothing so that only one bandaged shoeless foot showed. Jason carefully draped the lace mantilla about her head and shoulders. They both stood back then and contemplated her.

  “Not bad, eh?” Emil said at last, handing her a parasol.

  “Not bad at all. Hardly Carmelita, but not bad.”

  They wheeled her out through the cobblestone inner courtyard, each bump of the ungiving wheels jarring her until her teeth rattled. There were few creatures about on the street except for the sleeping dogs splayed in the stingy shade and the ubiquitous vultures sidling and clapping their wings up on the rooftops. The racket of the wheels rumbling on the cobbles echoed back from the silent housefronts on either side.

  At last they turned in to the open gateway of a courtyard. A manservant with wide pantaloons and a red and white striped vest appeared, and gave Jason a disapproving look while he silently helped wrestle the chair up some steps and into an entrance hall. There was a smell of spiced food and cigar smoke. Roberta’s stomach rumbled in protest.

  They followed the servant across a mosaic of black and white tiles, the chair squeaking and clicking over the uneven surface, then through an arch and around a turn and into what proved to be a large study and library. As the servant opened the door, Jason surreptitiously squeezed her arm. They had arranged a code that if there were by chance some old family friend in the gathering, Jason would give her a prod with his finger and indicate who it was that should look familiar to her. As they faced a gathering of some twenty-five men, she was thankful to feel no admonitory poke.

  A tall man with a frock coat and very curly sideburns came up to her and bowed. The men were almost evenly divided between frock coats and handsome rancho costumes with carved silver buttons on close-fitting pantaloons and open-necked long-sleeved shirts of fine material.

  “Senorita,” gray sideburns murmured in Spanish, “we are at your service. And at the service of your father if he will but say the word. We are so sorry to hear of your unfortunate accident.”

  “Gentlemen,” she said in as clear a voice as she could manage, “it is my father who is at your service, and at the service of his country. While he is still bound by his oath of loyalty, he feels that he can do no more than offer his youngest daughter as hostage for his serious intentions.”

  She could see from the faces in front of her that they were pleasantly surprised by her poise and delivery. As well they might be, she thought scornfully. The women she had already seen brought up under Spanish colonialism in Havana would never have dared address men in such a fashion.

  Throwing herself into the spirit of the occasion, she went on in flowery terms, concocted mainly by Jason, to commend the spirit of liberty, honor, and the revolution of 1810 that had brought together such a band of brave and loyal men in the cause of freedom from the tyrannous impostor who was ruining their country. She said that already she had recognized the cries of the poor begging to be freed from this black-hearted tyrant whose greed would not be satisfied until he had taken the last crumb from the mouths of themselves and their children. She went on to say that if put in power her father would do his utmost to right the wrongs perpetrated by this shameless villain, Santa Anifa. She wondered cynically to herself if Alarcon would be so much better; just think of the show he could put on with what the Americans paid for the northern territories!

  W
hen she finished, her audience exploded with shouts of approval, and the gray-haired man emotionally kissed her hand once more. She deftly fielded the few awkward questions that followed as to just when Alarcon was going to declare himself publicly and stand up to be counted. Finally, in a gesture that moved her in spite of herself, each man knelt before her and kissed her hand, pledging their every effort to depose the tyrant and place at the helm of Mexico the revolutionary hero, General Ildefonso Alarcon de Vega.

  As they returned to the first house near the Flamencos, Jason was elated. “Damme if I don’t think Providence itself sent you to us. You should have heard that speech as made by Carmelita; she sounded like a wooden mouse.”

  No hint of sorrow or pity for the dead woman who would never again hold a lover in her arms, Roberta thought. The rumble of the heavy chair over the cobbles in the hot deserted afternoon reminded her of descriptions she had read of the laden tumbrels in Paris during the French Revolution on their way through the jeering crowds to the guillotine.

  CHAPTER VI

  As Roberta looked later into the elegant Iago’s eyes, she found it difficult to believe that he had ever been the cringing, one-eyed wretch who had pushed her chair and been looked upon with such careless scorn even by the servant.

  “Does Hugh know all about this?” she had asked on the way back that afternoon.

  “Only that he and the company are being well paid and their itinerary arranged.”

  “Do you think that’s fair? All of them could be in danger, you know, if it were discovered how they are being used.”

  “Nothing in this life is fair,” he replied. “Every man has to balance his activities against his goal.”

  “Hugh and the rest aren’t having much of a chance to balance their actions, though, are they? It’s you who are balancing their actions, and they don’t even know it.”

  As they turned a corner, his shadow fell across her lap. “You may as well know this now if you haven’t already guessed. I would sacrifice you and them and myself as well to avoid the holocaust I see coming.”

  She commented that there was no sign of any poor people at the gathering, though they, supposedly, were the ones who would rise up and throw off the tyrant’s chains.

  “Of course not, ninny,” he replied impatiently. “Revolutions are made by men with education and money. Not since Wat Tyler and his peasants sacked London in the fourteenth century has there been a successful revolt that wasn’t backed by men of knowledge and influence. The lower classes need someone to tell them what to do.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You’re a snob, aren’t you? What about the United States?”

  He smiled in a maddeningly self-satisfied way. “I’m not a snob, just a pragmatist. Who do you think John Adams, Jefferson and Franklin, Washington and Hamilton were? They came from the cultured upper classes. Fake Indians would still be dumping tea in Boston Harbor if it had all been up to the likes of Sam Adams, Tom Paine, and Paul Revere. And even they were hardly lower class. No, my pet, a revolution has to appeal to the men who are capable of organizing it and bringing it about, or there is no revolution. In Mexico it has to appeal to some generals as well because that is how the power changes hands.”

  *

  Because the contrary winds had put them behind schedule, they played Veracruz only three nights before packing up to go on to Puebla. Hugh had sent a messenger ahead as soon as they had disembarked to inform the theater manager in Puebla. He had also let Josefina get her feet wet by reading the Spanish commentary that went along with Othello. She turned out to be surprisingly good, being naturally a dramatic person, but Roberta suspected that Hugh would have taken her along anyway; Josefina was a rich woman, and theatrical companies needed all of those they could find.

  “Can you believe it,” Hugh exclaimed, his eyes big, “they say that the road to Mexico City is paved with robbers who take all their living from travelers like us. What will we do if they want to take all our costumes?” Will laughed. “Bribe them, what else? What would they do with the costumes anyway?”

  “If I might make a suggestion,” Jason offered, “why don't we see if we can hire an armed escort?”

  “Bribing them would be cheaper,” Will complained. “Oh? And what are you going to bribe them with, may I ask? They will already have taken any money you may be carrying.”

  Guy grinned. “B-bribe them with Josefma. She ought to m-make any robbers h-happy.”

  “It's not a subject for humor,” Hugh snapped. “Maybe you're right, Jason. Do you know where we can obtain such an escort?”

  “Well, the owner of the Flamencos claims he can recommend some men. Armed escorts are, after all, a common need on this road.”

  *

  They were to set off at the unlikely hour of four in the morning, to make Jalapa by nightfall. Roberta took a look at the two heavy unwieldy coaches in the lantern light and quailed. They were strong, all right, but had little springing. It would be like being locked up in a great jolting coffin for three days. Jason came into the lighted area then, wearing leather pants with wide flaps across the legs, a long-sleeved shirt, and a bright serape blanket slung over his shoulder. On his head was one of the flat, broad-brimmed hats she had seen on the rancheros at the meeting. He was leading by the bridle a big, rawboned bay with a blazed face.

  “Jason, please,” she pleaded, “find me a horse, too. I can't bear the idea of being cooped up in those — those wheeled sepulchers for days.”

  He looked at her, considering. “Guy and Gavin are riding; I don't see why you can't. That is, if you know how.”

  She had ridden a bit as a girl, but not since. “Of course I know how,” she retorted a little too emphatically.

  With much shouting and swearing on the part of the grooms and coachmen, ten mules were hitched to each loaded coach, but even at that there was extra baggage that had to be sent on by mule train, and Jason had to dicker for nearly an hour with the arrieros, the wildlooking mule drivers, before they agreed on terms that Hugh would accept.

  It was settled then, and Roberta turned to find a small boy standing patiently at her elbow holding a black mare with an ancient sidesaddle, its leather blackened and cracked.

  “Don't look so put out,” Jason laughed. “I do believe it's the only sidesaddle in Veracruz. We were hard put to it to find one at all.”

  He gave her a knee up, and she rearranged herself as best she could while he adjusted the stirrup. She felt especially awkward, for apparently Mexican ladies rode on the right side of the horse rather than on the left as she had been used to do. She had a prophetic feeling that the knee that was hooked over the stiff leather tongue protruding from the saddle might well make her wish in the end that she had chosen to ride in the coach. It must have been six or seven years at least since she had so much as sat on a horse.

  Just then the escort of ten riders clattered up, the horses throwing their heads and prancing in the cool early morning air. With a start she recognized two of the men as having been at the meeting, but though they looked right at her, there was no sign of recognition, and she decided that her disguise had been successful after all. The mare stamped and switched her tail nervously.

  As they all set out, she was startled to see that the coach drivers were Americans. Was this part of Jason’s unlikely plot?

  “What a surprise to have our fellow countrymen as drivers,” Gavin said as he sidled his little buckskin mustang up beside her. “They say that the diligence line was started by Americans originally: It must take a lot of skill at that to drive a team of ten mules.”

  The lead team had settled into their collars, and the heavy coach clattered off on the cobbles, the iron rims of its wheels striking occasional sparks from the stones of the road. The second coach fell into line, and the escort and mounted passengers brought up the rear. Except for the groaning of the vehicles and the clinking of harness and bridles, there was an eerie silence once they had left the city. Not a bird, not a flower, not a tree was to be
seen, only the sifting reddish sand, like the waves of the sea pushed up by the constant nortes. How awful it must be, Roberta thought, to be caught out in this desolation when a norther was blowing.

  It seemed as if they had been on the way for hours as the glare of the sun on the sand irritated her eyes, and she was sure that the inside of the cocked-up knee must be bleeding. At last they saw the first few scattered palm trees, their tattered fronds clattering dryly against each other in the hot breeze that had sprung up. Gradually the vegetation thickened until the sand between the plants gave way to earth that could only occasionally be glimpsed through the ever densening carpet of green. As they came to the first rest stop, a collection of stick huts thatched with palm leaves, the countryside had miraculously become close to Roberta's original vision. She freed her knee and slid to the ground, almost falling, because her legs were so sore and stiff.

  “Steady there, lass,” Will said laughingly as he took her by the waist to support her. “You really ought to go in the coach — it's quite comfortable, truly, except for the heat.”

  The feel of his hands all but paralyzed her mind and she could do no more than look at him with a sickly grin, the color high in her cheeks.

  “It's been soft going until now,” Jason offered, “but wait until we really begin climbing and the road is rough. You'll feel like nuts in a shaker. The first and last time I ever took one of these coaches, I was black and blue for a week.”

  The several families who lived at the way-stop offered them fresh coconut and bananas and milk evidently taken from the goats they saw grazing nearby. For a few silver reales, each about twelve cents, Roberta bought a gaily striped rebozo from one of the Indian women, intending to pad the saddle with it rather than use it as a shawl. Then, with fresh mules to replace the weary team, they were on their way once more.