“He wouldn’t try to sink the cause perhaps, but he would be less than human if he didn’t tell at least someone not only that he knew you weren’t Carmelita, but how he knew. If that gets around, things are going to become dangerous. They won't any longer be looking for Carmelita herself, they’ll be looking for a woman who might be made to resemble Carmelita, a woman with gray eyes. They will watch every move I make.”
“What about the man who owns this house? He knows who you are, at least. He must also know I’m disguised.”
“That was a calculated risk. He’s an old friend, and in any event if I can’t depend upon men like him our whole scheme is doomed. Pepino, on the other hand, never liked me because I was a blue-eyed anglo who could do a lot of things better than he could. It hurt his machismo. Actually, it wasn’t that I was so good, but that he was so extraordinarily clumsy. If he discovers I’m mixed up in this, God knows. Discover it he will, too, as soon as he goes to the theater. Even leaving aside my name, the beard I have now and the scar don’t disguise me much, not with these eyes.”
They finished changing in silence. The same servant brought out their horses, and they clattered off out of the courtyard and into the empty street. The sun was lower now, and the little wind that had picked up while they were inside was bitterly cold. Roberta found herself shivering.
As they passed the first corner, a horseman suddenly emerged from a recessed gateway. They saw immediately that it was Cuevas, and they pulled up. His face, which would have been strikingly handsome were it not for the heaviness of his jaw, was alight.
“I thought so!” he shouted triumphantly. “I gambled on your not having left the house before us as you seemed to. Güero, I guessed you were somewhere in the background.” He looked at Roberta admiringly. “You’re not nearly as beautiful as Carmelita, but you’re a handsome creature at that. Is she yours, Guero?” he asked Jason carelessly.
Roberta started to protest indignantly, but Jason cut her short. “She is,” he said curtly, “though it’s hardly any business of yours.”
“You haven’t changed, have you? Where’s Carmelita?”
“Where she’s always been. You didn’t think the general would risk his precious daughter for something like this, did you?” His lie was so bold-faced it shook Roberta more than a little.
“Depends on how much the old man wants to be President. Good God, he’s got four other daughters and three sons, why should Carmelita be so special?”
“I wouldn’t have thought you of all people would have risked your neck in a political venture.” Jason puffed a cloud of blue smoke as he held the lucifer to his cigar. “What are you doing among the disaffected?”
“Fair enough question. I usually leave the Don Quixote act to those so inclined. However, Santa Anna is getting us where it hurts, in the pocketbook. The damned fool’s ruining the haciendas, and the businessman too, with his ridiculous taxes. There is even a tax on the number of windows in a house. Most of the men in that room would be perfectly happy with Santa Anna if he only stopped making us pay for his theaters and plazas and shrines to his leg, to say nothing of the elaborate funeral for his dead wife or the jewels he bought for that poor little fifteen-year-old frump he married afterward. God alone knows how he’s managed to go through the money he has — he’s even sold the supplies out from under the Army.” Cuevas tipped his hat to a passing carriage, his blooded horse sidling nervously and playing with the bit. Roberta noticed that he was riding an expensive English jumping saddle; apparently Santa Anna hadn’t managed to ruin him yet.
“Well,” Jason said calmly, “it’s up to you as to whether you want to go on putting up with him. If we are discovered by his secret police, it’s goodbye to Alarcon’s chances, and right now Alarcon is the only contender with enough of a following to unseat him.”
Cuevas smiled a wide unfriendly smile. “It is up to me, isn’t it, Guero? How droll!” Without another word he tipped his hat to Roberta and trotted off down the street, his horse dancing and caracoling as though on display.
“Do you think he’ll betray us?” Roberta asked in English. Alone together, they unconsciously always fell into English.
“I doubt it. He knows which side his bread’s buttered on and there’s nothing deadlier to those involved than a failed revolution.”
“If Santa Anna can plant agents in these meetings, why aren’t those who attend them arrested?”
“Even Santa Anna knows better than that. The men at these meetings represent some of the most wealthy and influential families in the country. In Mexico, blood is thicker than water, and no matter how much a famly might disapprove of what one member is doing, the whole clan will rise up in wrath if an outsider lays a finger on him. No, Santa Anna’s best bet is to keep these dissidents from organizing sufficiently to give him any trouble. You, as Carmelita, are the moving force that will pull them all together; without you they will talk, and talk, and talk, and do nothing.”
Surely if he is overtaxing these people, they’ll throw him out with or without you or Carmelita.”
“Ah, but when? If things get too bad for him later on, he can always start a war with the United States.”
“Why wouldn’t he start one now?”
“North of the border they haven’t, except for Texas, worked themselves up to it yet. But give them a little time, and they’ll be only too happy to reach in and grab.”
“So what you’re saying is that I’m indispensable?” He reached over for a rein and pulled up her mare. “Roberta, look at me. I gather from your conversation that you are having second thoughts. You were splendid this afternoon, but you won’t be on other afternoons if you're reluctant. Is it the danger you’re worried about?”
“I’d be a fool if I weren’t,” she answered. “You’re ready to die for all this, but I’m not. It was different when I knew I couldn’t be identified, but you know and I know that this man Cuevas will betray us both if he can figure out how to do so without compromising himself and his precious money.” She put a hand on his arm. “Give it over, Jason. It’s their country, not ours. Let them solve it.”
His mouth quirked wryly. “It will be our war, however. Young men like my brother and that Mexican boy in the woods will kill and maim and mutilate each other in an ocean of pain and blood. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“Of course it means something. I don’t like the idea of a war any more than you do. But who’s to say that Alarcon can avoid it? If I thought that my efforts would really make the difference, I think I might go through with it, but I won’t die for nothing, Jason, and not all of your sword rattling can change the fact that you don’t know what good all this may do.”
He gazed beyond her into the distance, as though pledging himself anew. “I’ve got to try,” he said quietly. “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try.”
*
When they got back to the inn, Will was sitting drinking morosely in the common room. “Where have you been?” he demanded truculently. “If you so much as touch Robbie, you son of a bitch, I’ll string you up by the thumbs.”
“Don’t go putting your thoughts in my head,” Jason retorted. “Just because you must go under every skirt you see is no reason to accuse me of it.”
“For heaven’s sake stop that silly bickering,” Roberta snapped. “You both act as if I’d have no say in it.” Yet secretly she couldn’t help but be delighted that Will was jealous.
They both looked at her in astonishment. Will had the grace then to look a bit sheepish, but Jason glowered at her. “Be assured, I wasn't quarreling over you, madame — you're nothing but a wayward child.”
Will grinned. “Turned you down, did she? Good for you, lass!”
“Yes,” Jason said surprisingly, looking her full in the face, “she did indeed turn me down.” He swung about and strode out of the room, his face devoid of expression.
Roberta was startled to find herself on the verge of tears. “I'm going to rest before dinner,�
� she quavered and fled upstairs.
That night during Othello the electrical charge was back in the air. Jason's Iago fairly gloried in his villainy, and he carried the rest of them along. When they came to Iago’s final scene with his wife Emilia, he dripped venom as he called her “villainous whore!” On her side she delighted in being able to retort “O murderous coxcomb!” During her death speech, her eyes glittered with tears as she said to Othello, “Moor, she was chaste; she lov'd thee, cruel Moor,” and had the satisfaction of seeing Will stare at her with an expression on his face she had only seen him have for others.
The days followed one on another without incident; they rehearsed in the mornings, were off in the afternoons, and played in the evenings. Jessica stayed sober, Will looked distant and abstracted as if he were working something out, and Jason ignored her except for being all business as they rehearsed. She would never have realized what was going on if it hadn't been for a chance remark of Gavin's not long before they were due to set off for Mexico City.
“I’d have thought Jason would be a great teacher for Silvia, God knows he’s taught us all a lot of Spanish in a very short time, but she’s worse at her part now than she was two weeks ago.”
“Jason?” Roberta said, surprised. “I thought you were working with her.”
“I was, but Jason suggested that since he spoke Spanish perhaps we could hasten her progress by having him work with her as well. Now she’s suddenly gone timid again and you can’t hear her beyond the second row.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know how to go about telling him I think he should drop it.”
“Why don’t you ask Hugh’s advice?”
Gavin frowned. “That would be too much like tattling. Do you think I should just openly tell him what I think? Would he get angry?”
“Why don’t you try it? You haven’t anything to lose.”
“I have a lot to lose, Robbie — I admire and respect Jason. Oh God, to be able to act like that! Those scenes between Othello and Iago are enough to make shivers go down my back.”
“He mightn’t mind, though. He must know that things aren’t going right.” Privately she was of the opinion that Jason the Pure was doing a little courting, though she had seen him not three nights back slipping into Josefina’s room, and heard a breath of stifled laughter before the door closed. He must have a mighty thirst to have anything left after Josefina.
“What may be happening is that he’s confusing her by trying to get meaning into her speeches. There’s no good getting meaning in before she can make herself heard. Have you ever noticed that Jason almost never touches anyone? He’s like a cat that way.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she answered carelessly, “I always found cats to be very affectionate.”
“He’s not affectionate with Silvia. He’s at her and at her and at her until I can tell she’s ready to burst into tears.” He chewed nervously on his thumb a moment. “He almost acts as if he’s angry at her.”
He had Roberta’s full attention now as a monstrous possibility occurred to her. “Dear heaven,” she gasped, “he wouldn’t...”
“Wouldn’t what?”
“Never mind, just a thought. I tell you what, Gavin. I’ll have a talk with him as if I had noticed this all by myself. Will that do?”
“Would you, Robbie? I’d be very grateful. I really don’t want to irritate him, and yet I’m quite fond of Silvia, she’s a smart little thing. I think he’s terrifying her.”
“No doubt he is,” Roberta remarked grimly. “I’ll see to it.”
“Jason!” she called to him as they were leaving the theater that night. “Walk with me, won’t you? I’ve got an idea for that first scene Emilia has with Iago.”
He raised his eyebrows but made no comment, falling in step with her behind the others.
“Is there somewhere we can go for just a bit? I really do have something to talk over with you, but it’s too cold to stand around out here.” She could see her breath like smoke in the light of the lantern he carried.
He took her arm and steered her down a side street. She thought fleetingly of Gavin’s comment about his not liking to touch anyone. Or was it that Gavin wanted to be touched by him, the father he no longer had? They turned in a doorway to find a little cafe and spirit shop like the one in Veracruz. There was a fireplace with a lively blaze against the cold of the white plastered adobe walls, and Roberta sat down in front of it gratefully. Without asking, the proprietor, a heavy man in a dirty white apron, brought two hot buttered rums.
“I taught him how to mix them, and one day they’ll make his fortune,” Jason observed, refraining from asking what she wanted to talk to him about.
She buried her face in the sweet aromatic steam from the warm pottery mug in her hands. The hot spirit with its mellowing sugar and cinnamon and butter slid smoothly down her throat, warming her stomach and quieting her nerves. “What a marvelous drink!”
“You never had it in New York?”
“Ladies don’t frequent bars in New York.”
“Nor do they here, but foreigners — and actresses at that - ”
“ — aren’t counted as ladies,” she finished in unison with him, and they both laughed.
What a shame, she thought. Just as he’s acting more human than he ever has before, I’ve got to make him angry. She drew a long breath. “Jason, I want to talk to you about Silvia.”
He smiled that sweet disarming smile of his. “What about Silvia?”
“Jason, you mustn’t do it. She’s too young, too vulnerable. Why, they’d eat her alive at one of those meetings.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” he said blandly.
“Yes you do, Jason. Pick on Josefina, why don’t you? You could make something up to explain her Cuban Spanish, and she’d love the romance, the intrigue, all those men...”
“My dear girl, even supposing what you’re saying is true, can you see Josefina risking her little finger once the first excitment wore off? Do be realistic.” He took a long swallow of his rum.
“You may have Silvia talked into the right of it, but she’s terrified already, and she hasn’t even been to a meeting yet. Poor little thing, she’s frightened out of. her wits.”
“One must work with what one has,” he said lightly. “By God, I’m only sorry Jessica isn’t twenty years younger.”
“Her Spanish would give her away.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, she’s a brilliant mimic. If only she were in her twenties, I’d have her bellying up to Santa Anna himself and persuading him to run off to Cuba with her. We wouldn’t need to make a revolution. Ah, but that's only dreaming.”
“Well, you can't use little Silvia. If I have to, go to Hugh, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll turn you in to the soldiers.”
“No you won’t,” he said evenly. “If you do, I’ll simply leave the company and think up some other means of traveling about. When I go, the money will go, and how long do you think your precious Will is going to stick it out if he isn’t paid, tell me that.”
“He’s been with Hugh for years.”
“But always well paid. Good God, Robbie, be your age. It takes a lot just to keep them in liquor, and even more to keep them in the style to which they’ve become accustomed. Will could have saved enough for his own company years ago, but he and Jessica always went first-class. The best cigars, the best brandy, the best hotels. There are other companies that would be glad to furnish him that. He’s a damned good actor — not great, but damned good. And he’s still got some years in him. Maybe ten more in leads and indefinitely in character parts.”
“What do you mean, ten more in leads? He’ll be playing leads when he’s sixty.”
“He’ll be playing Falstaff when he’s sixty, and that’s the size of it. The drink’s already put a belly on him and broken the veins in his face. What’s he going to look like ten years from now? No, he can’t afford to cling to a sinking ship and he knows it. Being stranded down here
will sink Hugh, too, and no mistake.”
“You’re the most contemptible human being I’ve ever known. You’re so full of your beastly cause you’d do in your own mother, wouldn’t you?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said mildly.
She was silent for a moment, making a long business out of taking a swallow of her drink. She smiled then. “I’ll tell you why you can’t use Silvia.”
“Why?” He seemed to be enjoying all this.
“Because she never in a thousand years will be able to bring it off, that’s why.”
“Look, Carmelita who only had to play herself had all the powers of persuasion of a wooden mouse. Silvia is no different.”
“Yes, but Carmelita as you say was playing herself; Silvia is having to play a role.”
“A role in which she is already letter-perfect.”
“And what happens when she is called an impostor?”
“Desperation will see her through, as it did you.”
“Oh no it won’t. She hasn’t the self-confidence. She’ll get you and her both hanged, or shot.”
“They do both and then some,” he answered. “If I have to, I’ll let them have her and find someone else.” She found herself shaking with rage. “I won’t allow you to let them have her, you — you cold-blooded murderer. I’ll do it myself if I have to.”
“Would you now?” he asked in a bright, interested tone that made her want to slap him.
“So that’s it! I’m so dense I didn’t even realize I was being blackmailed. And if I don’t go back to doing it?” “Then I’ll use her and in the end probably have to leave the company as well, with Zaragoza one step behind me.”
“Nonsense. If he’d wanted you, he would have picked you up long ago.”
“I must admit, I’ve been a bit puzzled by the omission. He obviously wants something, but I can’t think what. If he can just plant someone in these meetings, eventually he’ll have a good part of the lists I’ve got in my head. Of course, he won’t know even then which of the generals are loyal and which for Alarcdn. Maybe that’s why he isn’t picking me up.”
A Masque of Chameleons Page 11