A Masque of Chameleons

by Joan Van Every Frost

  Jason took the actors patiently from house to house until they were all settled in here and there throughout the town.

  “That wasn’t very clever of you, putting Josefina in with those others and leaving me with you,” Roberta chided. “She and I should really switch.”

  “Business before pleasure,” he grinned. “After the meeting you can sleep where you want to.”

  “Oh God, not another meeting!” She had almost allowed herself to hope he'd given it all up since he had made no mention of any of it since Puebla other than to say carelessly he thought the soldiers had been sent to scare him off. “How are you going to produce a wheelchair?”

  “I'm not. You'll wear peasant costume, stay on your horse, and go masked. It will do for this time, and you’ll look just like a hundred others. They're having a masked dance tonight.”

  “Where is this meeting taking place?”

  “Out at the horse fair grounds. Everyone else will be at the plaza. Come on, we'll buy you your clothes. I've borrowed a horse for you.”

  “Why? What's wrong with Fada?”

  He looked exasperated. “You'd best quit mooning over Will and put your mind on what you're doing. Do you really want to announce who you are by riding your own mare?”

  “You don't approve of Will and me caring for each other, do you?”

  “It's not for me to approve or disapprove,” he said rather primly. “I had my say once, and I can see no point in going on about it. There are a number of things in this life that no one else can tell you; you simply have to learn by yourself.”

  After much squirming, pushing, and shouldering through the dense but good-natured crowd, they managed to reach the booths selling clothes. Roberta chose a brightly embroidered blouse cut square and low at the neck and the longest skirts and petticoats she could find, which only just cleared her knees as she held them up to her.

  “Whatever will I do about shoes?” she mourned. “My feet would make three of theirs.”

  “Have you dancing slippers?”

  “Yes, Hugh told us this would be a big fiesta, perhaps even with an outdoor ball.” She didn't say that she had had visions of dancing with Will, just the two of them somehow alone, dipping and swirling and swinging giddily to music from unseen musicians playing the waltzes she heard in her mind.

  “Well, wear them. No one’s going to look at your feet anyway,” he pointed out unkindly.

  She sighed. “You aren’t very romantic, are you?”

  His face softened and he squeezed her arm. “Poor little duck, you’ve got it bad, haven’t you? If it’s any comfort, you’ll look marvelous in this costume; a body like yours was never meant to be imprisoned in those monstrous stays. Don’t ever hide your figure, Robbie — flaunt it, and to hell with fashion.” He smiled at her affectionately.

  She squeezed his hand gratefully and smiled back. Why couldn’t he be like this all the time?

  *

  Her heart beating excitedly, she put on the unfamiliar clothes and tried unsuccessfully to see herself in the little hand mirror she always packed. She brushed out her long hair and twisted it again into the single long braid she had seen on many of the women. Jason when he appeared wore the long flowing manga riding cloak, a flat black broad-brimmed hat, a short vest laced with leather thongs, and short riding boots turned down at the top. He had masked his scar with makeup, and a cigar stuck at a jaunty angle in his mouth. His eyes were hidden by a black domino mask, and he held out a silver one to her.

  “If you only knew how good it feels not to be encased in whalebone,” she sighed. “I want to wear this dress forever.”

  His eyebrows raised. “Why don’t you?”

  The borrowed horse proved to be a fat little sorrel that switched his tail, but when she realized that she was having to look quite a way up as she talked to Jason on a tall, nervous roan, she saw the reason for his choice. The difference in height made even her feel small.

  “Where is the meeting?” She asked as they came out on a large barren field lined on one side with adobe buildings.

  “Out behind the stables.”

  As they rounded the corner of the nearest building, they could smell cigar smoke and see little flickers of light. There were the stamping of hooves, snorts, the clink of bits, and the squeak of saddle leather.

  “Gentlemen,” Jason said in a voice pitched higher than his normal speaking voice, “I present to you Senorita Carmelita Maria Guadalupe Alarcon Valencia, spokesman for her father, General Ildefonso Alarcon de Vega.”

  She was greeted by a disconcerting silence. Apparently being on horseback and in the dark was not conducive to the hearty applause to which she had become accustomed. She launched into her speech that came now almost as second nature to her. When she had finished there were a few subdued murmurs of approval and a buzz of quiet comment.

  “When is the general planning his coup?” a shadowy figure asked bluntly.

  “The general is not planning any coup at all,” Jason contradicted. “It is we who care for the fate of Mexico who plan the coup. Each region has a man in charge who will make himself known to you when the country is united, and the north and the west are secured. If we cannot depose the despot by peaceful means, then our envoys will give the signal for you to rise up. With the entire country in revolt in addition to the greater part of the Army, Santa Anna must step down.”

  When the meeting was over Roberta said, “Those men weren’t exactly receptive, were they?”

  “It’s easy to applaud and shout ole if you don’t have to put your life on the line. These are the hacendados and rancheros who will take the brunt of the fighting if there is any. They are also the ones who will be the first to be killed in a war. I wouldn’t have trusted their judgment had they been enthusiastic.”

  “We needn’t have bothered to dress up; you couldn’t see your hand before your face out there.”

  “Just as well. However, I couldn’t have foreseen that.”

  They unsaddled and put their horses in the animal shed behind the house where they were staying. By tacit consent they both began walking toward the plaza.

  “Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  She was more annoyed with herself than with him, for once again she had felt the heady response to danger, and for the first time in several weeks, Will had not so much as crossed her mind. “They won’t all be held in the dark,” she replied grudgingly.

  Suddenly he laughed aloud. “Hurry up, little duck. Now I don’t want to miss one minute of this night. We may never see another like it.”

  *

  They arrived at the plaza to find the center part cleared and not a ball but a number of dancers doing what looked like a complicated country dance, some masked and some not. They saw a couple come out from among the onlookers to join the other dancers, and before Roberta could protest, Jason pulled her out to join them also. Actually, the dance proved to be highly repetitive, and after only a couple of false starts she caught on and began to enjoy herself. All the time, however, she had an eye out for Will, for she doubted there could be this much going on without his coming to see it. When she saw him, he was between Jessica and Josefina, laughing at something Josefina was saying, and she felt as if one of the rockets that were almost continuously exploding overhead had exploded inside her.

  Jason was having a fine time flirting with a handsome black-eyed woman who outrageously flirted back.

  Roberta supposed that he must seem a dashing figure indeed to a country lady looking for romance on a night of fiesta. He hardly resembled the grim Jason she was so used to seeing; his hat was cocked daringly to the side of his head, a lock of hair fell down over his forehead, and his whole demeanor made him seem ten years younger. If his leg hurt him, there was no sign of it, for he was laughing and making jokes that put his partner into gales of laughter herself.

  Roberta slipped away from the dance and ran up to Will. “Come on, Will,” she coaxed, pulling him by the hand toward the dancers. “It'
s easy, really.”

  “I don't dance,” he said sullenly, resisting her.

  “Poor dear, he can't carry a tune and he can't keep in step with music,” Jessica said, pouring brandy from a silver flask into a small silver cup in her other hand. “Cheers, my dears! What a charming costume you have on, Robbie — it suits you. You ought to be able to entice Gavin out there anyway.”

  She pointed to where Gavin and Silvia, who had become Gavin's shadow ever since she got the idea he had rescued her from Jason's mad scheme, also stood and watched the dancers. But Roberta had eyes only for Will, who was looking sulky and put out, and refused to meet her reproachful gaze.

  “Your glow is wearing off, dearie,” Josefina drawled at Will. “Come along and we'll get you fixed up again.” She disappeared with him into the crowd, leaving Roberta.standing there feeling hurt and foolish.

  “Robbie, you were grand!” Gavin exclaimed. “Show me how to do whatever it is they're doing. It looks like fun, and Silvia here is too shy.” Silvia obediently gave a hesitant, timid smile. Good lord, Roberta thought, what would she ever do up in front of an audience?

  She and Gavin began to dance. He was so beautiful, she thought as she clapped in time to the beat, waiting her turn to dance out and be twirled around. Why couldn't she care for him? The golden hair, the innocent blue eyes, the high fresh color, it was all too good to be true. He was a painting of how a young Lochinvar, or better yet a young Galahad, must have looked.

  The night wore on in a kaleidoscope of color and noise. Even Jessica, Hugh, and Daphne finally joined the dance. Now there were far more dancers than onlookers, not all of them even doing the same steps. During the short rests between dances, Gavin brought her sweetened coffee flavored with cinnamon and laced with some kind of aguardiente. Roberta danced again with Jason, and soon after saw him go off through the crowd, his arm around the handsome country woman. A couple of times Roberta thought she saw Josefina, but there was no sign of Will.

  Afterward she had no idea what put it into her head, but all at once she was sure that Will had been waiting for her. Of course! It had all been an act for the benefit of Jessica and the others. He had gotten rid of Josefina and he was waiting for her to come to him. The singing was in her ears as well as in her blood now, and she waited for Gavin to bring her another coffee and begin to dance with Silvia. She gulped the hot pungent liquid and as she went by put the empty cup down on the table where they were selling the stuff. What a fool she’d been to wait so long. A hundred — no, a thousand — times she had played out the encounter under the oak tree at Rio Frio to an uninterrupted conclusion, though her imagination balked at going beyond the kiss.

  Since Will and Jessica were the first ones billeted after Hugh and Daphne, she knew not only where the house was, but what room he would be in. When she reached the house, she found a velador wrapped in a serape sound asleep with a bottle in his hand on the doorstep where he had evidently been told to keep watch. The door was unlocked.

  Inside, a candle burned in a sconce in the small hallway, and she could see a light under Will’s door. Unsure of who else might be in the house, she tiptoed to his door and quietly pushed it open. What she saw was so unexpected and so shocking that she stood there for what seemed a long time, unable to believe it was real.

  Lying naked and supine on the bed was Josefina, her skin all golden in the light of the candle. Coupled with her was Will, his head buried in the pillow near her shoulder, and thrusting convulsively at her. As Roberta stood rooted to the floor, he groaned. Josefina gave a loud glad cry and raked him with her nails, leaving angry red welts down the alabaster white of his back and rump. Driven into motion by this final horror, Roberta fled.

  She ran uncaring through the dark streets, oblivious to any danger. When she reached her house, she had to pound on the door until the sleepy old crone who lived in and helped with the cleaning up reluctantly let her inside. Why couldn't the crone have been in the other house and the drunken velador here?

  When she was safely inside the room with the door closed, she began to shake uncontrollably; even her teeth chattered. She was unbearably cold, an icy chill that squeezed her heart into a mutilated frozen lump that lurched about erratically inside. She walked up and down the room and compulsively wrung her hands, her mind refusing to grapple with this unbearable wound.

  When she thought she could stand it no longer, the idea occurred to her that a jolt of brandy would warm her and calm her nerves. She doubted there was any in the house, but perhaps Jason had some. She knocked at his door, not wanting any repetition of sexual spectacles. No answer, and the room was dark. She put down the candle she was carrying and opened his valise. Almost at once she found a silver flask, not unlike the one from which Jessica had been tippling. She shook it and with satisfaction heard it slosh. She tipped it up and took a large swallow that burned and choked her.

  Far from having a calming effect, it set her mind running like some precision instrument spinning out of control. The vision she had thrust away now came before her and inexorably replayed itself, every gleam of naked skin, every ripple of muscle. Once again she was forced to hear the groan and cry, to watch the long red tracks imprinted on his white skin. This time she even smelled the cigar smoke hanging motionless in the air. She cried aloud in anguish and swallowed yet another jolt of brandy. Anything to stop that dreadful waking dream.

  The most hurtful thing of all was that it was so ugly, two animals clutching and thrusting at one another clumsily, violently. Was this awkward, shameful rutting really what she had wanted that day under the oak tree, what — if the truth were known — she still wanted, providing Will was her partner? She ground her teeth in an agony of remorse and shame and betrayal. The flask was then mysteriously empty, yet she was not only conscious but still actively suffering.

  Shaking, she put the flask back in the valise, and as she did so felt something hard and smooth. Knowing at once with a strange cunning what this other object was, she drew it out into the candlelight that gleamed dully along the blue barrel. The Colt revolver lay heavy in her hand, a cold implacable answer to her suffering. She clicked back the hammer that had been resting on an empty chamber, turning the breech to a primed charge. With both hands she raised the barrel toward her temple, willing herself to picture her lover as he held out his arms to her in the dappled sunlight and shade beneath the oak tree.

  “You’ll never kill yourself that way,” Jason said conversationally from the doorway.

  Startled, she dropped the gun, which promply went off with a loud explosion. A black hole surrounded by cracks appeared in the adobe wall near the floor. He reached her then in one stride and pulled her to her feet, shaking her violently.

  “Goddammit, whatever made you do such a dimwitted thing?” He held her off and looked at her. “Why, you're drunk as an owl. What happened?” When she didn’t answer, he shook her again, gently this time. “Tell me,” he insisted. “It’s the least you can do after scaring me nearly witless.”

  “I saw W-Will and Josefina,” she managed. She was shaking again uncontrollably.

  “They were making love?” he filled in.

  “If you could call it that,” she said bitterly, the hot tears at last brimming down her face.

  “Yes, I would call it that, though I could never make you understand, I suppose.” He gently wiped her face with his bandanna handkerchief. “God never meant the human lover to be observed, only to participate.”

  “But it was so ugly!”

  He sat down with her on the bed then, holding her against his chest. She could feel the strong, reassuring rhythm of his thumping heart through the shirt. “Just what did you think making love was all about?”

  “I — I didn’t think. I’d no idea it was so — so disgusting.”

  “Listen to me, Robbie. If that had been you Will was tumbling, it wouldn’t have been the same at all. You would have been holding him in your arms, and he would have been warm and loving against you and in you
. That is the first vision of lovemaking people were meant to have, not standing coldhearted and fully dressed watching someone else about it. The ability to make love rather than compulsively rut is one of the most glorious attributes human beings possess, and it’s both their blessing and their curse.”

  She burrowed into his chest like a small child and said in a muffled voice, “But it wasn’t me he cared about at all, it wasn’t me he tumbled, as you put it. I’m big and awkward and clumsy and I hate it. I’ll always be on the outside looking in.”

  “Now you’re feeling sorry for yourself. All the same, I suppose that’s better than wanting to blow your brains out. By the way, just what did you hope to accomplish by that? Make him sorry?”

  “I lost everything,” she muttered. “I lost Will and I lost the only image of love that let me think it was beautiful.”

  “Rubbish! Love is tenderness and warmth and humor and joy, and it's also sweat and smells and hurt and sometimes even grudging reluctance, but beautiful it’s not. They lived happily ever after doesn't take into account the quarrels and the boredom and sometimes the unfaithfulness, the seeing each other unlovely in the morning, the putting up with each other's irritating foibles, the having to forgive and be forgiven.”

  “If love and life are like that, then all the more I'd rather avoid them both.”

  “Nonsense. How did you get to be twenty-two years old and know so little? You're like a child of five who sulks if its sweet is taken away. Doesn't the sun warm on your back or the moon rising red over the mountain or a bird's song or a foal gamboling in the green grass mean anything to you? Didn't the sea and the stars and the porpoises playing in the bow wave teach you anything?”