“Besides escorting government officals,” she said, “what do you do in peacetime?”
“Hunt bandits,” he replied tersely as if this wasn’t a subject that particularly pleased him.
“And do you catch many of them?”
“Oh, we catch them all right,” he said bitterly, with an almost anguished look on his face.
“What happens to them?”
“We hang them.”
“Without even a trial?”
“Senorita, what can I say? If we turn them over to the authorities, as often as not the scoundrels are back in their forests again within a day or so. Hanging men is demeaning work for a soldier, but what would you do? After you’ve seen the atrocities that some of them commit, you don’t stay squeamish about the hanging for long.”
“Doesn’t hanging men right and left have any effect on you and your men?”
“Of course it does, senorita,” the colonel said reproachfully, “but as long as we have nightmares about it, I hardly think you can say it has no effect.”
“I’m sorry,” Roberta said, contrite. “I had no right to speak to you so. Policemen are never very popular, are they?”
“No, senorita, they aren't. Families along the way will often hide the murderers, but we are hated by all. Yet almost daily the bandits decapitate, garrote, shoot, knife, and rape innocent travelers. No one cares about the victims, it seems.”
“It almost sounds like a grand conspiracy, doesn't it?” Roberta remarked.
The colonel looked at her sharply. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, you yourself said that they were protected by those who live along the highways, and that the authorities apparently refuse to punish them.”
The colonel relaxed. “In Mexico, dear lady, that hardly constitutes a conspiracy. The poor folk have learned to hate all authority, including the soldiers who carry out the orders of authority, and official corruption is a national disease.”
“Perhaps you're right,” Roberta conceded. “You certainly know far more about Mexico than I ever could. It's only that the situation you have here reminds me so much of what I've read recently about the Thugs in India. There, too, a plague of robberies and murders beset travelers on the road for hundreds of years, but not until a few years ago did the British uncover a conspiracy so vast that it is all but unbelievable. In the case of India, the criminals turned out to be a religious cult numbering thousands who made away with hundreds of thousands.”
The colonel followed every word she said with mounting excitement. “If the victims numbered so many, how was it no one became aware of a conspiracy so vast, so far-reaching?”
“As I understand it, they went to some pains to conceal the bodies of the victims, dismembering and burying them.”
“But weren't the victims missed?”
“India is an enormous country, Colonel, and disappearances seldom cause much curiosity.”
“Yet how could hundreds of thousands disappear without a national outcry?”
Roberta thought for a moment. “Tell me, Colonel, if our theatrical troupe had not had an armed escort, who would have protested if we had simply disappeared? We heard at Puebla that between the city and the capital robberies occur almost daily. How much outcry would there be if a party simply never arrived at the other end? The British have one of the finest armies in the world, and yet under their reign for over a hundred years mass murder occurred right under their noses.” In the heat of the conversation, the colonel had forgotten entirely the succession of foods placed before him. In his late thirties, he was obviously a mixture of Spanish and Indian, with the high cheekbones and bold nose that proclaimed him a descendant of the original rulers of Mexico, along with the tawny eyes and cruel but sensual mouth of the Spanish conquerors. He was clean-shaven except for a pair of magnificent sideburns that set off his bold, clever face. Now his attention was fixed on her alone, to the exclusion of the dinner, the diners, everything.
“Wouldn’t it be extraordinary,” he said slowly, “if it took a foreigner, and a woman at that, to give us a new line of attack on these brigands … They don’t, I assure you, perform their deeds out of any religious fervor. What else can you tell me of the bandits in India? How did they get rid of them?”
“The British managed to break up the organization by discovering and removing enough of the ringleaders to destroy their communications. For what it is worth, I would say — “
“Lovely lady, kind colonel,” the smooth voice of Zaragoza broke in, “I believe it is my turn to converse with this charming creature.”
“Of course, sir,” the colonel said deferentially. “We were speaking of the high incidence of robbery and violence on the road, and the lady made an interesting suggestion, that there was possibly a conspiracy of brigands, that they were in some way organized. I think it bears looking into.”
“Nonsense,” Zaragoza replied, his tone careless. “You've been stricken witless by beauty and alcoholic spirits, Colonel Olmedo. Can you possibly imagine those scruffy bandits, many of them too poor even to own a horse, being organized? Come now, Roberta, enough of your fairy tales. Conspiracies seem to fascinate you, do they not?”
Again Roberta felt a small cold shock, and she forgot entirely about the bandits of India and Mexico. Zaragoza was deliberately playing with her like a cat with its prey, letting her know that he was aware of the whole scheme now and would squash it whenever he so wished. She smiled at him brilliantly, however, and asked him what he knew of some of the other cities they would play: Zacatecas, Guanajuato, and San Luis Potosl. Encouraged by her questions, he launched into a discussion of mining in Mexico under the Spaniards.
Their conversation was interrupted by a series of toasts. Zaragoza's was unexceptional enough, to a free Mexico, but Roberta was startled to hear Colonel Olmedo propose his to a safe Mexico. The men departed to enjoy their brandy, cigars, politics, and risque jests while the women compared notes on their illnesses, servants, clothes, the men, and each other. When the men returned, Santa Anna was deep in conversation with Zaragoza. The two came over to where Roberta stood talking to Rosemary.
“Which one of these lovely ladies,” Santa Anna said gallantly in English, “is Mademoiselle DuPlessis?”
Zaragoza presented her. Roberta gave a brief curtsy. “How may I serve Your Excellency?” The words came smoothly to her tongue. Again she was struck by how close to and yet how far from being handsome he was, his features as flawed as his character.
“There are many ways in which you might serve me,” Santa Anna laughed, “were I not a married man. I wonder that some bold caballero hasn’t swept you off your feet long since. Actors must be a bloodless lot.” He certainly had a golden tongue, she had to admit that.
“Not bloodless, Your Excellency,” she murmured, “only protective of their own.”
“Dios mio!” he twinkled. “No wonder you’re not yet spoken for if a swain must dare the wrath of an entire theatrical troupe in order to press his suit.”
“In Mexico it is customary for girls to marry when they are little more than children,” Roberta observed pointedly, “but in the United States it is different.” Rosemary gave her a warning nudge but Santa Anna seemed not at all taken aback by this dig at the age of his new wife. “You were very good in Othello, my dear,” he said expansively. “All that beauty and talent, too. I trust you are finding plenty to amuse you during your time off?” The large dark eyes held laughter — a sly, fun-poking laughter that told her he knew it was all a game and he was willing to play as long as he thought he could win.
“Of course she does — how could a lady so winning not find amusement in a city as cosmopolitan as the capital of Mexico?” came a voice from beside her.
“Ah, Senor Whitney! Allow me to congratulate you on not one but three outstanding performances. I have always maintained that versatility was the mark of a truly great actor.”
Jason was a damned fool, Roberta thought, furious. To go out of his way to
connect himself with her and with her offstage activities was as good as hoisting a flag to announce their intentions.
“Praise from a connoisseur is always music to a performer’s ears,” Jason smirked unctuously. Roberta had an all but overwhelming urge to slap him.
“You have then an, ah, interest in seeing that the lady is amused? I'm delighted to find that actors are not so bloodless after all.” Santa Anna was playing with them both now and enjoying himself hugely. Though the height of his forehead and the unfortunate shape of his nose precluded his being really handsome, he was certainly striking and never more so than when his face was animated.
“I — uh, I - ” Jason stammered, actually turning red, for all the world like some rural bumpkin.
A fleeting look of puzzlement crossed Santa Anna's face, and beside him Zaragoza frowned.
“Why, Jason Whitney,” Roberta improvised, “one would actually think you were embarrassed to be caught out asking me to accompany you to the Viga Canal next Sunday.” She turned to Santa Anna and gushed, “He is so natural an actor that after seeing him on the stage it's difficult to imagine he is so shy and naive. Of course the poor thing has no serious designs; his wife died recently in Veracruz, you know.” Strange how no one had brought up the subject of Carmelita, even if only to offer condolences. It was as if the poor woman had never existed, not only as far as Jason was concerned, but for everyone else as well: Hugh, Will, Zaragoza, Josefina, the lot...
Jason went even redder and twisted the ball of one foot on the floor, for all the world like a small boy caught with his hand in the jam jar. What in the world was he up to, acting like a nitwit? She wished he would give her some clue.
“How clumsy of me,” Santa Anna apologized. “Though surely you don't observe as long a period of mourning in the United States as we do here?” He had a nerve, having remarried as he did not six weeks after his wife's death.
“Longer than two months,” Roberta said with some asperity, deliberately referring to Santa Anna’s liaison as well as to Jason's loss.
“I, uh, have only befriended Miss DuPlessis because she is all alone in the world, as am I, and we have found that we are a comfort to each other.”
“How fortunate that you each then found such a sympathetic friend. Until one is bereft, as I all too well know, it is impossible to realize how much comfort and solicitude mean.”
Roberta was startled to see tears in his eyes. Why, the old faker! Rumor had it that he had taken up with this child — who had sat smiling vapidly all through the dinner as she fairly glittered with jewels — some time before his bony first wife died. What was more, the story went that this child was only the last of a long series of children, beginning with his first wife, who had been only fourteen when he married her but by her early thirties looked as though she were fifty. With amazement Roberta then became aware that Jason’s eyes as well swam with tears, and it was all she could do not to burst out laughing. That these two charlatans should be so busily engaged in gulling each other tickled her almost beyond endurance. She looked down as if in sorrow so as not to give herself away, and to stifle the laughter bit her lip until it nearly bled.
“Oh, Your Excellency,” Jason gushed, “how much it means to find someone in a seat of greatness who understands. I shall treasure this moment always.” When Santa Anna put a solicitous hand on Jason’s shoulder and patted him sympathetically, Roberta gave a little moan as the stifled laughter threatened to break out. The two men looked at her, startled. There were tears in her eyes now too, from the effort of swallowing the mirth that momentarily offered to engulf her.
“Poor thing,” Jason said quickly, “she’s overcome with thinking of her dead parents. Please excuse us, Excellency. I’ll see that she gets home safely. We’ve been honored to have been included at such a noble affair.”
“What a shame,” Santa Anna said compassionately. “You both then will have to miss the private concert. We have a cellist all the way from Germany.”
At this Roberta broke up entirely and could only hope that her helpless laughter muffled in her handkerchief sounded sufficiently like sobs. Jason’s hand on her arm was like a vise as he virtually jerked her out of the reception room. Outside, he pushed her unceremoniously into a hired carriage and directed the driver to their house a short distance from the city.
“Just what in the hell got into you?” he asked finally in a steely voice.
Still laughing weakly, she dabbed at her streaming eyes. “Oh, my stomach hurts from laughing. Jason, if you could have seen you two sanctimonious frauds working on each other, you’d have laughed too. I’ve never seen anything so funny in my life. Really, you should get Hugh to offer him a place in the company if he’s ever deposed as President.”
For a moment he stared at her, astonished, then suddenly broke into laughter himself. “It must have been quite a show at that. At first I thought you were having hysterics.”
She sobered. “Jason, he and Zaragoza know all about me. They both kept making none too veiled comments to let me know it too. I’m afraid the game is up.”
“Not at all, my dear,” Jason contradicted her confidently. “I expected this. You see, now that they know the real Carmelita is not an essential, they will leave you alone. Better a known adversary than an unknown one.
“You mean they are going to allow us to go around raising a rebellion all over Mexico? That hardly seems credible.”
“Credible or not, in their place I would do the same. What better way to discover exactly who is interested in going against the present regime? We are in effect doing the work of the secret police for them.”
“But what will happen to those poor devils who are identified because they met with us?”
“Oh, they'll be arrested eventually,” he said carelessly, lighting a cigar.
“'Oh, they'll be arrested eventually,’” she mimicked him sarcastically. “Don’t you care what happens to them? How can you make a revolution if your followers are all in prison?”
“Listen to me, Roberta. There are many things it's best you don’t know. I wish I didn't know them, either, it would be safer that way, but someone has to. Just be thankful you have nothing to tell anybody, that is your security. By the way, what was that colonel talking to you about so earnestly? He wasn't acting as if he had romance on his mind.”
“As a matter of fact, we were discussing the banditry in Mexico; heaven knows there's enough of it. I said that it seemed so widespread that there could be an organized conspiracy behind it, like the Thugs in India.”
“Did you now? That's an interesting idea. However, I'm afraid that is one evil you can't lay at Santa Anna's door. There have been bandits operating in force in Mexico ever since the 1810 revolution, if not before.”
“The Thugs have operated in India for four hundred years at least.”
“Ah yes, but as I remember, they were religiously inspired. Here, it would have been political or economic. Thirty-five years is a long time for any power structure in Mexico, political or economic either one, to survive. Besides, Santa Anna was only fifteen years old in 1810 and Zaragoza about the same. Awfully young to start anything on the scale you suggest.”
“I'm not saying they started it, only that Mexican politicians and generals being what they are, it isn't unlikely, is it, that anyone in office presented with such a lucrative fait accompli would do his utmost to further it? An outgoing President would hardly expose the organization for fear of being implicated himself.”
“You have a splendid imagination, I must say,” he replied admiringly.
“Jason,” Roberta said finally into the long silence.
“Hmm?” A distant, noncommittal sound.
“You must promise me something, or I won’t go on with it.”
He was suddenly not only alert but wary. “You know there’s not much I can promise.”
“This you can. Promise me that should the time come, you’ll let go and save yourself.”
In the fitful gl
ow of the carriage sidelamps she could see that his eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Well I’ll be damned. I do believe you actually care what becomes of me.”
The light was not so dim that he couldn’t see she was laughing silently now. “I should, my dear,” she mimicked his frequent form of address for her. “After all, you’re the only father figure I’ve got. Well? Do you promise?”
There came that always astounding smile. “I’m hardly long enough in the tooth to be your father, but on terms such as these, how can I not promise?”
They clasped hands to seal the bargain and finished their journey in a companionable silence.
CHAPTER XII
Much to Roberta’s surprise, there were no further clandestine meetings around Mexico City. On a Sunday several days before they were to leave for Cuerpa-vaca, the players all decided to go out to the Viga Canal, an entertainment they had been assured should not be missed. “You ought to see all those lovely fruits and vegetables and flowers floating past,” Josefina advised them. “Besides,” and her tawny eyes lighted up, “there are all kinds of beautiful men on beautiful horses.”
“If that’s all there is to see,” Will said disgustedly, “I’d just as soon go out in the country on Bravo.” He and the big sorrel had fallen in love with each other, and Will vowed never to take a coach anywhere again.
“Ah, but that isn’t all there is to see,” Josefina replied. “Imagine if you can a beautiful canal with shade trees growing alongside and canoes full of dusky beflowered maidens dancing to the music of flutes and guitars, the girls wearing crowns of poppies and roses. Under the trees on the banks of the canal are dozens of carriages, each bearing beautiful women who peep out modestly at the caracoling horses with their gallant riders.”
“Chepina, I think I’ll turn over the writing of the next play to you,” Jason remarked. “You wax positively poetic about none too clean Indians parading in front of the spoiled rich, along with a gaggle of as villainous-looking leparos, male and female alike, as you’d ever wish to see.”
A Masque of Chameleons Page 16