Silent and incredulous, Don Roque’s friends had circled around. Now Don Roque broke into a smile, a rustic saint’s smile that rippled gently over his bronze face. “General, sir, excuse me for being blunt. When I listen to you I think I must be listening to the Serpent in Genesis.”
The expression in his eyes and his rippling smile and wrinkles looked so honest and innocent they gave his less than approving comment a benevolent tone. The furrows in Tyrant Banderas’s green grimace froze in place. “Don Roque, I wasn’t expecting such an insinuation. I only wanted to offer my loyal friendship and shake your hand, but as you believe me to be insincere, I can only reiterate my apologies.”
He bid farewell with a sweep of his top hat and, flanked by his aides, headed for the door.
VI
Master Veguillas jumped down between the double row of hammocks, whimpering grotesquely, “Croak! Croak!”
The mummy pursed his lips. “Idiot!”
“Croak! Croak!”
“Don’t clown.”
“Croak! Croak!”
“Your japing isn’t exactly amusing right now.”
“Croak! Croak!”
“I’ll have to kick you out of my way. With the toe of my boot!”
“Croak! Croak!”
Master V pulled in his guayabera and hopped on his haunches, whimpering, his face bloated, his eyes imploring.
“You’re embarrassing! That froggy chorus doesn’t make up for your crimes.”
“My Generalito is a mine of magnetic contradictions.”
Tyrant Banderas kicked him with the toe of his boot in front of the guard, who was presenting arms in the doorway. “I’ll give you a jester’s jingle-jangle hat.”
“Why bother, my Generalito!”
“So you can take yourself and it to Saint Peter. Get a move on. I’ll give you a ride in my carriage to the Mostenses. I don’t want you going into the next world with any bad feelings for Santos Banderas. Come, let us converse, since the day will soon come when all conversation must cease. You may receive a death sentence, Master V. Why did you behave like such a skunk? Who persuaded you to divulge the president’s decisions? What motivated these objectionable acts? Who are your accomplices? Do me the honor of climbing into my carriage. Sit next to me. You haven’t been formally indicted by the court as yet. Far be it from me to anticipate your delinquency.”
Book Two
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id="heading_id_61">Human Frailty
>
I
Don Mariano Isabel Cristino Queralt y Roca de Togores, His Catholic Majesty’s plenipotentiary minister in Santa Fe de Tierra Firme, Baron of Benicarlés and Master Chevalier of Ronda, more beribboned than a Gypsy ass, was in bed at midday, wearing a lace cap and a pink silk dressing gown. Merlin, his toy terrier, licked his powdered face, smearing the rouge around with his spatula of a tongue. The drooling doggy’s snout kneaded, caressed, and frotted his daddy.
II
Unannounced by his page, Currito My-Cutie gamboled in. The Andalusian boy stopped in the doorway, his nails drumming on the large brim of his Cordoban hat before sending it flying sideways. The youngster from the valleys accompanied that deft gesture with a deep-throated song, warbled in the best style of Sevillian cante, “Guy! You all ready for some Easter Passion? Merlin’s made you look exactly like a flagellant.”
His Excellency rolled over, turning his back on the bumptious boy. “You are incorrigible! Yesterday, I didn’t see you for one measly second.”
“Lodge a diplomatic complaint. I’m just out of the jug, as we jailbirds like to say.”
“Cut the wisecracks, Curro. We are not amused.”
“Oh, you don’t say, Isabelita.”
“You are incorrigible! You got yourself into a tight corner?”
“Victim of a grudge. I slept in the slammer, on a mat, and that’s not the worst of it. The cops snatched all my business and correspondence.”
Spain’s minister sat up on his pillows, grabbed his lapdog by the curls on its neck, and splattered it on the carpet. “What did you say?”
Curro looked pained. “Isabelita, a poultice for its wick!”
“Where did you keep my letters?”
“In a case with seven spring-action padlocks.”
“I know you, Curro! You dreamed all this nonsense up in order to extract some cash from me.”
“It’s not a squeeze, Isabelita!”
“Curro, you are shameless!”
“Isabelita, darling, thanks for the compliment, but the Honorable López de Salamanca has a monopoly in that particular bullfight.”
“Currito, you’re a bastard!”
“If only a bull would come and gore me!”
“Letters like that are burned! It’s only proper!”
“But one always keeps them.”
“The president’s stuck his oar in! I’d rather not think about it. The situation is difficult. Indeed charged.”
“Not the first time for you, I bet!”
“Don’t tease! As things stand it may cost me my post.”
“Parry and feint!”
“I’m not that tight with the government.”
“Well, hide behind a big bull and wave your red cape. I’m sure that’s not too much for you, sweetie!”
His Catholic Majesty’s representative stuck his feet out of bed and put his head in his hands. “If this reaches the newspapers, I’ll be in an impossible position! It will cost me an arm and a leg to keep them quiet!”
“Pull the wool over Tyrant’s eyes.”
Spain’s minister stood up, clenching his fists. “I don’t know why I don’t scratch your eyes out!”
“Your self-restraint is much appreciated.”
“You are a bastard, Currito. These are cunning ploys to wheedle money out of me. It’s torture, plain and simple.”
“Isabelita, see these crucifixes? I swear by all that’s most holy you’ve got it wrong.”
The baron was afraid. “You bastard!”
“Stop that refrain. I swear by the scapulary my poor mother wrapped around me when I sailed from my beloved Spain.”
Curro softened at that echo of a sentimental Andalusian ballad. His Excellency’s bulging far-focused blue eyes glittered ironically. “Well, you can be my handmaiden.”
“So, who’s being shameless now?”
III
Perfumed and spruced up, his Catholic Majesty’s representative walked into the drawing room where Don Celes was waiting. Sensually decadent pessimism, nourished by literary airs, had turned up a new shade of rouge to revivify the diplomatic roué’s psychological state. Reeling from the bitter aftertaste of love, he would sublimate the dregs of his conscience with nods to the eternal classics. When in society, he knew how to pass off his abhorrent tastes with the easygoing cynicism of a Beau Brummel from Bath. He always had an epigram ready to amuse bemused young colleagues who seemed so bereft of imagination and humanistic culture. He would insinuate indiscreetly that he was a high priest of both Hebe and Ganymede, allowing his vanity and deceitfulness to thrive behind a façade of frivolous libertinage, since he was careful not to sacrifice Hebe. By flirting with the ladies and engaging in vacuous, whispered gossip larded with teasing tittle-tattle, the Baron of Benicarlés cultivated countless skin-deep connections. The ladies were wooed by his dinner-jacketed, diplomatic ennui, those rhetorical flourishes gloved in London, laced with witty one-liners and embroidered by gold-capped smiles. How those autumnal hens clucked at his barbed darts. Shouldn’t the world make us a little more comfortable, given we’d taken the trouble to pay it a visit? Wouldn’t it be just divine if there were fewer fools to deal with, if toothache didn’t exist and the bankers canceled our debts? Everybody should have to die at the same time, like military call-up. These are pressing reforms, but the Great Architect is not up-to-date with the current technology. Yankee and German industrialists need to be brought onto the boards of directors; they’d know how to improve the state of the world. His Cath
olic Majesty’s minister’s intellect was highly prized in that circle of ladies, though they sought in vain to tempt him with tender looks.
IV
“My dear Celes!”
As he entered the drawing room, a blubbery smile concealed an anguished heart, embossed with fear: Don Celes! Those letters! Tyrant’s grimace! The roué netted that triad in a circumflex of thought, as he recalled his amorous epistles and the sorrow and pain and disgust he had endured in a distant European court. Distinguished whitey stood in the lounge, his Panama hat and gloves resting on his jutting paunch. Pompous and paltry, his hand outstretched as he stepped forward out of a frame of gilt, he halted, terrified by the yapping lapdog that was extracting his pointed snout from between His Excellency’s shanks, as fussy and frosty as ever. “He refuses to see me as a friend.”
As if offering his condolences, Don Celes shook the roué’s hand in a leisurely way. He felt a surge of benign indifference.
“My dear Celes, your face is the harbinger of headline news!”
“My dear friend, I am sad.”
The Baron of Benicarlés grinned like a harlot and asked, “What’s up?”
“Dear Mariano, it is deeply mortifying to have to take this step. Believe me. But given the critical condition of the country’s finances, my only option is to pursue liquidity.”
His Catholic Majesty’s minister continued to shake distinguished whitey’s hands, oozing hypocritically, “Celes, you’re the finest man I know. I can see how it pains you to ask me for your money back. Today you’ve shown incredible generosity. Have you heard the news from Spain?”
“Is there a packet in port?”
“I speak of a telegram.”
“Political changes?”
“The pragmatists are at the palace gates.”
“Indeed? That’s no surprise. I’d heard as much, but it’s simply a shotgun marriage.”
“Celes, you’ll be the next minister of the exchequer. Don’t forget your exiled friend and give me a hug.”
“Dear Mariano!”
“How you deserve this triumph, Celestino!”
The smarmy hypocrite led the pompous plutocrat over to sit on a sofa, and, sashaying his hips, settled down at his side. Whitey’s paunch swelled with self-satisfaction. Prime Minister Emilio Castelar would wire his appointment. The mother country! He had but a faint inkling of his new duties but already he was preening: an adipose pillar of society. He had a strange sensation: his shadow seemed to be expanding exponentially, while his body shrank. He softened. His ears resounded with primordial words—Elevation, White Paper, Parliament, Sacrifice. And he embraced a theme: “Everything for the mother country!” That flabby femme, with her tiara, buckler, and rapier, enraptured him like a leading lady lurking in the wings before tripping out into the spotlights. Don Celes felt himself transported by haughty breezes blowing down the corridors of power, and yet he envisioned his fate as a minister with some apprehension. There he was, in his ceremonial, embroidered frock coat, spraying out his feathers like a fairytale peacock, but financial caution hedged that fond fancying with the arabesques of ominous fugues. Distinguished whitey was afraid his capital might plunge if he swapped exploiting Indians and blacks for serving the mother country. He patted his chest and extracted his wallet. “My dear Mariano, really and truly, in the circumstances that presently afflict this country and given its rocky finances, to uproot myself and go to Spain would be too much of a shock! You know me, you know how it irks me to put pressure on you, you recognize my good intentions, so I hope you won’t do anything embarrassing.”
The Baron of Benicarlés manufactured a thin smile and tweaked Merlin’s ears. “Why, dearest Celestino, you’re saying my part! I wholly accept your apologies. No need for you to say anything more. And your wallet, dearest Celestino, is more frightening to me than any pistol! Put it away and let’s talk some more! I’ve got a farmhouse for sale in Alicante. Why don’t you buy it? It would be a splendid gift for your friend, that eloquent tribune, our new prime minister. Buy it. I’ll give it to you cheap.”
Don Celes Galindo half closed his eyed, smiling like the Delphic oracle between his ginger whiskers.
V
The volutes of distinguished whitey’s thoughts twisted high up into the vaulted limbo. A devotee of tradition, presumptuous and aggrieved, he considered His Catholic Majesty’s minister’s epistles to the Sevillian Currito a scandal to the red and gold of the nation’s flag. Abominations! But now he had a sudden vision of Tyrant Banderas grimacing in his silent, shadowy tower. Abominations! His green grimace was shredding letters. And now Don Celes pledged himself to the mother country, a favored son offering his blushing, bulging baldpate on a sacrificial tray. Just as blood rushes gloriously to the cheeks when a toast is raised to the nation, he was full of a warm, generous determination to cover up any exposed privates with a fig leaf. The plump plutocrat quivered magnanimously. The baron shifted uncomfortably on the sofa, and an ambiguous, honeyed pro forma smile spread across his face. Don Celestino stretched out a sorrowful, pious hand, like María Verónica in the Way of the Cross painting. “I have lived long. When one has lived long, one acquires a modicum of insight into human behavior. You take my drift, dear Mariano?”
“Not yet.”
The Baron of Benicarlés’s eyelids slipped down, curtailing the blue horizons of his bulging eyes. Don Celes’s face assumed an overwhelmingly confiding look. “Yesterday, the gendarmes, exceeding their powers in my opinion, arrested a Spanish subject and searched his suitcases...In my opinion, as I said, overstepping their powers.”
The diplomatic roué nodded prudishly. “So I just learned. Currito My-Cutie paid me a visit and told me the sad news.”
His Catholic Majesty’s minister smiled, and the mask of rouge on his smooth cheeks began to crack, sarcastic like a wrinkled Venetian domino. Don Celes voiced his worries: “Mariano, this is deeply troubling. You will agree, this must be kept silent.”
“My dearest Celestino, you’re an innocent abroad! It’s all quite trivial.”
As his mask shrank, the rouge fissured even further and Don Celes became even more overbearing. “Dear Mariano, it is my duty to forewarn you. Those letters are now in the possession of General Banderas. Perhaps they contain some political secret, or a betrayal of your friendship—and the fatherland! Dear Mariano, we cannot, must not, forget the fatherland in all this! Those letters are in the hands of General Banderas.”
“How gratifying. The president will be sure to take good care of them.”
The Baron of Benicarlés retreated into the sibylline stance of a subtly perverse hierophant. Don Celes persisted, with added emphasis: “Mariano, as I said, I do not wish to prejudge those letters, but it is my duty to forewarn you.”
“And I thank you for your pains. My distinguished friend, you let your imagination run riot. Believe me, those letters are quite trivial.”
“I’d be very happy if that was so. But I’m afraid of scandal, dear Mariano.”
“Are things here so uncivilized? It would be the height of absurdity.”
Don Celes concurred, underlining his agreement with a wave of his hand. “No doubt, but we must silence any scandal.”
The Baron of Benicarlés half closed his eyes and spoke with contempt: “Simply a little lunacy on the side. I do confess to finding Currito quite charming. Don’t you know him? It might be worth your while!”
He smiled so pleasantly as he spoke, adding a touch of elegant English phlegm, that astonished whitey couldn’t bring himself to pull out all the stops. Instead he muttered and fidgeted with his gloves. “No, I don’t know him. Mariano, my advice to you is to keep on the right side of the general.”
“Don’t you think I am?”
“I think you should go see him.”
“Why of course.”
“Mariano, go, I beg you, on behalf of the mother country. For her sake and for the colony’s. You know how the colony contains many illiterates without sophistication or c
ulture. If the telegram brings fresh political news—”
“I’ll keep you posted and, once again, my congratulations. Plutarch would have adored you. Goodbye, dear Celes.”
“Go see the president.”
“I will. This very afternoon.”
“I leave reassured now that I have received your pledge.”
VI
Currito My-Cutie sprang out from behind the curtains and, as he would have put it, was perkier than a cat that’s got into the cream. “Oh, you were wonderful, Isabelita!”
With a regal flourish the Baron of Benicarlés cut him dead. Flushed, in deep dudgeon, he rasped nervously, “You were spying! That is most unseemly!”
“Look me in this eye!”
“I’m being serious.”
“Don’t be a jerk!”
Cedars and myrtles in the garden cast watery shadows on the drawing-room draperies, which stirred faintly in a spikenard-scented breeze. The Vicereine’s Garden was a mournful geometry of fountains and myrtles, ponds and orderly paths. Between colonnades of cypresses, still black mirrors etched their formulas across the water. His Catholic Majesty’s minister, a proud glint in his blue porcelain eyes, turned his back on that scoundrel Currito and retreated into the misty colonial pergola, jamming his monocle under an eyebrow. Green ivy had crept up the window overlooking the shadowy green garden. The Baron of Benicarlés pressed his forehead against the glass. Elephantine, brow wrinkled, most British, his face was a picture of despair. Curro and Merlin, from separate corners, gazed at him immersed in the fish-tank light of the folly’s bay carved from scented woods evoking Oriental and eighteenth-century veneers and minuets danced by viceroys and almond-blossom princesses. Curro broke the spell, spitting cheekily through his fangs, “Isabelita, my darling, the way you ruffle your hair or push up your topknot, as far as yours truly goes, makes you as rank as a rajah! Isabelita, go hobnob with Tyrant.”
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