John Kemp announced that he was going to have to drop from the school and return to the states.
“We’re dwindling away to nothing at all,” Hildabeth said. “Not too darn many to start with. Place is going to pot and it isn’t even half over yet.”
Agnes Partridge Keeley appeared at nine-thirty. She smiled most pleasantly as she came in, but she was darting quick little glances around, venomously suspicious. She handled herself as though her muscles had stiffened up, and Dotsy noted that she sat down with caution.
“I seem to have overslept,” she said. “Too much party. Class will be late.”
“Might as well skip it,” Hildabeth told her. “You won’t get much business. John Kemp is dropping out and Barbara is driving him up to Mexico City a little later. Torrigan skipped his class yesterday. You won’t get much business today. Just me, maybe.”
“I’ll see if anyone else is interested.”
Esperanza showed up. She seemed much more severe and gloomy than usual. When Miles came to breakfast, his face pouched and sallow and his tread heavy, Esperanza went over to him. “Señor, Rosalinda is too ill to work this day. She has an agony of the stomach. I do not know where Margarita is, or Pepe. Felipe and Fidelio are very sick and tired. They were badly beaten by someone last night, I think. But they will not speak of it. Alberto cannot be awakened again.”
Miles stared up at her. “You are the entire staff, then.”
“It is evident. Señor, last night I was permitted to drink and to dance at your fiesta. I assure you it will never happen again.” She whirled and stalked toward the kitchen.
Miles went out and checked on Felipe and Fidelio. They lay on the pallets, with large areas of dark discoloration under their coppery skin. They were uncommunicative, their voices weak, their dark eyes dull. When they moved it was with a vast and painful effort that contorted their faces and made them wheeze with hurt. Evidently they had been fighting, and evidently that was all he would ever learn. He spoke of his disappointment in both of them, and trudged wearily back to breakfast. He discarded the idea of looking in on Rosalinda. She would merely giggle.
After John Kemp came back from the Hotel Mandel where he had phoned the ticket office, he finished his packing and carried his belongings into the lobby. “What’s the matter?” Barbara asked.
“I’m trying to think who I’ve missed. Klauss, Torrigan, the Wahls, the colonel and Mary Jane. Say goodbye for me. Please don’t skip Paul Klauss.”
“How could I! Seriously, John, I think Mary Jane would like a personal farewell. I’ll have to ask her about the car.”
They went to her room. John stood a little way down the corridor while Barbara tapped on the door. As she started the third sequence of tappings, the door opened a crack and then was opened wide enough for Barbara to enter.
Mary Jane, her eyes sleep-puffed, her cropped blond hair frowzy, her lips pale without lipstick, held her robe closed around her and said, “What’s the scoop, Barbie? Gawd, I feel horrible!” She padded over to the bureau, took a cigarette, lit it and made a face. “You look so darn alert.”
“Three hours’ sleep,” Barbara said. She suddenly noticed in the other bed, in the shadowy room, a clump of tangled blond hair on the pillow, a mound of hip under the blanket. “Who is that!”
“Oh. Lady Margot. Left over from the party. I don’t know the details, but she was sacked out when I came lurching in.”
“I’m sorry to bother you, Mary Jane, but John Kemp has to leave today. I’d like to use the station wagon. We’ll drive up to the airport and I’ll bring it back.”
“Leaving? Darn! Sure, you can take the wagon.”
“He has to leave soon. He’s out in the hall to say goodbye.”
“Let me dust off the merchandise.” She went to the bureau and yanked a brush through her hair. She leaned close to the mirror and made up her mouth. Then she began to button the small, round red buttons that ran from the collar of the robe to the hem.
“A nice guy, Barbie.”
“Yes.”
Mary Jane looked at her obliquely, with wisdom far older than twenty. “Not letting him get away, are you?”
Barbara felt heat in her face. “No.”
“Good deal. Something good ought to come of this operation. Okay. The eyes look like smoked clams, but there’s nothing to be done. You know, I had a wild dream about nearly falling off the roof of this place. And Torrigan saved me. You think that’s significant?”
They went out into the hall. Mary kissed John goodbye. Then John and Barbara drove up into the mountains, and from the high curves they could look down into the lovely morning bowl of Cuernavaca, and they saw El Hutchinson, like a slightly soiled, little cardboard toy in the sunlight.
Torrigan got up at noon. Hang-over banged in his head like an endless succession of oil drums rolling down concrete stairs, and like trunks being moved in the attic. He looked upon the world with that bleak and weary pessimism of the person who, after an unsuccessful suicide attempt, has been released from the hospital with the kindly admonition to try to look upon the bright side of things. In his slow accomplishment of his morning routines he attempted to arm himself against a hostile world, but he had the feeling there was artillery just over the hill, zeroed in on the base of his brain. He put on fresh khaki shorts, slipped his bare feet into sandals from the public market, and pulled a white T-shirt on over his head.
He went tentatively out into the corridor. As he shut his room door a woman turned and looked at him and walked slowly toward him. She wore a white robe with small red buttons from throat to hem. It was a little too short for her and a little too full for her at shoulders, bust and hips.
“Theah you are, dearie. I’m in a bit of a flap.”
He yanked open the squeaky drawer of a mental file, fumbled for a soiled card. Something about this item in a strange room, talking and talking, wearing a blue towel. Margot. And it was connected with the dull ache on the left side of his jaw.
“Good morning, Margot.”
She peered at him. “You really look undone, ducks. This is a problem of clothing. I borrowed this thing. Simply crawling with all these ghastly little buttons.”
“Where are your clothes?”
“I should say one could expect them to be in the room of that dreary little mannequin with the curly yellow hair. And my purse too. But which room?”
“Oh, that’s up around the corner and down about three doors.”
“Would you please come with me, dearie? You were so wonderfully efficient when he became so sticky.”
“Margot, I was pretty well loaded. I’m not too clear about some of the details.”
She sighed. “It was ineffably dreary. I was so terribly anxious to get away from that squatty little Shane person, that I let the blond one entice me to his quarters. I sometimes feel I entice too readily, you know. After we had disrobed, it turned out he was of no use whatsoever. And he had some madly hysterical story about it being the fault of some hotel maid person who apparently had been pursuing him. The entire tale made no sense, and he was horribly upset, weeping and carrying on. I had no intention of remaining there with him, but he wouldn’t let me leave. He seemed to become violent, and you can take my word, Gambel dear, I’ve had quite my share of violent little men of late. I panicked and screamed out, and the scream startled him enough so that I was able to pull free of him and canter to the door and get it open. One seldom sees nude women scampering down hotel corridors with howling, blubbering little men in hot pursuit, but you, you perfect darling, were on hand and you rose to the occasion splendidly.”
“I did?”
“You tripped him sprawling and found a nearby door unlocked and bundled the lady in distress into the room and locked the door. We had great fits of laughter while he pounded his poor little fists on the door, bawling threats and obscenities. When he finally trundled away, you crept out and brought back a pair of great walloping drinks for us.”
“You sat in that wick
er chair wearing a blue towel and you told me about the American major who ruined your life.”
“Yes, ducks! You do remember. You were terribly sweet, you know. And all my brave plans to reward you came to absolutely nothing when suddenly I was so exhausted I couldn’t hold my head up. Apparently some woman lives in that room. I found this little robe. Now I would like my clothing, Gambel dear.”
He went with her to Klauss’s room. He knocked loudly.
“Who is it?”
“Torrigan.”
“What do you want?”
“There’s some clothes and a purse in there, Klauss. Let’s have them. The lady wants them.”
“Just a minute.”
They waited. Margot smiled her thanks at Gam. Suddenly the door was yanked open. A wad of fabric was hurled out. It disintegrated in the air and fell gently in a shower of tiny, wispy fragments. A purse struck the opposite wall with considerable force, bursting its clattering contents onto the tiles. Two shoes followed, with equal force. The door was slammed shut.
Margot dropped to one knee and picked up a handful of the fragments of fabric. She stared up at Gam with awe and tears of anger. “Absolute scraps!” she said. “My lovely dress and slip and bra and panties and hose. It must have taken him hours and hours. The man is absolutely mad!” She reached and picked up a shoe, threw it aside. “He even slashed the shoes to ribbons.”
“I guess you hurt his feelings.”
They gathered the contents of the purse and put those articles not damaged beyond repair into it.
“He’s a monster,” she said. “He’s sick. He needs help. What shall I do for clothing? I could send someone to my home, of course, to bring clothing back here. I have closets and closets of things. But it would look queer, don’t you think? Make a very poor impression on my staff.”
“What room did you sleep in?”
“That one.”
“Oh, Mary Jane’s room. Must be her robe. You go back in there and I’ll find her. She must have some stuff she can lend you.”
“You’re sweet,” she said. “I must say you Americans have exciting parties.”
Gam found Mary Jane in the dining room, sitting alone and drinking coffee. When he sat down with her, she gave him an opaque glare. “Did you happen to save my life last night?”
“Let me think. Yes. Yes, I did.”
“Today I wonder why you bothered. But thanks.”
“Quite all right.”
“I’m depressed. Bits is gone. Park is gone. Now John has left for good.” She explained the circumstances. Then Gam gave a slightly edited version of Margot’s plight. Mary Jane got up wearily and went off to help her. Gam poured himself some coffee. There was a somnolent air about the hotel, a brooding silence. Mary Jane came back with Margot in fifteen minutes. The coffee had made Gam feel minutely better. Margot had been outfitted in a pale-blue denim wraparound skirt, a white short-sleeved cardigan, straw sandals.
She did not feel up to breakfast either. She had coffee with them from a fresh pot brought by a grim-eyed Esperanza.
“I’m so grateful, dear,” she said to Mary Jane. “I’ll see that these things are returned veddy quickly.”
“No rush,” Mary Jane said morosely.
“I must go now,” she said. “Could some sort of transportation be arranged?”
“We’re kind of running out of automobiles around here,” Mary Jane said.
“I don’t want to be any more bother, really.”
“I’ll see if I can line up the red bus,” Gam said. He went and found Miles who found Fidelio and told him that if he was incapable of driving the bus, he was fired. With a great and heroic effort, like the hero of a Western movie dragging himself through the badlands, Fidelio made it to the bus and sat slumped over the wheel, breathing audibly.
Gam went in and told Margot her transportation was ready. She smiled at him and said, “I have a great high wall around my place to keep out the infields. And quite a lovely little pool. And a crowd of little people who scuttle about bringing cold drinks. I should like you to come home with me, ducks.” She turned to Mary Jane and with much less enthusiasm said, “You too, of course, dear, if you’d care to.”
“No, thanks,” Gam said.
“No, thanks,” Mary Jane said.
Margot pouted at Gam. “I really must have made myself terribly unattractive last night.”
“You were just nifty.”
“But I will see you some time, lover? Soon?”
“I suppose it’s possible,” he said. Margot stood up and looked down at him with eyes and mouth of stone, turned and left. After they heard the bus clatter out, Gam sighed.
“Well, well, well,” Mary Jane said acidly.
“What’s your trouble?”
“Just intrigued. You intrigue little old me.”
“Maybe I’m complicated.”
“You go around beating all the bushes in a very heavyhanded way, trying to find some gal to be your real close buddy buddy, and then when a languid, sexy, rich, titled dish like that falls into your lap, you brush her off.”
“Kindly get off my back, child.”
“You didn’t even make the usual pass at me last night.”
“I apologize.”
“Class this afternoon, Teach?”
“Oh, dear God,” he moaned. She got up, gave his beard a small affectionate tug, chuckled at him and walked away, leaving him alone with his coffee and the silence and the dusty patterns of sunlight on the floor of the empty room.
The four officials in their old Packard and their shiny blue suits arrived at three o’clock that afternoon, arousing Miles from his siesta. He scowled at them. The spokesman, Mr. Lopez, said, “It is here the temporary permit, dear sir, but there can be more difficulties, I am sorry. The regulations are of the utmost complication.” He smiled his broad, loving smile. “There is administrative expenses. Many pesos, dear sir. Or the school must be boarded closed.”
It would have been difficult for them to have approached Miles Drummond at a less opportune time.
“It is almost impossible to continue?” he asked.
“It is most difficult, dear sir.”
Miles matched his smile. “Then let us say it is impossible.”
The officials glanced at each other. This did not seem to be the same man they had talked to last time.
“I am not clearly understanding,” Señor Lopez said.
“It’s easy. It is impossible to continue. So I will not continue. I cannot pay the fines. I will go to jail. Let me pack a bag and I will go right now.”
Lopez smiled nervously, “But dear sir, it is only a matter of pesos. From a place of such profit.”
“Hah!”
“Only perhaps … five hundred pesos only for administrative expensiveness.”
Miles stood up. “I will pack.”
“Dear sir, perhaps it could be done with more cheapness, because you are a friend of Mexico.”
Miles took out his wallet. He took two fifty-peso notes and placed them in front of Lopez. Lopez stared at them with the troubled smile of a man who does not quite catch the point of a joke. His shoulders lifted slowly and fell. He reached out and took the notes. “The expensiveness will be handled at a loss to the administrators,” he said.
They shook hands all around and walked out, arguing softly among themselves, leaving the large florid permit, ablaze with stamps, on Miles’s desk. Miles tottered back to bed.
At the same time the four men were leaving Miles’s apartment, John Kemp was taking his leave of Barbara. His flight had been announced. They had talked long and honestly. They would write to each other. When she was finished at Cuernavaca, she would fly home. When he had the firm functioning with sufficient smoothness, and if it was agreeable to her at that time, he would come and meet her parents. By then they would know if she would return with him. She did not know if it would ever be possible. But she would be honest with him in any event.
He walked out with her
and kissed her by the gate and went on alone. He waved from the top of the steps. She watched until the plane was a tiny silver glint in the north, high above brown hills. She dried her eyes and blew her nose and drove with great caution back to El Hutchinson.
At last that interminable Wednesday ended. Park and Bitsy reached Acapulco in the torrid, sticky dusk. Dinner at El Hutchinson was a small and nearly silent conclave of the survivors of fiesta. The staff began again, with great reluctance, to shoulder their lightened duties. The hard rain came down at nine and lasted until nearly midnight. The thunder clanged off the hills and the lights went out. And lightning danced blue on the dead faces of the sleepers.
Chapter Fifteen
The nuptial fiesta of the Cuernavaca Summer Workshop at El Hutchinson had certain short-range traumatic effects of a certain predictability. Of more interest were the long-range effects.
There was, for example, the transformation of Fidelio Melocotonero. It was Mary Jane’s theory, as expressed to Torrigan, that Fidelio ever since birth had been handicapped by the non-functioning of some small and essential gear and pinion assembly in his head. Something had failed to mesh, and the inoperative parts had rusted in place. The beating had effected repairs, and she cited as an example the common knowledge that when a piece of apparatus refuses to function, it can often be repaired quickly by a brisk kick.
Torrigan, in rebuttal, pointed out that Fidelio had begun to show unmistakable signs of an emotional involvement, and it was well known that love could work miracles.
At any rate, during the few days of his painful convalescence it gradually became apparent to all that Fidelio had changed. His heavy expression of sullen apathy and indifference was gradually replaced by a look of polite attention, almost of alertness. He held his head high and walked with a detectable briskness. He kept himself and the red bus cleaned, brushed and well-maintained. He took over from Alberto the task of keeping the other vehicles glossy. He developed the knack of appearing when he was needed, eliminating the previous necessity of an average twenty-minute search to find out where he was dozing. His driving improved. At some implausible place in town he purchased himself a used yachting cap, restored it to black, gold and white brilliance, and wore it behind the wheel with an uncompromising jauntiness.
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