by Anthony Hyde
Mathilde said, “That looks so light and cool.”
She had meant Lorraine’s long, full, cotton skirt with the big buttons up the front, but Lorraine plucked at her top, loose with a big scoop neck. “It looks like linen but it’s really hemp . . . with something else, of course, so it doesn’t wrinkle. You’re so lucky, tanning like that. White is always so perfect.”
“Well, it’s easy.”
“I have to be careful, or I simply go pink in the sun. I looked at myself in the mirror after my shower, and I was all pink here—my neck—my wrists—the backs of my legs . . . I looked like a farm girl.”
Mathilde smiled; she would never, under any circumstances, have applied such a description to herself.
After the young man brought their juice—and coffee superior to the usual provender at the urn—Lorraine glanced around the room and said, “You know, I don’t believe ‘less than twenty-five.’ I think we are the only ones here.”
“Have you noticed? No one seems to stay more than one night. They come in from the beach—Veradero—on their way home. The next morning, they take the plane.”
“Or the other way around, I suppose. I’d like to go to the beach,” said Lorraine, sipping orange juice. “Playa, I mean . . . But I’m not sure I’ll have time.”
Mathilde said, “You are busy, then?”
“Well, I don’t know about that. I’m looking for someone.”
“Really?”
“The trouble is, he’s disappeared—at least I can’t find him. A Cuban. His name is Almado.” Mathilde said nothing; she knew silence is often the best leading question. And after a moment, Lorraine went on, “I’m the executor of a will—the executrix—and he’s supposed to receive some money under it.”
Mathilde was trying not to sound nosy—and trying all the harder because, really, she was. This Canadian woman, alone, in this city, was suddenly an object of interest, for a reason she couldn’t account for, not quite. But that was it: not quite. She was about what you expected, but not quite. Now Mathilde prompted, “The will . . . it’s not your husband’s?”
Lorraine shook her head. “No, no. My husband died three years ago. And then we had a lawyer.” Mathilde thought she should probably say something, but really there was nothing to say that wasn’t banal. She waited. Lorraine finished her orange juice, and set down the glass. “But you’re right, he was a friend of my husband’s and mine. We were all at school together. University.”
“Ah, that’s interesting. It’s usual in France, you know, people keep in touch. But I didn’t think it was so common—” Mathilde had been going to say “in the United States,” but she caught herself—“in North America.”
“I suppose it isn’t, really. Well, maybe it is, who knows . . .” The young man had slipped plates of fruit onto their table, and now Lorraine bit into a slice of watermelon, perfectly ripe. “Murray was studying geography—he became a town planner—and my husband was in economics—he worked for the Department of Finance most of his life, in the government—but we all loved poetry, which is what I was studying.”
“So you were the link?”
“Well, not exactly. T. S. Eliot. He was our passion—although you’re right, I was the one studying him. But as well, Murray and my husband were both Anglican. We were all religious. I suppose that set us apart, then. The sixties. Well, not so much—not so much as people thought. I was more plebeian, an ordinary Protestant, but they converted me. The joke was, I was Tom’s disciple—meaning Tom Eliot’s, you see. But really I was theirs. My husband’s and Murray’s.” As she finished saying this, she put down the rind of the melon.
Mathilde was astonished. Religion played no part in her life. It seemed extraordinary that she could be having a reasonable conversation with someone for whom it was important. And Lorraine instantly sensed this. She laughed. “You’re surprised, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am. I admit it.”
“Well, I don’t think you have to admit it.”
Mathilde laughed too. “No. I didn’t mean it like that.” Then she added, “I just don’t believe.” Lorraine, hearing this, found herself thinking, She’s out of touch with belief. But she didn’t say this; she had no evangelical talent, and was glad of it. Instead she said, “Sometimes it was the religion of the poetry, sometimes it was the poetry of the religion, we were never sure.” Lorraine knew this was a silly thing to say, but she also knew it would help Mathilde through an embarrassing moment. She liked Mathilde. She was young, and she was beautiful. She had beautiful golden shoulders, as round as Priam’s apple, and a lovely, dark, impish face, except her nose was too big, though it was her nose that made her beautiful. And she was sympathetic. Intelligent, too: after considering a moment, Mathilde said, “English and French poetry are very different.”
“That’s true. But Eliot’s was very French. He even wrote some poems in French.”
“But, you know, what you say makes me think of Graham Greene—”
“All religion, very little poetry . . . although this is his city, isn’t it?”
“And I’m wrong. He was a Catholic . . . which is different?”
“Oh, yes. We sometimes call ourselves Anglo-Catholics, Eliot usually did as a matter of fact. But it is different. No pope, and the priests can marry. Our priests can even be women!”
“Are there nuns?”
She laughed. “Yes, though I don’t know where they come from nowadays. But you mustn’t mistake me. That was never a choice for me. I was young once too, you know.”
“Don’t worry! You don’t strike me as old.”
Lorraine didn’t, if it came to that, think she was old herself; in fact, she was sixty. She went on, “I’m sure Murray considered becoming a priest. He might have been happier if he had.”
But she stopped there; to explain more would have required revealing that Murray was gay and that becoming a priest would have been impossible just because it represented a certain kind of solution to that problem: one that he refused, because it tended to define his whole life around it. That’s what he’d never wanted; she knew he’d once considered celibacy—“The Catholics have it easier, in a way,” he’d once said—but even if he could have practised it, he would have found it impossible for just that reason: “All I would be is not-queer”—queer being the word Murray had always used. But having balked here, Lorraine now found herself confused because it had seemed the natural place to bring out this fact, and now it would grow to have an awkward importance. But in fact, as Lorraine had been talking, something had occurred to Mathilde. It came into her mind unannounced, but perfectly clearly. Adamaris was gay. It was obvious, once you saw it. There was no doubt in her mind. Yes, you could never be sure about that sort of thing, but she was sure. Adamaris was gay, and she was wondering whether I was, too . . . there’d been a moment, looking at the quinces girl . . . For a second, Mathilde was entirely absorbed by this revelation: and only then did she try to account for it, why it had occurred to her at precisely that moment. But then she saw that, too. It had been the detail of the money : the money that Murray was leaving to . . .
“Almado? That’s this man’s name?”
“Yes.”
“And he was . . . Murray’s lover?”
Lorraine blushed; not at the suggestion, but at her own reticence—which hadn’t been necessary. She felt caught out. “Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to say it. But yes . . . It was very conventional, a handsome young man, an older, well-off norteamericano . . . you know. I think Murray’s sex life largely happened on his holidays. He once said that to me, ‘Sex should be a holiday.’”
“But it wasn’t just sex . . . would you say? Because he left him the money—he must have loved him.”
“Well, he once told me, ‘Almado represents everything I do love, but I’m not sure I love him.’ I must say, I’d feel a lot better—running around like this—if I could be sure.” But these revelations, though they left her content, had also exhausted her, and now Lorrai
ne decisively changed the subject. “You’re letting me do all the talking. I somehow doubt that you’re in Havana for a holiday.”
Mathilde accepted this gracefully, and smiled. “You’re right about that. I’m a journalist. I’m a freelance but I have a contract with a magazine to do a story on Cuba as Castro fades away. It’s to be done through the eyes of a Black Panther . . . you must remember them?”
“Of course.” She smiled. “I remember, but I’d completely forgotten. They hijacked planes and came here. It seemed to happen every night on the news. Huey Newton.”
Mathilde nodded; she’d come across this name. “They’re still here. They can’t go anywhere.”
“You mean, a sort of colony?”
“Something like that, yes. Not only them, all sorts of exiles.”
“That’s amazing. What are they like?”
“I don’t really know yet. There’s one in France I spoke to on the phone, he’s lived for years near Grasse growing flowers for the perfume industry—he can’t leave because of some warrant, I don’t know for what . . . the man I want to speak to here is wanted for murder and robbery, though of course he says it’s a frame-up.”
“It probably is.”
“Well, maybe I’ll find out. I’m going to see him today for lunch.”
“But you’ve been here several days?”
She nodded. “I came early, so I could get a feel for the place. And I wanted to see Castro’s Primero de Mayo performance in the Plaza de la Revolución.”
“I went, too. I wanted to see him—you know, to be able to say I’d seen him.”
“What did you think?”
“I was glad I went, but I didn’t think it was very good public relations. Chavez, the man from Venezuela, seemed so much stronger.”
“I know,” said Mathilde, “in his red shirt. I thought Castro looked silly in his guerrilla uniform and that cap. Like an actor dressed up for the part.”
“An actor who doesn’t know when to get off the stage!”
“But you are a supporter of the regime?” Mathilde’s voice, asking the question, was clearly uncertain of the reply.
“I suppose I am. I support Cuba. Cubans. I think the Americans should leave them alone.”
“The trouble is, they’re Stalinists. I have problems with that.”
“Well, Murray always said that the Cuban revolution was a failure, but an honourable one, and he still put the emphasis on the ‘honourable.’”
“I suppose I would agree, but I might put the emphasis the other way around.”
Lorraine finished her coffee, and Mathilde followed suit. It was clear they were leaving. Lorraine said, “We’re quite a pair. I’m seeing a priest, and you’re having lunch with a Black Panther.” Mathilde laughed. She could see, at the moment of parting, bashfulness coming over Lorraine, the shyness that was probably an important side of her character. It seemed to leave things up to her, and as they stepped into the lobby she said, “Perhaps we should meet every morning to keep up to date with each other’s adventures?”
Lorraine was pleased, and the pinkness she’d picked up from the sun deepened. “I’d like that very much.” She turned away, then looked back: “Au’voir—à demain.”
Mathilde, again, was surprised: not quite. For Lorraine’s French had been quick, her accent not so much correct as natural. She seemed to be a type, someone you could sum up fairly easily; but it didn’t turn out that way. She watched as Lorraine went down the steps, into the brightness of the hotel entrance, and disappeared. I am everything Adamaris desires to be, and Lorraine is everything I don’t wish to become. But this thought was only a test, formulated to be denied. She would have believed it yesterday, on the basis of seeing Lorraine around the hotel. But now she knew it wasn’t fair; it wasn’t even true. But it was interesting; whether thinking of Adamaris or Lorraine, she was faced with the fact that you did become someone, not just for yourself, but for other people. A “character.” Who would she be?
2
The address Lorraine had for the church was on Calle 13, but when the taxi dropped her, she discovered it was on the corner of Calle K, so it wasn’t far from the house where Almado had lived and where she’d been the day before; which made it slightly more plausible that Almado had actually gone to the church and was known there.
The church charmed her at once. This was Vedado, so it was almost impossible to see, lost in a plantation of palm, magnolia, and oleander—and even one scraggly pine; but when she stood back, on the other side of the street, she could make it out, white, Spanish Mission in style, through the green.
It was enclosed by a high fence: the gate was chained and padlocked, but through the bars she spied a sign of the kind that marks Anglican churches all over the world. Catedral Episcopal de la Santísima Trinidad: BIENVENIDOS.
She’d known it was the cathedral, that it was the only Anglican church in Havana, for Murray had filled her in on various political details: that the Cuban church had once been connected to the Episcopal Church in America, that this tie had been broken, and its renewal refused; and that now it was governed by a council that included the Primate of Canada, and was part of an archbishopric whose seat was in Santo Domingo. But the charm of the place brushed all these dreary details away, and she walked around the corner—she was now on Calle K again—and passed through an open gate into the grounds. A few people were talking in front of a notice board, others were on their way into several low buildings, presumably the bishop’s offices; so things were happening. But Lorraine continued along a narrow walk that led around the side of the church, to the entrance she’d first seen. The main door was open. Inside, a green chalkboard was set up in the aisle, with a dozen people sitting in nearby pews, while a tall black man spoke to them—in Spanish, of course; but going by the notations on the chalkboard, Lorraine guessed it was Bible study. And it was over almost at once: presumably Father Rodriguez had said ten o’clock because he knew that’s when it finished. A few people came out her way, but most went farther into the church and left by a side entrance, two taking the chalkboard with them; then she had the church to herself.
She stepped inside. Lorraine loved churches, but not all churches. Canterbury was special, and so was Westminster, but “great” churches filled her with awe, and she was never sure about awe. Her favourite churches were small, like All Souls in Charlottetown or King’s College Chapel in Cambridge. She was certainly in favour of exaltation and uplifting the spirit, but in the churches she liked she was hushed, her spirit set free in the quiet. And she began to feel this now in a church that had been so special to Murray. It was a lovely church, all white inside, full of light and softly moving air, fragrant with the garden outside. She thought of St. Anne’s in Kennebunkport, which was like a whaling dory turned upside down on the shore: this was a white shell lying beside it, stony smooth and bleached clean by the sun. A plain mahogany cross hung on the wall of the apse. She went up the aisle a few steps toward it, then made the sign of the cross (backwards, the Eastern way, as they all three did or had done) and slipped into a pew. She knelt. She closed her eyes. And at once Murray rushed into her mind, and then Don; and she smiled, remembering how she’d damned them both in Coppelia. Yes, she did owe them a prayer. And all at once, bringing them all together again, she was remembering—had they been watching Brideshead Revisited on television?—an argument about Waugh on the one hand, Graham Greene on the other, both converts even beyond Eliot’s conversion. Should they be tempted? That had been the question, the sort of question they’d loved to play with after dinner, or during summer afternoons with drinks on the dock. They’d decided, she remembered, that Waugh’s zeal was suspicious, in fact pretentious. It had certainly made his book ridiculous— Charles Ryder would never have been so rude. But then Greene might go too far in another direction: he believed in God almost by default, even in desperation; whether He existed or not, you had to believe in Him if you wanted any chance to be a good man . . . “though grace bails him ou
t,” Don insisted. In the end, they’d agreed that they were better off as they were. “After all,” Murray had said, “resisting temptation is the essence of Protestantism, and so God, in His Wisdom, created the Catholics.” She wondered, now, what she had thought; she wasn’t sure. But she must have had some opinion, for after all she was a convert herself—a convert to the beliefs her two men had been born to; so she had more in common with both Greene and Waugh, and Eliot, too. She admitted to a little of Waugh’s zeal, also Greene’s respect for simple piety. It came out here, in prayer. Now her own belief could find expression, her private piety shine forth; she was alone with Him—and she did seize her chance with zeal. She got in touch, she always felt, in a more personal way than either Don or Murray managed, or perhaps wanted; she allowed a little of the anthropomorphic to creep in. So now, letting her mind clear, and then sink away, she began to pray, praying for the peace of her husband and Murray, whispering the words in her mind so God could hear her voice, and then softly she said a little of “Sweeney” for both of them, and herself: and then she just prayed. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t; now it did, and she felt herself, quite as herself, merge with something larger, a wonderful restfulness. And then it was over. She lifted her head and she was simply waiting, but not unhappily, for she always found that time passed to a different measure in church, not exactly the beat of eternity, but it caught her up, carried her along, so she was never the least impatient.
In fact, Father Rodriguez appeared five minutes later, a stocky, light-skinned Cuban in a white, short-sleeved shirt worn outside of grey trousers, and displaying no obvious sign of his vocation. He came in at the side, where the Bible students had gone out, and strode up the aisle toward her. “Lorraine Stowe?” He had a deep voice, and bowed over her hand as he shook it. This was priestly enough; but he struck her as a man of business, rather than a professional, a commercial man, a dealer, or a broker in cloth or wine or machinery. She guessed he was thirty-five or forty years old. He sat in a pew across the aisle from her and turned his body to face her, leaning forward, his compactness gathered in to itself.