The Turquoise Mask

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  Still—the dream was not the deciding factor. It was my grandfather’s letter, the words my grandmother had written, and the miniature of my mother that made up my mind. I wanted to know the truth about Doroteo Cordova Austin—what she was like and how she had died. If there was some hidden tragedy there, I wanted it to be hidden no longer. As it was, I had roots on only one side of my family. On the other side there was empty soil that gave me an uneasy feeling. If there was darkness, it was a part of me, and I wanted to know about it. How could I understand myself when I knew nothing at all about half of my forebears? They had formed me too, and there had been times in my life when I felt an affinity to something other than my Aunt Beatrice’s rock-bound New England, or my father’s usually gentle ways. Sometimes there were storms let loose in me. Sometimes I too had an instinct toward that same highhanded imperiousness that showed itself in my grandfather’s letter. There seemed to be a suppressed passion in me, something that needed an outlet now lacking.

  So what was I? Until I knew, how could I offer myself in any sound human relationship? I had often surprised both Johnny and myself, and didn’t know why. Now I must find out.

  I reached for the telephone and dialed the number of an airline which flew into Albuquerque.

  II

  Outside the airport building there was a glare of afternoon sunlight where cars and taxis stopped to let out passengers or pick them up. I stood beside my bags, not far from the end doors and the baggage area, as the wire from my cousin Eleanor Brand had instructed me. No one had been there to meet me, and no one had come since I’d arrived, though others from my plane had already collected their baggage and gone.

  I waited a little impatiently, with a traveler’s anxiety. I had no idea what Eleanor would look like, and since I was standing in the appointed place, she would have to find me. I paid little attention to a woman, probably in her forties, who came rushing through a door, stopped abruptly, and stood looking toward the baggage section.

  That is, I paid no attention to her at first, except for a quick glance which told me she couldn’t be Eleanor. Somehow I expected Eleanor to be young. But when she continued to study me fixedly, I grew uneasy. This was more than the casual interest of a stranger, and I looked at her again, meeting her gaze with my own.

  She had short, rather deliberately brown hair and hazel eyes with the beginnings of crinkle lines about them. She was not very tall, but she wore her smartly tailored tan slacks well. Her citron-yellow blouse set off the strand of turquoise and silver she wore about her neck. One sensed a woman who tried a little desperately for a semblance of youth.

  When she realized that I too was staring, she seemed to recover herself and gave me a half-apologetic smile as she came toward me.

  “You’re Amanda, of course. You couldn’t be anyone but Doro’s daughter. I’m sorry I stared, but you stopped me cold and I had to take you in. The resemblance is startling. I couldn’t help wondering how much you’re like her.”

  Such frankness left me at a loss and I felt a bit prickly over being so openly examined.

  “Are you Eleanor—?” I began.

  “No, I’m not. Though I suppose I’m a second cousin or something.” She led the way toward an exit door. “I’m Sylvia Stewart, and my husband and I live next door to your grandfather. Have you been waiting long? I got off to a late start because they didn’t call me until the last minute and it’s an hour’s drive from Santa Fe. There’s trouble at the Cordova house. Eleanor has disappeared. Completely gone. God knows where. Her bed wasn’t slept in last night, and Gavin, her husband, was away until this morning, so he didn’t know. Here’s my car. Wait till I open up and put your bags in back.”

  I watched her store my sketchbook along with my two bags. I’d had no time to ask questions and I contained myself until Sylvia Stewart was behind the wheel and I beside her. At least she was a relative of sorts, and I could begin to learn about my family from her.

  “Have they any idea what has happened to Eleanor?” I asked as we pulled away from the curb.

  She gave me another studying look that seemed to weigh and consider, as though my appearance troubled her and she was searching for some conclusion about me. The insistence of her scrutiny made me uncomfortable because something I could not understand seemed to lie behind it.

  Her shrug was expressive and probably critical. “Who’s to tell what would happen to Eleanor? Maybe she’s been kidnaped, murdered—who knows? Though I expect that’s too much to hope for. She’s probably gone off somewhere on her own just to drive Gavin mad. She’s rather like your mother for doing the unexpected. That’s the wild Cordova streak that Juan is so proud of.”

  I hardly knew how to meet this torrent of haphazard information, and I gave my attention to the city outskirts we traveled through. Everything was bathed in a glare of bleached light, and I remembered involuntarily the light in my recurrent dream—blazing sunlight reflected back at the sky from the earth colors—dun and ocher—all around.

  No. Sand. The color of sand—of pale mud. The earth, the buildings, everything but a hazy cobalt sky was the color of sand. The landscape was a shock to eastern eyes accustomed to granite and concrete, or suburban greenery. Yet I liked the high intensity of light on every hand. It seemed familiar, and not just because of my dream.

  “I never knew my mother when I was old enough to remember her,” I said. “Apparently you did?”

  “I knew her.” The tone was dry, enigmatic. “I grew up with her. I grew up with all of them—the Cordovas, that is.”

  “It’s strange to be coming here to a family I know nothing about.”

  Again she turned her head with that openly searching glance. “You shouldn’t have come here at all.”

  “But why not—when my grandfather wanted me to come?”

  “Oh, I don’t suppose it could have been avoided, really. If you hadn’t come, Paul would have gone to see you in New York.”

  I was completely at sea. “Paul?”

  “Paul Stewart is my husband. You may know his books. He’s writing one now that you may be a part of. That is, you could be if you remember anything about the time when you lived here.”

  The name of Paul Stewart was vaguely familiar, but I didn’t know his books, and I didn’t see what I could possibly have to do with whatever he was writing now.

  “I don’t remember anything,” I said. “Nothing at all. Why should it matter when I was only a small child then?”

  There seemed to be a visible relief in her response to my words that puzzled me all the more.

  “Probably it doesn’t. Anyway, Paul will tell you about it himself. I’m afraid I can’t prevent that. Though I’ll admit I’m against what he intends.”

  This seemed a blind alley. “How ill is my grandfather?”

  “His heart is bad. Mostly he stays close to the house these days. To add to his troubles, there’s a clouding of his vision, so that he can’t see as sharply as he used to, and glasses won’t help. Of course he’s been threatening to die for years—to get people to do as he wants. But this time it’s for real. The doctors don’t know how long he may last and he’s not a very good patient.”

  “Then I’m glad I’ve come in time. I haven’t any other family. I don’t even know whether my grandmother is alive. I know nothing about her.”

  “Katy died nearly three years ago.” There was a softening in Sylvia Stewart’s slightly brittle tones. “Katy was wonderful. I’ll love her always. You know, of course, that she was an Anglo?”

  “I don’t know anything,” I said.

  “It’s like your father to do that—isolate you, I mean.” The softness was gone. “He told your grandfather off pretty thoroughly before he left. Though it was thanks to the Cordovas—to Juan—that the scandal about your mother was at least minimized and never erupted into the full-scale horror it might have become. Her death devastated Juan, and Katy’s heart was broken. Everyone adored your mother.”

  There was a hint of bittern
ess in her last words, and I shrank from asking this tart, gossipy woman about my mother’s death. I didn’t like the words “scandal” and “horror.” Whatever had happened, I wanted to learn about it from a more sympathetic source. It came through rather clearly that Sylvia Stewart had not liked my mother.

  “What was your relationship to Katy?” I asked.

  “Her sister was my mother. My parents died when I was fairly young, and Katy took us into her family and into her heart—my stepbrother, Kirk, and me. It never mattered to her that Kirk wasn’t related by blood. She was just as good to him as to the rest of us. Just the same, there wasn’t any nonsense about her. Katy came from Iowa farmlands and she hated adobe walls. But she loved Juan and she put up with them without complaining. After your father took you away, Katy used to send you presents and write you letters. But they were all returned and she had to give you up.”

  Until just before her death, when she’d written again, I thought, and I mourned her sadly. How could my father have done this to her and to me? No matter how much he had disliked Juan Cordova, he shouldn’t have kept me from my grandmother.

  “Katy could love without spoiling,” Sylvia went on. “In that way she was different from Juan. He has always spoiled everything human he’s touched with what he calls affection. He loved my stepbrother, Kirk, more than his own son, Rafael. I suppose they were two of a kind. But I’d rather be loved by a man-eating tiger! That’s what’s the matter with Eleanor. You can hope he’ll spare you his affection, Amanda.”

  This was something I’d have to find out for myself, and I didn’t mean to let this woman, second cousin or not, prejudice me against my grandfather. I drew her attention casually away from Juan Cordova.

  “I suppose there are other relatives living?”

  She was willing to talk. “Eleanor and Gavin Brand live in the house. When Gavin married Eleanor some years ago, he wanted them to have a house of their own. But old Juan wouldn’t have it.”

  As quickly as that, we were back on the topic of my grandfather. I let her go on.

  “Eleanor didn’t want to move out anyway. She wanted to stay close to Juan so she could influence him. Gavin had to listen when it came to the house, since he’s employed by Juan—though I’d say Juan is about the only one Gavin would listen to. Of course he should never have married Eleanor, but he was mad about her, the way men so easily are—just as they were about Doro. Are you like that, Amanda?”

  The bitter note was in her voice again and I glanced at her. She was looking straight ahead at the road, and she seemed not to care whether her words distressed me.

  “I’ve never thought of myself as a femme fatale,” I said coolly. “Tell me who else lives in the house.”

  She waved a hand toward the window on my side of the car. “Don’t miss the scenery, Amanda. That’s Sandia Peak out there. The Sandia Mountains guard Albuquerque the way the Sangre de Cristo range guards Santa Fe.”

  I looked out at the massive bulk that made a close backdrop to the city, but it was not scenery which interested me most just now.

  “I don’t even know how many children my grandfather had—only that my mother was one of them.”

  “She was the youngest. Clarita was the oldest. Clarita—never married.”

  There seemed a slight hesitation in Sylvia’s words, and again that bitterness I didn’t understand. But she went on quickly.

  “Clarita’s still there in the house and it’s a good thing your grandfather has her. Most things depend on Clarita these days. Then there was Eleanor’s father, Rafael, who married an Anglo, as your mother did. You’ll notice Katy had nothing to say about their names. They were all Spanish, thanks to Juan.

  “When Rafael grew up, however, he would have nothing to do with being Spanish-American. He rebelled from all that Spanish heritage your grandfather dotes on. He wanted to be all Anglo and he wanted to raise his daughter that way. But when Rafael and his wife were killed in the crash of a small plane, Juan took over as always. So Eleanor moved into Juan’s house and she’s been very close to him. Closer than she ever was to Katy, in spite of the efforts Katy made with her. Eleanor always had her own self-interest at heart. You might say her first attachment was to her grandfather when she was small, and then to Gavin Brand, who was always in and out of the place. Now, who knows?”

  Sylvia threw me one of her sidelong looks, and I suspected that she was testing the effect of all this upon me. I said nothing, and she went on without restraint, as if she were somehow eager to warn me away from my family.

  “From the time she was in her teens, Eleanor was bound she was going to have Gavin for a husband, and she succeeded in snaring him.” Tartness had turned corrosive in her dislike for Eleanor.

  “What does Gavin do for my grandfather?” I asked.

  “Everything! Mark Brand, Gavin’s father, was Juan’s partner when CORDOVA was first opened, and Gavin grew up in the business. Now that his father is gone, he’s manager and chief buyer, since Juan can no longer get around very much. Gavin tries to hold Juan to a little sanity. It’s really he who’s held the store together.”

  I told Sylvia about the page I’d torn from a glossy magazine—that ad about CORDOVA—and of how I’d made up stories about it to amuse myself.

  Sylvia shook her head. “Watch out for CORDOVA, Amanda. A long time ago it became the beast that rules the Cordovas. When we were young, we all knew the store came before any of us. Oh, not with Katy, but always with Juan. It’s the monument on which his life is built. Gavin’s rebelling though. There’s a war going on between them over more than Eleanor. Gavin may not be pleased to see you here. You may be a threat.”

  I couldn’t see how that was possible, but I let it go.

  “You don’t seem to like anyone connected with the Cordovas,” I said.

  I heard the soft gasp of the breath she drew in. “I wonder if that’s true. Maybe I haven’t much reason to like them—though they’re my family as well as yours, and I grew up with Clarita and Rafael—and Doro. I suppose I hate to see Doro’s daughter walk into the lair. Are you sure I can’t persuade you to turn around and fly back to New York?”

  I wondered why it should matter to her so much whether I stayed or left, but I didn’t hesitate. “Of course not. You’ve made me all the more eager to know them—and make up my mind for myself.”

  She sighed and raised one hand from the wheel in a helpless gesture. “I’ve done what I can. It’s up to you. I’d like to get away from Santa Fe myself and never see another Cordova. But Paul likes it here. It’s good for his writing, and he’s the only one I really care about. He’s lived in the house next door since before your mother died. When I married him he wanted to stay there.”

  She was silent after that, and I gave my attention to the straight, wide highway we were traveling at seventy miles an hour, the city left behind. Mesa country stretched on either hand—the color of pale sand, dotted with juniper bushes. A tree was a rarity, except where there was a stream bed with its sprouting greenery. Uneven hill formations sprang from the dusty ground, and always in the distance there were mountains. Sometimes the near hills bore slashes of dun red and rust and burnt orange, and the always-present juniper grew like green polka dots up their sides.

  I felt again that stab of familiarity. The brilliance of the light, the sand color, the wide sky above, the sense of space all around, as though the land ran on forever—all these were known to me. I had seen them before. A sense of excitement stirred in me, a feeling that I was coming home. This would be a wonderful landscape to paint. It was as if I had been born with an affinity for it. It invited me, belonged to me.

  “I think I remember this,” I said softly.

  Sylvia Stewart threw me a quick look and I sensed again some anxiety in her. The speed of the car lessened briefly as she gave me her attention.

  “Don’t try to remember, Amanda. Don’t try!”

  “But whyever not?”

  She would not answer that and gave her atte
ntion again to her driving.

  The air was clear and intoxicating to breathe as we climbed toward high Santa Fe. There was little traffic at this hour and the straight road arrowed north into the distance, with now and then a crumbling adobe hut by the wayside, but no real habitation anywhere.

  Recently, there had been a welcome rainstorm, and when the Sangre de Cristos came into view—the very foot of the Rockies—there was snow along the peaks. Below them the roofs of Santa Fe were visible. Anticipation began to quicken.

  Once we were within the city limits, the approach turned into the usual honky-tonk that mars the outskirts of most American cities. There were the cheap hamburger stands, the gas stations, and motels.

  “Pay no attention,” Sylvia said. “This is an incrustation, not the real Santa Fe. We live up near Canyon Road where the artists hang out. It’s an old part of town. But I’ll drive you through the center first, so you can have a taste of the old city. As we’ll tell you frequently, this town was founded ten years before the Pilgrims landed and it’s the oldest capital in the country.”

  I knew that. I had always loved to read about Santa Fe. Now, however, I had a curious sense of a city set apart from the world. Where I had lived, you could hardly tell where one town ended and the next began, while all around Santa Fe stretched the wide mesa country, and behind it crouched the mountains, shutting it in, isolating it. I had a feeling that once within its environs, I was leaving all the life I knew behind, and this was a feeling I didn’t altogether like. Foolish, of course. Santa Fe was an old and civilized city. This was where the conquistadores had come after marching through all those empty miles of desert. This was where the Santa Fe Trail had ended.