Hector said, “Now who’s talking a lot of bull, Quentin?”
The critic looked up at Hector and frowned. The critic’s nose was bent severely leftward. Hector smiled meanly — he thought it lent character to the bastard’s formerly too-pretty face.
Hem said, “Lasso, it’s swell you’re here!” He stood up quickly and walked around the table and grabbed Hector’s arm, pulling him away from Quentin. Hem held another hand out to the dark-haired woman now staring curiously up at Hector.
Hector realized that his lips were dry and his heart pounding. Jesus, but the woman looked like a brunette version of Rachel.
Hem pulled her to her feet and said, “I have another table reserved over here.” He pulled Hector and Alva along. Hem signaled a waiter who rushed over with a bottle of Rioja Alta. Three generous glasses were poured. Hector was already determined to nurse his. Yet he felt his hand nervously stray to the stem of his wineglass. He thought, Old vices, like whores, die hard.
Hector couldn’t take his eyes off Rachel’s near twin.
Hem said, “Alva Taurino, this is my best and most trusted friend, Hector Lassiter — the best man to have at your back in any fight.”
That was laying it on well beyond thick, but Hector was grateful for Hem’s over-the-top endorsement. Hector held out a hand and the woman took it and shook it lightly. An indifferent handshake, but she was candidly sizing him up. She said, “Thanks for all you did for Rachel in Florida, Mr. Lassiter. For seeing her through the hurricane. For trying to help Rachel with the matter regarding her friend. And for all you went through as a result of knowing my sister.”
“You know about the hurricane and her murdered friend, then?”
“Partly from Mr. Hemingway. Also from a letter Rachel wrote me...evidently the day she...well, you know. She was terribly fond of you.” Alva sipped her wine and then unclasped her purse. She pulled out a gunmetal cigarette case and slipped out a cigarette. Hector fished the pocket of his tweed sports jacket for his lighter. She narrowed her eyes as the inscription on his Zippo caught the low light. She reached out again and took his hand, turning it so she could read the words on his lighter. Hector savored her touch. She said, “You two really do go back.”
Hem said, “All the way to the trenches of Italy. And I see my other guest is coming. I’ll leave you two to talk...but don’t be antisocial, children. We’ll be expecting you back to the party soon. Enjoy the wine. In vino veritas, am I right, daughter?”
Hem rose, and limping slightly, he dodged waiters and tipsy patrons to meet and embrace a tall, strawberry-blond woman in a heavy, silver fox fur coat.
Alva said, “I’ve read some of your novels, since getting that last letter from Rachel. I enjoy them.”
“Enjoy?”
“Maybe not the right word,” she said, half-smiling. “I’m gripped by your novels and I appreciate them,” she said.
“Hem says you’re a painter.”
“I try.”
“Hem says you go well beyond that, and he knows art.”
She shrugged, smiling and staring at him.
Resisting the urge to squirm, Hector said, “I was very sorry to hear about your husband. Not to be indelicate, but what’s keeping you in Spain, now, as it is? You’re an American...you can leave. Certainly go somewhere safer than here, which is to say, anywhere.”
“Spain has been home for many years,” she said, pausing to sip more of her wine. “It feels like home in ways the States never did. And to leave now would be—” she searched for words. She finally said, “To leave now would not so much be cowardly, or selfish, but maybe akin to a failure of character and artistic nerve in some way. Many painters are here now. Or they are in spirit. The surrealists, particularly, are using their art to help the Republic. Picasso, Miro, Dali...many more artists in Barcelona. They’re using their art to oppose Franco. Some of them are creating propaganda posters...placing veiled statements against fascism in their paintings, and perhaps doing that at great personal risk.” She sighed. “You’re frowning. You disapprove? You’re against the Republic?”
Hector didn’t need to further undermine his foundering reputation in Madrid’s politically charged milieu. He said, “No, it’s not like that at all. I’m just always a bit leery of artists who inject politics into their works. I’m maybe not qualified to speak as to painting or sculpture or theatre. But putting politics into prose — I mean fiction — well, it nearly always destroys the fiction. Art, if it’s good, endures. But the politics of the moment, regardless how fiery or worthy, are the most transient things of all. At best, injecting politics into a novel dates it. At worst, it mutilates it.”
Alva nodded slowly. “A legitimate concern in some ways. Particularly if legacy or broad commercial appeal is what really matters to you. Sometimes, you have to give yourself over to something greater than yourself, Mr. Lassiter. I’ve truly come to believe that. For example, I don’t think a fascist government would ever countenance the kinds of books you write. Much as I admire them, or even enjoy them, they’re not what I’d call edifying.”
“I’m not sure I even know what that last word means,” Hector said, smiling.
“I’m sure that’s not so, Mr. Lassiter.”
“Hector, please.”
“Hector. You lay on that Texas accent when it serves you, but you’re your own kind of smart.”
“Right. And is that what you’re doing? Using your art to help the Republic?”
“Yes. At least I hope that I am. I’ve painted several posters — recruitment posters...pleas for money and donations to help the Loyalist cause.”
Hector hesitated, then said, “I just want to say now, before I forget or don’t get the chance, that you’re agreeing to meet with me this evening — and to be so, well, gracious and tolerant toward me — it means very much to me.”
“Why? Do you feel some sense of guilt, Hector? Do you think I should bear you some grudge for what happened to Rachel?”
“No, but under similar circumstances, some others might, regardless of the facts.”
“From all I know, you did all you could to help my sister and to protect her. The man who did this to her — whoever he may be — him I hate. I would kill him myself. But by now, he might also be dead. I wonder if he isn’t. I mean, in the years since, have you heard of more killings like those that happened in Florida?”
“No. At least, not around there.”
“Elsewhere?”
Hector realized he was staring at Quentin Windly. “No,” he said softly. “No, I’ve heard of nothing like them.”
That wasn’t true. A year or so before, while working in Hollywood, Hector had shared a dinner with Orson Welles, an aficionado of Mexican bullfights. Orson had told Hector of a string of strange murders of men around Mexico City that some were whispering seemed to echo some of the works of Remedios Varo — one of the rare female surrealists.
“It was so strange, as Rachel described it in her letter...and as Mr. Hemingway has described it.” Alva exhaled smoke and stubbed out her cigarette. “Those murders, I mean.”
“They were sublime and diabolical,” Hector said.
She gestured at his goblet. “You’re not drinking your wine.”
Hector was naked about it. He said, “It’s starting to feel like a problem. So I’m trying to taper off...had quite a lot whisky earlier today. You know the old Catalan gypsy proverb? ‘The man takes the drink, then the drink takes the man.’”
Hemingway suddenly called, “Hector, one true sentence: ‘A man truly alone—’”
“‘—has no last words,” Hector called back. For whatever reason, they were evidently being summoned back to the main table by Hem — their old game was the signal — but Hector didn’t want to go there yet.
Hem said, “Not your worst effort. Your turn, Lasso.”
Martha Gellhorn, sitting next to Hem, was watching Hector carefully — one of the ones who didn’t trust him. He didn’t sense Martha regarded him as Pauline’s
spy — she saw Sidney Franklin as that — but rather as a spy in the deadlier sense. Hector put away his Zippo. Meeting Martha’s gaze, he said, “I’m afraid I’m flush out of true sentences, Hem.”
Hector stood and said, “I’m going to take the air.” He extended a hand to Alva. “You up for a stroll — get away from the noise for a time?”
Alva took his hand. “It’s too cold just to walk, aimlessly. But there’s a little café around the corner that makes excellent coffee.”
“Then let’s go there.”
“Max Ernst died on the 1st of August 1914. He resuscitated the 11th of November 1918 as a young man aspiring to become a magician and to find the myth of his time.”— Max Ernst
RETIRADA
17
They stopped at the coat closet and Hector turned in his claim tag for his longer, sheepskin-lined leather overcoat that reached just below his knees. Alva turned in her own tag and was handed a heavy, worn-looking sweater — hardly enough against the chill. She frowned at Hector, who was staring at her sweater, holding it up for her as she turned to slip her arms through. “Money is scarce for a time,” she said, her back to him now. “I’ve been modeling to make ends meet.”
Hector took that wrong. He said, “You’re quite beautiful — many magazines must be after you.”
“Not that kind of modeling. It’s life modeling, at the art school...and privately for painters and photographers. That work is chilly, too.” Hector nodded slowly, closing her sweater around her. He shrugged off his leather coat and wrapped it around Alva’s shoulders. The coat’s hem nearly reached her ankles.
“It looks much better on you,” he said.
“But you’ll be cold,” she said.
“You said it’s a short walk.”
They stepped out into the dark — the streetlights were all turned off to avoid giving the fascists any assistance in targeting for their nighttime bombardments. Alva started to take Hector’s arm, then stepped around to his other side, taking his left arm. “Papa says you’re also staying in the Hotel Florida.”
They had to step around occasional expanses of rubble and everywhere broken glass lay under foot. Some of the shelled-out buildings’ still-standing façades moved in the wind, creaking and spitting bricks...sending Alva and Hector into the darkened, empty street.
“I think most of us are there,” Hector said. “It’s like a hive, with all that implies.”
“But they’re shelling the hotel,” Alva said. “It seems very dangerous, even self-destructive to stay there.” Their breath trailed frostily behind them as they walked to the café.
“Actually, they occasionally hit the hotel,” Hector said. “I’m told they’re really aiming for the telephone exchange.”
Alva said, “That man back there...Quentin, the bullfight reviewer — or he was until the fights were suspended here for the war — you know each other? And you hate each other too? It seemed so from the looks of things back there.”
“He was in Key West in ’35,” Hector said. “He also knew your sister, however briefly. I broke his nose.”
She looked up at him, scowling. “He tried to take liberties with Rachel? Is that why you hit him?”
“It wasn’t quite like that.” Hector reached out with a stiff hand and grabbed the brass handle of the café’s door, wincing at the burn of the cold metal. He guessed it would soon be below freezing.
There were relatively few people in the café, just two or three couples — some probable journalists who gave Hector the eye, then shifted attention to Alva, giving her the eye, but in a different way. Their leers didn’t escape Alva’s attention. She pulled Hector’s coat back over her shoulders, shrugging off a little chill. They found a table by a stone fireplace that dominated the center of the café. Hector ordered two espressos, then pulled out his cigarette lighter and last pack of Pall Malls — he hated European cigarettes and was still trying to decide what brand he’d settle for.
Alva pulled out her cigarette case and Hector lit her cigarette. She took his lighter from him and weighed it in her hand. “Papa’s worried about you, you know. He says what happened in Key West nearly ‘swamped’ you. I’m so sorry for that.”
“Not your fault.”
“He’s freshly worried, too. He says you ‘have no politics.’ That you’re here to look after him at the behest of his wife. But he also says that because you haven’t taken sides — at least not sides anyone can detect — that people are talking. They think you’re a spy. The Spanish, depending on their own loyalties, think you’re spying for Franco, or for the Republic. Your countrymen think you’re spying for your government, or the FBI.”
“I’ve heard. I’m here like Hem said — as a favor to his wife, and to see a little of this for myself. They say in four or five years, tops, we’ll be in the thick of a world war against fascism. Some think maybe that wider conflict can be avoided if Franco is stopped here, now.”
“Do you think that, Hector?”
“I think there’ll be plenty of wars for a very long time for those who care to go to them.”
“You should leave, like Papa says. One of these people who suspect you would only have to denounce you to the authorities or the secret police, Hector. You’d be hauled off...possibly tortured. Probably killed. Once they have you, and they work over you for a time, well, they can hardly release you back to your own government. They can’t risk the scandal of having falsely imprisoned or tortured a foreign national.”
“So they kill them instead?”
“Yes. Make them ‘disappear.’”
Hector sipped his espresso, staring at the end of his cigarette. “Well, as it happens, I’m thinking of leaving in a couple of days. Time to get back to Key West...warm up. Get back in fighting trim, wrestling those big fish.”
Alva smiled. “Rachel wrote that your island is beautiful. She wrote that it is like a curious mixture of the Left Bank and a frontier town.”
“Sounds about right. At least it used to be that way.”
She hesitated. “She loved you. Did you know that?”
Hector sat back in his chair. He took a deep breath, then said, “She didn’t say it. We had just a few days together. I knew so little about her. She...well, she told me how it was with your father.”
“That bastard. Sometimes I think of going to Los Angeles — he lives there now — and killing him myself. What he did to Rachel...”
“And to you?”
“He never touched me. I wouldn’t let him.”
Hector winced and took a deep breath. That implied Rachel hadn’t fought their father’s advances. Alva said, “Did you love her, Hector? Did you love Rachel?”
Hector didn’t have to think about it. “Yes, I fell in love with her. I miss her still.”
Alva almost looked stricken. She bowed her head. “Is that guilt for what happened, or real affection?”
“Truthfully? Both.”
“Of course. And even more tragic.” She looked back up at him, her eyes wet.
“How are you doing, Alva? Since your husband, I mean?”
“Coping. I paint...try to help the cause. I’m able to maintain our apartment, mostly with the modeling. I’m still not really making money on my own painting.”
“You live close by? You have some of your works there?”
She nodded, narrowing her eyes.
“When we finish our coffee, I’d like to see your paintings,” Hector said. “I collect, modestly, but I collect. I have a Picasso, some Harts...a Matisse. I should have a Taurino.”
“An ‘Alva,’” she said, smiling. “That’s how I sign them. But you don’t have any obligation—”
“Desire. Not obligation.”
“Interesting choice of words, Hector. I—”
“Mr. Lassiter! It is you!”
This small little black-clad man, leaning heavily on a cane, limped over to the table. He took off his beret to reveal a bald scalp covered with liver spots. Hector remembered then: Bishop Blair, t
he surrealist painter.
He took the man’s tiny hand and shook it. The grip was still weak, but, having just come in from the cold, Bishop’s handshake was at least dry this time. Hector introduced Alva and the little man appeared shaken as he took her hand and raised its back to his mouth. He said, wonderingly, “You could be your sister, Mrs. Taurino.”
Alva nodded. “Everyone has said so. Being younger, and inheriting her clothes, her teachers...her friends’ younger sisters, well...” She ran a hand through her chestnut hair. “I kept my hair dark, though it wasn’t ever enough to avoid confusion.”
Hector remembered Rachel’s longer, blond hair, and the hair between her legs that the sheriff had relied upon to help identify Rachel’s body. The “collar and cuffs” had matched...attention to detail on Rachel’s part, Hector guessed.
Hector pulled over a third chair and gestured for the little man to join them. He said, “And Mrs. Blair?”
“Harriet died fourteen months ago — a terrible stroke, that left her paralyzed...hardly able to speak intelligibly. She survived another three months, then had a second stroke that killed her — a massive brain hemorrhage. You know, for those last few months, she liked me to read to her. I reread all of your books to her, Mr. Lassiter, including your last one, Wandering Eye, which brought Key West back to both of us so vividly. They were a great entertainment and diversion for us both. I’m a fan now.”
Hector smiled. “I liked Harriet. And when I saw you just now, I wondered what in God’s name you’re doing here.”
“At first I came thinking to reinvent myself,” Bishop said. “Or, at least to reinvigorate myself. Many of us are here...painting to make statements...painting to generate propaganda and support for the Republic. The fascists would never let us paint what we want. Neither would the communists. So we fight in our own way — through out art, to protect our art. We share a studio a few blocks from here. We paint there...posters, handbills...some pure art, as well. By that, I mean works that aren’t directed toward overt propaganda.”
Toros & Torsos (The Hector Lassiter Series) Page 12