As he came, he almost cried aloud, “Rachel.” He thought maybe he started to say it, but it was lost under Alva’s groans and cries of, “Fuck me, Hector...love me harder.”
He’d been granted one wish — in her passion, Alva had bitten through his bottom lip. She clawed his back with her nails — just above his wounded kidney. As she came the last time, her teeth found his shoulder.
Stretched on his side, his heart pounding and his breath ragged, Hector’s fingers drifted to his mouth. He felt something wet and held his bloodied fingertips up to the fire.
“If I’m to be punished, I might as well be hung for a wolf as for a sheep.”— Colloquial saying
THE TREMOR OF INTENT
21
Hector came to at four. He knew it was four because Alva had a grandfather clock that chimed on the hour. He awakened two minutes ahead of the clock’s chime.
He was sprawled half-atop her, still inside her. She tried to turn in her sleep. Her unblemished skin glowed orange and copper in the firelight. He traced the line of her jaw with his thumb. She smiled and turned again, her eyelids fluttering.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I truly didn’t mean to wake you.”
“It’s okay.” She stroked his cheek. “You really are a good man, you know.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Why do you feel you have to ask? You don’t think you’re a good man?”
“I’m not sure there’s any such thing. I’m not a believer in black and white. We’re shades of gray...some grayer than others. I think I’m very gray.” Hector’s shoulder hurt a little where she’d bitten him. He could feel her nail wounds on his back.
Alva had surprised him with the raw level of her passion — she was much wilder than Rachel, who to that point in Hector’s life, had been the wildest of them all.
But Rachel had been mostly inebriated with Hector...flying on absinthe...then made crazy by the hurricane and all it stirred inside her regarding her father.
Alva was like fucking a wild animal, and she had been that way relatively sober, in the confines of her drafty place where the neighbors might hear.
She raised her left leg and her calf moved back and forth against his thigh. She raised it over his hip, her thigh pressed hard against his waist, just under his bruised back. She began moving under him.
Stirring inside her, he said, “You should get on that train with me.”
“You always like to talk while you make love?”
“This time, in this moment, yes,” Hector said. “Not that I have much to say. I want you to come back with me.”
“You’ve slept with me once and now you’re in love with me? Is that it?” Alva smiled. “If that’s it, well, it’s very old-fashioned...very sweet, but...”
“I’m serious, Alva, get on that train with me,” he said it, moving slow and hard inside her.
She groaned a little, half-smiling through nearly closed eyes. “What? Get on the train to Paris?”
“To there, yes. Then we’ll take a ship back to America.”
“We’ve made love — we’re making love, Hector. It was wonderful last night and it feels wonderful now. But what of it? Do you propose to build a life together on a night and a morning of...fucking?”
The coarseness of the word coming from Alva threw him. It also excited him, a little. “More’s been built on less,” Hector said.
“I have my work here...for the Republic.”
His elbows were carrying his weight now, and as he moved inside her she wrapped her thighs around his legs. She held his face in her hands so he couldn’t look away from her.
“It’s like I told Bishop — you can have your work in the states,” Hector said. “You can do it all there, but from a position of safety. A place where trains run on time and you can go out for a drink or a meal and not worry about being blown to rags by a falling shell. A place where crazy allegations can’t get you ‘disappeared.’”
“But the war—”
“—was lost by the Republic before the first shot was fired,” Hector said. “At best, the Republic is trapped in a holding action. Franco is backed by Mussolini. He’s backed by Hitler. The other European countries haven’t got the stomach or the will to stand against them yet. They think they can appease their own ways to safety. They think neutrality will buy them protection. As a consequence, the Republic is doomed. Spain will fall under fascist rule for a generation or more. The Loyalists talk of turning Madrid into a tomb for fascism. Brave talk. But they’ve only the got the first part right — moving through Madrid is like walking through a graveyard.”
Breathy, building toward another climax, Alva said, “And you claim you’re not political.”
“I’m not, but I am a strategical animal. A pragmatist and survivor. And just because I’m not political, doesn’t mean I’m not a patriot. And you, you’re still an American by birth. You haven’t renounced your citizenship, have you?”
“No,” she said, her eyes dilating — the fire flickering in them.
“So come back with me to the States. Fight them from cover...at least until there are some real allies for the bigger fight to come. The one we can win.”
“And where would that cover be? Would we live in that house in Key West where you and my sister loved one another? The place where you and Rachel were lovers? Doesn’t that seem...very wrong?”
“No, not in Key West,” he said, moving more quickly now, thrusting deeper. “I’m turning that house over to a rental agency. I’ll keep it, but make money on it. I won’t live there ever again.”
“Where will you go?”
“I’ve found another place, out west. Puget Sound. Specifically, Whidbey Island. I’ve found an old Victorian house there. It’s beautiful, Alva.”
“Another island,” Alva said. “Like Key West.”
“As the war grows in the east, I run to the west.”
“And to another island. You really are a loner in most ways.”
“But I don’t want to be alone.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said, her nails digging in again. She was panting now. She kissed him, her tongue parting his lips. He cupped her chin in one hand, pushing her face back where he could see her eyes. “You’ll really think about this?”
“I’ll really think about it, Hector.” She said, “Are you really going to kill this man?”
“I really am.”
“Are you sure you can do it?”
Hector hesitated. “He wouldn’t be the first.”
She wrapped her legs tighter around his hips, her ankles crossed behind his thighs.
In the distance, Hector could hear shells falling. Each shell sounded like it was falling a bit closer to their building. The impacts sounded like rolling thunder. He felt her shudder under him as a shell struck outside the building, shaking the ground under them. He said, “You don’t hear that back home.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t feel it,” she said. “But I wouldn’t miss not hearing it.”
There was a terrible crash outside. He felt Alva’s thighs tremble — felt her belly flutter under his.
She screamed then, wrapped tightly around him, taking him along with her.
“To me, a painter, if not the most useful, is the least harmful member of our society.”— Man Ray
ART AS A WEAPON
22
Late that morning, Hemingway came calling.
Hem was adamant Hector come with him for breakfast. Hem said, “If you’re really leaving day after tomorrow then we don’t have much time left together, Lasso. You know, in case something happens to me.”
Hector nodded. So: Hem was in the throes of another of his increasingly frequent, fatalistic doldrums.
Alva had excused herself from the breakfast — sensing, as Hector sensed — that her company would be unwelcome. While Hem loitered, wandering her loft and looking at her paintings, Hector helped Alva pack a few of her canvases and some sketches into a big cloth portfolio valise.
She had already wrapped the paintings in brown paper and twine, so Hector wasn’t sure which she had selected. He said, “None of these better be the ones I want.”
“No, I shipped those three you selected out to the states while you were showering, Hector,” she said.
Alva found the card given her the night before by Bishop Blair and smiled, holding the business card up. “Wish me luck, Hector?”
“Bonne chance, darling,” Hector said and kissed her. He wasn’t enthusiastic — her call on Bishop, to Hector’s mind, didn’t bode well for the possibilities of Alva leaving her doomed, adopted country to return to the states to live in sin on Hector’s new, good island.
Hector helped her on with his big leather coat and then pulled on his own aviator’s jacket with its fleece lining and collar. He took the bag with Alva’s paintings and led the way down the steep stairs from her loft to the street.
There was fresh debris strewn around the sidewalk in front of Alva’s building from the night’s bombardment. Hector looked up and saw the cornice had been blown off the facade.
“This is why you should come out west,” he said softly to Alva.
Hem sat up front with his trucks’ driver and Hector and Alva sat in back. “Too far to walk to that joint,” Hem had said, checking the card given Alva by Bishop. One thing Hector had to admit about Hem — the man had an uncanny sense of navigation and topography. Two days in any town and Hem owned it — knew where everything was and never forgot his way around. Hector figured you could drop Hem anywhere in Milan, certainly anywhere in Paris, and Hem would know just where he was.
They rolled to a stop in front of the studio. Hem helped Hector unload Alva’s packaged paintings and said, “I’ll send the car back with Hector for you in a couple of hours. Think that’s enough time?”
Alva, who clearly had Hem’s number, said, “You tell me.”
“Two hours it is, daughter,” Hem said, grinning.
“Until then, Hector.” She kissed him again on the cheek. Hector squeezed her arm. “Good luck, Alva. I mean it.”
“Anything comes up,” Hem said to Alva, “you can try and ring us at Chicote’s.”
***
“Sorry to tear you away from there,” Hem said, talking loudly over the roar of the truck’s engine. “Sorry to take you from the lady. Looks like you two are living up — or is it down? — to Alva’s alibi she supplied you.”
Hector shrugged. The cold wind across his face was making his eyes water again.
Hem smiled. “Little strange though isn’t it? I mean, you banged her sister, and now...?”
Hector shot Hem a look. Ernest raised both hands and said, “That was offside, yeah. If you’re good with it, and she’s good with it, well, it’s nobody’s business, right, Lasso? It’s nobody’s business who we’re fucking, not any of us, is it, Lasso?”
“Right.”
Hem slapped Hector’s thigh. He said, “Look-it, I wanted you to hear it from me, Lasso. Me and Dos, we’re quits for keeps.”
Hector raised his eyebrows. “What happened?”
“I told that fucker the truth, Lasso.”
“What truth?”
“The truth about goddamn Robles. That damned translator of Dos’ that went ‘missing’ last year. Dos has been indomitable, roaming around, asking foolish questions, poking his nose in it any way and anywhere he can. It was putting us all in danger...casting suspicion on all of us. A lot like you, and all the lose talk about you spying for fucking Hoover.”
Hector said, “You found out what happened to José Robles?”
“I have impeccable sources. I wasn’t going to tell him. I was trying to spare that fucking’ Portuguese bastard’s delicate sensibilities. Figured if a few months went by with no word, Dos would resign himself to the fact that Robles was likely dead and to be forgotten.”
That was a belligerent misreading of Dos’ personality, Hector knew.
Hem said, “So I finally told Dos today. Told him the truth. Robles was arrested and put in front of a firing squad for espionage shortly after the arrest. He’s dead. End of story.”
Hector heard the edge in his voice. “You break it to Dos, just like that?”
“What? I was supposed to dress it up?” Hem shrugged. “What? I was supposed to tell him something pretty and romantic with a capital R? I should make fucking Robles out to be Christ Himself on the cross?”
“Well, some would say yes, that a friend —”
“A friend isn’t what Dos has been, not for a very long time,” Hem said.
So, scratch Dos. Hem was right — his bench of old friends was getting sorry shallow. Hector wondered how long he had left to remain on Hem’s roster of still-tolerated old friends.
Hector didn’t want to hear more. He said, “This arrest last night...”
“Yeah, murder,” Hem said, pretty clearly happy himself for the change of topic. “Who were you supposed to have killed?”
“Lots of people, Hem. It’s happening again. Just like Key West — murders with the victims made to look like surrealist paintings and collages and photos. There’s a mixture of works now, but it’s the same damned thing.”
Hem was visibly unsettled. “Christ, I can hardly comprehend that.”
“Here’s the other thing: This killer has evolved some kind of social conscience — a political sensibility. The murders are being staged to provide the possibility of anti-fascist propaganda.”
“Least he picked the right side,” Hem said, distractedly. “This reminds me of something I heard. Crazy stuff I dismissed at the time, but based on what you’re telling me, it takes on a whole dark new light. They say that there are these hidden interrogation centers, mostly around Barcelona. Here’s the thing Hector: They say they have evolved a new system of psychological torture that draws on the work of the surrealists...Bunuel, Klee and Dali and the rest of those women-hating bastards. The guy who pioneered this stuff is named Alphonse Laurencic. He’s a kind of anarchist artist. They say he and a group of fellow artists invented this new form of psychological torture that they call ‘psychotechnic interrogation.’”
This was too much, even for Hector. He said, “This sounds like crazy talk.”
“No, it’s real enough,” Hem said. “I believe it now, anyway. I’ve heard this stuff from more than one good source. Some of those sources are surrealists themselves. You know, like Blair, they were here to provide their painting talents for posters and the like. Then some of them got co-opted.”
Hector said, “What do they do in these secret cells?”
“My understanding is that the rooms the prisoners are placed in are like something out of Escher. The beds are tilted at twenty-degree angles, so you can’t really sleep on them. The benches are the same — plant your ass on one and you hit the floor. The cells aren’t very large, and the floors are covered with bricks and geometric blocks — those make it impossible for prisoners to move around...to walk or try to get any exercise. The blocks also make it impossible to sleep on the floors. The walls of the cells are curved and covered with these wild patterns of shapes and lines and spirals and optical illusions. It’s all forced perspective and counter-intuitive proportioning. The lights flicker and strobe in the rooms all day and night. They say nobody has survived, or at least stayed sane, for more than two or three days in one of these cells.”
“So much for the Geneva Convention,” Hector said.
“Rules in war are a joke, Lasso. We both know that. When you’re in a war, there’s only one thing to do — win the fucker any way you can. All the rest is shit and salve for the conscience.”
“It’s a lot to swallow — these surrealist torture chambers,” Hector said.
“So are murders modeled after paintings.”
“Touché.”
Hem frowned suddenly, looking up. “Hear that?”
“What?”
Hem slapped his driver’s shoulder. “Stop, now!”
Ernest grabbed Hector by the arm as the truck skid
ded to a stop. Hem dragged Hector from the truck and threw him on the ground and lay atop him. Hector almost passed out from the weight of the burly novelist on his hurting kidney. He wanted to crack a homo joke about Richard Halliburton or Sidney Franklin, but the pain was too great. As he twisted around under Hem for a view of the street, Hector heard it — the shrill, whistling whine of an incoming shell. Hector felt the ground move under them and the heat blowing under the truck. The truck lifted up onto two wheels. Hector was afraid they might be crushed by the truck as it rolled toward them, but it tipped back down onto all four wheels. Hem and Hector rose and saw that their driver had not left the truck. A piece of metal had caught him in the side of the head and he sat dead, both hands clutching the steering wheel, his eyes still open.
A woman was screaming.
The two writers turned together and saw a woman in a tattered dress and scarf holding a boy — perhaps of four — by one arm. The boy was dangling by his arm, his mouth open and eyes wide, staring at his own severed leg laying several feet away. The blast had severed the boy’s leg just above the knee. Blood was pumping furiously from the boy’s truncated thigh.
Hem, the son of a physician, began running toward the boy, stripping off his own coat and yelling back to Hector whose ears were still ringing from the blast, “His femoral artery is severed, Lasso. He’ll bleed out.”
Hem wrestled the boy from his mother’s arms and laid him on his back. He wrapped his coat tight around the boy’s stump and started applying direct pressure. Hector slipped off his own belt, wrapped it around the boy’s thigh, a few inches above the amputation site, and cinched it tight.
Hem said, “That’s damned good work, Lasso. That’s got it.” Hem lifted the boy and then said in ungrammatical Spanish to the boy’s screaming mother, “You ride with us, little mother.” Hem then began running back toward their truck. Hector led the way. He grabbed their dead driver and tossed his body into the road. Hector was about to swing into the driver’s seat when Hem said, “No, Lasso, I know the roads. I know the closest way to the hospital.”
Toros & Torsos (The Hector Lassiter Series) Page 15