by Pam Lewis
“I leave soon for Tessa’s,” she said to the back of his head.
He made a growl of assent.
“You were gone all night.”
He rolled onto his back. “Little Minke is angry at her Sander.” He pulled the pockets out of his pants so they stuck out like a pair of big white ears.
“You lost all our money?”
He seemed to think it was very funny. “Not all.”
“How could you?”
“Come on. Come to Papa.”
“You’re not my papa.”
“Come here.”
Reluctantly, she sat beside him on the bed.
“Give poor Sander a smile.”
He was being so silly she couldn’t help herself.
“Do something for me?”
She sighed. “What?”
“Find out about Dietz.”
“Find out what?” she asked.
“Anything at all.” He rolled onto his back and shut his eyes.
8
THE HORSES WERE tied to the rail in front of the hotel, prancing and snorting warm breath in the frigid air. Pieps, Goyo, and Cassian were waiting, and as soon as she came through the door, Pieps and Goyo mounted. Cassian wove his fingers together for a leg up into the saddle. She felt bulky in her coat, wool mittens, a hat, and heavy scarf, which she pulled up over her nose against the wind. Underneath, she was wearing her wedding dress again, the only dark one she owned, tattered at the hem from walking through the muck and ice.
“Sander worked late into the night,” she said over the wind and the anxious sidestepping of the horses, hoping to explain away his absence.
Cassian said something in Spanish to Goyo, blew her a kiss with the fingers of both hands, and the three were off into the bright, cold day. They moved along at a canter out of town toward the rolling hills. It was amazing how quickly her spirits lifted in the presence of the majesty spread before her. The pampas, she thought with a thrill. An eternity ago she had sat at Sander’s dinner table while Griet spoke with disdain of the pampas and the filth of the gauchos. Now she watched Goyo’s back. The man was nothing short of magnificent. He sat his horse as if one with it, he and the beast moving in unison. Every so often he would take off at a gallop, come back smiling broadly, and they would continue on. None of them spoke, but there was comfort in the silence, and she felt bound to them and small in the midst of such splendor.
Over low swells of land, they traveled to terrain that was flat as a table and where shallow pools as big as lakes had formed from the rains and now were covered in the thinnest veneer of ice. Goyo galloped through them, sending up arcs of water. She dug her heels into the sides of the horse and galloped as well, to her own great clattering of hooves and sprays of water. Occasionally, a herd of cattle was to be seen and, once in a while, a distant horseman, but otherwise they saw no one on their journey. Twice Pieps pointed out clusters of trees marking estancias in the distance. Trees, he explained, had to be cultivated here. They didn’t grow on their own.
In the early afternoon, cold and stiff from the journey, they came to a wide river. Goyo pointed across it to a hill rising sharply on the opposite bank and spoke to Pieps, who translated. Apparently, Dietz’s estancia was at the top of that hill, and they would have to ford the river. The horses circled, snorted, and stamped their hooves in their reluctance to cross. Goyo made a hissing sound that calmed them for a while, but it was clear the water made them nervous. Minke had never seen such a river, so swift and frothing over rocks, almost placid at the center where it was deepest.
Without a word, Goyo plunged his horse into the river. “Watch him,” Pieps said to Minke. “So you’ll know what to do.” Her heart pounded as she took in every detail. Goyo let the reins go slack, lay forward on the horse’s neck, and held the mane in both hands. The horse took cautious, unwilling steps into the rushing water, its hooves sounding on underwater stones. When the water was up to its chest, Pieps said, “The horse will swim now.” He cocked his head. “Scared?”
“Of course not.” She was terrified, but if they could do this, so could she.
“Good girl.”
Goyo’s horse sank low until only its head showed above the water, straining high to keep its nostrils clear. Goyo slid off the left side. She stifled a scream, afraid he had fallen and would be washed away, but Pieps laughed. “He did that for you. You may need to do as he does.”
Goyo held on to long leather strings that trailed from the saddle, his body pressed against his horse by the current. He slipped well behind his horse, where he had the animal by the tail. He was pulled along until the horse regained her footing on the opposite bank. Goyo swung back into the saddle. The horse gave a violent shake and water pinwheeled, glistening in the sun. Minke’s mare danced, sidestepped, threw her head. Pieps drew up alongside. “Stay in the saddle if you can. If you go in, grab anything. Best is the tail. Don’t get in front of your horse by any means. Do you understand? It’s opposite in water from on land. Behind the horse is safe. In front is not.” He gave her horse a slap on the rump, and she was on her way. The horse moved reluctantly forward.
“I wasn’t ready!” she screamed at him over the rush of water.
“You are now,” he shouted back. “Give her your heels!”
She kicked hard, leaned down on the mare’s steaming neck, pressed her cheek to the warm fur and gripped the mane in her mittened hands. Icy water filled her boots and flooded over her coat and skirts. She hung on, water up to her waist now, everything soaked through, and in only moments the horse was swimming with a lurching grace that made it easy to keep her seat. Then the whole ordeal was over, the horse clattered over stones and out of the water, and she’d stayed on. Pieps was right behind her, coming up on the bank. “Hang on hard,” he shouted, and at that moment her horse shook like a dog from the head all the way back, the great barrel of a midsection throwing her this way and that. Pieps was laughing and pointing up the hill, where Goyo had already begun the climb.
At the crest of the hill, the land flattened again onto a vast steppe, on the other side of which, way in the distance, higher mountains began in earnest. The estancia came into view, a long, low building made of dark brick, its roof thatched with rushes, and standing in a grove of naked willow trees. The three galloped toward it, clattered over the brick terrace, and dismounted quickly. Pieps and Goyo hurried the horses toward the barn, which was separate from the house by about a hundred feet, leaving Minke alone to rap at the door, shaking all over, teeth chattering. When no one answered, she entered, stooping under the low door and into a white-plastered room with a brick floor. “Hello?” she called. No answer. The furniture was made of black and white cattle skins stretched over frames. Little figurines crowded every table surface, and paintings of saints hung on the walls. “Tessa?”
From deeper in the house came the squawk of birds. Shivering, she crept from room to room, stooping at each low door and calling Tessa’s name until she found her. Tessa was sitting up in bed, her pink face puffy and bulging over the stiff collar of her gown. A blue parrot sat on one shoulder, and several smaller yellow birds flew about the room in alarm.
“Tessa.” Minke managed the word through chattering teeth.
Tessa rolled from the bed. Although it was midafternoon, she still had on her nightclothes and smelled a little ripe. “Well, well. I didn’t know if you’d come.” She hugged Minke to her large bosom and recoiled. “Ach! You’re soaking wet!”
“We c-c-c-crossed the river.”
Tessa pouted, considering, then led the way down a dark hallway. Minke followed along unsteadily until they reached a small room in which some clothing lay folded on a long bench. “Put those on,” Tessa said, winded, and lowered herself into a chair.
Minke removed her clothing, too cold for modesty. It took a long time with her stiff fingers. Her coat and dress dropped to the floor, and when she accidentally stepped on the pile, water squished from it. Her skin was blue.
“So,�
� Tessa said with a frown when Minke had finished. “Look at you in my Astrid’s clothing.”
She should have recognized Astrid’s gray skirt and black blouse. “Oh, Tessa, there must be something else I can wear until my clothing dries. I don’t want to bring you pain.”
Tessa shouted for someone, and an Indian girl appeared, scooped up the wet clothing from the floor, and fled.
“Who was that?”
“Just one of the servants.”
“You have a lovely home.”
“You should have seen my house in Amsterdam. Does my husband send news?”
“No news, only medicine.”
Tessa lit up. “You brought it?”
“In my bag.”
“Let’s go get it before we forget.” She lumbered from the room, the parrot rooted to her shoulder. The house was a chain of rooms connected by a narrow hallway. “Don’t go in there,” Tessa cautioned at one of the doors. “It’s Frederik’s study. He knows when things have been touched.”
The room Minke was to sleep in was at the back, with a narrow bed under the window, a table, and a door to the outside. The estancia walls were so thick that the windowsill was as deep as a table. The brick floor was covered in carpets that overlapped here and there. Minke’s case had already been brought to the room. She rummaged among her things and found the package Dietz had given her for Tessa, who slipped it into the pocket of her dressing gown.
“How did you get here?” Tessa asked.
“I rode one of your mares. I was accompanied by the gaucho Goyo and Pieps from the ship.”
Tessa’s face soured. “Are they in the house?”
“They took the horses to the barn.”
“Don’t let them in the house. They’ll steal.”
“They won’t!” Minke said. “They’re fine men, both of them. You have nothing to fear.”
“Elisabeth would have seen things my way.”
“You knew her?” That came as a surprise.
“Of course. And the children.” Tessa’s chubby hand batted the air.
“You knew Sander before we sailed?” She hated to belie her ignorance all the time, but here it was again. She thought they’d all met for the first time on the Frisia.
“In Amsterdam everybody knows everybody. Come, I’ll show you the estancia, such as it is.”
Minke’s room gave onto a courtyard where the dirt floor was hardened to a shine. Opposite was the kitchen, where two women were at work. Neither one raised her eyes, but Minke recognized the younger as the one who’d taken away the wet clothing. Beyond the kitchen and across another courtyard was an enormous heap, as high as the house, of dried stalks. “Wild artichoke,” Tessa said, anticipating the question. “The stuff burns like tissue and throws off no heat. Ach! This country!”
Pieps and Goyo were tending the horses outside the barn. Pieps straightened, but Goyo kept working. They were a sight, Minke thought. Both men filthy and foul-smelling, still wet, the horses steaming in the cold air. Goyo’s hair lay in tangles across his shoulders. He was seeing to his horse, carefully combing out its tail.
“How long will these men be here?” Tessa asked.
“As long as I am,” Minke said. “They’ll see me home again.”
Goyo kept on combing his horse.
“Perhaps you remember Pieps from the Frisia,” Minke said. Tessa shook her head. “He taught me to ride your mare.” Minke ventured, “Astrid said she would teach me. She must have been a fine rider. I miss her terribly.”
“We’ll have tea,” Tessa said, turning to leave. “And I mean real tea, not that dreadful maté they drink. You,” she said, turning back to address Pieps. “You can sleep in the barn, if you like, and him”—she motioned to Goyo, who was still ignoring her in favor of his horse—“those people sleep outside even when there’s a roof available.” She shook her head and headed back toward the house. Minke whispered quickly to Pieps, “Please excuse her. She grieves for her daughter.”
They settled into the parlor at the front of the house on the rawhide chairs before the fire. Minke had stopped shivering but was exhausted and now deliciously drowsy from the heat and fighting off a powerful desire to sleep. The blue parrot flew hugely into the room and found its way back to Tessa’s shoulder. “It’s a backward country, don’t you agree?” Tessa asked.
“But it’s also beautiful,” Minke said. “The sea, the mountains.”
Tessa smiled. “You’re blinded by love.”
“He treats me like a princess.”
Tessa jutted her lip. “It was like that for me once.”
The serving girl came in with tea just then, and Minke thanked her.
“Don’t thank them. They’re only doing their jobs,” Tessa said once the girl was gone. She fumbled in her pocket and removed the package of medicine, poured a few drops into her tea, and sipped.
“And Meneer? He does well with his oil drilling?”
“Who wants to know?” Tessa eyed her shrewdly, stuffing the package back into her pocket.
“That was his purpose in coming to Argentina, yes?”
“Are you hungry?” Tessa passed a platter of bread to Minke. “I look at you and mistake you for my Astrid. Then I remember.”
Minke had the urge to put her arms around the woman and soothe her. It must be the worst thing in the world to lose a child. “I’ll change into my other clothes as soon as they dry.”
“I need to accept the fact that I have no child,” Tessa said.
Minke bit into the bread. “We’re both in the same situation, in many ways,” she offered. “European women alone in a country where there are no other women to talk to. It can be lonely. We can be allies.”
“If she hadn’t been up on deck with you that day and caught a chill, she mightn’t have died.”
Minke looked blankly at Tessa. “The wave just rolled over us.”
“You knew she was frail.”
“You blame me?”
“They never should have thrown her into the sea. It was barbaric.”
“I thought so, too, at the time.” If Tessa needed to lash out in her grief, Minke could withstand the assault.
“Your husband was behind that.”
“No, he wasn’t. Sander deferred to Captain Roemer. The owner defers to the captain in such matters.”
“Owner?” Tessa came to life. “Owner? Sander DeVries?”
“I thought so.” The whole business of ship ownership was murky. Minke tried to recall where she’d gotten the idea in the first place. Mama? Before Sander ever came to the house that day, people had said he owned ships.
“Sander is scarcely the owner of the Frisia.”
This was going all awry. Minke was supposed to be learning about Dietz, and here she was being interrogated. She sat up straight, smoothed her skirt. “Your husband was telling us about his many oil discoveries.”
Tessa shut her eyes for several moments. Her whole face seemed to melt. “There,” she said with a sigh. “That’s better now, once the medicine takes hold.”
“You’re not well?”
“How could I be well after what I’ve suffered? The loss of my Astrid has been a knife plunged into my heart.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t. How could you? A child yourself.”
“You have your husband.”
“I can still have a child, you know. The doctors have said.”
“Of course you can.”
“Tell me what’s become of that car?” Tessa asked in an almost lilting voice.
“I saw it yesterday,” Minke said, relieved for the change in subject. “It’s in storage most of the time, I suppose, along with Sander’s other goods.”
“What goods might those be, dear?”
“For our store,” Minke said. “All kinds of things. Splendid fabrics and art objects.”
Tessa fed her parrot bits of bread. “That car is his pride and joy, isn’t it? His only real possession.”
“Tessa, you
do say such odd things.”
“Mmmm,” Tessa said, her eyes at half-mast. “And Dr. Tredegar. He’s well?”
“Very.”
“A fairy,” Tessa said dreamily. “Did you know that about him? He moves from place to place because of it, just a few steps ahead of the law.”
“It pains me to hear you speak of him unkindly.”
“Not unkind, just factual. What he does with other men is illegal, of course. But ach, those people can’t help themselves.” Tessa sniffed. “Whether they’re kind to you or not.”
“He would never hurt us.”
“Elisabeth never liked him, you know.”
“How well did you know Elisabeth?” Minke asked, and then added before Tessa could respond, “She wanted us to marry.”
Tessa shook with laughter, and the bird flapped its ratty wings. “Says who?”
“Sander.”
“And you believe him.”
“I was very close to her,” Minke said. “Of course I believe him.”
Tessa poured another bit of medicine into her cool tea and drank it down. “This place can make a person go mad. Perhaps you’re right about Elisabeth. I don’t know. I don’t know anything. You should excuse me.” She closed her eyes and rocked back and forth while the lines of her face loosened. “No matter. We will leave here soon. Frederik has promised.”
“Oh?” At last she was finding out something that would interest Sander.
“The Germans will pay us very well. Very, very well.” Tessa’s eyes opened a slit. “And then we can go.”
“Perhaps Sander will have oil wells,” Minke said. “There’s so much of it to be had.”
Tessa gave her a frown that said Are you crazy? “The land is all spoken for. That happened two years ago.” She sneezed, causing the parrot to lose its balance again. “I must sleep now.”
AT BREAKFAST, TESSA fussed about Pieps and Goyo again, wanting to know where they were at every minute. Minke said she’d go look for them and found them in the barn, tending to one of the Dietzes’ mares. She was happy to see their open smiles and cheerful greetings. Goyo said something, and Pieps translated. “He asks if you’re enjoying yourself in the company of Mevrouw Dietz.”