by Freda, Paula
Manuel was a simple young man who had never broken trust with the Pereiras. He was good to his parents and conscientious in his duties. Better he were Rosaria’s secret lover. He had loved the girl for years and he respected and admired her. Doreen trusted him.
A knock at the bedroom door woke Doreen and Esteban the following morning. They had both overslept.
"Carajo! Who disturbs us?" Esteban growled in half-sleep. "Esteban," Rosaria entreated, "grandmother and I were worried. You did not come down to breakfast, and lunch is already on the table."
"Well then go and eat it!" Esteban barked ungraciously. Doreen chuckled. In their happier days, Esteban and she had missed several breakfasts. More likely that the time for Rosaria’s rendezvous with Jose was drawing close and she needed her sister-in-law to play sentinel. "Cielos! What is happening in this family?" Esteban grunted as he climbed out of bed and headed for the bathroom.
Immediately after lunch Rosaria cornered Doreen in the vestibule. "You have made Esteban sleep too late today. Now he will not take his siesta. You must keep him busy until Jose has left."
"Esteban is in his study at the moment."
"But he may not remain there long enough."
"I’ll take care of Esteban," Doreen assured, not certain how. "What about your grandmother and Ramon?"
"Grandmother has gone to her room. She will probably nap." Doña Maria rarely went out until the cool of the afternoon. "And Ramon has gone out." Rosaria said. She started for the garden.
"Wait, niña," Doreen hurried after her.
"Rosaria turned. She vibrated with impatience. It was nearly time for Jose to scale the wall.
"Remember, you’re a lady," Doreen said, closing the distance. "And hopefully Jose will remember too.
"There is no need to remind me again. And I am not afraid of Jose. He is an honorable man. I can tell from his eyes."
Doreen gasped. "Oh, you are less than a child! It isn’t solely by his eyes that you judge a man."
Rosaria stamped her foot. "I am not afraid. I have never seen a face as kind as his, nor have I heard such words of love as he has spoken to me."
"Don’t be fooled, Rosaria. His words may flatter, but they can also be like ocean foam, quickly rushing to meet the shore, then as quickly dissipating to nothing." Rosaria shook her head. "I am not easily fooled. Please keep Esteban entertained so he will not stray into the garden for the next two hours." There it was again, that word, entertained, that made her feel like a commodity. Once again she wished she had never come to Panama.
Esteban acknowledged Doreen’s knock with a curt "Quién es?" and when she identified herself, "Come in." He sat at his desk, appearing not at all pleased to be disturbed during the time he had allotted to his paper work. Doreen entered and sat down in the carved high-backed chair facing Esteban’s desk. Feverishly she searched for an excuse as to her untimely visit. An idea surfaced and she cleared her throat. "Esteban, I have a suggestion to make which may help ease the tension between us." She paused to see if he was receptive so far. He leaned back in his chair somewhat puzzled. "Go on," he condescended.
"I need to be away from this house. I need a change, new vistas, new faces." His brow furrowed and she was sure he was about to object. She hastened to explain. "I don’t mean alone. Together, a second honeymoon. A couple of weeks at the most, but I think it would benefit us both tremendously."
Esteban considered her proposal. "You may be right, mujer." The impatience on his features dispersed and the harshness in his gaze melted. The enraptured lover, hopeful and eager, suddenly stared back at her. "We can perhaps recapture what we once shared." When it came to his love for her, Esteban was vulnerable. The spontaneous sincerity of his reaction nagged at her conscience.
"Esteban—"
"What is it? You do not appear satisfied," he asked softly. He left his seat to come and stand in front of her.
If she threw all concerns aside and told him the real reason she had come here — to keep him occupied so he would not venture into the garden and catch his innocent sister in the arms of a stranger, the warmth in his expression would change to contempt. Later, perhaps, when Jose had gone....
She stood up. "Esteban, take me in your arms and hold me."
She did not need to ask him twice. The paper work was forgotten. For a long time he held her in his arms. Then as the Old Spanish clock on the mantel chimed the hour, he cupped her chin affectionately. "Would you enjoy visiting the Archipielago de las Perlas," he asked. "We may not find pearls, but of beauty and solitude, there is plenty."
"Yes, I think I would," she answered honestly. "And soon, make it very soon."
"Would tomorrow be soon enough?"
Doreen felt dazed. This was a side of Esteban she had long accepted had ceased to exist. "Yes," she replied eagerly. Then she remembered Rosaria and Jose. How could she go away with Esteban and leave Rosaria to the mercy of Jose. But it was too late to change her reply without rousing Esteban’s curiosity.
She was still grappling with the question when she entered the garden a short time later.
Rosaria knelt on the grass, with her skirt spread gracefully about her. She held a white carnation pressed to her heart. Her gaze was raised heavenward. "Did he show?" Doreen asked, hoping he hadn’t.
Rosaria returned to earth. "Oh yes. He left but a moment ago. I was thanking Dios for this wonderful man he has sent me."
Doreen gave an exasperated sigh. "Rosaria you mustn’t see him again. You’re too young and naive, and that’s putting it mildly."
"Are you going to betray me?" Rosaria asked, leaping to her feet. The flower slipped from her fingers and lay at her sandaled feet.
"I don’t like Jose," Doreen said. "I can’t pinpoint the reason, but I have this bad feeling. He’s no poor peasant boy who considers himself unworthy to approach Esteban. I noticed the clothes he wore to the cinema — tailored blazer, black sunglasses protruding from his breast pocket. I don’t trust him at all, and I will tell Esteban." There went the vacation and a second chance at happiness — out the window. "Tonight I’ll tell him. And you’ll not see Jose again. Is that clear?"
Rosaria’s back arched catlike. "I will see him again," she said. "And if you tell Esteban, I will make sure he knows you helped me. Especially today. You have a flushed look about you cuñada. I am not that naive. I can guess, somewhat, the methods you employed to keep Esteban occupied, so he would not wander into the garden. He will be as angry with you as he will be with me."
Absolutely, Doreen thought miserably. "Nevertheless, you will not see Jose again." She sounded as intolerant as Esteban, but it was Rosaria’s future happiness she was thinking of. "I’ll tell him, unless of course," Doreen relented, endeavoring to soothe the girl, "Jose agrees to come and present himself to Esteban and your grandmother, and make his intentions regarding you clearly known."
Rosaria did not appear as yet convinced. Doreen urged, "I have a conscience. You may dislike me for it, but I care enough for you to follow my intuition, that if Jose refuses to see Esteban, then he is not the gift from heaven you credit him to be."
Rosaria studied her sister-in-law narrowly, shuffling her feet nervously, but she maintained her composure. "I will try to convince Jose, but if he refuses and you disclose our meetings, then I promise you, you will suffer along with me."
That evening at the dinner table, Doreen resolved her dilemma of leaving Rosaria to Jose’s mercy in the only way feasible to her. She asked Esteban to bring Rosaria with them to the Islands.
"Mujer, you are a crazy woman," Esteban declared. "Why would my sister want to come along on our private vacation."
"I won’t leave her alone for two solid weeks. She’ll be bored stiff. As you yourself pointed out to me some days ago, Rosaria needs my companionship."
Esteban regarded his wife, baffled. But he wanted this second chance to rebuild their union as much as she did. He turned to Rosaria, who sat tightlipped, and, he could swear, on the verge of tears. "Do you want to
come that much," he said, mistaking her frustration.
Doreen counted on Rosaria’s fear that everything would be revealed if she didn’t play along. The girl answered in the affirmative, though her voice cracked under the strain.
Esteban felt bewildered. Neither of the two looked happy. Something was wrong, but he did not know how to ask without sounding a fool, if indeed anything was wrong. If he lived to the ripe old age of a hundred, women would remain a mystery to him.
"Very well, since you both wish it. We leave tomorrow at dawn."
CHAPTER FIVE
At dawn Esteban, Doreen, and Rosaria departed for the Pearl Islands. The flight was short and they registered at a deluxe hotel that same morning. Their accommodations overlooked a placid beach of powder-fine sand that was shaded by pungently sweet frangipani and jasmine shrubs, and tall waving palms.
The island, one of numerous, was a perfect haven for Esteban and Doreen to sort out their marital differences. On the days they went swimming, Rosaria pitched her blanket at a discreet distance, and when Esteban was not looking, the coppery face suffered indignantly, her short nose upturned with the Pereira hauteur and her round chin resolute, her whole attitude that of a child who has been leaned upon too heavily.
Doreen’s worries by no means lessened. Doubt and uneasiness nagged her. What if her intuition was wrong and Jose’s intentions were honorable. At night in Esteban’s arms she forgot the young couple. During the day, however, as she swam with her husband in mysterious coves, or dined on elegant terraces overlooking the blue-white ocean and vast expanse of matching sky, images of her destroying Rosaria’s future happiness, haunted her. So much so, that Esteban noticed the worry daily furrowing her brow. Finally one evening under a star-studded sky, as he and Doreen lay in their swimsuits on the beach, he inquired outright.
In reply Doreen improvised, "I’m not feeling well. I think I’d like to go home."
Esteban rolled on his side to face her. She did not seem ill, just preoccupied. "What is wrong, querida. For the past two years you have driven me half-insane with your complaints that you wished to get away, that my traditions were too stringent, and my dominance was choking you. We have spent a wonderful and fulfilling week in this magnificent Archipielago, at last, as you enjoy saying, communicating. We have almost totally regained the happiness we knew those first few months of our marriage. And yet you seem preoccupied. You wish to go home to the restrictions you hate. He sat up and stared out at the raven waters shimmering with moonlight. "Perhaps, after all, it is my presence that you find tedious."
"No! Esteban, No." Doreen climbed to her knees. If only she could tell him the truth without the possible disastrous results that would rip their patched-up relationship to shreds. She rested her head on his shoulder. "I’ve had a marvelous time. It’s just that I’m tired of beaches and tennis and boating, and I wish you would—take me home, Esteban, please."
"Wife, you are a crazy woman," he repeated. "But very well, we will return home in the morning, if that is what you want."
Doreen nodded. It was what she wanted to allay her doubts concerning Rosaria and Jose.
They left the next morning. Doreen’s last interesting memory of the Pearl Islands was a strutting peacock spreading his tail resplendent in blues and greens and shades of iron as he paraded proudly before a female of his species. Unfortunately, the female was not in the mood for his advances, and turning her drab, tailless body around, she stalked off.
"It appears we males are at a disadvantage this morning," Esteban remarked dryly as they boarded the taxi that would take them to the airport for their flight home. Following Esteban’s orders on the telephone, Manuel brought the Cordoba to the airport upon their arrival. Esteban took the wheel with Doreen at his side, while Manuel and Rosaria sat in the rear. When they reached the villa and Esteban parked the car, Doreen gazed out the window, not desiring to see him pocket the keys. It was her car, although she was forbidden to drive it, and his action still rankled. Unexpectedly, Esteban took her hand and placed the keys in her palm. "I cannot always understand you," he said, drawing her toward him, "but from this day forward, I promise I will not fail to trust you."
He gaped in astonishment as Doreen’s eyes filled with tears, and uttering a cry, she left the car, the keys gripped tightly in her fist, and fled into the house, sobbing. Esteban ran a hand nervously through his black mane, shaking his head in confusion, and glancing at Manuel for a possible explanation. Manuel shrugged, his young features mirroring the same confusion. "Perhaps the flight has made the Señora unwell," he ventured weakly.
CHAPTER SIX
Later that week Doreen drove the Cordoba into the city and stopped in front of the La Zapatilla Rosa. It was eight years since she had set foot inside the nightclub. Eight years ago, to Doreen, newlywed, a few hours apart from Esteban had felt like forever. She had decided to pay him a visit at the nightclub.
She recalled Esteban’s cold reception upon her unexpected arrival. It was the first time she had ever seen him angry, or heard him speak to her in a dictatorial tone. Stunned mute by this unfamiliar side to her husband’s character, she rallied her courage and her speech and demanded an explanation.
Firmly, and with a grip on her arm that she struggled in vain to dislodge, he ousted her from the nightclub, enunciating loudly and distinctly, "The club is no place for my wife. You will not come here again." The shock and the humiliation took the stars out of her eyes. But as a newlywed very much in love with her husband, and as a woman bred in the refined and dignified environment of her parents’ home in the Hudson River Valley, she gathered the shreds of her composure and returned to the villa, not yet fully comprehending what marriage to Esteban might augur.
Seated in her car now, eight years later, and several hours after her return from the Pearl Islands, she watched the customer’s file in and out of the double doors, the smell of sautéed beef and aroma of fried onions and potatoes tempting their taste buds as well as hers. The thought of a sumptuous meal was not incentive strong enough for her to defy Esteban. But the week’s events — her initial desire to escape; Esteban’s refusal to let her go; his apparent sincere response, and effort the moment she showed a sign of wanting to reconcile their differences; his patience and kindness these past few days despite her confusing behavior; Rosaria’s dangerous involvement with Jose and the weight of that responsibility; Doña Maria’s motherly gentleness and interest which heretofore she had never displayed this openly to Doreen, and finally, the anticipatory day of reckoning when Esteban learned of her deception in Rosaria’s favor, when he believed, as she was sure he would, that her renewal of affection was a pretense to aid the young couple — were playing havoc with her resolves. She had lost all certainty of which way to turn or what to do. No matter which road she took, mental anguish lay at its end. She had left Esteban asleep on the terrace. He was not there to stop her physically from entering the nightclub. What would it matter in the end if his employees saw her? They would no doubt mention her visit, since all her actions this week had set up her married life for an implosion, and the walls of her prison were about to come crashing down on her head.
It wasn’t yet totally clear to her why she had stopped here in the first place. Perhaps, overwhelmed by her sense of guilt for tricking Esteban and lying to him when he continued to love her, she preferred his intolerance and indignation. Once he learned about her visit to the nightclub and her deception about Rosaria and Jose, he would be furious and abrasive, and she would not feel as guilty. She parked the car and entered the club.
Rafael, Esteban’s right hand man and the club’s manager, was not in the dining room. He was the only one who would recognize her since Esteban often invited him to the villa for dinner. In her absence of eight years the building’s interior had undergone changes. An emerald green rug replaced the original royal blue carpet. Wainscoting topped by alternating stucco and hand painted scenes of eighteenth-century lovers meeting on riverbanks now substituted for the orig
inal embossed wall coverings. The crystal chandeliers were the same ones she remembered.
A hostess and a waitress she did not remember seated and waited upon her. The quality of the food remained excellent. She ate and afterwards sipped espresso sweetened with sugar and a cinnamon stick.
"Señora."
Doreen looked up into Rafael’s worried face. She wanted to laugh, but controlled herself. Underneath the dignified business exterior, the man was wriggling uncomfortably. "Forgive me. I thought you might wish to know, your husband is expected any moment."
Esteban hardly ever left for the club until after he’d eaten dinner with his family. Rafael was faced with the dilemma of how to avoid displeasing his employer, while at the same time pleasing his employer’s wife. For Rafael’s sake, to avoid bringing Esteban’s displeasure upon him as well, she said, "I’m leaving. Let me have my bill." "No, no, Señora. I cannot allow you to pay in your own husband’s establishment."
"I insist on paying my own bill."
"Señora --," Rafael began, but the adamancy on Doreen’s face assured him arguing was fruitless. "Very well, if it is your wish."
"Thank you," Doreen said, then on impulse, "Rafael, why doesn’t my husband want me here?" Esteban’s excuse that his wife’s presence in his nightclub was the height of indelicacy had never rung true. It made no sense to her. The manager shifted uneasily.
Doreen waited for his answer.
"He feels it is improper for—"
"No, I don’t believe that, I never have. There’s something more." Rafael stiffened. "You must excuse me, Señora. I have duties to attend to in the office. Good afternoon." He retreated hastily.
Someone shouted in the kitchen and another man’s voice near hysteria, hollered back. Curious, Doreen stood up and crossed the dining room to peep through the glass pane of the swinging door marked to enter.