I looked down, and shook my head.
“Have you ever gotten one of these before?”
I looked up. “Of course not.”
He considered for a moment, then asked, “Have you been talking to anyone about my financial affairs—at the coffees or—”
“Certainly not,” I said, head down again. Could he have only seen, the meaning was very clear.
I looked at his face. His eyes were full of questions yet he didn’t utter one. Finally he flung it aside and said, “Some son-of-a-bitch is pulling a cheap trick, that’s all.”
“Yes … maybe that’s it,” I said, weakly. My voice sounded hollow and faraway.
“Look, don’t worry about it. Let me think on it. Let’s go on to the party—we’re late now. We’ll talk about it when we get home.”
I stared at him. “Party?”
He knelt down in front of me and pressed his hands on my shoulders. “Now, you listen to me,” he said. “Maybe some maniac has been watching us and knows more than we’d like him to about our business. Maybe he knows I’m out of town a lot and thought he’d have a little fun with you. I don’t know. But I can tell you one thing for damned sure. He didn’t send you that little greeting to make your day more pleasant, and if he were outside somewhere watching, he’d love to know you’re in here white as an Easter lily.
“No one is going to do that to my wife, do you hear? Now, get up.”
He must have lifted me to my feet. He helped me on with my coat. I felt like a drifting feather. In a moment we were at the door and I could feel the chilly air hitting my face. The car sat at the curb, lights glowing. I hesitated at the porch steps, and Emory, mistaking my thought, said, “It isn’t Nathan. I can assure you of that.” He kept his hand on my elbow and guided me to the car.
Inside he asked Nathan, “Did you see anyone around here just now, leaving the house?”
“No. Were you expecting someone?”
“No. Let’s go, and hurry up, we’re late.”
He sat back and clasped my forearm. All the way there he neither looked at me nor spoke to me. He just rubbed my hands, over and over, and kept talking to Nathan about nonsensical things, as people do on the way to a funeral.
“We were about to begin without you,” said Sophie as we entered the dining room. I couldn’t make out the inflection in her voice, but I heard Emory apologize and say he’d just arrived from out of town. He was close, very close, but sounded very distant. I looked over the crowd of expectant faces—it seemed like hundreds, each one peering right through me, yet there must have been no more than twenty guests. I could not seem to remember the occasion for the highly formal affair. Sophie was hurrying us around the table, explaining introductions could be saved for later. I spotted familiar faces, and tried to return their smiles, unsure what showed in my face. Emory was speaking, covering for me, guiding my elbow. It seemed a long way from one end of that white-clothed table to the other. Tall candles in huge silver candelabra, their flames glancing off mirrors underneath, and gleaming silverware, gilt-edged plates, and beveled crystal goblets graced the festive board. All of it shimmered in front of me. I think I was close to fainting.
Finally a servant seated me near the end, beside Emory. I was grateful to be positioned behind a huge, footed bowl of winter fruit. I managed to get through course after course of obviously sumptuous food that tasted like paste to me, my only comments as people began to notice I hardly touched the food, “I’ve been feeling a little off today, you see.” This explanation served very well because the look in people’s eyes told me they speculated Emory and I were in the family way.
Tetzel was at the end just to Emory’s left, and though they exchanged guarded comments throughout the dinner, Emory kept giving my knee a reassuring pat under the table so that I knew he wasn’t ever disregarding my predicament. In fact he did not leave my side all night. He was unusually attentive, and though half the time I did not grasp what he said, I could not have been more grateful.
I wished to hide behind a pillar and sip champagne once the dancing began, but I was only halfway through the second goblet when Emory noticed Terence Brown, whom we’d met at a Tetzel party before and who had proved to be so divine on the dance floor. He was on his way toward me. Emory murmured, “Oh hell,” and, in order to save me from him, rose to his feet and took my hand. “Come on, we’re going to dance.”
“Can we just go now?”
“No.”
It seemed everyone talked louder, laughed more, and behaved with more abandon than I’d noticed since I came to San Antonio. Maybe my shattered perspective was to credit, yet there seemed a tacit arrangement that we would not hold one another responsible for what happened that night. Did they all feel the time for grand parties such as this one was grinding to a desultory halt? No, I thought, it is only me … this kind of life will go on and on.…
Round and round we waltzed, as more people, not included in the dinner party, arrived for the dance. Emory held me closer than ever and once I looked down in shock to see the white crescents of my breasts above the plunging neckline of the black dress. It was the first time I’d even thought of the dress since I saw the envelope. “Oh heavens, I look indecent,” I whispered to Emory.
“Shut up. You do not. You look stunning, right in style.”
“What if it was someone here?” I said … maybe Mark knew someone here.…
“It wasn’t, and even if it was I don’t give a damn, do you hear? Will you ignore the bastards who pulled that nonsense? They’re not fit to wipe your shoes. Now, throw your head back where everyone can see your beautiful face.” He clenched my spine tightly, forcing my head up into the glow of lights.
“Can we go now?”
“No.”
I looked at him then, and measured at last the strength of the man and the depth of his feelings for me. He had assumed my innocence of any dealings with the sort of people here in San Antonio who work in filthy, underhanded ways. Though he must have wondered tonight more than ever since he brought me here, he had not asked the one question I could not dare answer honestly: what were the things he did not know of me, the parts left out of what the agency he sent after me learned that might come back to haunt us both?
I knew at that moment I had been the petty one, gathering meager shreds of evidence against him and another woman; building up cases against him which did not exist, constantly setting limits upon the amount I was willing to give in our marriage because I did not understand any more than the tokens that lay on the surface of love. Little did I realize, until tonight, I wanted the Emory who had brought me ribbons so many years ago.
It was then, at last, I finally let go of the fantasy I’d clung to, and fell in love with the man Emory had become. Once I had entertained the notion that many years from now, after my debt was paid, and I was rid of Mark for good, I might tell Emory what I fought so desperately to hide over the past few years because it would lessen the guilt I endured alone. But I knew now that day would never come because I loved him far too much to hurt him that deeply.…
Afterward I relaxed somewhat as we danced, and enjoyed the feel of him next to me, the smell of him, the look in his eyes, riveted on me, and gradually found myself being carried along by the growing momentum of the party mood.
In a while we sat down again. Every few minutes, more champagne. Once I looked out at the floor to see Adolph Tetzel whirling around with Camille Devera, and soon after he was approaching our table, asking for my hand. An excellent dancer, he moved about the floor with sure-footed grace, and complimented me on my natural ability to hear the rhythms and follow. I told him he could thank his excellent champagne for that, whereas I wouldn’t ordinarily have made such a statement. Tetzel threw back his head and laughed. His uncharacteristic reaction brought me to my senses and I said, “Have you an answer yet … please?”
“Now, now, my dear, you must trust me in this. I’ll have more definite information shortly.”
I nodded, l
ooking up at him hopefully. Uncertainty surfaced again as I realized that, like my husband, I had placed myself in Adolph’s hands. I brought my face nearer his and said, “By Wednesday, you must,” then glanced quickly at the face of Emory, who sat alone at our table, watching us through cigar puffs. Adolph kept smiling and dancing. Had he not heard me?
“Doubtful,” was the only word I caught in his parting phrase, but I knew then he had heard.
Back to the table for more champagne, to make the prospect of Wednesday seem farther away.…
Near the end of the party, as Emory sat near me with his hand on my knee under the table, the orchestra began to play tango music. Never before had I felt such a rise of expectancy at the uneven beat of the music, nor become so charged by the dark, mysterious tones followed by shrill, exciting chords. Emory, apparently of the same mind, caught my hand and led me to the floor. What happened soon after was a rare space of time that could never be recaptured.
We began to tango with several other couples around us, all in “proper” form, stepping down the floor, knees slightly bent, arms straight out like arrows, moving together but as separate figures, conscious of the four short steps, then the long pauses as the tortuous music wound tighter and tighter.
Like all the rest, Emory and I were the pictures of correct execution, keeping our distance from each other, measuring time, concentrating on graceful control as the steps followed by closes went carefully ahead … one, two, three, four, close.…
Then all at once I saw a change in his expression, the crafty gambler caught off guard, revealing he was on the verge of wiping the table clean. Our bearing switched: our bodies were closer than skin to bone, moving as one, heads pressed together, thighs locked, two black contours closed, like a finished puzzle. The dance became a ritual of twirling, curving, sensuous motions … one, two, three, four, close, together, hold, turn … and the music went on and on until at last we were alone on the floor and all the people watched as we continued dancing, mesmerized by each other, nothing else in the world existing, the music flowing around and through us until, finally, we ended in the last prolonged close followed by the sudden deep bend, my head nearly touching the floor, and Emory above, his eyes fixed on mine, triumphant.
The audience cheered and clapped, and whistled as we left the floor together and Emory said, “Now, we will go.”
At home the spell remained unbroken. In front of a log fire in the bedroom Emory unwrapped the satin shoe straps from around my legs and lifted my feet from the shoes. Gently. He helped me off with the daring dress and tossed the headband aside. I unbuttoned the waistcoat slowly from around him and encircled his body with my arms. I raised my face to his. He pushed me down on the bed then and held me away for a moment, as though what he had been acting out all evening must be emphasized again, now, with words. I pressed my fingers to his lips and pulled him forward, too eager for the feel of his warm hands on my buttocks, drawing himself in, first slowly, then pumping faster and faster, and, please God, never stopping.…
In the morning I awoke before Emory and stood by the window to look out at the cold, bleak February day. The river below meandered along its well-traveled path, silent and calm, remaining the same through all the changes, protected from the world around it by steep banks and insulated even from unwelcome noises by the trees above, which it nurtured into thick, strong webbing.
So much was the same as in the beginning. We had loved again last night with the urgency of the first time. It seemed as though the past three years had never really happened at all … in fact, in a sort of grim, twisted way, the note which had thrown me into limbo was much like the note from Emory’s agency … offering a “highly specialized position.…”
I turned and looked toward the bed. He was just awakening. “Come here and lie close to me. I have so much to tell you.
“I’ll be here only till about the first of the month, then I’ve got to get back down to Mexico. I have an awful lot of loose ends to pull together before I go,” he said.
“I expected that.”
“Yes, but the thing is … I probably won’t return.”
“For how long?”
“Forever.”
28
I sat straight up in bed and stared at him. “But why—”
“As soon as it’s safe down there, I’ll be sending for you. There won’t be any reason for either of us to have to come back here, once it’s all over. It’ll be a brand-new life for us.”
“But I don’t know whether I—”
“Let me start from the beginning … there’s so much you don’t know,” he said, then rose to stoke up the fire. He seemed nervous. “I hate this lousy place, and no doubt you do too, after receiving that note last night.
“Most of the money I made before I bought property down in Mexico was in the saloon business here. I owned interests in two, and owned two others outright, down on Matamoros and South Santa Rosa. In fact I’d put some money down on a couple of brothels … they’re damned good money-makers.”
It seemed that everything inside me was struck motionless by his words. I couldn’t even take a breath.
He was looking away now, into the fire. “But then once I found you and brought you here, everything changed.” He shook his head. “It’s funny, but I didn’t think it would matter because I expected you to be … harder … more like me. But then, talking to you, seeing that same look of admiration in your eyes … knowing you had never stopped believing in me, it was as though we were kids again and I had to make good—can you understand?” He paused and stared at me intently. “I wanted to go back and start over … to be all those things you thought I could be. For the first time in my life I was ashamed.”
I lay back on the pillows. Soon he was beside me again, and I locked him in my arms, his head on my breast. He was at once the child I never had and the boy full of dreams who never grew up, but just left town and kept journeying farther and farther away.…
In a moment he continued, “I never lied to you about anything I said … but I just couldn’t tell you everything. I felt so guilty about what you endured all those years, as if they were my fault, that I ought to have taken you with me in the first place.
“Soon after we married I began getting myself out of that mire. But I was in one hell of a position because I’d used profit from the saloons to develop the land I already owned in Mexico and I had to hold on to them for a while. I got out of the other deals on the brothels, though I lost the money I’d already put down. That’s why I couldn’t tell you where I was going night after night that first year. I couldn’t talk to you because I’ve have had to lie, and I didn’t want to lie to you.
“Then, later I needed big chunks of cash to move down into my mines, so I had to try and sell the saloons … even when I was acting like a bastard a few months ago, it was over those damned saloons. With the threat of prohibition all the time I couldn’t make nearly the deals I should have. If not for that, I could have made three times what I finally came out with, and wouldn’t have had to borrow any extra money from Tetzel.
“As it happened, I was forced to borrow quite a lot from him, to get my hands on some of the richest mining property down there. No one else would touch it the way things were, and Ralph had tested out a whole slew of properties that promised to be worth millions.
“My God, when Barrista tried to back out I thought I’d go mad. Everything depends upon his success.”
“Does he know this?”
“No. He doesn’t know how deeply I’m in, or how much I’ve borrowed from Tetzel. He doesn’t know my copper is going to Germany. He thought he could repay me what I’d lost, and help recoup the money we’d already spent on the revolution He didn’t know a fraction of how complicated it was, and I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t let him know how I had used him.…”
I kept holding him. I didn’t know what to say. After a while his body relaxed a little and he said, “If you got my letters, and kept up with the newspapers
lately, you know as much about the Mexican situation as anyone else. Barrista’s name will not appear on the ballot. There is talk that people have been warned against writing in names, or showing any signs of protesting Carranza’s victory.
“The only thing left now is the call to arms. And Carranza is so strong down there, it isn’t going to be an easy fight. Everything will depend upon precise timing and swift movement. One week from election day, March the tenth, the uprising will take place. That’ll be on the seventeenth. Except for Carlos Barrista, everything is set.”
“What about him?”
“Even if Barrista trusts him to follow through, I don’t. So I haven’t shown him the battle plan for his sector yet. It’s still up here in my head. I won’t lay it out until the last moment. Until then, only I will know what he is to do. Carlos will control the most important area of the uprising, and the one with the largest amount of troops. We can’t chance his being a turncoat. I’m going to see him when I return. He’ll have just enough time to get his final organization under way.”
“And in the meantime?”
“I figure on leaving here on March first. Before I go, I have to arrange for the safe shipment of currency across the border. It’s being printed here in San Antonio. There are a lot of other details I’ve got to take care of, too. It’s going to be a busy week.”
“What about Nathan?”
“I’m leaving him here until you are safely across. Then I’m going to let him go.”
Again, he spoke of Nathan as though the man were enslaved to him. I’d fought down the temptation of insisting on the full story before, but I found I couldn’t hold back any longer. “Please, tell me how you two came together.”
“No … I just can’t, yet. Maybe someday I will, but not now. It isn’t a very pretty story.”
“All right,” I said. I was in no position to press for information. “If … when … I come down to Mexico to join you, shall I put up the house for sale?”
Keeping Secrets Page 19