Weep for Me

by John D. MacDonald

  The driver was less adept. When he took one corner too fast, Flores let out a stream of Spanish that popped and crackled. The driver slowed down immediately, murmuring an apology. After we went through the city proper, we turned onto a broad boulevard that followed the line of the harbor. Phosphorescent breakers were smashing against the sand in slow rhythm. A number of people were swimming at that hour.

  Flores leaned forward and said, “Perhaps you wonder why they swim at night. Our women do not seek tans as yours do. And in the day the sun is much too hot, even in the little straw cabanas. And at night, of course, it is far easier to make a friend on the public beach, especially when the moon is bright.”

  I guessed that his place was five or six miles out of the city. Again there was a gate and a wall. Beyond the wall the establishment was much smaller, and very modern. A place of sun decks and sheet glass.

  After the car was parked, Flores turned Emily’ over to a maid and gave the maid instructions in Spanish. Emily followed the maid across an enclosed patio.

  Flores took me to my room, a man following with my bag. It was a ground-floor room with a door that opened onto an inner hallway, and a second door that opened from the bath directly onto the beach. The furniture was pale blond, low-slung. The walls were a deep aqua.

  “You will be comfortable here, I think,” he said. “You have the freedom of the house. But I should not try to leave the house or the grounds. In fact, it would be a most difficult feat. The single gate is always guarded. The walls are too high to climb. And in the daylight you will see that the beach is very private. The walls march down to the water, and then become wire, which stretches out quite a distance.”

  He smiled mildly at me. I said, “You haven’t told me any news about … the police.”

  “Oh, that! They traced you to the Hotel del Pracro, of course. Every hungry little Mexican policeman who knows of you hopes that he will be alone when he finds you and the money. That is a great deal of money, you know. Over two million pesos. A fortune. And another amusing thing. Many of your countrymen of the gangster variety have come to Mexico in hopes of finding you before the authorities do. They seem to resent a successful amateur.”

  “I notice you were quick enough about taking the rest of the money.”

  “I did not imagine that you would object.”

  “How long do I have to wait here?”

  “Two days. Three. Who can say?”

  “This isn’t some game you’re playing? You actually are going to get me out of the country?”

  “I promise it on my sacred word of honor,” he said solemnly. “It is a service for which you have already paid. If you use reasonable care, you should do as they say in the books, eh? Live happily ever after. The little girls of the Argentine are pleasant. And they do not expect much, as your women do. I suggest you locate in a village, fairly close to Buenos Aires. Say Merlo or Escobar or Cañuelas. A house will cost you perhaps five hundred dollars. As an Argentine citizen, you can purchase one. Then select a pretty little girl who will cook for you, wash for you, and amuse you. She will cost you, at the most, ten dollars a month, and that is high.” He sighed. “In a way, I envy you. If I could only give up my responsibilities here … But when one has children, it is difficult. I trust you will sleep well, Señor Cameron. There will be a breeze from the east tonight. Press that bell near the door when you wish one of the servants to come. I have instructed that only those who speak some English answer your bell.”

  He left with a stride that was curiously light-footed for so solid a man. A few moments after he left, I heard a thin scratching against my door, as though there were an animal out there. I threw the bolt and opened the door.

  Emily came in. She turned and closed the door and pushed the bolt back into the latch. She grabbed my right wrist with both hands. Her fingernails sank into my flesh painfully. She whispered, “I hid from the maid, and followed you here and waited until he left. You’ve got to get me away from him. You’ve got to get me out of here!”

  She whispered with convulsed, exaggerated lip motions, and there was a crazy light of fear in her eyes. “I thought you made a choice.”

  “I was wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong! Terribly wrong! He isn’t going to let me go. There’s no one else to help me. Please, Kyle. Please, please!” She was trembling violently.

  “I’m as helpless as you are.”

  “Kyle, I …”

  She stopped whispering and turned her head. I heard it too, the unhurried step in the hallway. She had ceased to breathe.

  “My dear?” Flores said, close outside the door. She buried her face in her hands and began to sob.

  “Open the door, Mr. Cameron,” Flores said.

  “Go to hell,” I said weakly.

  Before I could stop her, Emily reached out her hand and pushed the bolt back. Flores opened the door. She stumbled toward him, still sobbing. He smiled at me and put one arm around her waist and led her down the hall, murmuring to her. I stood quite still for a moment, hearing his voice and her sobs recede, and then I yanked my shoes off and followed them soundlessly. Flores did not look back. They turned a right-angle corner in the passageway and I hurried to it and looked cautiously around just in time to see him urge her tenderly through a door similar to mine. He pulled the door shut after them.

  I went down to the doorway, placed my ear against it. For a long time I heard nothing but her dry, harsh sobs.

  Then she cried out. “Aaaaaaah!” Metallic, resonant.

  “Aaaaah, no!” she cried, more sharply than before. “God!” she cried. I tried the latch. The door was closed. I rattled the latch and hammered on the door. “Oooooh,” she moaned softly. “Oooooh!”

  Flores opened the door. Beyond him I could see Emily. She sat huddled in a chair, bent over from the waist, her eyes squeezed shut, her face greenish, her mouth writhing soundlessly.

  Flores said, “I see you have charged to the rescue of the maiden fair. Aren’t you being a little ridiculous?”

  “What’s he doing to you?” I shouted, trying to edge by him. He blocked my passage with firmness and dignity.

  “My dear,” he said, without turning toward her, keeping a watchful eye on me, “did you want to see Mr. Cameron for any reason?”

  She opened her eyes and stared at me as though she had never seen me before.

  “Answer me, my dear,” Flores said softly.

  “I … don’t want … to see … him.”

  “Then you better tell him to go away, don’t you think?”

  “Go … away.”

  “And that would seem to be your answer, Mr. Cameron. I’m surprised and astonished that you could forget our little talk so readily. Good night, and sleep well.”

  He pushed me firmly out into the hall and closed the door. I heard the lock click. I listened again. For a time I heard the soft affectionate murmur of his voice, quiet, relaxed, almost paternal. I heard no sound from her. I walked woodenly back to my room. I undressed and stretched out on the bed. The sound of the surf was loud. Mingled with it I heard that metallic cry of hers, echoing in my memory. I had hated her, all the time I had desired her. Now I no longer wanted her, and I pitied her. Emily Rudolph, the tough little Carbondale kid, had at last come up against something she could not fight. Continual fear of pain.

  This was an unreal world. She was as helpless as those suspected of heresy during the Inquisition. His was a brutality so refined that it had become, to him, a philosophical concept. I knew he would not mark her or damage her, because that would defeat his own purposes. To him she was merely a puppy of a rebellious breed. For a time you must swat it with the rolled newspaper. Eventually, all you have to do is flourish the newspaper. And at last your only weapon need be the tone of your voice to send it flat onto its belly, tail tucked tight, whining and whimpering.

  In the morning, the maid who came and knocked at my door shortly after I was dressed was astonishingly pretty. Unlike most Mexicans, she had hair of a dusky red. She wore it
in long heavy braids. She smiled shyly and said, “Come now for breakfast. I clean here. Take clothes for clean. Please to follow.”

  She went out into the hall and looked back over her shoulder to make certain I was following her, smiling shyly again. She led the way upstairs to an open sun deck shaded by a horizontal lattice across which flowering vines had been trained.

  She stood aside and gestured hesitantly toward a table set for three. Emily and Manuel Flores were already seated at the table.

  “Ah, good morning, Mr. Cameron,” Flores said, beaming at me. “Do sit down with us.”

  I pulled the empty chair out and sat down. Emily, without lifting her eyes from her plate, said, “Good morning, Kyle.” Her voice was very faint.

  Flores chuckled and patted her arm. “You see, I have been explaining to Miss Rudolph that modesty and shyness are pleasant womanly traits. She has been one for the bold glittering look, and the flaunt of the hips. Such actions are cheapness. Now she is learning to be a lady. Isn’t that right, my dear?”

  “Yes, Manuel.”

  “And with the pale skin, almost a true Castilian skin, she looks well in black, don’t you think?”

  “If it didn’t fit like a sack,” I said, “it would be more becoming.”

  He gave me a pained look. “But you do not understand! I am perhaps old-fashioned. A lady should not flaunt her body before eyes that have no claim upon it. That is another flaw with your country and, I am afraid, one that is becoming more serious here in Mexico. Naked women adorn your advertisements. You have contests to select the finest body among a group of half-naked women parading about. I find it rather decadent.”

  My breakfast was brought. They had finished. Flores patted his thin lips with a napkin and stood up, saying, “My dear, stay with Mr. Cameron and keep him company while he eats.” He gave me a benign look, with a touch of triumph behind it, and walked lightly away, whistling softly.

  “Now he leaves us together. He must be pretty confident,” I said.

  “He is.”

  “But he’s wrong. You still want to get out of here.”

  Her eyes had gone dead. “No.”

  “Did he break you that easily? I though you had more guts, Emily.”

  “I’m not broken, all the way. But I can’t risk a failure. I can’t fail and have him get those great white hands on me again. I can’t take that again. Ever.”

  “Then he’s broken you.”

  “Don’t say that. He hasn’t. He may think he has. But he hasn’t. I want a chance. Just one chance.”

  “Shall I help you find one?”

  “No.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I don’t care what you do, or where you go.”

  “That doesn’t make much sense.”

  “It makes sense to me. You know what pain does? It turns you inside out. Everything in your brain jumps up and falls down and lands different than it was before. I don’t even know you any more. You are a stranger. All those weeks we were taking money. That horrible trip. They don’t exist any more. They happened to somebody else.”

  “I’ve felt that way.”

  “He’s … a strange man, Kyle. If Harry had been more like him …”

  “He would have been able to keep you in line?”

  “Easily.”

  She got up and walked away without another word. I finished eating and found my way back to my room. It had been cleaned. The tile floor was still damp, the bed made. The girl with the dark red braids was still there. She pointed to a box on the bed. “Señor Flores, he sent. For the swim. Fitting you, he hopes.”

  I broke the seals on the box. It bore a French label. A man’s bathing trunks and beach coat. “Liking?” she said eagerly.

  “Very nice. Thank Señor Flores.”

  “Swimming now?”

  “I’ll put it on and get some sun, then maybe I’ll swim.”

  “Shoes,” she said, smiling shyly and pointing down at my feet.

  “Yes, that’s right. They’re shoes.”

  She frowned. “Not meaning what is word.” She pointed toward the bed. “Please, sitting, señor.”

  I was puzzled. So I sat. She dropped onto her knees, sat back on her heels, took one of my feet into her lap, untied the knot, and pulled the shoe off. She set it aside. I wouldn’t let her do it with the other shoe.

  “Wait a minute!” I said.

  She looked frightened. “Is wrong?” She touched herself between heavy breasts with a forefinger. “I am named Adela. Your maid. Serving you. Doing all things. Giving love if you say.”

  “Señor Flores, he sent?” I asked bitterly.

  “But yes.”

  “Stand up. Stop kneeling there.”

  She stood up quickly. “The señor, he is angry.”

  “Tell Señor Flores no, thanks.”

  She looked troubled. She stared at me with compressed lips. Then she turned slowly, all the way around, like a mannequin. “Not pretty?”

  “Very pretty.”

  “And strong. And clean. That is certain. Is the English bad?”

  “It is good.”

  “I cannot say a thing. I have not words. But it is like this. That cloth for swimming. You like. You take. Adela you like. But not take. It is not clear.”

  “A woman isn’t a thing you can give somebody.”

  “Ah! But the Señor Flores can. Here he is king.” She smiled as though she had solved the problem.

  “Adela, in my country, a woman cannot be given to someone. A woman can give herself. She owns herself.”

  “But the Señor Flores owns me! He bought me in Sola de Vega. My village. It is near Oaxaca. So he can give.”

  “No human owns another human.”

  “Then why he paid? For what?”

  I stared at her in complete frustration. Suddenly she smiled. “Ah, so! I say you, I give myself. Is better? I am just servant anyway.”

  I threw up my hands. “All right. All right. You are my servant. But that’s all.”

  She pointed toward a corner. “Sleeping there on serape. Is good?”

  “No.”

  “Others laughing. Please.”

  “All right.”

  She beamed at me, dropped to her knees again, and said meekly, “Other shoe.”

  For the rest of the long day, I was smothered by service. She ran out onto the hot sand with an ice-cold bottle of Carta Blanca just when my thirst had become almost unbearable. In the afternoon she did mending, took away the clothes I had worn in the morning. It was with the utmost difficulty that I dissuaded her from coming in to scrub my back when I took my shower.

  When at last I turned the bed lamp off, I was highly conscious of her, curled in the far corner, like a warm, brown, affectionate animal.

  “Sleeping?” she asked, her voice rising above the sound of the surf.

  “Yes,” I said, too loudly.

  “It is good,” she said, as though awarding a compliment.

  As I did not wish to see Emily again, I sent Adela to ask Flores if my meals could be served in my room. It was all right with him. Adela brought in a small table and hovered over me as I ate, moving things a fraction of an inch closer.

  At times I would turn quickly and catch her looking at me with a troubled, uncertain expression. Finally she found the courage to speak.

  “The señor was loving the dark-haired one? The norteamericana?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the Señor Flores, he took?”

  “Yes.”

  “It is a shame for the señor. Adela is sorry. But please, do not fight him. He will kill.”

  “I have no courage,” I said. “I have none left.” She smiled, touched my shoulder timidly, reassuringly, and then gathered up the empty dishes.

  Chapter Nineteen

  On the morning of the third day, after Adela had left the room to get my breakfast, she came running back. “The Señor Flores, he says come.”

  I followed her. Where the morning sun
slanted into the corridors it lit her hair to a red like waxed cedar. She walked with a healthy young animal’s unconscious grace.

  She took me to a strange corridor, flattened herself against the wall, and motioned me to go on. I went down three steps into a big living room. One whole wall was a series of big glass panels overlooking the sea. I had noticed that glass wall from the beach.

  Flores stood with his back to the room, looking out over the sea. He turned and gave me his grave smile. “Ah, good morning, Cameron. Come and have a look at your transportation.”

  I walked over to him and he handed me a pair of heavy Zeiss binoculars and pointed out the direction. I adjusted them to my eyes and swept the area of sea he had indicated. For a time I saw nothing, and then I saw the sun glint on something. I steadied the glasses and waited until once again the boat was lifted on a wave crest. It seemed to be a fair-sized motor launch.

  “Small, isn’t it?”

  A new voice spoke behind us. “She’ll take a heavy sea, son.”

  I turned sharply. I had not noticed the man before because he sat in a deep wing chair. He had small, bright blue eyes set close to the bridge of an enormous nose. His hair was a kinky mop of steel wool, and his mouth was Negroid.

  “Meet Captain Schumann, Mr. Cameron,” Flores said. “Captain Schumann arrived during the night by dinghy, with his mate. He’s leaving the Flora anchored well out, and we’ve put the dinghy out of sight. Tonight when the men left aboard bring the Flora in closer, Captain Schumann will take you aboard. See how I keep my end of a bargain?”

  I felt an instinctive dislike for Schumann. He kept his bright blue eyes on me every moment.

  “What time?” I asked.

  “Midnight,” Schumann said in his curious nasal voice. He wore the white cotton trousers of Mexican laborers, the trousers that look like pajamas. A white peaked cap lay on the floor beside his bare brown feet. He was naked from the waist up and the small patch of hair on his chest was also the shade of steel wool.

  “Is it a long trip?” I asked.

  “It’ll be over before you know it,” Schumann said blandly.

  “Forgive us, Mr. Cameron,” Flores said. “We have other matters to discuss,” I left like a quiet, obedient child. As I reached the steps Flores said, “And by the way, Mr. Cameron.”