The Vineyard

by Maria Duenas

  “We have a saying here in Havana, which everyone who comes here ends up learning.”

  “I can’t wait to hear it,” he replied.

  “Three things in Havana must be seen by everyone: El Morro, La Cabaña, and the chandelier in Teatro Tacón.”

  Sailing into Havana on board El Flor de Llanes, he had contemplated El Morro and La Cabaña—the two fortresses that greeted and bade farewell to all those who arrived or departed from the port—and had done so again when his wanderings had taken him down to the bay earlier. And now he would see the enormous French cut-glass chandelier hanging from the ceiling in El Tacón. He had only to wait for the hired trap to drop him at the theater.

  A short while later, following the instructions in the note he had received, he took a seat in a box, nodding politely to those either side of him, before observing his surroundings. He was not overwhelmed by the white and gold ornamentation on the five magnificent balconies, or the guardrails upholstered in velvet; even the famous chandelier left him cold. Carola Gorostiza’s face was the only thing he was looking for among the hundreds of theatergoers slowly filling the seats. Intently he scanned the boxes, the orchestra, the parterre, the balconies, and finally the stage itself. He considered asking his neighbor, a voluptuous older woman, to lend him the mother-of-pearl theater glasses lying on her brocaded lap as she whispered sweet nothings in the ear of her companion, a young man with curly sideburns, fifteen or twenty years her junior.

  His instinct commanded him to desist. Calm down, compadre, he told himself. Have no fear. Sooner or later she will make her appearance.

  She didn’t. But her words did, delivered by an usher just as the huge auditorium started to grow dim. He quickly unfolded the note, managing to read it before the last lights went out. The foyer outside Count Casaflores’s box. Intermission.

  He would have been unable to say whether the performance was sublime, passable, or dreadful; the only description that occurred to him was intolerably long. Or so it seemed to him, since, absorbed in his own thoughts, he paid scant attention to the intricacies of the plot or the actors’ declamatory voices. As soon as applause began to ring out around the auditorium, he rose to his feet in relief.

  The foyer where Carola Gorostiza had asked him to meet her was a moderately sized but sumptuous salon where it was the custom for season ticket holders to invite friends and acquaintances to take refreshment during the interval. No one asked who he was or who had invited him when, with contrived aplomb, he pushed aside the heavy velvet curtain. Black slaves passed around silver salvers bearing liqueurs, jugs of water with floating chunks of ice, and long-stemmed glasses of guayaba and cherimoya juice. The author of the message soon appeared. Dressed in a dazzling coral-colored satin gown and wearing a splendid ruby necklace, her black locks wreathed in flowers, she had made sure she would not go unnoticed. Especially by Larrea.

  If she had spied him waiting for her, she disguised it well, ignoring him for the first few minutes. For his part, he was content to wait, every now and then exchanging greetings with someone he had met at Casilda Barrón’s ball at El Cerro, or whose face looked vaguely familiar.

  Finally, accompanied by two friends, she made her way toward him, expertly steering her group to the side of the room. The four of them exchanged polite greetings and pleasantries about the performance, the splendor of the auditorium, the beauty of the lead actress. After a few similarly trivial comments, Señora de Zayas cleared her throat as a signal to her companions, who vanished amid the crowd in a swirl of silk and taffeta. And then at long last Ernesto Gorostiza’s sister satisfied his burning curiosity.

  “I’ve been told about something that might interest you. It all depends on what scruples you may have.”

  He arched an eyebrow quizzically.

  “This isn’t the place to go into details,” she added in hushed tones. “A meeting will take place tomorrow night at Casa Novás, the crockery store on Calle de la Obrapía. Be there at eleven o’clock. Tell them Samuel sent you.”

  “Who is Samuel?”

  “A moneylender from outside the city walls. Everyone knows Samuel and no one will doubt your word; you might as well tell them the bishop or the captain general sent you.”

  “Provide me with some clue.”

  She gave a sigh, which revealed a somewhat more risqué décolleté than was customary at social gatherings in Mexico City.

  “You’ll soon learn the details.”

  “What about you and your husband?”

  She blinked, as if she hadn’t expected such a direct question. The sound of popping corks and the tinkle of laughter and the chink of glasses surrounded them; a hundred voices floated in the air, hot and sticky as honey.

  “What about us?”

  “Will you be taking part in this venture?”

  She stifled a curt laugh.

  “Not on your life, dear sir.”

  “Why not, if this is such an excellent opportunity?”

  “Because in theory we have no funds at present.”

  “Permit me to remind you of your inheritance.”

  “Permit me to remind you that I intend to keep that a secret from my husband, for reasons which I prefer to keep to myself.”

  And long may it stay that way, my good woman. Far be it from me to interfere in your marital problems, he thought. All I need right now, Carola Gorostiza, is your money. I have no interest in your husband, his predicaments, or his comings and goings, and that is how I want to keep it.

  What he actually said was “I can invest it on your behalf without arousing any suspicions. Make it grow.”

  The smile froze on her lips. A bloodless smile, an expression of astonishment.

  “I am proposing that we put our capital together, and that I act on behalf of us both,” Mauro Larrea explained without waiting for her to reply. “I’ll look into that other matter you mentioned in good time, but first let me tell you that I have my sights set on a different scheme. Something solid and lucrative. Guaranteed.”

  “Your proposition is extremely risky . . . I barely know you . . .” she whispered.

  She accompanied her unease with a brisk wave of another impressive fan made of marabou feathers, a deep coral pink that matched the color of her dress. Then, equally swiftly, she appeared to regain her composure, the stony smile returning to her face as she greeted people to left and right.

  Oblivious to her eagerness to keep up appearances before the other guests, he persisted. Determined, convinced. He had only one card left. And this was the perfect time to play it.

  “In approximately three months we will begin to see a profit; our investment will appreciate, and in the meantime I can guarantee you absolute confidentiality. I think I’ve already shown you that I’m a man of my word: had I intended to swindle you out of your money, I could have done so by now; there have been plenty of opportunities since your brother entrusted me with delivering it to you. I’m simply suggesting a way for you to invest your money anonymously by adding it to my own capital. Rest assured, we will both end up profiting from this venture.”

  A hundred times I’ve seen you place a gun on the table before a band of hardened soldiers in a stubborn attempt to negotiate the price of safe conduct for your silver. I’ve seen you do battle with the devil himself to obtain the concession for a mine you had your eye on; I’ve seen you ply your adversaries with drink in whorehouses to wheedle information out of them regarding the location of promising veins of ore. But I never thought you’d stoop so low as to inveigle a woman into handing over her money to you, you sonofabitch. Andrade’s voice hammered again at his conscience with the same tenacity that he himself had battered the rock face in his day. Their long years together had taught him to anticipate Andrade’s responses, and now, like a deadweight, he was unable to prevent them from interfering with his own thoughts.

  I’m not deceiving anyone,
brother, he protested silently while Carola Gorostiza chewed her lower lip, struggling to digest his proposal. This woman is no innocent dove like Fausta Calleja; she’s no gentle lamb whom a man seduces so that he can take her to bed or steal her heart. She knows what she wants and what her interests are. And remember, she tried first to obtain something from me.

  What about her husband? Andrade’s voice went on. What will happen if that alligator Zayas finds out about the shady dealings between you and his wife?

  I’ll think about that if and when the situation arises. In the meantime, be off with you, by the souls of your departed. Get the hell out of my head!

  “Take some time to think it over,” he told Carola. “Our partners are men of substance.” Leaning toward her ear, he lowered his voice to a deep whisper. “Trust me.”

  As some hidden instinct led him to take his lips away from her face, he turned toward the entrance. At that instant, he saw Gustavo Zayas part the velvet curtain before crossing the threshold. He stood erect, a cigar in his mouth, the shadow of something indecipherable on his face: at once troubled and melancholy.

  The two men’s gazes did not meet but rather slid over one another almost imperceptibly. Slantwise, tangentially. Then they both whisked away.

  By now the foyer was a crush of people, and Carola Gorostiza had vanished from his side. Bodies jostled against one another with no concern for propriety: shoulders and chests rubbed against backs, women’s bosoms brushed against men’s arms in a chaos of humanity that no one seemed uncomfortable about and in which it was difficult to tell who was engaging with whom, in which group, in which conversation, and in which latest piece of tittle-tattle.

  Amid the throng, perhaps Gustavo Zayas had not noticed his wife conversing intimately with that stranger, away from the other guests. Or perhaps he had.

  Mauro Larrea did not stay for the second half of the performance: he accepted a last drink and stood aside to let the others back through. Vexed at not having obtained a definite answer from Ernesto Gorostiza’s sister, he contemplated the pictures hanging on the walls: pen-and-ink drawings of lotharios and buffoons, operatic baritones and handsome youths, weeping into the tangled tresses of languishing maidens.

  When he could sense that everyone had taken their seats—when he was certain that the famous chandelier had dimmed and that silence had enveloped the auditorium like a magnificent cloak—he slipped noiselessly down the marble staircase and disappeared into the tropical night.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Mauro Larrea spent the better part of the next morning pacing up and down Calle de la Obrapía, with Santos Huesos acting as scout. This was the fourth time they had walked past the crockery store.

  “Now, go inside and tell me what you see,” ordered Larrea.

  “I think I need to have a reason for entering the place, patrón,” replied the young servant with his usual deliberate caution.

  Rummaging in his pocket, Larrea handed him a few coins.

  “Buy something,” he replied. “Anything. A sugar bowl, a water pitcher, whatever takes your fancy. The important thing is that you tell me what, and above all who, is in there.”

  Santos Huesos slipped through the glass door. On it was a sign: Casa Novás, Local and Imported Ceramics. To the left, a glass cabinet lined with shelves presented a variety of earthenware objects. Stacked plates, a large soup tureen, washbowls of differing sizes, a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Nothing of any value: ordinary tableware that any normal family with a house of their own would use all year round.

  It was a while before Santos Huesos emerged carrying a small package wrapped in a page of El Diario de La Marina. Larrea was waiting for him on the corner of Calle Aguacate.

  “Anything to report, lad?” he asked in his usual friendly manner as they strolled off together: a clean-shaven, relatively youthful Don Quixote without his nag, and a slender, dark-skinned Sancho Panza; two men proceeding with caution in a territory alien to them both.

  “Four shop assistants and a gentleman who could have been the owner.”

  “Age?”

  “I suppose the same as Don Elias Andrade, give or take a year or two.”

  “Fifty-something?”

  “I think so.”

  “Did you hear him speak?”

  “No, patrón; he had his nose buried in a ledger the whole time I was in there. I didn’t see him look up once.”

  Jostled by the dozens of people thronging the streets, they continued walking beneath the brightly colored awnings screening them from the sun.

  “What about his clothes? How was he dressed?”

  “Well, like a gentleman.”

  “Like me, you mean?”

  Early that morning, when Larrea had received his first suit from the Italian tailor, he was so pleased at how light and cool it felt to the touch that he had slipped it on right away. Before he left, Doña Caridad had given him a glowing look of approval. It must look all right, then, he thought.

  “Yes, of course, dressed up just like you, like a real Havana regular. A pity Miss Mariana and Master Nicolás can’t see you now.”

  Without slowing pace Larrea removed his hat and gave the young man a playful rap on the head.

  “One word of this when we get back, and I’ll have your guts for garters. Anything else?”

  “The shop assistants all wore a sort of gray topcoat, buttoned from head to toe.”

  “Were they black or white?”

  “White as chalk.”

  “What about the customers?”

  “Only a few, but they had to wait, because there was only one assistant serving.”

  “What were the others doing?”

  “Filling boxes, sealing parcels. Preparing orders for delivery, I guess.”

  “What was on the shelves and cabinets?”

  “Crockery, crockery, and more crockery.”

  “Like the good sort we had in San Felipe Neri, or the rough bowls we had at Real de Catorce before we moved to the city?”

  “Like neither, I’d say.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Not as fine as the first or as humble as the second. More akin to what Doña Caridad uses in her guesthouse.”

  Larrea was assailed with doubt. What kind of profitable business venture could that harmless establishment be engaged in? Surely Carola Gorostiza wasn’t suggesting he become the partner of a producer of vases and chamber pots, the associate of an elderly shopkeeper, in the hope he might inherit the business? And why ask him to go there at eleven at night, when throughout Havana people were starting to carouse, packs of cards were being opened, and musicians were tuning their instruments in preparation for the dancing?

  He had to wait roughly twelve hours to find out, until twenty minutes to eleven, when he set off from the guesthouse in his usual sober attire. The streets were crowded even at that late hour; Larrea had to leap aside several times to avoid being run down by one of the typical open-top carriages that raced through the Cuban night, carrying to their places of entertainment the city’s most distinguished gentlemen, accompanied by dark-eyed Havana beauties, laughing gaily, bare-shouldered, their flowing tresses wreathed with flowers. A few gazed at him shamelessly, one gesturing with her fan, another smiling.

  Santos Huesos was with him once more, but this time he remained outside.

  “Stay right by the door, understood?” Larrea had told him on the way there.

  “Sure, patrón. I’ll wait for you until daybreak, if need be.”

  At two minutes after eleven, Larrea pushed open the door.

  The store was dark and appeared deserted, although from somewhere at the back a glimmer of light and the sound of muffled voices reached him.

  “Your name, sir.”

  He felt instinctively for his gun, which was tucked in his belt as a precaution. But the relatively
amiable tone of his interlocutor, probably a slave, reassured him.

  “Or just tell me who sent you.”

  “Samuel,” he recalled.

  “In that case, come in and make yourself at home, sir.”

  Before arriving at the meeting place in the rear, he had to cross a wide corridor filled with wooden crates. The walls were lined with bales of straw, which he assumed were for packaging. Then he came to a courtyard, on the far side of which stood two open gates.

  “May God grant you a good evening, gentlemen,” he said somberly as he crossed the threshold.

  “Good evening to you, too,” the company replied as one.

  His senses on high alert, he glanced around the room.

  Firstly, his eyes took in the shelves, which in this part of the store were stacked with what was clearly the main stock-in-trade of the business—behind the façade of washbasins, cheap vases, and crude figures of miraculous saints. Instantly appreciating the quality of the goods, he glimpsed dozens of fine pieces of porcelain china from halfway around the globe. Derby and Staffordshire figurines diverted from their original destination in British Jamaica, Meissen fawns and pastoral scenes, biscuit dolls, busts of Roman emperors, majolica wares. There were also urns, screens, and Cantonese figurines shipped from the Orient via Manila to bypass the strict custom controls the Spanish crown had established in its remaining colonies.

  His nose told him that this reeked of contraband.

  The men gathered there, all of whom looked decent and respectable, had stopped speaking, waiting for the newcomer to introduce himself.

  He removed his hand from his revolver, acquired years before from an arms trafficker in Mississippi in circumstances no less shady than what appeared to be going on at present.

  Smuggling fine ornaments: so this is the business Señora Zayas wishes to involve me in. It certainly wouldn’t offend my morals, nor would it seem excessively dishonest or ignoble. But with so many partners, I can’t see it being very profitable. Such were his thoughts as he extended his arm to shake hands with the group of seven men. Mauro Larrea, at your service; Mauro Larrea, at your disposal. No point in concealing his identity: any one of them could have found out who he was the next day.