by Maria Duenas
“They had a guest staying with them for a while. A cousin of his.”
“A Spaniard?”
“Yes, a paltry fellow. On account of his size, I mean: he looked more like a child than a man. Don Luisito, as he began to be known in Havana. For a time, it seemed there wasn’t a dinner, dance, social gathering, or performance the three of them didn’t attend together. Although, according to what I heard, for I saw nothing myself . . .”
She trailed off to take another sip.
“Where was I? Yes, according to what I heard, for I saw nothing with my own eyes,” she went on, “it was she who fawned over the cousin. Laughing at his jokes, whispering in his ear, riding out with him in her trap whenever her husband was away on business. Tongues started to wag: Was their relationship indiscreet? Had she been seen coming and going from his room as she pleased? As you know, Don Mauro, people talk, even if what they say has no basis in fact. And, of course, he was the subject of as much gossip as she was.”
Interesting, he reflected. Interesting to know the rumors that were circulating in Havana about the woman who had thus far refused to cooperate with him. He cast a surreptitious glance at the wall clock. A quarter past four, and no news from her. It’s still early, he told himself. Don’t lose heart. Not yet.
“So . . . what exactly did people say about him?”
The liquor seemed to have loosened Doña Caridad’s tongue, and she spoke more freely now, with fewer pauses or attempts to ration the information. Although perhaps it wasn’t the alcohol at all but merely the delight she took in discussing other people’s affairs.
“They wondered: Was it true the cousin came over here to settle family scores? Was Don Gustavo implicated in some sordid affair and been forced to flee Spain all those years ago? Had he, in his youth, been in love with a woman who left him for someone else? Did he long to return to his mother country? Made-up stories for the most part, I suppose, don’t you agree?”
“I suppose your supposition is correct,” he conceded. Worthy of the libretto of an operetta in the Teatro Tacón.
“Until the cousin was no longer to be seen riding with her, or at social gatherings, and a few weeks later news came of his death. At their coffee plantation in the province of Las Villas, it was alleged.”
“As a result of which they inherited his properties.”
“Exactly.”
“Any capital?”
“Not as far as I know. However, no sooner had they buried the fellow than she started to boast about their vast estates in Spain. Fine properties, she said. And a wine plantation.”
“A vineyard, you say?”
Doña Caridad shrugged.
“Perhaps that’s what they’re called: I’m afraid I am unfamiliar with the names they give things in the mother country. In any case, to finish off—”
Just then one of the slave girls hurried in with what looked like a folded piece of paper for her mistress. Mauro Larrea sat up straight. Was this the message from Carola Gorostiza he had been waiting so impatiently for? I accept to ally myself with you: Go straight to Señor Calafat and tell him yes. He would have given the remaining fingers of his left land for this to have been her reply. But it wasn’t.
“Alas, Señor Larrea, we will have to end our pleasant conversation there,” said Doña Caridad, getting to her feet. “A family matter has arisen. A cousin of mine is about to give birth, and I must leave at once for Regla.”
He rose to his feet also.
“Naturally, I shan’t detain you a moment longer.”
As they made to go their separate ways, she swung around.
“May I give you a piece of advice, Don Mauro?”
“Anything, coming from you,” he replied, masking all trace of irony.
“Place your affections elsewhere. That woman isn’t right for you.”
He struggled to stifle a bitter laugh. His affections, she had said. His affections, for God’s sake.
He spent the afternoon in his room, waiting in shirtsleeves, the shutters pulled to so that scarcely any light entered. First he wrote to Mariana and began by asking her about Nico. Use your contacts, my child; you know people who travel to and from both continents. Find out all you can about him. He went on to provide a detailed description of Havana, its inhabitants, streets, and flavors. He captured these images with pen on paper, keeping to himself the true cause of his anxiety and bewilderment, the thing that was undermining his integrity, turning his stomach, shaking the very foundations of his morality. Recalling his pregnant daughter, images of the little thirteen-year-old black girl impregnated by her master flashed through his mind. He thrust it from his thoughts and continued to write.
When he had finished the lengthy missive, he glanced at the clock. Five minutes to six. Still no word from the Gorostiza woman.
Afterward, he began composing a letter to his agent. He had intended to make it brief: a few general impressions, together with an outline of the two matters currently occupying his attention. One clean, the other soiled. One safe, the other risky. But the words wouldn’t come: he was incapable of describing what he wanted to say without spelling it out word for word in terms he declined to use. Dishonorable. Shameful. Inhumane. He only succeeded in filling a couple of sheets with crossings out and inkblots. Finally he gave up. Then he set fire to the illegible pages using a tinder lighter before adding a postscript to his letter to Mariana. Tell Elias everything is fine.
He glanced once more at the clock. Twenty past seven. Still not a whisper from the Gorostiza woman.
It was getting dark when he pushed open the shutters and stepped out onto the balcony to finish his cigar. Shirt unbuttoned, he propped his elbows on the iron balustrade and contemplated the incessant hubbub below. Blacks and whites, whites and blacks, and every shade of skin color in between, coming from and going to a thousand different destinations, at all hours of the day and night, shouting, laughing, hawking their wares, uttering greetings and curses. In a crazy city, he reflected, on a crazy island.
Afterward he took a bath, dressing once more like a man of means. He bumped into two of his fellow guests, the Catalan businessman and the Dutch woman, who were leaving their rooms at the same time. They all descended the stairs together, although that evening, unlike them, Larrea did not make his way to the dining room.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The military band sounded the evening concert as a cannon blast from the Cabaña fortress announced the time: nine o’clock. La Plaza de Armas was teeming at that hour; half of Havana had turned out to enjoy the open-air music and the cool sea breeze. Some lounged on benches; others strolled among the borders and palm trees surrounding the statue of the unprepossessing King Ferdinand VII, perched on a plinth. Sitting inside the row of carriages circling the gardens, the city’s most eligible young ladies were wooed by a procession of handsome gentleman admirers who flocked around the running boards.
Mauro Larrea leaned heavily against one of the columns of the Conde de Santovenia’s palace, arms folded, a solemn expression on his face as the band launched tunes from operas and popular songs into the air. He was all too aware that at that very moment two of Calafat’s partners were waving good-bye to their loved ones from the deck of the English Royal Mail steamship, bound for Buenos Aires, taking with them considerable sums of money and an extremely auspicious financial venture. A venture in which he himself could have participated but had slipped through his fingers forever.
Night had dropped suddenly like a black curtain, and the light from myriad candles flickered from the open balcony windows of the magnificent captain general’s palace. With Santos Huesos by his side, Larrea continued to survey the scene distractedly, present yet absent, killing time as he stood propped against the stone pillar. A blind man approached selling tickets for a raffled pig. A young lad, head covered in scabs, offered to shine his boots, while another tried to sell him a knife. He shooed them away impati
ently, and was starting to curse at being importuned by so many street urchins, when he felt a hand touch his right forearm.
Making to wrench himself free, he heard his name. He wheeled around to find himself face-to-face with a young mulatta.
“At last, Don Mauro, thank God!” she said, gasping for breath. “I’ve searched half of Havana for you.”
Larrea recognized her instantly as the slender girl beating the carpets when he had stolen inside the Gorostiza residence.
“My mistress sent me: she wants to see you,” the girl said, struggling to catch her breath. “There’s a carriage waiting for you in the alleyway behind the Templete. The driver will take you to her.”
Santos Huesos craned his neck as if to indicate to his master that he was ready. But when she saw his gesture, the girl stopped him short. She was tall and slender, with full lips and the longest eyelashes.
“My mistress asked that you go alone.”
Perhaps there was still time. All Calafat needed was a signature. Confirmation, a written agreement. Possibly the ship hadn’t yet weighed anchor and the Gorostiza woman had come to her senses.
“Where does she want to meet me?”
He had almost convinced himself that the girl would say the Caballería quay. Together with the old banker. Was it possible that she had finally agreed to the idea?
“How should I know, Don Mauro? That’s the driver’s job. I only know what Doña Carola told me.”
The orchestra had struck up the first bars of Iradier’s “La Paloma” when Larrea, elbowing his way through the throng, hurried toward the spot where the carriage was waiting for him.
To his dismay, the chosen meeting place couldn’t have been less like a quayside from which a ship was about to set sail. Adjacent to the sacristy of the Cristo del Buen Viaje was a room where well-to-do ladies would go every Tuesday to sew and mend linen for the city’s poor. Inside, lit by a tiny oil lamp and surrounded by shelves and chests filled with bolts of cloth, Carola Gorostiza was waiting for him.
He had scarcely put his head around the door when she hissed: “One of the servants told my husband of your visit this morning. That’s why I sent a hired carriage for you and took another myself. I no longer trust my own shadow.”
He responded by doffing his hat. He felt a stinging disappointment, but, summoning a vestige of pride, resolved not to let it show.
“Nor me, I presume.”
“That goes without saying,” she retorted. “However, at this stage of the game, I have no wish to rid myself of you. Nor you me.”
He noticed she was clutching a small, dark object but couldn’t make it out in the half-light.
“Have those friends of yours in the ice ship business left yet?” she asked with her customary sharpness.
“The refrigerated vessel.”
“What does it matter? Answer me. Have they gone or not?”
He swallowed hard.
“I imagine so.”
Carola Gorostiza gave a sardonic grin.
“Then you have only one card left to play. That other vessel carrying quite a different cargo.”
Quaysides, rushed signatures, steamers sailing for the Río de la Plata—none of those things entered this woman’s plans. She was right, the brigantine fitted with chains and shackles bound for the African coasts was his last card: the awful slave trade. Otherwise, without her capital he would be forced to make fresh plans. Once more, on his own, and penniless.
Even so, he resisted.
“I’m still skeptical.”
He could see her right hand make darting movements in the light of the oil lamp. As if she were pinching and then releasing something, then pinching it again.
“The interested parties whom you met at the crockery store have all consented; the only one who hasn’t is you. However, according to my sources, another prospective investor by the name of Agustín Vivancos has come forward overnight—in case you doubt my word. He owns a pharmacy on Calle de la Merced. Should you fail to respond, he is keen to take your place.”
They fell silent as the clatter of carriage wheels on the cobblestones outside reached them through the closed window. Neither spoke until the noise diminished, before dying away altogether.
“Forgive me for saying so, Señora, but I find your behavior greatly disconcerting.” He took a resolute step toward her. “At first you showed no interest in investing your money, and now, suddenly, you seem to be in a terrible hurry.”
“Remember that it was you who put the idea into my head.”
“That’s true. But if you don’t mind satisfying my curiosity, why are you persisting in this, and why act with such haste?”
A look of disdain on her face, she took a step toward him as well. At last Mauro Larrea could see what it was she had clasped in her hand: a pincushion used by the ladies who came there to make clothes for the poor, into which she had been mechanically stabbing the same pin, over and over again.
“For two reasons, Señor Larrea. Two very important reasons. The first concerns the business itself. Or should I say, those involved. Señor Novás’s eldest daughter is a good friend of mine, and I trust her implicitly. I feel safer knowing my money will be in the hands of someone close to me, someone who will keep me informed about how the operation is going, if for some reason you decide to disappear. Someone, so to speak, in the family. Had I become involved in your ice ship, on the other hand, I would have been a woman alone among shrewd businessmen familiar with the world of finance, about which I understand little. Men who would never treat me as an equal.”
Although there was some sense in what she said, he supposed that she was lying. In any case, he preferred not to consider whether or not to believe her.
“And the second reason?”
“The second reason, my friend, is of a far more intimate nature.”
She paused, and for a few seconds he thought she would remain silent. He was mistaken.
“Are you married, Señor Larrea?”
“I was.”
Another carriage rattled over the cobblestones, passing more swiftly this time.
“Then you will agree that marriage is a complex alliance that brings both joy and bitterness . . . and occasionally it becomes a game of power. Your proposal set me thinking, and I came to the conclusion that if I had more money I might achieve greater power in my own marriage.”
Greater power? Whatever for? he was on the verge of saying. But he stopped short, recalling Doña Caridad’s words earlier that afternoon: Carola Gorostiza’s keenness to please her husband’s cousin who had come over from Spain; the strange triangle they formed; the woman on the other side of the ocean who had stolen Gustavo Zayas’s heart, then abandoned him for another; a thousand past conflicts. He preferred to curb his curiosity. Questioning her would require reciprocity, and he was unwilling to reveal anything about himself. In the meantime, she was moving closer to him, stretching the limits of what was seemly.
The flounces of her skirts brushed between Larrea’s legs. He was aware of her breasts pressed up against him. He could feel her breath.
“You placed temptation in my path,” she said, her voice trembling. “Offering to make my inheritance grow without my having to lift a finger. I dislike men who leave a woman dangling.”
And I dislike women who lead men on the way you do, he thought, but refrained from saying. Instead, without breaking their close proximity, he asked in a hushed, solemn voice, “Tell me honestly, Carola, have you no misgivings about the nature of this despicable trade?”
She tilted her head slowly then drew her lips close to his ear. Her dark hair brushed his cheek as she whispered her reply.
“If I ever experience remorse, my dear, I shall take the matter up with my confessor.”
He stepped back a few paces, detaching himself from her female charms.
“For
God’s sake, leave the moralizing to the religious fanatics and Freemasons,” Carola Gorostiza went on with vehemence. “Conscience won’t fill your coffers, and you need money as much as I do. Withdraw enough of our funds to cover our joint share in the venture, then, at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning, walk into Novás’s store as if you were going to buy something. I’ve decided to tell him about my part in this, and I’ll be waiting for you there.”
At that, she threw the pincushion onto the table and snuffed out the oil lamp. Afterward, without a word, she picked up the shawl from the back of her chair, placed it over her head, and left.
He stood staring into the darkness, amid shelves piled with sheets and bolts of fabric. He waited long enough to be sure their paths wouldn’t cross. Slipping out behind the church, he confirmed that no carriage was waiting for him before heading down Calle de la Amargura toward his lodgings, overwhelmed by a feeling of unease.
He entered the darkened house, which was immersed in a sepulchral silence. Everyone was asleep and, unusually, Santos Huesos wasn’t waiting for him either in the hallway or the courtyard. He started along the dim corridor but turned on his heel before he reached his room. Careful not to make a sound as he went into the dining room, he felt his way around the furniture until he found what he was looking for. Then he seized the neck of the liquor carafe and made off with it.
He lay asleep facedown, diagonally across the bed, arms and legs akimbo, left hand dangling over the edge of the mattress, fingers brushing the tiled floor. He felt a slight pressure; someone was squeezing his ankle.
He awoke with a jolt, sat up startled, his head feeling like lead. Beneath the raised mosquito net, in the faint light filtering through the open balcony doors, he made out a familiar face.
“Is anything the matter, lad?”
“No.”
“What do you mean, ‘No,’ Santos?” he muttered. “You wake me up . . . at . . . what’s the time?”
“Five o’clock in the morning; nearly daybreak.”
“You wake me up at five in the morning, you dolt, and expect me to believe nothing is the matter.”