Steadied by Costeiro’s arm, Alexandra looked at Fabian. Her throat was still pulsing with terror, but the first wave had passed, leaving her listless.
“I know you didn’t mean it, Fabian,” she mumbled. Fabian could not decipher whether her incoherence was the result of the accident or a fresh resumption of the mask, as she went on, her voice a drifting trail. “I know that if you meant it, it wouldn’t have been the camera.” She slumped against Costeiro’s shoulder.
“The man strikes but God carries the blow.” Costeiro was suddenly formal with an impersonal wisdom. “Alex should be thankful to God she is still alive,” he said gravely, one hand caressing her hair. He turned to look at Fabian evenly, coldly. “And you, that you didn’t kill her.”
“I am,” Fabian said. “Do we continue our game, Mr. Costeiro?”
They went back to their ponies. As he picked up his mallet, Costeiro threw a last, anxious glance at Alexandra. Fitful, she sat hunched on the grass.
Costeiro touched the mallet to his helmet as a signal, and one of the grooms threw in the ball. The game continued. Costeiro’s first moves were sluggish, and Fabian realized that the Argentinean’s thoughts were with Alexandra. In the first scuffle, he lost the ball to Fabian, who tracked it easily, in free flight across the field, taking one obstacle after another without incident. Then Costeiro, his pony whinnying at the incessant use of the whip, the spurs bloodying its flanks, swerved to bear down, hard in the wake of Fabian, only inches behind Big Lick. Fabian knew that if Big Lick were to slow down, Costeiro might run into him; if the mare refused a jump, the slam could be dangerous. Instinct mobilized him again, every power alert, as he recognized that Costeiro’s aim might now be to punish him for the incident with Alexandra. He slackened the reins and with his legs gently prodded Big Lick into a run, goading it toward the triple bar; but just as the mare was about to take it, he braced himself in the saddle, and threw all his weight and strength to one side, forcing Big Lick to sidetrack the jump. The maneuver was swift and, in the classic response of the polo man, Costeiro, desperate to bring his pony to heel, made the blunder of wrenching at the reins, locking the martingale and noseband in a vise that strangled his pony’s nostrils and bridled it, momentarily choking the animal’s breathing. Its sight of the barrier having been obstructed by Big Lick, Costeiro’s pony confronted an obstacle it had not seen from afar and was now too close to see well. Punished by the reins, panicking at the looming presence of the triple bar, the horse reared violently, pitching Costeiro, bent forward in readiness to take the jump, over its head and into the barrier.
Seizing the moment, in a series of smooth forehand strokes, Fabian propelled the ball to its target. By the time Costeiro lurched to his feet, Fabian had scored his third goal.
Costeiro was shaken and disheveled by his fall. Flecks of blood from a gash in his arm spotted his shirt. Two grooms rushed toward him, one retrieving his pony, aimless without its rider. On impulse, the Argentinean said he would continue to play. But as he moved to pick up his mallet, his mouth twitched in pain.
“I think I’ve twisted my ankle,” he said, his eyes reluctant to meet Fabian’s. Then, feigning the nonchalance of the sportsman, he added, “It’s your game, Señor Fabian.”
“We could continue at some other time,” Fabian said.
“Another time would be another game. I seem to have been thrown out of this one.” Leaning heavily on the arm of a groom, Costeiro grimaced sharply and for a moment looked up, his eyes brisk with their earlier fire. He held out his hand as Fabian dismounted. Alexandra joined them, still pale and tentative, her mask restored. Costeiro released Fabian’s hand.
“Your stakes will be at the club,” Costeiro said indifferently, then reached toward Alexandra. “Let’s go home, my love.” He did not look back as she led him limping off the field.
Fabian often contemplated the vagaries of fortune, whose perverse whim it so often was either to grant the fulfillment of his deepest wishes when he had already ceased to entertain them or to exact as the penalty of that fulfillment a consequence that always lay concealed in the gift.
It was in this mood of chagrin that he would sometimes recall his time as a polo partner in the service of the once celebrated Fernando-Rafael Falsalfa, the unchallenged autocrat of the Latin American republic of Los Lemures, an island rich in much of the world’s supply of tobacco and sugar. Then Fabian had known a feeling of permanence, his capacities and powers acknowledged and financially rewarded. Within that security, he was free to indulge whatever pleasure might invite him, the rhythm of his days broken by no event that could not be mastered.
Falsalfa, now dead, was known, sometimes with irony, as his country’s El Benefactor. Already advanced in age at the time he engaged Fabian, he used an occasional polo playing to foster his image as an active, virile man, as much a macho sportsman as he was, at least in his own eyes, a master statesman. To retain that image, he could not have for a polo partner a local player, who might conceivably talk and so dispel one of the myths El Benefactor had so carefully nurtured. The translation of Fabian’s books into Spanish and their publication in Latin America had first brought him to the attention of Falsalfa and prepared the way for his entry into the sealed world around El Benefactor. Fabian soon found himself installed, with a salary equal to that of a high public official, in one of the splendid bungalows facing the sea at Casa Bonita, Falsalfa’s sumptuous private villa in La Hispaniola, the Caribbean resort which was his private property.
Only two hours by car from Ciudad Falsalfa, the island’s capital, to which El Benefactor had bequeathed his name, La Hispaniola was a spectacular resort of lavish private homes and villas, immaculate polo fields, stables of hundreds of the choicest ponies, along with an array of seasoned grooms to tend them, and facilities for some of the best golf, tennis and boating in the hemisphere—an opulent monument to the art of conspicuous consumption. Rich and worldly travelers arrived at La Hispaniola by private jet each season to relish the resort’s natural and man-made pleasures.
Casa Bonita, as well as the resort of which it was part, offered to El Benefactor a retreat from the demands of his responsibilities as head of state. It had also become a shelter from the claims of his aging wife and numerous children and grandchildren, all of whom were sequestered either in the presidential palace at Ciudad Falsalfa or in any number of princely resorts around the island. Casa Bonita, however, was reserved for El Benefactor alone, as well as for those members of his retinue who, like Fabian, in no way threatened his personal security or impinged on the intimacy of his private and social life while in La Hispaniola.
Fabian’s sole duty at Casa Bonita was to be available whenever El Benefactor decided that he wanted to play polo: either stick-and-ball practice or a one-on-one game.
Team games were sometimes staged for the purpose of affording an opportunity to film Falsalfa in a few moments of play, sequences that would then be edited artfully to suggest that he had actually taken part in the game as a member of the victorious team. In all such instances, Falsalfa relied on Fabian for his counsel, company and discretion; it was Fabian’s task to supervise preparations for the game, as well as to instruct the other players, already screened and approved by Falsalfa’s secret service, in the strategies of the scenario that had been arranged for them.
Even though he had been hired by Falsalfa as a member of his staff, Fabian’s position in his entourage was more that of an intermittent confederate, an acquaintance in residence, than it was that of an employee. Some of this he owed to a spontaneous unpredictable liking the old man had taken to his new foreign-born partner at polo, the charm of a novelty and surprise. With time, Fabian, scrupulous never to overstep the bounds of his role, became a fixture in Falsalfa’s household, invited to take advantage of the facilities of the house and resort.
Only the imminent arrival of El Benefactor and whatever non-official guests he would bring with him from the capital interrupted the luxury of Fabian’s pleasures and days.
Under the apprehensive eye of Casa Eonita’s security chief, ever mindful of the fate of his predecessor, who had been stripped of rank and imprisoned as a punishment after the villa’s lights had gone out during an evening cocktail party at which Falsalfa had been host, the villa now became a hive of frantic preparation. The usually phlegmatic servants were suddenly busy cleaning, polishing, disinfecting; nothing escaped their attention, from the vaulting dome of the main living room, giant tortoise shells adorning each column of the walls that supported it, to the needle of the record player in the adjacent sound studio. Gardeners prowled the lawns and bushes of the grounds, energetically deploying their electric cutters and clippers. Random debris of leaves, insects and other casualties of nature were skimmed off the pool, and its level of chlorine was meticulously checked. At the villa’s marina and heliport, in its garages and the hangars of its airstrip, the squadron of mechanics and engineers systematically inspected and cleaned every piece of machinery and equipment, certifying its fitness, its ultimate safety.
Later in the afternoon, to the distant drum of paratroopers on drill in preparation for whatever chance inspection they might be put on by any one of the autocrat’s military comrades, who often accompanied him to La Hispaniola, Falsalfa’s presidential jet would land, gliding to a halt in front of a broad avenue that led directly to the gates of Casa Bonita. The weekend had begun.
As soon as El Benefactor stepped onto the runway, flanked by his bodyguards, followed by the entourage of guests who had been chosen to spend the weekend with him, a cascade of flowers, strewn by his household staff, spilled before him, while a formation of soldiers presented arms with martial precision, as if he had returned from months of exile, instead of the brief span of days that had elapsed since his last visit.
The roster of guests who drifted in and out of Casa Bonita during each of those weekends was formidable, some arriving only for drinks, others enlisted for fishing, water-skiing, sailing parties and occasional tours of the island’s interior. The guests included powerful figures in industry and commerce, chiefly American but British and European as well, a number of Latin American aristocrats who owned villas in La Hispaniola, and bankers and businessmen, many of whom engaged in trade with the Republic of Los Lemures. Officers of local and foreign sugar and tobacco corporations were usually in evidence, as well as the omnipresent military advisers, confreres and cohorts of the autocrat. For all of them, an invitation by Falsalfa, and especially one to dinner at Casa Bonita, was a visible sign of election, a tangible reward for diligence and devotion in supporting not only Falsalfa but the right and authority of his autocratic rule.
It was during one of these dinners, a blaze of display in the great dining hall, twin ranks of a dozen guests each flanking the main table, Falsalfa posted at its head, that Fabian found his glance returning to a guest, a woman sitting diagonally across from him. She was in her early twenties, with an obvious, intense Latin beauty. Unlike the other women who so often decorated Falsalfa’s table during his weekends at Casa Bonita, she was dressed simply, more by necessity than by choice, Fabian gleaned, a wedding band being her only jewelry, and something still of the teen-ager remaining in the charming but slight unripeness of her manner. Fabian doubted that she would have detained him had it not been for her eyes: large and expressive, they commanded her entire countenance. Since protocol at Casa Bonita determined that dinner guests were usually presented only to the host and seldom introduced to each other, Fabian did not know who she was.
After dinner, he followed her as guests moved from the dining room to have coffee and liqueur on the moonlit terrace overlooking the gardens of the villa and the sea. He had started to introduce himself when she turned with a smile of affection toward an older man who approached them.
“Francisco de Tormes,” the man announced formally, bowing slightly to Fabian, “and my wife, Elena.”
Fabian recognized the name immediately: Francisco de Tormes, the republic’s most controversial political columnist, was critical of Falsalfa and his one-man regime. When various international coalitions had threatened Los Lemures with economic reprisals in response to what they saw as excesses of Falsalfa’s power, El Benefactor permitted the strictures of de Tormes to serve as a proof of the country’s freedom of the press.
De Tormes was conscious of the public awareness of his precarious political status; he observed casually but pointedly how much pleasure he and his wife took in the beauty of Casa Bonita, particularly in view of their imminent departure from Los Lemures. He explained that he had accepted the invitation of a notable American school of journalism to join its faculty for a year as a visiting fellow, and within a few weeks, he and his wife of only four months would be leaving for North America.
As he spoke, Elena de Tormes stood close to her husband, her elbow brushing his hip. She was little more than a third his age, but she seemed to have a rare maturity of spirit, a deep attachment to her husband, a unique engagement with his nature and being.
The charm of Elena de Tormes was contagious, and as Fabian felt himself succumbing to it, the cluster of guests parted discreetly, revealing the presence of Falsalfa, imperial in the white splendor of his uniform as the Generalissimo. As he bore down on Fabian and de Tormes, he extended his arm, greeting the columnist in embrace first, then in full view of the watching guests, kissing the hand of his wife.
“So here you are,” Falsalfa called out heartily, “and conspiring against me no doubt!” He finished, the joke heavy, as he clapped Fabian on the shoulder.
“Indeed we are, Excellency,” Fabian agreed, trying to maintain the levity while de Tormes smiled uneasily and his wife busied herself with her fan. “I was just thinking of inviting Señor and Señora de Tormes to go with me on a trip to the interior, to visit on horseback some of the less accessible settlements of Cacata.”
At Fabian’s proposal, de Tormes made a gesture of dissent. “In my work, I don’t have much chance to practice riding, and as a student, neither does Elena,” he said deferentially. “We might only be a burden, Mr. Fabian.”
Fabian, sensing his apprehension, was about to propose another diversion, when Falsalfa curbed him with a smile.
“Come, now. It’s a splendid idea,” Falsalfa said. “What a pity that I can’t join you.” He turned his eyes on de Tormes, a veiled displeasure behind his joviality. “But is our famous de Tormes still interested in the primitive villages of his own country, which he is about to abandon for the big-town comforts of the United States?” Falsalfa’s bitterness toward political fugitives from Los Lemures who opposed him from the safety of the United States was notorious, and de Tormes flushed at the public chiding.
Elena de Tormes broke in apprehensively, her fan slicing the air. “Please remember, Excellency, we will only be visiting the United States for a year. It is my first journey abroad, the honeymoon trip Francisco promised me.”
“I won’t forget, my dear, I won’t forget,” Falsalfa assured her, his manner softening. When his glance returned to de Tormes, he was again the essence of suavity and charm. “It’s settled, then,” he announced decisively, “but surely, de Tormes, you and your delightful wife must see Cacata before you go.” He turned to Fabian. “Order the best horses dispatched, at once. My helicopter will be at your disposal early tomorrow.” Falsalfa closed the incident with a lordly gesture, dismissing de Tormes and his wife, reaching out again to clasp Fabian’s shoulder. “Meanwhile, we have our polo to plan for,” he announced so expansively he could not fail to be heard. “Let us retreat to the library,” he concluded, guiding Fabian firmly through the dividing crowd.
Trailed by bodyguards, Falsalfa pulled Fabian toward him with an air of mischievous conspiracy.
“Aren’t you even going to thank me for what I have done for you?” he whispered in his thick English.
“For what you have done, Excellency?” Fabian stammered. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
Falsalfa stopped and pinched him gently on the cheek. “I am
old enough to be your father, Fabian. You have no secrets from me.” He quivered with laughter. “I saw you exchanging glances with the pretty wife of that sly fox de Tormes.” Falsalfa chuckled with amorous speculation.
“I met Señora de Tormes for the first time at dinner tonight,” Fabian protested. “I can assure you, Excellency, there hasn’t been anything between us.”
“Don’t say anything yet, Fabian,” Falsalfa interrupted, suddenly sober. “I have no right to pry into your feelings.” The amiability returned. “In any case,” he continued, “I’m glad you’ll be on this trip with a woman you want. Let’s hope you’ll find a moment to be alone with her in Cacata.”
Fabian attempted to disengage himself from Falsalfa’s romantic illusion. “But Señor de Tormes is going with us, Excellency,” he began. “And I don’t hope, I wasn’t really planning—” Falsalfa’s eruption of laughter made him break off in embarrassment. They had arrived at the door of the library.
“Have a good trip, Fabian,” Falsalfa said indulgently. “And when you make love to Elena in the jungle, watch out for our famous tarantulas—otherwise de Tormes might find one for you.” The gusty insinuation of his laughter dissolved into the library, followed by the mute parade of Falsalfa’s bodyguards gliding past Fabian. He was left before a closed door.
Fabian made the preparations for the trip as Falsalfa had ordered. He was told that horses had been dispatched by an army horse van to the place he had selected for the departure point, along with two guides whose services he had often made use of on other trips to the interior. His plan was to accompany the de Tormeses on the helicopter from Casa Bonita and to rendezvous with the guides and the horses at the site agreed upon. Two to three hours of steady horseback travel would be required to reach one of the oldest and most isolated settlements perching high above the river’s rocky bank. They would have a picnic lunch there, and a helicopter would come for them in time to return to Casa Bonita for late afternoon tea.
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