House Arrest (16 page)

I have never been to any of these houses, except his office in the city and the hunting estate where my wedding was held. Most of what I know about my father is what I’ve heard, what has been told to me, but I do not doubt a word.

Often he reserves different houses for different women. I have heard that I have sixteen brothers, but I am said to be the only girl. They don’t call him the Horse for nothing. There was the dancer at the Club Tropical and the mysterious blue-haired woman from Argentina. There was the woman who was just herself a child and the one driven mad by grief. The jealous woman, if you can imagine such a person with El Caballo, and even the American woman. And then there was the beautiful woman—my mother, of course. And the wife he trusted and the mistress who betrayed him. And the one who he can never forget because she told him the truth. But then she died.

He kept them all in different houses, where they raised their different children. One had the swimming pool shaped like a crocodile and the other had six white horses that she rode naked and the third killed herself in a tub of white rum and the fourth lives in a house of decay and twisted vines, wrapped in the past and a passion greater than any grief, longing for a body that a lifetime ago pulled away. When she sleeps, it is beside him; when she dreams, it is of him. At
night I have heard her awaken at the sound of a car turning around at the end of our street. I have heard her whispering through the darkened rooms, as she listens for footsteps that have eluded her these past twenty-five years.
Mi Amor
, she says, is that you?

But he gave me a wedding where waiters in black jackets carried trays of jumbo shrimp on the tips of their fingers. Champagne was uncorked by the case. There were delicacies from the sea, drinks from coconuts and brandied fruit, colored umbrellas and santería costumes, salsa bands and disco bands played on different parts of the lawn, and of course the rum flowed, endless bottles of white rum. Lambs and pigs roasted on the spits, chickens sizzled on the grills.

My father will not eat in public. And he will not eat sitting down. He will not be photographed eating. But on this night he ate right beside me. He toasted me and my groom. And then when the music began, my father danced with me. It was an old Latin love song, “Bésame, Bésame,” and I was embarrassed to be dancing to that song with my father. I should have been dancing with my husband, but anyway I danced with him in a way that I hadn’t danced since I was eight years old and had felt like a broom, sweeping the floor clean.

Two weeks after the wedding, my husband was drafted into the army and sent to fight a foreign war. Once more I went to my father’s office, and this time I begged him not to send my husband. I pleaded, but he said it was not his jurisdiction; he said there was nothing he could do. You are the head of the armed forces, I shouted at him. How could this not be your jurisdiction? My husband was a slight, studious man. He collected cowrie shells that he made into a necklace for me before he left. And, of course, he never returned.

The first time we came to the beach I did not look at Isabel as she lay beside me in the sand, but now I did. I stared at her green suit, worn thin. In places I could see through to her skin. Her bronzed legs were riddled with blue lines. Her long, skinny arms drooped at her sides and she reminded me of a marionette, resting on its strings. But suddenly she stood up and turned and dashed down to the water and dove in. She splashed and I ran after her.

The water was warm and the sand soft as a mattress underfoot. It was shallow for almost a half mile out to sea and Isabel swam in that clear water. She swam straight out for a long time, then back again. “Come with me,” she said, “I want to take you somewhere.”

She led me toward the edge of the bay, where the shoreline curved just beyond some rocks. It was easy to walk on the soft sand, which felt warm between my toes. Where the shoreline curved, Isabel climbed onto a rock and pointed to a small island on the other side of the bend, not more than two hundred yards from where we were. “That is Redondo,” she said, “the round island. The island is like a doughnut and in the middle there is a little beach, called Playa de Amor. When the tide is low, we can reach that beach. Can you swim that far?”

“Yes, I think I can.”

Isabel took me by the hand and together we jumped off the rock into colder, rougher seas, unprotected by the bay. She swam first, pulling me along, then when she was sure I could swim in the rougher water she swam beside me. I could see her sleek legs as they kicked, her face so intent as she turned to breathe. Soon we reached the round rock and Isabel motioned for me to follow her. We swam around to
the far side where seabirds nested, gulls and gull-like birds with blue feet, others with red, as if they were wearing plastic gloves. Brown pelicans cruised overhead.

Around the side of the island we came to a narrow channel that the sea had cut through the rock. Down that channel, which was perhaps just a hundred feet long, I could see a circle of turquoise water and a white beach, surrounded by rose-colored rock. Isabel pointed the way and said, “We have to swim through here, but just let the current carry you. Don’t fight it when the waves pull you back.” Water battered the sides of the narrow channel and I was afraid of being smashed against the sides, but I let the sea carry me. Soon we were tossed like flotsam onto that crescent of white sand where, Isabel said as we flopped down, lovers and pirates and poets have come. We lay on our backs on this inland beach, a circle of blue above us, crisscrossed by seabirds. Orange and blue crabs crawled across the wall of rocks behind us. The sea had dug caverns into the rock, pounding like thunder. “For me,” Isabel said with a laugh, “this is what I call never-never land. But then the tide comes in and I have to leave.” I glanced at our narrow cavern, wondering how long we had.

Once again Isabel took off her halter, but this time I didn’t look away. I stared at her round, firm breasts, pointed toward the sky. My breasts are large, pendulous. Melons, Todd jokes, fondling them. It was not that I wanted to caress hers or suck on them. I wanted to lay naked on my back in the sun. I thought how I could easily spend days here on remote beaches, eating shellfish and dried fruit. How I could lie beside Isabel and smell her sunscreen and her Nina Ricci and her soap and listen to her tell me about Portuguese sailors and snakes sleeping on her chest and a father who came one night and danced with her.

I turned to Isabel and said, “I was thinking that I could help you. Or that I want to help you. There must be something I can do?”

Isabel frowned, shaking her head. “I don’t know. I doubt it.”

“But when I get home, there must be something I could do for you.”

“Oh, especially not then,” Isabel said, thoughtfully. “There is something that could be done here, but there are risks. I could not ask you. No, I don’t want anyone implicated in my life. I will just stay here and grow old and die and it will have been a stupid life.”

Suddenly I felt as if I could not bear her suffering anymore. “But I want to help you. Tell me what it is.”

She touched my cheek. “You are a beautiful woman. You have a family and a life and you will go home and forget all about this. You will forget all about me. It will be as if none of it ever happened to you.”

“No, I won’t. I’ll never forget you.”

She patted my face again and I felt rough sand against my skin. “Oh, yes, you will.”

Then she closed her eyes and seemed to fall asleep. I watched her for a little while, then I must have dozed off too. Suddenly she was shaking me. “Now we must go. In another hour it will be impossible to leave.”

The salty water stung my skin; my lips were cracked. When we got back to land, we realized how burned we were, but neither of us cared. We hardly spoke on the ride back to the city.

That night after she dropped me off, my skin burned and I could not sleep. I lay down on my bed, still feeling the sand,
the sun on us. I thought of the deep sadness in her eyes. All night long, whenever I closed my eyes, I saw hers.

After that night I began to dream of Isabel. I saw her in the turquoise blue sea. She was swimming, waving to me. And then she turned, diving like a fish, and I watched her swim away.

L
ATER Major Lorenzo returns and says that the people who spoke with me yesterday would like to speak with me again. It is just a formality, he says, while we are trying to clear this thing up. Again he laughs, makes his usual comments about red tape, but something about him is altered. “It is taking too long,” I say.

“Oh,” he assures me, “it’s just a matter of a little time now.”

First we drive toward the Miramar, which is not the way we went before, and then, just before reaching the sea, we veer to the right and head straight out of the city, along the old port with its rotting docks, ships that look as if they haven’t sailed in years. It is a cloudy day and for a while I can catch glimpses of the sea until we turn off again, heading toward an industrial part of town that I did not even know existed.

Though I cannot say that I mind getting out of the hotel, it bothers me that we are not going the way we went before.
We are going to a different place so I try to memorize the route, thinking it might be useful, but everything looks the same. The buildings could be buildings anywhere. We pass a park with empty swings that I do not recall passing the other day. People line up for food around the block at a ration store. An old woman walks home, a chicken dangling from her fist.

I cannot determine if we are going east or west and Major Lorenzo is oddly silent, staring straight ahead, as if there is no longer any reason for politeness. He does not ask me if I want the window up or down, but rolls it down, all the way, his arm resting on the door. The wind blows my hair straight back like when a dog sticks his head out the window of a moving car. We drive past the Plaza of the Heroes of the Revolution where the giant statue of a worker stands, and now I am certain we are going a different way and we are going to a different place.

Details that did not matter before seem critical now. What are the three things ocean navigators require to set their course: the celestial bodies, the wind, ocean swells. But the sky is cloudy and I cannot see the sun. The wind would be blowing off the sea. And I cannot read the ocean swells. No buildings look familiar, but the billboards all look the same. The smiling worker in the sugarcane field, the circle of tobacco rollers working together. There are no more distinguishing landmarks and I cannot get my bearings.

We are leaving the city by a highway and from what I can determine we are heading northwest. Once again wild primrose grows on the median strip. Along the road, sugarcane workers wave, and some try to hitch a ride. Major Lorenzo waves back, but signals no, his hand twisted up into an apology.
They see his olive green shirt, the bars on his sleeve. Some salute and he gives little salutes back.

The sun is warm on my face and I close my eyes, thinking that this will all be over soon, and yet it seems as if there is nothing but time. The road has few cars, but many people are walking, and most hold out a thumb when they see us. A woman in a pink dress with gold earrings tries to hitch a ride. This time Major Lorenzo smiles and shrugs. He and his aide share a glance and laugh. I know if I weren’t in the backseat they would give her a ride.

At last we come to a road that we follow to a small town. In the town all the houses are cinder-block and it doesn’t exactly feel like a town. There is barbed wire and a kind of fence around it and soldiers seem to be everywhere. I realize we have come to some kind of a barracks. Some official place. We pull up in front of a simple cinder-block building with few windows and no door and both Major Lorenzo and his aide leap out and quickly lead me inside.

Inside the dark, cool building, a soldier is waiting at the door. “Thank you,” he says to Major Lorenzo and asks me to follow him. I turn to Major Lorenzo, who nods. “It’s all right, Maggie,” he says. “We will be right here.”

I panic at the thought of being separated from Major Lorenzo, who gives me a small salute as he gave the people who lined the road. “Please,” I ask, surprised to hear my own voice, “can’t you come with me?” He shakes his head and makes a motion with his hand to follow the soldier who is waiting for me at the door of a room.

In the stark room with just a desk and three chairs, a man in uniform sits at a desk. He has more bars on his sleeve than Major Lorenzo does, so I assume this is his superior. Next to the man sits the overweight man who spoke with me before.
He is dressed in the same civilian clothes he wore the other day—a blue guayabera that has crescent-shaped sweat circles under the arms—and the air is heavy with the smell of sweat. Neither man rises or shakes my hand, but the man in the uniform motions for me to sit down.

“Miss Conover,” he begins, “we are hoping that you will cooperate with us. We seem to have a puzzle here, some pieces of which are missing, and we are hoping you will provide what we need. We have some things we would like to ask you and after we ask you these things—if we are satisfied with the answers—you may go. That is, you may return. We are as anxious as you are to finish with this matter and send you home.”