Queen of the Underworld (24 page)

“That sounds pretty astute to me,” I said. “I mean, if we went completely around the world to fight the Communists in Korea, what’s to stop us from going a mere ninety miles south?” (Thank you, Rancid Rance.)

“You are an informed young lady. However, there is an old Spanish proverb:
‘El que espera desespera.’
He who waits will despair. Now I think we must do more than just waiting. Lídia understands this and I support her completely. We must have some plans of our own, all of us working together every single moment, not just waiting for the American government to act.
¿De acuerdo?
”

“
De acuerdo.
Doctor, what is the Spanish for ‘dental surgeon’?”

“Ah,
odontólogo
.”

I repeated it, trying to do the tongue thing with the
“tó”
syllable.

“
Muy bien, señorita.
It is a family profession. Both my father and grandfather practiced
odontología
in Havana. My great-uncle Hector in Madrid, whom I am named after, was dentist to King Alfonso
Trece.
”

At this moment, the Miami sunset plunged behind the cabanas and Lídia’s little street
orquesta
struck up with “Cherry Pink in Apple Blossom Time.” There was no singer, only two guitars, an accordion, bongo drums, and maracas, but the tune was instantly recognized and a cheer of approval went up from Lídia’s guests. Dancing began at once, and when Hector saw me swaying to the music he gallantly opened his arms and we slid right into the
cha-cha-cha.
Bev Nightingale had taught me to do it and some other Latin dances last summer; she insisted that I join the dancing in the evenings. Under her encouraging eye I would cha-cha or rumba or samba with the guests and also with Paul.

Paul was a smooth dancer—Bev had been his teacher, too—but Hector Rodriguez made more complicated moves with his torso. Did he and Tess ever dance?

As though he had read my mind, he began to talk of her. “Your adopted aunt, she is a pillar of strength, as you say in English. If she had been Spanish, the name Pilar would have suited her well. Our Tess is
bien segura,
she has an adventurous spirit. I am giving her flying lessons in my Cessna; she has perhaps mentioned it?”

I did my best to cover my surprise: not of Tess flying—I could perfectly picture her serenely guiding the aircraft above tropical clouds, her lovely profile intent on the controls in front of her—but that she had
not
mentioned it to me made me wonder whether I was less important to her than I had supposed.

“She didn’t tell you?
¡Ay!
I have spoken out of turn.”

“No, maybe she
did
mention something,” I hastily reassured him. Could she possibly have said something that night on the houseboat after I was too daiquiri-sozzled to take it in? “But maybe I confused it with that time she flew through the air in the hurricane. Did you know that story?”

“Oh, yes, with the piano and the carpets floating below.” He forced a laugh, but still looked worried. “Perhaps she is waiting to surprise you with her pilot’s license. Please,
señorita,
don’t mention my indiscretion.”

“Of course I won’t.”

And here came Marisa Ocampo, accompanied by her little daughter, bursting with news. “Hortensia
remembers
you, Emma, she remembers you from St. Clothilde’s! She telephones us daily from New York and she was so excited when I told her you were here in our hotel. ‘Of course, Emma Gant, she was one of the leaders in the younger grades,’ that’s exactly what my sister said!”

I introduced Dr. Hector Rodriguez to Marisa and Luisa Ocampo, keeping straight who got presented to whom and doing a pretty agile job of pronouncing
“odontólogo.”
I saw Hector register at once that these were the usurped sugar heirs, and as he gently began evoking from Marisa a blow-by-blow account of the Ocampos’ reversal of fortune, both of them still speaking in English out of courtesy to me, I transferred my attention to sedate young Luisa.

“Well, Luisa, where are the dolls tonight? Your
muñecas
?”

“Las muñecas estan arriba,”
Luisa replied in her disconcerting gravelly little voice.

“Ah, they’re upstairs. Does— Now is it Tilda who has the headaches?
¿Tiene Tilda otro dolor de cabeza?
”

“No,
señorita.
” Luisa gave me her polite stare. If I had hoped to score a point about Tilda’s headaches, I was out of luck.

“Oh,
sí,
well, that’s good. I mean I’m glad—
estoy muy alegra . . .
no,
me alegra de que . . . de que Tilda NO tiene un dolor de cabeza.
” Oh Lord, this was torture.

Tilda y Manuela desprecian las fiestas,”
Luisa explained simply before I mangled her language any more.

“Oh, I see. Tilda and Manuela don’t
like
parties.” I flailed my hand around at the chattering crowd and scrunched up my face to mime disgust.

At last I won an affirmative nod.
“Sí. Manuela, ella tiene miedo del ruido, y Tilda es muy crítica de la gente.”

“Yes, our wise Luisita’s amazing dolls,” interjected Marisa, who must have been listening to our exchange. “Manuela is afraid of noisy crowds and Tilda is so critical of people, and both of them hate parties.” She stroked her daughter’s shiny dark hair, parted in the middle like her own. Their look-alike dresses of lilac dotted swiss had the odd effect of bringing out the budding womanhood of the girl and revealing the girlhood still lingering in the mother. “We are so fortunate to have Tilda and Manuela! They wear our deficiencies for us so that we can make a brave appearance.”

I caught Luisa gazing longingly toward the food.

“I don’t know about you, Luisa,” I said, “but I’m famished.
Tengo mucho hambre.
” Even though she was still a child, I hesitated to use the familiar
tú. “¿Usted, también?”

“Sí, señorita.”

“Escucha, querida . . .”
Marisa Ocampo instructed Luisa in Spanish, then switched back for me. “Please, Emma, go with Luisita and sample the tapas we made together before all of them disappear.”

Luisa and I left Marisa confiding to Hector that her sister Hortensia’s husband at the United Nations said diplomats in high places thought it was only a matter of weeks until America kicked Fidel out. “But the delay is still a disaster, my husband says—that handsome
camarero
serving drinks is my husband—because those
esbirros
who confiscated our mills won’t know what to do with the harvest . . .”

Language barriers crumbled as Luisa and I got into a little game of filling each other’s plates.

“This looks good, Luisa. May I put some on your plate?”

“Sí, señorita Gant.”

“Me llamo Emma.”

“Gracias . . . Emma.”

“What do you say we rescue those last two eggs from their loneliness? One deviled egg for you . . .”

“Gracias, Emma.”
Then Luisa took the serving spoon and slid the second and last onto my plate. “Devil egg,” she said, glancing up at me with the tiniest twitch of humor.

“Thank you, Luisa. Oh, this all looks so good. Will you permit me to help you to some of these red peppers and cucumbers? What are they called in
Español
?”

“Estos son pimientos, y estos son pepinos.”
She pointed to each in turn.

“Pimientos . . . y . . . pepinos.”
I echoed her pronunciation. “And
you
”—I pointed to her and then made slicing gestures—“you prepared them?
Sí?
”

“Con mi madre, sí.”

“Claro. Con su madre.”

After each of us had heaped the other’s plate, Luisa got a Coca-Cola from her father and I decided the time had come to switch to rum and Coke, which Enrique presented to me with a ceremonial flourish: “One Cuba libre for
señorita
Gant!”

Then off we went with our hoard to the far end of the pool, where we stood companionably stuffing ourselves like two schoolgirls excused from the social restraints of the adult scene.

The street
orquesta
launched into something faster, with an African beat, lots of drum and maracas. Many couples were dancing now. Hector Rodriguez and Marisa had joined Enrique behind the bar and the two men were speaking with intensity, both sets of hands flying, while Marisa in her girlish lilac dress smiled on them with approval.

“Do you like to swim, Luisa?
Quiere nadar?
”

“Me gusta cuando hace calor.”

“
Yo también.
I hate chilly water.
Desprecio agua fría.
”

“En Oriente, la temperatura de nuestra piscina está ideal.”

Of course. She missed their pool at home, always the right temperature. Before I knew it, I had transmigrated into Luisa Ocampo’s usurped young soul. When Mother and Earl had dragged me out of St. Clothilde’s and away from Mountain City, at least I still had my native language to make new contacts. What would it have been like to start all over, as poor Luisa now had to do?

“¿Cuentos años tiene, Luisa?”

“Tengo nueve años.”

Nine years old. Thirteen years’ difference between us.
“Y, yo”
—I soldiered on, pointing to myself—
“yo tengo veinte y dos años.”

“Viente y dos,”
Luisa repeated respectfully, picking at one last roasted almond on her paper plate. I must seem ancient to her.

“Desde ayer,”
I added. “Since yesterday.
Ayer
was
el dia de mi nacimiento,
my birthday.”

“Felicidades . . . Emma.”

“Gracias, Luisa. Y qué es el día de su nacimento?”

“El segundo de Julio.”
Adding with a little sigh,
“Espero que estemos de vuelta en Cuba por mis cumpleanos.”

And if Hortensia’s UN husband’s hunch was right, the Ocampos would be back in Cuba in a matter of weeks and Luisa would be entertaining other children in her pool on her birthday, perhaps sparing a fleeting thought for that American
periodista
with her lousy Spanish who had befriended her beside that chilly North American pool. Or, worse, remembering me as a minor character in a bad dream that was now over.

“Y yo espero tambíen, Luisa.”
Nevertheless, I wished her home in time for her birthday.

A sudden tropical breeze animated the colored lights strung around the pool and sent the red-and-white Cuban flag into a patriotic flutter above the flower beds. Spanish and English phrases tumbled together in the dark tropical air and wafted across the pool to us, amplified by the water:

“Oye, chico . . .”

“
Claro,
but . . .”

“
Ay,
in
COO-bah,
we . . .”

“ ‘La ley agraria.’ ¡Cuantas mentiras!”

“¡Ay, te lo dije!”

“Excuse me, can you tell me where is the best . . . ?”

“Es un cotilleo.”

“No, querida, es cierto. Llegó la hora . . .”

By this time, my Cuba libre had kicked in. I had ceased straining over translations and just let the words wash over me, making perfect sense in a larger way.

Darting busily about was Lídia in her red flamenco dress, pouncing on her guests, arranging and rearranging them in designs of her own making, like a creative artist whose material just happened to be other people.

Alex appeared and spoke to his mother, who immediately pointed to Luisa and me at the far end of the pool. So she had known exactly where we were in her pageant the whole time.

Alex made directly for us in his dignified, high-slung walk. My first thought was that he was coming to ask me to dance.

“There’s a long-distance phone call for you, Emma. It’s Mrs. Nightingale. You can take it on the house phone in the lobby.”

15.

Y
OU MEAN
M
R.
N
IGHTINGALE,
don’t you? I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying it. If Alex had said “Mrs.” he must have
meant
“Mrs.”

As he accompanied me back to the hotel, Lídia shot forth from a cluster of guests and grabbed his arm.

“
Hijo,
why are all the lights on in the penthouse suite?” She pointed at the string of lit windows on the top floor of the Julia Tuttle.

“I guess because Don Waldo Navarro wanted them on.”

Why on earth was Bev Nightingale calling me?

“
¡Dios mío, Alejandro!
You mean to say Don Waldo has arrived and you didn’t even tell me? I wanted to be there to greet him.”

“You were busy greeting your guests, Mami. Not even you can be two places at once. Come, Emma, I’ll show you where the house phone is.”

“Wait!” cried Lídia. “Did he bring his old housekeeper? Altagracia?”

“The name of the lady who signed the register was Altagracia Navarro. But she’s not old and he introduced her as his wife.”

“No, Alex, you are mistaken. Altagracia is his old housekeeper—”

“Excuse me, Mami, while I go and put Emma’s long-distance call through.”

“Ah, long-distance,” said Lídia, sending me a significant look. “A tardy birthday call from someone special, perhaps.”

Alex pointed the way to the house phone, then went back to the switchboard to connect us, while I edged into the booth in a swirl of possibilities:

“Emma, it’s Bev Nightingale here. Paul has been so busy he hasn’t had a moment to himself. He asked me to phone you and wish you a tardy happy birthday from us both.”

“Emma, this is Bev, your former friend and admirer, whose husband you’ve been having an affair with for the past year. I just found out today and I’m disgusted with you both. I’m filing for divorce and you can have him all to yourself.”

“Oh, Emma. Be strong. I’ve suspected all along about you and Paul, but now it falls to me to tell you that he’s been seriously injured and is asking for you.”

“Oh, Emma, be strong. Paul was in a bad accident and we have both lost him. Now all we have is each other.”

Would Paul want to marry me? Did I want to be Paul’s wife? Would I continue my job, changing my byline to “Emma Nightingale”? Would I live in the same house he had shared with Bev? Hang my clothes in her spacious walk-in closet?