In the Name of Salome (27 page)

“Leave me alone,” she wants to say. “But if you would, just get out of my country.”

At the front door, she pulls the slot and is shocked by what she sees. Peynado had mentioned that he might be using the house for an occasional visit during the summer. But it is May, campaigning is going strong back on the island, and Peynado is running for president. In fact, Camila had purposely planned her father's trip so that they would be departing just when their host might be returning to Washington.

But what shocks her even more is to catch sight of the tall, blond escort, standing behind the short, frocked man. Scott Andrews in uniform! What on earth is he doing here?

Camila considers ignoring the guests, but then of course, Francisco Peynado is not a guest. This
is
his house. In the front bedroom that Camila has refused to occupy, she has found ear plugs, a tin of lozenges, a stack of cards with pictures of sassy ladies, half-clothed, their bosoms bursting out of their corsets like leavened bread rising in a warm oven.

“¿Quién es?” Isabel whispers. Camila jumps, startled at the sound of her sister-in-law standing beside her. She looks frightened. The poor dear probably thinks officials have come to extradite the whole clan. “Do you know them?”

Isabel must not have recognized, beyond Peynado's shoulder, the face of the handsome major they met several weeks ago at the monument. “Yes, I know them,” Camila says calmly to allay her sister-in-law's fears. “But I do not want to disturb Papancho,” she adds. “Keep him inside, all right?”

The girl gazes warily toward the stairs and nods. Camila turns the lock, opens the door, and slips outside.

S
HE LEADS THE TWO
men to a dainty wrought-iron bench that looks merely ornamental under the sycamore tree. During the anxious interview, she is, of course, constantly checking to see if Pancho or worse, his eagle-eyed brother, Federico, is at the window, or if Pedro might be coming down the street, returning on foot with his book bag full of the free literature he has picked up in one of the many museums on his walk home. And of course, the whole time, she is wondering and worrying about what Scott Andrews is doing accompanying her father's rival to her front door.

By the time this trip is over I will have a new degree: master's in intrigue. Even when I was choosing where to sit on the bench with Peynado (S.A. insisted on standing), I was thinking of which side would be best for watching both the street and the house. Meanwhile, I am quickly losing my degree in manners. I didn't even greet our visitors. In fact, I told Peynado in no uncertain terms that if he came in the house, Papancho would die of apoplexy. He seemed baffled. “But why, Camila? We're old friends. He is using my house.” And so I had to explain that Papancho had no idea whose house he was using, that he thought it a long-term lease of the Dominican government, that he felt he had a right to use the house as he was the president when the island was invaded. I could see the whole sad situation slowly dawning on Peynado. “I understand,” he said at last. “I will stay at the Portland. But you must reason with your father.” That is when he looked toward S.A., who had given us his back, and was plucking leaves from a nearby hedge like a nervous schoolboy.

“General,” he calls out. Camila has noticed how Peynado flatters officers by addressing them by a higher rank. “Perhaps you
can explain to Miss Camila that we have turned a corner and we cannot possibly go back.”

“The election campaigns are proceeding beautifully,” he goes on. And all Camila can think to reply to this is, “So what are you doing here?”

He laughs at her brusqueness, and she sees he is not offended. Sometimes she wonders if she is incapable of offending. If every angry emotion is filtered through the memory of her noble mother and her suffering nation and comes out as a muted, mannerly remark. She knows it is supposed to be one of her womanly accomplishments: her anger does not show; her fingers will only play a jazz number on her lap under the tablecloth, not on the grand piano in the parlor.

“I received a phone call,” Peynado is explaining.

Scott Andrews, who has turned to face them, stiffens. She can see it in his handsome jaw, in the epaulettes at his shoulders suddenly jutting out like knees. What on earth has frightened him? Quickly, she looks up to make sure her father has not spotted them through the window on the stair landing.

“General Andrews called to inform me that you found it absolutely necessary for your father to meet with someone in the State Department. But you must understand, Camila. We are at a delicate moment historically. Your father must not ruin our chances. I have come to escort him home.”

She feels her breath coming short and fears that she will faint right here in front of the two men. So, Scott Andrews has indulged her, has made her think an interview might be possible, and then when she has confronted him, he has called in Peynado to come help get her father off everybody's hands. Now, when they have become close, when she is falling in love, when it will hurt to lose him.

She does not know how she finally finds her legs and stands up. “I am going to have to ask you both to leave,” she says quietly.
Then turning to Peynado, she adds, “We will be out of here by the end of the week.”

“Please, Camila,” her father's old friend is at her side. “You have to understand.”

She brushes past him, heading for the latched gate as if she needs to show them both the way out. She tries to control the fury rising in her throat. In her head she commences playing the tune of the jazz band of several weeks ago. The piano drowns out her mother's voice, Peynado's explanations, the whirring of the cicadas, the call of the robins in the trees above.

Only when Scott Andrews delays a moment to have a private word with her does the music stop—

Where is the music? She needs the sassy sadness of those ivory keys to keep going. She lifts her hand as if she were playing that piano and has momentarily paused, causing this gap in the music, this hiatus in the love story she has been fabricating in her letters to Marion. And then, because she cannot hold in the fury any longer, she brings her hand down hard on the major's pale face.

Lunes, 6 junio 1887

Beloved Pancho:

We just bid you goodbye, and I thought I would not make it back to the house before the tears burst forth. But I had to control myself for our children's sake: they kept looking toward the boat, then back to me, as if something whole had been halved. (It has, oh it has!)

Young as they are, our sons feel your loss. As we were walking back from the dock, Fran looked up at the sun, and said—It was brighter before Papancho was gone. Who knows how children come up with such things? Hostos is right: there is a gold mine there. (Imagine him, tapping his forehead, smiling that smile of his.)

They are fast asleep now, dreaming, no doubt of their father on his way to Paris. I promise, dearest, to keep my vow and present you with your sons, healthy and happy, upon your return.

Your Salomé

Martes, 7 junio 1887

Pancho, dearest:

Today I feel only desperation. We are mad, you and I, to take on this sacrifice: two years of separation! I know this is such an opportunity for you: to study medicine with the acclaimed Dieulafoy. (I hear all your arguments in my head.) But every day I find myself agreeing more with Hostos's belief that our dear “president” Lilís wants you out of here. Why else offer you a foreign scholarship in medicine when you already have your medical degree from our Instituto Profesional?

Pibín caught cold coming home from the dock. That child catches everything. I hear him now coughing from the bedroom. How I worry that I will not be able to keep my vow to you!

Your Salomé

Miércoles, 8 junio 1887

Mi querido Pancho:

I could write you every day of the week, but I will not even try. The steamboat now comes only once a month. Besides, what I write this morning, no longer applies tonight. The patience and hope of dawn turn into desperation by dark.

I have started a poem about our son's remark on the dimming of the sun after his father left. But this poem, I warn you, will not be like those old declamations of mine, which you prefer. I know you are still harboring the hope that—as you said the night before you left—I will “create something of lasting value for the generations to come.” I have, Pancho: our three sons!

Your Salomé

Domingo, 16 agosto 1887, Restoration Day

Pancho, love:

Celebrations are going on throughout the city. The children are pleading with me to let them go out and follow the marching band. But—and I don't want to worry you—some cases of croup have been reported in the capital, and I am sick to death thinking of the danger to our little ones. I give them their pills of Clorato as they are all too young to gargle, and—pobrecitos—I keep them inside.

I myself have not felt well in a while now, as you know. The move to this damp, dark house has not helped. But Mamá could no longer accommodate our instituto. (I already have sixty-seven registered when classes start up again.) I wake up nights unable to breathe. I have been following Alfonseca's prescription and drink the Estramonio tea at supper along with a small dose of Ipecacuana. I am also trying to follow the regimen you set out for us before you left: we take the first streetcar out to Güibia beach and are back by seven-thirty in time for me to open the school doors downstairs by eight. The sea air is good for the boys. So far I have not noticed any improvement in my own health.

The Ayuntamiento has still not paid the promised funds for last year. Federico says he will take the matter up with Lilís himself. But Federico and Hostos have enough trouble on their hands. I had better say no more. As we know, no flies can enter a closed mouth.

—¡Qué viva la patria! I hear the shouts outside my window. And our dear Pibín asks me—¿Qué es patria, Mamá?—I don't have the heart to answer him: there is no patria with Lilís in power.

A fly buzzes in my mouth. I am glad Don Eliseo is carrying this letter by hand.

Your Salomé

Sábado, 3 diciembre 1887

Pancho:

Today is our Fran's birthday: five years old. He holds up all the fingers of his right hand and writes his name FRAN for good luck on a little paper to put under la virgencita's statue. (Tía Ana insists.) He is so proud of himself!

Hostos brought over his four boys and little María to celebrate. And you know how the apostle turns everything into a lesson. He taught Fran his numbers by asking him the ages of everyone present: How old is Max? Two fingers! And Pedro? Three! And Mamá? Here he gets very stumped as he hasn't enough fingers to hold up. Hostos, by the way, was quite surprised. He did not know that I am nine years your senior.

You ask after the croup—we are all bracing ourselves for the rainy season—as there do seem to be increased instances. But I beg you, Pancho, do not threaten me as you did! I know you entrusted this treasure to me. I will do everything in my power to keep my vow to present our sons to you, happy and healthy, upon your return. But if, oh if, God forbid, something should happen to any one of them, you must not turn a desperate hand on yourself. What of our other sons? What of me?

(MUTILADA)

Viernes, 9 diciembre 1887

Pancho, dear:

Yesterday I received several of your letters, dated October 3, October 21 (thank you for your birthday wishes: thirty-seven nails in my coffin, as Don Eloy used to say), and November 3. I do wonder if some of your letters (or mine) are not getting lost. You refer to your instructions to me in an earlier letter about getting
the Ayuntamiento to pay their debt to me. No such earlier letter ever arrived.

I must be more careful than ever what I say, unless a trusted individual is carrying the letters by hand—as the Llomparts are, in this instance.

Federico comes by often and unannounced. He cautions me what I should write so that you can continue in your studies without preoccupations. I wonder if some of my letters have not been held back? This one should get by the family censor, at any rate. Matilde Llompart promised not to say a word about it. She sews all correspondence into the bodice of her dress, afraid of Lilís's spies.

Trust only the letters that come from me to you in the hands of friends.

Your Salomé

Domingo, 1 enero 1888

Pancho, dearest:

How many hopes and fears for this new year ahead of us! I tell myself: I must be strong. This whole one, and half of another one, and then you will be back.

I send you my new year's gift: “Tristezas.” Perchance if I put my sadness in poetic form, you will allow me to say how much I miss you? It is unkind of you to chide me for complaining. Why should I not complain when you are so far away from me? I feel so alone, Pancho, so alone. Had I not made my vow to you, I believe I would succumb to melancholy.

The croup is now an epidemic. I do not let the children out of my sight. Every time they wail and I am on the point of giving in to their pleas, I recall my vow, and I remain firm.

My asthma is no better. If your theory is correct that the affliction is nervous, then I will not expect any improvement until you return.

6 enero (CONTINUACIÓN)

Today, for Three Kings, I had nothing to give the children. With the Ayuntamiento debt outstanding and with the stipend I am sending you, there is nothing left for frivolities. So, I invented a game: each one was allowed one wish. Hostos stopped by with his children and thought of an ingenious (and educational) refinement to the game: each one was to make a wish with the letter of the alphabet he called out.

—It will teach them spelling, quick thinking, vocabulary—he explained to me. I asked what wish he would want.

—It depends on the letter, he said, falling silent.

As you know, the campaign against him continues in the papers. Your brother Federico has undertaken our maestro's defense in
El Mensajero
. But this merely serves to incite Lilís's suspicions against our apostle and his ire against your brother.