Montega's Mistress (25 page)

“I’m certain. I discussed the possibility of it with my brother before I left.”

“And can he be trusted?”

“As I can be trusted,” she replied, lifting her chin.

“All right,” Matteo said. “You leave at dawn.” He paused and looked at her closely, his gaze intent, measuring.

“Don’t fail me in this, Alma. I’m counting on you.”

She inclined her head.
“Si, mi jefe,”
she answered, her tone tinged with irony. “For old times’ sake.”

He turned to go, tossing his cigarette on the earthen floor.

“And Matteo,” she called after him.

He glanced at her over his shoulder.

“If you get lonely when she’s gone, you know where to find me.”

He crushed the cigarette out with his foot and left the tent without replying.

Once outside he took a deep breath and felt better. The plan was in motion now, and he wouldn’t stop it. All he had to do was tell Helen.

She was sleeping on her side when he entered, and he sat next to her, taking her hand. Her eyes opened and she smiled at him.

“Helen, wake up. I have something to say to you.” She blinked and struggled upward onto her elbows, staring at him.

“What is it?” she asked. She could tell from his voice that it wasn’t the weather report.

“It’s time for you to go home,” he said.

Chapter 9

Home?” Helen repeated, searching his face.

“To America,” Matteo clarified.

“You’re sending me away?” she said softly. She couldn’t believe it.

He released her hand and stood up, pacing away from her.

“Don’t say it as though I’m driving you into exile. I just want to get you back where you belong.”

“I belong with you.”

“Didn’t the last couple of days prove how dangerous it is for you to be here?” he demanded, frustrated by her look of bewildered incomprehension. Why wouldn’t she understand that he was only trying to protect her?

Helen swung her legs over the edge of the cot, struggling to wake up and deal with this new development at the same time. She slipped into Matteo’s shirt and buttoned it, saying, “I thought that after we, well, with everything that’s happened, you would want to have me with you.”

She sounded so forlorn that he almost relented, but he steeled himself to go through with it. “This is not about what I want,” he said gently. “Surely you didn’t think that after we became lovers I’d no longer be concerned with your safety.”

“But you said yourself that I’m fitting in here and everyone is accepting me,” she protested.

“You are confusing the issue!” he replied heatedly. “I’m not talking about that and you know it. The only reason I brought you here in the first place was because you were seen with me at the airport. I had no choice. I couldn’t get you back to the States on a plane; you would have been picked up before you got out of the San Jacinta terminal.”

“And that’s still true, isn’t it? Not that much time has gone by, and they’re probably still looking for me.”

“There’s another way,” he said quietly.

“For me to get out?”

“Yes. With Alma’s help.”

“Alma,” Helen whispered, nodding her head. So that’s why the woman was looking at her with such an expression of triumph. She must have known this was coming. “What does she have to do with this?”

“Her brother has a helicopter. He’ll take you to Playa del Sol and you can fly home from there.”

“He’s coming here?”

“No, he can’t land a chopper here, and besides, the
cabos
are all over the mountain. We have to meet him at Tres Luces, about a day’s trek from this camp.”

“Oh, so it’s all arranged. You’re bringing me to Tres... whatever?”

“Yes.”

“And Alma’s brother has agreed to this plan?”

Matteo nodded. “She was away recently to get supplies and apparently she saw him then and discussed it.”

“Anxious to send me packing, isn’t she?” Helen said bitterly.

Matteo didn’t answer.

“Matt, don’t you see what this is? She’s conveniently devised a plan for my departure because she thinks that once I’m gone you’ll take up with her again.”

“If she thinks that, she’s mistaken.”

“Is she?” Helen asked, unable to stem the tide of jealousy that washed over her as she thought of Matteo with Alma.

“Don’t insult me, Helen,” he said flatly, looking away from her.

“Easy for you to say,” she flung at him. “I know what will happen when you’re alone, and she comes sashaying around, batting those big brown eyes at you. I’ll bet she’s better in bed than I am, too, isn’t she? I guess you didn’t have to teach her anything. She knew it all already, right, Matt? How to please you, how to make you groan like you would die if you couldn’t have her.”

Matteo covered the distance between them in a second, grabbing Helen and forcing her to look at him. “Be quiet!” he said in a frightening, lifeless tone. Helen fell silent, closing her eyes, unwilling to meet his pitiless gaze. Tears seeped from under her lashes, and he relented, pulling her into his arms.

“Do you think I could touch her after being with you?” he whispered, holding her so tightly she almost couldn’t breathe. “I can’t bear the thought of your going, it tears up my guts to have to send you away like this.”

“Then let me stay,” she pleaded, hammering on his weakening resolve.

“No,” he said hoarsely, and released her.

“What about your people, everyone here in the camp? They stay and take the risk.”

“This is their country; this is the life they chose.”

“What if I choose it now?” she countered, putting her hands on his shoulders and peering into his face.

“Helen, this is not a high school debate!” he replied, shrugging her off. “The decision has been made.”

“Oh, the
jefe
has spoken!” she said sarcastically, saluting. “I forgot that your orders must always be obeyed.
Perdoname, lo siento mucho.”

“Your Spanish is improving,” he observed, his lips twitching.

Helen thought of something else. “Matteo, what if it’s a trap?”

“What is?”

“This thing with Alma’s brother. What if it’s a setup?”

He shook his head firmly. “Alma wouldn’t do that.”

“But she was with Olmos, lining up against you.”

“She was just playing the angles, keeping in with him in case he came out on top. But she would never do what you’re suggesting, Helen. She knows how important you are to me.”

“That’s just why she might do it. She resents me—you know that—and Theresa says she’s dangerous.”

“She has been, to some. But not to me.”

“Because she’s still in love with you?”

“Because, despite what you’re saying, she’s loyal. She’s on the level with this, believe me.”

Helen considered a moment and then said, “I have no passport, no papers. I left everything in the car we abandoned.”

He smiled resignedly. “You don’t give up, do you?”

“Not when I want something as much as I want to be with you.”

“My people will get you what you need. Playa del Sol is an open country; travel is free. You’ll have no problem getting back to the States from there. I’ll give you money for the plane ticket. Once Alma’s brother gets you across the border you can leave from the commercial airport in Soledad, the capital. Flights run to New York all the time.”

“Haven’t missed a trick, have you?” she said with a wry glance at his impassive face.

“I try not to.”

“So, when do we leave?”

“In the morning.”

“I see we’re not wasting any time.”

“I could do without the cute remarks, if you don’t mind,” he said, passing a hand wearily over his forehead.

“It’s the way I deal with terrible disappointment, Matteo, I make cute remarks. It’s either that or have an hysterical fit, and of the two, I thought you would prefer the one- liners.”

He extended his hand and said, “Come here.”

She hesitated, and he crooked his forefinger. Reluctantly she moved to his side and he put his arm around her.

“Let’s not waste this night,” he said huskily, leading her to the cot.

He got in with her and peeled his shirt off her shoulder, putting his mouth against her bare skin. She closed her eyes and forgot that it would all end soon. They had this moment, and she would have to engrave it in her mind for the time when she would be alone again.

* * *

Helen got very little rest that night. After their conversation, their positions were reversed: Matteo could sleep because he felt relieved, and Helen couldn’t because she was anticipating her departure. She lay awake, studying his face as he lay in her arms, trying to memorize it. She noticed that he had a mole at the corner of one black eyebrow and several faded scars on his jaw and chin, the results perhaps of schoolboy brawls or adolescent accidents. She tried to picture him as a child, running through the slums of San Jacinta, skinny probably, as he was still lean, with large dark eyes and the same wavy, unruly hair. What had happened to create this irregular lump of pinkish flesh gouged out of his jawline, or that thin slash above the slight cleft in his chin, whitened now with the passage of time? She saw these things as items of interest, not flaws; she was past the point where anything could make him look unattractive to her.

The birds began to sing, and a dawn breeze blew through the tent, presaging the rising sun. Helen slipped out from under Matteo’s weight and got fresh clothes together, dressing in the thin light of early morning. By the time the familiar noises of the camp began and Matteo awoke, she was ready and waiting for him.

“I want to say goodbye to Theresa,” she told him calmly, watching as he blinked and sat up, spotting her across the room.

“All right,” he said quietly. “I’ll go with you.”

He put on his clothes and picked up her single bag, a discarded army duffel that she had appropriated. They found Theresa already at work, preparing a makeshift breakfast in her tent since the cookhouse was a pile of rubble.

Helen looked meaningfully at Matteo, and he withdrew, standing outside and lighting a cigarette. She turned to Theresa and said without preliminaries,“I’m leaving.”

Theresa glanced quickly from Helen to Matteo’s still figure in the doorway, and then back to Helen.

“¿Es verdad?”
she said, lowering her voice.

“Yes, it’s true.”

“¿Por que?
Why?”

“Matteo wants me to go. He thinks it’s not safe for me to be here.”

Theresa shrugged expressively. “It’s not safe for any of us to be here, but here we are, just the same.”

“He says it’s not my fight, that I belong back home. In other words he wants to be rid of me.”

Theresa moved her head slowly from side to side. “I don’t think so,
nina.
I think he wants very much for you to stay. It is his conscience that bothers him, for getting you involved.”

“I wish he didn’t have a conscience,” Helen said, biting her lower lip, which was trembling dangerously.

Theresa put down her cooking pot and embraced her.

“Pobrecita,”
she murmured. “Poor little thing. I remember what it is to be young, when the fires burn so hot. It’s like death to leave him, I know.”

Helen swallowed hard, putting her head on Theresa’s shoulder.

“How are you getting out?” Theresa asked, holding her off and brushing her bangs off her brow.

“Matteo is taking me to Tres... Luces, and Alma’s brother is going to fly me over the border into Playa del Sol.”

“Alma,” Theresa said, nodding sourly.

“My sentiments exactly,” Helen replied darkly.

“Eh?”

“Nothing.” She threw her arms around Theresa’s neck and said, “I’m going to miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too. I’ll forget my English again.”

They laughed, as friends do to cover a painful parting, and then Theresa said soberly, “Maybe it’s better this way. Matteo has only one love—his country, and what it could be. If you tried to compete you would lose in the end.”

Helen didn’t answer, thinking how different Theresa’s attitude was from that of Elena, Esteban’s wife, who wanted Matteo to get married. But then, Theresa lived in the camp with Matteo, saw him every day, and knew him better.

“I guess I’ll be going,” Helen said awkwardly. “Matteo is waiting.”

“Vaya con Dios,”
Theresa said, making the sign of the cross in the air above Helen’s head. “Go with God.”

 
“Goodbye,” Helen said and hurried away out into the bright sunshine, where Matteo met her eyes as she emerged.

“All set?” he said.

“Yes.”

“I asked Martin to make up a backpack for us. I’ll get it, and we’ll take off.”