Queen of the Underworld (23 page)

“That’s the sort of news that will please my grandfather, since he has been buying up all the land around Pompano.”

W
HEN
I got to 510, I went immediately to the window to see what was going on down by the pool.

Where the poor royal palm’s stump had been this morning was a brand-new garden, a raised triangular bank of closely planted red and white flowers, the white ones forming a star in the middle of the red, to coordinate with the Cuban flag now flying above. Enrique Ocampo and Luís, the other desk clerk, were setting up trestle tables and Marisa and Louisa were covering them with white cloths. Lídia was nowhere in sight.

My stomach growled angrily and it was still an hour until seven. Much of my existence thus far at the Julia Tuttle, I realized, had been spent thinking of food or finding ways to fill in the time until I could eat. I was looking forward to the deviled eggs. Thank goodness Lídia was such a monster of action. There might even be some kind of on-site breakfast tomorrow morning.

Paul’s birthday roses in the homely “base” brought by Enrique had altered since yesterday, some having unfurled to fuller beauty, others gone past their prime.

As I shook Loney’s lavender flakes into my running bath, I wondered what was transpiring up in the mountains at the Nightingale Inn. Going to bed early last night to forestall hunger pangs, I had assumed Paul would be phoning later to wish me a happy birthday, and, if so, it would be a pleasant thing to wake up for. But then, today, the meeting and breakfast with the formidable Lídia, followed by Rod Reynolds’s return and Bisbee’s news, had derailed my habitual reflections. This neglect, for the first time ever, to keep Paul always somewhere within the range of consciousness felt ominous, as though my not thinking of him for a whole day could make him stop existing.

Soaking in the fragrant hot water while removing the chipped polish from my nails, I reminded myself that Paul had a separate life to lead and people to take care of and a hotel to run. In the next room were his roses, and a week from tomorrow we would be plugged into each other again.

While my fresh polish dried, I lay in bed naked under the sheet with the air-conditioning on full blast and looked up some things in my Spanish-English dictionary, after which I committed a few jottings to my “Go, Tar Heels!” notebook.

commensurate
sic transit notitia
curiosity = a reporter’s chronic ailment, to be exacerbated at every opportunity

Sp. Civil War, 1936–39

“Loyalists” or “Republicans” = Lídia’s side. Middle-class liberals or socialists who were part of the 2nd Spanish Republic gov’t
(
1931
)
. They began attacking privileged structure of Sp. society. Large estates were broken up and redistributed. They murdered priests and bishops and burned down churches. Also called “La Causa” and “International Brigade,” when foreigners
(
like Hemingway and journalists
)
started volunteering, and later “Communists,” when USSR sent supplies and got politically involved.

“Nationalists” or “Rebels” = Franco, the military elite, the Church, and the upper class, later called “the Fascists” or “the Falange.” Hitler and Mussolini sent supplies to Franco and the Nationalists committed their own atrocities, bombed hospitals and the working-class section of Madrid. German Condor Legion units used their latest modern weapons to carpet-bomb Guernica. One-third of the population killed or wounded. Sheep and cattle ran burning through the streets until they disintegrated.

Frankly, I would have been more comfortable around Lídia knowing less about La Causa. Neither her and Hemingway’s side nor Franco’s with his carpet bombers seemed worth risking your life to make sandwiches for. And none of it was good news about the evolution of the human race.

I gingerly tapped one thumbnail against the other; the polish was still tacky, which meant at least ten more minutes before risking contact with elastic and zippers. Why not use these extra drying minutes to “eavesdrop” on Ginevra and Miss Edith, when Ginevra returns to tell her side of the story?

Set the scene in the same room where Miss Edith taught Ginevra to enunciate “La Belle Dame sans Merci.” Evening. Maybe a fire in the fireplace—nope, not in Miami. Also, they needed fictional names: Miss—what was old-fashioned and had a classy simplicity? Edna, perhaps. And what to call the girl from the Waycross fruit stand? A slightly pretentious name that could take on a romantic aura after she achieved notoriety. Or
notitia,
as Bisbee would say.

Miss Edna is standing by the mantelpiece, maybe some magnolia leaves arranged in the grate, a Southern custom during the hot months. She’s looking at a piece of priceless porcelain, a gift from one of her satisfied debutantes in the days before the debacle. The doorbell rings. She is expecting nobody. She can’t have a fire but it could be dark and raining; I certainly knew how to describe rain in Miami. Miss Edna descends the stairs with her usual stately posture, though haltingly. Ever since the trial her heart has been acting funny. She opens the door and there is a woman in a raincoat and a white silk head scarf. At first Miss Edna assumes it is a stranger come to the wrong door.

“You have every right to slam the door in my face,” says the woman in the silk scarf, and her old teacher recognizes at once the thrilling voice whose diction and modulations she herself had created. She presses her hand against her heart; it is beating so erratically she can’t speak at first.

But when she regains her breath, she hears herself, ever the lady, kindly addressing the star pupil who dragged her name and her life’s work through the mud.

“Won’t you come in out of the rain, Delfine?”

This completely satisfying opening seemed to have flowed out of its own need to exist. The trouble was, my nails were hard-dry but I hadn’t written down a single word.

I looked out the window. Not yet seven, but people were gathering down by the pool, being received by Lídia, gaily turned out in a red flamenco dress. Some paused to admire the new red-and-white flower garden and point at the matching flag, while a few purposeful souls headed straight for the tables with food and drink.

I dressed hurriedly. Deviled eggs always went first.

14.

S
TILL AT THE FRONT DESK,
Alex was checking in an unusual couple. A beautiful young mulatto woman, arrayed in swirls of green taffeta reaching to her ankles and a matching picture hat, was filling out the register while a rotund old man in rumpled white suit and dark glasses leaned on his cane, puffing his cigar and holding forth in a booming sepulchral voice.

“Oye,”
he addressed both Alex and the lobby at large,
“lo único que necesitamos aquí es una habitación sin barbudos.”

The dominoes players exploded with laughter. Damn it, I recognized every word but the last one, which was obviously where the joke was. The only thing we require here is a room without—what? It probably took years before you could pick up jokes in another language. The old man spoke in the heavily lisped upper-class Spanish, to which Alex, putting forward his
castellano
self, was responding in kind.

“See you later, Emma,” he said as I passed by. “Enrique and I will take turns on the desk so no one misses Lídia’s party.” I could actually hear the woman’s voluminous skirt rustling as she wrote in the register. What an outlandish outfit to travel in! Were they fleeing Cuba, too?

Lídia took possession of me as soon as I stepped outside. “
Bienvenida,
Emma! What exquisite needlework on your blouse! Did you do it?”

“No, my grandmother did. But I designed it.”

“Ah, I have committed acres of embroidery in my time, all girls were taught in the schools. While I was married to Alejandro’s father, I embroidered everything in sight to keep from dying of boredom on our cattle ranch in Camagüey.”

As she clamped her fingers onto my forearm, I noted that she, too, had refurbished her social talons—this time to match the flamenco red of her party outfit. Awesome woman, to squeeze a nail job into the rest of her day’s accomplishments.

“Marisa Ocampo has been telling me you also were at St. Clothilde’s,” she went on. “Do you know, I came dangerously close to going to St. Clothilde’s myself? Papi said he couldn’t control me anymore, he had even paid the nonrefundable tuition to the nuns. However, I managed to elope instead. Come, let me present you to some friends.
¡Ay!
Here is Dr. Rodriguez, our fantastic dental surgeon—or you have met already through your aunt?”

“No, I—”

“Oh, good, it will be my pleasure.
¡Hector, ven acá!
Here is our young
periodista,
Emma Gant. The niece of your amazing
señora
Tess.”

The dental surgeon in his pleated guayabera kept my hand firmly in his while permitting his gaze to take a cursory roam over my entire person. “I have heard many wonderful things about you,
señorita
Gant.” He was small and debonair, with close-cropped reddish-gray curly hair receding at the temples and snapping dark eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses.

“Tess isn’t actually my aunt, but she’s the nearest thing I have to one.” I felt I’d better say it, since he must know it anyway.

“I understand completely. We all admire her so much, it is natural to want to claim her however we can.” His accented English was fluent and soothing. I could imagine his warm, elegant hand lingering in that of a nervous patient. (“I understand
com-PLIT-ly.
Is
NOT-ur-all,
your pain. But we are going to make you feel better soon.”)

So this was Tess’s “Doctor Magnánimo.” Selected images passed through my mind.

“A pity Asunción couldn’t come,” said Lídia, a shade accusingly. “Your maid said she was out for all day and evening. Off on another of her rescue missions, I suppose. Organizing housing and schools for more of our
pobres exiliados
?

“Asunción sends you her regrets. She would not have missed this for the world, but she has her book club tonight and has been working extremely hard on her presentation.”

“Oh,
I
once organized a book club in Havana,” said Lídia. “
Por lo menos,
we called it a book club. We were fomenting with sedition and used it as a cover. This was after that thug General Machado closed down our colleges.”

“What is your wife’s presentation on?” I asked Hector Rodriguez.

“
Doctor Zhivago.
You have read it?”

“It’s wonderful.” I meant to read it as soon as I had time, but had browsed through reviews enough to discuss it intelligently, had Lídia not preempted this feat.

“Ah, here is our little
orquesta
come to play! Do you know, I found them performing in the street?
Por favor,
Hector, Emma,” waving us toward the table. “You must excuse me while I show the musicians where they are to set up. Please! go and help yourselves to food and drink.”

“¡Señorita Gant! ¿Qué quieres tomar?”
Handsome Enrique Ocampo, the ousted sugar heir, was cheerfully tending bar in a striped bib apron. “There is sangria,
ron,
Coca-Cola, ginger ale
y
soda.”

“What are you having?” I deferred to Hector, to whom, as my accompanying male, Enrique’s eye contact had addressed our choices.

“No, please, you first,
señorita.
”

“Well, then, maybe a Coca-Cola.”

“I will join you, as I have work to do tonight.
Dos
Coca-Colas.”

“Another patient in pain?”

“Ah, no,
por suerte.
Just some office work.”

It was clear from Hector’s offhand tone in ordering our drinks that he took Enrique at face value: a bartender. Should I perhaps try to introduce them? But what to say? This is
señor
Ocampo, who last week owned a ten-thousand-acre sugar plantation but now is serving us so he can pay his family’s hotel bill? What with Enrique’s meager English and my not knowing the Spanish for “dental surgeon,” I decided not to attempt it.

I did, however, take advantage of the sudden bustle of the dominoes players moving their table outside to sidle quickly over to the tapas and dispatch a deviled egg while Hector waited for our drinks. As soon as I had swallowed, I restationed myself by his side.

“What do you think is going to happen in Cuba, Dr. Rodriguez?”

“Ay, it is a mess!” He warmed to the subject with alacrity. “It is much more serious than we originally think.” He gestured toward the gathering with his Coca-Cola glass. “All around you are people who completely opened their hearts and their pockets to Fidel. Lídia was one of the first to take up his cause to free Cuba. And now, what does the great liberator do? Overnight he turns into a little dictator himself. Yes,
señorita,
you are in the midst of some very disillusioned people at this little
improvisado
gathering of Lídia’s. Here are many, many
desengañados,
everywhere you look. And many more arriving even as we speak.”

“That man over there serving drinks?” I felt now was an opportune time to inform Hector.

“
¿Sí?
What about him?”

“Well, that is Enrique Ocampo. Fidel has taken over his sugar plantation. And he and Castro went to school together! They couldn’t take any money out, so Enrique is working at the Julia Tuttle to pay his family’s hotel bill.”

“I am hardly surprised,” replied Hector, after studying Enrique in this new light. “
¡Caramba!
I am hardly surprised by anything these days. This new
‘ley agraria’
of Fidel’s, his ‘land reform,’ is nothing but an excuse to take what he wants. But do you know what keeps me hopeful,
señorita
? My respect for history. Yes, I am a great fan of
la historia,
especially the history of my country, and what gives me the hope are two things. One”—he held up a finger—“no Cuban ruler has ever held power for as much as ten consecutive years. And two”—up went the second finger—“is for certain the Americans will
never
allow a Communist regime to come so close to their shores.”