Keeping Secrets (10 page)

The statement gave me goose bumps head to toe. Emory made it all seem so possible, that if everything were carried through as carefully as it was obviously mapped out, it could not fail. He was looking at me. “What's wrong?”

“It just occurred to me I'm in the presence of a man certain to change the course of history.”

“Yes, or perish in the effort.”

12

During an autumn cool spell near the end of October, I gave my first coffee for the neighbors. It was long overdue because I'd attended several in other homes, and although I agreed with Emory they were largely time-wasters, I still maintained an unquenchable interest in the sense of permanence and belonging they gave me. I was never called upon to give monologues about my past—the ladies seemed all too busy speaking of their own long-standing families in San Antonio—and I enjoyed sitting back and listening. Besides, Lyla had given two since the day she had called on me for the first time, and had hinted lately it really was my turn to have a day-at-home.

Though the morning was leisurely spent for the most part—I was practically ready by noon—my mind was not nearly so at ease. Around a week prior, I had received another letter from Mark. I hoped the first installment would quiet him for at least several months longer. Yet he was apparently living high down in New Orleans. The letter said, “You know how it is. Money gets away from a person quicker than cornmeal spills out of a slit in the sack, don't it?”

I had already burned the letter over the kitchen stove just as I had the first one … somehow this ritual gave me an odd sense of comfort. Yet the problem of Mark could not be dispensed with so easily. Half an hour before the coffee was to begin, just as I was beginning to place refreshments on the table, the doorbell rang.

My whole body jerked, and I nearly dropped a platter of finger sandwiches on the floor. Then I walked to the door as though there were irons on my feet hands still shaking, thinking, oh no, not now, Mark, not now.…

It was Lyla. She breezed in wearing her newest afternoon frock, kissed my cheek gaily, and headed straight for the table. “Oh love, you've forgotten the coffee spoons,” she said after a brief inspection. “Where do you keep them?” She was removing her gloves. “You can fit them over on this end with a little rearranging.” Finally she paused and looked at me. I was still standing at the door of the parlor. ‘Electra, you look positively ill. Don't worry. You have plenty of time to fix things and even if you didn't, no one would notice. These coffees have been going on for such a long time.

“Isn't it lucky I came early?”

The talk that day began with the usual gossip. Someone complained of a maid scorching the kimono sleeve of her new evening gown, and this served as Lyla's cue for a few minutes' descriptive chatter about her new creation by the famous designer “Jenny”—its tunic coming just ten inches above the skirt hem. Then she sat down and It into, “… the new velvet hats—have you seen them?—exquisite!” For the first time I began to notice the other ladies seemed little interested in what Lyla had to say. They'd probably known for a long time what I was just beginning to learn: Lyla was extremely self-centered and unable to see beyond her own nose.

Aware suddenly that, as hostess, I was obligated to switch the center of attention elsewhere, I was about to open my mouth to speak when someone addressed Vera Frederick, just returned from Europe to pick up her daughter in school there. I had not met Vera before, and she struck me as being a good bit more intelligent than Lyla.

“The conditions over there were abominable,” she was saying. “We had a taxi confiscated right out from under us in Paris—”

“Whatever for?” someone asked.

“They need them for war vehicles. We had an awful time cashing those embassy checks—the lines of people were endless. Our steamer was stopped four times on the way home, and when we got here Mathilde was missing a valise and I was minus a trunk. All the same, we were grateful to set foot on the dock in New York. It's like the whole world has gone mad over there—crowds of people everywhere, animals running all over, turning over garbage bins … the streets are unsafe.…”

One lady said timidly, “My goodness, and to think how I've griped about rising prices over here because of the Great War. I guess we're lucky it hasn't touched us any worse.”

Then someone else said, “It's a puzzle to me who's winning.”

“Everybody's winning, or says they are,” Vera replied.

“And the Germans dropping bombs from those Zeppelins all over the place. You'd think they'd have more regard for human life than to do what they did in Antwerp,” said Treva Morse. A moment of awkward silence followed.

“If you were fighting for survival and the British had effectively cut off your food supply, you'd do well to have a port like Antwerp at your disposal. You can't fight a war with clean hands,” said Vera.

“The Germans will win,” said Melva Scheiner. “They are persistent and determined. No one will get them, you wait.”

I was beginning to think there was a miniature war threatening in my own parlor. Worse still, all the tensions of the day had combined to give me a throbbing headache. I needed to get this coffee over with so that I could be alone to get a grip on myself.

Quickly I spoke up, “Ladies, shall we have coffee now? And Lyla, suppose you do the pouring … you are so good at that kind of thing.”

Her look of consternation was small price to pay for keeping my unsteady hands from everyone's attention.

After the ladies were gone I pulled a shawl around my shoulders and went out to sit above the river, hoping its peaceful reflection would help to quiet my nerves. It seemed I was losing control of everything at once. While Mark had not shown up in San Antonio—thank heaven the incident of this morning had proven a false alarm—his letter made it obvious I was to have little peace. Though I had replied that I was working on something and would soon have another payment for him, I knew there was nowhere for me to turn.

I had seriously considered seeking a job. I had a ready-made excuse for Emory in case he protested. He was out of town so much, and I just didn't have enough to keep me busy. Yet I had no training.…

One morning shortly after that as I pored over the classifieds at breakfast, Emory asked, “What are you looking for?”

I kept my eyes on the print before me. “Oh, nothing in particular.”

I was aware he continued to watch me and in a little while I looked up at him. His expression was concerned. “Lately you're getting circles under your eyes,” he said. “Aren't you sleeping well?”

I started to tell him of course I was, then thought of a better reply. “I have to know you're home safe before I can rest and sometimes half the night passes before—”

“Have you thought of what you'll wear to that Casino Club party on the eighteenth?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Actually … no.”

“Well it may be an important event, so get all gussied up. Buy something new.”

“All right,” I told him, and he brushed my cheek with a kiss and walked out.

After that I looked in the mirror and realized he was right about my harried appearance. If he was having a second look at Aegina Barrista, maybe I had no one but myself to blame for letting my problems take hold of me. I had to do better. I had to be more of a wife and helpmate to Emory, quit hiding in the shelter of the pillars at social gatherings—my usual custom, since I felt so ill at ease—and make myself noticed both as a woman and a good conversationalist.

First I had to concentrate on improving my looks. I parted my hair in the center and pulled it back into big braids winding down from the crown of my head Lyla Stuttgart bragged of her Limoges hair fashions from Europe, but I had plenty of my own hair to work with, thick and wheat-colored, especially if I applied lemon juice rinsings regularly. I hadn't gone to that trouble lately.

I bought the most expensive dress of my life for the Casino Club party. It had a daringly low-cut white silk bodice that tapered to the waist and draped becomingly around my hips before dividing into three snug, beaded tiers. For just a nod at propriety, the dress was topped by a sheer overblouse that silhouetted the curves of my breasts in front and fastened down the back, beads winking here and there on the butterfly sleeves.

I purchased my first pair of long white kid gloves to match and white shoes and stockings. The sales clerk at Blum's was obviously envious when she saw me in it, and Emory, on the night of the party, looked pleased and proud but said, “With a cloak and a train, you could ride on a float in the Battle of Flowers parade.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“Of course. I've always had good taste in women”—he winked—“and how do I look? Like a prosperous gentleman, on his way up in the world?”

Actually he looked so well in his new midnight-blue suit and waistcoat that I couldn't wait to get him home from the party, but stung by his flippant remark I said, “You'd look swell as a riverboat gambler.” (This was true in a way; and he certainly was a high roller.)

Sobered somewhat by the match of wits he said, “You know damn well you'll have every man's eyes coming out of their sockets tonight.”

“That was the idea, my dear. Shall we go?”

“Just one thing … what do you think of this?” he asked, slipping a large ring over the index finger of his right hand. It was an oval-shaped black onyx cradled in a high gold-tub mounting—a beautiful piece, and the only one of its kind I'd ever seen.

I was praising him for his taste in gems when he interrupted, “And this is for you—an early Christmas present,” and opened a box which held an exquisite necklace, earrings, and bracelet ensemble made of Mexican opals. He'd had all the stones for months, he explained, and ordered them mounted in San Antonio by a jeweler renowned for his gold filigree designs.

I was filled at once with delight, and quickly exchanged the jewelry I was wearing for the stunning opals. They were perfect for my dress, almost as though they'd been ordered especially to accompany it. I was so touched by Emory's generosity that I thought of nothing else at first. But then as I turned from the mirror and reached for my handbag a sordid question presented itself to my mind.

“What's the trouble, don't you like them?” Emory was saying.

“Why, of course. I love them,” I said glancing at him.

“Well that's reassuring. You looked just now like you thought they belonged in the trash.'

“No, I was thinking of something entirely different,” I said nervously. “Hurry up. We don't want to be late.”

Midway down the stairs we saw Nathan just closing his door to our right. His mouth opened in surprise, then drew closed. He mumbled something about a gay evening as I wished him good night. Outside Emory said, “You even had Nathan all agape and he is not exactly what you would call a man who runs with women.”

I don't know that Emory already had designs on Adolph Tetzel as the banker who would be likely to finance the Barrista revolution, but it was well known that the Casino Club was still made up largely of upper-class German people who mixed with members of the military and, sometimes a bit reluctantly, with other German merchants who came up the hard way. Surely a party there would likely serve as the setting for financial overtures—reason enough to whet Emory's interest in attending.

Lyla and her husband, Arnold, had invited us for this occasion. Her grandfather was one of the founding members long ago, when it was “strictly for the German culturally elite.” She had told me all I knew of the club's strata, adding, “Arnold could never have gotten in without Papa's help.”

Just where Tetzel and his wife, Sophie, fit into this complicated echelon I wasn't sure. He owned the big International Bank of the Southwest downtown, but as I soon learned, he had migrated with his family from Germany in the 1840s, and took great pride in the fact he'd been in San Antonio when the railroad came in 1877, and had worked hard to build his fortune in the city. Almost from the beginning of the ball that evening, Emory made it his business to stay involved in conversation with him and, while I was aware of the fact he was feeling him out as to his views on Mexico, I was kept busy myself with no end of attentive gentlemen who cut across the dance floor during the fox trots, hesitations, and waltzes with remarkable grace. The balding, sallow-faced Arnold was often at my elbow while Lyla gossiped with a group of women, and I kept wishing to rid myself of him because our only common interest was the boring subject of street widening on Commerce.

Around ten o'clock Emory was at my elbow, guiding me over to meet the Tetzels. “Is he
the
one?” I asked, and Emory nodded confidently. Tetzel was tall and slender with wavy, gray-streaked light-brown hair, and a German accent as strong as Woody's British dialect. He was not overfriendly to me, but polite. Sophie's hair was grayer than her husband's; she was chunky and awfully plain. She was also distant. As we engaged in stilted conversation, I kept wondering how Emory managed to get Tetzel to warm up to the point of talking business.

As we drove home Emory explained, “Oh, I've met Tetzel before and we have some mutual acquaintances. We didn't get down to brass tacks tonight—oh, speaking of brass, did you see all the military around there? I was afraid one of those majors or whatever they were would overhear something, so I really had to keep it guarded. Now that the troops are coming back from Vera Cruz, I wish the Army would figure out some place other than Fort Sam to send them. I don't like them under my nose.”

“So what did Tetzel say?”

“He agreed the right man might be able to make it in Mexico, regardless of all the fiascoes since 1910.”

“How about money?”

“I mentioned it would be costly, but he said now with the new reserve laws in effect, banks have more money to work with than before.”