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When they wandered back to the hotel many hours later just in time to help John Kemp and Barbara with Gam and the musicians, they both felt that they had both been marked in some obvious and indelible way. But John and Barbara did not act as though they could see any change.

When they had cleared away the empty bottles and picked up the glasses they could find, they wandered out into the night again, and they picked their way down the barranca path and over to the far side to a grassy place where there was a crumbling length of gray stone wall to lean against.

He leaned his back against the wall, and she lay on her back, the nape of her neck fitting his thigh with significant perfection.

They were both slightly hoarse from all the words that had had to be said.

“Who should worry about three years?” he said. “Nothing. When I’m eighty-six, you’ll be eighty-nine. More important is the education, Monica. I’m a stupe.”

“You’re brilliant! I won’t permit anyone to talk about Harvey Ardos that way.”

“There’s so damn much I don’t know.”

“There’s a lot I don’t know. We’ll learn together.”

“I don’t even talk right.”

“You’ve said beautiful things to me, darling. I’ll remember them my whole life long. I’ll remember them forever.” She caught his hand and pressed it to her lips.

“There’s one thing. This Kilo. What’s it like?”

“It’s just an ordinary little place, Harvey. Good people and bad people.”

“There’s no sweat about making a living. I mean I can get along any place. I’ve done every kind of low-type labor. Pick and shovel. Dishwashing. Stock clerk. Truck driving. Pin setting. Sweeper. You name it—I’ve done it. But I’ve been in those little places, and I never like them much. People look at you like you were a bug. In a big city nobody cares. Drop dead and they step over you. But those little places, they got to know all about you. Makes me itchy.”

“But I’ve explained, darling. I’ve got a good position. And we can find a place to live. You could paint all the time.”

“None of that jazz, Monica. Painting is my real work, but I pay my freight on the other stuff. If anybody starts to buy the paintings, that’s something else. But I’m not going to be
that little nogoodnik Monica Killdeering brought home and married and supports, see? I’m a man. I got pride.”

“All right, darling. I’m sorry. I just thought …”

“How the hell am I going to get used to you calling me darling? Something goes
boing
every time. I want to look around behind me and see who you’re talking to.”

“Only you. My darling. I knew I was going to find you down here. I knew it on the plane. Such a feeling of expectation and tension and excitement. I knew, somehow, you’d be here.”

“You think this Kilo will work out?”

“We’ll make it work. We’ll be happy there.”

“Okay. I’ll give it a good whirl. You know, I can’t get it through my thick head this is
happening
.”

“Has happened, honey.”

“Who would fall for me? Somebody like you? Crazy, man.”

“But I did.”

“You’ve got lousy taste. I got all the taste in this family. I’m getting the big break. You’re getting a dog.”

She rolled her head slightly, turning her face away. In a small and humble voice she said, “I wish you were getting … just a little bit better break, darling. I wish it with all my heart. If I could only have been sure you were going to happen to me. If I’d had any faith. But when it happens, Harvey, you won’t be … the first. I didn’t want it to happen with somebody else but …”

“Shut up!” he said harshly. “Stop the moaning. So it isn’t the first for me. Should I expect an egg in my beer? A wonderful girl like you. Who blames you? Look at me a minute. Get this straight. We don’t run any confession hour. I don’t want any details. You don’t get any details. Then nobody has anything to brood about. You know. Factual stuff that kind of sticks in your mind.”

“All right, dear,” she said meekly.

“Just one thing. Does this joker live in Kilo?”

“No. And it didn’t happen there.”

“Okay. That’s all I got to know. Now we change the subject. Pick a new subject.”

“Russia? Bird watching? Tennis? Love?”

“Let’s kick that love deal around. I hear it’s going around this year. Lots of people catching it.”

They talked a long time, until Monica said, “Don’t look now, but isn’t everything getting that pearly-gray dawn look?”

“It sure is. Old sun on the way.”

She smiled up at him in the gray light. “I can see you better.”

“I got more to look at.”

“I want you to like what you look at,” she said, and she took his hand and cupped it on her breast and held it there firmly. He shivered slightly. Looking questioningly up at him, she said, “Do you mind my acting … this way? I mean … brazen. Darling, I love you so.”

He said thickly, “No. No, I like you to act this way. It’s … just fine. But we made a kind of deal, didn’t we? Not to go jump into bed the first minute? I like this just fine. Things are crawling up and down my spine. But, honey, if you keep doing this kind of thing I’m … just not going to last, believe me. Something is going to give.”

She took his hand away. “Better?”

“That isn’t the word I’d pick. Easier. Hell, it would be a lot easier, Monica, if you were one of those little, old, withered-up-type schoolteachers. I’ve seen a lot of calendars. I’ve never seen anything like you yet. Any place. It makes a hell of a pressure.”

“And it’s all for you, Harvey. All yours.”

“Cut it out!” he said in an anguished voice. She sprang up lithely and took his hand and yanked him to his feet. They walked to the road and up the slope and watched the sun come up. And then they went slowly, hand in hand, back to the hotel.

BOOK THREE

In which the Grisly Effects of varied forms of Overindulgence are inflicted upon the more Reckless Members of the Group; for various Instances of Aftermath; a Plan for the Future is explained
.

On Wednesday morning, the twenty-sixth of July, the morning following the prolonged and spontaneous marriage fiesta, Esperanza Clueca arose at dawn. She inspected her reddened eyes in a fragment of mirror, dressed carefully, and walked three miles to church. She had gone without sleep most of the night, fingering the beads of her rosary, kissing the little gilt cross. She hoped to arrange a special confession as she did not care to contemplate living with her great burden of guilt any longer than absolutely necessary.

Ai
, what a strumpet she had become. It could not all have been the fault of the tequila. No, there was an evil inside her, a depth of blackness and sin that she had heretofore been unaware of. She remembered the abandon with which she had danced. Most unsuitable in one who hoped to teach the young. And then she had permitted that oafish Fidelio to entice her out into the whirling night, her head full of giddiness and her mouth full of laughter. He had taken her into a corner of darkness, and there she had strained upward to meet the hard male pressure of his heavy young mouth on hers. And writhed and whined at the strokings of his hands. And rubbed against him in lechery and wanton invitation. It was only when he had forced her down and she realized that his heavy knee was
forcing her legs apart, that fright came to her. And then she had fought desperately in the darkness like an animal, thwarting him, tearing away from his grasp, running, running through the night, hearing his angry shout behind her.

She had coldly condemned all the bawdy girls only to learn that in her heart she was no different than Margarita, she of the two bastard children and the red slut dress. As she walked to church she cringed inside herself to think of how she must have looked and sounded there in the dark corner with that lazy, loutish driver. This could not be any portion of the true Esperanza Clueca. But it had happened. She lengthened her steps, hastening toward the church and the candles, the images and the priest.

Dotsy Winkler was up early. She worked alone in the kitchen. There was no sign of Rosalinda, Pepe, Felipe, Alberto, Fidelio or the two maids. Dotsy made a great quantity of strong coffee. Monica and Harvey were up. She had seen them out in the patio, holding hands and talking. Soon the colonel and Hildabeth put in an appearance. Contrary to their habits, neither Agnes nor Miles appeared.

The colonel finished breakfast, caught Saltamontes and saddled her without help, and clopped out of the hotel grounds, heading north. John Kemp appeared with Barbara and they smiled good morning and sat with Monica and Harvey. Monica and Barbara voluntarily took over the serving duties of Esperanza and Margarita. There was general talk about the festivities.

John Kemp announced that he was going to have to drop from the school and return to the states.

“We’re dwindling away to nothing at all,” Hildabeth said. “Not too darn many to start with. Place is going to pot and it isn’t even half over yet.”

Agnes Partridge Keeley appeared at nine-thirty. She smiled most pleasantly as she came in, but she was darting quick little glances around, venomously suspicious. She handled herself as though her muscles had stiffened up, and Dotsy noted that she sat down with caution.

“I seem to have overslept,” she said. “Too much party. Class will be late.”

“Might as well skip it,” Hildabeth told her. “You won’t get much business. John Kemp is dropping out and Barbara is driving him up to Mexico City a little later. Torrigan skipped
his class yesterday. You won’t get much business today. Just me, maybe.”

“I’ll see if anyone else is interested.”

Esperanza showed up. She seemed much more severe and gloomy than usual. When Miles came to breakfast, his face pouched and sallow and his tread heavy, Esperanza went over to him. “Señor, Rosalinda is too ill to work this day. She has an agony of the stomach. I do not know where Margarita is, or Pepe. Felipe and Fidelio are very sick and tired. They were badly beaten by someone last night, I think. But they will not speak of it. Alberto cannot be awakened again.”

Miles stared up at her. “You are the entire staff, then.”

“It is evident. Señor, last night I was permitted to drink and to dance at your fiesta. I assure you it will never happen again.” She whirled and stalked toward the kitchen.

Miles went out and checked on Felipe and Fidelio. They lay on the pallets, with large areas of dark discoloration under their coppery skin. They were uncommunicative, their voices weak, their dark eyes dull. When they moved it was with a vast and painful effort that contorted their faces and made them wheeze with hurt. Evidently they had been fighting, and evidently that was all he would ever learn. He spoke of his disappointment in both of them, and trudged wearily back to breakfast. He discarded the idea of looking in on Rosalinda. She would merely giggle.

After John Kemp came back from the Hotel Mandel where he had phoned the ticket office, he finished his packing and carried his belongings into the lobby. “What’s the matter?” Barbara asked.

“I’m trying to think who I’ve missed. Klauss, Torrigan, the Wahls, the colonel and Mary Jane. Say goodbye for me. Please don’t skip Paul Klauss.”

“How could I! Seriously, John, I think Mary Jane would like a personal farewell. I’ll have to ask her about the car.”

They went to her room. John stood a little way down the corridor while Barbara tapped on the door. As she started the third sequence of tappings, the door opened a crack and then was opened wide enough for Barbara to enter.

Mary Jane, her eyes sleep-puffed, her cropped blond hair frowzy, her lips pale without lipstick, held her robe closed around her and said, “What’s the scoop, Barbie? Gawd, I feel
horrible!” She padded over to the bureau, took a cigarette, lit it and made a face. “You look so darn alert.”

“Three hours’ sleep,” Barbara said. She suddenly noticed in the other bed, in the shadowy room, a clump of tangled blond hair on the pillow, a mound of hip under the blanket. “Who is that!”

“Oh. Lady Margot. Left over from the party. I don’t know the details, but she was sacked out when I came lurching in.”

“I’m sorry to bother you, Mary Jane, but John Kemp has to leave today. I’d like to use the station wagon. We’ll drive up to the airport and I’ll bring it back.”

“Leaving? Darn! Sure, you can take the wagon.”

“He has to leave soon. He’s out in the hall to say goodbye.”

“Let me dust off the merchandise.” She went to the bureau and yanked a brush through her hair. She leaned close to the mirror and made up her mouth. Then she began to button the small, round red buttons that ran from the collar of the robe to the hem.

“A nice guy, Barbie.”

“Yes.”

Mary Jane looked at her obliquely, with wisdom far older than twenty. “Not letting him get away, are you?”

Barbara felt heat in her face. “No.”

“Good deal. Something good ought to come of this operation. Okay. The eyes look like smoked clams, but there’s nothing to be done. You know, I had a wild dream about nearly falling off the roof of this place. And Torrigan saved me. You think that’s significant?”