Page 53 of Sweet Savage Love

53

T he port of Vera Cruz had never been so crowded, in spite of its limited accommodations. The harbor itself could not contain all the ships that arrived daily, and sleek vessels lay at anchor even beyond its limits, waiting for a berth.

Here, in the humid, tropical climate of the Tierra Caliente, Europeans usually found the heat unbearable. Even the Mexicans themselves preferred to take longer siestas than usual, and until the glaring sun began to slip down behind the distant mountain ranges of the Tierra Templada and Tierra Fria, there were usually very few people to be seen on the narrow, dirty streets.

In spite of the overpowering heat and unpredictable tropical rainstorms that beset Vera Cruz, several Europeans remained. A few diplomats had decided to “wait it out” now that the outcome of the war was beyond question. And there were still the refugees—American, Belgian, even Austrian, who had clung hopefully and tenaciously to their newly acquired lands and possessions until the very last moment. There were even a few newspaper reporters, too nervous to approach the encroaching battle fronts, but deciding that since they were here, after all, they would stay and get a story. Everyone, it seemed, was waiting for something! Sometimes it was for a ship to take them home—sometimes for news of friends or relatives who still fought in the war.

Ginny, who had arrived in Vera Cruz almost a week ago, was still waiting for the Yankee Belle to be cleared by Customs and Quarantine and obtain a berth in the harbor. By now, her anxiety to leave and be done with it, bordered almost on desperation.

She hated this town! A collection of squat adobe buildings, its architecture patterned on the Spanish style, with red roofs and peeling wrought iron grillwork. Narrow, impossibly dirty streets, with squalid, odorous alleys where the displaced actually slept at night. And the oceanfront itself consisted of desolate, humped sand dunes, their shapes constantly changing under the furious onslaught of the fierce Atlantic winds—scrubby palm trees that seemed grotesquely bent and twisted by the force of those same winds. Even the nights were impossibly hot, and she understood why this was referred to as the “fever belt.” How could people possibly choose to live here?

“I hate it. I can’t wait to leave this place!” she told herself each day as she woke up very early for her regular visit to the shipping agent. And each day the news was the same.

“There are other ships that have priority, ma’am, the Yankee Belle has to wait its turn. Don’t worry,” the blunt featured American had added once, taking pity on her pale, pensive looking face, “they’re not going to leave without you! They have a shipment of silver to pick up from my warehouse.”

She had even asked if she couldn’t possibly go aboard the ship right away, and wait—but he had shaken his head regretfully.

“I’m afraid not, ma’am. There are all kinds of rules, you see. And in any case, it really gets rough out there in the ocean, you won’t find any of these little rowboats willing to go outside the harbor!”

And so she waited, spending most of her time in the tiny room she had managed to obtain for herself in one of the smaller, shabbier posadas —not daring to open her windows because of the smells from the alley below and the chance of picking up some infection.

The posada fortunately boasted its own tiny walled in patio-garden, with a rickety collection of tables and chairs that did not match. But it was pleasant out there when the sun wasn’t directly overhead and the stunted palm trees provided a little shade. She ordered naranjada, orangeade, constantly, always remembering to caution the waiter to be sure that the water was boiled first.

Sometimes, on an exceptionally clear day, one could catch a glimpse of the peak of Orizaba, white snow glistening in the sun. Beautiful, vine-hung Orizaba—the little town nestling at the foot of the peak—the gay days—dancing for the Emperor beside his gardenia-strewn pool—the days when she had been a butterfly, never thinking too much, skimming the surface enjoyment of life. Agnes, with her shrill gaiety, and handsome Miguel, her charming lover who had brought everything crashing about her ears…

Ginny wondered about Miguel, sometimes, using his memory as a talisman to stop herself from thinking about Steve. Miguel in Queretaro with poor Max—the ring of Juarista soldiers closing tightly around them—“trapped like rats in there” Salvador had told her triumphantly on that day that seemed so long ago now. What would become of them all?

Already, Ginny had run into several people she knew, or remembered seeing at the balls and parties she had attended almost nightly in Mexico City. Listlessly, she began to allow herself to be drawn into their company, their almost pathetic attempts at amusing themselves of an evening. Anything to stave off depression, the tension that came from waiting—waiting. The month of March continued to drag on—she heard from a new arrival that General Marquez, with a hand picked cavalry detachment, had managed to cut his way through the besiegers of Queretaro and had gone to Mexico City to drum up reinforcements. But her informant had commented dryly, “Who will he find? Those scared politicians who are left there are going to tell him to get out quickly, to go off and try to keep the Juaristas out of the city.”

Every time she heard them talk of the Juaristas she would wince. But after all, who would imagine that she, the intimate friend of the Princess du Salm, once engaged to a French captain; sometime mistress of Colonel Miguel Lopez—that she might actually be married to one of these same Juaristas they feared so much?

How could she stop herself from thinking of Steve? She wondered where he had gone that morning, leaving her so suddenly, so heartlessly, without even a farewell kiss. And where was he now? Sitting outside Puebla with the rest of Porfirio Díaz’s army? Had he bothered to go back to the hacienda? Had he read the long letter she had left for him?

When the ocean reflected the bold, dark blue of the sky she would remember his eyes. Blazing with passion sometimes—cold as sapphires at other moments, when he was angry. When she tried to read, the memory of his face came between her eyes and the page to haunt her. How she had loved the crisp feel of his dark hair under her fingers! She remembered wistfully that the harshly handsome hardness of his face could soften when he smiled—when he really smiled—the deep grooves in his cheeks and the dancing lights in his eyes making him suddenly appear younger and less remote. Did he ever think about her? Would he miss her?

All he wanted me for was as an occasional bed-partner, she thought, someone who could slake his desire quickly so that he could leave again. No, I could not have borne to suffer and go on suffering any longer! It’s best this way—if he wants me, he will have to come after me this time. She would berate herself for her pointless longings, her impossible hopes. He didn’t love her, and he never had. It was she who had been stupid enough to read something more than plain unvarnished desire into his words and actions. I will not continue to beat my head against a stone wall any longer, she told herself sternly. And yet, all her friends had been quick to notice and to point out that the charming Madame du Plessis was not her usual gay self—that she was pale and tired-looking as if she did not sleep very well—that in repose her face bore a withdrawn and pensive look.

It was because she had grown tired of having people ask her if she felt ill, and remarking on her lack of vivacity, that Ginny allowed herself to respond to the eager, curious overtures of a Mrs. Baxter, a middle-aged American widow from Boston who was travelling with her companion.

Unable to speak a word of Spanish, Mrs. Baxter had overheard Ginny talking quite companionably to the little maid who was supposed to clean their rooms at the posada, and she had immediately bustled up with a beaming smile on her face, her slightly protuberant eyes gleaming with curiosity.

“Oh, my dear—pardon me for approaching you without a formal introduction, but you must be European! You do speak English?”

Hiding a smile, Ginny admitted that indeed she did. From that day on Mrs. Baxter seemed to monopolize her company, to the decided annoyance of several gentlemen who had had the same idea.

She plied Ginny with questions without the slightest trace of embarrassment at her own probing curiosity. A young American woman who dressed and spoke like a lady, all alone here? Mrs. Baxter appointed herself Ginny’s unofficial chaperone immediately, especially when she contrived to discover that Madame du Plessis was none other than dear Senator William Brandon’s daughter. She had actually met the Senator once, during her dear husband’s lifetime—it had been at a grand reception in Washington. Now, how was that for coincidence? It seemed to be an even greater coincidence to find that Mrs. Baxter had actually been a passenger on the Yankee Belle, and planned to go all the way to California to visit her son and daughter-in-law in San Francisco. She admitted that she had had to pay an enormous sum of money to have herself rowed into the harbor.

“But after all my dear—you can’t imagine how choppy it is out there! I had a terrible case of mal de mer, and so did dear Sophy here—she was absolutely no use to me at all! And I asked myself, why should I be so uncomfortable on board ship when I have the perfect opportunity to see something of Mexico? Particularly in these exciting times!”

In spite of Mrs. Baxter’s grumbles about her accommodations on board ship, she complained even more about the room she was forced to occupy at what she termed a “third rate hotel.” It was too small—too shabby—badly furnished—and the heat, of course, was intolerable. Still, the lady managed to survive and take a lively interest in Ginny’s many friends and admirers.

She preferred the dark Southern gentleman, that Mr. Frank Julius with the charming manners to a plump and slightly balding Belgian banker who was decidedly too old for Ginny. She wanted to know everything about the grand days when Maximilian and Carlotta had their court in Chapultepec—about the gay life in Mexico City—about the beautiful but rather fast Princess du Salm.

Ginny had taken to coming out into the tiny walled garden of the posada a trifle later than she usually did, because Mrs. Baxter liked to rise early, and usually retired to her room when the sun began to get too hot.

She sometimes ordered her dinner outdoors in the evening too, when they lit the flickering torches that hung on the bougainvillea-covered walls. On these occasions, in spite of the fact that Mrs. Baxter was always in attendance, there were usually three or four gentlemen who also begged to be allowed to join the ladies. Frank Julius, who had been one of the southern colonists in Cordoba, and Bernard Bechaud, a merry-faced Belgian—one of “Carlotta’s crowd,” who had tried his hand at planting coffee and tobacco in Oaxaca until Díaz armies drove him out—these two were Ginny’s most constant swains. Monsieur Bechaud was content just to be in Ginny’s company and to bask in her occasional flashing smiles, but Mr. Julius, a darkly handsome ex-colonel of the Confederate army, wanted a little more than smiles. When she had first met him, she had been with Miguel—and later he had been one of the emperor’s guests when she had danced by the pool at Jalapilla that night. He knew she had been Miguel’s mistress, and before that, the petite amie of the Comte d’Arlingen. When she rebuffed his rather bold advances he told her smilingly that he could wait—she was too beautiful, far too charming to remain alone.

“Are you asking me to become your mistress, Mr. Julius?” Ginny asked him pointedly, her chin up, her green eyes shining dangerously.

“And if I were, would you agree? I’m not a rich man at this moment,” he went on, ignoring the angry tapping of her foot, “but then—I’m not a poor one either. I mean to make my fortune before too long.”

“For heaven’s sake! Of what interest is that to me? I assure you, Mr. Julius, I am not looking for a protector!”

She thought that her anger might drive him away, but it did not. His attentions, his smiling gallantry, were as assiduous as ever.

They played cards on some evenings, piquet and bezique, and once, even a game of poker, after Mrs. Baxter had retired early. The men were delighted to find that their charming companion could play as well as a man.

On some evenings, the men hired a ragged group of Mexican musicians to provide some music for them. The waltz, of course was beyond them, but they kept begging Ginny to dance, and she kept refusing, shaking her head angrily.

One Friday evening however, having just received the good news that the Yankee Belle would have a berth in the harbor early next week, Ginny finally gave in to their incessant pleadings. The night was unusually clear, with even a full moon that defied the tawdry orange glow of the torches. The musicians played “ La Paloma ” and some other melancholy pieces, and the wine, for a change, was actually slightly chilled. Ginny drank too much of it, trying to keep up her air of spurious gaiety. She kept thinking—Next week! I will be really leaving here next week—and suddenly Mexico seemed more like home to her than the distant California she hadn’t yet seen. I wonder if Salvador is looking after the little hacienda—my own, my very own home, she couldn’t help asking herself. I wonder how Marisa is—if she’s grown any fatter—her thoughts were suddenly insupportable.

“Ginette, won’t you please dance for us? We have only a few days left of our pleasant little gatherings here.” Bernard Bechaud’s humorous smile was unusually appealing.

“Please—it would be such an honor,” Frank Julius added, his hand surreptitiously touching hers.

Even Mrs. Baxter suddenly added her pleas.

“Indeed, you must oblige us all, my dear Ginny! You must dance divinely, if you’ve danced for an emperor! Please do!”

“There’s no reason to feel embarrassed, madame,” the brown-haired, open-faced Mr. Rutherford put in rather shyly. “See—we are almost the only people left out here.”

“It’s getting rather late,” Ginny said distractedly, but they began toasting her with their glasses of wine.

“If you won’t dance for us, why don’t you pretend you are dancing for a lover?” Frank Julius whispered in her ear, and she flushed with annoyance. His whisper had carried, and Mrs. Baxter was staring at him in a slightly disapproving fashion.

“Oh, very well!” she cried at last with exasperation in her voice. “At least, have them play something a little more lively?” Perhaps if she danced for them they would leave her in peace, and she wouldn’t have to listen to any more of Mr. Julius’ sugarcoated innuendos. She tossed off the whole of her glass of wine, ignoring their surprised and pleased looks, and kicked off her shoes. In a way, this would be her farewell to Mexico, with all its life and rich laughter, and all the memories it held for her!

The musicians, encouraged by the coins thrown at them began to play furiously—a fiddle and two guitars; not the Spanish fandango but the jarabe of the peasants and the gypsies.

Walking defiantly over to the small, tiled part of the patio where the musicians stood, and ignoring their looks of surprise, Ginny began to snap her fingers, and then as the rhythm began to flow into her body, loosening her muscles and sending the blood beating faster in her temples, she began to dance.

Even the waiters and the two maids came out to watch, but she ignored them just as she ignored the others at her table. She was dancing for herself, for Mexico, for her lost love. Attracted by the clapping and the olés, a few more people had begun to edge their way outdoors from the small sala of the posada. A gringa who danced like a Mexican gypsy? Incredible!

Her hair started to come loose and she let it—shaking its rippling waves free around her shoulders. She lifted her skirt, showing her ankles, and then let it drop, teasingly. Her eyes half-closed she danced first slowly and then faster, until her cheeks were flushed, her body beaded with perspiration. She danced as a woman dances for a man, her lips parting slightly as she panted to show a glimpse of small white teeth, her arms stretched imploringly, first above her head and then before her, entreatingly. And then she became a tease—a woman who half-promised, but would give nothing in the end.

“Who are you dancing for, green-eyes?”

The words had been spoken softly, but she heard them over the music, in spite of the thudding pulse in her temples. The bold words of an impudent stranger, but she knew that slightly mocking, slightly impatient voice; she would always hear it, no matter how softly he spoke.

Her half-closed eyes flew open, everything seemed to stop as she looked into his eyes.

“For you, only for you, Steve!” It was all she had time to whisper before she flew into his arms.