“Where does Max come into this? I thought he was your brother-in-law.”
“Max was her first husband but she divorced him in 1953. He moved back in when the Spaniard died. But they aren’t married.”
“Your sister thinks in multiples, like you. What will you tell her about how we got here?”
“I will think of a lie. I am a very good liar and I am smarter than she is. She is older and more beautiful, but she is so beautiful I think she is ugly like her house.”
Renata rang the bell and Felix the gardener opened the great wooden gates and greeted them. He said he’d let Esme know they were here, and then Renata and Quinn went into the main salon, which was dominated by what Quinn assumed was a portrait of Esme, standing on a seven-foot easel. Quinn looked for the beautiful ugliness that Renata had suggested, but he found only beauty and a strong resemblance to Renata. Esme had been married only six months when she sat for the portrait by the Spanish painter Berenguer, who had come to Cuba and expressed fascination with her provocative beauty. He made many sketches of her and asked her to come to Spain for a sitting. The finished portrait placed Esme in a spectral mode, a regal, standing presence, wearing a vexed expression and with her left hand pointing to the center of herself in an ambiguously sensual gesture. Berenguer said she wears her persona like a weapon, aggressive behavior for a great beauty. It was the most popular work in the artist’s subsequent exhibition and Berenguer did not want to sell it. Esme’s husband offered twenty-five thousand but Berenguer refused to sell. After months of persuasion he finally yielded the painting to Esme as a gift. How did Esme persuade him?
That is my secret, Esme always says.
It is no secret, Renata always says.
Esme came into the room four steps ahead of Moncho. She kissed and embraced her sister, greeted Quinn with an odd gesture of elevated fingers and pursed lips, with her breasts rising from excited inbreathing, a gesture of concern.
“So, you’re alive,” Esme said. “Mother called me five times. All that shooting she thought you were dead.”
“I called her from the museum,” Renata said. “All afternoon you could not use a telephone. If you stood up you’d be shot.”
Esme looked to Quinn, and Moncho offered him a handshake. “Ramón Quevedo,” he said.
“Daniel Quinn,” said Quinn. “A pleasure to meet you. I understand you don’t live here.”
“Only historically,” Moncho said. “It is not possible to separate from Esme. No husband should be asked such a thing.”
“Husbands seem to play a peculiar role in Cuba,” Quinn said.
“Husbands are extinct,” said Moncho. “Wives are eternal.”
“I may refuse to become a Cuban husband,” Quinn said. “I’ve already proposed to Renata, but maybe I’ll postpone the wedding.”
“You proposed?” said Esme. “When?”
“This morning.”
“When did you meet?”
“Last night.”
“What took you so long?” Moncho asked.
“Daniel rescued me after the attack,” Renata said. “He found a taxi to bring us here when no one else could. He’s a reporter and Max just hired him to write for the Post. He was near the Palace all during the attack.”
“How intrepid,” Esme said, and she sat in the Peacock cane chair in front of her portrait. “You really proposed?” she said to Quinn.
“He suggested the possibility,” Renata said. “He wrote the story of the Palace attack for Max.”
“A pity they did not kill the puta,” Moncho said.
“Be quiet or they’ll arrest you,” Esme said. “Did you see the shooting, Daniel?”
“I did, but my luck seems to be running,” Quinn said. “I didn’t get shot and I found the gorgeous Renata when the shooting stopped.”
“You can do two things at once,” said Esme.
“I do covet beauty,” Quinn said. “That portrait of you is very beautiful, and it does you justice.”
“The artist said he made me too beautiful,” Esme said.
“There is no such thing. An artist can only imitate the exquisite beauty that runs in your family.”
“Such a charmer. Please sit down, Daniel. Would you like a drink?”
“As my uncle once said, the last time I refused a drink I didn’t understand the question.”
Moncho exploded with laughter. “I understand the question and I will make you a drink,” he said, and he left the room.
“Very droll,” Esme said. And she asked Renata, “Nena, what brings you here on such a day?”
“I need a car. After today I absolutely must go away, anyplace, Cárdenas, perhaps, but I can’t take Mother’s car from her. You don’t know, Esme, you don’t know.”
“Of course I know, dear. Take the Buick. Those hateful people trying to kill the president, shooting all over the city, nobody is safe anywhere, what’s wrong with them? They’re all insane and lower class. As soon as I heard the news I tried to get a flight to New York, but they closed the airport. Americans will be afraid to come to Havana now.”
“Soldiers killed an American tourist,” Quinn said. “I was in his suite at the Regis Hotel when they shot him.”
“You weren’t.”
“An armored truck and a foot soldier both fired at us. I saved another man by pulling him to the floor when the shooting started.”
“You saved someone? You are a clever person. What are you doing in Cuba?”
“I’m trying to figure that out. My grandfather wrote a book about the Mambí revolution and he put Cuba into my head. Now you’ve got another revolution going and it pulled me in.”
“Did you come to write about Castro?” Renata asked.
“He’s a good subject, don’t you think?”
“Batista says Castro is dead or gone away,” Esme said. “Batista should know.”
“Of course,” Renata said. “Batista knows everything.”
“He knows nothing, he knows less than nothing,” Moncho said, reentering the room. Oliva, a housemaid, followed him in, wheeling a serving cart with a bottle of white rum, a bucket brimming with ice, a bowl of powdered sugar, a plate of cut limes, four cocktail glasses and a silver shaker. When Oliva left the room, Esme said, “If the servants repeat what you say you’ll be shot.”
“She is right,” Renata said.
“Of course she’s right. Tell the truth they shoot you.” Moncho squeezed the limes. “Batista’s planes bomb the Sierra and kill guajiros but they find no rebel corpses. Fidel is not gone.”
“Where is he?” Quinn asked.
“In the Sierra.”
“How do you get to see him?”
“By invitation,” Moncho said. “Without invitation they will shoot you as a spy.”
“How do you get an invitation?”
“No one knows.”
Moncho poured a cascade of rum into the shaker, added sugar and the lime juice. “I was in law school at the University with Fidel. He was a wild schemer with the political gangs, never went to class. But he learned something. He’s outthinking Batista’s army.”
“We will change the subject, Moncho,” Esme said. “Daniel’s grandfather wrote a book about Cuba.”
“Ah,” said Moncho, shaking the shaker.
“He came looking for Céspedes, the revolutionary, and he found him.”
“Céspedes!” Moncho said. “In 1948 I went to Manzanillo with Fidel to get the Demajagua bell, the one Céspedes rang to start the revolution. Like your Liberty Bell, Señor Quinn, a three-hundred-pound symbol of our rebellion.”