"And who is Altagracia, please?"
"Our maid when I was a little girl."
She watched him laugh out loud for the first time and dab at his eyes with a hankie he kept in his sleeve.
He told Amelia as she looked out the window of the firstclass compartment at palm trees and wooded hills, huts with thatched roofs, cultivated fields, "That's corn. That's yucca. That, of course, is cane." She asked if this was his railroad. No, this line as the Ferro Carriles Unidos, owned by a Havana bank heavy with British and German capital. His sugar railroad ran north and south, from the central below a place called Benavides to the Matanzas docks and a few miles up the coast. He told her he was talking to American investors about building a major line from Santa Clara to Santiago de Cuba, at the eastern end of the island.
She asked him, "Why not Cuban investors?"
"There aren't any."
She asked why he believed Cubans were unable to govern themselves, a view he had expressed on the boat.
"Read Cuban Sketches," Boudreaux said. "I'll give you my copy. The book's observer characterizes Cubans as a people of 'smiles, easy talk and time-killing dilettante-ism." " Amelia said, "Yes? What's wrong with that?"
"You're kidding, of course." He said, "The book's observer comes to the conclusion that laziness is as natural to the Cuban as foppery is common."
She said, "Do you believe that?"
"Well, the book exaggerates, yes, to make a point, but no more than Cubans themselves, who exaggerate with an ease that's appalling. They deplore manual labor and reserve it for the Negroes, of which there are plenty on the island." He said, "Just past Benavides we come to a main road, where horses will be waiting." He said, "You weren't kidding me, you do like to ride."
"I love to."
"Because if you were kidding, what I'll do is send someone down from Benavides on a handcar and bring a carriage of some kind, a small barouche."
"Believe me," Amelia said, "I ride."
He told her this was considered quite a fast train, though you wouldn't know it, would you, with all the stops it made. Regla station to Matanzas would take about seven hours.
He told her Cubans loved ornamentation and bright colors, though young ladies applied an astonishing amount of rice powder to their faces.
He told her both men and women in Cuba prided themselves on having small feet.
He told her that while Cubans were basically honest, they tended to become homicidal when jealous.
"Wait till you read Cuban Sketches."
Amelia dozed off.
She opened her eyes to find the train sliding past a facing of stone buildings, a water tower, soldiers tending a dozen or more saddled horses in a barn lot, and now the compartment window came to a station platform, the train barely moving, slowing to a stop in the shade, opposite the center of the platform crowded with soldiers in pale gray uniforms and military straws, some of them looking this way now, at the train, Amelia in the window. "Guardia Civil," Boudreaux said. He rose to open the window and sat down again in the seat facing Amelia.
"They've got a couple of prisoners. See? The two wearing filthy clothes. I don't understand why dirt doesn't bother these people. You'd think they'd wear something darker, in a heavy denim."
They were farm workers and looked to Amelia like all the Cuban laborers she had seen in the past few days. If they weren't black they were small men, like these two, with big mustaches, yes, in heavily soiled clothes and shapeless straw hats. These two were bareheaded, hands tied behind them, ropes around their necks, the ropes looped over beams that supported the. platform wooden awning. The two stood less than twenty feet from the compartment window, staring back at Amelia, while about them the Guardia seemed to be arguing among themselves.
Boudreaux turned his head and called out, "Victor!"
The compartment door opened and Fuentes and Novis were standing in the aisle looking in. "What's going on out there?" "You want me to, I find out."
"Yes, I want you to. Go on." Boudreaux said to Amelia, "Why does he think I called him?"
Novis, still in the doorway, said, "You don't mind my saying, it's 'cause they're stupid, all of 'em."
Now as Amelia watched, Fuentes appeared on the platform and approached one of the soldiers, an officer. "That's Lionel Tavalera," Boudreaux said. "He fought the Berbers in North Africa before coming here. You want someone to tell you something and he refuses, you hand him over to Tavalera." Amelia was looking at Boudreaux now. "They say he hates Americans, but he and I get along just dandy. What it comes down to, despite political differences, is mutual respect. They can be mean, those Guardia Civil-some say barbaric-but they get it done."
Amelia turned her head to watch Fuentes in his white suit talking to the Guardia officer towering over him. Earlier, when they were waiting to board the train, Boudreaux called Fuentes over and said to Amelia, "This is Victor, he's supposed to be my segundo, but all he does is argue with me. Victor, I'm putting Miss Brown in your care. You understand? Miss Brown wants something, you make sure she gets it." They looked at each other as Boudreaux spoke, Amelia sensing that Victor was sizing her up, curious, wanting to know who she was rather than waste his time fawning, trying to make an impression. Amelia smiled and Victor seemed surprised.
Now, as Fuentes spoke to him, the Guardia officer was looking this way. Boudreaux said in the open window, "Major," giving him kind of a salute and called to his man, "Victor, if you'll come over here, please."
Fuentes glanced over but continued talking to Tavalera, gesturing, telling him something in earnest.
Novis said, "I'll get the squirt."
But now Boudreaux raised his voice to Victor: "Goddamn it, get over here." And this time he came, concerned, though, glancing back at the two prisoners.
"The Guardia officer say they insurgents, but I don't think so."
Amelia watched Boudreaux as he asked Fuentes if he knew them.
"I know they work for you and live on the mill. They cut cane, both of them." He looked at Amelia and for a moment held her gaze. "I tell this Guardia, but he doesn't believe me." Boudreaux said, "You're sure?" "Yes, I'm sure."
Amelia waited for Rollie to call to the officer now and put in a word for the two men, clear up an apparent misunderstanding. But he didn't. He said, "They could still be mambis, couldn't they?"
Amelia's gaze moved to Victor, close to the open window. He said, "How can I see them in the field fighting the cane every day if they someplace else fighting these people?"
Boudreaux nodded, thinking about it. He said to Novis, "You ever see those two before?"
"I may ave, but how can you tell?" Novis said. "All these squirts look alike to me."
Boudreaux turned to Fuentes again. "What're they arguing about?"
"They need the two men to stand on something," Fuentes said, "they can pull out from under their feet when they hang them. One of the soldiers say a baggage cart. No, too high. Somebody say lay a hogshead on its side. No, much too high. A trunk, the kind you put clothes in. No, too high standing up, too low on its side. Whatever they say is that way, either too high or too low. Now somebody say put them on horses. But the horses, running from under them, whose horses you want to use?"
Novis said, "Hell, yank on the ropes and pull 'em up by hand."
Amelia watched Boudreaux look past Victor to Tavalera standing by the two prisoners, Amelia certain Rollie would now straighten out what appeared to be a misunderstanding. Yes, calling to Tavalera, "Major, if I could have a word with you…
The Guardia officer came over to the window, touching the brim of his hat and smiling as he noticed Amelia. He said to Boudreaux, "Yes, how can I be of service?"
"Victor says these two work for me."
"Oh, is that so? I'm sorry, because we pretty sure these are bad people who fight us."
"But you're not sure."