Yet he was aware of the almost inevitable figure of a Raoul Kelly in the future, a short soft fat bald fellow who, by that time, would have had to have achieved an important professional reputation, or would find himself among so many others who had the same look, and who sat in the small cafés in the afternoon, drinking the small cups of thick black bitter coffee, making intricate and implausible plots to restore the old order, knowing yet never admitting they were trapped in one of the little eddies created when the brute weight of history had rushed by them.
’Cisca said, “It is odd, no? Señora Harkinson seemed so eager when I was first working here to involve herself with men of wealth and importance, friends of the old politico who befriended her and built her the lovely house and died. She found no new friend of importance. She is no longer a young girl, of course. One can understand the affair with El Capitán. He is mature, powerful, handsome in a rugged manner. A convenient diversion for her, something which began before she found she could no longer afford to operate the boat the Senator gave her and then sold it. She has tamed El Capitán Staniker so he will arrive when summoned, go when she orders. In the beginning they would shout, and sometimes he would beat her. Then he became eager to please her in every way. But now why should she divert herself with this Oliver person? Her captain has been gone — it is over three weeks. She spends money on sailing lessons with the boy. I tell you, querido, that one does few things without purpose. And she should be busying herself to find a protector. The boat is gone, and the furs are gone, and many jewels are gone. Sometimes I have not been paid until something has been sold. Those times she was very nervous and very ugly and cruel. Now she is very nervous but very gay also. It is a difficult thing to understand.”
She moved to the door of the apartment and went inside, pausing to hold the screen door open for Raoul. The architect the Senator had employed had limited luxuriousness to the main house. The little apartment over the garage was of motel derivation, formica, standard fixtures and apertures, tough fabrics, vinyl flooring. She sat in the corner of the couch and tucked her slim legs up under her, pulled her sandals off and dropped them on the floor, still frowning slightly as she tried to puzzle out Crissy Harkinson’s behavior.
He went to the tiny kitchen alcove and took two cans of beer out of the midget refrigerator, pulled the tabs off, went over and handed her one, saying, “Maybe she’s taking up with the kid to get her mind off worrying about Staniker.”
“Eh? Oh, I do not believe that is the way it is for her, truly. From the time El Capitán departed, she became more and more agitated. She walked restlessly, appearing suddenly to tell me things to do which were not needed. If I would wake up in the middle of the night, sometimes lights would be on in the house. She smoked much. All small things irritated her. And then, last Sunday, as she was becoming truly impossible, the news came of the boat from Texas being lost somehow. She said to me she was terribly worried about Captain Staniker. But how did she act? Still nervous, but she would hum little songs while pacing, and make large smiles at me and treat me kindly. She began this matter of the sailing lessons in the rented boat. Now she is becoming just a little bit ugly again, more so each day.”
He sat at the other end of the couch. “Honey, I didn’t know you were all this interested in the woman.”
“How not? There are just the two of us living here, no? Two women. I examine her. Perhaps it is — like the adventures in the daytime of the women of television. But they are good women in trouble. This one has the trouble of the money, and if she does not cure it, perhaps the house will go and my job will be gone. Perhaps she knows I watch her life as if it is television, but not so clear. Maybe not. She believes I am estupida, una burra, verdad. She asks about you. It would puzzle her, a journalist of importance visiting her maid, so I have told her you are a cook in a small Cuban restaurant. Also, I have invented others and say they visit me. It is that I do not care to have her enter my private life. It is a way — of hiding, perhaps. As, of course, she hides herself from me.”
“We all do some hiding,” he said as casually as he could manage.
“And what are you hiding, Señor?” Her look was flirtatious.
“My plans for us, chica.”
“But you said if she did not need me we would go all the way to the place in Fort Lauderdale where there is the Hawaiian food! Now you do not want to?” She looked like a troubled, disappointed child.
“Not the plans for tonight. The plans to get married and go to California to that new job I’ve been offered.”
“Oh. Do you think it would be better for me to wear high heels to that nice place, Raoul?”
He slid along the couch, put the empty beer can down, put his hands on her shoulders, held her strongly, gave her a little shake.
“Marriage, ’Cisca. Man and wife. Vows, home, kids.”
“Oh, I do not care to be married.”
He shook her again. “I care to marry you!”
Her face went absolutely still in a way he had not seen for many weeks. Her lips looked bloodless, and her eyes stared through him. He released her and she stood up and he expected her to say, as before, she had a headache, she did not feel well, he should leave, please.
Instead she said, “I am not one you would marry.”
“Why not?”
“One does not marry this description of woman. Now perhaps you would...”
He got up and said quickly, taking her hands, “High heels, almita, might make you feel more like fiesta, ha? And you will drink one of the enormous things of rum and become very foolish. Okay?”
He watched the stillness change, quite slowly, to animation, and her eyes focused upon him, merry and mischievous. “Red shoes! Red shoes!” she cried and went scuttling off to put them on.
Later in his car on the way up to Lauderdale, she wiggled closer to him and said, “I must tell you. I make up stories about my Señora Harkinson, to make it more like the television. I do it when I am ironing, mostly. When one does not think about what the hands are doing. I have imagined it is some manner of plot, about El Capitán. It was all arranged between them the yacht would become missing, and so when it happened, then she was happy because the plan was working. And it would be money, somehow, because it is what she is so worried about. But you must help me with the story. It gets difficult.”
“What do you mean?”
“In the paper on Monday there was the picture of the Señor Kayd. Oh, a very important man. I saw the picture and knew it was the one I had seen visit my Señora. He is not one easily forgotten, a giant truly, with a big shaved head and a loud laugh, a very heavy man but not fat. Perhaps fifty years old. With a white cowboy hat and boots with silver buckles and an air of importance, with a young man who brought him in a very rich car which he polished while the huge Señor was visiting my Señora. He visited for an hour, and they had drinks together and talked. His laugh rang through the house. From what I overheard, he was a friend of the Senator Fontaine and had met her when the Senator was alive and visited her here. She got out the most expensive bottles. She had me fix the small things to eat while drinking. When I took them in, they were talking quietly, and ceased when I entered. She thanked me and told me she would not need me and I could go back to my place until she called me. After the big man left she did not call me. It was the last day of March. I am sure of that.”