Epilogue #2
It had started to rain. It wasn’t the soft, delicate rain of the highlands that he was used to, but a heavy, noisy downpour that pelted the street.
He stood under an awning, shrinking back, hiding from the rain, thinking of Inés and those precious days during the festival of San Fidel de las Cumbres when he’d danced with her.
He realized she was the first girl he’d ever loved, and perhaps the only girl he might ever love, since he had little interest in or appreciation for Gertrudis.
For a moment he was seized with the mad desire to run across the street, into the restaurant, and yell her name at the top of his lungs. If they threw him out, it wouldn’t matter.
The rain now half concealed the lights of the restaurant and the neon curves of its name, making it seem terribly distant, almost a mirage in a desert.
The many evenings he had spent with his head filled with thoughts of Inés; the tertulias when he watched her move around the room, analyzing every motion of her head and tucking away the memory of her smiles. These moments returned to him, urging Bartolo to act, to seek the girl and seek answers.
He took a tentative step, but a car that came roaring down the street spooked him and made him take three steps back. He almost collided with a woman carrying packages.
“How rude!” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, clutching his hat tight, and maneuvered back under the awning. Embarrassed, he walked away from the restaurant, his eyes firmly on the ground, remembering that he needed to buy the chocolates.
—
A man in a gray suit leaned a shoulder against a wall and lit a cigarette, watching with interest the young fellow who desperately clutched a hat between his hands and walked quickly away.
He waited, shielded at the entrance of an apartment building, until he was certain the man would not return, then strolled into the restaurant.
He handed his coat and his hat to a checkroom girl, then made his way to the back of the venue, where, tucked in a cozy booth with a grand mirror behind it, there sat a woman in a red dress drinking a martini.
She was attired as if heading to a party, and her dark eyes, heavy with mascara, had an air of authority, a sureness, that made her irresistible.
He turned to a server and asked him to send another martini to the table and sat down.
“I hope you didn’t order dinner without me.”
“I was about to. You took your time.”
“I had to wait. You had a tail. You picked him up when you were coming out of Rincón de Goya. You won’t guess who it was,” he said, and took out a cigarette.
“Bartolo,” she replied smoothly.
He was surprised. His fingers faltered and no flame sprang from the lighter.
She smiled.
“You know me better than to think I wouldn’t notice someone was tailing me. I saw his reflection in a shop window. I could have shaken him off three blocks away from here.”
“Then why didn’t you?” he replied. He’d taught her how to ensure she was not being followed, just as he’d taught her how to identify a mark, how to reel them in, and a myriad of tricks.
“I wanted to see what he’d do.”
“He stood across the street staring in this direction before rushing away.”
The server returned and placed the martini before him. He rested his elbows on the table for a moment before carefully taking a sip.
“How long did he stand there?”
“Five good minutes. I couldn’t come in because he might see me, so I hid for a bit and watched him. If you recognized him and you really could have shaken him off, then you should have done that. It was irritating to stand out there in the rain.”
“You didn’t have to follow him. I don’t need a bodyguard.”
“I’m your business partner, and if I notice someone’s tailing you, I’m going to try to figure out what’s happening. I bet you couldn’t get rid of him,” he said, almost angrily, because he felt a little jealous, a little upset, suspecting that she wanted Bartolo to see her.
“That shows how much you know,” she said with a petulant shake of the head. She bit her lip, almost shyly, glancing down, her voice low. “I thought that my aunt had sent him to find me. But he did not speak a word to me, he did not try to detain me.”
He finally lit his cigarette. “It’s not as if he would have any grounds to do that.”
“No. Yet for a moment I thought he’d drag me back to Puerco Ahogado, to that house. That horrid house with its iron gates where I was meant to die.”
She had nightmares sometimes. Dreams that had her shaking in fear until she snapped her eyes open and touched the scar where the bullet went in, as if to reassure herself it was indeed an old scar that had healed and not a fresh wound.
But those were nothing but bad dreams, old fears; they could not pay them heed.
“We ought to leave for a while,” she said nevertheless.
“Why? It’s probably nothing more than an awful coincidence, and we’ll never see the man again.”
“I feel restless, and we’ve talked about Havana for so long, and now that the war is over it’s ripe with possibilities. I’m right about Havana. I’m always right.”
“Not about everything.”
She scooted closer to him. He saw their reflections in the mirror behind the booth, the polished man and the exquisite woman leaning forward to whisper in his ear.
“Especially about everything,” she said.
The flirtatious undertone in her voice, which she’d honed through exhaustive practice, hit him as it should, sending a shiver down his spine, yet he resisted her, a little longer, not because he really objected to the change of scenery but because he wanted to prolong their argument.
“It’ll be expensive and messy. We could get into a lot of trouble. I’m not sure I want to toy around with the authorities in another country.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“I hate islands.”
“You haven’t been to an island.”
“I hate the idea of them.”
“I should go on my own, then. I’m not handcuffed to you.”
“No.” He captured her wrist, holding it tight, and smiled. “But I bet you’d miss me.”
She frowned, opened her mouth as if to offer a snappy retort, then rather than speaking any words she kissed him with a searing intensity that left him almost breathless. Finally, she pushed him slightly away.
“I could have gotten rid of him,” she stated, so firmly he knew there was nothing to do now but to capitulate.
“Fine. You could have. Maybe. Now, where’s that letter we’re supposed to be working on?”
She took a sip of her drink. “I have it all composed in my head, mister.”
“Yeah? Let’s hear the opening line.”
“ ‘I cannot continue to live. I cannot silence the secret that nestles inside my heart.’ ”
Despite the triteness of the sentences, there was something absurdly sensual about the way she spoke them. Still, he scoffed and replied with a biting grin. “Pour some molasses on it, won’t you?”
She shrugged. “You’re the one who says letters always need a florid touch.”
“Sure they do. They also need a picture of you in this outfit, slipped snug inside the envelope. What do you call this latest number?” he asked, running a hand up and down the strap of her dress.
“Red Number Three, I suppose,” she replied with another enticing shrug. “I copied it from something María Félix was wearing. Do you want to hear the next line?”
“Go right ahead.”
“ ‘Understand how much I suffer and how much I love you,’ ” she recited. “ ‘Do you love me?’ ”
The affectless voice contrasted with her devious half smile. He nodded, pleased. “Molasses and a pound of icing to boot. You’ll give the man a coronary.”
“I’ll give him a coronary one way or another.”
They laughed. In the mirror the man and the woman grew quiet, their eyes staring at their reflections before they turned to each other.
She grasped his hand, lacing their fingers together.