26
Key West
November 1842
One warm day in late November, about ?ve months after we’d been married, I told Pedro I would be going to Gran’s for lunch. When I got there, I found her in bed, ill with a cold, so I headed home.
As my carriage pulled up in the courtyard, I noticed that Pedro’s was still there, and I hoped he was asleep. Juanita met me at the door. “Se?ora, come rest in the shade on the terrace at the side garden, and let me serve you some nice cold lemonade.”
I was surprised at this unusual offer. I had tried for months to engage Juanita kindly, but she usually sniffed indifferently at me. “Why, thank you, Juanita,” I replied warmly. “That’s very nice of you.”
“Make yourself comfortable; I’ll bring it to you, and I’ll bring some molletes,” she said before hurrying to the cookhouse.
“Perfect. Just put them out. I’ll be right down. I’m going upstairs to change.”
She looked confused. “But you’ll wake up Don Pedro,” she protested. “Why not eat now, then change after you eat?”
I smiled. The last thing I wanted was to awaken the sleeping tiger.
“I won’t wake him up,” I promised, my voice dropping to a mock whisper. “I’ll be very quiet.”
And I was quiet. I crept silently up the stairs and turned the bedroom doorknob slowly—so slowly that when I opened the door, the two people inside did not notice me right away. My husband was seated on the bed, naked, and an equally nude young woman was kneeling in front of him. Her clothes were strewn around the room. One bedpost was festooned with her undergarments. A dress lay in a heap next to a chair, and a mound of collapsed petticoats was on the pillows of the bed. I could just imagine how she had pranced around, coyly removing one item at a time—with my husband chasing her, trying to tear them off.
“What is this?” I shrieked.
They both jumped up.
“?Bastardo!” I screamed at Pedro. “What I do for you day after day is not enough? You bring a whore into our home? Into our marriage bed?”
Her whalebone corset was next to me on the ?oor. I picked it up and started beating them both with it, screaming every Spanish obscenity I had ever heard from the men at the boardinghouse. I’ll confess that I was less upset at the betrayal than by all Pedro’s endless thrusting I’d had to endure—and why, when he was also carrying on with whores at the same time?
Carmen—for that was her name—was a woman I recognized as one of those tarts Pedro used to parade through the boardinghouse before our marriage. Quickly gathering her clothing, she ?ed the room. Finally, I threw the tattered corset at Pedro. I saw now that Juanita’s offer before had not been a gesture of friendship. It was only meant to draw me to the other side of the house, so I would not see Pedro and Carmen escape in his carriage.
“Juanita,” I screamed from the top of the stairs. I knew she would not be far.
“Yes, se?ora?” Slowly, she began to make her way up the stairs.
“No more games, Juanita. I want you to make up the bed in the guest room at the far end of the hall, and then transfer all my clothing there. Move everything: my jewels, my bonnets, my shoes. Everything.”
“Yes, se?ora,” she said. I could see she was resisting the urge to peek into the master bedroom, and I pushed past her, stomping down the glowing marble tiles of the hallway to the guest bedroom. Fuming, I sat down on a large wing chair to remove my shoes. My hands were shaking. I heard Pedro’s carriage outside as it rattled over the brick courtyard. And while most of my fury was spent, I was still seething when Juanita came in with the clean bed linen.
While Juanita quietly set to work, I could see that her de?ance had returned. As she slipped a case over a pillow held under her chin, she looked boldly at me. “Did you really think you would be enough for such a man?”
“What do you mean, ‘such a man’?” I asked scornfully, but even as I said it, it occurred to me that Juanita knew far more about my own husband than I did.
“A man like that never has enough with one woman,” she said. “For him, sex is like rum. Or opium. Or gambling. It’s his nature.”
“Well, Juanita, in case you haven’t noticed, he has been quite obsessed with me for the past ?ve months.”
“He loves you,” she agreed. “But I am not talking about love. I am talking about sex.”
Resisting the urge to snap back at her, I thought instead about what she was saying. “You seem to know a lot about my husband. What happened to his ?rst two wives?”
“The ?rst one … I did not know her. It was back in Spain. But his cousin Luis in Havana told me about it. Do?a Isabella was only sixteen when Don Pedro married her. She was from an aristocratic family in Madrid. A very frail girl. Don Pedro was probably even more demanding with her, because he was much younger then. Eventually, she went a little …” She tapped the side of her head. “She lost her mind. They put her in an institution. She later died of tuberculosis there.”
“Was he terribly upset?”
“I think he was. Luis said he loved her.”
I glanced down at my emerald engagement ring and vaguely wondered if it had once graced young Isabella’s hand. “And his second wife?” I asked.
She hesitated. I could see she was weighing her loyalty to Pedro against my anger. I glared at her. “Juanita?”
“You will not tell Don Pedro I told you?”
“No,” I said, sighing.
She stopped fussing with the linens. “This wife, I did know. I was working for them. She was born in Cuba of Spanish parents. She looked a lot like you, though she was younger, maybe nineteen. They had only been married a year or so. She grew melancholy for months, and then”—Juanita crossed herself—“she cut her wrists. I found her in the bathtub. It was terrible. Blood … everywhere … you should have seen it. Madre de Dios”—she crossed herself again—“that was terrible.”
There was something else I wanted to know. “And you, Juanita?” She began to smoothe out the sheets and didn’t answer. “Have you been to bed with my husband, too?”
She sighed, and looked down. “Not since he has been your husband,” she said quietly.
I nodded. “When?”
“It meant nothing. It was just something I did for him, like the cooking and the laundry. It was what he needed until he married you, and I supplied it. Often.” She rolled her eyes. “Too often. I was very happy when you got married.”
She looked up at me; she had ?nished making the bed. “Are you going to stay in this room for good?”
“Why? Are you worried you will have to perform for him again?”
She glared at me. Even in my anger, I realized how rude this comment was. “If you deny him,” she said, ignoring my question, “he will just go to that burdel, like he used to.”
These revelations stung me. I now wished to be alone. “I’ll stay in this room for as long as I need to,” I said. “Now, please bring me that lemonade. And the molletes.”
She stared in disbelief. “You still want to eat?”
“Yes, Juanita. I’m not a fragile little girl; I am not going to lose my mind or slash my wrists.”
After she left, I slumped back in my chair, taking deep breaths to calm myself. My hands were still quivering.
In a few minutes, I went back into the master bedroom, and from a hidden drawer in my armoire, I pulled out a pipe and a small snuff box containing some of Andrew’s weed that Dorothy had given me. Back in the guest bedroom, I closed the door, opened the window, and began to smoke until I felt calm. Gradually, a relaxed smile crept over my face. The whole incident seemed so farcical now, and the memory began to amuse me. Alone in the room, the more I thought about it, the funnier it seemed. I only wished I could have shared the story with Andrew. And I could not stop laughing.
The French word boudoir is from the verb bouder, which means “to pout”—the boudoir being a room to which a lady could retire and sulk as she pleased.
I felt I had every right to pout. The day after I moved into the guest room, I hired a locksmith from the chandlery to install a lock on my door. I remained in the guest room for the next three weeks. It was not that I really cared about Pedro’s philandering; I didn’t love him the way I had loved Andrew, after all. But I was deeply offended—and what if the children had come home early from school that day?
In any case, I had earned a rest from my wifely duties. It was almost like a holiday, and I made plans to enjoy it. I did not eat with Pedro, I did not sleep with him, and I did not speak to him. I felt like a newly manumitted slave. I went out whenever I wanted. I visited people like Ellen Mallory, went to see Barbara Mabrity at the lighthouse, and played whist or euchre with Gran and her cronies. Occasionally, I stopped for tea with Dorothy and her friends. Pedro had not cut off my allowance, so I often joined them at the warehouse auctions. There we would compete with men from Charleston, Mobile, or New York to snap up pretty things.
After these outings, I returned home to my cozy boudoir, feeling exhilarated. The children always knew where to ?nd me and came in after supper to ask for help with homework, or just to tell me about their day. They sometimes asked me when I was going back down to eat with the family, for, like an invalid, I had asked Juanita to bring up my dinner on a tray each evening. Breakfast, I ate on the veranda after everyone left in the morning.
Pedro slipped notes under the door—which I immediately pushed back out. When necessary, I left messages for him with Juanita.
Our housekeeper was angry with me, both for my hauteur and the nuisance of having to serve me upstairs. In the beginning, she approached me when we were alone at breakfast and upbraided me as tactfully as she could, pointing out the many jewels and presents Pedro had brought me. But as time wore on, she dropped any pretense.
“You are disrupting this household,” she snarled at me one day, slamming down my dinner tray. “Do you not care about anyone but yourself? It is hard on everyone, especially your children.”
I pretended I had not heard her, for I was long past trying to earn her affection.
The children knew I was angry with their beloved Don Pedro, but they had no idea why. A week before Christmas, Martha came in to show me some sketches she had done. Her eyes were shining. “Mama, Don Pedro thinks some of my art is good enough to use on his cigar labels at the factory!”
I looked at her designs. Pedro had come up with a series of names that evoked the sweet, mild taste of his cigar brands: Amor de Cuba, La Dulce Habanera, and others. Martha’s labels featured illustrations of exotic smiling women and tropical ?owers. She encircled some with stylized tobacco leaves, and I could see what Pedro had already discerned: She was beginning to show a good deal of aptitude. My heart swelled with pride, and I felt a rush of gratitude toward Pedro for making my daughter so happy.
“They’re beautiful, darlin’!” I exclaimed.
“He’s going to use some of them on his spring shipments,” she went on excitedly. “He thinks I should try to get into an art school up north.”
I smiled at my pretty daughter as we chatted about that idea for a while. How much longer would I have her? I ran my ?ngers through her thick blond curls and kissed her. Soon she would have to leave me.
“Mama, I know you’re angry at Don Pedro,” she said. “But I wish you could make up. We are all so fond of him. And he loves you.”
“I know,” I said. “I know he does.”
“If you stay angry, it will ruin our whole Christmas.”
And at that moment, I knew that my vacation from Pedro was over.
The next morning, while I was having coffee in the side garden, Tom Farrell appeared on my terrace.
“Hello, Emily. Any coffee left?”
“I’m sure we can ?nd some,” I said with a smile, and I rang for Juanita to bring a fresh pot along with some of her Cuban pastries. I was curious, for Tom did not customarily drop in for a social call by himself during the day. We chatted for a few minutes before his coffee arrived; then he came to the point.
“I was just on my way home to pick up some documents for court this afternoon. I thought I’d stop by and let you know that Pedro came to my o?ce last week to have me draw up a new will.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I didn’t bring a copy. But except for a few token gifts to his staff and cousins in Havana, he has left his estate entirely to you and the children. He wanted me to let you know that. And, Emily, I don’t mean to be indiscreet, but I must tell you that he is much wealthier than you might have thought.”
Amounts did not interest me. “As long as there is enough to see to the children’s education. That’s all I care about.”
“Believe me, there will be plenty for that!”
When Tom left, I told Juanita I would be having lunch with my husband that day. She looked relieved; I daresay she almost smiled.
Pedro’s eyes came to life with relief when he entered the dining room and saw me. “Hello, Pedro,” I said.
He said nothing, but he knelt down, reached for my hand, and kissed it fervently. Then, reluctant to let it go, he held it for a full minute against his cheek. When he looked up at me, there were tears in his eyes. Later, after we made love and he was leaving for work again, he slipped a beautiful diamond bracelet on my wrist.
The children were thrilled that everything was back to normal. We spent Christmas Eve at our house, and Dorothy hosted us on Christmas Day.
On New Year’s Day, I organized an open-house social for all our friends. Ellen Mallory came with her son Stephen, now the collector of customs. To my delight, she brought me some of her famous conch fritters, along with her special sauce, made from Key lime juice, homemade mayonnaise, and hot mustard.
In true southern tradition, Dorothy had made us a New Year’s casserole of hoppin’ John, a dish of black-eyed peas and rice. “For luck,” she said brightly. “I have a feeling this will be a lucky year for you.”
“Luck would be to ?nd out where Andrew is,” I said, lowering my voice. “It’s not knowing his whereabouts that torments me. That, and thinking of Ebony’s last days. Just imagine, Dorothy: If she had lived, my poor darling Ebony would be walking now—no, running probably—and beginning to talk. She’d be nineteen months old!”
Dorothy sighed. “Don’t torture yourself like this, Emily. You should be enjoying the children you do have.”
Pedro was his usual ebullient self over the holidays, delighted that all was back on an even keel. One cool night in January, he cuddled up to me in bed and whispered, “Querida, I have something to show you. My cousin Diego in Madrid found this book in Paris and sent it to me for Christmas. It’s all written in French; you will have to translate it for me. But I think it can make a big difference in our lives.”
I groaned inwardly, for he had that familiar twinkle in his eye. I picked up the book and read the French title out loud: Sexual Positions of the Kama Sutra and the Ancient World. I ?ipped through it quickly, glancing at some of the illustrations. Those in the ?rst half were of Hindu statues, carved in stone, featuring people with oversized genitalia in various sexual poses. Alongside each artifact was an illustration of two nude human beings in that same position. The second half of the book dealt with pictures of paintings taken from the walls of brothels in ancient Greece and Rome and from the Lupanar in Pompeii. The whole body of work was a depiction of twisted, tangled limbs. It all seemed terribly uncomfortable.
“You would have to be a contortionist to follow this” was my only comment as I handed the manual back.
“Well, perhaps. But I was thinking, querida. What if we tried doing it less often and concentrated more on these interesting ways?”
I liked the sound of “less often.”
“We could start with page one and do a different position each night,” he suggested.
I thumbed through the pages again. There were sixty-six positions in the Kama Sutra section alone, and almost as many in the section devoted to the ancient world. By the time we got through the book, I would have tried every sexual trick in the history of mankind. I looked at Pedro and shrugged. “Well, if you really want to, I suppose we can try. We’ll just skip the complicated ones.”
And so I began to read the French, translating as I went along, feeling like one of the lectore readers that Pedro hired to read to his workers in the tobacco factory. Pedro listened intently, and although he did not complain, I was sure I saw him many mornings thereafter trying to soothe an aching leg or shoulder. We advanced through the book night after night, and soon I wished myself back in my boudoir.