Calma. Calma. No se sienta,” the nun whispered as the needle slipped beneath the skin. A tiny bead of blood appeared, scarlet, shining like a jewel, focusing Sylvia’s attention, then a dab of alcohol-soaked cotton and it was gone. Everything in the room felt distant and muted, enveloped in a haze; people came in, people left. She kept hearing the voice saying no no no no, a familiar voice, a voice she remembered. The nun was leaving, her white habit rustling softly. A voluptuous feeling came over Sylvia, a sense of floating away. Jacques was there, someplace close by. She heard his voice calling her name.
“Sylvia! Sylvia!” A hand squeezed hers. “Sylvia, it’s me, Otto.”
He drifted away. People came and went. She lost track of time, the hours slipping by. Natalia Sedova sat by her bed, holding her hand, her eyes so sad, tragedy written on her face. The two women looked into each other’s eyes, sharing their grief. Sylvia could no longer evade the truth. She understood what happened when she arrived at the house and she saw the bloodstain on the jute rug. She had been waiting for Jacques since four that afternoon, fretting, hoping that all of her suspicions would prove unfounded one more time. She had been frantic at seven o’clock when she took a taxi to meet Otto and Trudy for dinner. She wanted Jacques to be waiting for her at the restaurant, for there to be yet another silly misunderstanding, for yet another nightmare to end. It was her last night in Mexico, and Jacques had disappeared once again. All she had was a piece of folded paper where he’d written a name and two street numbers. Viñas, that was the name, one she wouldn’t forget easily. She’d made Otto and Trudy get in a taxi with her to make the long drive through Chapultepec Park and out to Lomas to an address that didn’t exist. And all the while, she had insisted Jacques would never go to Coyoacán without her. Otto wanted to call the house, but she kept saying, No, no, he won’t be there. And then, on the long drive to Coyoacán in the back of a dark taxi, she began to know.
Now she was waking to an endless sorrow, retreating from a future that no longer existed, a past that was a lie, a precarious existence on a razor’s edge of anxiety.
“Sylvia, you have to wake up,” Monte began to say. “They want you to wake up.”
Her younger brother Monte had come from New York to represent the family, to take charge of Sylvia. Dressed in a navy blue suit, he looked out of place with his freckles and blond hair.
The doctors had stopped her sedatives. Her lips were dry, her mouth parched. A Mexican woman helped her bathe. Another dressed her in clothes sent from New York by Ruth and Hilda—a knit sailor shirt with horizontal stripes and dark pants. Their father had sent Monte because he was angry with the sisters; Ruth and Hilda were complicit in knowing Trotsky.
As Sylvia ate a bowl of broth, she felt she was being prepared for some ritual sacrifice. Monte came in with a Mexican newspaper, which he paged through in a pompous way, sitting in the armchair. He couldn’t read Spanish but was looking at the pictures.
When he finished, he folded the paper and placed the front page before her. “There was a procession,” he said, “Don’t look inside. The pictures are gruesome.”
Sylvia put on her glasses and squinted as her eyes focused. She stared at the black-and-white photo of men following a hearse down the street with thousands of Mexicans lining the sidewalks. “How long has it been?” she asked, feeling a swaying lurch of disorientation.
“That’s today’s paper so obviously it was yesterday.”
“No, I mean how long have I been here? I’ve lost track of the days.”
“Three days. This is your fourth.”
Studying the photograph, she recognized Joe Hansen, Charles Cornell, and Jake Cooper walking behind the hearse—their anger and the drama were written on their faces.
“No, don’t,” Monte said as she started to turn the page. “The pictures inside are grisly, autopsy kind of stuff.”
Putting the paper aside, she felt a numbing anxiety creep upon her, an impending attack of panic. “My mouth is so dry. Could I have some chipped ice?”
Monte left the room. When he returned, he avoided meeting her eyes. Moments later, Colonel Sanchez came in, wearing his uniform—a tunic, jodhpurs, and riding boots—and accompanied by a nurse and a police translator. Sylvia had a vague unpleasant memory of the Colonel interrogating her.
At first the translator confused her; she couldn’t tell who was really speaking or know whom to look at. “Muy, muy bien!” said the Colonel, smiling and rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Veo que la señorita está despierta y que se sienta mucho mejor.”
“Very good,” the police officer translated. “I see the miss is awake and feel much better.”
Another effusion of speech came from the Colonel.
“We have a friend of the miss you would like to see. It would be good for the miss to get out of the bed and take a little walk. Therapeutic, yes? Not far, just here.”
The Colonel smiled broadly and held out his forearm to her as if for a dance. She looked from side to side desperately and grabbed the edges of the mattress. “Monte! What does he want? What are they doing? Please! I don’t want to go.”
“Sylvia, there’s nothing I can do.”
“No, I can’t. I’m not strong enough.”
Protesting, she was helped down from the bed. Barefoot, she looked elfin with her damp blond hair combed behind her ears. Smiling, voluble, the Colonel led his little procession into the hallway. The nurse was on one side of Sylvia, the translator on the other, Monte bringing up the rear. “It’s not far,” the translator was saying. “A little ways.”
As the Colonel opened a door to a crowded room, flashbulbs popped, blinding Sylvia. Men in suits lined the walls of the room. A stenographer sat waiting at a small table. For a hallucinatory moment, Sylvia thought Trotsky was sitting propped up in a hospital bed, his head bound in a turban of white gauze, his face obscured by a patch.
When Sylvia recognized Jacques, she lunged for the door. “No!” she screamed, her knees giving. “I don’t want to see him. Don’t make me do this!”
“Please take her away,” Jacques cried, burying his face in his hands. “Please spare us this.” He was alarmingly close to her, lying in a soiled bathrobe, his face battered and bruised. Sylvia wept, tears flowing down her face.
Smiling, standing at the center of the room, the Colonel began to address the assembled journalists in a stentorian tone of voice, confident his words would go directly into print. “The Colonel has invited the most celebrated members of the press,” the translator was telling Sylvia, “Mexico’s leading crime reporters.”
Seeing that she was about to swoon, the nurse swabbed the inside of her wrists with alcohol. Still smiling, the Colonel approached Sylvia, speaking rapidly in Spanish.
“Miss Sylvia,” the translator said, “do you recognize this man before you?”
She glanced from side to side. The Colonel nodded rapidly at her, to encourage an answer.
“Yes, I know him.”
Again the Colonel’s Spanish. Again the translation. “What is his name?”
“Jacques. Jacques Mornard.”
“He says you are the justification of his life.”
Sylvia had no idea how to respond.
“He says you are the justification of his life,” the translator declaimed, the Colonel’s stentorian tone seeping into his voice.
“He used me,” she muttered, looking down at the floor.
“Please, you must speak up,” the translator insisted.
“He used me.”
“Very good! And how did he do that?”
The exchange was losing its semblance of reality. She was in a hallucination. She was in a drama, and they wanted her to perform.
“He used me to meet Trotsky,” she answered, finding it easier as she spoke.
“Did you love Jacques Mornard?”
“Yes. I was his wife. He was my husband.”
“Did you believe he loved you?”
“Yes, I was sure of his love.”
“And Jacques!” The Colonel wheeled upon him. “Did you love Sylvia?”
Sylvia couldn’t bear to look at him but heard bedclothes rustling. “Yes,” he answered in a low, hoarse voice.
“Please speak up!”
“Yes, I loved her. I still do.”
“Sylvia, what are your feelings for him now?”
“He murdered Trotsky. He killed my love when he killed Trotsky.”
“But Jacques says that Trotsky seduced and betrayed him, that Trotsky was going to send him as an undercover agent to destabilize Russia.”
“Trotsky scarcely knew that Jacques existed.”
“You don’t believe what Jacques says, that his ideological disillusionment was the motive of this tragedy?”
“He was working for the GPU. Why would Trotsky commission him to go to Russia? Jacques doesn’t know anything about Russia. He can barely find it on a map. Trotsky would have sent a man he trusted.”
“You never suspected that Jacques Mornard was a Soviet agent?”
“There was one moment when I thought he might have been a British agent. I knew that something was wrong. But I loved him. I closed my eyes.”
“Look at him, Sylvia. Look at your lover and tell me what you see.”
Sylvia turned reluctantly.
“Sylvia, tell us what you see.”
“This is not the man I loved.”
“Jacques, listen to the truths your lover is saying. They are very hard, formidable. She has become a witness against you. You said she was the justification of your life.”
“Mon cher, Colonel! For pity’s sake, take her out of here.”