DIAMANTINO WAS STILL IN his room getting ready for dinner. He took forever to dress, shave, and comb his hair with eau de cologne. When he finally appeared on the verandah, he greeted Bienvenido cordially enough. I stood there making small talk, but when I saw the disapproving look on Diamantino’s face I immediately excused myself.
“It’s good to see you again after such a long time,” Diamantino said, smiling broadly. Bienvenido didn’t smile and shook the young man’s hand reluctantly. He was dressed simply, in a cotton twill suit and brown leather boots. Diamantino wore the traditional hacendado’s white linen outfit, vest neatly buttoned under his jacket and golden watch chain attached to its pocket. The manners of both young men were impeccable, and I wondered whether Adelina hadn’t made up the whole story about the handsome Bienvenido being Don Pedro’s son just to keep me on pins and needles.
Don Pedro came out on the porch, wheezing and puffing and carrying two bottles of champagne. He’d been down to the half-cellar, the room under the stairs and the only place constructed of cement in the old wooden house. It was here Don Pedro kept his wine bottles and his safe-deposit box. In case of fire, everything else could go up in smoke except his liquor and his money. “Well, I’m glad you boys have made your peace! Now you know why Basilisa and I planned to have this little dinner party. We wanted to see our little family together again. After all, your father has been my right hand for the last thirty years, and you’re like a son to me,” he told Bienvenido. “And Diamantino is also like a son.” Bienvenido let Don Pedro hug him. He didn’t expect this and would rather have shaken hands; he couldn’t help feeling tense. His father, Arnaldo Pérez, was ill with a cold and had had to stay home, but he sent Don Pedro his greetings.
Doña Victoria arrived, all dressed up in lavender silk and accompanied by our reporter friend, Rogelio Tellez. Apparently the young man was an old friend of Bienvenido’s, too, and they immediately struck up a conversation. Rogelio began teasing Bienvenido, who, in his opinion, had made a spectacle of himself in town the day before by letting the man from the Home Guard address the spectators at the plaza like a common rabble-rouser. “What got into you? You should have stopped the man immediately! Do you want us to be a banana republic like the Dominican Republic or Nicaragua? We’re just starting to get out from under the despotic boot of Spain and you have to insult the Americans.” Rogelio Tellez wasn’t just a Bolshevik sympathizer; he was an American sympathizer also. He seemed to be running in a popularity contest.
“Desiderio is a hero,” Bienvenido answered gravely. “Right now he’s being questioned—perhaps tortured—by the secret police. I won’t have you criticize him.” He spoke slowly and deliberately, so that everyone listened. Bienvenido was shy, but his intensity reminded me of a Russian commissar’s. He had a glass of sherry in his hand, and as he spoke, he put it down carefully on a miniature French ormolu table, as if he were afraid of breaking it.
Rogelio changed the subject to ease the tension. He told the story of the Russian peasant who had broken into the czarina’s apartment. He was holding up the czarina’s toilet seat, Rogelio said, which was upholstered in blue velvet, when a reporter took his picture and it came out in the paper. The peasant was laughing and holding his sides; he found it hilarious that anyone would shit on a velvet cushion. “He was shot the day after he broke into the palace,” Rogelio said. “Let’s hope Desiderio doesn’t suffer the same fate.” Bienvenido was incensed, and he was about to grab Rogelio by the lapel of his jacket when Madame stopped him.
“We lived through the Russian Revolution,” she said. “You two don’t know the first thing about it.”
“I know how to take care of my friends,” Bienvenido answered. “Don’t get mixed up in this.”
Doña Victoria couldn’t hear a train go by, but she immediately guessed what her nephew and Bienvenido were arguing about. Rogelio’s father was Governor Yager’s press aide, as well as the publisher of the Puerto Rico Ilustrado, and he favored statehood. But Doña Victoria never quarreled with her brother, Rogelio’s father, because of that. Like so many families on the island, theirs was divided politically, but that didn’t prevent them from being always cordial and affectionate with each other.
Bienvenido’s face had grown a deep purple. Doña Victoria pulled her nephew by the arm and sat him between Don Pedro and herself on the medallion-backed living-room sofa to keep him out of trouble. Fortunately Rogelio was as thin as a reed and sat obediently between them, not saying a word. Don Pedro began to make small talk with Madame.
I heard Adelina calling me and I went into the kitchen to get some hors d’oeuvres—Spanish jamón serrano and fried quesitos de Arecibo. I came back as fast as I could because I didn’t want to miss anything. Bienvenido had walked out of the room and onto the verandah, where Ronda was smoking a cigarette.
“The more this island changes, the more it stays the same,” Bienvenido said angrily, shaking his head. “It’s people like Rogelio who do the most harm: ‘tira la piedra y esconde la mano’ He likes to throw stones and then hide his hand,” he complained to Ronda. “Rogelio’s magazine is full of patriotic poems and songs, but when things come down to brass tacks—or to lead bullets—he scuttles away and nothing happens.”
Ronda looked up at him and smiled. “And are you the type that scuttles away too? It’s been a while.”
They hadn’t seen each other since the kiss in the orchid grove three summers before, and Bienvenido hadn’t even said hello that evening. He hadn’t acknowledged her presence yet. I crept up softly to where they were talking and stood behind the balcony’s louvered doors.
The young man gave up. “How are you, Ronda? You’ve grown up; you’re even more beautiful than I remembered,” he said. Ronda leaned toward him, her arms on the balcony’s railing, her brown curls falling over her shoulders like an unruly mantle.
“Really? I wouldn’t have thought you remembered me at all. Not after the way you behaved.” She took one more pull from her cigarette and extinguished it in a flowerpot.
Bienvenido protested that she was being unfair. He was terribly busy getting ready to leave for San Juan, and his studies at the university had been grueling. “Of course I remember you; in fact, I thought of you often.”
“Three years. Has it been that long? It seems it was yesterday,” Ronda said. They looked at each other as if they were on opposite banks of a river and not on Don Pedro’s moonlit verandah.
“Why did you run away, Bienvenido?” I heard Ronda ask. “I know! ‘No country should belong to another without violating the most basic of human rights: the right to be free.’ Your famous motto,” she said, speaking in a loud voice and gesturing with her arms as if she were about to give a speech. “Is that why you can’t love me?” She had meant it as a joke to ridicule him, but her voice shattered, and it came out like a plea.
It was like striking a match to a wick—Bienvenido suddenly put his arms around her and kissed her passionately on the mouth. “You’re like a curse I can’t get rid of!” he whispered, and kissed her again.
I left my hiding place and walked hurriedly into the living room to ask people what they wanted to drink. Then Adelina came in from the kitchen and handed me a tray of delicious hot codfish fritters which I quickly passed around so no one would venture out into the terrace.
Don Pedro went over to Madame, who sipped a glass of sherry. She had gone into the dining room, where Doña Basilisa’s lace-covered table awaited the guests, set with Baccarat crystal goblets. Limoges porcelain plates, and a gorgeous centerpiece of white orchids. A portrait behind it showed a beautiful young woman dressed in white tulle. She had hair the color of midnight and amber eyes that shone softly. Something about the girl caught Madame’s attention, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She took a step forward to examine the portrait more closely, and noticed a coronet of stars adorning the girl’s head. She half remembered seeing it a long time ago, but she couldn’t say where.
“What a beautiful painting!” Madame said. “Who painted it?”
“You’ve no doubt heard speak of Angelina Bertoli, the extraordinary diva born in Spain of Italian parents, haven’t you?” Don Pedro asked. Madame was startled; she hadn’t noticed that Don Pedro had crept up on tiptoe and was standing next to her. “Angelina and her father visited the island some years ago and stayed a whole month at a nearby hacienda.”
Suddenly Madame remembered walking into the Imperial Box at the Maryinsky, where everything was blue and gold, and bowing before Czar Nicholas II. She had been a little girl then and was disappointed by the unassuming presence of the czar, who stood next to his wife and was shorter than the czarina. He had the look of a timid, large-whiskered mouse, while Alexandra looked like an empress even sitting down. The czar had questioned her about her fish costume, and asked about the magic ring hidden in a little box on top of her head. It was then that Madame had noticed the coronet on the czarina’s head.
“Angelina came to Arecibo during her first singing tour of America,” Don Pedro said. “She was only fifteen, but she had already traveled in Europe as a child prodigy, performing at several imperial courts. It was rumored that she even sang in St. Petersburg, and that the czar was so taken, he had his jeweler make a replica of the czarina’s tiara for her.” Madame looked at the painting in wonder, and told Don Pedro her story. “The world is no larger than a handkerchief!” she said, smiling.
“La Bertoli was no less a prodigy than you are, Madame, and she also appeared at Teatro Oliver, which you will soon grace with your presence,” Don Pedro exclaimed grandly. “Felix Lafortune, the famous pianist and composer from New Orleans, accompanied Angelina, and he was a spectacle, too. He was a young man in his twenties, thin and long-maned, with a silky mustache and arms as agile as a spider’s legs. When he played the piano, it was as if he had four hands instead of two.”
Bienvenido and Ronda had come into the dining room and stood listening to Don Pedro. Bienvenido looked uncomfortable. He had evidently never heard of La Bertoli and didn’t care a fig about opera.
The other guests were entering the dining room. Rogelio walked over to the painting to examine it more closely. “The gallant young pianist and the doll-like diva apparently put on a magnificent show together,” he said. “I was too young to see them perform at Teatro Oliver, but people in Arecibo are still talking about them.”
“Angelina’s experience was a good example of the charm of our island, Madame,” Don Pedro said, a malicious smile on his lips. “You must beware of it. It could also weave its spell around you, and then you’ll never want to leave.”
“Would you find that a disagreeable prospect, Madame?” Diamantino intervened, looking at Madame with lovesick eyes. I was furious. “Oh, she’d love to stay!” I piped in before Madame could answer. “Except Madame is thirty-eight, not a fifteen-year-old nightingale!” Everybody burst out laughing and my cheeks were smarting, but I didn’t give a damn.
Doña Basilisa announced that dinner was served, and the guests approached the table. I pulled out a chair for Madame and she sat down at one end of the table, while Don Pedro sat at the head. Bienvenido sat down last, making it a point to sit as far as possible from Ronda. Doña Basilisa evidently didn’t relish the conversation or the idea of Madame extending her stay on the island, and she tried changing the subject several times, but Don Pedro persisted.
“If it hadn’t been for Salvatore,” he rambled on, “who looked after his daughter like an eagle after his young, La Bertoli might have stayed longer. During her visit to Arecibo she met Adalberto Ríos, the son of one of our neighbors. He was a no-good loafer; he didn’t like to work and twiddled his life away painting. One evening the young man went to listen to Angelina sing and fell head over heels in love with her. When the Bertolis went on their way, Adalberto followed them to San Juan. Once there, and just before La Bertolis ship sailed off, Adalberto asked Salvatore for Angelina’s hand in marriage. The old man was wise enough not to say no; he simply begged them to postpone the wedding. Angelina had engagements in New York which she couldn’t break; she had signed contracts to sing at several charity fund-raisers. The girl had a terrific tantrum and had to be wrenched from her lover’s arms, but Salvatore finally managed to sail away with his daughter.”
Don Pedro’s voice was steady and without a quaver, but there was something unreal about his story. I looked at him keenly over the top of the cut-glass wine goblets and noticed that his right eyelid had begun to twitch. He saw me looking at him, and went on impassively. “Adalberto Ríos never got over the affair. After Angelina and her father sailed away, he locked himself up in his room with his oils and paintbrushes and no one but his family saw him again for months. One night, after everyone was asleep, he went up to the attic where he had his atelier and hung himself from a rafter.”
The suspense was so great I could hardly breathe. I wondered why Adelina hadn’t mentioned the story to me before, but nobody dared to contradict Don Pedro. Everyone at the table had grown silent. Only Doña Basilisa was sobbing quietly into her linen handkerchief, her pink, round shoulders quivering and her gray curls bobbing on her head like an old doll’s. Ronda got up from her chair and walked over to Doña Basilisa. She put her arm around her mother’s shoulders to comfort her.
“The name of the young man wasn’t Adalberto Ríos,” Ronda told Madame in a melancholy tone. “It was Adalberto Batistini, and he was my brother. The painting was done by him. We found it in his studio after he hung himself. Like all devout Catholics, Father considers suicide a capital sin, so Adalberto couldn’t be buried in consecrated ground. He had him buried in our orchid grove, and forbade us to ever talk about him.”
“May his soul burn in hell!” Don Pedro whispered, as he got up from the table and left the room.
So that was the reason for Doña Basilisa’s nervousness, for her silly laughter and her ceaseless chatter! That was why she kept praying in whispers when she had shown us her orchid grove, and forbade us to pick a single flower!