Flight of the Swan (18 page)

Bienvenido was older than Diamantino, but Bienvenido revered him. It wasn’t only because Diamantino was a city boy and Bienvenido came from a small town; Diamantino had studied philosophy and literature and he was a gentleman, while Bienvenido was a farmer’s son and would always remain one, even though he was studying for a college degree.

Diamantino had read Rousseau, Locke, and Leibniz, and was convinced that no country could belong to another, or even subject itself willingly to another country—as some local politicians insisted the island had done—without violating the most basic of human rights: the right to be free. Bienvenido didn’t know anything about philosophy or political science, but when he heard Diamantino speak about inspiring ideas like that, he felt lit up from within. He began to believe everything was possible, and his mood, which was usually despondent and morose for no apparent reason, lifted immediately. He felt sure that once the Americans were kicked off the island, Diamantino, the charismatic son of Don Eduardo Márquez, would be the republic of Puerto Rico’s next president.

It was a bright summer day when Diamantino approached Bienvenido with Doña Basilisa’s message. The boys were on vacation and they had taken their horses out for a ride across the lush cane fields spread out like a shimmering carpet all the way to the sea behind the house. They arrived at a stream at the end of a field, shaded by a cluster of bamboo shrubs that rustled like clouds of dry rain around them, and were letting the horses drink next to each other. Diamantino couldn’t be a hypocrite. “I know this sounds strange,” he said. “But Maite has asked me to tell you to ‘leave Ronda alone,’ whatever that means. You know how I feel about you; you’re my brother. I have no idea what’s going on between Ronda and you and under normal circumstances I wouldn’t intervene. But it’s about time you learned what everybody else at Dos Ríos knows: Ronda is your half sister.”

Bienvenido threw his head back and laughed. He was sure Diamantino was lying. He loved his father deeply: Arnaldo Pérez, the overseer, was an honorable man and he had always looked up to him. Don Pedro couldn’t be his father because Don Pedro was fat, bald, and lazy; he got out of bed at nine in the morning and lived half the year in San Juan with Doña Basilisa, spending the money his peons sweated blood to earn for him at the farm. The mansion in Miramar; the magnificent yellow Pierce-Arrow; the artists’ soirées the Batistinis loved—since he had studied at the university Bienvenido was aware of what all that cost. He wasn’t a country bumpkin anymore.

But Diamantino insisted. Maybe Don Pedro couldn’t be his father because Bienvenido didn’t
want
to be his son. He wouldn’t respect himself if he were. And what about his mother? What had Don Pedro done to her? Or had she consented to his advances? Did his father, the overseer, know about her disgrace?

Bienvenido felt revolted. His blood went to his head and his fist came up like a jackhammer. He gave Diamantino a punch in the jaw which sent his glasses flying, and almost tumbled him off his horse. “You and your big talk of democracy and equality. You’re just another liberal hypocrite. And I thought you could be this country’s champion! I was wrong!” He galloped away in a fury.

Diamantino didn’t say a word of what had happened to anyone. But Bienvenido stopped coming to Dos Ríos, and Ronda Batistini didn’t see him again that summer. She was utterly crushed, but was too busy to dwell on it. She would soon be leaving for the States, to begin her first year at Lady Lane School.

Bienvenido decided to shut his ears to the infamous rumors that were circulating and decided it was better not to mention anything to his father. If what Diamantino said was true, it would make Bienvenido’s father suffer to have to admit it to his son. And if it wasn’t true, his father would suffer just as much, hearing what people were saying about his late wife. So Bienvenido pretended he hadn’t heard. He went on preparing his clothes and books for his trip to San Juan, and a few weeks later he left for the university in Río Piedras. Nonetheless, after his conversation with Diamantino he was never the same. He lost his gaiety and debonair look, appearing instead serious and morose. Try as he would, he couldn’t erase Ronda from his mind. When the Batistinis invited Bienvenido and his father to their house for lunch one day to say good-bye to the boy, they noticed that Diamantino sat stonily silent at the table all through the meal. Don Pedro suspected the boys had quarreled, but he had no time to try to get them to make up.

Bienvenido went off to the university and Diamantino traveled to San Juan with his family, to spend the autumn months in town. The following year Diamantino’s father passed away, but Diamantino stayed away at Don Pedro’s house in the capital, without coming to Dos Ríos even for a short visit. Now, Bienvenido had arrived in Arecibo for summer vacation just a few days before Diamantino. Bienvenido had heard that Diamantino was back in town. His friend said he was traveling with a motley crowd of foreign dancers—led by a ballerina who was supposed to be from St. Petersburg and had danced at the czar’s court, the most decadent in Europe—and that he was playing in their orchestra like a common musician and making an utter fool of himself. Bienvenido was amazed when he found out. He had no desire to meet with Diamantino, but he had to admit he’d love to see him just for a minute, so he could land another one on his jaw.

D
IAMANTINO 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.