Long Knife (60 page)

“But I still do,” her words came like a thunderclap. “I still see it.”

He felt a chill at the certainty in her voice. “But how? What is it you imagine?”

“I don’t know. It isn’t clear, of course. But I have never seen us married in the eyes of my church. I have never seen us growing old together as you have. I see us split apart. By distance, by disappointment, by death—I have no words for it! I do not know what. I am heavy with it! But, Jorge:
ahora!
Now is all the more happiness, and all is well for us!”

He shook his head, frightened, but forced a chuckle and tried to reassure. “Then I shall simply have to change our fate.
Teresa, I always do what I attempt. You
will
sit beside me when I’m old. We shall see which prevails, your premonitions or my acts.”

She smiled sadly, indulgently, down at his upturned face. “I pray for thee,” she said. “But for now, in any event, we must have what we can have. In our eyes, just in our eyes, I swear that I am your wife and you are not alone.”

The subtle trill of a redwing filled the pause. “You say, my wife?”

“I am, Jorge. In our eyes I am. I have prayed for guidance and the answer was made clear.”

“And I agree. Teresa, you are my wife, and I am not alone.”

S
HE PLAYED SONGS ON THE
GUITARRA
FOR HIM AGAIN AFTER DINNER
, the songs that he had carried in his head all the way to Vincennes and back, and some more vigorous and sensual
flamencos
that he had not heard before. There was a change in her demeanor in the recital now; instead of the furtive shy glances that she had raised to his eyes before, she now looked up from the instrument and met his gaze directly with eyes wide, black, and flashing. Her brother and Maria could not help noticing it, and knew that something important had transpired between the pair. Fernando was curious and wary. He was her guardian, and it was he who had so strongly advocated the Virginian to his family; now he was uneasy that his timid and cautious Teresa might have determined a course that would move her into harm’s way.

It was after midnight when the family at last retired. George had stationed his guards downstairs, and lay in his bed waiting for the house to grow still, knowing that he could not sleep with Teresa’s words still echoing in his soul: “I swear that I am your wife and you are not alone.”

In her room, Teresa undressed and washed herself all over, and dried on a scented towel. She let down her hair and brushed it, and left it down. Naked save for her small crucifix, she studied her body in the mirror and was not now ashamed. She then drew on a crisp, white, loose nightdress on which she had embroidered a collar of silken flowers. And now in the candlelight she knelt at the icon beneath the crucifix on the wall, her knees on the hard bare wood of the floor, murmured the Lord’s Prayer, crossed herself, and remained there for several minutes gazing at the crucifix. A great calm settled through her. She felt as she had always imagined a bride should feel. She had arranged this
in prayer and was sure that this marriage was sanctified. She seemed purified and was not frightened. Now she rose from her knees and blew out the candles on the wall, leaving only the tiny candle flickering in a porcelain bowl under the crucifix. She climbed onto the bed and lay on her back on the covers, listened to the spring frogs and whippoorwills outside, and watched the small yellow smudge of light move on the white ceiling and on the wall, making the shadow above the crucifix bob and shift. The air in the room was cool and fresh on her brow and hands and bare feet. She lay and looked at the small gleaming bronze figure of the Christ on the crucifix, at its gaunt and graceful muscularity, the hard, stretched pectoral muscles and the long, ropelike muscles in the thighs; and once again in her mind’s eye that lean muscularity merged with the image of George as she had first seen him. It had become a strange habit, this transposition; the first few times it had happened she had felt shame. But in the long lonely nights of his absence, she had grown more at ease with it. Once she had even stroked the bronze figure, running her fingertips down the hard flanks and thighs while in her imagination were the torso and limbs of her love. But only once had she done that. It had seemed that such a thing must be profane.

Now she did not know whether George would come to her room; she knew the hazards of it and would not have been surprised if he did not. But she had professed to be his bride and he seemed to have understood her and it was his right to come to her bed now if he chose to do it. If he did, she was ready to be his bride.

The seconds whispered by into minutes, and she did not seem to be drowsy, but when a draft of air from her closing bedroom door breathed over her body it woke her from a shallow sleep. The candle flame under the crucifix was leaping from that motion of air, and silhouetted against its leaping reflection on the wall he stood, looking down at her.

George stood for minutes looking at the white-clad form lying supine on the great bed, at the austere simplicity of her room, this room where she lived, where she lay alone when he was away, where she slept and dreamed and prayed; he was touched and pleased by its lack of clutter. The two dominant aspects of the room were the icon, with its candle and the crucifix above it, and the bed. Secondary in the room were the dark wardrobe, the
guitarra
case in a corner, a Bible, a sewing basket and a small shelf of books. It was as if the lonely gentility of
this beautiful girl’s life were depicted in symbols which made that life easy to understand. To have a home! he thought. And then a rush of warmth bathed his soul and he thought: More than anyplace else, this room is my home, because she is here.

He hesitated, his body poised like a great question mark, his world upon his shoulders, the cool night air on his sweat-bedewed skin. He had come to the room inflamed with the desire his imagination had built around her words, but now had paused to revere.

He was awed. Somewhere in this ascetic room this girl had found the audacity to abandon the constraints of her religion and culture and place her life in his care, whatever the risk, whatever the censure. I could turn about and return to my room, he thought, and not place her in the jeopardy of those consequences. I could not bear to cause pain and suffering to this vulnerable creature. He remembered what she had said about being the frightened rabbit, about fearing him. I must leave her inviolate, he thought. I must!

But as he stepped backward toward the door, looking at the dark shape of her head on the pillow, he saw a spark of candlelight in the shadowed hollow of her eye and realized that she was awake and looking at him.

He stood still. A timber joint in the great house popped apocryphally with the night cooling; a mouse rustled in the walls; Teresa breathed. Then the dim shape of her hand stole toward him across the pale counterpane upon which she lay, signaling for him where to sit; the doubt was gone then, and he moved to the side of the bed, sat, laid his broad hand on her damp cool brow, feeling the shape of her skull beneath the smooth skin, as if thinking through his hand: Here is where she is, this unique one; here within this case of skullbone is the essence; here is the astonishing will.

And from there, there was no such thing as retreating; only moist hps, straining, whispers, the gliding of hands over velvet skin, tears, moans caught in stopped throats, the carnal worship, bite of pain, tumescence, fibrillation, opening, the riot of membranes, breathing of vows, the creaking, the evanescent flowering, joyous sadness, gripping the throat, the long, cool, gray, slimy backsliding, and the gratitude: ah, the gratitude!

As silently as breathing they had effected it all, no outcries, no oaths, though their throats had been crowded with cries and oaths; then it was over, even while scarcely beginning. And for
the two of them, the whole world had changed, within four stucco walls in the feeble light of an icon wick.

Now, he thought, we are married as she has told me. Now truly, he thought, as her hot breath tingled on his neck and his hand unclenched under the incredibly smooth, sweat-moist skin of her back: Now we are one. God help us …

A
N EAR-SPLITTING CRACK AND A BRILLIANT WHITE FLASH JOLTED
him awake. His heart was slamming. Rain lashed at the window and he saw the candle guttering under the icon. Another flash of lightning and thunderclap drove Teresa into his arms, quaking with terror. Blue-white light flashed and an incessant salvo of thunder crashed and rumbled, now sounding like cannon echoes, now sounding as if a heavy canvas sky were being ripped from horizon to horizon.

He should leave the room, he knew. This storm would awaken the household and he might be found here. He could not remember falling asleep; he could not believe he had so released his vigilance over himself as to let sleep overcome him in this precarious place. But now Teresa was clinging to him, her nakedness and warmth again enveloping his will. And seeing each other’s eyes black and hungry in the flickering white light, their hearts racing, they blended again into one body, their souls flowing into each other like the confluence of two rivers. If the world ended now, it would be of little consequence.

They lay side by side then, hearing the storm bang and rumble eastward over the Mississippi.

“What,
querido mío?”
Teresa whispered, feeling him shaking with silent laughter.

“Listen to it. D’you know it sounds as loud as a rolling chamberpot?”

Her mouth fell open. Then she had to bury her face against his chest to smother her laughter and it was a long time before they could stop laughing.

M
ARIA DE
L
EYBA, AWAKENED BY THE CRASH OF THUNDER AND
banging of shutters, then kept awake by a fit of morning coughing, pulled on a wrap and went to her daughters’ room to look in on them. They were sleeping through the din. Little Rita lay neatly and calmly on her back, mouth open, arms outside the unmussed covers, as if she had just stretched out for a nap; Maria Josefa slept on her stomach, her bare foot sticking out from under her twisted blanket. Maria tugged the corner of the blanket
down over the exposed foot, stood at the bedside for a moment gazing thoughtfully at the flashing rectangle of sky outside the window, sighed, then stepped back into the hallway and pulled the door closed. Turning from the door then she was startled by a movement at the other end of the hall. Going stock-still, she watched by lightning-flash as the tall, powerful figure of Colonel Clark, their honored guest, moved from Teresa’s bedroom door to his own, opened it, slipped through, and eased it shut.

Maria stared at his door for a whole minute, slowly raising her fist to her mouth as she realized what she had just seen. Her jaw set, her eyes hardened, and she went to Teresa’s door, turned the handle, and swung the door inward.

Teresa was naked, kneeling at her icon, her black hair hanging to the small of her back and spilling forward over her shoulder. Her face, just turning toward the door, was gilded on one side by the faint light of the candle; beside her on the floor lay her nightdress.

At the moment Maria’s eyes were widening at this stunning sight, an eddy of air from within the room brought to her nostrils the moist, unmistakable musk of carnal sin.

The two women remained this way for many long seconds, only their eyes changing, as their complex, delicate kinship crumbled around them in the half light.

Teresa’s haunch began to tremble as she knelt there. She sat back on her heels, reaching for the nightdress, lifting it from the floor, drawing it up to shield her nudity. Maria shut the door, took two steps into the room to stand over the kneeling Teresa, her face disintegrating into rage and hurt. “Mother of God!” she hissed. “To all I have to bear, you add this disgrace! Oh,” her voice quavered, as she brought her hand up to her shoulder, “thou
whore
!” She lashed at Teresa and the back of her hand cracked on her temple, hurting them both, knocking Teresa off balance. She sprawled on her side on the cold floor.

Teresa gathered her legs under her and knelt under the crucifix again. She drew the nightdress on and lowered her head, eyes shut. She crossed herself, then stood up, looking to Maria not ashamed, but strangely beatific. Not like a
penitente
, Maria thought incredulously, but looking like a … a
bride
. Like a bride. And Teresa said, softly, “If you intend to tell Fernando, please, Maria, I ask you to think first of Fernando himself. I pray you.”

Maria still stared, aghast, heartsick; slowly she began shaking
her head and backing to the doorway. “No,” she murmured. “No, I couldn’t …” And then she was gone, with the creak of the closing door.

On the other side of the thick wall, George was washing the musk and dry sweat off his face and body. Water dribbled musically from the cloth into the washbowl; there was rainfall outside, and his head buzzed with happy exhaustion and the sacred imagery of the hours just past.

Thus transported still into the
penetralia
of Teresa’s soul, thunder now grumbling away in the east and rain hissing down outside his window, he had not heard a sound from her room, and imagined her sleeping exhausted in her bed.

Our bed, he thought. God! As I live, I am surely the most favored man on the face of the earth. Teresa, he thought, savoring the words, I am your husband. You are my wife.

One day, he thought, everyone will know it.

H
OPING TO HAVE A FEW MINUTES OF SLEEP BEFORE THE AWAKENING
of the de Leyba household, George lay on his bed in a swirl of voluptuous new memories and swells of tender emotion, trying to sink into oblivion. But this attention was caught by the barking of dogs from the village below, then the dramming of approaching hooves through the rain. One horse. No doubt a messenger, he thought. He lay and listened.

Hallooing and a pounding on the door downstairs followed, then the voices of his guards. He raised himself up and drew on his clothing. His loins still tingled, and he was swept repeatedly by waves of an unaccustomed euphoria, followed by such poignancy that his eyes would tear. Then he opened his door and started toward the stairs. He glanced at Teresa’s door, which was closed. De Leyba was just emerging from his room, buttoning his waistcoat; he smiled momentarily, then started down the stairs with George, brow knitted with curiosity.