Beloved Stranger (9 page)

Unlike her own mother, the Montoya women were not at all intellectual. They also catered unashamedly to the men of the family—and in particular to Ricardo. For the first time Susan understood why Ricardo expected to be waited on—his mother and his sisters waited on him constantly, hand and foot. He was the only son, and the baby. The whole household, quite literally, revolved around Ricardo. They ate when it was convenient for him. The car was at his disposal; if he was using it, his mother and his wife took taxis. His mother wouldn’t dream of making a social engagement without first consulting him. During the whole time they were in Bogota, Susan never heard Señora Montoya indicate the slightest opposition to a word he uttered.

He was very busy. Half the time Susan did not know where he was or what he was doing. “Business,
querida
,” he would answer cheerfully whenever she questioned him as to his doings.

He did find the time to show her around Bogota, however. They saw all the old Spanish sections of the city, starting with the Plaza de Bolivar. They went to a bullfight at the Plaza de Toros de Santa Maria, which Susan did not like, and they spent several mornings at the Museo del Oro, Bogota’s Gold Museum. Ricardo was very knowledgeable about the various Indian tribes and their workmanship and Susan found the whole place utterly fascinating.

“I ought to be a tour guide, eh?” he said good-naturedly as they left the museum after their third visit.

“Keep it in mind if you should ever be broke,” she retorted, and he laughed.

“I don’t think that will ever happen,
querida
. I have my eggs in too many baskets.”

One of his baskets was a coffee plantation, a finca, on the mountain slopes three hours out of Bogota. They went there for a few days the third week of their visit, bringing Ricky with them. Señora Montoya hated to see her grandson removed from her vicinity for so long, but as Ricardo had told his mother humorously, “We can’t separate him from his food supply for that long, Mama.”

Susan loved the finca. “When I think of Colombia, I shall always think of mountains,” she told Ricardo softly as they sat together on the veranda one evening looking at the stars.

“The green mountains of Colombia,” Ricardo’s voice said next to her in the darkness. “They are the most beautiful in the world.”

“And no snow,” Susan said incredulously.

“Well,
querida
, we are in the tropics.”

Susan laughed. “It’s hard to believe that in Bogota. Your mother has the fire going all the time and I’ve worn my coat every day.”

“That is because Bogota is at eight thousand feet. In Colombia, if you want a change of climate, all you must do is change your altitude. The finca is warm. Down at sea level, at Santa Marta and Cartagena, it is hot.”

It was true. They had driven three hours down the mountains from Bogota and the weather here was warm and summery. Susan sighed and inhaled deeply. “It’s nice just to sit,” She remarked after a while. “Your mother’s energy is astonishing. Every day she has at least two social engagements for me to attend.

I’m embarrassed to tell her I’d just like to stay home and do nothing once in a while. Has she always been this busy?”

He laughed and shrugged. “She has her clubs, her luncheons, her teas, just as any woman does.” He looked down at her, his face shadowed by the darkness. “You will be just the same,
querida
, once you get a little more established in Stamford.”

He reached out with one arm and drew her closer so that she was resting against him, her head falling naturally into the hollow of his shoulder. “I don’t know,” she said uncertainly. “Somehow, Ricardo, life for me is more—difficult.”

“What can be difficult?” he murmured into the baby-fine softness of her hair. “I am here to take care of you now.”

It was too hard to explain. But she knew, with great certainty, that she was not the social, urban, clubby person that Ricardo’s mother was—or her own mother for that matter. She was the sort of person who needed a few friends, people she could really touch, really talk to and share with. The busyness of a large acquaintance and many social engagements was not for her. And, strangely, she did not think it was for Ricardo either. “You’ve only gone to a few dinner parties,” she pointed out after a minute.

She could feel his shoulder move under her cheek in his characteristic shrug. “I don’t have much patience for that sort of thing,
querida
.”

“No. You’ve seen the men you want to see during the day, haven’t you?”

There was a hint of impatience in his voice. “One can’t talk in the crowd of a party.”

Susan sighed and closed her eyes. “No. One can’t.”

His lips moved from her hair down the side of her cheek. “Let’s go to bed,” he whispered. And, “All right,” she whispered back.

* * * *

It was raining the day they left the finca. Susan sat in the front of the Fiat Ricardo had borrowed from a friend, holding Ricky in her lap and biting her lip. The road was very steep, narrow, winding and wet and Ricardo was driving much too fast. From time to time she stole a surreptitious glance at his profile. He looked calm, intent, relaxed. He had the car under perfect control. But, he’s going too fast, Susan thought again. Ricky moved in her arms. “Ricardo.” she said tentatively, “would you mind slowing down a little? You’re frightening me.”

The car slowed almost instantly.
“
Of
course,
querida
. I’m sorry. I forget you are not used to our mountain roads.”

They proceeded up the mountain at a more sedate pace and Susan, glancing again at her husband, felt miserable. He had been enjoying that drive and she had spoiled it. Why was she always so timid, so unadventurous? The only daring thing she had ever done in her life had been that night in the New Hampshire ski lodge when she had made love with Ricardo. She thought about things too much, worried too much. She always had. She supposed she always would. The prospect made her unutterably gloomy. She wished, passionately, that she could be like Ricardo’s mother and sisters. None of them would ever have dreamed of asking him to slow down. He really needn’t have slowed down. He had been in absolute control. But she had been afraid.

She wasn’t like his mother or his sisters. She was fond of them. She admired them. But she wasn’t like them. They all ran large households, were involved in charitable and church organizations and excelled at a variety of sports. Ricardo’s nine nieces and nephews were all healthy, polite, charming children. His sisters were excellent mothers. But it seemed to Susan that the whole life of the Montoya women turned outward. There was nothing left for just themselves.

Perhaps they were right. Perhaps it was through others that one was fulfilled oneself. But she knew also that there was a need in her for something more.

The trip to Bogota crystallized in Susan the determination to write. For years the journal had been enough: now she must try to use what she had learned and see if she could create something new. It was a need in her that she could not explain, but it was there, as intense as it was inarticulate. Ricardo had said he wouldn’t object. She would remind him of that, and when they got home, she would set up a schedule and start to write.

* * * *

Two days before they left Bogotá there was a very gala party at the San Carlos Palace, home of Colombia’s president, which all the Montoyas attended. Señora Montoya took Susan to Bogota’s beautiful shopping center, the Unicentro, and in one of the most elegant and expensive little boutiques she had ever seen Susan got a stunning evening dress. It was dark green with a straight, slim skirt and a bodice that showed off her neck and shoulders gracefully, tastefully but unmistakably. Ricardo loved it and took her out to buy her an emerald necklace and earrings to match. “All good Colombian women wear emeralds,” he told her when she protested at the extravagance. “This is your wedding present,
querida
. Wear them in good health.”

The emeralds were magnificent and Susan had her hair done in a smooth and sophisticated upswept style in order to better show them off. For the first time she felt as elegant as Ricardo’s mother and sisters.

The party was very large and very glittering. All of Bogota’s social elite were there as well as many members of the diplomatic community. At first Susan felt a little overwhelmed by the jewels, the gowns, the darkly handsome men in evening dress. She stayed close to Marta, who introduced her to at least half the people in the room. And then Ricardo came up to her with an elderly, silver-haired man with the aristocratic features of old Spain. “Susan, I would like you to meet Señor Julio Merlano de Diaz,” he said. “I know you have read his work.”

Julio Merlano de Diaz was Colombia’s most famous poet, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Susan’s eyes widened. “I am so pleased to meet you, Señor Merlano,” she said in her soft, careful, college Spanish. “I have read almost all of your poems. And I love them. It is a great honor to meet you in person.”

Señor Merlano took the hand she had shyly extended and shook it warmly. “Thank you, Señora Montoya. It is my privilege to meet such a charming young lady.”

“I reread The Death of the Condor, just before we left for Bogota,” she offered a little hesitantly, “and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. In fact, I’ve rather been trying to see Colombia through your eyes.”

The old man looked at her curiously. “Have you?”

“Yes. It is so—difficult—to have a balanced view, isn’t it? To see the dark and the light as well.”

Señor Merlano’s face was grave. “It is indeed, Señora.”

They continued to talk for a few minutes and then someone came over and collected Ricardo to go and talk to the president. Susan and Julio Merlano moved to a couple of chairs along the wall and continued to talk. The Death of the Condor had made a very deep impression on Susan. A long poem about the extinction of a tribe of Colombian Indians, it told of a tragedy that had been perpetrated by a conglomeration of modern political and socially progressive programs. Yet the tone of the poem had not been that of outrage but of sorrow.

“And what have you seen of Colombia through my eyes?” the older man asked at length.

“I’ve seen a country very like your poem,” she replied. She was sitting gracefully on the decorative gilt chair, and in the light of the chandelier her flawless skin glowed with a pearly sheen of indescribable beauty. Her large gray eyes were dark with thought. She tilted her head on its long slender neck and said, “There are things for celebration and things to lament. Ricardo didn’t just take me to the tourist sights.”

“He didn’t, eh?” The famous poet, revered around the world yet regarded with uneasiness in his own country because of his unfortunate penchant for telling the truth, looked across the room at her husband. “Ricardo Montoya is a very extraordinary man,” he said softly. “Even more so than his father, I think.”

Susan’s eyes followed the direction of her companion’s. Ricardo was standing on the other side of the room talking to a woman Susan did not know. He was impeccably attired in black-tie evening dress and he looked elegant, assured, cosmopolitan. Yet, even formally dressed and standing perfectly still, he gave the unmistakable impression of strength and agility. As Susan watched he laughed at something the woman had said. His face was instantly transformed by that familiar radiant smile and, watching him, Susan felt something inside her turn over. She stared at her husband, and with that frightening yet unmistakable swerve of her heart all of her feelings of the last weeks crystallized and she knew that she was in love with him.

“I’m sorry,” she said faintly to Señor Merlano. “What did you say?”

“I said that Ricardo is a very extraordinary man. I doubt there are five people in this room who have any idea of his activities in Bogota, and yet all of them regard him as a personal friend.”

“Ricardo can be—difficult to know,” Susan got out.

“So you understand that,” said Señor Merlano, and both of them watched as Ricardo came across the room toward them.

“You have been monopolizing my wife this last hour, Julio,” Ricardo said good-naturedly. “What have you been doing?”

“I have been talking to her, Ricardo,” the poet replied with gentle dignity. “It is not often I have the chance to converse with so sensitive and intelligent a listener.” He smiled at Susan apologetically. “I hope I have not kept you from enjoying the party?”

“Oh no!” Susan was appalled. “It was wonderful talking to you, Señor Merlano. I shall never forget it.”

“Nor shall I.” The old man smiled at Ricardo, “I only came here tonight to please you, my son. I did not expect to enjoy myself. I must thank you for the gift of your wife’s company.”

Ricardo smiled back, the warm intimate smile he kept for so few people. “I am leaving on Wednesday, you know. I have left instructions with Ernesto.”

“Very good. You won’t be returning for a while?”

“No. Spring training starts shortly.”

“I see.” Señor Merlano looked amused. “You and your baseball.”

“I like it,” Ricardo returned simply. “It’s fun.”

“I know.” The old man looked even more amused. “You are a constant source of wonder to me, Ricardo.” He held out his hand. “Good night, my son.”

“Good night, Julio.”

The poet turned to Susan. “Good night, Señora Montoya. Ricardo is very fortunate in his wife.”

Susan colored with pleasure. “Thank you, Señor.”

When the old man had reached the door, Susan glanced up at her husband. She still felt a little dizzy from her discovery of a few minutes ago. She also felt suddenly shy. She looked away from him again and said softly, “He is a splendid person, Ricardo.”

“Yes, isn’t he? He was a good friend of my father’s. I learned quite a lot from him.”

“He said , . .” Susan hesitated and then went on. “He said you were doing some special work in Bogota?”

“It is nothing so special,” came the easy answer. “It is merely a matter of helping to fund a few projects.” He changed the subject, elusive as ever about his own doings. “You must have bewitched Julio,
querida
. He is usually very quiet.”