Drum (18 page)

What lovely round globes, so firm and beautiful! With the nipples reddened just a trifle with cochineal, they would send Cesar into his usual short-lived ecstasy.

Yes, she would ring for Rachel. Rachel's deft fingers and the cool touch of eau de cologne would calm her. Then, with sprinkling of rice powder on the sheets to make them smooth and cool, she would sleep and perhaps if she were very fortunate she would dream of Bonaventure. Aie! His very name brought back that overpowering odor of musk which at fiirst she had found so, offensive and then, through its intimate association with his body, had stirred her as no other scent ever had. But she must not think about Bonaventure because if she did she would never sleep. No, never! It made her so restless, made her long for the days in St. Domingue when she could calm this restlessness merely by pulling the bell cord, bringing him on the run. Better to put him out of her mind now and hope that she might dream about him, for in her dreams he always seemed so real, so strong, so mightily enormous.

She rang, and waited for the answering tinkle down below, then anticipated the steps she knew she would hear on the outside staircase that led up from the little patio. Thank God she had her devoted Rachel! The tapping of heels came quickly, followed by a knock.

A mulatto entered—a tall, well-formed woman of about the same age as her mistress. What might have been beauty was marred by too high cheekbones and a narrow nose that gave an appearance of masculinity to the face. The woman's skin shone with a metallic glint, somewhere between copper and brass, and her hair was entirely hidden under a tightly wound turban of pale green and magenta madras.

"Rachel, ma bonne," Alix sat down on the bed, "I am so nervous and upset I cannot sleep and you know how haggard I become if I miss my siesta."

"Oui, madame, but my fingers will put you to sleep."

The woman scanned the array of bottles on the dressing table and selected one. With a supporting arm, she lifted her mistress, removed the filmy robe and gently lowered her to the mattress. The pinkly white body stretched and the brown fingers touched it lovingly. It was quite apparent from the expression on the slave's face that this was no onerous task, but one which she enjoyed. The dark fingers played over the white skin, lingering, touching, patting and caressing.

"Aie, Rachel, I am already relaxed. Sometimes I wonder why you are so good to me."

"Madame took me from the slave cabins when I was a young girl. In another year I would have had to submit to any black buck that managed to grab me and throw me to the ground." Rachel shuddered. "I was spared all that, thanks to madame's goodness."

"But didn't you want them, Rachel?" Alix had heard the same words many times before and she always expressed the same baflBed wonderment. It seemed quite inconceivable that any woman could refuse what she herself wanted so much.

"Never, madame. Men are such brutal creatures and so ugly too. When we were quite little girls on the plantation it was considered quite an adventure to hide in the bushes near the river where the men bathed on their way back from the fields. Most of the girls were quite excited and they all had their favorites among the men. Some were secretly in love with one or another and many were in love with one in particular."

"Could it have been Bonaventure?" The blue eyes opened wide in assumed innocence.

"Yes, it was Bonaventure."

"And was he your favorite too, Rachel?"

"Mais non, madame! I had no favorites. I detested them all and I only went because all the others went. Such ugly big creatures that men are and they do such horrible things. All men are alike, they want only one thing. Their gross black bodies repulse me—so different from yours. You are soft and white and beautiful."

"But some day, Rachel, you must have a man. Truly you would lose all your fear. When we move to Montalvo, I'll ask don Cesar for some fine young buck for you and then you'll see."

Rachel sank to the floor, her arms outstretched on the bed, her face sunk in the sheets. Her voice was muffled by sobs.

"Oh, please, madame, never that. Let me serve you always. Have me flogged if I disobey you, but never, promise me, never make me lie with a stinking nigger."

"Then you aim for higher things, Rachel?" Alix propped herself up on her elbows to look down at the gaily colored tiu"ban. "Perhaps you want only a white man?"

"That least of all. Nobody! Nobody, madame. All I ask is to serve you."

Alix lay back on her pillow. "Well, Rachel, who am I to complain? I only wanted you to be happy, for indeed I do care for you. You have always been so devoted to me."

"And so I always shall be, madame."

"So, if you do not want a man, you need not have one."

"Merci, madame. Now I am happy again. Close your eyes and soon sleep will come to you."

Alix felt her muscles relax. She began to feel drowsy.

"Rachel." Alex felt herself drifting into oblivion.

"Oui, madame?"

"You mentioned Bonaventure."

"Oui, madame."

"Aie, but he was beautiful, Rachel."

"If being big like an ox and smelling like a goat makes a man beautiful."

Alix, Comtesse de Vaux—because it sounded so much better than plain Madame Albert—moved her head drowsily from side to side on the pillow in negation. Rachel flung the dressing gown into the air and let it settle over her mistress like a filmy pink cloud. She went to the window and made a fiirther and entirely unnecessary adjustment of the persianas, straightened the array of bottles on the dressing table and tiptoed over to where her mistress was now sleeping soundly. One white hand was hanging over the edge of the bed. Rachel lifted it tenderly, gently so as not to awaken the sleeper, brought it to her lips and then replaced it on the bed. She tiptoed out, closing the door softly behind her.

chapter xiii

Don Cesar and Tamboura were late in setting out from Montalvo. Don Cesar's daughter-in-law, the ever ailing dona Beatriz, was dying again and a priest must be summoned to administer extreme imction. That this happened with imvary-ing regularity at intervals of about once a month did not mitigate the circumstances for, as don C^sar argued with himself, one never knew which time might be the last and he could not have it upon his conscience that he was on his way to keep an amoral rendezvous m Havana while his only daughter-in-law was dying. There was the usual tension in the big house; the usual weeping and wringing of hands of the aged aimt who was dona Beatriz' companion; the usual hushed running to and fro of house slaves; and finally the arrival of the priest. After he had performed his ministrations and while the waxy odor of snuflfed candles still hung heavy in the air of dona Beatriz' bedroom, she miraculously recovered, as she always did, suflBciently to be propped up in bed and to eat a hearty supper.

So it happened that instead of starting out for Havana early as he had planned, don Cesar was not able to leave until midaftemoon and did not arrive in Havana with Tamboura until the simset gun boomed from the Morro. It was then necessary for don Cesar to show Tamboura the entrance to the stables which, although connected with the house on Colon Street, had a separate entrance in the back on a narrow, weed-grown alley.

By the time the horses had been attended to imder don C6sar's direction, and he and Tamboura had been admitted by Rachel, the light was almost gone in the courtyard, one side of which was blankly bounded by the high wall of the Mendoza palace while the other side was a series of balcons and staircases, leading to the second and third floors.

Alix, who had been waiting all afternoon with increasing impatience, was torn between two different welcomes for her

seemingly errant lover. Should she be haughty and offended over don Cesar's tardiness and the lack of respect for her dignity shown by his keeping her waiting? Or should she play the part of the terror-stricken wife who, during her anxious waiting, had pictured her beloved in a variety of accidents which would bring him, bleeding on a stretcher, to her arms? In view of her anxiety to adopt the role of wife, she decided the latter approach would be the better and more sympathetic. When she heard the stable door open and the soimd of don Cesar's voice below, she contorted her features most convincingly into a display of grief, ran headlong down the stairs—taking care to lose one slipper in the anxiety of her haste—and flung herself, trembling and most solicitous of his welfare, into his arms.

During reassurances that he was safe and uninjured, while don Cesar patted her shoulder and she recovered from a most convincing swoon, she took the opportunity to observe Tamboura standing silently like an oversized black watchdog behind his master. His white suit, damp with sweat and clinging to his body, outlined his proportions against the patio greenery, and she exulted in what she saw. Fate had seemingly played into her hands. Here indeed was another Bona-venture. No, this one far exceeded Bonaventure, for he had a handsome face as well as a most impressive physique. How different he was from the middle-aged, bow-legged Ramon who had always accompanied don Cesar previously! She checked her enthusiasm. She must not, of course, notice the presence of a slave any more than she would the presence of a dog which had followed his master into the house. Although she might, in all propriety, have stopped to pat the dog's head, affectionately rumple his ears and speak an endearing word to him, even that was forbidden in the case of a slave.

Pretending to ignore Tamboura, she left it to don Cesar to talk about him, which he did, once he had calmed her fears. But in her well-feigned distress, she seemed more desirable to him than ever before and the delay in arrival, coupled with the more than conjugal concern on her part, whetted his desire to be alone with her. Indeed, he was so anxious to get upstairs and accomplish the purpose for which he had come, he merely indicated Tamboura with a curt nod of his head.

"My new groom." He supported AJix, who limped most prettily and effectively from the loss of her shoe, across the

patio. "Have Rachel show him the loft over the stables." And to Tamboura, he turned and said, "The senora's woman will show you where you are to sleep. She will tell you where to draw water, so bathe and change your clothes. When I need you, I wiU call you. Do not leave the house. I do not want you out on the streets of the city."

He turned to Alix, as he guided her up the stairs.

"Later, mi alma, I would have a conversation with you about my new groom but now. ..."

Tamboura did not know where to go or what to do. He remained standing in the patio, without moving except to shift his weight from one foot to the other and curse his tight boots. Except for the discomfort he felt, he was quite unconscious of his immobility; his thoughts were completely involved in the heart-shaped face in its aura of gold curls, and the blue eyes which had appraised him so carefully over don Cesar's shoulder.

The short twilight faded and night descended, dispersed only by the dancing light of candles from the floor above that glinunered on the foliage of the patio planting. The evening scent of jasmine permeated the courtyard and the little wall fountain in one comer dripped with a steady and monotonous cadence on the ferns below it. Still Tamboura stood in the spot where don Cesar had left him until he saw a woman descending the steps. When she reached the bottom and beckoned to him, he followed her. She was a mestiza but Tamboura decided there was something about the woman he did not like and this puzzled him. There had never been any except the old and ugly that he did not immediately respond to and this woman was neither old nor ugly. Perhaps it was some instinctive feeling that she did not like him; perhaps it was her ability to look at him without seeing him. This indeed was a new experience for him, for he was far too accustomed to the inviting smiles of every colored woman he met and even the white dueha of Las Delicias had patted him most admiringly on his cheek. Quite unable to understand the woman's apparent hostility, he nevertheless welcomed her because it meant a release from his long period of waiting, pleasant though his thoughts had been during the interval.

"Come!" the mestiza beckoned again impatiently.

"Who are you, perra?" Tamboura resented her highhanded command, spoken with the authority of a white.

She met him halfway between the stairs and where he had

been standing and he was unprepared for the quickly raised hand and the stinging slap across his face.

"Call me a bitch, would you?" Her eyes were almost on a level with Tamboura's own. "Don't ever do it again. Fm no perra as you will find out. My name is Rachel and I am Mad-ame's woman."

Tamboura had raised his own hand to slap her down but her unflinching defiance stopped him. Better perhaps not to start his new duties by quarreling with his amo's woman's slave.

"I am sorry, dama. Come, take me where I am supposed to go. I have become tired of standing here, rooted like a palm tree, and I have the instructions of my amo to carry out."

"That is better." Her animosity changed into a guarded indifference. "From now on you will treat me with respect although you need not call me dama. Rachel is sufficient. Follow me."

She led him into a dark room, lit only by the red glow of a charcoal stove, struck a light and applied it to a candle. He could see that the room was a kitchen and he could smell the aroma of food that was being kept warm on the stove. Hungry as he was, he realized he must first bathe and change his clothes as don Cesar had ordered. While Rachel filled a wooden bucket with water and folded a towel over her arm, he watched her and then at the direction of her pointing finger, he picked up the bucket and followed her out through the patio and through the door which connected it with the stables, past the horses and up a ladder to a large loft above, where she placed the candle on the floor and indicated a soiled mattress spewing its straw out onto the rough planking.

"Here is where Ramon slept. Be careful of the candle and do not tip it over with your big feet. When you have washed and dressed, bring it with you to the kitchen and I will give you food."