The Living Infinite, page 23
So, he was not surprised when his mother interrupted his packing to say, “I am staying in Cuba. With Martín. Teresa is pregnant again. She will have her hands full.”
“They seem full enough,” Tomás said.
“Yes. And, la pobre, she has no family.” Amalia wrung her hands, spinning her wedding band around her finger.
Tomás struggled with the trunk, finding it difficult to close. “This stupid thing,” he said out loud.
“Did you hear me, Tomás?” Amalia asked.
“What was that again?” He had heard her perfectly well. He had very nearly expected it. If Juana had lived, he thought in that moment, if she and I had had children of our own, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
“Teresa, you see, has difficult pregnancies, and I was telling her that I knew a thing or two about that, and about raising babies, as a nodriza, you see. She is all alone. Martín is all alone. No uncles, no aunts, nobody but me.”
“You are nothing to them,” Tomás said.
Amalia pursed her lips. Her hands ceased fidgeting. “It isn’t only about them. I like it here. I like the weather. I like the way the people hug you after meeting you only once. I like the drums one hears at night, when the air is wet and thick and the sound feels like you are inside your own body and what you are hearing is your heart.”
“Mamá, Eulalia wants us to come with her. On her steamship. I will be her secretary and you will be—”
“A servant again? Ay, hijo,” she says, shaking her head. “Do you know why I became a nodriza? Because I wanted to take those 24,000 escudos and have you see the world. I used to have dreams of you living in a huge city of white columned buildings and wide, paved roads. I wanted you to see mountains and plains and islands. But your father insisted that you would be a farmer. Perhaps I was wrong to dream for you. Perhaps I was merely dreaming for myself. And here I am, in this beautiful country, adventuring for once. Let me have it, Tomás. Por favor. Let me have it.”
“Chicago is a big city,” he said, and a sad little laugh escaped him. He still did not know if he wanted to take the job that Eulalia had offered. He thought of his bookshop with a pang of longing, and thought he could smell old books in the air.
“So is Havana, hijo,” Amalia said. “And Burgos is full of ghosts.” Because she was decided then, they sat in silence, and enjoyed the last quiet moments they would have together. Tomás was aware that the moments he spent with his mother could be counted now, that they were small, diminishing units of time.
“Mamá,” he said carefully, “you don’t owe Martín anything.”
Amalia could not speak. She had convinced herself of her own guilt, Tomás now understood. There would be no other way to mitigate that beyond doing what she had always done—caring for those who needed her as if they were her own, her heart beating forgiveness with every thump.
Then, with great care, and sniffling as she went, Amalia removed her things from the trunk she and Tomás had shared.
16
Tomás had ignored two of Eulalia’s notes. When the boy arrived a third time, his small head sweaty and dark circles under his eyes, Tomás almost hid from view. But the boy was quick and standing before Tomás in an instant, with a new note and his hand, once again, upturned.
Tomás had two centavos left in his pocket, and these he gave to the boy. He opened the note, and was surprised to see that the hand was not Eulalia’s. It read:
Join me in the Sala de Armas on la calle del Prado at three this afternoon. —Antonio
It was not a request, Tomás thought, but a summons. This note he would not ignore, though he considered it. He dressed carefully, picking lint off of his only jacket until it was clean.
It was hot as ever, and Tomás soon regretted the suit. The Sala de Armas sat on a square, and was surrounded by cobbled streets on three sides, and, on the west side, a parquet of wood. When carriages passed over it, their hooves went silent. Along the wooden road was the governor’s home, and Tomás noted the closed curtains, imagined the sleepy politicians inside, and knew at once why the streets were laid with sound-deadening ironwood.
The Sala de Armas was across from the governor’s home. Even from outside, Tomás could hear the commotion within. Grunts and shouts were punctuated by clashes of metal. Outside, the sign “Club de Esgrima” hung on a golden cord, and a pair of foils had been crossed and secured to the wall above it.
Tomás stepped inside and leaned against a wall to watch two men fencing, clumsily, it seemed to Tomás. The words “Honor y Caballería” were painted on the opposite wall. The men lunged and parried, and every once in a while, the tip of a foil connected, and the movement stopped for a moment. The men were of the same build and height. With the masks on, they might have been reflections of one another, except that one of the men was lighter on his feet. The director of the bout halted the action after a while. Tomás watched as Antonio, who was the lithe fencer, pulled off his mask, and watched as the men in the room surrounded him, one coming out from the shadows with a bottle of champagne and flutes in his arms.
“A toast!” the man called. Tomás noted how some of the men drew back. A few refused the glass, but Antonio did not seem to notice. Of course, thought Tomás, they understood protocol well enough. In the presence of royalty, there was only one toast that could be made, and that was to the king, a king half the island was currently rebelling against.
Antonio spotted Tomás there, against the wall, just in time. “Come here, Tomás. I have just the toast for you. To my wife,” he said, as his glass was filled.
This they could do, the others joined in at once, and soon they were all toasting to Eulalia. Antonio locked his eyes on Tomás as he drank.
“Gentlemen,” Antonio said, pulling Tomás close by the shoulders. “This is Tomás Aragón. He and my wife have known each other since they were children. And now, he will be her secretary.”
The men congratulated Tomás, and then another round of fencing began. Tomás sat down on an ornate sofa with turned feet, and Antonio sat down next to him.
“She’s up to something,” Antonio said, his voice low. “More and more, she makes me wish I had been a Carlist. The whole trouble with them had to do with women on the throne, you know. For my part, I’m glad she’s nowhere near the line of succession.”
Tomás knew now, though he had guessed before, that Antonio had no idea about Eulalia’s manuscript. Otherwise, he would have known how she felt about the very idea of sitting on the throne. She would sooner die, Tomás thought.
“You’ll take the job, I know you will,” Antonio said. “Do keep an eye on her. I know she wanders early in the morning. Sometimes at night.” Antonio was staring at Tomás, who found it hard to hold the gaze.
“She’s like a sister to me,” Tomás said.
“One shouldn’t take those kinds of liberties with our persons,” Antonio reprimanded. But the sternness wore off immediately, and soon he was pounding Tomas’s back. “Gentlemen, get this man a mask and a foil!” he called out, and before Tomás knew it, he was dressed in white, and facing a masked stranger.
He knew nothing of fencing, and he waved his weapon wildly, ducking successfully once then taking touch after touch to his chest. It was all over before Tomás had gotten truly out of breath. Over on the couch, Antonio was laughing, and Tomás felt as if he were twelve, fourteen, sixteen years old again, back when an older boy would decide on mockery as a form of entertainment.
“Well done,” Antonio called, and slapped Tomás on the shoulder again.
Tomás shed the fencing gear and watched as the men fawned over Antonio. Yet they hadn’t wanted to toast to the little king back in Spain. Their binary feelings betrayed them, and Tomás, who was only just learning what it meant to rub shoulders with the rich and powerful, made a mental note to remember this moment.
Antonio did not speak to Tomás again, and it was as if Tomás had somehow disappeared from his vision. At the last minute, as Tomás headed out the door, Antonio looked up. His expression was blank as if he had grown so accustomed to Tomás that he was now more fixture than person. He did not nod, only held Tomás’s gaze.
Tomás made his way to the home where Eulalia was staying. One of the guards greeted him as Señor Secretario, though Tomás had not said a word about accepting the job yet. He found Eulalia downstairs, meeting with members of the Santiago Society of Women, who had traveled all the way from the eastern province to greet the princess. The mood was tense, Tomás could tell. It was in the east where the fiercest battles were being fought, and as they spoke with the infanta, the women leaned forward, their hands clasped, their brows furrowed. They were war-touched, and he saw evidence of it in the faded colors of their dresses, and in their hats, which were a few seasons behind the fashion.
Tomás sat in the empty kitchen. He peeled a banana and ate it in three bites, listening to the conversation in the other room. Eulalia was comforting in her speech, she even laughed once at a joke that was not very funny, and when the women left, Tomás peered into the room and watched how Eulalia kissed their cheeks. He could never imagine such a thing in Spain. It would cause a minor scandal. Yet here, Eulalia leaned forward as if these women were cousins, and she allowed them to squeeze her arms, and when they separated, the infanta’s face was lit up in a genuine smile.
Then, she was alone, and Tomás stepped out before her. “You are incredible,” he said, took her hand, and kissed it.
Eulalia snatched her hand from his. “Two invitations ignored,” she said.
“Is that why you sent Antonio after me?”
Confusion flickered in her eyes. “We need an answer, or else we will assume that you are an opportunist of the worst sort, and having abused our childhood link in a manner most—”
“We went to Gisela’s grave. Mamá and I,” Tomás said. “And she’s decided to stay here in Cuba. For good. The last few days have been—”
“Difficult,” Eulalia supplied. She had softened at once. Perhaps, thought Tomás, she is thinking of her own mother, or of Tenorio, and the stories she will never know, the secrets that have been kept from her, too. They were quiet for a moment before Eulalia asked how the meeting with Antonio had gone.
Tomás rubbed his chest where the foil tip had touched him particularly violently. “We fought with swords, I’ll have you know. And I bled to death before his eyes. It was incredibly gruesome.”
“So you didn’t win?” Eulalia said, picking up the joke. “Then I have no use for you.”
Tomás grew serious again. “You sent him after all,” he said, and she nodded. “He encouraged me to take the job.”
“And you will?”
Tomás nodded, and Eulalia flung her arms around the barrel of his chest. “Perfect!” she said. Tomás flailed a little, then, slowly, as if embracing a hollow, delicate structure, he put his arms around the infanta.
Overhead, green parrots flew in widening circles, led by a bright blue macaw, and the noise they made broke up their embrace. The two of them watched the birds until they looped off, one by one, into the distance.
“We grew up beside an aviary, did you know? I think I remember it,” Eulalia said.
Tomás nodded. “I’m not sure that I do. My mother told me about it, and I think her stories have become memories that aren’t real. I’d like to see it again sometime.”
“The birds are gone,” Eulalia said, meaning the aviary. “My mother sent them away.”
“Shame,” Tomás said, still gazing at the sky.
“Oh no,” Eulalia said. “I prefer to see them fly.”
17
Tomás and Amalia did not speak of their parting, only going about their remaining days together as if every day would be slow and routine in the same way. When he embraced her and kissed her cheeks for the last time there on the docks, she called him “Mi rey,” and then she could no longer speak. As for Tomás, he said that she should visit soon, as if she were young and wealthy and such a thing were possible. But what else could he say? Goodbye seemed too permanent. Amalia had nodded, and held him, and called him her king once more, before letting go. Martín held her firmly, his arm around her shoulder, and the oldest child gripped her arm. “Adios, Tio,” they told Tomás, as if they had known him their whole lives. Tomás promised to send them gifts from Chicago, these new nieces and nephews of his.
And so Tomás left Cuba, and his mother. They did not stay to watch the ship weigh anchor and drift away, because the baby had a cough, and it was best to get him home. Tomás knew that the baby had nothing to do with it, of course. It was that Amalia could not bear it, and Tomás, for his part, was glad to see that Martín understood that. It was the loneliest sort of departure, and for the first time in Tomás’s life, he felt as if he could easily disappear, plunge into the sea or be taken by the wind, and not a soul would know or care.
When Eulalia and Antonio boarded the ship, the Marcha Real played, though Tomás did not see them come up the gangplank. Instead, his eyes were fixed on the sea, that “living infinite.”
Later, Eulalia would knock gently on the door to Tomás’s stateroom, which was larger than his old apartment above the bookshop. She would stand awkwardly there, her fingers tapping one another, as if she were fussing with a hangnail.
“You cannot imagine, Tomás, how much I loved Havana. It was as if we formed a single thought, that country and I. Ama will be happy there, I think,” she said.
“I can’t imagine it, no. My mother’s happiness in a place so foreign.” Tomás was in a dark state of mind, questioning everything. He wanted his mother’s firmness of purpose, or else Eulalia’s strict protocol, which told her what to do at every turn.
“We will not be able to keep her,” Eulalia said, as if talking to herself.
“My mother? She has made up her mind, I know tha—”
Eulalia shook her head. “I meant Cuba. Spain cannot keep her.”
“They won’t forget you,” Tomás said to her.
Eulalia laughed. “Yes, I will be remembered the way people remember comets. Once, every four hundred years, a Spanish princess visits Cuba and leaves in her wake a mantle of stars.”
“A poet and a princess,” Tomás teased, forgetting about Tenorio for a moment. Perhaps she had inherited his lyricism after all.
They were quiet again. Eulalia turned to leave, and he bowed for her.
“I am glad you are here,” she said, then she was gone. He considered reading her manuscript again, but that would have been his third time through it, and perhaps there was such a thing as knowing a person too thoroughly.
Tomás hardly slept that night, thinking of the people on board the ship and who they might be missing here out at sea, and if they were missed.
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
1
Tomás’s stateroom onboard the María Cristina adjoined Eulalia’s and Antonio’s, who each had their own rooms. A massive desk was placed by a porthole, and upon it sat a gleaming new typewriter. A cane chair with a green velvet cushion was tucked into the desk, too. “I tried to imagine your taste in these kinds of things,” Eulalia said to him when she first showed him the room.
“It’s—it’s just fine. This will do, of course,” Tomás stammered. My taste? he thought. His apartment’s kitchen table was a sturdy box, upon which he had draped an oilcloth. This he did not reveal to Eulalia. Instead, he gently pulled out the chair and sat upon it, then laid his fingers on the typewriter keys. The ribbon inside was black and moist, and he could smell the ink and the oil that greased the delicate typebars.
“We’ll arrive in New York in four days,” Eulalia said. “I’m to meet with President Cleveland and his wife. Then we’ll make our way to Chicago.”
At that moment, the ship lurched, and began rocking slowly. Tomás adjusted quickly, but Eulalia soon turned pale, and went up to the private deck above their rooms. She would spend most of her time there, fanning herself, having little to say to Tomás, who sometimes asked if she had a job for him to do, out of utter boredom. Eulalia seemed melancholy, and when she spoke, it was of their days in Cuba.
“The wide avenues lined with palms, the ones on Avenida Isabel? How lovely they were. Tomás, if I had my canvases and paint, I would try to capture them before I forget.”
Or else she would lament, “I know it in my heart, Spain and Cuba will separate. It will be a divorce from which we will not recover. Like a man who loses a beautiful woman because he was a brute. The spike of shame would live in his heart forever, don’t you think?” she said. Her brow wrinkled then, and she became lost in thought, the fan in her hand slowing almost to a stop.
They passed the lighthouse at the tip of Florida, past mangrove hammocks and gnarly woods, all the way up the coast of the United States. Little by the little, the heat of the tropics dissipated, so that by the time they reached New York Harbor, and that vertical, heaving city, Eulalia had wrapped herself in a shawl on deck, a cocoon trembling on a leaf.
There was a parade when they arrived in New York, but Tomás had missed it. He could hear, in the distance, the sound of trumpets, and the faint cheers of onlookers. The sounds of rifles discharging ceremoniously rocketed through the streets. Later, Eulalia and Antonio, and a small retinue of ladies, were transferred to another ship newly christened the Infanta Eulalia in honor of her visit, and embarked for Washington, D.C.
Eulalia had described her itinerary to Tomás before they docked. “It would be my greatest wish to have you come with us, Tomás, and see the White House, plain as I’ve heard it is, but—”
