In the Name of Salome (19 page)

“It's a lovely epistle, Pancho,” I assured him. And it was, rousing and martial.

“So now, it is your turn,” he proposed. “You must write me a poem.”

I forced a smile. I was not about to commit myself.

I
HAVE TO SAY
that I surprised myself when I wrote “Quejas.” It was as if by lifting my pen, I had released the woman inside me and let her free on paper. But even as I wrote, I knew such frank passions in a woman were not permissible. In fact, if poor Papá had not already been dead, he would have died all over again upon reading my poem to Pancho.

Not that I mentioned his name. To precede that poem with a dedication would have amounted to a proposal of marriage on my part.

Listen to my desiring!
Answer the wild longing in my heart!
Put out my ardent fire with your kisses!

“My goodness, Salomé!” Ramona said when she read it. Her hand was at her throat. “Remember Don Eloy? This is enough to rouse every woman believed dead from the waist down. Who is this about, by the way?” Since she had not seen Pancho around, she assumed that I had broken with him after my visit to the Villeta's house. But there were dozens of other young men stopping by the house with bouquets and pledges to serve la poetisa nacional in any way.

“It's not about any one person. It's about what we women feel when we fall in love.”

“That's all well and good, Salomé. But you can't publish this. You're la musa de la patria, for heaven's sake,” she reminded me,
waving her hand above her head. “Nobody thinks you have a real body.”

“It's time they found out,” I declared.

I
REALLY HAD NO
intention of publishing “Quejas.” In fact, at night, as I lay in bed and thought of the poem hidden under the mattress, I felt as if a fire had been lit beneath me and I should do everything in my power to put it out.

One month and a second month went by and still no word from Pancho. He had planned to be gone three whole months, but still I had expected to hear something from him in that time. I reasoned with myself that he had taken the Clyde steamboat east, around the the island, to the north coast—the land trails being too dangerous. Where was he supposed to mail a letter? But still, I don't care what the positivists say, does a person in love ever listen to reason?

What convinced me to publish that poem was not Pancho's silence, but a little-known event that occurred in our neighborhood. I do not want to mention names or go into too much detail, as the poor girl has suffered enough. She was barely fifteen, a child really, from a humble family. When her parents discovered her swelling belly, they threw her out on the street. She was one of Tía Ana's former charges, and so, not knowing what to do, the distraught girl appeared on our doorstep with her tearful story. The man in question refused to acknowledge the relation. We contacted our relatives in Baní, who agreed to take her in until the birth of the baby. The whole matter was settled quickly and discreetly, but the event made a great impression on me.

It seemed to me unjust that this young woman's life should be ruined, whereas the rogue man went on with his engagement to a girl from a fine family with no seeming consequences to be paid. For the first time, I recalled my father's second family and felt a pang of resentment toward him. Why was it all right for a man to
satisfy his passion, but for a woman to do so was as good as signing her death warrant?

There was another revolution to be fought if our patria was to be truly free.

I took up my pen and directed the poem to the editors of
El Estudio
.

T
HE POEM CAUSED QUITE
a stir. Some readers insisted that it was the work of an impostor, just as years ago, another poet had tried to pass herself off as the real Herminia with a silly poem about snowflakes. For how could the noble, high-minded Salomé Ureña write such a poem to a man? Several ladies demanded that if the poem were indeed mine, the national medal should be taken away from me. But quite a few women confided that I had written down exactly what they felt when they had fallen in love.

Soon, shock at the poem's content turned into curiosity about the life of the writer: who was the poem written to? It had no dedication, and since Salomé Ureña had never been engaged to anyone, and the only young man constantly around her was that youngster Pancho who had not been seen in her vicinity lately, then the only conclusion was that Salomé Ureña had written this poem to a married man whose name she had to keep secret.

So began the guessing game of who Salome's secret lover might be.

I
N THE MIDST OF
this ruckus, Pancho returned. He was met at the dock by his group of friends from Friends of the Country. No doubt they filled him in on the scandalous poem Salomé had written. They were taking bets on who the lover might be. José Joaquín Pérez was in the lead.

That very evening, Pancho appeared at our front door,
El Estudio
in hand. He was a sight: his hair wild and windblown, his
beard growing out. Coco, who by now adored Pancho, growled at this stranger. I don't think he had even washed off the dust from the road and the salt and sand from the sea. For a moment I did not know whether to bar the door or let him in.

But Mamá knew, with that unerring sense of mothers, that this was the moment we had been waiting for. She asked Ramona to please come help her finish hemming Trini Villeta's new mourning frock. “How is Trini?” I expected Pancho to ask. But he seemed not to have heard the name at all. He was looking directly at me as if no one else were in the room.

“Did your journey go well?” I began. I wanted to talk trivialities: the steamboat's rocking, Hostos's snoring, the delicious crabs in Puerto Plata. I had never been looked at so nakedly by a man. It was unsettling.

But Pancho did not want to talk about his journey. He stared at me, his eyes like the knife blade with which he had dissected those lilies, cutting through my composure.

“Salomé,” he finally spoke, holding up the newspaper in his hand, “I just need to know who you wrote this poem for.”

“Someone I love,” I said simply.

“But you promised me a poem,” he went on peevishly. He had lost weight; his face was leaner. He had an older, more manly look. “I can't bear thinking you would feel this way about another man.”

“I don't,” I said, looking directly at him.

Slowly, like a liquid spilling, I saw the realization spreading across his face, his mouth falling open with surprise. “This poem is for me?” he whispered.

I took the newspaper from him and laid it on the table. I moved toward him with a confidence that surprised me. Perhaps by writing my poem, I had discovered that I had a body. Then as if it were the most natural thing in the world for a woman to do to the man she loves, I reached for his hands and touched my lips first to one palm and then to the other one.

S
HE IS IN THE
conference room, printing up placards for a demonstration, when Nora comes to the door. “There's a man to see you,” she says in a careful voice as if she suspects she is being overheard. Over Nora's shoulder, Camila sees the shadow of someone waiting in the hall.

Her group of women exchange glances. “Shall we go with you?” several of them whisper.

“Keep working, ladies,” she says, trying to control the quaver in her voice. Years of studying opera and she still can't master that simple art. “I'll be back soon,” she promises so whoever is waiting for her will know she is expected to return. As if such a simple ruse would work on Batista's thugs!

Dusting off her smock, she surveys the room: fellow Lyceum ladies are working away in small groups, hammering sticks, stitching banners, handprinting slogans. They are fighting the monster with toy swords, bright banners that announce, GIVE US THE VOTE! FREE CUBA! MARTÍ'S AMERICA NOW! But what else have they to fight with? she wonders. Even her heroine mother could only come up with poems.

Out in the hall, she is surprised to find it almost deserted. No guardias in their shiny black boots and corded caps wait to hurry her away to one of Batista's interrogation centers. Instead, a large mulatto with a handsome, big-featured face and a body that, because she has been printing placards, she instantly thinks of as “all in capital letters” comes forward and introduces himself. “Domingo,” he says in a voice that could sing a beautiful
Otello
, rich and full, “I'm here t-t-to sculpt your father.”

“My father is dead,” she tells him simply. Perhaps he is a Batista thug, after all, a rookie undercover agent who hasn't done his research. “He died a month ago.”

“I can w-w-wait if this is an intrusion,” he offers. The white shirt is rumpled; the string tie is undoubtedly an attempt at formality. “T-t-tell m-m-me when it would be c-c-convenient.”

A stammer—a pity with such a beautiful, throaty voice. She feels a rush of tenderness as she would for a stagestruck student who cannot answer a simple question. “Is there something I can help you with, Don Domingo.”

“Domingo,” he corrects her, “plain Domingo.” It turns out he is a Cuban sculptor who has been hired by some historical committee to sculpt a bust of Don Pancho. “It is to be a g-g-gift to ow-w-w-er neighbor c-c-country.”

“I see,” she says, wondering what this is all about. No doubt, Max has arranged some tribute without letting her know about it. Perhaps he doubted that his sister would go along with anything involving the Trujillo's dictatorship at home or Batista's virtual dictatorship here. At any rate, the question still stands. “And so, what can I help you with, Don Domingo?”

“Domingo,” he says again, smiling, as if he has caught her at a petty error, as if they are playing a silly board game and he has just rolled the dice with the winning number.

Let him have his little triumph, since the next thing he tries to say will defeat him with a tricky diphthong or consonant. She has
not yet figured out what specific combination of sounds causes him trouble.

“I have photographs your b-br-brother sent th-th-th—” He has stumbled upon a word he cannot possibly say. A helpless look comes on his face. She provides several suggestions, but none of them is right.

He waves off the word and continues. As far as she can make out, Max has sent some of Pancho's photographs to whatever foreign government office has commissioned this bust as a gift from Cuba to the Dominican Republic. But Domingo needs more to accomplish the job. “I would like for you to pose . . . if p-p-possible.”

This is certainly peculiar. “The bust is not of me,” she reminds him curtly.

“Your b-br-brother wrote that you r-r-resemble your father. The minute I s-s-saw you, I could s-s-see Don Pancho.”

Years ago, of course, she did not like to be told that she looked like Pancho. She wanted to look like her mother, the beautiful fantasy mother made up by a London painter. This sculptor is at least trying to be accurate. Still, why does he need her to sit for this bust—he's got pictures, many pictures. Pancho was a public man, and he liked being photographed.

“I need to capture the living f-f-force inside the s-s-stone.”

She is taken aback by this simple description. It's as if one of her less-talented students had surprised her with a highly original answer. She rebukes herself for taking this man so lightly.

“It would only be a s-s-session or two. My studio is . . . close. Would you consent?” His stutter is becoming less pronounced. Maybe it gets worse when he is nervous, and he has begun to relax with her. Even so, each time he opens his mouth, she tenses up, holding her breath, as if that might help him. He is a lucky man, she thinks. I'll do anything he asks just to spare him having to convince me.

“You may count on me,” she says, turning to go. The words have popped out, unbidden! Her mother's first words to her father. How very strange.

As she joins her ladies, she realizes her hands are perspiring. The back of her neck is wet. Perhaps the effort of helping the sculptor talk has worn her out. Her mind wanders while she works. She finds herself picturing the man she has just met, his powerful presence, itself like a form carved roughly out of stone. The fantasy is so vivid that when she looks down at her placard, she realizes she has written his name DOMINGO in large, black capital letters.

I
T IS A NUISANCE
to be adding yet another compromiso to her tight schedule. They have just received notice that a delegation of American journalists will be arriving at the end of the month. A committee must be organized to welcome them and apprise them of the situation. Batista is in full control of the army and clamping down on civil liberties. This must be brought to President Roosevelt's attention. In his fireside chats, the calm, confident president has promised to help the downtrodden and poor in his own country. Perhaps he will extend the same consideration to his neighbors to the south.

There are also visits to schedule with different party leaders to put in that last push so that the women's vote comes through. The students want their university reopened, and a group of Lyceum ladies will be hosting an afternoon garden party for Mendieta and Batista, hoping that the puppet president and his puppeteer can be swayed over meringues and Mary Pickfords.

And in the midst of all this, she has agreed to go sit for two hours at a time so this sculptor can capture the likeness of her father. Even in death, her father makes so many demands on her!

Marion used to accuse her of purposely piling on responsibilities like a child adding one more card to her castle of cards to see
if it will hold. “How strong do you have to be?” she'd asked. At least as strong as Mamá, Camila would think. But unlike her mother's broad shoulders, which carried the future of her nation, Camila's are mostly used to give piggyback rides. It is she who has been tending to the old people, soothing ruffled tempers, paying the bills. It is she who is making sure her half brothers get some kind of education. There has never been much time for work that interests
her
.