The Obedient Assassin: A Novel (17 page)

S
he blotted the red lipstick carefully, then narrowed her eyes, stepping back to study her reflection in the mirror above the vanity. Hoping for an improvement, she removed her glasses, but she didn't feel good about the evening. It was her last night before leaving, and she wished they weren't going to a nightclub. But Jacques insisted they go out.

“I'm afraid I look frumpy,” she said, walking into the living room of their suite, where Jacques, in a white dinner jacket and black bow tie, was sitting on the sofa.

“Sylvia, you mustn't say that.” He studied her for a moment. “You look lovely.”

“But this dress!”

“You always like blue.”

“But it's out of style.”

“No one in Mexico will know. And don't worry, we'll get you some new evening gowns in New York. That's something to look forward to.”

He got her possum coat from the closet. “We're going to have a wonderful time at Ciro's. You'll see, it's very glamorous.”

In the elevator, she fretted with her dress, then stopped worrying it with her fingers, telling herself that her nerves were frayed because she was leaving. She dreaded living once more in New York with her unmarried sisters, spinsters in the making. She feared that her life at this hotel, with its garden filled with flowers and its brimming fountains, would become a dim memory. It all hung in the balance. It all depended on Jacques, who draped the fur around her shoulders as they walked out to the porte cochère, where the yellow Buick was waiting. The night air was crisp, the traffic on Reforma beginning to subside. “I hope he'll be all right. I hate leaving just now,” Sylvia said as Jacques started the car.

“Do you mean Alfred?”

“Yes, Alfred.”

“He should be fine. It's probably nothing serious,” Jacques said, wheeling the car out onto the avenue.

“But if it isn't serious, why have surgery? Why not wait until he gets to New York? It must be urgent.”

“They haven't told you what kind of surgery?”

“No, but you know how old-world they are. So proper.”

“Perhaps it's a rupture. That's something common for men his age, and it's not all that serious.”

He pressed the lighter in the dash and handed her his silver case. “Do you mind?”

She extracted one of the cigarettes, then noticed that unpleasant smell as tobacco and paper hissed against the red-hot coil of the lighter. Reforma, with all the rows of trees lining the esplanades and pedestrian promenades, was almost like a forest. The
peseros
, the shared taxis that cost a peso, the oldest and cheapest cars, sped back and forth, stopping to let passengers in and out. Poor people, Indians, walked next to the street, carrying large bundles on their backs, holding children by the hand. Watching them, she felt homesick, confused as to where home was. Jacques looked so happy and handsome. Happy because she was leaving? Because they were going to a famous nightclub? Sometimes he seemed so childish to her. He couldn't see past the glamorous nightclub to the weeks, even months of separation. How could he be happy on this of all nights?

As they arrived at the club, she resolved to shake off her uneasiness. She would be what he wanted, gay and lively. Chauffeurs stood next to the large shining automobiles lined up in the street. As they walked in, the sound of an orchestra playing “Begin the Beguine” came through doors at the far end of a stately hallway, lined with columns and paved with squares of black-and-white marble. She waited as Jacques checked her coat and again as he gave his name to the maître d', who led them into a large circular room where dancers revolved beneath massive tiers of chandeliers and clouds of smoke rose from the tables and banquettes that surrounded the dance floor. “Look!” said Jacques, nodding toward one of the murals that decorated the room. Someone had painted immense naked women lounging voluptuously in some sylvan glade, their thighs, buttocks, and breasts displayed as if on a banquet table. “Are those Rivera's?”

“Oh, Lord! They must be! Poor man! I heard he'd been reduced to this.”

“Poor man? What do you mean? This is the best nightclub in Mexico!”

“He was an artist and a revolutionary. He was trying to lift the masses. Now he's entertaining the rich. Look, these women aren't even Mexican.”

“His Mexican peasants would be out of place here.”

“Jacques, that's what I'm saying.”

“I don't understand your point.”

“There are probably some in the kitchen,” she said ruefully.

They proceeded, following the maître d' to a banquette that, like all the other banquettes and tables, had its own small lamp, casting its own little island of light. “Look at those people down there. We should be closer to the dance floor. I'm going to ask for a better table.”

“No, I'm happy here. I don't want to be too close.”

“Well, if you insist.” Jacques signaled to a waiter.

“I think I'll have a Gibson,” said Sylvia.

“Are you sure? Isn't that a bit strong?”

“I like the sound of a Gibson. I'll be a Gibson girl. Look at that woman's necklace! Do you think those are real emeralds?”

“They must be. Shall we dance?”

“Not just yet. Let's have our drinks and take in the atmosphere. This is quite extraordinary. I feel like I'm in Hollywood.”

“Then you're having fun.”

She put her hand on his, giving it a soft squeeze. A girl passed carrying a tray of cigarettes, cigars, and mints. Then another followed selling orchids. Jacques insisted on buying Sylvia a corsage, apologizing for not having had one sent to the hotel. She finished her Gibson, then they went out onto the dance floor. The song was relatively slow, a foxtrot. She didn't much care for dancing as a rule, but she pressed her face against Jacques's dinner jacket, inhaling the faint scent of his cologne, his body guiding her. Once she fell into the rhythm, it came naturally, shuffling along with this herd of rich people, turning slowly in a circle. She preferred the slow romantic songs, “Blue Moon,” “Red Sails in the Sunset,” “Chasing Shadows.” They sat out the faster, Latin songs.

She had a second drink, then a third, which made the evening feel remote and somewhat unreal. When she walked into the women's lounge, she heard German voices and the sound of weeping. A woman was sobbing, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief while two others offered comfort.
“Schoen, shatzie, schoen
,
”
one of them was crooning. The women were in their thirties, beautifully dressed and groomed. When they saw Sylvia, they closed ranks and had disappeared by the time she came out of one of the stalls.

She sat down at one of the vanities for a moment, studying her face, the faint band of freckles across her cheekbones, her wide mouth. She wondered what it would be like to be beautiful in an absolute and objective way. Were her doubts about Jacques really doubts about herself? She touched up her lipstick, then went back out to find their table empty. She was tapping her fingertips on his cigarette case when she noticed Jacques on the dance floor with a young woman. Talking in an animated way, he tipped his head back to laugh, giving the girl an extra little spin.

A wave of jealousy washed over Sylvia. The girl was younger and prettier; she had beautiful dark hair and lovely white shoulders. She and Jacques looked so comfortable together—they had to know each other. He had come to the club to see her. At the end of the song, he stood holding her hand, then made a slight bow before returning to Sylvia.

Sylvia attempted to smile, to behave as if nothing had happened, but she was at sea. “Who was that?” she asked.

“Just a girl. She saw me sitting at our table alone and invited me to dance.”

“She doesn't have a name?”

“She must, but I didn't ask.” Jacques managed an awkward half smile.

The orchestra started to play once more, a tall blond woman in a gold lamé gown coming to the front of the stage. “Like the beat beat beat of the tom-tom,” she sang, “when the jungle shadows fall.”

The song was familiar but why were prologues always so difficult to recognize? Why didn't they sound like the rest of the song? As the melody commenced, the glittering crowd resumed its rhythmic shuffle, the romantic gyre turning slowly.
Night and day, you are the one.

“You don't mind that I danced with her. She's here with her aunt and uncle and doesn't have a partner.”

“Poor child, and how kind of you! You looked like you knew each other. I was sure of it.”

Jacques laughed. “I've never seen her.” He lit a cigarette then signaled for their waiter. “You aren't jealous?”

“No, I'm not jealous. What do you think of me? But I am tired. I'd like to go to the hotel now. I'm leaving tomorrow.”

 

They didn't speak in the car driving back to the hotel. The silence was toxic, like the jealousy hardening her heart, twisting her mind. She was being swept away by something she couldn't see or control. And everything Jacques said, every innocuous utterance—
Poor dear, I know you're tired
—inflamed her imagination. She held her tongue until he closed the door to their suite behind them.

“Who was she?” Sylvia said, slapping her clutch on the back of the sofa.

“Who?”

“You know who I'm talking about? The girl at the club.”

“Sylvia, I have no idea. I never saw her before. And I'll never see her again.”

“Is she your mistress? Is that who you were seeing before I arrived? Is that where you go when you disappear? You've been seeing her all along, haven't you? I've known something was wrong from the beginning. Did she follow you here from Paris?”

Jacques laughed uncertainly.

“Tell me! I want to know the truth! She's your mistress! What's her name?”

“Sylvia, listen to yourself. You're not making sense.”

“You wanted to go to Ciro's so you could see her. Or you wanted her to see me so she wouldn't be jealous.”

“That's crazy, Sylvia. If I had a mistress I was hiding, would I arrange for her to come to the same cabaret? Would I get up and dance with her while you went to the loo? That makes no sense.”

Sylvia hesitated.

“Does it?” he pressed her. “Does that make sense?”

Sylvia took a deep breath, started to speak, then shuddered. Bringing her palms to her face, she began to weep uncontrollably as she once had in Paris. He put his arms around her, stroked her back gently, cooing to her. “Sylvia, Sylvia, I know I have my flaws, but I love you. Why can't you believe that?”

She shook her head, then pulled away, hiccoughing, trying to regain control of herself. She accepted his handkerchief, then dried her eyes, still wincing from her pain.

“Do you want a nightcap? Something to make you sleep? Of course you're exhausted and anxious, the night before a long journey. We should have stayed in, had a quiet dinner.”

“No, I don't want something to make me sleep. I want you to tell me the truth. I don't care about the girl. That was crazy. But I know something is happening that I don't understand. I've sensed it from the beginning.”

His eyes went very still.

“Jacques, who are you? I don't know who you are. Is there a Mr. Lubeck? What are you doing here? I see you and I hear you. And I love you so much, but I'm afraid I'm losing my mind.”

Jacques looked lost, hollow. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, then, shaking his head, he spoke in a very low, quiet voice. “Sylvia, please don't say these things to me. I am your husband.” He hesitated. “My life, the world I come from has fallen apart in ways you can't understand. The only future I can imagine is with you in New York. That's all I have.”

She started to cry again but in a different way. The storm was subsiding. He put his arms around her. “Darling, let's go to bed. Everything will be all right.”

“You won't disappear again?”

“No, I won't disappear. I promise. I love you. I may be able to come to New York. We're going to finish our business here, and perhaps I can find a job in New York. We can have an apartment, a real life together. That's what we want, isn't it?”

“Yes, of course,” she agreed, desperate to believe him.

“Let's go to bed. It's our last night for a while.”

When he went into the bedroom, she was sitting at the vanity, rubbing cold cream into her face. “Jacques.” She raised her eyes to his in the mirror.

“Yes?”

“There's one more thing I want you to promise.”

“Yes, whatever.”

“While I'm gone, I don't want you to go to Coyoacán.”

“To Coyoacán? Do you mean to the house?”

“Yes, I don't want you around Trotsky.”

“I haven't even met the man. I have no interest in him. What are you thinking?”

“I don't know why exactly, but I don't want you going to the house while I'm gone. I have a strange feeling about this.”

“What if Marguerite and Alfred need something?”

“They have friends there. They'll be fine. You can see them here in the city.”

“I don't understand.”

“I don't care if you understand. Will you promise not to go? Will you please promise me?”

“Yes. Yes, I promise.”

She began to wipe the cold cream from her face, leaning closer to the mirror, noticing the shadows beneath her eyes. She hated the shadows, wished they didn't exist.

A
dmission, when it came, was sudden and effortless. The electric lock snapped, the heavy iron bar scraped against concrete, then the reinforced steel door opened into the garage where a station had been set up for the guards in the right bay—a desk with an office chair and a high stool that could be pulled up to the peephole. “Mrs. Rosmer said you should wait in the garden,” Jake Cooper explained as he let Jacques in. “She says there's no reason you should stand on the street.”

A straw chair waited for him. He unbuttoned his jacket and sat down, lighting a cigarette, crossing his legs in the style of American men, his right ankle resting above his left knee. A flagstone path ran parallel below the front wall, leading to the open doors of the library, the clatter of typewriters; bougainvillea cascaded over the roof of the little porch to make a bower above the door. A narrow strip of brilliantly green grass separated the path from the wing of the house that extended into the garden, three rooms each with a romantic little balcony a foot above the ground, a curved ornamental railing with French doors.

After a moment, a high-ranking Mexican officer in jodhpurs, tunic, and riding boots emerged from the bougainvillea to stride down the path to the gate. Beneath a visor cap, his face was soft and somehow feminine, a dark mole just beneath the left corner of his mouth. He glanced at Ramón and nodded briskly. As he was going out, Sheldon Harte waved from the machine-gun turret on the front wall above the library door. “You're here for Marguerite?” he called.

Jacques nodded affirmatively and smiled. “I'm taking her to see Alfred.”

He finished his cigarette, then, realizing that Jake Cooper was speaking to someone on the street through the peephole, Jacques got up, pretending to stretch his legs. Hands in pockets, he strolled over to inspect the beds of daisies and ferns beneath the little balconies. The first of the three rooms was Trotsky's office; part of his desk was visible through the French doors. The next room was filled with shadow, a bed covered with an Indian blanket, sunlight coming from high windows on the opposite wall. The third set of French doors looked into the boy's room, a single bed, a child's desk, model airplanes suspended by wires from the ceiling.

Checking to make sure he was unobserved, Jacques moved to the end of the wing, rounding the corner of the house with the intention of locating an exterior entrance and the rooms for the guards at the back of the compound. A breeze moved through the boughs of the eucalyptus tree above, rippling the raft of sunlight and shadows floating upon the ground. There was the scent of eucalyptus and wood smoke, the diffuse and distant sounds of the village. Sheltered by walls and the tree, the garden felt like a little corner of paradise.

For a moment Jacques didn't notice the man standing with his back to the house, facing some sort of wire cage. But then, sensing another presence, he turned. Heart skipping, Jacques recognized the distinctive face that, with the goatee, round gasses, and high forehead, looked like that of Mephistopheles. Satan. That Trotsky wore a blue peasant's smock and held a white rabbit he had pulled from a raised hutch made him that much more sinister. The men looked at each other, arrested in a moment of stillness, then Jacques—wishing he had no knowledge of what lay ahead—bowed ever so slightly and retreated from the shade of the eucalyptus to the strip of lawn and his chair.

By now, Marguerite Rosmer's procession through the library could be heard, her fluty voice bidding the secretaries farewell, collecting good wishes for her husband. She emerged wearing her one good dress, the navy blue, carrying her handbag and a straw basket covered with a dish towel. “Ah!
Mon cher
, there you are!” she piped in French, letting Jacques rescue her from the burden of the basket. “I made Alfred some of my chicken soup with none of those
chiles
he detests. I see Jake let you in. So much nicer than sitting on the street like a peon.”

She spoke to Jake Cooper in English, asking the whereabouts of Natalia Sedova—as everyone referred to Madame Trotsky. Once more on the street, Jacques held the door of the Buick for Marguerite, then put the basket in the back of the car, making sure the jar of soup stood upright.

“And Alfred?” Jacques asked, sliding behind the steering wheel.

“Much better, thank you.”

As he started the car, she opened her black leather purse, which exhaled a history of face powders, hand creams, mints, and medicines. He sensed she was about to bring out a letter from Sylvia, but it was an embroidered handkerchief he'd given her on an outing to the Indian market in Toluca. She and Alfred had to pinch their pennies so tightly, and she had been delighted with the knots of silk violets that ran along the border.

By some unspoken agreement, neither she nor Jacques mentioned Sylvia, who had been gone less than two weeks. He was sure Sylvia had extracted some sort of promise from Marguerite to keep him away from the house. But with Alfred in the hospital, it was too great a sacrifice for Marguerite to forgo Jacques's assistance, not to mention the pleasure of his company. So many in the house needed rides to one place or another, and so often Trotsky's cars weren't available, or the Ford was being repaired.

“Did I tell you I moved from my hotel to the Shirley Courts?” Jacques asked.

“The what?”

“It's very modern, an American motel.”

“Motel?”

“Motor hotel. A hotel for cars.”

“Wouldn't that be a garage?”

“It's most convenient with a car. You can pull right up to your door without going in and out of a lobby.”

“I think I've heard of that kind of establishment, a place married men take their mistresses.”

“But this is very wholesome, a family place. Mr. and Mrs. Shirley have a son who's interested in mountain climbing.”

“Well, a motel! I would like to see it.”

“I'm not sure that would be wise. Mr. Shirley might not like my bringing a beautiful married woman.”

He pressed the cigarette lighter and rolled down his window. “Who was that at the house just now? A Mexican army officer. A colonel, I would think.”

“That must have been Colonel Sanchez, head of the secret police in Mexico. To look at him you wouldn't think it, but Mexicans tremble when they hear his name. He's very powerful.”

“What was he doing there?”

“He comes to the house on a regular basis.”

“Really?”

“Yes, President Cárdenas made Colonel Sanchez personally responsible for Trotsky's safety when he first arrived in Mexico. By now, the Colonel drops by as if he were an old friend of the family.”

They were halfway into town when she said,
“Regarde l'éclair!”
as a bolt of lighting flashed in the dark clouds clustered against the volcanoes. “The rainy season is about to start. Last year, we arrived just at the end of the season—so charming, quite exotic. Every evening there's a dramatic storm—like in an opera. Lightning and thunder crashing. You think it's the end of the world, then—poof!—it's over.”

T
he French hospital was in the Condesa, an enclave of wealthy European Jews where four- and five-story Art Deco apartment buildings sprouted up around a bare, almost treeless park. The exterior of the hospital was white as was the interior, halls white and clean, smelling of ether and disinfectant. Alfred was growing restless in the second week of his convalescence. Jacques took the older man's hand in his, kissing him on the cheek. At Marguerite's bidding, he procured bowl, spoon, and napkin for the soup, then left the Rosmers to themselves. He wanted a moment alone to go over what he had seen at the house in Coyoacán, but instead found himself thinking about Sylvia.

It had been easy to comfort her, to take her in his arms, to dream with her about the life they would have in New York. But beneath her hysteria, at some level she understood what was happening. He worried that some day she would feel betrayed, but there was nothing he could do, and never had been, to alter the course of events. Whether or not Ramón provided the floor plan, Siqueiros would storm the house.

He smoked his cigarette in front of the hospital, thinking that the park and the buildings looked raw and ugly, that it was a mistake trying to re-create Europe in Mexico.

He had finished the cigarette and was holding the car door for Marguerite when Sheldon pulled up in Trotsky's big black Dodge. “Look!” said Marguerite. “There's Natalia Sedova. She's come to see Alfred.”

Trotsky's wife sat in the back of the Dodge with her grandson Seva. The boy got out first, looking pale and vulnerable in his school uniform, a white shirt, black shorts, and long black socks. “Marguerite!” he called. “Mr. Jacson!”

Natalia Sedova followed, a thin woman with gray hair and a sad, long face, holding a coffee can filled with daisies, ferns, and a frond of bougainvillea from the garden. Ramón wanted to turn away, to protect himself from the sight of this woman, but Marguerite was hugging the boy. “We almost missed you,” she said to Natalia Sedova. “I didn't know you were coming. Alfred will be so glad to see you.”

“He isn't too tired for another visit?”

“Not at all. He'll be delighted.”

“I don't believe you've met Sylvia's husband, Frank Jacson,” said Marguerite, turning to include Jacques.

Natalia Sedova offered her hand, her thoughtful gray eyes studying his face. “I've heard a great deal about you from the Rosmers. And from Seva. You've been very kind to include my grandson in your outings with Marguerite and Alfred.”

Jacques felt a stab of remorse. Unable to speak, he could only smile, then looked down, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder. “We've had some fun, haven't we, Esteban?”

“Yes, sir,” the boy said, turning to smile up at Jacques.

“And do you know Mr. Harte?” Natalia Sedova asked. “Sheldon is here from New York, helping us for a while.”

Jacques smiled, and the two men shook hands as if they'd never spoken.

The encounter pleased Marguerite. “Such a good person,” she remarked, settling into the Buick.

Jacques stepped on the ignition. “Her eyes are so sad,” he said in an involuntary, wondering voice. “I've never seen such sad eyes.”

“Yes, but it's only natural when someone kills your children.”