The Stories of Eva Luna (13 page)

THE LITTLE HEIDELBERG

E
l Capitán and the woman
niña
Eloísa had danced together so many years that they had achieved perfection. Each could sense the other's next movement, divine the exact instant of the next turn, interpret the most subtle hand pressure or deviation of a foot. They had not missed a step once in forty years; they moved with the precision of a couple used to making love and sleeping in a close embrace. This was what made it so difficult to believe that they had never exchanged a single word.

The Little Heidelberg is a tavern a certain distance from the capital and located on a hill surrounded by banana groves; there, besides good music and invigorating air, they offer a unique aphrodisiac stew made heady with a combination of spices, too heavy for the fiery climate of the region but in perfect harmony with the traditions that activate the proprietor
don
Rupert. Before the oil crisis, when there was still an illusion of plenty and fruits were imported from other latitudes, the specialty of the house had been apple strudel, but now that nothing is left from the petroleum but a mountain of indestructible refuse and a memory of better times, they make the strudel with guavas and with mangoes. The tables, arranged in a large circle that leaves an open space in the middle for dancing, are covered with green-and-white-checked cloths, and the walls display bucolic scenes of country life in the Alps: shepherdesses with golden braids, strapping youths, and immaculate bovines. The musicians—dressed in lederhosen, woolen knee socks, Tyrolean suspenders, and felt hats that with the sweat of years have lost their dash and from a distance resemble greenish wigs—sit on a platform crowned by a stuffed eagle that according to
don
Rupert sprouts new feathers from time to time. One plays the accordion, another the saxophone, and the third, through some feat of agility involving all his extremities, simultaneously manipulates bass drum, snares, and top hat. The accordion player is a master of his instrument, and he also sings in a warm tenor voice that vaguely suggests Andalusia. Despite his foolish Swiss publican's garb, he is the favorite of the female faithful, and several of these
señoras
secretly nurture the fantasy of being trapped with him in some mortal adventure—a landslide, say, or bombing—in which they would happily draw their last breath folded in the strong arms capable of tearing such heartrending sobs from the accordion. The fact that the median age of these ladies is nearly seventy does not diminish the sensuality stirred by the tenor; it merely adds the gentle breath of death to their enchantment. The orchestra begins playing shortly after sunset and ends at midnight, except on Saturdays and Sundays, when the place is filled with tourists and the trio must keep playing until near dawn when the last customer leaves. They play only polkas, mazurkas, waltzes, and European folk dances, as if instead of being firmly established in the Caribbean, The Little Heidelberg were located on the shores of the Rhine.

Doña
Burgel,
don
Rupert's wife, reigns in the kitchen, a formidable matron whom few know because she spends her days amid stewpots and mounds of vegetables; lost in the task of preparing foreign dishes with local ingredients. It was she who invented the strudel with tropical fruits, and the aphrodisiac stew capable of restoring dash to the most disheartened. The landlords' two daughters wait on the tables, a pair of sturdy women smelling of cinnamon, clove, vanilla, and lemon, along with a few local girls, all with rosy cheeks. The clientele is composed of European emigrés who reached these shores escaping poverty or some war or other, businessmen, farmers, and tradesmen, a pleasant and uncomplicated group of people who may not always have been so but who with the passing of time have eased into the benevolent courtesy of healthy old people. The men wear bow ties and jackets, but as the exertion of the dancing and abundance of beer warms their souls, they shed superfluous garments and end up in their shirt sleeves. The women wear bright colors in antiquated styles, as if their dresses have been rescued from bridal trunks brought with them from their homeland. From time to time a gang of aggressive teenagers stops by; their presence is preceded by the thundering roar of motorcycles and the rattle of boots, keys, and chains, and they come with the sole purpose of making fun of the old people, but the event never goes any further than a skirmish, because the drummer and the saxophonist are prepared to roll up their sleeves and restore order.

On Saturdays, about nine, when all present have enjoyed their servings of the aphrodisiac stew and abandoned themselves to the pleasure of the dance, La Mexicana arrives and sits alone. She is a provocative fiftyish woman with the body of a galleon—proud bow, rounded keel, ample stern, and face like a carved figurehead—who displays a mature but still firm décolletage and a flower over one ear. She is not, of course, the only woman dressed like a flamenco dancer, but on her it looks more natural than on ladies with white hair and resigned waistlines who do not even speak proper Spanish. La Mexicana dancing the polka is a ship adrift on a storm-tossed sea, but to the rhythm of the waltz she seems to breast calm waters. This is how El Capitán sometimes espies her in his dreams, and awakens with the nearly forgotten restiveness of adolescence. They say that this captain sailed with a Nordic line whose name no one could decipher. He was an expert on old ships and sea lanes, but all that knowledge lay buried in the depths of his mind, with no possible application in a land where the sea is a placid aquarium of green, crystalline waters unsuited to the intrepid vessels of the North Sea. El Capitán is a leafless tree, a tall, lean man with straight back and still firm neck muscles, a relic clothed in a gold-buttoned jacket and the tragic aura of retired sailors. No one has ever heard a word of Spanish from his lips, nor any other recognizable language. Thirty years ago
don
Rupert argued that El Capitán must be Finnish because of the icy color of his eyes and the unremitting justice of his gaze; as no one could contradict him everyone came to accept his opinion. Anyway, language is secondary at The Little Heidelberg, for no one comes there to talk.

A few of the standard rules of conduct have been modified for the comfort and convenience of all. Anyone can go onto the dance floor alone, or invite someone from another table; if they wish to, the women can take the initiative and ask the men. This is a fair solution for unaccompanied widows. No one asks La Mexicana to dance because it is understood that she considers it offensive; the men must wait, trembling with anticipation, until she makes the request. She deposits her cigarette in the ashtray, uncrosses the daunting columns of her legs, tugs at her bodice, marches toward the chosen one, and stops before him without a glance. She changes partners with every dance, but always reserves at least four numbers for El Capitán. He places a firm helmsman's hand at her waist and pilots her about the floor without allowing his years to curtail his inspiration.

The oldest client of The Little Heidelberg, one who in half a century has never missed a Saturday, is
niña
Eloísa, a tiny lady, meek and gentle, with rice-paper skin and a corona of baby-fine hair. She has earned a living for so many years making bonbons in her kitchen that she is permeated with the scent of chocolate, and always smells of birthday parties. Despite her age, she has retained some of her girlish mannerisms and she still has the strength to spend the entire evening whirling around the dance floor without disturbing a curl of her topknot or skipping a heartbeat. She came to this country at the turn of the century from a village in the south of Russia, accompanied by her mother, who was then a raving beauty. They lived together for years, making their chocolates, completely indifferent to the rigors of the climate, the century, or loneliness, without husbands, family, or major alarms, their sole diversion The Little Heidelberg every weekend. When her mother died,
niña
Eloísa came alone.
Don
Rupert always received her at the door with great deference and showed her to her table as the orchestra welcomed her with the first chords of her favorite waltz. At some tables, mugs of beer were raised to greet her, because she was the oldest person there and undoubtedly the most beloved. She was shy; she had never dared invite a man to dance, but in all those years she had never needed to do so; everyone considered it a privilege to take her hand, place his arm—delicately, so as not to break a crystal bone—about her waist, and lead her to the dance floor. She was a graceful dancer and, besides, she had that sweet fragrance that recalled to any who smelled it his happiest childhood memories.

El Capitán always sat alone, and always at the same table; he drank in moderation and showed no enthusiasm for
doña
Burgel's aphrodisiac stew. He tapped his toe in time with the music, and when
niña
Eloísa was unengaged he would invite her to dance, stopping smartly before her with a discreet click of his heels and a slight bow. They never spoke, they merely looked at each other and smiled between the gallops, skips, and obliques of some old-time dance.

One December Saturday less humid than others, a tourist couple came into The Little Heidelberg. These were not the disciplined Japanese they had been seeing recently but tall Scandinavians with tanned skin and pale eyes; they took a table and watched the dancers with fascination. They were merry and noisy; they clinked their mugs of beer, laughed heartily, and chatted in loud voices. The strangers' words reached the ears of El Capitán at his table and, from a long way away, from another time and another world, came the sound of his own language, as whole and fresh as if it had just been invented, words he had not heard for several decades but retained intact in his memory. An unfamiliar expression softened the features of this ancient mariner and he wavered several minutes between the absolute reserve in which he felt comfortable and the almost forgotten delight of losing himself in conversation. Finally he rose and walked toward the strangers. Behind the bar,
don
Rupert observed El Capitán as he leaned forward slightly, hands clasped behind his back, and spoke to the new arrivals. Soon the other customers, the waitresses, and the musicians realized that the man was speaking for the first time since they had known him, and they, too, fell silent in order to hear him better. He had a voice like a great-grandfather, reedy and deliberate, but he uttered every phrase with clear determination. When he had poured out the contents of his heart, the room was so silent that
doña
Burgel hurried from the kitchen to find out whether someone had died. Finally, after a long pause, one of the tourists emerged from his astonishment, summoned
don
Rupert, and asked him in rudimentary English to help translate the captain's words. The Nordic couple followed the elderly seaman to the table where
niña
Eloísa sat, and
don
Rupert trailed along, removing his apron on the way, with the intuition that a solemn event was about to occur. El Capitán spoke a few words in his language, one of the strangers translated it into English, and
don
Rupert, his ears pink and his mustache trembling, repeated it in his hind-to-fore Spanish.

“
Niña
Eloísa, asks El Capitán will you marry him.”

The fragile old lady sat there, her eyes round with surprise and her mouth hidden behind her batiste handkerchief, while all waited, holding their breath, until she was able to find her voice.

“Don't you think this is a little sudden?” she whispered.

Her words were repeated by the tavernkeeper and then the tourist, and the answer traveled the same route in reverse.

“El Capitán says he has waited forty years to ask you, and that he could not wait until again comes someone who speaks his language. He says please to do him the favor of answering now.”

“All right,”
niña
Eloísa whispered faintly, and it was not necessary to translate her answer because everyone understood.

A euphoric
don
Rupert threw his arms in the air and announced the engagement; El Capitán kissed the cheeks of his fiancée, the tourists shook everyone's hand, the musicians struck up a ringing triumphal march, and the guests formed a circle around the couple. The women wiped away tears, the men offered sentimental toasts,
don
Rupert sat down at the bar and buried his head in his arms, shaken with emotion, while
doña
Burgel and her two daughters uncorked bottles of their best rum. The trio began to play
The Blue Danube
waltz and the dance floor emptied.

El Capitán took the hand of the gentle lady he had wordlessly loved for so many years and walked with her to the center of the room, where they began to dance with the grace of two herons in their courtship dance. El Capitán held
niña
Eloísa in his arms with the same loving care with which in his youth he had caught the wind in the sails of an ethereal sailing ship, gliding with her around the floor as if they were skimming the calm waves of a bay, while he told her in the language of blizzards and forests all the things his heart had held silent until that moment. Dancing, dancing, El Capitán felt as if time were flowing backward, as if they were growing younger, as if with every step they were happier and lighter on their feet. Turn after turn, the chords of the music grew more vibrant, their feet more rapid, her waist more slender, the weight of her tiny hand fainter in his, her presence less substantial. El Capitán danced on as
niña
Eloísa turned to lace, to froth, to mist, until she was but a shadow, then, finally, nothing but air, and he found himself whirling, whirling, with empty arms, his only companion a faint aroma of chocolate.

The tenor indicated to the musicians that they should continue playing the same waltz, because he realized that with the last note the captain would wake from his reverie and the memory of
niña
Eloísa would disappear forever. Deeply moved, the elderly customers of The Little Heidelberg sat motionless in their chairs until finally La Mexicana, her arrogance transformed into affection and tenderness, stood and walked quietly toward the trembling hands of El Capitán, to dance with him.