The Edit Page 6

  She assured me that she would not be a minute and was almost as good as her word. I barely had time to begin sorting through my memories of the winter I had lived in the hotel—the constant fight with cockroaches and with Señora Alvarado’s atrocious cooking—before Miss O’Brien came skipping back to the truck attired in a fresh-looking shirtwaist: quite prim and proper as compared to her fishing outfit.

  As I pulled away from the hotel, I saw in the rearview mirror that Señor Alvarado, the proprietor, had come out onto the street to inspect the goings-on. A man of the world is Señor Alvarado. Not much one for gossip, I thought, though he does like to know what transpires with his guests. I do not imagine that we have exchanged more than ten words in the years since I resided there, but we understand each other all the same.

  He waved at us as we bumped down the narrow calle.

  Miss O’Brien was in a festive mood despite her disappointment with the fish. This was serendipitous, for such a mood was the perfect palliative to my own rather melancholy one. Dusk overtook us as we drove. Miss O’Brien’s face was illuminated by the green dash lights, her profile taking on a hard, black line. Our headlights bounced ahead of the truck like searchlights as we thumped along the rutted driveway. Now and again a bat would appear in the beams of light: a darting black object in the yellow incandescence. In the absolute blackness of the jungle night, light holds a tightness and cohesiveness of beam that one does not usually notice. The Irish commented on this as I parked the car.

  “They should be sucked into the vortex,” was the way she put it, referring to our headlights.

  We were too late for the wild cries of sunset by the time we reached the house. Early evening and birdsong go together in the snarl of jungle in back of my humble estate. The exoticness of this entertained me for years: I would listen to the screeches and howls, which I had never heard before outside the confines of a zoo, and know I was someplace different. I would be reminded of the path I had chosen in life and its costs.

  We walked up the steps to the front door, and when I let us in, there was no mention of tea as on her first visit. The evening had a chill to it.

  “Shall I lay a fire?”

  “Super. I’d love that.”

  “First the drinks. You’ll trust my judgment there, won’t you? My specialty. I call it ____, after our little bay. Nothing sweet, I assure you.”

  “God forbid.”

  “You do take a drink?”

  “I’ve been known to. Not to worry. I’m Irish, remember? Sure and we’re all fearsome drinkers.”

  “That’s a most pleasant way you have.”

  “How so?”

  “Of reprimand, I mean. Whenever you want to bring me up short, to stop me from being too officious or polite or treating you too much like a dainty lady, you simply go into the stage Irishman act. It’s softer that way.”

  “I really hadn’t noticed, Señor ____.”

  “That’s what makes it so effective. It’s unconscious. Now for the drinks.”

  “May I help?”

  “Not unless you know how to lay a fire.”

  “And what do you think? We had central heating in Donegal?”

  “Fine. You’ll find paper and kindling in the brass chest by the fireplace. Matches on the mantel. How do your arms feel?”

  “Like I’m carrying lead weights. Fishing must be great for the pectorals. I’ll have to tell my fitness-conscious friends in New York about this. They’re always looking for ways to beat the effects of gravity.”

  “Sorry … I can’t hear you very well in here.”

  But it is not my intention here to record every word I shared with the Irish. Suffice to say we had developed a rapport, a familiarity, a jokingly bantering sort of friendship. I could not have been more surprised by this unlikely turn of events, or more pleased. But returning to the living room, drinks in hand, I was met by even a greater surprise.

  Instead of lighting the fire as she had promised, Miss O’Brien was at my trestle desk brazenly picking through the manuscript of my memoirs! She did not even attempt to feign innocence once I entered but continued thumbing through the handwritten stack of papers. I set the drinks down on the low table between the armchairs, and she looked up at me, letting out a half laugh.

  “I didn’t think you were writing fiction, Señor ____. I thought you said memoirs.”

  “—”

  “I do like it, though. The allusion to Wiesenthal. The teasing fragments of stories all over the place. You have a knack for storytelling, Señor ____.”

  “I’m sorry you read that, Miss O’Brien.”

  “Don’t be. I think it’s quite good. Perhaps a bit of line editing needed here and there, but so far I see no need for major revisions. I’ll be curious to see if you bring all the threads together at the end.”

  “You will be?”

  “Yes. … Okay, I’m sorry, Señor ____. You look angry. I guess I shouldn’t have snooped. But you shouldn’t have left the manuscript lying about for anyone to read if you’re so sensitive about it. Sensitivity is the first thing to get rid of in this game.”

  “Yes. A pity.”

  “Look. Mea fucking culpa. I didn’t realize—”

  “I think you probably did, Miss O’Brien. At any rate, I can hardly be expected to risk it. Not after all these years of caution.”

  “Risk what? And will you please stop looking at me as if I have just defecated on the altar?”

  “The difficult part is that in our short time together, I’ve grown quite fond of you. Of course, that was part of the plan, wasn’t it?”

  “Plan? You’re not making any sense. … Unless …”

  “Yes, Miss O’Brien? Unless what?”

  “Unless these really are memoirs. Unless you really were an SS man and people like Wiesenthal actually are searching for you.”

  “Excellent, Miss O’Brien. Hollywood’s loss is my gain.”

  “And you think I’m some kind of Nazi hunter?”

  “Journalist is bad enough, Miss O’Brien.”

  “But this is absurd. I’m only a small-time journalist and would-be novelist. I could give a shit about your past. Especially if you fought against the bloody British.”

  “Yes. But then you’d say that in any case, now.”

  “Meeting you was the purest accident.”

  “There are no accidents in my world, Miss O’Brien.”

  “Okay. I came here under false pretenses. I already admitted that on the boat today. I wanted to meet you. But not because I thought you might be an ex-Nazi on the run. Christ, that was donkeys’ years ago, anyway. The truth is I was looking for a protagonist for my novel. The main character.”

  “I’m well aware of what a protagonist is, Miss O’Brien.”

  “And you seemed to fit the bill perfectly, from what the locals have to say about you. Seasoned sailor, mysterious man of the world, displaced European in the New World. I had no idea of what you were really like when I came here on Sunday, only these stories I had heard about you in the village.”

  “Such as?”

  “They made you sound like an adventurer. Señor Alvarado at the hotel and Hernando at the café. They described you as someone willing to take chances in life. I need a character like that in my novel. It’s exactly the missing ingredient that I’ve been looking for. You would be the narrator, the lens through which the light of the action passes.”

  “It sounds all very fanciful, Miss O’Brien. Maybe you have some of this novel to show me? After all, I seem to have shared mine with you.”

  “It’s in my head still. I won’t start writing until I get back to New York. I’ll send you a first draft. You’ll like it, I’m sure.”

  “Look, Señor ____, I am truly sorry I snooped. I wanted to learn more about you, to be able to fill you out on paper. I really do not care abo
ut your past.”

  “Yes. I should like to believe you, but I am sure you understand that I must do something about all this. I need time to reflect on the possible ramifications.”

  “Take all the time you need. You know where I’m staying.”

  “Yes. Quite. The guest room should do for now.”

  “Look—”

  “No, Miss O’Brien, you look. You have put me in a most awkward situation. Most awkward, indeed. You wormed your way in here under self-admitted false pretenses. I cannot say that I was unaware of the possibility of you being not quite what you said. But that does not alter the fact that you made certain pretenses. You set about building a rapport with me, simply to use me—”

  “I honestly like you.”

  “And then you commence to poke about in my confidential papers. You have put me in jeopardy as a result of your own conniving. You have endangered the life I lead here, my very physical existence. You have lied repeatedly and now, cornered, you expect me to believe more of what could be lies. No, Miss O’Brien, I sincerely believe it is time for you to open your eyes. What would you do with me if the situation were reversed?”

  “But it isn’t. It couldn’t be.”

  “Let’s be hypothetical, Miss O’Brien. Let’s say you’re an international terrorist. A member of the IRA, even? Say you had done your duty as you saw fit and as you were commanded to do. Then you were forced to run, to change your identity, to hide for years cut off from the land and people you love and fought for. And after all those sacrifices, I, a humble ship’s captain with a dubious past, stumble onto your secret identity. You catch me, in point of fact, going through your diary, reading of your former exploits. You do not know me well, but I have been friendly, engaging even. Yet my stories do not ring quite true. I am hiding a piece of me. And this hidden piece could spell your doom. Your fate would rest in my hands unless you took some sort of action to ensure that I would not tell others of your secret life. Do you see what I mean? How all this complicates matters? For, even if you are what you purport to be, even if my Nazi past is more a plus than a minus for a person from Ireland, still … even if you are sympathetic, what guarantee have I that you would not speak or write of me at the wrong time and place? That you would not unwittingly give me away? Yes. I see you finally understand. The world is a very serious place, Miss O’Brien. Not a playground, after all. I am not here simply as story material for you to harvest.”

  “But I wouldn’t—”

  “Please, Miss O’Brien. You propose the most facile of arguments. ‘You wouldn’t say a word.’ But this is a time for higher analysis. Promises have no power with me. It is certainties that I am after. And I am afraid that you have none to give me. I can’t think clearly now. I don’t want to do the wrong thing … to act too rashly.”

  “You’re beginning to frighten me, Señor ____. And that’s not wise, either. I want to cooperate with you. I agree that this is largely my fault. I want to convince you that you have nothing to fear from me. But this talk is beginning to scare me shitless. I mean, it sounds—”

  “You are right, Miss O’Brien. All this is most unorthodox. And it must be scaring you. Cooler heads will prevail in the morning. But for now, I must insist that you be my guest.”

  “It doesn’t sound like an invitation to me.”

  “You may choose to hear it as you like. I do require you to remain here where I can guarantee that you will be incommunicado. Until I—we—decide how to proceed. Agreed?”

  “Have I any choice? It’s either that, or a wrestling match with you.”

  “Nothing so barbaric, I assure you.”

  “Do you always carry a weapon?”

  “Always, Miss O’Brien. Old habits die hard. May I show you to your room?”

  PART II

  Wednesday.

  I cannot bring myself to deal with the Irish yet. I sit at my trestle table watching the jungle outside my windows, but I feel cut off from it. It is merely a surrealist painting. This disconnected feeling has not overcome me for several decades, and of course it is Miss O’Brien’s doing. Why did she have to enter my serenity and destroy it with her snooping? Why did she have to spread her chaos into my well-ordered existence. My white-stucco home with its red-tile roof no longer feels like a fortress; the refectory table and priceless ladder-back chairs in the dining room no longer look as substantial as they once did. The two leather armchairs in front of my huge stucco fireplace no longer seem snug.

  I have just returned from leaving food inside the door to the guest room on the second floor, and barely escaped with my life, for the Irish was waiting for me behind the door with a priceless copy of the Bible in her hands, which I leave in that room for the contemplative. To use such a sacred book as a weapon! The woman is insane. She would have struck me with it, too, if I had not instinctively sensed the danger and drawn back just as the book swept by my face. Miss O’Brien, thrown off balance by the force of the intended blow, tottered drunkenly past me, the Bible still gripped maniacally in her hands. I was able to wrestle it out of her clutches—no telling what she would have done with the lovely old thing—and shut the door against the tattoo that her fists beat on the wood as I left.

  Clearly, I must find an alternate form of accommodation for her: She is much too loud and violent to be held in a conventional room. Fortunately, there are heavy metal shutters outside her windows, which I closed last night, locking them from the outside. The door to the room is a massive construction of oak planks held together by wrought-iron flanges. She is secure enough for the time being, but over the long haul?

  I am not up to further confrontations; I have no plan for Miss O’Brien. I only know I would like to work this morning. Lord knows I slept little last night with my new guest howling only doors away. Most of the night I spent recording the events of the day and then, unaccountably, I began to think of Miranda. My memories skip and jump like a needle on a well-worn record album.

  Through work, perhaps I can find my connectedness once again. The solution to the “Irish problem” will surely come to me. Now for some writing.

  The first years here were, of course, the most difficult. A young man, I had biological needs to fill. But I could hardly be expected to take a native woman to my bed, nor could I risk a long relationship with any of the locals of so-called European stock. Instead, I paid monthly visits to C____, the provincial capital, and to one particular establishment there. A very proper and upright place it is, as well. The madam, Señora Flores, has none of the lasciviousness usually associated with the trade. She is very male in this regard: She runs a business, and matters are conducted in a businesslike manner. She will, in fact, interview prospective clients upon their first visit. Quite civilized: sherry and a cigar served in her downstairs study.

  There is none of the silliness of half-clad women disporting themselves under potted palms for Señora Flores. She determines, after going through her list of detailed questions with the prospective customer, which of the girls will suit the prospective client best.

  Señora Flores’s establishment makes one feel at home. It is not as if one has come to her house to perform some outlandish act—for sexual gymnastics there are other houses, most particularly the infamous Pigalle. Cordoba has the quaint habit of referring to that brothel as Pig Alley.

  For thirty years, I frequented Señora Flores’s business, perhaps once a month on average. Such visits would be only part of my regular trips to C____ to pick up supplies both for the Clan and for the house. In other words, these visits were always kept part of the quotidian, for sex is something I have always tried to maintain in its proper place, not allowing it to intrude into one’s outer, professional life. Even on my honeymoon, I resisted the temptation to interject it into the range of our normal daytime activities. Sex is a chaotic force: Women live by such chaos, while a man’s one impulse, instinct, is toward order. Man and woman are of t
wo different worlds. We rightly have two separate spheres. There should be no talk of sharing these spheres, or of bridging the gap with communication, absurd psychological insights, or even with quasi-scientific self-examination. Chaos and order: These do not compromise with each other. They simply stay separate.

  Well, for thirty years, I was able to delegate my sexual appetites to a succession of young women. (It is surprising, or perhaps not surprising depending on one’s level of cynicism in this regard, how many of these girls later turned up as wives to some of the wealthiest industrialists and most powerful militarists in C____.) My couplings, far from merely businesslike, were also a far cry from amatory. They were physical and pleasant enough, in fact. Often even quite erotic. This erotic element was enhanced in no little part by the transitory nature of such relationships. In all those years, I never saw one girl more than four times. This resulted not only from Señora Flores’s constant turnover of girls, but also because of my own curiosity and self-defense mechanisms. I did not want involvement: I wanted and received ultimate variety.

  Then, one Saturday night, I went to Señora Flores only to find her house full of freshly scrubbed and slightly intoxicated rustics: a conference of coffee growers had taken over the entire town for the weekend. I would not have bothered coming into town that weekend had I known of the conference, but once there I was damned if I would let an invasion of hicks throw me off my schedule.

  My regular, Rosa—that is, the woman I had seen twice before—was occupied. This knowledge did little to fuel my passion. One has no illusions about such women, of course; neither does one want to look eye to eye with the fellow who has just spread his semen in one’s sometimes sexual partner.

  I sat for a time in the parlor, quite alone, I thought, and feeling like a man grown too old for such foolishness. I was about to take my leave when I suddenly noticed that sitting there all the while was a very young, very slight woman. I had not noticed her before, as she had been sitting motionless in a chair stuck into the deepest recess of the room as if not wanting to draw attention to herself.