Topaz - Leon Uris [57]
A slight smile crossed the baby face of Muñoz.
“And when you get him there,” Parra continued, “save him for me. I have an account to settle.”
29
ANDRÉ KNOTTED HIS ROBE, PERCHED on the rail, and gazed toward the sea consumed by the terrible feeling that he would never see Juanita de Córdoba again. His fear for her life took his thoughts away from his own thorny problem of getting out of Cuba in the morning. He was not certain he would leave the country alive. Desperate men were obviously making plans for him. But he was more frightened about leaving her behind. This then was to be the final reward but one does not whimper about the cruelty of it all. You win ... you lose. The game goes on. The angel of death circles overhead.
Juanita came to the veranda in a hostess gown looking particularly stunning. He was always amazed at this soft woman who never gave up being a woman in the company of cutthroats. She poured their cognacs with her particular grace and they hemmed in and contained the flooding desperation to cling to each other and weep.
“Well, here’s to your next trip,” Juanita said. “When do you suppose that will be?”
“It’s difficult to say.”
“Difficult to say when, or just difficult to say?”
“You’re the one woman who doesn’t play games. You know that I’ll never get back into Cuba.”
“Yes ... I know....”
She fitted into his free arm in a way that blended them. A way of saying, look how we belong, you and I. And she said, “We’ve had so many wonderful nights here. How nice it is when you make a woman believe that you and she are the only two people who can sleep together in a single bed with room to spare. I think of all the wonderful things you taught me and you brought out of me. Thank you.”
“Juanita ... I won’t accept this finality.”
“May I break our pact? About wives and sentiment? You are not going away without knowing that I’ve loved you completely. When we started this work I would have waited for you forever or taken scraps without complaint or condition. But ... if I had loved you so obviously there would have been suspicion cast on us. And if I had declared myself to you I was a bit wary that you, as a man, would have been too proud to consent to what I could impose without your permission. I took up company,” she said shakily, “with other men in order to protect what we were doing. I did it to keep suspicion away from us ... so that I could go on seeing you. But there was never a moment I didn’t long for you....”
“... Juanita ...”
“It was no sacrifice. It’s only a part of the way I love you. André ... no man, not even my husband, has given me what you have.”
Juanita’s eyes were glassy from the ordeal of her words. She kissed the fingers that touched her cheeks and traced the lines of his neck.
“I love you that way too and I don’t intend to give you up. Now listen ... the minute I arrive in Miami I’m setting up plans to send a boat for you. Alain Adam will know the time and place.”
She put her finger to his lips to stop him and she shook her head. “Don’t you understand that I can never leave Cuba?”
“I saw the destruction of my own country but I left France in order to fight for her. You have to do the same thing now. You are more valuable to the cause outside Cuba.”
“I will make that decision....”
“What about your sons?”
“André ... don’t ask me anymore.”
“Yes, I will, and you’re going to promise me.”
“I will promise you that I will believe in you and love you. If God wills it, then perhaps there is a life for us, together ... but don’t dream.”
“I want to know your reasons.”
She shook her head. “My dear ... please don’t sound like G-2 on our last night together.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I suppose that all I really wanted for us was to have just one week alone. There are islands in the Caribbean where two people can be away, except to each other. You know them all.”
“I’ve only seen them,” he said. “Other people know them. Oh Lord ... I wish I could believe there was one for us ....