State.
Seeing his father drinking that night, Ariel was amazed to find he had a power of absorption greater than his own.
“It’s because he has a virgin organism,” said Doctor Peralta. “He’s not like us, who carry the ‘mother liquor’ about inside us and can never get rid of it.”
Next day, after purchasing from Brentano’s an exquisite edition of Sarmiento’s
Facundo
—which gave rise to some bitter thoughts about the dramatic fate of Latin American peoples, always engaged in a Manichaean struggle between civilisation and barbarism, between progress and dictatorship—the Head of State went on board the Dutch cargo ship which was to make a short call at Havana. And the sea was becoming less grey, and the broad yellow Caribbean moons were shining on a recurring baroque pattern of sargasso and flying fish.
“The air already smells different,” said the Head of State, absorbing a breeze laden with the unmistakable scent of mangroves.
Arrived in Havana, the Consul told them that, in spite of his present lack of light arms, Colonel Hoffmann was maintaining his defensive position, although the revolutionaries had made no futher progress. Everything was the sameas when the cable was sent to Paris. As the news was good and carnival was in progress, the Head of State watched the fancy-dress procession and masquerades, and threw paper streamers down on them from above. Then he hired a black domino and went to the Shoemakers’ Ball, where a mulatto girl dressed as a marquise of the period of Louis XV or XVI—in a red crinoline, with powdered hair, a beauty spot on her rouged cheek, a red-and-green fan, and a tortoiseshell lorgnette—taught him how to dance without dancing, all on one tile; to jig up and down, almost without moving, in smaller and smaller, slower circles, ending up in mutual immobility, breathing the perfume of satin so drenched with sweat that it was more like skin than skin itself—all this in a din of cornets, clarinets, and kettle drums, produced by Valenzuela and Corbacho’s orchestra. When the masqueraders began to disperse, the lights of the theatre to go out, tier by tier, the mulatto invited the Head of State to sleep with her in a room she had near the Arco de Belén, in a “modest but respectable house”—so she said—with a patio planted with pomegranates, basil, and ferns. They took a cab, drawn by a scraggy horse whose driver urged it forward—it was practically asleep—with a spur fastened to the end of a stick, and passed between tall sleeping houses smelling of dried beef, molasses, and the steam of roasting, blown this way and that, as they entered the orbit of the breeze from the port, the effluvium of brown sugar, hot furnaces and green coffee, within a widespread reek of stables, saddlers, and mildewed old walls still cool with night dew, saltpetre, and mosses.
“Watch while I sleep, my friend,” said the Head of State to me.
“Don’t worry, my friend, I’ve got the needful here,” I said, taking my Browning out of my breast pocket. And while the Head of State and the mulatto disappeared for I don’t know how long behind a blue door, I installed myself on a cowhidestool, with my weapon across my thighs. However, no one knew that my president was in the city. He had disembarked with a false passport, to avoid the news of his journey reaching the place where he wanted to arrive entirely unexpectedly.
The cocks crowed, the awnings were brought down, and in a few minutes the normal everyday noises increased; lorries and vans went by, with their crescendo and decrescendo of bells; blinds were pulled; shutters creaked; trays and buckets fell over: “Flooo-wers, flowers; brooo-brooms; lottery tickets; a lucky number?” Hawkers of fruit, avocados, and tamales cried their wares with a sound like Gregorian chant; others offered to exchange bottles for toffee apples, and the morning news was shouted by paper sellers: a Cuban airman, Rosillo, had beaten the
Seeing his father drinking that night, Ariel was amazed to find he had a power of absorption greater than his own.
“It’s because he has a virgin organism,” said Doctor Peralta. “He’s not like us, who carry the ‘mother liquor’ about inside us and can never get rid of it.”
Next day, after purchasing from Brentano’s an exquisite edition of Sarmiento’s
Facundo
—which gave rise to some bitter thoughts about the dramatic fate of Latin American peoples, always engaged in a Manichaean struggle between civilisation and barbarism, between progress and dictatorship—the Head of State went on board the Dutch cargo ship which was to make a short call at Havana. And the sea was becoming less grey, and the broad yellow Caribbean moons were shining on a recurring baroque pattern of sargasso and flying fish.
“The air already smells different,” said the Head of State, absorbing a breeze laden with the unmistakable scent of mangroves.
Arrived in Havana, the Consul told them that, in spite of his present lack of light arms, Colonel Hoffmann was maintaining his defensive position, although the revolutionaries had made no futher progress. Everything was the sameas when the cable was sent to Paris. As the news was good and carnival was in progress, the Head of State watched the fancy-dress procession and masquerades, and threw paper streamers down on them from above. Then he hired a black domino and went to the Shoemakers’ Ball, where a mulatto girl dressed as a marquise of the period of Louis XV or XVI—in a red crinoline, with powdered hair, a beauty spot on her rouged cheek, a red-and-green fan, and a tortoiseshell lorgnette—taught him how to dance without dancing, all on one tile; to jig up and down, almost without moving, in smaller and smaller, slower circles, ending up in mutual immobility, breathing the perfume of satin so drenched with sweat that it was more like skin than skin itself—all this in a din of cornets, clarinets, and kettle drums, produced by Valenzuela and Corbacho’s orchestra. When the masqueraders began to disperse, the lights of the theatre to go out, tier by tier, the mulatto invited the Head of State to sleep with her in a room she had near the Arco de Belén, in a “modest but respectable house”—so she said—with a patio planted with pomegranates, basil, and ferns. They took a cab, drawn by a scraggy horse whose driver urged it forward—it was practically asleep—with a spur fastened to the end of a stick, and passed between tall sleeping houses smelling of dried beef, molasses, and the steam of roasting, blown this way and that, as they entered the orbit of the breeze from the port, the effluvium of brown sugar, hot furnaces and green coffee, within a widespread reek of stables, saddlers, and mildewed old walls still cool with night dew, saltpetre, and mosses.
“Watch while I sleep, my friend,” said the Head of State to me.
“Don’t worry, my friend, I’ve got the needful here,” I said, taking my Browning out of my breast pocket. And while the Head of State and the mulatto disappeared for I don’t know how long behind a blue door, I installed myself on a cowhidestool, with my weapon across my thighs. However, no one knew that my president was in the city. He had disembarked with a false passport, to avoid the news of his journey reaching the place where he wanted to arrive entirely unexpectedly.
The cocks crowed, the awnings were brought down, and in a few minutes the normal everyday noises increased; lorries and vans went by, with their crescendo and decrescendo of bells; blinds were pulled; shutters creaked; trays and buckets fell over: “Flooo-wers, flowers; brooo-brooms; lottery tickets; a lucky number?” Hawkers of fruit, avocados, and tamales cried their wares with a sound like Gregorian chant; others offered to exchange bottles for toffee apples, and the morning news was shouted by paper sellers: a Cuban airman, Rosillo, had beaten the
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