John Masters (36 page)

"Mr. Torrenti used to play safe," he said. "Just import the tobacco in bulk from America, and sell it to the shippers—"

"You mean the actual smugglers?" she said, smiling. "They're not smugglers when they buy the tobacco," he said with a little heat. "Just merchants. The Spanish can
j
call them smugglers if they catch them taking the tobacco into Spain.... Well, you'd think Mr. Torrenti was making enough money with that and his cigar factory, but no, he i wants to send his sons to Don and have the Governor ; invite him to tea, so he's going into the shipping end as ! well. He'll be richer than the Jews soon."

He paused in the act of pulling on one sock. "You know what some of the young fellows are going to do this Easter Saturday? ... throw a dummy with a top hat over the wall into the synagogue. Only it will be on fire, see. A good joke."

"Don't people get hurt?" she asked.

"Sometimes. A Jew girl got burned a bit last year.... How about a little champagne, eh? Put it back in so it can come out again!" He gave her a nudge in the ribs.

She called, "Juana—a half of champagne."

Carlos Firpo was dressed now. He fumbled in his pocket and gave her a small box of cigars. "Brought them out for you," he said.

Juana opened the champagne and poured expertly and disappeared. Firpo sat back, glass in hand. "Did you know the prince and princess are visiting Gibraltar? In March. There's going to be a dog show. I'm going to enter my fox terrier, Fido. He won't win the first prize, but as long as he does better than Mr. Torrenti's, that's all I ask."

"It will be a great honor for Gibraltar," she said. "The prince and princess visiting."

Carlos Firpo shook his head. "Perhaps. But you know what I think"—he lowered his voice—"England's finished. Look at the Boer War. Couldn't beat a few Dutchmen. Every country in Europe hating her. If you ask me, we should get someone else to take over Gibraltar."

"Spain?" she asked.

"Mother of God, no! We're not Spaniards."

"A great many erf your mothers are," she said.

"No, no. What we want is someone like Germany. They'd take it like a shot. Father O'Callaghan says it's the Freemasons and the Jews behind it all."

"Behind what, Senor Firpo?"

"The Boer War and England going downhill. My wife's sister's walking out with an English private, a fellow called Tamlyn. When it began we were all congratulating ourselves, because although he's only a private, he's
English
and would take her to England. Now we don't know." He drained his glass and pulled out his watch. "Time to go, or the wife will be wondering where I've got to."

Juana said, "He doesn't speak any Spanish. He just says, 'Dolores' and holds out money."

"Enough?"

"More than your lowest, much less than your highest. I think he is a soldier." She squared her shoulders and indicated a short haircut.

"Is he drunk?" Dolores asked. "Alone? Show him in then."

He was a tall man, nearly thirty, with a long, sad, bony face, dull red hair, and big, horny hands. He stood, awkward but determined, in a cheap brown suit and huge ammunition boots, in the center of her little reception parlor.

"You speak English?" he said. His voice was deep and accented, but she did not know enough about England to be able to place him.

"Yes," she said. "My mother taught me. You are a soldier, aren't you?"

"Private Richard Tamlyn, Royal Berkshire Regiment," he said.

"How did you get this money? It is a lot for a simple soldier."

"Stole a dog," he said. "There's to be a dog show, and a Spanish dockyard workman gave me ten pounds for it. The prince and princess are going to give the prizes for that show, did 'ee know, miss?"

"Perhaps they'll give all you soldiers extra pay in honor of their visit."

"Nay, miss, they'll never do that. Just extra parades, drill, and such. We did three hours today."

"Goodness, and the visit nearly two months away still. You must get bored with it."

His pale, distant blue eyes looked down into hers. "Tis better than sitting in the barrack room staring at the wall," he said. "Hours on end. Aye, soldiers go mad here. No one wants us. No one speaks to us. 'Cept to take our pay on Fridays. I hate 'em."

"The Rock scorpions?" she said.

"Aye, that's what they are.... I got one of them into trouble, she says."

He sounded almost pleased. What a life it must be on that gaunt rock for such as these, she thought. He spoke as though he had got the girl "into trouble" not out of love but out of boredom, almost as an act of revenge.

"Before I stole the dog I got drunk, thinking of you. What I heard about you, miss. The colonel gave me fourteen days C. B. and said he'd a good mind not to let me go on the parade for Their Royal Highnesses."

"And you would have minded that?" she said, fascinated.

"Aye, miss. I'm the flank man of Number Three Double Company."

"Oh ... Do you find people unpleasant to you because of the Boer War?"

"All the Niggers and Frogs and Wops are yapping, miss. The colonel says the whole lot of 'em's not worth a pint of 49th piss ... begging your pardon, miss."

"49th?"

"That's us. The 49th Foot. The Royal Berkshire Regiment, miss, though I'm from Yorksheer, myself."

She was feeling a little dazed, so she held out a hand. "Come."

He took her firmly and manfully. If any of her clients could arouse her, she thought, he might, when they came to know each other better. And he, to her surprise, rapidly passed from a stolid lust to an almost poetic rapture of passion.

He had hard, strong muscles and the outdoorsman's sharp color lines at neck and wrists, brown on one side, white on the other. He had reddish hair, a man's good phallus, and a bullet scar in his right shoulder.

Long after he had spent his strength in her he kissed her breast and lay on his back and said, "I wor a shepherd when I wor a boy. On the dales, by Haworth. Sometimes, when I'd been alone a long time, and it wor cold, and a full moon, and all the sheep around me, I'd feel I knew what we wor all doing here on earth.... It's the same now, miss. You'll not go away from La Linea?"

"No."

"Then I'll not go away from Gibraltar. Not as long as I live."

George Torrenti, Esquire, was in his mid-forties: rather short, plump, swarthy, big nose, of a very Italian appearance except for the flowing silky moustache, which might have been borrowed from a caricature of a British Guards officer.

He was nervy, jumpy, fiddling with his glass of whisky (never touched anything else). He always was, through the half hour it took him to shed the layers of convention and shame separating him from what he really wanted.

"I thought my Baron would win the dog show," he was saying, "until some swine stole him. A soldier, I'll swear. Those animals will do anything.... But the dog show's a minor matter, really, even though the princess will be giving the prizes in person. The really important thing is the dinner party at the Convent By the time you have counted the two admirals, the general, the brigadier, Lord Howard Kingsley, the Colonial Secretary, the artillery brigadier, the judge, the priest, the chairman of the city council, and their wives ... there are only four places left. Two couples!" His prominent eyes bulged, and he had begun to sweat "One must be Haroldson, the lawyer. The other must be either me or Joseph Aboab."

"Oh, surely they would give you precedence over a Jew," she said gravely.

"Of course, they
should!"
he said vehemently. "But King Edward loves Jews. Father O'Callaghan says they're strong in the Freemasons, and you know the prince is a Mason."

He drank some whisky and eyed her obliquely, licking his lips. He was uncomfortable on her chair, but she knew it would pass. "Aboab’s been made an honorary whip of the Calpe Hunt," he went on. "How can I compete with that? I had riding. And then yesterday I shot a bird, and it turned out to be a Barbary partridge female, which was out of season. And the Governor’s a keen ornithologist. . . . What can I
do?"

"Make a big contribution to some fund the Governor is interested in," she said. "Money is very persuasive."

"I’ll think about it," he said. "But I have very heavy expenses just now. I’m fitting out three fast new trading steamers."

"Surely the syndicate must have borne a share of that?" she said.

"What do you know of the syndicate?" he said, suddenly suspicious. "Well, it is not really very secret, is it? Old Bawltrum’s the official owner of the ships, but he’s only a dummy. The syndicate really owns them—myself and three Spanish gentlemen."

"Spaniards?" she said. "Engaged in smuggling from Gibraltar?"

He laughed without humor. He got up and began to pace the floor. It was getting close now. "Lord Howard Kingsley’s in charge of the invitations to the dinner. He’d give his eyes to be made comptroller of the Royal Household in London. Looks the other way while the admiral here sleeps with his wife. If King Edward wanted her, good God, he’d guide the royal cock in himself. But how can I help him to became comptroller?"

"I don’t know," she said.

"Nor do I. But he’s taken to greeting me very cordially in the street. I think he’s going to ask me for something. I wish I knew what."

His eyes were glazed, and he stopped pacing. He suddenly undid his fly.

She got up. "Disgusting man," she said and slapped him on the cheek. "For that you must be punished. Go into the bedroom, sir!" She pointed imperiously.

He hurried through. She followed, and while he undressed, she selected a few canes. Juana was tying him expertly, head to knee, in the middle of the floor. "Kiss my boot," Dolores said, thrusting it into his face. She took a cane, stepped away, and gave him a swishing blow on the buttocks as hard as she could. "Disgusting," she cried. "Kiss Juana's stinking foot. Lick her shoes." Swish! Swish! The red weals leaped up across his buttocks. "No, no!" he cried. "Enough. Let me up!"

Swish! Swish! She wondered how he kept his wife from seeing the marks. Swish! They had probably never seen each other undressed.

"Oh, oh! Mercy!"

The cane whistled more fiercely.

The next visitor would not arrive for half an hour. Dolores put her feet up on the couch and rested—the whipping always tired her, though Torrenti was in many ways so despicable that she rather enjoyed it. When Juana signaled that the next client had arrived, she undressed and put on a man's suit. Then she lit a cigar, stuffed her hair under a bandanna, and waited, legs crossed, puffing nonchalantly.

Lieutenant Colonel Lord Howard Kingsley, Grenadier Guards, was tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped. His fair hair was wavy and touched with gray, he had level gray eyes, a square jaw, slightly cleft, and an easy, effortless grace of movement. The first time he visited her she saw what he really wanted and sent for a beautiful young public pederast; but the Oscar Wilde scandal had bitten too deep into his world, and she soon realized that he dared not admit to himself, let alone to anyone else, the true nature of his need. So he came to her to prove that he was the same as other men; and she did her best.

They went into the bedroom and he undressed at once. In one respect he was not at all like most men: he was endowed with enormous sexual equipment; more like a horse's than a man's, she had thought, almost quailing, the first time she saw it. She had no fear now, for it would never serve her, or any other woman. She used her wiles, as always. As always, nothing happened.

"I'm afraid it's no use, m'dear," he said. "I'm a little tired. Been overdoing it on the tennis court a bit."

He rolled languidly over on the bed and closed his eyes. She slipped out of her trousers, strapped on a large dildo, and climbed up onto the bed behind him. He began to quiver....

When it was done, she retired, washed, and dressed as a high-class courtesan—expensively but a little garishly.

He wandered in a few minutes later, drank manzanilla, and talked of his brother, the Duke of Devizes; of his master, the Governor of Gibraltar; of his friend, the Count of Grazalema. "Do you know him?" he asked.

"I've seen him," Dolores said.

"A really delightful man," Lord Howard said. "His daughter's staying with us now, as a matter of fact. She and my own daughter are thick as thieves—both mad on horses—tireless—spend the nights dancing with the young officers and the days galloping all over Andalusia exercising their horses."

"The young ladies ride out unaccompanied?" she asked.

"Oh no. Pablo Larios lends them a stable lad as groom.... You know, the count's very fond of England. Between you and me, he's hoping to become the next ambassador to London. All he has to do is manage a little affair to King Alfonso's satisfaction, and it will be arranged. There's a damnable amount of smuggling goes on out of Gibraltar into Spain, y'know. A lot of these Gibraltar tradespeople are up to their necks in it. Well, King Alfonso's asked Grazalema to do something about it—in a way to help England, y'see, because it'll stop the anti-British complaints to his government. The count doesn't have any official position, of course, but he's the largest landowner round here—"

"He can ride thirty miles in a straight line without leaving his land," she said.

"Just so. Well, in a way it's better for him not to be in an official position because so many of them are in it, too." He rubbed thumb and forefinger of his right hand together. "Rotten with corruption, Spain is, y'know. Oh, by the by, there's a little present for Juana." He gave her a parcel he had brought. "Five yards of Harris tweed. I had to slip the customs chap twenty pesetas not to see that.... Did you know our prince and princess are going to visit us?"

"I had heard something."

"M'dear, you should see the intrigue that's going on among the tradespeople to get invited to the big dinner. There's a Jew who's pouring money into the hunt. Torrenti's frantic. So frantic that I
think
I can get him to cut off his own nose for us."

"Cut off his nose?"

He laughed. "Only metaphorically."