Chimera's Waltz

By Bibi Brock Davis

ROYAL HARLEY IS DRIVEN TO SEEK ABSOLUTION for the evil he has committed, and approval from his dead father whom he never could please. He marries deplorably innocent young Tilda Ullmann and soon she understands the terrible mistake she has made. Royal, all charm and magnetism, is also an abuser. He finds he is unable to make a union with his bride because in his skewed mind she is saintly, unlike other women whom he sees as craven. It is at the turn of the last century when America went to war with Spain. To achieve his goal, Royal volunteers to join Teddy Roosevelt and his band of cowboys and playboys in Cuba, but finds himself instead serving in the Philippine Islands. Tilda joins him there and incites Royals fury when she meets young Lieutenant Evan Winslow who soon declares his love for her. Royal doggedly pursues his quest to find redemption by some deed of valor, which ultimately takes him deep into the untamed Cordelliera jungle of Luzon where his hideous act of betrayal finally forces him to face himself and see what is there. Tilda comes to believe that she has found a way out of her entrapment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462004607

Bibi Brock Davis

BIBI BROCK DAVIS is a third-generation Californian, born in Los Angeles. She is a journalist who for the last eleven years has been writing for a magazine of Architecture and Design, “California Homes.” In September of 2009, four of her short stories were dramatized on the stage in Beverly Hills. Currently, she has just finished editing an autobiography for an industrialist and is now editing another and has started a new novel. She is married, with two grown sons and lives in Laguna Niguel, California, in a house where she can write looking out over the Pacific Ocean.

Book preview

Chimera’s Waltz

a novel by

Bibi Brock Davis

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

Chimera’s Waltz

Copyright © 2011 by Bibi Brock Davis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-0459-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-0460-7 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 4/20/2011

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

EPILOGUE

FACT AND FICTION IN THE WRITING OF CHIMERA’S WALTZ

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

"What a chimera, then is man! What a novelty,

what a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction,

what a prodigy! Judge of all things, helpless

earthworm, depository of truth, a sink of uncertainty

and error. Glory and scum of the universe."

Blaise Pascal

French philosopher (1623-1662)

Chimera, Ki-meer’a, 1. A monster in

Greek Mythology that could appear

and disappear at will. 2. A wild and

implausible idea.

To Matilda Hadley Brock who lived it.

BOOK I

PROLOGUE

BARCELONA, SPAIN -February, 1898

American pianist Royal Harley shivered and warmed his fingers at the meager fire of a coal stove in the vast, cluttered labyrinth backstage of a concert hall. A cold rain fell outside and the chill of it along with the faint odor of mold pervaded the cavernous space within. Only two performers remained backstage. As Royal hovered over the fire and waited to go on, he cast covert glances at the featured artist, a Spanish violinist of wide renown, last on the program. The great man stood alone, his open green plush-lined case containing his instrument on a high stand beside him, his features deep in concentration causing him to frown under his pince-nez while he tapped his fingers lightly against his boiled shirt. Royal decided the Spaniard could possibly be of use to him, perhaps even become a sponsor if approached just right. Seizing the opportunity while a cellist on stage still played a concerto, he tugged down his vest and approached the older man.

"Perdóneme, Don Enríco" he addressed the man in Spanish. My name is Royal Harley. I wish to tell you that I am a great admirer. I’ve listened to your recordings on the gramophone and once went to a concert in Paris. It’s an honor for me to appear on the program with you.

The Spaniard stared at him without speaking and Royal wondered if his American accented Spanish made his words unclear.

The violinist turned and stalked over to the stage manager. "Señor Baldes, the virtuoso said in a loud voice with aristocratic inflection, please tell this idiot American that only a barbarian would approach an artist preparing himself for an appearance. Request that he desist from his ridiculous, sophomoric attentions. This is yet another case of an uncivil people intruding where they don’t belong."

The stagehands stared in fascination at the imbroglio. Royal reeled with mortification and groped blindly behind him for the curtains, as if he wished to be swallowed in their folds. Anger rose like a gorge in his throat. His temper, the fiery specter that always hovered, gathered itself to crush him to nothingness. He needed time to regain his equilibrium, refocus on his performance. But he was helpless. A red mantle of fury flowed over his eyes as though someone had placed tinted gels in front of the gaslights. He wanted to smash the face of the arrogant violinist. He spread his fingers, then closed them in a fist, almost feeling the snap of the violinist’s bulbous nose as bone and cartilage broke under soft flesh.

The cellist onstage played the last bars of his concerto and stood to receive his applause. The stage manager gestured for Royal to take his place among the dusty velvet hangings in the wings. Royal found himself unable to concentrate with the turmoil in his brain. He could not perform now. The fragile shell of his temper was punctured and he could scarcely see in the scarlet haze that enveloped him. It had happened before in Seville when the noble Señorita Tancia spurned him just before a recital and he barely managed to perform, resulting in virulent reviews in the journals. To maintain a standing as a concert pianist, he needed time to recover now. His lips moved, reciting a litany that sometimes calmed him. Royal is good. This person is not worthy of my anger. I am not naughty and lazy. Papa loves me.

But this time it was to no avail. The cellist was coming offstage. Royal opened his mouth to explain to the managing director that he could not go on, but his tongue felt thick and his speech incoherent. The man shushed him and propelled him roughly to the wings. Applause for the cellist died down, and the hall became quiet again. Now the audience made fidgety noises, coughed, rattled programs, whispered and shuffled feet. An assistant made frantic gestures for him to go on stage. The angry director himself came over and shoved Royal out beyond the curtains. He walked slowly, like a somnambulist in a nightmare, across the expanse to the great piano. A polite scattering of applause startled him and he looked out to the audience to see only rows of white masks floating in a sea of blood.

The piano seemed crouched, ready to spring at him with bared teeth. He sat, poised his trembling hands over the keys and began to play. Hot perspiration ran down from his pale, high forehead. His fingers were like India rubber and could not reach the octaves. The sound came out wrong—discordant music, as from a far-away circus of lunatics.

Then new sounds. Dazed, he looked out at the audience and saw angry faces. Jeers and hisses came at him like barbs, the white masks now with knotted brows and stretched, gaping mouths. His hands dropped away from the keyboard and fell upon his knees. He rose and walked with stiff, awkward steps to the wings, not stopping there but going on through the maze of ropes, past the stage hands, picking up speed, through the disembodied voices that spoke to him, hands that clutched at him, distorted faces that leered and seemed to laugh crazily at him, until he reached the outside door which he flung open and drew in great gulps of moist air.

A heavy rain fell now as he ran, careening through the streets of embedded stone in a clumsy, stumbling gait, grabbing at lampposts, his dress suit drenched. When he reached his lodgings, he threw himself against the scrabbled stone of the outside wall, heaving for breath. He tried to gather his wits before he faced the proprietario in the lobby. The rain let up for a moment and the churning purple-black clouds above seemed to form the angry face of God. Was there actually a God up there who had kept careful count of his past misdeeds to make sure that he paid in full for each? For sure his dead father kept watch on him from some lofty or nether region, scowling under his bush brows and stroking his side-whiskers.

He mumbled aloud, So, Papa, just as you said I would, I failed at this too.

He leaned against the wall, still wheezing from the unaccustomed effort. Raindrops ran down in rivulets into his collar. Finally his breath slowed and his head felt clearer. He pulled himself together and lurched forward to heave open the heavy outer doors of the lodging house. In the vestibule he stopped before opening the inner glass doors because of a commotion inside.

A dark, balding Spaniard of mid-years with a white waiter’s apron wrapped around his middle waved his fists and screamed at the proprietario, his face explosive red, spittle flying from his mouth. Royal recognized the man as the owner of a small cafe where he sometimes took his meals. The little redhead’s father! Through the glass doors the man’s frenzied rage, along with a thick dialect, rendered him quite unintelligible. Royal knew, however, why the man was here. When he had enticed the usually compliant girl to his quarters with an expensive bauble, she had refused his more unusual requests. He had left some ugly marks on her and thought he saw some teeth missing before blood poured from her lip. Now he withdrew and went around to the servants’ entrance.

His heavy, wet clothes seemed to hold him down as he dragged himself up the back stairs. His rooms were dank and chilled, lit only by the glow from the street-lamp outside that threw a silvery light, pock-marked by raindrops, against the walls. Who said, `Troubles come not single foe but in battalions’? He slumped into a chair and a deep, groaning sigh came from the depths of his soul, the first step to expunge himself of the events of this night.

The daily newspaper lay on the table where the criada had placed it when she came to clean in the mornings. Slowly a headline in large black letters registered on him. An American Navy ship, the Maine, had blown up in the harbor at Havana, Cuba. After all the failed diplomacy and wary circling, the United States and Spain would now certainly go to war over the plight of the Cubans. His grandfather and ancestors before him had been military men. Here, perhaps, was the destiny slated for him. It could be that his field of glory would be the battlefield, not the concert stage. Certainly his musical career was finished, at least in Spain. Even now the Policia could be coming for him due to the unfortunate incident with the girl. Actually he had a perfect reason to leave at this time; with a war in balance, Americans would not be popular in Spain. The violinist’s scathing words had shown him that. It was time to go home.

He brought out the gold watch given to him on his twenty-first birthday by his father, inscribed TRY HARDER. Half-past ten o’clock. A fast ship sailed for New York every Saturday at 1:00 A.M. He’d be in California in a few weeks.

Pulling his portmanteau from the closet, he shoved clothing and toilet articles into it. There was only time to pack a few things. The steamer trunk with most of his European clothing would have to be sent on the next ship. He glanced out the window and saw that the night sky looked clearer. The rain had stopped and a few stars shone. He felt lighter, the evening’s disaster fading away just as clouds fade after a storm.

CHAPTER 1

SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 1898

The moon made a bright, hot circle in the midnight sky and had a ring around it. The old-timers downtown who sat on a bench on Main Street nattering all day always said it meant earthquake weather. Up in her stuffy little room Tilda Ullmann gathered up her white cotton nightgown and climbed out a dormer window onto the peak of the roof directly over her parents’ bedroom. A skittering breeze teased the net curtains in the window so maybe it wouldn’t be so hot tomorrow. Whoever heard of such weather in March? her mother often said the last few days.

Tilda’s father never subscribed to the earthquake theory but said a moon with a ring around it was a Wisher’s Moon. The night was overly bright with it and Tilda imagined the stare of million little creatures’ eyes. Crouching on the peak, her winter-tender feet felt the shock of rough shingles. This portion of the roof could not be seen from the street because a high gable of the parlor hid it. At any rate, no one would be up at this hour to see what she was about to do.

The ridge of the peak now seemed much too narrow and her body went clammy with fear. For some reason this endeavor had seemed much easier when she was younger, not aware of the real danger. Now it was with regret that she undertook this ritual. At seventeen she was too old for superstitious nonsense.

But the ache of unfulfilled longings pushed itself to the surface. She tossed her heavy braid to the back and let go of the window frame. Raising her arms out to the sides, she put one bare foot out in front of the other to start across, looking straight ahead, not daring to glance down to where the steep, gabled roof fell away and the hard ground waited below. The flat row of shingles at the top made a little ledge, but some wobbled as she stepped gingerly, balancing with her arms, in excruciatingly slow progress across the rooftop. Time became dead space, endless, not to be counted but to be endured.

In the still night air the bell of the Fourth Street Trolley clanged as it made its last run at the end of the street. Looking down in spite of herself, Tilda’s heart lurched violently at the sight of the grass and lawn chairs far below. It wasn’t hard to imagine a broken body sprawled in a white pile in the grass like a sheet that has fallen off the clothesline.

At last, the cupola at the end of the gable was almost within reach. Tilda bent forward and inched along, reaching out, stretching until she at last clutched the structure and wrapped herself around it in gratitude.

Now what she had come to do must be done. She stood up slowly and forced herself to let go of the safety of the cupola. With her arms spread wide and her face turned up to the black sky and brilliant moon, she began her invocation.

Whoever it is that writes the pages of my book, she said, speaking clearly, but not so loud her voice would carry to her parents’ bedroom below, I am asking you to grant me a favor, that the man I desire will notice me, want me, and give me a life of wonders.

The night whispered and sighed and it seemed certain that her request had been received. She waited a moment, then added, Thank you, and reached down to grip the cupola again. Sick with dread for the return trip, Tilda turned herself around. In the bright moonlight her gown took on a ghostly whiteness. Panting now, working her way along the unstable shingles, her heart banged in her chest, rang in her ears. It seemed like a whole lifetime passed before the window came within reach. Crouching low and moving sideways with tiny steps, closer, closer, her fingers finally touched the solid frame of the window. In a moment she was inside and sank down on the floor, heaving ragged breaths so her heart could slow down to its normal pace. But it was done, a pagan rite to the holders of her destiny.

Sometimes one had to do something dangerous or spectacular to get the attention of those who write the story of your life. When her father read to her as a child, Tilda decided that each person had someone who writes the story of one’s life and decides whether good things or bad things will happen. Whether these entries were written under the eye of God was not clear.

Her mother said everything that happened was in the hands of God. They said that in church too, but Papa told her once when Mama wasn’t around (and before his thinking started to get so mixed up) that sometimes you had to make your own luck. And Tilda wondered, if God were watching everything, why did He let the little Farber boy wander in front of a runaway team pulling the ice wagon on Fruit Street last summer? Everyone stood frozen as the wagon clattered and roared down upon them, the horses wild-eyed, their heads thrown back, coats glistening with sweat as they thundered down the street...and no one noticed that the child had toddled out into the path of the onrushing team. When it crushed him under flying hooves and wagon wheels, God was up there, watching. How was it that God, who was spoken of as merciful and benevolent, could let this happen? It had to be that the boy’s story had already been written and on the spur of the moment, God couldn’t do anything about it.

In the last few years, the approach of womanhood had brought on a terrible unrest, like fingers pressed against the inside of her skin. Something breathy and wild was about to burst forth into her future and Tilda felt more than ready to receive it.

Royal Harley, the man who dominated her highest flights of fantasy, had again set foot upon the shores of her world. On next evening, for the first time since she had grown up, their paths would finally cross. Tomorrow must be an important day, not one that would pass and be forgotten like most days. It must point in the direction her life would take. She climbed back in bed, still trembling, but felt a sense of triumph that those who decide what her life would bring had turned over a new page and something momentous was going to happen.

Sophia Ullmann straightened up from her bake table and shielded her eyes from the morning sun shining in the window as Tilda came yawning into the kitchen, plaiting her hair into its usual thick braid. Her mother glanced at her briefly then turned to her work.

You look sleepy, Sophia said and Tilda started guiltily. You must have stayed awake half the night reading again.

Tilda said nothing as her mother threw the sifter back into the flour bin under the table, set the lard crock in the cooler, and then checked again the biscuits in the oven. Sophia dropped down heavily on a paint-chipped rocker with a sigh, wiped her hands on a towel tucked into her apron and contemplated her daughter. So, missy, what’s this I hear?

About what, Mama?

That Mrs. Harley’s son has come home from Spain. I had to learn the news from the milkman this morning. Says Mr. Royal’s been home for three days. Sophia leaned forward, looking over the tops of her glasses. If you’re such a good friend of his sister, how is it that Stella didn’t tell you he’s come home?

Tilda yawned again, and turned away to avoid her mother’s penetrating stare. She did tell Winnie and me, Mama, but we weren’t supposed to tell anyone because Mrs. Harley said Royal was exhausted and didn’t want to see anybody. Stella made us promise.

Hmmmm, Sophia said, casting her judgment on that. Gemma Owen told me over the fence this morning that she heard he was going to play in the Musicale this evening. Is that so?

Yes, Stella says he practices all the time.

I thought he was all tired out.

Well, I don’t know. I just know he’ll be playing for the Musicale.

Sophia touched the towel to her perspiring face. He’s been gone…um...four years?

Over five years, Mama.

"Five years. Wasn’t here for his father’s funeral. Sophia rocked a moment. I guess that was the finest death doings Santa Ana has ever seen."

Tilda remembered vividly the funeral of David Truax Harley three years earlier. It was by invitation only; the funeral parlor delivered little cards to the Harleys’ friends and business associates. Anyone who wanted to could go to the burying in the cemetery at the edge of town but Sophia Ullmann humphed and said that if they weren’t fancy enough to go to the funeral, they certainly weren’t going to stand around at the grave with all the fruit packers and ironmongers from the Harleys’ companies. Tilda and her younger brother, Samuel slipped away on the pretense of going to the library reading room in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, but instead they stood on a corner and watched the cortege of carriages down Main Street. Businesses in town closed for the day, flags flew at half-mast and all churches tolled their bells in mournful tribute at the conclusion of the services. Prancing black horses fitted out with black feather plumes pulled the hearse, and it took three extra wagons to transport all the flowers. Everyone said what a shame his son was not there.

Mr. Royal Harley slipped into town terrible quiet, Sophia mused, considering the big to-do when he left to learn more piano playing in Europe. Well, all that moneyed class have strange ways. She rocked a moment. Seems to me you could make a friend among good working people like us instead of with the rich folk over on Heliotrope Street.

Oh, Mama, Tilda sighed, aggrieved at the old complaint.

Well, missy, I was always taught to keep to my station in life, and you should too. Otherwise it’ll be heartbreak.

Tilda knelt down and handed her mother the ribbon to tie on the heavy braid at the nape of her neck. Don’t you want the best for me, Mama? Wouldn’t you like for me to have a good life, with a big house and fine clothes?

Do you think that would make you happy, Tilda?

Tilda considered. It might. That and a man to love me.

Now you’re saying true. A good man to love you is a fine thing. But at your age, there’s time enough for that. She sniffed the air. Oh, glory. I forgot me biscuits!

I have to go, Mama. I’m not hungry.

Tilda thought her mother looked exhausted, and felt ashamed for her haste to be out, away from the house. In a moment the rest of the family would be down; her older brother, George with his everlasting teasing, wanting to talk to Papa about Mr. William Randolph Hearst whose paper screamed headlines about the coming war with Spain, and George’s wife, Janine, irritable in her first pregnancy. Samuel, her dear ruffian brother, would be up to his usual tricks, testing his mother’s patience and possibly wanting to tag along when Tilda went to the Harleys’ house to join Stella and walk to school. And there was Papa whose mind wandered in frightening ways.

Call the others to breakfast before you leave, Sophia said. And you be here in plenty of time for an early supper before the Musicale.

Tilda went to the hall and called upstairs, Papa! George...Janine...Samuel...breakfast! As she gathered up her books from the hall bench, she heard stirrings upstairs, drawers closing, a door slamming. Quickly now.

In the six blocks Tilda walked to Heliotrope Street, the neighborhood changed, smartened up. Here were clipped lawns attended by gardeners, weeded flower beds, well-oiled gates guarding large, dignified houses of confirmed authority. Tilda couldn’t imagine any place to live that could be better. The house dominated the whole street with its majesty; four floors of Victorian elegance, with spindles, turrets, leaded and beveled glass windows. Inside was all shining floors, thick Persian carpets, woven wallpapers, crystal lamps, sumptuous mohair furniture in the parlor and in every corner, large, drooping ferns in the manner of the great villas of Europe.

Tilda could hear piano music from the Harleys’ concert grand, carried out through the curtains of open windows, blown by unseasonable hot winds off the Santa Ana Mountains.

Tilda last saw Royal more than five years ago on a Sunday when she and her family were walking from the Lutheran church. The Harleys were just coming out of the Presbyterian, squinting their eyes in the sun and Stella pulled her over to meet her brother. Royal was through with the University at Berkeley and years of musical study in San Francisco and was on his way to Europe to study piano with a maestro in Spain.

She was twelve then, feeling awkward in her high-buttoned shoes and gingham dress. Royal wore a stylish brown Norfolk jacket making the other men look faded in their lumpy summer suits. Stella, full of pride, introduced her brother and he said something kind to her. His pale aquamarine eyes bored into hers until it felt like she was drowning. A darkness surrounded him as though a cloud had cut off the sun. He soon turned away to greet friends of his mother but the aura was still there. Tilda thought it was probably the dark clothing he had purchased for Europe but it gave him a dimension that pricked at her, exciting her. At that moment the obsession was set; every high-sailing fantasy she fashioned, every throbbing ache for the fulfillment of passion was centered on Royal Harley or the man she conceived him to be.

The clanging of the gate broke her reverie. Stella closed it behind her, still tying up her great mop of dark hair. How long have you been here? Stella asked. Come on, we’ll be late for school. You’ll hear Royal play tonight.

As she moved away, Tilda dragged her hand along the wrought-iron fence, loathe to lose the contact. She listened to the music, in spite of Stella’s chatter, until it faded from her hearing.

Royal Harley leaned over the keys of the great ebony piano that dominated the library, lost in the Chopin, concentrating on intricate finger work. Practice, practice, practice. There must be no fumbling on this night, nothing that would make his father say to him, You have humiliated me, with the glacial look that cut into the underbelly of the soul like an icicle. But Papa is dead.

Perhaps it was a mistake to have agreed to play in the Santa Ana Musicale tonight. It seemed laughable that after being on the concert circuit in Europe, he would now be on the program with high school children and local amateurs. At first he was dismayed that his mother, who was underwriting part of the cost of the Musicale, had confided to the director that her son, the concert pianist, had returned from Europe. Royal intended to refuse but on second thought, he decided that perhaps it was only right that he give this final triumphal performance for his home town. He would give them showy, crowd-pleasing numbers.

After this night he could move on to his true destiny. Living in Spain he had a unique vision of this country’s present conflict. The fiery Spaniards would go to war over their colony of Cuba. In wartime there was opportunity to distinguish oneself. Royal finished the number with a flourish and lapsed into the waltz he had been composing for over a year, idly trying various chords. Several acquaintances for whom he had played it told him the theme was memorable, the melody haunting, and urged him to complete it. Somehow the ending he wanted for the waltz eluded him. It should be something entirely new that would be remembered always by those who heard it. The last notes must leave the listener in a state of stunned wonder. In striving for this perfection, the solution had not come.

The cheerful sun-filled room seemed to belie the dark recesses that were always there for him. The paneled walls still held echoes of other times and the voice of his father, mocking him. So here you are again, his father would say. You are still nothing. Where are the triumphs you claimed would be yours?

There are other ways, other endeavors, Royal said aloud. There is still time.

Tilda left her family at the entrance to the civic auditorium and hurried around backstage. Because of Mrs. Harley’s patronage, Stella had arranged for them to watch the performers from the wings. Tilda felt chill and jittery. A quick look around determined that Royal Harley was not immediately visible. Her breathing recommenced though she was unaware that she had been holding it.

Tilda! Tilda, Stella called, hurrying over with Winnie, a pale, haughty girl. Stella chattered, bobbing her springy mass of dark curls. Her peach taffeta dress strained against the tide of healthy flesh. Winnie Adams, a girl with plain features but fine translucent skin like magnolia petals and wispy flaxen hair, looked cool and fragile in her white silk dress with blue satin sash. Winnie’s father owned livery stables in Santa Ana, Anaheim and Fullerton.

Winnie asked the burning question. Where is Royal, Stella?

He’s last on the program, Stella said, so he’s coming later.

Winnie soon made the acquaintance of one of the barbershop quartet and strolled off with him. Stella pulled Tilda around backstage talking in whispers to the other performers, but Tilda could only think that at any moment she would meet Royal.

Then suddenly he was there. He stood in the shadows with only the white of his shirtfront discernable. It seemed as though the blood stopped coursing through her veins; she caught her breath, was still as stone. Everything she aspired to was wrapped up in this dark figure.

There’s Royal, Stella squealed, and ran to him. Tilda followed, almost with dread. While Stella chattered with her brother, Tilda stood mute behind her.

Who is your little friend here, Stella? Royal asked, stepping forward. Tilda felt the heat of a thousand lamps turned on her.

Oh, this is Matilda Ullmann, Royal. Don’t you remember her? Tilda’s my best friend. She pushed Tilda forward.

How do you do, Miss Ullmann, Royal said and took Tilda’s hand. In the sudden roar in her head she did not hear herself speak but thought she must have said something. His touch on her hand was like warm water being poured over it, sensual and satisfying. He bowed in a foreign sort of way and went back to take his place in the wings.

Royal glanced back at the girl. A lovely young sapling, and if I’m not mistaken, she fancies me. He received the nod to go on and strode out onto the stage. He heard the buzz of whispers at his appearance and then a burst of applause. He sat and played a lively tarantella. When the applause died down, the lights came up and he strolled over to the footlights at the edge of the stage.

He announced, I will now play the Minute Waltz. Chopin wrote it to be performed in one minute and I shall attempt to do so now. If I go a second over the minute, you may throw cabbages at me. He paused for the ripple of laughter he knew would come, then went back to the piano bench and sat down, flipping up his coattails with careless abandon.

Ready? he called out.

He finished in one minute with a fraction of a second to spare. The audience jumped to their feet, wildly cheering, shouting ‘bravos’. He stood with the depreciative smile he had perfected, bowed low to receive the ovation. He walked back to the piano, bowed and sat down. The lights dimmed again and a hush now filled the auditorium. A rush of elation filled him. After this night, his people would know that he had returned to them an accomplished musician. All the more admirable, they would say, that he would put it aside to serve his country.

He prolonged the dramatic pause while he readied himself to play the next number. He glanced to the wings and saw Stella wave at him. Next to her stood her friend, Matilda. Even at this distance and with his somewhat near-sighted vision he could see the girl was entranced and held her hands together in front of her, almost in an attitude of prayer.

He put his full concentration on Chopin’s showy Fantasie Impromptu in C#. He felt powerful as he raised a hand and came down strong on the one note that began the `Fantasie’ and then flung his fingers to the keys for the difficult runs. The electricity of it charged through the audience as they settled back in their seats with a sigh.

For this first part, he riveted his attention on the keys and intricate finger work. Then he reached the central theme and relaxed, feeling good. This was truly where he belonged, playing to a rapt audience, like his concert nights, where he felt at home on the stage, taking in the praises of the audience, the applause. Difficult to give it all up. The terrible injustice of it struck him. He had carefully programmed himself to believe that he was destined for greatness. Why had he been given the gift to perform so and then had it invalidated with his violent internal storms that reduced him to a fumbling idiot with no talent? The specter of his father suddenly loomed up in front of his vision. With his cutting, denigrating criticism, his father had cast this yoke of failure upon him. He felt a small spark of anger ignite. No! Dangerous to think that way. He must think only of this night, this stage. A difficult run was coming up. His fingers tore through the convoluted string of sound and this time he struck one discordant note. He covered up well but it frightened him badly.

In the periphery of his vision, he saw a red cloud hover, waiting to fall and envelope him as it had in Seville and again in Barcelona those terrible nights not long ago. It was his punishment; for the blackness in his soul, for evil he had done, for unholy desires within him. Before the next run, he must conquer the madness or he would falter and fail. But he felt frozen solid inside a burning shell and that melted frost from his body would run out his sleeves onto his fingers to make the keys slippery and unmanageable.

In sick desperation he looked up to the wings and saw the girl, Tilda. The backstage light shone brightly behind her, forming a halo around her head with its trim braid. He strained his eyes to see her. Was he imagining that she now held her hands out to him in blessing? Was she a saint, sent to save him this night? He felt the power of this girl’s sanctity, knew it would pull him from the abyss and empower him.

He looked down at his hands. They covered the keys, steady and sure. The notes came easily now. He neared the last run and the finale. Saved. This pure young girl was his salvation. He finished in triumph and then heard a sound like the distant roar of the sea when a shell is held up to the ear. It increased in waves and he realized it was thunderous applause and cheers from the audience. Dizzy and still shaken from his ordeal, he stood up carefully and raised his face to receive his ovation. He bowed low, and then walked off the stage while the audience still cheered.

Stella rushed to him and clutched him by the arms. Oh, Royal, you were magnificent. Positively genius. My brother, imagine. I’m so proud of you. On and on she went, each superlative more effusive than the last. Royal looked up and saw the girl, Matilda, standing quietly behind her.

Go on now and find Mother and Corinne, Stella. Tell them I’ll be along shortly.

When Stella was gone, Royal walked toward the girl who gazed at him steadily, serenely, as if she had been waiting for him.

Miss Ullmann, he said, bowing slightly, did you enjoy my music? His pale eyes sent a thunderbolt into her core. I was playing to you. I know you must leave now to find your parents, but if it is agreeable to you, I would like to call in order to see you again soon.

CHAPTER 2

On the island of Luzon of the Philippine group in the South China Sea, a group of men in rough white cotton garments gather in a large palm-roofed, bamboo-sided hut built on posts to keep it from the ground during the rains. Now, on the edge of the dry season, only a light shower falls, washing the dust off the thatched roofs of the nipa huts and the broad leaves of palms that wave a soft susurrus in the heavy air. Pungent odors fill the night: the heavy sweat of fear, the sweet stink of rotting fruit, the verdant smell of new vegetation bursting forth from the fecund soil, the acrid odor of animal and human excrement, the vapors from rendering pig fat and roasting sweet potatoes and always the heady, cloying fragrance of the Sampaguita flower overpowering all.

In the dim light, members of a secret society chant in feverish zeal and the walls tremble with the cadence. Twenty-five members join hands over crossed arms in a circle while five initiates stand in a line outside the circle. Lantern light dances on their faces as they chant in unison,

"Katipunan,

Katipunan,

Katipunan"

The leader steps forward from the circle and goes to the applicants. He raises his hand, bidding the others to do the same, starting an initiation ceremony based on the rites of Freemasonry. He speaks in Tagalog, the dialect of his region. When the ceremony is completed he faces the new initiates, his eyes burning with fiery dedication. And now, finally, do you swear to be warrior in the fight to rid our land of the Spanish Plague?

He gazes around the room at the brotherhood, mostly Malaysian, some with an oriental caste and most with the overtones of three centuries of Spanish infusion.

They murmur agreement stand quiet and tense now, a tableau in chiaroscuro like an India-ink wash sketch, their cotton garments white against their faces and the darkness of the shadows. In a hoarse, rasping whisper the leader asks, and do you dedicate your lives to the cause of freeing our people from the vipers that infested it three centuries ago?

I do! they burst out.

"Then you are Kilusang, Kanuhayan, Kaularan! Welcome to the Brotherhood of the Sons of the People, Katipunan."

He turns to the rest of the assemblage. Our Supreme Commander, Don Emilio Aguinaldo, will finally lead us to freedom from the shackles of the Spanish oppression. He is ready to return at any moment from exile in Hong Kong. He awaits the word that the great power of the United States will come to help us in our struggle to regain control of our own destiny. Don Emilio is with us always in spirit, and when the time is right he will be here to lead us. Others are being initiated in every region just as these five have here tonight. This time we will realize our dreams. This time we will take back what is rightfully ours. He holds up his arm, his hand making a fist. "Come brothers, we give the ‘Grito de Balintawak!’"

Thirty-odd fists rise in the air and a cry bursts forth as one voice, so ferocious they fear an enemy ear, even far away, might hear it. Perhaps it will make him shudder in his fat complacency.

* * *

Santa Ana’s own Company L appeared on Main Street, keeping tight marching order, drummers at the front, red-faced from their effort, the blaring brass section and behind them a flag-carrier, the Stars and Stripes whipping in the warm breeze. Today, instead of the usual drab practice uniforms, the company wore the soldier’s blue wool trousers and shirts with epaulets and brass buttons and a broad-brimmed army issue hat, squared on. They tramped by in noisy cadence, kicking up dust and setting dogs to barking.

Tilda and Samuel stood on a corner cheering the company along with a small crowd of onlookers. Samuel threw a salute and would have fallen in step with them had not Tilda roused herself from her cloud of euphoria and called him back.

I wish I could go to war, Samuel muttered.

Well, You can’t. You’re too young, Tilda said, distracted with her own thoughts, and then was sorry because angry tears of frustration sprang to her young brother’s eyes before he could look away. She and Samuel had so often shared their dreams of being off to somewhere in the world. In two years you can join Company L and travel everywhere.

Company L! Samuel snorted. They’ll never go anywhere. They’ll just stay here and march up and down the street. I wish I could join the real Army or Navy—now. He scuffed the sidewalk in front of him. Tilda knew how he felt. She bumped his shoulder in sympathy.

At the butcher shop Tilda joined the housewives who crowded in to buy the Sunday roast. She had taken on the family shopping since her mother’s strength seemed to have strangely weakened in the last months. Samuel saw some boys he knew shooting marbles and went to join them for a few minutes. While Tilda waited in line to be helped by one of the red-faced, mustachioed Ronsky Brothers, her eyes glassed over in remembrance of the evening before. Just as she had dreamed, hoped and even schemed with her midnight escapade, things were happening for her. Like a storm building to unleash its wetness on dry, quiet plains, the fabric of her life was reworking itself to make gigantic changes, to fling her up and away to some new plateau. Royal Harley had cast his eye upon her, looked into her soul and expressed a desire to see her again. The dream was becoming a reality.

Royal pulled the handle of the doorbell at the Ullmann home then stepped back to take a stance with his hat under his arm for the mother to see him through the oval glass of the door when she approached it.

Instead of the mother, he saw a younger woman coming toward the door, a buxom girl with ruddy, blotchy complexion and untidy scraggles of hair the color of pumpkins falling from her cap. The collar of her shirtwaist lay unbuttoned and fell open to expose a great deal of bosom when she leaned forward to grasp the door handle.

Good afternoon, Royal said pleasantly. Is Miss Ullmann at home?

The girl looked at him with the unabashed stare of a cat. Nuh, she said finally. Her and her brother, Sam, had to go do the shoppin’ for the missus cause she don’t feel so good no more.

The girl raised her arm to push a bit of orange frizz back behind her ear. Royal caught the tangy smell of female perspiration, which both repelled and excited him.

And whom am I addressing? he asked.

Me name is Mary Frances Delahaney.

Do you live here? Royal remembered there were a number of Delaheneys. The father was a drunk, the mother had run off with the circus, the oldest girl had babies which she gave away and there were several boys, the oldest of which had gone to prison for theft.

Nuh, I just come when they can afford me to help the missus, cause like I said, she’s ailin. She contemplated him a moment. I lives with me Pa an’ little brother, Dil, but sometimes I stays out at the old schoolhouse—you remember out on Arbor Lane? They closed it after the new school on Fourth Street was built. I fixed me up a cot there for when me Pa goes on the bottle an’ tries to climb on me.

Royal felt the well of blackness surging up on him. He had not been with a woman for more than a month and with a woman of this base caliber for much longer. Her puffy lipped, loose mouth and bruised-looking skin suggested all kinds of possibilities. He heard a woman’s voice call from another room

Mary Frances, was that the doorbell I heard?

Mary Frances continued to stare down Royal. Me Pa’s been on the bottle today so I’ll probably be at the schoolhouse tonight. All right?

Yes, Royal said just as the mother came through the swinging door followed by what appeared to be the whole family.

When Tilda and Samuel finished the shopping and returned home, they found their mother, father, Janine and George in the kitchen waiting for them.

What is it? Tilda asked, alarmed. Has something happened?

Some fellow came... began her father.

Never mind, Carl, Sophia Ullmann interrupted. She turned to Tilda. Mr. Harley came by while you were gone.

Royal Harley, Tilda, Janine burst in. He wants to come and take you for a buggy ride tomorrow afternoon.

So our little Tilda has the Harley fellow for a gentleman caller, George said in his sly, teasing voice.

That’s enough, George, Sophia cut in. She looked around at them all. Go along with you now, she said, making shooing gestures. I want to talk to Tilda. You must have something more important to do. She handed Carl Ullmann the broom and bid him sweep the steps. Samuel ran out to play with his friends.

Janine flounced out of the kitchen, pulling George with her. Every girl in town is after Royal Harley, she muttered to George, I can’t imagine what he sees... and the door closed.

Sophia turned to Tilda. "How did this come about? Did you give Mr. Harley the eye?"

We just talked a little at the musicale, Mama.

Her mother studied her, as though to pierce the shell, get into the core, the soft place where dreams were stored. "He’s too old for you—must