“Couldn’t you keep her shut up?”
“We tried but she escaped.”
“Has anything else happened?”
“Nothing. How was the voyage?”
“Without incident.”
As he talked, irritated and short as always with this boy who he had let go twice but had taken back each time when his father had come and pled for him, Mario, the first houseboy, came in carrying the papers and the mail. He was smiling and his brown face was gay and kind and loving.
“How was the voyage?”
“A little rough at the end.”
“Figúrate. Imagine it. It’s a big norther. Have you eaten?”
“There’s nothing to eat.”
“I brought eggs and the milk and bread. Tú,” he said to the second houseboy. “Go in and prepare the caballero’s breakfast. How do you want the eggs?”
“As usual.”
“Los huevos como siempre,” Mario said. “Was Boise there to meet you?”
“Yes.”
“He has suffered very much this time. More than ever.”
“And the others?”
“Only one bad fight between Goats and Fats.” He used the English names proudly. “The Princessa was a little sad. But it was nothing.”
“¿Y tú?”
“Me?” He smiled shyly and very pleased. “Very well. Thank you very much.”
“And the family?”
“All very well, thank you. Papa is working again.”
“I am glad.”
“He is, too. Did none of the other gentlemen sleep here?”
“No, They all went into town.”
“They must be tired.”
“They are.”
“There were calls from various friends. I have them all written down. I hope you can recognize them. I can do nothing with the English names.”
“Write them as they sound.”
“But they do not sound the same to me as to you.”
“Did the Colonel call?”
“No sir.”
“Bring me a whisky with mineral water,” Thomas Hudson said. “And bring milk for the cats, please.”
“In the dining room or here?”
“The whisky here. The milk for the cats in the dining room.”
“Instantly,” Mario said. He went to the kitchen and came back with a whisky and mineral water. “I think it is strong enough,” he said.
Should I shave now or wait until after breakfast? Thomas Hudson thought. I ought to shave. That’s what I ordered the whisky for, to get me through the shaving. All right, go in and shave then. The hell with it, he thought. No. Go in and do it. It’s good for your damned morale and you have to go into town after breakfast.
Shaving, he sipped the drink halfway through lathering, after lathering, and during the process of relathering, and changing blades three times in getting the two-week stubble off his cheeks, chin, and throat. The cat walked around and watched him while he shaved and rubbed against his legs. Then suddenly he bounded out of the room and Thomas Hudson knew he had heard the milk bowls being put down on the tiled floor of the dining room. He had not heard the click himself nor had he heard any calling. But Boise had heard it.
Thomas Hudson finished shaving and poured his right hand full of the wonderful ninety-degree pure alcohol that was as cheap in Cuba as miserable rubbing alcohol in the States and doused it over his face, feeling its cold bite take away the soreness from the shaving.
I don’t use sugar, nor smoke tobacco, he thought, but by God I get my pleasure out of what they distill in this country.
The lower parts of the bathroom windows were painted over because the stone paved patio ran all around the house, but the upper halves of the windows were of clear glass and he could see the branches of the palm trees whipping in the wind. She’s blowing even heavier than I thought. There would almost be time to haul out. But you can’t tell. It all depends on what she does when she goes into the northeast. It certainly had been fun not to think about the sea for the last few hours. Let’s keep it up, he thought. Let’s not think about the sea nor what is on it or under it, or anything connected with it. Let’s not even make a list of what we will not think of about it. Let’s not think of it at all. Let’s just have the sea in being and leave it at that. And the other things, he thought. We won’t think about them either.