He was of medium height, carrying more or less the proper weight; a perfectly circular baldness, common in robust men, was defined by a circumference of thick, salt and pepper hair. His face was large: with a prominent nose suggesting extravagance; deep-set intense green eyes; a full, stubborn mouth and strong chin – he could have played a dock worker in the old movies. In fact, he co-owned an antique shop with his distant sister, and lived off his meager pension from his service in the military and the few knick-knacks sold at their sagging plank store.
“The dusty old junk,” as Hector referred to the sordid inventory, was housed in a shabby afterthought, loosely connected to the main residence: a two room flat gravel roof, wood-frame hut, in which he and his sister took turns as sole proprietor, housekeeper, clerk, and general connoisseur of artifacts both gaudy and obscure. Referring to the open, unlocked nature of the dwelling, Hector laughed and said with all the joviality he could muster in this dark time. “Sleep well, Ali Baba – the jewels are in the cupboard.”
Business was slow – slow as his life. He had few activities to fill his days – he was practically a ghost, far from the man Martha had known and admired before he went to war. She had expected him to change, but he was scarcely the same man. And the years had only served to set the pattern of his distance. She perceived a soul who had never lived the life he was born to live, and as his only remaining family she felt a duty to help him. But time passed as if in a dream. The worst part of it was his detachment; his pitiful lack of even the semblance of enthusiasm. She no longer knew him in the least. A brother, yes, but a man changed beyond recognition.
His nature was creative and reckless, passionate and romantic, with a streak of intellectual detachment and hopeless idealism that kept him generally conflicted and solitary. Although he was a man of strong sentiment, years of disappointment had tempered his emotions, making him reserved and analytical. His thoughts, however, seemed always to be running ahead of him.
Sara was nearly twenty years younger, but one could not tell from her behavior towards Hector. Indeed, despite the differences in their ages she had captured him with her sophistication, and burst into his consciousness full-blown and enticing. Before he could retrieve his balance, she was his lover, his son’s mother and, finally, his nemesis.
Their relationship had progressed so quickly and unexpectedly, by the time he discovered the true bearings of her character it was too late. The damage had been done. In the beginning he believed every devotional utterance, as if spoken by the Holy Mother herself. For this lapse in judgment he choked down his shame. He considered her his life’s most egregious mistake, utterly indefensible in a man his age. And, ironically, considering the hidden vixen responsible, the reason had little to do with sex or the difference in their ages. He had loved her before lust reared its disheveled head.
Soon after the consummation he began to wonder if he would be enough for her. She seemed much more interested in their physical life, content to maintain a rather superficial relationship. And though he knew when she had been satisfied, the act seemed only to fuel her appetites. For Hector love-making was an event that did indeed reach a happy climax; while for her it seemed a mere prelude. And then, too, there were her roaming, unmistakable glances. These recollections infuriated him. Yet he had asked her to be his wife in spite of every misgiving, and, amazingly, she had agreed.
The consequences of such impulsiveness continued to haunt him. He spent his days fighting vapors, struggling to bury her ghost. I will now commit myself, faithfully, to her destruction. . . But could such a promise be kept?
She was thirty-eight when the child, David, came innocently kicking and screaming into this deceptive world. After giving birth she seemed more interested in getting back her figure than in mothering – as soon as her body would allow she began an intense and disciplined regimen of exercises and within a month had returned to her normal weight and was as beautifully firm and vibrant as ever. A tiny voice in the back of his mind began to mock him – you married a whore, you fool.
In fact, there was something even more attractive within her now, something deeper and unspeakable emanating from her; a new sensuality, which gave her a superior quality; perhaps it was simply the experience of childbirth – but in any case she now seemed to possess something intangible yet undeniable which she had lacked before. This did not escape Hector, and in the dark days to come served to make his bitterness complete. He remembered these words from the Bible: “Why seek ye the living among the dead?”And he added: “Or the dead among the living?”
“It’s party time!” he snarled at his reflection in the mirror, surprised by the savage intensity of the stranger’s image. It was Holy Saturday. His perverse ritual had, in fact, become the highlight of his week.
He loaded a cooler full of beer, whiskey and ice, a beach chair, a boom box, and an eclectic concentration of music in the back of his Chevy wagon and headed for the cemetery. Recently he’d added a beach umbrella to shield him from the sun. Saturday at the graveyard. . . Hallelujah! And he opened the round canopy and pushed the point into the soft earth, sat heavily in the chair, and opened a beer.
For Martha, indeed for the entire town, it remained a mystery how her pathologically shy brother had ever become involved with such a vivacious, shameless creature. But Hector would never forget.
They were the only two people on the beach that day. A storm was building at sea, the westerly wind increasing, the beach slowly dissolving in the gray mass before them. Yet she was picking up shells as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Hector had been walking aimlessly, pensive and solitary, as was his habit, occasionally tossing an errant shell into the froth. He found himself at her side. Rising from her shell-hunting she did not seem at all surprised to find him so close. She put her hands on her hips and looked out to sea.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she said without turning. He was looking at her intently; two warm fingers seemed to touch the cool stone that had once been a living heart. He registered the feeling with a sense of startling unfamiliarity. And a flame of both joy and terror shot through his being.
“Yes,” he said, also without turning. They talked of innocuous, disparate things – common things. And somehow they had connected.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” He asked with trepidation and surprise. It was getting dark as the first intermittent drops of rain began to fall hard about them, leaving pock-marks in the sand.
“That would be nice,” she responded with a scrutinizing look, and took his hand with a kind of natural sweetness that touched him deeply; as if in that single gesture she had discovered who he really was. For such a lonely man it was a uniquely strange sensation, like waking from a long coma to find oneself in one’s favorite chair.
They sat in a dark café beside the wild and desperate sea, sipping steaming coffee. And to Hector’s amazement she appeared to be flirting with him. She was all smiles and warm deference; at one point reaching over and patting the tops of his weathered hands which lay stiffly upon the table, a coy smile upon her lips.
“Do you live nearby?” she asked sweetly.
“In this town,” he replied with a soft chuckle, “everything is nearby.” She laughed recklessly, again patting his hands.
Hector had been slightly embarrassed. He felt awkward and unsure of himself. He’d never married, and all the women of his life could be counted on the fingers of one hand with fingers to spare. She was dark, full-figured and impulsive. She had nervous eyes that possessed an uncanny depth and penetration; an untamed quality that attracted Hector more than any halo.
But her seemingly sincere attentions hopped from one object to another, making it impossible to be sure just where her true interests lay.
In truth, the appearance of depth was merely apparent, colored by her relentless beauty. She bored easily and hadn’t the patience to go deeply into a subject. Her response to life was tactile; she lived by her senses, casting