I Was Jack Mortimer

6

JOSÉ MONTEMAYOR was a peon, a shepherd on horseback, in the wild south of the United States. He and the other vaqueros rounded up from the saddle huge herds of semi-wild cattle and horses on the vast plains of New Mexico, and when they chased the stampeding animals, the ends and fringes of their serapes, the colourful Indian shawls, fluttered behind them, and the prairie pollen and dust clouds of the llanos rose high into the sky. In high summer they stripped off their woollen shirts, tied them round their waists, and galloped bareback over the plains. Their hats, blown about by the strong wind, dangled from straps on their brown shoulders, and round their heads they wound coloured silk kerchiefs.

Small brass bells tingled on their saddles, lassos swayed back and forth, and the hairy strips of bearskin hanging from their stirrups fluttered in the wind. Montemayor also carried a guitar on his saddle. He had a good voice, and of an evening often sang songs to the others — old Spanish melodies and his own tunes that occurred to him from time to time.

Although he was only a cowboy, he was reputed to be the grandson of Lieutenant José Montemayor, who commanded the platoon that had shot Emperor Maximilian of Mexico.

One spring day, after collecting their pay, he and a couple of amigos set out on a spree, rode over the border, invaded all the Mexican taverns, flirted with the young women, spent their dollars and pesos on liquor, and generally painted the town red, finally ending up in Monterey, an old baroque hilltop town.

It was evening when they rode into the town, and the sun was setting like a fading rose behind the green copper cupolas and towers of Monterey. The streets, however, were already almost dark, the hooves clattered over the cobbles, the scent of jasmine wafted from the gardens in the twilight, the finery glinted on their saddles, and the women followed the riders with sparkling eyes.

They stopped in front of a tavern, tied up the horses, went in, and caroused into the night. They then left, and wandered through the town on foot.

The scent from the gardens became stronger, even overpowering the smell of cooking oil from the kitchen doorways and the other smells of a southern town. The full moon had long since risen and hung high in the silky blue of the night.

The peons wandered through the hushed streets, in which the only sound was the clinking of their silver spurs. The smoke of their cigarettes wafted behind them. Montemayor strode in front, strumming his guitar and singing, and the others sang along. Finally he started on a very old song which only he knew, while the others walked behind and listened, the only accompaniment being the strumming of the guitar and the clinking of spurs.

He had come to the end of a verse and was just about to begin the next when, from above a house cloaked in darkness, there came a woman’s voice singing this very verse. It was a very beautiful, clear voice that floated in the moonlight. Montemayor stopped in his tracks, as did the others, and listened in amazement, accompanying the unfamiliar singer on his guitar. He couldn’t see where the voice was coming from. He was just about to peer into the shadows that enveloped the house when the moon, gliding over the roof with the curved tiles which glistened like white breakers, shone straight in his face, but not before he had made out the outlines of a roof garden or a sort of elevated, enclosed arbour, from which he realized the voice was issuing.

The song consisted of alternate question and answer verses. The questions were to be sung by a male, the answers, by a female voice; when the invisible singer had come to the end of the maiden’s verse, Montemayor continued singing the man’s part, then came the maiden’s turn, then the man’s voice again, followed by the maiden’s, and so on.

It was the final verse, and whereas the voice of the invisible singer had, to begin with, sounded shy, timid and reserved, it now changed to an expression of fervour and affection.

The voice then fell silent. After a moment’s pause during which they savoured the magic sounds that had now ceased, the peons broke into applause. Montemayor then stepped forward and, taking off his hat with a flourish and holding it in his lowered hand so that the tassels touched the ground, enquired whether the best singer in the south would do him and his comrades the honour of showing herself.

The figure of a woman or girl, silhouetted in the light of the moon shining through the veil on her head, appeared in the arbour above.

The other peons, too, now took off their hats, their tassels and straps touching the ground.

“Who are you?” the girl asked, though since she was Spanish, she actually put it in the Spanish manner: “Whom do I have the honour of addressing?”

“We are,” Montemayor answered, “cowboys and peons from the States, who’ve ridden across the border to meet the beauties of Mexico. Would you honour us by revealing your name, so that when we return home we can tell everyone what the most beautiful of them all is called.”

The young woman laughed. “My name is Consuelo,” she said. “And when you return, you can tell your people that in fact you never even saw me. I can see you clearly in the moonlight, but I have the moon behind me. It makes it easier for you to imagine that I’m the most beautiful.”

“We don’t need the moon,” one of the group shouted, “to know that you must be as enchanting as your voice!”

“You flatter me too much,” the young woman said. “In fact, my voice is nothing special, I hardly use it, and my mother, who also taught me the few songs that I know, sang much better than I do. I must go now! The people in the house are already asleep, and it’s not right for me to carry on talking to such charming young people as yourselves.”

This was Spanish courtesy, a matter of etiquette in response to the compliments that had been paid her. However, it was more than courtesy, for she added, “Especially to the singer among you.”

This was a direct reference, which they understood immediately.

“We wouldn’t want to cause you any trouble!” the one who’d just spoken said, after looking at Montemayor. “We’re going now and we wish you a good night. However, we should be honoured if you would give us something to remember you by.”

“With pleasure,” the young woman said. She plucked a flower from the arbour. “And now, adios,” she said, and threw the flower to Montemayor.

He caught it and kissed it.

The peons bowed. “Adios!” they shouted.

“Adios!” the maiden replied, and waved farewell to them.

They broke into a new song and returned to their inn. The sound of their singing and spurs echoed in the narrow street. In front of the tavern they untied the blankets from their saddles, went inside, rolled themselves in the blankets, and went to sleep. Montemayor, however, remained standing by the door and smoked a cigarette. He then threw it away and returned to Consuelo.

She was still leaning against an arch of the arbour when he appeared in the street below. He stepped into the shadow of the house, pulled himself up by the window grating, grabbed hold of the railing of the arbour and swung himself up.

Bent thus over the railing, he now began to woo her. Her parents were simple people, but she behaved as if she were a high-born lady. The moon had already been waning for a long time before she finally permitted Montemayor to kiss her hands. The pale light fell sideways upon her face. Until then he had seen it only in the half-light in which her eyes sparkled, but now he saw for the first time how beautiful she was. The moon had by now almost disappeared, and dawn had nearly broken, and still she listened to Montemayor.

The following day the peons left the town, but Montemayor followed them only several days later, and when he left it was only to return. He returned almost every month to Monterey.

The following year there was an outbreak of cattle-plague that destroyed huge herds, and he lost his job. He used up all his savings in search of new work and was forced to sing with his guitar in taverns and small hotels in order to survive; for this he was given accommodation and occasionally meals, and also some of the audience would invite him to their table and ply him with drinks. Finally the director of a travelling cabaret troupe engaged him. He was successful everywhere in the small towns where he appeared, though without a partner such a singer could not make a mark. It was suggested to him that he should look around for a partner. He got on a train and travelled the stretch that he’d so often ridden on horseback, to Monterey.

He proposed to Consuelo that she became his partner, which she decided to do, not so much because she thought she could make a go of it, but rather because she loved Montemayor. But fortune smiled on them, they were a great success, mainly, of course, on account of Consuelo’s beauty. Montemayor’s own forte lay in fact not so much in the singing itself, but rather in his talent for arranging old songs. After their latest engagement in Palm Beach, they went to New York.

Montemayor was by then beginning to publish songs, yet he lacked that extra something to produce a hit. He realized that he’d have to study classical music in order to be able to compose popular music. Their nightly appearances still remained his and Consuelo’s main source of income. He played the guitar and Consuelo danced and sang in Spanish costume with a foot-high comb in her hair. They earned money, he wore good suits, and Consuelo had a selection of pretty dresses. Also, he gave her jewellery, but in truth these were only small trinkets.

Yet he loved Consuelo so much that he was quite happy to see her reap more success than came his way. His own talent hardly amounted to anything. Moreover, when all was said and done, he still remained the peon that he’d always been; he gave a little of his soul and passion to his music, all the rest belonged to his beloved. If he hadn’t had Consuelo, he’d have been very unhappy. The fact was, he felt out of place in a city. He often dreamt of the prairies. However, a woman never hankers after the past. Consuelo was successful, she was acclaimed; she gave a little of her soul and passion to Montemayor, the rest went to her new way of life.

One evening she received a visiting card via her manager; a certain Jack Mortimer invited her to come to his house after the performance and sing to his guests. This Jack Mortimer, added the manager in case she didn’t know, was the son of Mortimer, the banker. Yes, she knew that, said Consuelo; and the manager mentioned a very high fee.

Montemayor, of course, didn’t know who Mortimer was. Both he and Consuelo were well received in Mortimer’s house, and from the start were treated as equals with the guests, comprising a group young people of the wealthy set and some strikingly pretty young women and wives. Mortimer about that time would have been about twenty-three or — four. He was utterly captivated by Montemayor’s and Consuelo’s singing.

They sat down to a table that was groaning with food and drink. Some of those present began, in the traditional American way, to get plastered as quickly as possible and then slump around on sofas. Mortimer gave a dismissive wave of his hand. It was good, he said, that they’d got rid of them — now they’d have some peace and quiet; and then he asked Consuelo to sing.

Sitting at the table, Consuelo and Montemayor sang a song, and those present showered them with applause, and yet the conversation immediately turned to other topics and the singing was forgotten. Mortimer finally got up and announced that he’d be more than happy if people wanted to wander round and take a look at his house. The guests dispersed in small groups in the spacious abode.

When they all reassembled, Consuelo and Mortimer were missing. The twenty minutes that elapsed before the two finally appeared were almost as painful and embarrassing to the company as to Montemayor himself. Where had they been? Just simply not there. All the time they were away, it seemed as if they were deliberately trying to humiliate someone, and when they finally appeared, Consuelo acted as if nothing had happened, while Mortimer didn’t even try to conceal his pleasure.

The period that followed became for Montemayor one of unbearable anguish. Spurred on by personal vanity, it is quite easy to fight for the constancy of a woman whom one hardly loves any more. But it is impossible to hold on to a woman with whom one is still in love and who does not requite that love. Montemayor was leaving behind a trail of blood from his heart, which had been mortally wounded not by Mortimer but by Consuelo herself. She disarmed him by not making any secret of the fact that she no longer loved him. Jealousy can only exist when one hopes one has made a mistake. With her indifference, however, Consuelo convinced him that he had not made a mistake. He remonstrated with her, of course, but she did not react. He no longer had any claim to her heart.

If he’d still been in his own country, he’d have known what to do. There a woman is not free. She belongs to him who can defend her. Here, however, she was free. She could do whatever she wanted. In the States no man any longer has a natural right to a woman. She no longer needs his protection, she does what she wants. Mortimer, too, told him that. Montemayor had drawn him into an argument in order, at the end of it, to beat the daylights out of him.

However, Mortimer said, “I haven’t a clue what you want. You think Consuelo loves me? I believe you’re mistaken. One doesn’t fall in love so quickly. There’s too much else going on. Naturally, I was flattered to see Consuelo here and there, but I’m pretty sure she’s not really interested in me. She wants to make a career. You shouldn’t stand in her way. I myself have done what I can for her. Hasn’t she said anything to you about that? I’ve introduced her to many people who could be useful to her. Honestly, you’re wrong if you think I’ve got any ulterior motives. I was only a middleman. I haven’t even seen Consuelo for the last two or three days. However, I introduced her to George Anstruther. Do you know Anstruther? You don’t? Well, he’s extremely influential. They say he’s very interested in Consuelo. Malicious gossips even say she’s his mistress.”

Having said that, Mortimer lit a cigarette. Montemayor looked him in the eyes for a moment, turned short on his heel and left.

Lately he had seen Consuelo only in the evenings when they performed together. He returned to his flat, packed a few things, and left New York without even seeing Consuelo or even so much as contacting his manager. The intermezzo was at an end. He would, he decided, become a peon once more, and that was that.

Two days later he got off the train in a small station in the South. It was raining. The rain was falling in sheets over the prairie, drumming on the tin roof of the station, forming puddles between the tracks. On the horizon a couple clapboard houses appeared to be sinking in a sea of mud.

He stared into the wilderness. A pair of horses saddled the Mexican way stood at the corner of a house, their shanks turned towards the weather. The tall grass swayed, the rain beat down, the gloom and the mist were closing in.

He enquired when the next train was due.

He had two hours to wait. He didn’t wait under the station canopy, but stood out in the open. His shoes, his coat, his business suit were soaking wet.

The sound of singing, shouting and laughter reached him from the house where the horses were tied up.

No one bothered about him.

At last the train came. It was heading for New Orleans.

In New Orleans he had to wait a day. He sailed on the Jeanne d’Arc to France.

In Paris he appeared on the stage with several artistes, whom he often changed. Day in, day out, he studied music. After a year he moved to Berlin, then back to Paris again.

He got people to write French and English lyrics to his melodies, and published them.

‘Juanita’ made him famous.

He returned to the States; however, he stayed only a short time in New York, travelled down to the South again, and bought a property in Florida near Palm Beach.

Here he composed his second great hit, ‘Castilliana’.

He made several hundred thousand dollars from this hit. He wrote the song one evening very quickly, in a matter of minutes, before driving to Palm Beach to meet some friends, and the moon over the sea was just like it had been that time over Monterey.

‘Castilliana’ was played endlessly at parties where people first danced and then the women went and deceived their husbands.

From now on he lived part of the time in Palm Beach and part of the time in New York and Paris. The much heralded ‘Sonora’ was a flop.

In New York he learnt that Mortimer no longer lived there, but had moved to Chicago, where he ran his father’s bank.

He didn’t enquire after Consuelo, and people obviously avoided mentioning her name in his presence. No one knew whether he still thought about her. Also, her name no longer appeared anywhere. He couldn’t find her on any programme or notice.

One day he got to know George Anstruther. He was a very handsome man of about forty. They obviously didn’t talk about Consuelo. Strangely enough, though, Montemayor let slip a few words about Jack Mortimer. Anstruther smiled in a peculiar way. This was like a red rag to a bull, and Anstruther, in order not to be misinterpreted, felt obliged to justify himself why he had reacted that way: wasn’t Montemayor aware that Mortimer… “Go on!” Montemayor shouted, his heart missing a beat… that Mortimer, said Anstruther, was now more of a gangster than a banker, like so many other bankers, judges and businessmen in the States. “I see,” Montemayor mumbled, and they talked a little bit more about Mortimer’s possible connections with the underworld, and then about other things. It became clear to Montemayor that Mortimer’s bank was in financial difficulties; however, it was not uncommon even for wealthy people to get mixed up with criminals in the end.

A few days later Montemayor learnt by chance from people who knew nothing of his sad tale, that Consuelo had been suffering from tuberculosis and had died in a sanatorium in the Rocky Mountains some three years previously.

Two months later he married Winifred Parr.

Late that autumn Montemayor travelled with Winifred to Paris. One evening after the opera, when they were having supper at Ciro’s, Montemayor noticed Winifred nod at someone who was sitting behind him, evidently to acknowledge a greeting. He turned around; it was Jack Mortimer.

Mortimer immediately came over to their table. He knew Winifred fleetingly from earlier times. He spoke a few inconsequential words and behaved as though nothing had ever happened between himself and Montemayor.

Before Montemayor could stop her, Winifred had invited him to join them.

What followed in the next few days was quite inevitable. Mortimer had never shown any particular interest in Winifred. However, when he saw that she was Montemayor’s wife, he immediately became excited.

People who’ve already once deprived a man of his wife will feel almost compelled to do it a second time.

Montemayor himself immediately sensed that in Mortimer’s eyes it wasn’t Winifred, but in actual fact Consuelo who was sitting next to Montemayor. The only difference was that he didn’t love Winifred half as much as he had loved Consuelo. It became at once clear that he’d be able to protect her better than his previous love.

Winifred knew nothing of Consuelo, but she immediately sensed the tension between the two men, and she reacted as any pretty but empty-headed woman would in such a situation. Straight away she enjoyed to the full the interest that Mortimer was showing in her. Had Montemayor ignored Mortimer, she’d have done the same. However, since she noticed Montemayor’s jealousy, there was no greater pleasure for her than to fall in love with Mortimer.

At this stage, of course, it would still have been easy for Montemayor to have dashed the hopes that the two were entertaining. He could simply have gone away somewhere with Winifred, and that would have been the end of the matter. However, after his initial aversion, it occurred to him that Mortimer’s presence was right up his street. He still had a score to settle with Mortimer. An opportunity now arose for Montemayor to make out that he couldn’t care less about Mortimer’s advances. He’d be able to play with Winifred like a puppet on a string.

Truly, what was the struggle for Winifred compared to the struggle for Consuelo? Nothing. Pure vanity. Montemayor had no illusions about this. But the easier it appeared to him to defend Winifred, the more heartbroken he felt that he’d lost his Consuelo. He had almost forgotten Mortimer, but now he began to hate him again vehemently.

All this, however, robbed Montemayor of his peace of mind. He never left Winifred’s side day and night, which made Mortimer, who always tagged along, look ridiculous. The only thing was that he began to have misgivings about himself, to such an extent that finally he began to hate the very sight of Mortimer. He couldn’t help reliving the old tragedy whenever he saw the man, and he began to drool over Winifred, for whom, when all was said and done, he couldn’t give a fig, just as much as he had drooled over Consuelo, whom he had worshipped.

Meanwhile, his opposition drove the two lovers ever closer together. They understood each other without so much as exchanging a word. In the end they really fell in love. They could read this in each other’s eyes, they passed secret notes between themselves, they spoke in a sort of code which they alone could decipher. Montemayor was aware of this, but he lost his nerve and finally decided to depart. He accepted one of the contracts that people were forever offering him, and told Winifred that in two days’ time they’d be going to Vienna, where he was to give a jazz concert.

These two days were sufficient for Mortimer to arrange with Winifred that he’d come on after her, stay in hiding in Vienna and meet up with her there. Montemayor’s decision to leave suited them even more than the present, unsatisfactory arrangement. They believed that Montemayor would not suspect Mortimer, who had business to conduct in Paris, of following them to Vienna, and would give his wife all the freedom that she’d enjoyed previously.

They were mistaken. Montemayor was prepared for this eventuality. True, he wasn’t able to establish anything definite, but all the same he guessed what they were up to. It was obvious enough.

He travelled with Winifred and booked in at the Imperial. He told himself that there’d be no sense in intercepting Winifred’s mail, since Mortimer would hardly risk writing to her at the hotel. Although he and Winifred for the most part went out together, when he was at rehearsals, he had to leave her on her own. He didn’t doubt for a moment that she’d use that opportunity to collect the letters which Mortimer had sent her. If they were poste restante, she’d need her passport to claim them. He couldn’t very well take that; however, he was in possession of her other documents, and, with the help of their marriage certificate, every time he left the hotel for any length of time he enquired at the post office if there were letters for Winifred Montemayor. He might have missed the odd one; at last, however, just as he was about to go to a rehearsal, a page boy, whom he’d drawn into his confidence, brought him secretly, as instructed, a telegram from Mortimer to Winifred. He was coming the next day at half past six in the evening, and was staying at the Bristol. She should give him a ring there at the first opportunity.

He destroyed this message and went to the rehearsal. The following day he left Winifred completely to her own devices till the evening. Come the evening, however, her nervousness indicated to him that, even though that particular telegram had not reached her, she must have been informed of Mortimer’s arrival in some other way. Shortly before seven she found an opportunity to ring the Bristol. Mortimer, she was told, had booked in, but hadn’t arrived yet. From then on she had no more opportunity to call him till midnight. Montemayor did not leave her side. They went to the opera, had supper, and sat for a while in the hotel bar. Towards midnight, when she feared she’d be unable to conceal the state of her nerves any longer, she said she was going to bed.

He took her upstairs. They occupied a two-bedroom suite, separated by a sitting room. She wished him good night in the sitting room, then Winifred went into her bedroom and Montemayor into his; however, he stopped at the door and listened.

A few minutes later he heard Winifred open her door softly, presumably to see if anyone was in the sitting room. Then she closed it. Montemayor immediately opened his, darted into the sitting room and listened at Winifred’s door.

He heard her making a telephone call in a hushed voice and ask for Mortimer. Though she spoke a few words, it seemed she had got the wrong number, because she immediately rang again. Now she spoke for longer, her voice getting louder and more urgent; finally she put the receiver down and then rang once again, this time the reception at the Bristol. Then she rang off.

Montemayor at once stepped back from the door and got back to his room, not a moment too soon because he now heard Winifred enter the sitting room, lock her door, remove the key and go out.

Montemayor, hatless and without his overcoat, followed her immediately. She ran down the stairs. Once or twice she turned around, but he managed to conceal himself in the nick of time behind a corner or a pillar so that she didn’t notice him. She left the hotel, as did he, too, a couple of moments later. He saw her rush across the street, her brocade opera cloak shimmering in the light of the street lamps. It was only about a couple of hundred yards to the Bristol. She went in, and through the glass door Montemayor saw her talking to the hall porter. Then the porter made a telephone call. In the meantime she ran up the stairs. The porter, it seemed, made as if to hold her back; he called something out, but she had already disappeared behind a bend on the stairs. The next moment Montemayor also entered and ran up the stairs. He saw Winifred run along the corridor of the first floor, open a door and disappear inside; he, too, rushed towards the door.

Winifred closed the door behind her, found herself standing in a lobby, opened the next door and stood in Mortimer’s salon.

She was so ill prepared for the person she was rushing towards not to be Jack Mortimer that she discovered this only when she was nearly on top of him. She stopped dead with a light shriek, held up her hand, sparkling with rings, to her mouth, half agape with horror, and stared at Sponer with ever widening, blazing eyes, without uttering a single word.

Sponer, too, still leaning against the mirror stand which held the telephone looked at her in motionless silence.

Finally, she mumbled something in English, probably an apology that she’d entered the wrong room, turned around and made to rush out through the door.

She had, however, barely taken a couple of steps when her eyes lit on the things that Sponer had pulled out of Mortimer’s suitcases and that were now strewn all over the place.

She hesitated, seemed to recognize them, turned round again, the cloak slid off her shoulders, and the expression in her wide-open eyes, showed that she understood everything.

She stood there stock-still for two more seconds, only that the expression of fear intensified ever more, then she let out a cry which rose in pitch, swung around and dashed towards the door.

But in two bounds Sponer was already in front of her and had barred her way. She wanted to push him aside, but, slamming the door with his left hand, he grabbed her by the shoulder with his right. He flung her on the sofa and, through clenched teeth and with an almost demented look in his eyes, hissed, “You so much as cry out or try to get away and I’ll knock you into next week!”