The Glory Game Part 27

"Don't say that. The idea of being stranded without a hotel in a city where I didn't know a soul and couldn't make myself understood doesn't bear thinking about." But she laughed when she said it, as though she actually believed it might be an exciting adventure.

"I think there would be no fear of making yourself understood. Many people here are bilingual." Again, Raul was conscious of the impatient look Luz was sending their way. "I believe your mother is waiting for you."

That didn't appear to concern her. "I'll see you inside," she said, smiling as she moved away to join her mother and Rob on the hotel steps.

He watched them enter the hotel, then turned back to the porter. When the last large suitcase was lifted out of the trunk, he closed the lid and checked to make certain it was locked, then followed the porter into the lobby. Familiar with the hotel's layout from previous visits, he went directly to the registration desk. Luz was filling out the necessary forms while Rob leafed through a magazine listing the city's entertainment. Trisha was looking through some brochures on the counter and didn't immediately notice him.

Raul paused next to Luz. "Are your reservations in order?"

"Yes." She slid the form and the accompanying pa.s.sports back to the clerk and turned to face him. "What time would you like us to be ready to leave in the morning?"

"I would like to start at ten o'clock, if that is not too early for you," he replied, aware that both Rob and Trisha had come over to join them.

"Ten o'clock will be fine," Luz stated as the desk clerk interposed to give the room key to the bellman.

"You will be joining us for dinner, won't you, Raul?" Trisha asked.

The instant the invitation was issued, he noticed the reproving glance Luz gave her.

"You will have to excuse me this evening. I have other plans. And I am certain after your long trip, you would prefer a quiet dinner," he stated.

"You're quite right," Luz agreed. "We will probably have a meal sent to our rooms."

"I will meet you tomorrow morning in the lobby at ten o'clock, then. Have a good evening." The statements were directed to all three of them.

There was an echo of goodbyes as he turned and started across the lobby to the exit. "Mr. Buchanan?" Luz called out to him before he was halfway across it. Pausing, Raul swung back. "I'll be there directly," she said to Rob and Trisha, who were being escorted to the elevators by the bellman. "I just want to have a quick word with Raul ... Mr. Buchanan."

The almost imperceptible slip reminded him of the times she had called him Raul, and the way her lips had formed his name, slowly, lingering over it. He waited while she approached him, her high heels clicking over the tiled floor.

"Was there something else?" Raul checked the impulse to use her given name even though she had once given him permission to do so. Some instinct had guarded him against establis.h.i.+ng such familiarity, and he obeyed it now.

"Yes." The sable coat hung loosely about her shoulders, like a cape, a high collar framing her face with luxurious dark fur. Its color seemed as dark a black-brown as her eyes. "I'm sure you are aware that my daughter is very attracted to you. I would greatly appreciate it if you would not encourage that interest. You are not at all suitable for her, and I would not like to see her hurt. That's all, Mr. Buchanan." She dismissed him and walked back to the others.

Stunned, he stared after her, anger slowly rising in him. She'd spoken to him as if he were a servant, treated him as something less than an equal, coldly informed him that he wasn't good enough for her daughter. Raul pivoted sharply on his heel and strode out of the hotel.

The next morning, the inner-city congestion slowed the traffic in the streets, but there was more of Buenos Aires to see in the daylight, so Luz didn't object to the slower pace. It allowed her to gain more of a sense of the city with its formal squares and broad avenues. The wide boulevards sometimes seemed severe. There hadn't been enough time for age to give them the grace and charm of their European counterparts, although when the jacaranda bloomed, Luz suspected much of its cold line would be softened. She hadn't noticed any narrow, winding streets. All of the avenues seemed to run endlessly block after block toward some distant vanis.h.i.+ng point.

Most of the buildings appeared to be modern, decades rather than centuries old. She noticed an old Corinthian-columned cathedral that dominated one of the many plazas. Its architectural style was reminiscent of La Madeleine, the church that graced the Place de la Concorde in Paris. She made some reference to the cathedral when they pa.s.sed within sight of it. Raul explained that it was one of the oldest buildings in Argentina, constructed in the eighteenth century, and held the mortal remains of General Jose de San Martin, the liberator of Argentina, who had led the revolt against Spain to gain his nation's independence, as well as that of Chile and Peru.

That was one of the few times he'd spoken since he'd picked them up at the hotel promptly at ten. Luz knew she was responsible for his present chilly att.i.tude. Last night, she had bluntly stated her wishes and not allowed him to reply. She hadn't wanted Trisha's infatuation with him to become a subject for discussion. Perhaps she should have appealed to him as a concerned mother and possibly gained him as an ally, but it was too late. Besides, she didn't want him as an ally. She simply wanted him to stay away from Trisha, and she knew she had made that clear to him last night.

Her glance trailed over his profile. Unexpectedly, Raul turned his head, meeting her look. Beneath that bland expression, she knew there was anger. His eyes were a glacier-blue, yet burning the way hot ice did. They challenged her, but Luz refused to regret the action she'd taken despite the heightened tension it had created.

"Was there something you wanted to say, Mr. Buchanan?" she murmured.

A horn blared, drawing his attention back to the road. "Perhaps you have already read my mind," Raul suggested smoothly.

"Perhaps I have." Luz faced the front as well, her chin up.

"Then there is no necessity to express my feelings on the matter," he replied. "The problem is not mine, but yours."

"What did you say, Raul?" Trisha leaned forward from the rear seat. "I didn't hear."

"Maybe because he wasn't talking to you," Luz suggested, fully aware that if Trisha learned of the warning she'd given Raul, she'd be furious.

They hadn't gotten along all that well since she'd had that argument with Drew in front of Trisha. Maybe she shouldn't have interfered in this, but she couldn't stand idly by and watch Trisha make a mistake. When she had been Trisha's age, Jake had warned off two of her boyfriends on the basis of their less than respectable reputations. Since Drew refused to intervene, Luz felt she had no choice except to handle it on her own.

"I thought maybe you were pointing out something." Trisha leaned over the top of the seat back, close to his shoulder. "Have we pa.s.sed the place where you lived after you moved to Buenos Aires?"

"I lived many places." The skyline of the city's towering buildings was behind them. They had recently traveled past an attractive residential area with English-style gardens and hedges, and now had entered a crowded area of tenement blocks.

With her forearms crossed on top of the seat back, Trisha rested her chin in the cup of her fist. "I was thinking about when you were a boy and the kind of house you lived in then. It's hard to imagine you as a skinny little kid with dirty pant knees and toads in your pockets. I have the feeling your mother had her hands full with you."

"Is your mother living?" Luz wondered.

"No."

"Your father?"

"I don't know. He packed up and left one day, and we never saw him again."

It reminded her too much of her own similar abandonment and rejection by a husband she loved. The hurt it left went too deep and left too much loneliness. That was something Trisha couldn't understand. Her bitter feelings toward Drew were a touchy issue between them, and certainly not a subject she was going to pursue in front of Raul.

"Where did you attend school?" Trisha tilted her head sideways to look at him. "I'll bet you were popular with the girls."

"I know this will come as a shock to you, Trisha," Rob said, "but there are other things in life besides s.e.x."

"There are plenty of other important ones, but it puts the life in living," she replied with a provocative candor intended to stimulate Raul's interest. With difficulty, Luz kept her mouth shut, remembering when she had said things about s.e.x to shock people and a.s.sert her maturity.

"Where did you get that clever bit of wisdom, Trish?" Rob mocked her. "Out of some book of witty sayings?"

"At least I read, which is more than I can say for you," she retorted. "If a book isn't about horse care or polo, you never open it at all."

"I presume you don't have any brothers or sisters, Mr. Buchanan," Luz inserted with forced smoothness.

"No."

"You missed out on so much bickering." Her comment silenced the sniping pair, for the time being, at least.

The rows of tenement blocks began to thin out as they continued south. In their place, hovels sprang up like weeds. Luz stared at the acres of rusting roofs of corrugated metal sheets that slanted atop huts which appeared to be constructed from a collection of wood, sticks, and cast-off lumber. The grim shanties were crowded on top of each other with a few feet of ground in front fenced with wire, tin sheets, or rotting wood. Some were yards where children played, and others were patches of vegetable gardens. She noticed round-shaped women hauling buckets, with fat youngsters toddling behind them.

"Isn't that sad?" Trisha murmured.

"It reminds me of a refugee camp," Luz said, unable to look away from the sight.

"That is partly true," Raul said. "They are campesinos, rural people who come to Buenos Aires to find work in the factories, but there is no place for them to live. The government builds housing, but there is never enough for the numbers who come."

"Do they find work?" Luz wondered.

"Some. Some have enough money to live in a house or apartment if one were available. If you look, you will see television antennas on the roofs of some of the shacks. But it isn't always easy to find a job. Most of the porteos-the people of Buenos Aires, the port dwellers-work two, sometimes three jobs to earn a decent living. We have a large middle cla.s.s in Argentina. But jobs can be scarce. There is not much left for the unskilled." His gaze strayed to the shantytown, his expression unreadable. "Still, they come-in hope. They call this villas miseria."

"Isn't there somewhere else they can go?" Luz protested faintly.

"You must remember Buenos Aires is our largest city. One out of every three people in Argentina live here. We have other cities, but their populations number in the hundreds of thousands, not in the millions like Buenos Aires. It is difficult for you to comprehend the significance of that, but try to imagine a land that stretches from the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Manitoba all the way to the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico with only one major city. That is Argentina. It is natural that someone from the rural area would look at Buenos Aires and say to himself, 'There will be work there for me.'"

"I suppose it would," she conceded.

She was relieved when the grim dwellings were left behind them. They turned onto a hard-surfaced highway that angled in a southeasterly direction across the countryside. For a time, the monotony of the scenery lulled her into indifference, vast tracts of pasture alternating with alfalfa fields or wheat and sometimes bare cropland waiting for spring seeding.

Slowly Luz became conscious of the unbroken sky all around the car. Its blue reaches were the walls and the roof over this flat floor of earth, and the flatness went on for miles, virtually treeless. The pencil-thin lines of a wire fence became an intrusion, and the pylons and blades of a windmill thrusting into the horizon seemed an event.

"This is the Pampa, isn't it?" she said.

"Yes," Raul answered.

No description of this fan-shaped prairie that spread out from Buenos Aires for three or four hundred miles had prepared Luz for this awesome sight. It was so immense, like the ocean without a sh.o.r.e in sight, just an unending flatness-no hills, no streams, all level ground. She breathed in deeply, her lungs filling with air, then she couldn't seem to release it, so awed was she by the bigness of the land.

Suddenly, in the far distance, she could see a long row of trees standing like a column of lonely sentinels. As they drew closer, she could make out the peaked rooflines of buildings beyond another stand of trees planted as a windbreak. The sight was alien to the surroundings, like a treed island alone in the middle of an ocean.

"What are those buildings ahead of us?" she asked Raul.

"An estancia."

When they drove by it, Luz saw that the double row of trees flanked the road leading to a large chateau with barns and other outbuildings. Through the clipped shrubbery, she had a glimpse of a vast lawn, but it was the nearly eight-foot-tall stand of pampas gra.s.s that caught her eye. In late summer the high clumps of long-bladed leaves would be topped by towering ivory plumes.

"You recognize the pampas gra.s.s, no?" Raul said.

"Yes." It was a plant landscapers frequently used in many of the Southern states, including Florida.

"More than a hundred years ago, all of the Pampa was covered by this tall gra.s.s."

It was a thought that staggered the imagination. The minute the estancia was pa.s.sed, they were once again enveloped by the high, wide sky and the flat, flat land. No matter how many times they pa.s.sed small farms or large estancias, Luz never lost that feeling of isolation-nor her fascination for this enormous Argentine prairie, its level expanse not marred by even a gully.

At a halfway point in their trip, they stopped at one of several small towns on their route to have lunch and stretch their legs. There was a sameness about these country villages, Luz discovered. The Spanish influence was evident in the pattern of a main square in the center of town, flanked by a church and a town hall housing the local authority. In addition to a movie house and cafes, there was always a railroad station. In the larger villages, there was also a statue in the square of General San Martin on horseback.

At the small cafe where they ate lunch, Luz was stunned by the quant.i.ty of food on her plate. "Argentina is known as the land of the stretched belt," Raul reminded her. "Like your country, we are accustomed to having plenty, which is why we are reluctant to tighten our belt even when the economy is poor."

After traveling for roughly another hour and a half, they turned off the main road onto a lane lined with towering eucalyptus trees. Their blond trunks had shed much of their stringy bark to stand like pale columns while their branches interlaced to form a living arch over the road. Until the driveway curved in front of it, all Luz could see of the estancia's main house through the trees was a ma.s.s of gray stone. She stared at the two-story monolith with its double row of square windows. The photograph in the brochure seemed cheerful compared to the stark, cold dwelling before her. Nothing relieved the severity of its straight lines.

When Raul stopped the car, Luz hesitated before climbing out. She carefully refrained from making any comment about the house, but she suspected her host had sensed her dislike of it as he escorted the three of them inside. Her eyes had barely adjusted to the gloom of the large entry hall when she heard the strike of crutches on the hardwood floor. Turning, Luz saw a crippled gray-haired man wearing leg braces approach them.

"Welcome to Le Buen Viento," he greeted them with a wide friendly smile.

"May I present Hector Guerrero." Raul made the necessary introductions, then said, "Hector will show you to your rooms. If you will excuse me." He dipped his head politely.

"Of course," Luz murmured, although she knew he wasn't asking her permission.

A moment later, there was the sound of the door closing, then Hector Guerrero claimed her attention. "If you will follow me, I will take you to your rooms. The house, she is big and old, but it is easy to find your way in it."

Using one crutch for a pivot, he turned and headed toward a ma.s.sive wooden staircase leading to the second floor. Luz had a brief glimpse at some of the other ground-floor rooms. All seemed austere with their bare walls and ponderous furniture. She had little hope their rooms would be better. And they weren't.

CHAPTER XVIII.

"Good morning, Hector." Luz paused as she entered the large dining room. The wizened, mustached man was the only person seated at the long table. "It seems that I'm the last one down."

"Buenos das, seora" The man's cracked and lined face resembled a saddle exposed too long to the elements, but a smile broke across it when he saw her. "You slept well, yes?"

"Yes." She saw him slip his arms into the metal bands of his crutches and heard the dragging sc.r.a.pe of his leg braces. "Please don't get up, Hector," she insisted and crossed to the coffee urn sitting atop the long bureau. A depleted stack of cups and saucers and the accompanying cream and sugar servers sat beside it.

But the old man didn't listen to her and hauled himself upright, putting most of his weight on the crutches instead of his paralyzed legs. He reached down and locked the braces that permitted him some mobility.

"You will want some breakfast," he said when he straightened. His iron-gray hair was thick and curly, salted with white like the thick brush of his mustache. "I will get Anna to bring a plate for you."

"No, Hector," Luz said quickly to halt that rocking swing of each hip to propel a braced leg forward while he maintained his balance with the crutches. He managed to move agilely, but it looked awkward to her. "Coffee is all I want this morning." Slightly uncomfortable with his handicap, she faced the coffee urn and placed a cup under the spigot.

"Seora, it is no trouble," he replied as if guessing part of the reason for her refusal.

"Honestly, I'm still full from dinner last night," she a.s.sured him while letting her cup fill with coffee. "The food was very good."

"Gracias, seora. Ramon, the cook, will be most pleased." He altered his course and maneuvered toward her in his waddling walk. "Sunday, we fix asado, a big feast for when the others come. You have had this, no?"

"No, I haven't." Luz picked up her cup and added cream to the strong brew, aware that Hector was referring to the impending arrival of the other polo students. She understood there were to be ten in all, counting Rob. Some were spending only two weeks and a few were remaining a month. Considering the fees for the program, it represented a respectable income.

"Asado is a roasted meat cooked over an open fire." He touched his fingers to his lips, kissing them, in a gesture that seemed more Italian than Spanish. "You will like it."

"It sounds delicious." Luz sipped at the steaming coffee, still hot despite the addition of rich cream.

She wasn't exactly sure of Hector Guerrero's position at the estancia. When she was first introduced to the crippled man the day before, she had thought he was probably a charity case, someone Raul had felt sorry for and invented a job for to make him feel useful. But from what she had observed since, that impression was wrong. Hector appeared to be something of a general factotum, the majordomo of the house as well as stable manager-or at least he was extremely familiar with the operations of both.

After Hector had shown them to their rooms, he pointed out the location of things, informed them about the household routine-mealtimes, the maid's cleaning hours, and so on-and saw that their luggage was taken to their rooms by one of the stablehands. Last night he had dined with them and talked at length to Rob about individual horses in the stable. Not that Raul showed ignorance about any of these things. He hadn't. The impression was they were not his responsibility.

Obviously, when Raul was gone, someone had to run the place. Luz was simply surprised by his choice, although her opinion of Hector was being revised. He was friendly and talkative and had a good command of English. His age was impossible to guess, but she suspected it was ten years on either side of sixty.

"Where has everyone gone?" she asked. Breakfast had been scheduled between seven and eight, and it was only a few minutes before the latter.

"Seor Rob, he was anxious to see the horses." With a swing of his crutches, he turned toward the table and forced his legs to follow. He stopped next to a chair and supported himself on one crutch to pull it out for her. "Seora, por favor."

"Gracias." It was one of the few Spanish words she knew.