Bay of Souls by Robert Stone Page A

small joke, a wee merry observation to amuse the pretty passenger. But Lara's Spanish, normally quite workable, failed her under the traffic noise, the takeoffs and landings in process all around them. Whatever he had said got by her. When he saw to his horror that his sally had fluttered and sunk, he swallowed his little smile, stuffed the remnants and odd angles of it back into the dusty earth of which his face was composed. His fierce black eyes flashed fear.
    For the rest of the ride Lara tried, in various ways, to reassure him. The people he worked for disliked jokes in general, and unsuccessful jokes roused them to fury. They liked jokes to be theirs, at the expense of others; otherwise they sniffed disrespect and treachery, which they believed always accompanied the telling. Dealing with them, Lara was beginning to discover that humor, if it was not their sort, could represent humanity and mercy to the forces they served. It was preserving holy water against their infernal ambitions. Irony scattered them like rats, though never far enough.
    The car drove her straight to the house in the Virginia hills. She wondered whether she would ever see the suite at the Mayflower; the prospect of spending the night entertaining her host in the big house was loathsome.
    The place was a Greek Revival plantation home. It had spotless columns and pastures with similarly immaculate fences stretching to the foggy hills. There was a horse or two. She wondered if they might be Argentines. The green grass was icy and the reeds in the marshes stiff with frost. There were patches of unmelted snow at the north end of the pastures.
    Lara was praying that the chauffeur had not been instructed to take her suitcase out of the trunk. He made no move to do so. A tall butler with an English face opened the door to her. She told him good afternoon.
    His answer was in native Spanish. A cold greeting, something
para servirle.
They went into a long carpeted room with chandeliers and sofas. The tragic faces of Creole generals from the wars of liberation hung from the pale yellow walls. Someone had encouraged the old senator to sit for a portrait, which presented him like El Greco's inquisitor, with crumpled papers at his feet, shod in alligator boots. Undoubtedly sugar-quota bills to draw contributions for his election campaigns.
    A woman appeared, a motherly sort, wearing a black apron and a belt full of keys.
    "Only this bag?" she said of Lara's handbag. Lara handed it over. "Would you like to freshen up?"
    The woman followed her up a flight of stairs to what Lara was displeased to see was a bedroom. It had a fine view of the grazing horses and the blue ridge.
    "The bath is to your left, dear."
    "I'll need my handbag."
    "
No hay problema,
" said the woman with a smile. She snapped it shut and handed it over. Had she searched the bag for wires, weapons? In any case, she returned it.
    "I thought I was staying at the Mayflower."
    "
Claro que sí.
Tough to get accommodations there, but we did it."
    They smiled at each other. There was no further searching.
    "
Para servirle,
" the woman said.
    Lara spent as little time as she could in front of mirrors. She did what she could to dull the scents of Northwest Airlines and made herself relax. The search, she reminded herself, was for cameras and recorders, not for weapons. It had not come to that.
    All at once she found the mirror held her. She looked into her own dark, almost green eyes. On the island, in the parts where she was remembered, it was believed that Lara had no soul.
    Many believed it. People said her dead brother kept her soul with him under the waters of All Saints Bay. In Guinee. They said that he had offered it to Marinette, the wild woman whose murderous rage had made her a
petro
goddess centuries ago. They said that Marinette occupied and enslaved her.
    It was also speculated that her husband, a living man, the Red Frenchman, kept it; that Fidel himself, a
santero
and servant of Elegua, kept