It was homes like these that made me pause and delight in the fact that I was an engineer. I sipped from my wineglass, wanting to dwell on pierced frieze boards, board-and-batten shutters, sawn balusters, braced arches, and scrolled brackets. But for now, I needed to be present at dinner.
We dined over chicken and cashew nuts, pickles, fried pork, crab and lalo leaf stew, rice with black mushrooms, and goat head. As we were all to depart for Moscow in two weeks, the dinner was being treated as a bon voyage celebration. It was a table of eight, both of our wives in attendance, along with both sets of children.
“It’s good to see you feeling better, Grant,” I said, referring to Bobby’s nine-year-old son. He’d previously been dealing with a bout of the chickenpox, an illness his eight-year-old sister, Greta, hadn’t caught yet.
“He likes to sleep all the time,” she said, biting into a chicken leg, as Grant rolled his eyes and half smiled.
“Do not,” said Grant. “You do more than me. I’m just resting like M… . like Dr… . like Dr.—”
“Dr. Madison,” said Dorene, rubbing the top of little Grant’s blond head, a color he’d inherited from her.
“Yeah… him!” said Grant, spooning his rice.
Dorene doted on her children the way Loretta did ours. She was also similar to my wife in build, tall and thin with delicate features and a gentle disposition befitting an heiress. A calm, introspective woman with a stoic posture, a pristine etiquette.
“I would like to propose a toast,” said Bobby, picking up the bottle of Bordeaux and filling our four glasses. He then pretended as if he might pour some in the children’s glasses. “James, Ginger… Grant, Greta… would you like to join us?”
“Have you gone mad?” asked Dorene, all of us laughing as she took the pitcher of water and began refilling their glasses.
“Ah, come on… I want to try some wine,” said my son, James, demonstratively tilting his head to the side and acting disappointed. He had a flair for the dramatic. “Mom, can I try some wine… please!”
“Yes, in about ten years,” answered Loretta.
The children laughed, particularly his twin sister, Ginger, while James continued playing heartbroken, all the while doing so only to attract more attention, which he craved. But he always knew when to quit and not push it to the point of disruption. He was a good boy.
“In due time, dear James, my boy!” said Bobby, lifting his wineglass with a smile, his cheeks a bit pinkish from the two reds he’d already consumed. But he was the picture of good health, his dark brown hair fixed in the style of Clark Gable, his physique as trim and fit as it was back in our Bureau days.
“Yes,” said Loretta, raising her glass, “in due time, my son.”
Dorene and I lifted ours as well, and the children followed suit.
“To the Soviet Union!” said Bobby. “To Moscow, in particular! A place that can only be described as the great unknown! May she welcome us with open arms, keep us safe and warm through frozen winter with her sheepskin coats, and provide plenty of snow for these youngsters… so they can throw snowballs in Gorky Park while wearing their ushankas!”
“Yay!” said the children collectively.
“Hear, hear!” I said, all of us leaning over the candlelit mahogany table and clinking glasses.
“Eh, Comrade Sweet!” said Bobby, holding his glass against mine a bit longer, looking at me the way a happy younger brother might show his affection to the older. At this particular time, and in this particular place, we were all happy.
After the children had finished their dinner, Sissy, the Haitian nanny who’d been with the Ellingtons throughout our posting, whisked the four of them off to their respective hotel rooms so they could ready themselves for bed. It gave the four of us a chance to dive into a more substantive discussion.
“I’m going to miss this hot weather,” said Bobby, taking a drag from his cigarette, his white linen shirt still clinging to his sweaty skin. “These veranda fans make it feel just about perfect. Having said that, I can’t help but worry about the many throughout this land with no way of relieving themselves from it.”
“That is why I married this man,” said Dorene, striking a match and lighting her Dunhill, then Loretta’s. “He is always thinking of others, never completely able to bathe in his own reverie.”
“So your father has finally given you his complete blessing?” said Bobby, taking her hand and kissing it. “Her father would have preferred she marry McCormick Bradington. We both were at Columbia law school together, but unlike his parents, mine don’t own the entire state of Maine.”
“You’re from Ohio, Dear,” said Dorene, furrowing her brow before smiling. Her bright white teeth were almost too perfect, as if an accessory to her coral linen dress.
“Notice how she didn’t object to my claim of McCormick’s considerable wealth,” said Bobby. “She’s wonderful at deflecting, Press.”
“Where I’m from we call that good-natured,” I said, having grown used to him calling me both Press and Prescott.
“Thank you, Prescott,” said Dorene. “I chose this man because of his passion. And my father knows this. His passion for foreign service is as valuable to my family as any amount of wealth.”
“I thought you said I had no more than six years before I needed to secure an ambassadorship,” said Bobby.
“I love how you twist my words,” she said. “I said I’d be surprised if it took you longer than that, Dear.”
“Word twisting is a skill this one here has mastered as well,” said Loretta, bumping my leg with the side of her knee, as she took a drag and then a sip of wine.
Dorene’s father was the founder and chairman of Stanfield Gas and Electric, one of the major American utilities companies. To say she came from a considerable amount of wealth would be a gross understatement. But she was progressive in her thinking and completely at ease around common folk. Let’s just say she gave the word rich a good name, if that’s possible.
“I think they’ve both gotten worse at it, though,” said Dorene. “This… word twisting. Since we’ve been here on the island, I mean. Do please take this as a completely innocuous comment, boys, but you may be making yourselves susceptible to the island’s voodoo. Beware in particular of the pati gason hex. American men are quite susceptible. You can be completely oblivious and then… wham!”
“Yes,” said Loretta, knee tapping me again. “Twisting your wife’s words opens you up to it.”
“Wow,” I said, “I could have sworn I was just sitting here minding my own business. Should I take cover?”
Dorene and Loretta held back their laughter, shaking their heads in the affirmative while Bobby gave me a look of empathy.
“I believe,” said Loretta, “that the curse is designed to make a man’s marriage slowly fall apart. Right, Dorene?”
“Yes, a sorcerer… or bokor, to be specific, could cast one on you without you even participating in a ceremony.”
Bobby and I were still listening and playing along, but the way our wives were working in tandem had our eyebrows raised. It was as if they were able to finish each other’s sentences or thoughts on cue.
“That’s enough,” said Bobby. “We get your point.”
“Do you?” said Dorene, playfully. “You’ve been twisting my words since I’ve known you. It is just part of being an American man, I believe. Don’t forget, I’ve traveled the world many times over and find that this word manipulation is unique to you American boys.”