Cave of Little Faces. Aída Besançon Spencer
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perfectly feigning surprise. “Bo, dear, this is a new friend I’m just making. Oh, what is your name, honey?”
“I’m Danny. It’s short for Daniela.”
“What a lovely name,” said Star. “My nickname is ‘Peep.’”
“Oh, that’s cute,” said Daniela, “Bo and Peep.”
“Yes, that’s what all our friends call us.”
“My friends call me Danny.”
Star smiled, sizing her up correctly to herself as “some great displays, but not much inventory in that boutique.” What she said, however, was, “And so, Danny, what brings you down here to the wrong side of the Dominican Republic? I would have thought a snazzy young jet-setter like you would be dancing the night away up at Punta Cana with the rest of the beautiful folks.”
Daniela giggled. “I’ve come here a lot because my uncle lives—lived—nearby. He just died and we’re come down to check out our inheritance.”
An inheritance, do tell? thought Star. “Well, that sounds exciting, dear.”
“I guess. Not really, but it is a nice place.”
“Oh, it’s a house?”
“Well, more like a mansion. It’s a big two-story beach house up the road just around Los Diamantes del Mar Hotel.”
This is too easy, thought Star. Next, she’ll be giving me her bank account numbers. “Oh, my,” Star enthused. “That’s wonderful. Now you’ll have your own place to stay whenever you come here.”
“Oh no,” said Daniela quickly. “We don’t want to keep it—we want to sell it.”
Bingo! “We?” queried Star.
“My brother and two sisters.”
Hmmm, a four way split. The brother was the wastrel throwing his money away at the table. If the sisters were anything like she was. . . . “Well, this is very exciting, Danny. It’s good to have money when you’re young. You can enjoy it then, when you are still new at life, before you move on to deeper things.”
Daniela looked at her, puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know, the things that really count. The deeper meaning of life.”
“What deeper meaning?”
“Why, dear, haven’t you noticed that people seem so disoriented. I mean, people all around us. No offense, dear, but, well, like your dear brother. So absorbed in that game that he doesn’t even have time for you, but what’s the point?”
“You’re telling me!” cried Daniela. “He keeps saying he’s got some kind of stupid system to win at cards and stuff, but he’s always losing. When he gets his part of the inheritance, he’s going to fritter it all away at blackjack!”
Not if we can help it. “I know, I know, sweetie.” Star took her hand. “But, honestly, I have to confess that we were the same way—weren’t we Bo?—before we got oriented.”
“Yes, yes,” Basil hung his head. “It’s true. I’m not blaming anybody who’s still caught in the wasted pursuits of life. There, but for the Pole, we would still be too.”
“The Pole, what Pole?” asked Daniela. Was this about some Polish guy—some motivational speaker people were all watching on the net or something?
“Why, the Magnetic Pole!” said Basil with the awe with which one would describe the discovery of a brand new tax shelter. “You’ve heard of the Pole, no doubt, a woman as well informed as you appear to be—and as obviously spiritually sensitive?”
“Well, no,” said Daniela. “Honestly, I haven’t. But,” she added quickly to preserve the high opinion they obviously held of her, “I’d like to.”
You will, you will, thought Star, saying aloud in her most charitable tone, “Don’t blame yourself, Danny. It’s the best kept secret on the island. It’s on all the maps, but no one pays it any attention. Right now, it’s just a mark in the road, but the fact is that it’s the secret to all human orientation. You see what I mean of course.”
“Sure,” agreed Daniela.
Of course you don’t, you little actress, thought Star, but said, “Well, good. It just so happens that this evening, Bo and I are holding a very small and select ‘orienting service.’” She stopped and checked her watch ostentatiously. “Why, Bo, how the time flies. Did you see what time it is?”
“No, dear, let me check.” Basil flipped back the sleeve of his elegant guayabera shirt to display an elegant, if lower-priced, Rolex watch, once the possession of a gullible real estate agent who unwittingly took it off to wash his hands in a washroom in Newark, New Jersey, and never saw it again. “Why, Peep, my dear, you’re right. Look at the time! It’s nearing the sacred hour.”
“There’s a ‘sacred hour?’” asked Daniela.
“There is indeed,” Basil assured her.
“What’s that?”
“Eleven eleven,” he said confidently. It was ten thirty-five.
“Eleven minutes after eleven o’clock at night is sacred?” asked Daniela.
“It is, Danny, and in the morning too.”
“Why is it sacred?” Daniela was out of her depth, but struggling to surface in all this deluge of information.
Basil swelled himself up in his best southern politician style, and, while keeping his voice down, intoned, “Because that is the symbol of the great orienting poles.”
“What are the poles?”
“You know the poles, dear,” confided Star, “the North Pole and the South Pole. These are at the ends of our world and all that we do and say and live are done within their guiding confines. And right near the center of our globe is the sacred Magnetic Pole, the one nearby here in this sacred land.”
“This land is sacred?” Daniela was astonished. To her it was just the vacation spot she was accustomed to visiting every summer since she was a child.
“This island, known to us as Hispaniola,” lectured Basil, “was once called Quisqueya. It was sacred to the original inhabitants. Its name means ‘the Mother of All Islands.’” And he carefully sounded out the ancient island name with Qs, not Ks, repeating it twice and emphasizing the Qs.
Star looked at him proudly. The five minutes she had insisted on him reading in the guidebook was paying off handsomely. Now, if he just didn’t overdo it. . . .
“I knew that,” said Daniela.
Now it was Star’s turn to be astonished. She really didn’t think this little pigeon knew anything.
“I’ve come here all my life . . .” started Danny, about to give her own lecture.
Quickly, Star headed her off. “How fascinating, dear. But, now we are nearing 11:11 and we must hurry to the beach so we don’t miss out on our orienting service.”
“I’ve got to go to the bathroom first,” worried Daniela.
“Of course, dear, we’ll wait for you, but do hurry,” urged Star. “It’s over there.” Star always reconnoitered the lavatories whenever she entered any public place. One never knew when one needed to duck into a nearby women’s room to avoid someone—especially a powder room with a window that opened on a back alley.
“Quick,” said Basil, as soon as Daniela left, “I gotta call Balenzuela. Get him on the beach—pronto!”
Ismael picked up the call immediately, “Yes, what is it?”
“We got a live one! Can you be down at the beach, right outside the casino by eleven