Free Flight of the Swan by Rosario Ferré

colored panes of glass on top, for a breath of fresh air when Madame ran into a young man with a wide mourning ribbon tied around his upper sleeve. He was slender, with delicate hands and tapered fingers. He wore glasses, and behind them his eyes glowed like coals. He was very good-looking, and he knew it.
    “Are you the famous Russian ballerina?” the young man asked eagerly, stepping aside to let Madame through. “I’ve been looking for you all evening. I’m the one who sent the Pierce-Arrow to pick you up at the wharf this morning. I wanted to receive you in style!”
    Madame looked pleasantly surprised, and as they walked out onto the verandah together, I purposely stayed behind a few steps.
    They stood looking toward the garden. A Moorish fountain spilled a jet of water into a mosaic basin, and its soft murmur echoed through the enclosed patio. The young man wanted to know everything about the company—where we were staying, how long we were traveling around the island, and what Madame was going to dance that night.
    He’d lived in New York, he said, where he had studied journalism, and it didn’t take Madame long to discover that he was very well educated. He had read Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, and began to quote her a passage from Das Kapital , his voice full of enthusiasm, until she begged him to stop. Politics upset her, she said. He looked downcast at her lack of interest. Like many young men his age, he wanted to show off.
    “I saw you talking to Aljama, our local poet, a minute ago,” the young man added. “He’s the Don Quixote of our independence movement, you know. Quite a picturesque character.”
    “I would have liked to talk to him longer, but he walked away. He seemed ill,” Madame said.
    “He is ill. He’s a diabetic and lost his leg to gangrene recently. I hear that he’s become addicted to morphine. He won’t last very long.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that. Is he one of your well-known poets?”
    “He is the poet; people travel for miles on foot, across rivers and mountains, just to hear him read his poems in public.”
    “This afternoon I saw the police manhandle and arrest him at a public school. Why on earth has he been invited here tonight?” Madame said, looking amazed.
    The young man laughed softly and took off his glasses to polish them with a linen handkerchief. He shook his head.
    “They weren’t really arresting him. They pick him up and take him back home all the time. And of course, that’s why he was invited here tonight. It’s wise to keep your enemy in sight; that way he can do less harm.” Madame listened with interest. The young man had eyes with deep shadows in them, and he stared at her shamelessly. Half concealed behind a Sevres porcelain urn that stood on a pedestal, I began to feel uncomfortable.
    At that moment the governor approached with Diana and another girl accompanying him, one on each arm. Four uniformed security guards followed, a walking wall of muscle and sinew. “This is Estrella Aljama, our famous poet’s daughter,” the governor announced to Madame. “And this is Diana, my daughter. They are very good friends and they were looking forward to meeting you.” The girls giggled, and it was obvious that Estrella, especially, was very shy; she hardly dared look at Madame. Madame turned on the charm and embraced them both, kissing them on the cheek. Then she called over Nadja Bulova and Maya Ulanova and introduced them to the girls, since they were more or less the same age.
    “Now you go with them,” she said. “You must join our corps de ballet.” The girls laughed, immediately at ease, and the four of them went off, chattering away like magpies. The governor shook hands coldly with the young man and then turned his back to him. He asked Madame if the accommodations at the Malatrassi were adequate and then politely put himself at her service before he walked away.
    “Estrella Aljama studies at Lady Lane School, in Norton, Massachusetts, the