Free Flight of the Swan by Rosario Ferré Page A

same finishing school as Diana Yager,” the young man explained to Madame. “They are each other’s best friends.” Madame nodded and looked interested. “Do you know what estrella means?” the young man went on. Madame said no. “It means star; the poet named his daughter after the star on our flag. Since the Americans have forbidden us to fly or even to own the Puerto Rican flag, he named his daughter for it. Don’t you think that’s wonderful?” the young man observed ironically. Madame stared at him, baffled. “I find the lame poet heart-wrenching. He’s not at all funny,” she murmured.
    “We don’t get visitors from a country like Russia every day, where everything is being torn down in order to build a brave new world,” the young man went on. He took out a silver flask from his vest and discreetly poured some of its contents into Madame’s glass, then took a short nip himself. “I think what you’re doing in your country is extraordinary. You got rid of the czar and his boyars at a single stroke. But here the American governor and the sugar barons are still very much in power.” He took a sip from his glass and looked at Madame with interest. “I hear you sympathize with the Russian Revolution. Is that true?”
    “I was a ballerina at the Imperial School of Ballet in St. Petersburg, and the czar was my patron,” Madame answered noncommittally. “A revolution is something terrible. I hope you never experience it.”
    The young man shrugged. “You could be both, an ambassador of the czar and a Bolshevik agent! Or perhaps neither. Whatever you are, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met,” he said, bowing. I was so flabbergasted I couldn’t move. There was no way I could approach them unnoticed.
    “Tell me more about the lame poet,” Madame said, purposefully changing the subject.
    “I know him well,” the young man answered. “He’s published several books of verse. He’s a toothless lion, though.” And he explained how Juan Manuel Aljama, after swearing he would never adopt the enemy’s citizenship, had decided to do so when he had to have his leg amputated. He traveled to New York, to Mount Sinai Hospital, to have the operation done there, because he didn’t trust local doctors.
    “You’re very critical of your country, aren’t you, Mr….?” Madame asked. The young man’s tuxedo and starched shirt with diamond studs didn’t exactly label him as working class.
    “Diamantino Márquez, mucho gusto .” The young man shook her hand. “I’m a journalist and a poet, and I also play the violin. Forgive me for being sarcastic, but ours is a tragic case. We’re the only Latin American country that never became independent: the little caboose at the end of the train, held up by American troops at the close of the Spanish-American War.”
    A shock of dark hair fell over Diamantino’s forehead as he gesticulated angrily. He reminded me of a painting by Caravaggio I saw in St. Petersburg, in which an irate Christ, whip in hand, evicts the unholy merchants from the Temple. He was still wet behind the ears and here was Madame, the star of the Imperial Ballet, listening to him in awe!
    It was getting late and Madame anxiously began to look around for Diana Yager. She would be dancing in less than an hour and still had to put on her makeup and costume. She stood on her toes craning her neck to see, and I took advantage of it to reveal myself, stepping out from behind the urn. Madame signaled for me to follow at a discreet distance.
    “Well, thanks so much for sending your car around this morning to pick us up, Mr. Márquez. Please excuse me, I have to go now.”
    “It wasn’t my car; it was my godfather’s. I was living at his house until recently because my father passed away.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that. And who was your father?”
    “Don Eduardo Márquez, Aljama’s best friend. He died six months ago. Thankfully, before Aljama’s betrayal.” His eyes glistened