Читать книгу Butterfly Winter - W. Kinsella P. - Страница 12

Fernandella’s family, who were stolid, hardworking, churchgoing people before the priests were relieved of their power, were horrified at her choice. Did I mention that the Old Dictator decreed that all priests were to leave Courteguay? Those who stayed were forced to live behind chain-link fences and quietly mold and disintegrate. Years later, Dr Noir took credit for dispatching the priests from Courteguay and imprisoning those who stayed. Dr Noir of course, was a liar, a thief, a cheat, a murderer and a scoundrel. And those were his good points.

When they weren’t making love in some secret and forbidden place, Hector retained his indifference.

‘I have no intention of changing my ways,’ he told her. ‘I will never work in the cane fields, or the guava plantations. I gamble. If you marry me my luck becomes yours.’

Fernandella agreed. Within weeks they were married.

But before they could be married there had to be a baseball game. The women of Courteguay played almost as much baseball as the men and some of them were exceptionally talented. Before a wedding could take place a team made up of the bride, her sisters and bridesmaids, and whoever else was necessary to a complete team, played against a team picked by the groom. The groom’s team could be made up of anything from rank amateurs to semi-professionals. For the wedding to go forward the bride had to make an adequate showing as a baseball player. The word adequate could be interpreted in many ways. If the groom was reluctant, a bride who went only 1 for 4 and made an error in the field might be rejected by the triumvirate who made the decision, the groom and best man being two, the third often one of the moth-eaten priests who lived behind chain-link fencing. The priest never saw the game but would be told about it by the groom, and was the third leg of the triumvirate to give an appearance of fairness.

If the soon-to-be groom was madly in love, all the bride, if she was not an athlete, or many months pregnant, had to do was show up, stand helplessly in right field and swing weakly at the ball when she batted. But even if the bride was an excellent commercial league player, the groom might want an extra week to sow a few wild oats so would insist that she had not played well enough to be his bride, thus postponing the wedding for a week.

Fernandella was coached by a woman named Roberta Fernandez Diaz Ortega, who now lived in the United States with her lover, a woman who once won the Dinah Shore Golf Tournament, and happened to be visiting her family. Several years earlier in a Wedding Game like this Roberta had been seen by a scout for the Baltimore Orioles. In cut-off jeans, a loose shirt and with her boy’s haircut, Roberta was mistaken for a boy, and the scout offered her a chance in A Ball in the USA. Roberta signed her name as Roberto and hopped in the back of the scout’s Jeep after the game was over. As Roberto she moved quickly up the ladder and played two seasons for the Orioles, batting over .300 and coming second in All Star voting her second season. Her teammates did not suspect her. She was often seen in the company of women.

‘Geez, Robbyo,’ said teammate Bubba, one evening before a game, ‘I seen you dancing last night. I thought that tennis player girl you was with was queer as a three-dollar bill.’

Roberta stared him in the eye. ‘I am Courteguayan,’ she replied, ‘I am able to overcome any odds.’

‘Damn fine,’ said Bubba. ‘Maybe you could introduce me to one of them queer chicks, I’ve always felt that after one evening with Ol Bubba, they’d get over that foolishness.’

‘Maybe someday I will,’ said Roberta.

It wasn’t until the last day of the season after Roberta had won the batting title in the American League and her teammates threw her into the shower that they discovered her secret.

Management quickly covered up by announcing first, magnificent player bonuses, then in December that a torn rotator cuff had ended Roberto’s career. They paid out her contract, which made her a very wealthy woman.