Chapter 2

Before Vietnam, John Virgil thought he had led a small life. Bethzatha—which stood on the outskirts of Madrugada, a little town high on a cliff overlooking the Pacific—was but a claustrophobic microcosm of the universe. The center of that universe was, of course, Se?or’s sprawling pale-pink manor house—with its five gables, seven chimneys, light-gray awnings, and gingerbread trim. It was the sun around which all else revolved—the carriage house and various small buildings that now made up the inn at Bethzatha; the caretaker’s cottage; and the gardens that were as much an attraction as the inn itself. Apart from St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Church and the Madrugada Public Library, John Virgil had never ventured beyond that world. Until Vietnam, that is.

After Vietnam, he never wanted to venture beyond his home again. And if that meant enduring Se?or’s cruel carping, well, he had already witnessed worse and survived more. Besides, John Virgil honestly believed that one day that mean old man would, like some character in a fairy tale, recognize his real worth—not just as the loving person he was but as the true son he knew himself to be.

John Virgil may have been simple, but he wasn’t stupid. He understood the rumors that had wandered like ghosts through Bethzatha for years, understood, too, that people saw his late, lamented mother as a gold-digging whore who went mad and killed herself in the car accident that had crippled Se?or.

But if his mother had never tired of scheming how to marry Se?or and get her hands on his estate, John Virgil cared about money and property only to the extent that they conferred legitimacy. He rented the caretaker’s cottage that had been his childhood home and that he hoped one day to buy outright. He drove an old pickup he had fixed himself. He didn’t drink, smoke, do drugs, gamble, curse, or chase women. He rarely went into town, except to go to St. Mikey’s—as he had called St. Michael’s ever since he was a little boy—the library, or a movie recommended by Paris Pageant, who had come to Bethzatha to nurse Se?or after the accident and had stayed on to become a surrogate mother to John Virgil as well. His one dream, apart from Se?or’s acknowledging him as his son, was to share a life of quiet contentment with a wife and children. 2

Se?or dreamed, too, but the dreams of the hateful are more complicated, if not more complex. He had loved Adelia Cabral once—or at least he had convinced himself that lust and obsession were kinds of love. She in turn had loved Se?or—or at least she had been passionately attached to his wealth. They began by lying to themselves and ended by lying to each other. She had betrayed him—so he said—with others and with one other in particular, the despised Monsieur, owner of the neighboring estate, Belleville, of which Se?or was zealously jealous.

She in turn was betrayed—or so she thought—by a man who had taken much and given little. So, she grabbed what she could and, when she realized that it would never be enough, she took her own life and very nearly his.

Whatever Se?or had once felt for Adelia had long since been replaced by a cold fury that rivaled his former feelings in intensity and depth. Now he lived to torment the son she had borne but had never loved, the child he would never recognize as his own, even if it were so.

Instead, Se?or had become a kind of land-locked Capt. Bligh—crossing John Virgil’s Fletcher Christian at every turn and waiting for the moment when he could deliver the excruciating coup de grace. That moment arrived, as all great moments do, unexpectedly, in the curvaceous form of a woman, one with long, thick, wavy black hair; green eyes; and a creamy back that was shown to great advantage in her white halter dress—another Eve for Se?or’s labyrinthine Eden.

“I’m so sorry,” the young woman was saying. “I was looking for the inn—I’ve had a flat, you see—but I fear I’ve wandered onto private property.”

Se?or was about to shriek, That’s right, you stupid bitch, when he realized that the woman was not only strikingly beautiful, but—and this was extraordinary for genuine beauty—strangely familiar.

In an instant, he recognized who she was—Isabelle Didier, only child of the loathsome Monsieur and presumably sole heiress to Belleville. With its bisque-colored stucco, tiled circular courtyard, fountains and cypress trees, Belleville was far grander than Bethzatha, and, unlike Se?or’s estate, had never fallen on hard times, necessitating anything so vulgar and humbling as the establishment of an inn and public tours to pay off the debt.

Now that the inn and the gardens were a success—the toast of all those glossy magazines—Bethzatha had a cachet that Belleville could not match. Still, Belleville was owned by Monsieur, who represented everything Se?or detested in this world. He had cuckolded him with the sluttish Adelia and may have even been John Virgil’s real father (or so Se?or came to believe, despite her too-ample protestations). He strode the Earth on two healthy legs. And he was French. Se?or was as proud to be an equal-opportunity hater as he was to be an American of pure Portuguese descent. But if there was one group he particularly detested, it was the French—all style and no substance.