The Dictator's Ex-Wife Writes Him a Letter

(Alinari Archives -- Corbis - )

The rumor, she knew, was that he wanted his wife out of the way. He was running around with someone. So? She was used to his street life by now. His manly appetite, part of his appeal. A shop girl in La Romana. An actress in the capital. The wife of the minister of justice. But now there was a mistress who had become a regular. A mistress who knew how his heart ached for an heir.

She lived in limbo in her hotel in Paris. She scoured the papers for news of him. One day, she found the small article. A new law had been passed weeks after she had been spirited out of the country: A man may divorce a wife who has not borne him a child within five years of marriage.

She tried calling the palacio, but he was never available. She could not sleep. She had always had a healthy appetite, but she could not keep her food down. She heard of Dr. Marion, his private clinic dedicated to restoring the broken and distraught.

"Restored to what?" she had asked him during their first interview.

"Let us be creative," he replied. "Life will reward us."

And it had. Three months ago, a surprise. El Generalissimo was in Paris, himself unwell, consulting the experts. He had always been superstitious. A brujo had told him, You have left something behind which you must recover.

He came back to her looking for it. Dr. Marion allowed a weekend leave, even the loan of a cottage. She gave herself to her Generalissimo, as she always would. But she would never give it back, the piece of him lodged deep inside her heart.

In the intimacies of that weekend in the cottage, he had recited verses to her. She did not know if he composed them himself. The words like a balm.

Nothing had changed, he promised. Their divorce was a formality. He needed an heir. But she would always be his.

"Siempre," he had said. Always. But by Sunday evening, he had vanished, taking with him her happiness.

THE CONSUL AND HIS WIFE ARE ANNOUNCED.

"Dr. Marion will be joining you shortly," the nurse says. She hesitates at the door before leaving Bienvenida to her visitors.