by B. TRAVEN
Now and again his master would give one of the boys a push with his foot: “Oye, Lázaro—listen, Lázaro, get up and run across to the cantina and knock at the door. Here are twelve reales for a liter of comiteco añejo—good and aged, the real stuff. Don’t let them pass off a cheap tequila. Well, off with you, don’t stand there, we’re dry.”
3
It was not Lázaro but Andrés who was kicked up by one of the caballeros. On these social occasions all the boys were common property and nobody noticed which boy it was who was sent on an errand or who sent him.
Andrés returned with the bottle of comiteco and put it on the table.
“Here, have a drink, muchacho,” said don Laureano, who had sent Andrés out for it. He filled a glass and pushed it toward Andrés, who drank it off, and then with a toothpick helped himself from a plate of cheese cut up into cubes.
The relation between a master and his boy in Mexico is not that of master and slave. Particularly on journeys the master is not too proud to drink from the same bottle as his boy, whether it contains water, coffee, brandy, or some soft drink; the same with food. The master is scrupulous in sharing his roast turkey fairly with his boy; the boy breaks off with his fingers as much as he wants of the lump of posol or the chunk of meat. But he will never touch his master’s provisions, even though he is dying of hunger, unless his master eats at the same time or has eaten already. And yet, although the muchacho may have just drunk from the same bottle as his master, the master does not think twice about giving him a kick if he does not jump up quick enough to catch a straying horse before it has gone too far.
Andrés was just squatting down in his corner again when don Leonardo noticed him.
“Listen, don Laureano,” he said. “I’ll stake my muchacho. How much will you stake against him?”
Don Laureano held the bank.
He looked Andrés up and down as though examining a horse he had to bid for then and there.
“Does he speak Castellano or just dialect?” don Laureano asked while he shuffled the cards.
“He speaks both and he can read and write a little too,” answered don Leonardo.
“Twenty-five pesos,” don Laureano rapped out, to show that it was the most he would offer.
“Aceptado—agreed,” answered don Leonardo.
The game went on and don Leonardo lost. He pulled out his revolver and balanced it in his hand.
Had it been anywhere else the men would have sprung to their feet to prevent don Leonardo from a rash suicide. But though each had seen his movement, not one of them stirred or so much as thought of falling upon him. Each of them was a good enough philosopher to be able to say to himself: “If he wants to shoot himself it’s his own concern and no business of ours. We’ll bury him decently and there ends our duty as friends and caballeros.”
But these gentlemen were far too good judges not to know that no one is in such a hurry to shoot himself. As long as a man still has his rancho and his house or the house of his father-in-law and his best horse to gamble away, there is no danger of his killing himself. Mexico is too fine a country for that, and it is by no means certain that in another life a man will land in Mexico again. So it is better to stay where you are and not tempt the gods.
Don Leonardo stroked his revolver caressingly and then set it down in front of don Laureano, who put down the cards he was shuffling, picked up the revolver and examined it as one might a work of art. He tried its balance, weighed it in his hand, looked down the barrel, tested its action, and said: “Caliber 38. Bueno, my bueno. All right. Fifty pesos.”
One of the other players shouted: “I’ll give sixty for it.”
“So will I,” don Laureano said dryly. “Does anyone bid more?” he asked, looking around the table.
No one bid.
“Right. Sixty pesos,” don Laureano said with a jerk of his head at don Leonardo.
“Aceptado,” answered don Leonardo.
“Will you stake the sixty, or what is your stake, don Leonardo?” asked don Laureano.
“I’ll see the first card and then call my stake.”
“Bueno; as you like, amigo.”
Don Leonardo picked up the card dealt him. It was a seven. “I lay the sixty,” he said.
“Good,” replied don Laureano. “Otra—another? Or are you content?”
Don Leonardo thought for a moment. A seven was a good card and no one but a fool would ask for another. If he lost his revolver there was only his saddle left and finally his horse. Then he would have to ride home on a borrowed horse, and that for a caballero is nearly as bad as having to go on foot like an Indian. A Mexican caballero will never be seen on foot unless his horse has foundered.
Don Leonardo thought it over for a second longer while he fixed the card, which don Laureano had half drawn from the pack, with such intensity that he might have been hoping to read its value from the back. He made up his mind to say “Enough, gracias—thanks,” but quite against his will blurted out: “Otra.”
The card was dealt him. For a moment he held it as he had received it—face down—afraid to look at it. All the players watched him in order to relish his suspense to the full. That is the great charm of the game: you live in suspense twice over—in your own and that of the other players.
Cautiously, don Leonardo turned up the card. Everyone at the table of course knew already that his first card must have been a six or a seven, for if it had been less he would never have hesitated to ask for another.
He saw that he had got a king. Putting the two cards down, he released his pent-up breath: “Siete y medio, caballeros—seven and a half, gentlemen.”
He took up his revolver and quietly pushed it back into its holster, as though no other issue had been possible. He raked in a few hundred pesos, and besides that he now held the bank. Whoever holds the bank is always half a point to the good above all the other players.
4
The game went on.
At five o’clock on the following afternoon they agreed to stop after three more deals. After this no revenge was to be asked for or taken. Fatigue was the reason: they could scarcely hold their cards or count right.
Don Leonardo had won back his losses and two thousand and some hundred pesos in addition.
A rough calculation of gains and losses showed that no one had been too hard hit. The two or three thousand that one or other of them had lost were not taken tragically. The losers, half asleep, calculated how much they would need to put onto the goods they hoped to sell in order to balance their losses at cards. On a final count it will usually be found that it is not the gambler who pays for his losses. Someone else who has had no share in the game has to bleed for them.
5
The men rose unsteadily to their feet and went out onto the portico. The boys who were lounging about there waiting for their masters ran up at once and brought out chairs from the room where the game had gone on. The men dropped wearily into the chairs. Some dozed off; others talked drowsily, more to keep themselves awake than because they had anything to say. Half an hour later their host summoned them to supper in the dining room.
The meal over, they stood up, stretched themselves, and got ready to go out into the streets to see how the world had gone on since they last saw it and what prospects there were of bringing their businesses to a conclusion and who was out and about to be talked to.
Don Laureano left with don Leonardo. They were both putting up at the same fonda, or inn. As they came through the gateway they found Andrés leaning against the gatepost, chatting with another boy who was also waiting for his master.
Don Laureano tapped Andrés on the shoulder and asked him: “What’s your name, hijito?”
“Andrés Ugalde, su servidor—at your service, señor,” he replied.
“Andrés, eh?” said don Laureano. “Ever worked with oxen?”
“No, señor,” the boy replied.
“There’s no difficulty in it,” don Laureano went on. “You’ll soon lear
n. You’re a strong young fellow and you look intelligent. You’ll get on. We’ll know more about you presently. You know, of course, you’re my muchacho now.”
Andrés looked up at don Leonardo.
“Your pardon, patrón, but I belong to don Leonardo.”
Don Laureano turned his head and looked at don Leonardo. “Don Leonardo, haven’t you told the boy?” he asked.
Don Leonardo remembered, as if it had been a dream, that he had staked the boy and lost. When he had staked his revolver and won, he had wasted no time in taking it back and shoving it into place at his belt; in fact, he had done so before raking in the money he won in the same game. In this game, as he now remembered, he had won the bank too; and from that moment had thought only of the money he had lost and meant to win back. But he utterly forgot having lost the boy; otherwise, when at about midday don Laureano too got short of money and began to stake personal belongings, he would have asked him to stake the boy first of all, so that he might have had the chance of winning him back.
But the game was now over. Don Laureano was in no way bound to return the boy, not even if it were possible to offer the twenty-five pesos staked for him.
In Mexico there is no longer traffic in human beings as there was in colonial times; no man can be bought, no man sold. It is forbidden by the Constitution, which, further, solemnly declares that every subject of the Republic is a free, independent, and inviolable human being on whom only his own father or the police or the public prosecutor or the State has the right, in stated circumstances, to lay hands. For this reason it was now out of don Leonardo’s power to undo his blunder. He could not offer don Laureano twenty-five, or even fifty pesos for the boy. That would have meant the purchase of a human being, and he, as well as don Laureano, might have got a long term of imprisonment for it. Besides, they were both good and believing Catholics, for whom it would be a sin to sell a man, even though an Indian. They would have felt ashamed of themselves, both as caballeros and as Mexicans, if they had offered or received money for a fellow citizen of the Republic and treated one of their own fellow countrymen as merchandise. In any case, it would be a breach of every code and custom.
But morality is so complicated, and not only in Mexico, that it is not considered unfitting or impermissible or discreditable if men stake at cards the property of their wives or their children or their parents if they are short of money with which to continue to gamble.
In this case, however, the moral question was very little involved. Andrés was a peon who belonged to a finca as part of the property. The Constitution might forbid his sale, but he could be given and taken in an exchange between property owners. A peon was not asked whether he wished to go to a new master or not. He was too well brought up by the Church and the landed gentry to think of discussing such a thing or to make the slightest hint of an objection to the exchange. That would be disobedience, and no peon has the right to be disobedient.
The caballero is much more attached to his favorite horses than to his muchachos. Don Leonardo was not likely to think twice about the loss of Andrés. As soon as he got home he would send off a request to his father-in-law for another boy from the finca.
“Yes, that’s right, Andrés,” he said sleepily. “You are now don Laureano’s muchacho.”
With that the affair was ended. He resumed his talk with don Laureano at the point where it had been interrupted. One doesn’t think again about losses at cards; they are nothing to weep over. It is bad manners to be niggardly. A caballero is always openhanded.
6
A week later don Leonardo was home again at Tenejapa. He had hired a boy in La Concordia to accompany him. He paid him off on his arrival and sent him back.
Doña Emilia did not at once ask about Andrés. She supposed he was occupied with something or other and would arrive later. And when a husband and wife who are not yet tired of one another meet again after three or four weeks’ separation, they usually have more important and pleasanter things to talk of than the whereabouts of an Indian muchacho.
But when two days passed and still nothing was to be seen of Andrés, doña Emilia said to her husband: “What is keeping Andrés? Why didn’t he return with you?”
It had been don Leonardo’s first intention to say that the boy had met with an accident—kicked by a mule and they had had to bury him. He had made up his mind on the way home to say this, but now he thought it would sound too absurd. Instead he said with indifference: “The boy? Oh, him. He lost three mules on the way—cost me days and money too to catch them again; and then they were good for nothing. Don’t know what’s come over the boy. He was no further use—insubordinate and impudent. When we got to La Concordia he ran off. He told some of the other boys he was going to Tapachula, where he could earn good money. I didn’t go after him. If he wants to go, let him. That’s all I get for the trouble I took with him. We’ll write to your father to send a good boy from the finca.”
His wife had no wish to argue the matter. It would have disturbed the joy of reunion, just when she was finding her husband’s embraces particularly pleasing, as is usually the case after a separation which has interrupted the routine of a happy marriage. So she said no more about it.
Andrés was forgotten. The new boy whom don Arnulfo sent soon settled down. And since he came straight from the finca and was very obedient and submissive and timidly kissed his master’s and mistress’s hands morning and night, as was the custom on the finca, doña Emilia and don Leonardo agreed that the new boy was better, more industrious, more agreeable, more obedient, more loyal and honest and reliable than Andrés had ever been.
4
Don Laureano Figueróa was a comisionista—a commission agent—who lived at Chiapa de Corso. He was the representative of two or three hundred firms in Mexico City, Puebla, Monterrey, U.S.A., Spain, France, and other places besides, of which he knew no more than the names.
He united all the agencies in his district for sewing machines, maize, porcelainware, roofing material, hardware, petroleum, typewriters, Spanish muzzle-loaders, flower seeds, barbed wire, newspapers, bottled beer, wines, cigarettes. He undertook the forwarding of goods to all parts of the world, as stated on his letterheads. He bought and sold land, houses, and securities. He was better known in every little town of the state than the governor or his ministers. There was no place in the state, however small it might be, where you did not see hanging up in every shop, fonda, hotel, and office a calendar on which was depicted a gaudy landscape of a kind that could never be found anywhere in Mexico. Above the landscape his name was printed in bold type, and the landscape was framed by a list of all the articles for which he was the general agent.
There is no cause to smile at don Laureano for combining so many agencies in his own person; for if he had represented only one large firm he would soon have starved. He was agent for a world-famous piano manufacturer in New York. In three years he had succeeded in selling one whole piano. But—as he wrote them—he was justified in hoping that within two years he would be able to sell another, for there was a newly wedded couple who had been contemplating the purchase of one for several months. Sewing machines were brisker, though even they left much to be desired. He reposed great confidence in typewriters, for the business people of the state were just making their acquaintance and might take them up. Also, he was on good terms with the secretaries and hoped to provide all government offices of the state with typewriters.
His mainstay, certainly, was the forwarding of goods. It was as a carrier that he earned his daily bread and kept his business going.
He had forty carretas working between Arriaga and Balún-Canán. As he and all his family were well known throughout the state, and as he himself had the reputation for strict reliability and honesty, he was never without a freight. His caravans were entrusted not only with the transport of valuable goods and money, but also carried women who were traveling alone or a child who was being sent to relations somewhere or to school. It was well known that
his carreteros would give their lives in the defense of the goods entrusted to them, whether against bandits or any catastrophe of nature.
2
Andrés did not wonder why he was passed on by one master to another without ceremony or without his being asked what he thought about it. In any case, it would have made no difference. Horses, donkeys, and mules were sold and exchanged by their owners, and no one asked a horse whether it wished to go to a new master; so why should they ask him?
It did not even occur to Andrés to make any remark at all, and still less to think he had any right to say yes or no in a matter that the gentlemen arranged between themselves. He did not know that a man as such had rights or anything of that sort. He knew one thing only and had known it since childhood: a peon must obey. There is not a soldier anywhere on earth who is allowed to say a word if in wartime or peacetime he is left to rot up to his neck in water. Obedience is the first duty of a soldier; and it is the first and last duty of a peon. The soldier is sent to Flanders whether he likes it or not. And his masters swap him about: today he fights and bleeds for the well-being of the British, tomorrow for the French, and the day after for democracy. When the obedience of the workers and soldiers begins to be shaken, the foundations of the State tremble and rebellion crouches for another spring. Every law of nature would be thrown into tumult and confusion if it ever occurred to a finquero to say to his peon: “Hijito mío, cómo te gusta—well, my son, how do you like it?”
Andrés had never expected his patrón to ask him what he thought. He did what he was told—no more and no less. He might have resisted if his master had ordered him to hang himself from the nearest tree; for that would have been against the commandments of the Church. On the other hand, it was breaking no commandment to permit himself to be whipped or placed in the stocks. The Church had taught him that disobedience to him whom God had made his master might end in disobedience to God and the Holy Father. Only when obedience is established—and firmly established—on all sides, can obedience to God and the Church rest on a firm foundation. That has to be got into the blood from the very beginning.