by B. TRAVEN
These three Indian girls spoke in Spanish, but whenever they were at a loss for a word they fell into Tseltal, their mother tongue; for they were too eager to wait for the adopted word. They did not know Andrés was there in the deep shadow, so absorbed were they in their talk.
He could not gather what they were talking about, for their voices often sank into a whisper. He heard only the subdued murmur and the melody of the voices mingling with one another. It was this cooing, gurgling music that excited him. It set him longing. At first he thought it was a longing for his mother, but knew at once and felt with vehemence that it was for something else: a longing for something—something beautiful. He could not clearly make out what this beauty was. Again he thought it was homesickness—but no, it was not that. It was a glow of warmth that rose and surged up in him. He began to feel infinitely sad—and utterly alone.
Nothing of this had ever occurred to him before. He had heard women and girls talking hundreds of times, but he had never before been aware of anything in a woman’s voice that excited him. Dozens of times women had been with the caravan—young, old, pretty, married and unmarried women. Sometimes the wives of carreteros had been with the caravan for weeks on end.
On all such occasions he had been in close touch with women again and again, but he had never felt anything particular in their presence. He had lifted women down from the carreta or helped them up into it. Time and time again he had carried women across rivers. He had waked women in the early morning at the ranchos and come upon them half dressed or even, owing to the heat, lying entirely naked on their beds. He had by accident surprised women who were traveling with the caravan in every sort of situation among the bushes by the roadside. Often in the night when there was a sudden flash of lightning or when the campfire broke unexpectedly into flame, he had seen men embracing their wives under a carreta or elsewhere. Hundreds of times he had seen women naked up to their waists when they were fording rivers, streams, and floods, and had come on girls bathing with nothing on at all. But he had never felt concerned with any of this, nor had it aroused desire of any kind.
A woman was made rather differently, otherwise she was the same to him as a man. In his home men and women alike worked hard. There was no distinction except in the kind of work, and that was because women were weaker and bore children and looked after them. To his feelings married women were the same as his mother or his aunts; and a girl was the same as his sisters.
The hut in which he had been brought up had only one room. As a child he had seen that his father had no other place to sleep except by his mother’s side on the thin petate. The tropical moon shone brightly in through the thin slats of the walls, and he had seen all his father and mother did as they lay together. The children held the parents in boundless honor and this honor and love could never be shaken, least of all by what was as natural as the rising and setting of the sun or the springing up of the corn and the flowers.
Andrés knew nothing of the lies and deceits and treacheries of novels, poems, and films. And he had not been brought up in a land where preachers and paragraph-writers force young and old alike to know what uncleanness is and where it is to be found and how to avail themselves of it, in order to earn the right to be counted among citizens of repute.
He had no means for discovering the deep, hidden cause of this sudden glow of longing. He tried to explain it to himself, because nothing of the sort had ever occurred to him before. For half a minute he thought it might be a fever coming on, which he had caught somewhere, but almost at once he knew that it was not fever. A fever—calentura—did not begin like that. He had no headache and no heaviness in his limbs.
Rather the opposite—his head had never been so clear as now, even if perplexed. He was filled with a desire to walk and walk, all night and all the next day, anywhere, just to keep moving. So his limbs could not be afflicted with heaviness.
Round about him were people laughing, talking, aimlessly strolling to and fro on the plaza. There was the monotonous chanting and the bumbling of the organ from the church, which ever and again mingled with the dance music. And there was the dance music, meaningless and yet gay. There were the excited youths in white trousers. There were the giggling and chattering girls and their long, black, well-combed hair with flowers threaded in it; and their flashing white teeth and full lips and eager coal-black eyes, which sometimes fixed him with a sudden gleam. And all the girls were well washed and smelled of strong soap and their dresses were as clean as new pins. And when they moved you sometimes had a glimpse of their petal-white chemises.
But when those three girls passed so close and then stood for a time so near him, he had caught the smell of their light sweat, which reached him all the more distinctly because it was fresh and exuded from well-washed bodies. It affected him with the sweetness of a scent.
Above all, though, it was their voices that cast the spell. Their voices were not music and yet they acted on him like music—only it was music of another kind. It was not like the music made by instruments.
It was the softness in their voices. It was the deep womanly goodness, which can be at the same time the beloved and the mother, welling out on the warm, cooing, and voluptuous tide of their voices without their knowing it. It seemed they had discovered that very evening who was the man among all men on earth who alone held the power to present them with the whole world wreathed in roses.
Even though Andrés did not know the causes of his strange awakening, he knew he was no longer the man he had been an hour before. A change had come over him and he felt that it would take complete possession of him.
It was nothing new to him that women had not the same voices as men; but it was a new and hitherto unsuspected discovery that the music in a woman’s voice could distinguish it so entirely from a man’s, and that by the mere tone and color of her voice, and by the revelation of her soul in it, she could place a whole world between herself and him.
This discovery shook him so deeply that for a time he felt afraid. He began to feel uncertain of himself. He suddenly doubted his power to carry on his life in the world. His longing for something unknown yet beautiful was linked with this onset of uncertainty and fear.
He had a sudden fear of women. There was something about them he no longer understood. Nothing was left in him but the mere, simple feeling that he could understand only his mother and that she was the only woman, now and always, of whom he had no fear.
But at the same time, even while he was overwhelmed by the strangeness of women, he felt the longing to listen to them and to be stroked and caressed by the caress in their voices.
He fell into a deep melancholy and felt a vehement desire to cry. The way the girls had so carelessly walked away without noticing him told him that now, in spite of all the crowd of people in the square, he was utterly forsaken and alone. He had not a friend—no one to speak kindly to him, no one to whom he could tell what he felt and what had come over him.
He felt himself growing weary. He hoped he might die then and there without pain or trouble, and without ever needing to get up again.
It was out of this prostration of mind that the longing, which until now had been so vague and wavering, became full and clear.
12
It was certainly a pity that he had never penetrated far enough into the mysteries of religion. In that case he would now have entered the church and offered up two good fat candles, encased in colored paper, to the King of Heaven and implored Him earnestly to grant him his heart’s desire. It is much simpler to pray to the gods and goddesses for help than to labor to attain one’s desire, either by hard work or by an adroit and intelligent manipulation of the circumstances which promise its fulfillment. The things a man deeply desires rarely arise of themselves, and very seldom in the way he hopes of them. But things that are earnestly coveted do come closer and, once close, are more easily grasped and held on to than things that are only halfheartedly coveted or not coveted at all. That is only natural and not b
y any means hard to understand. Persons of little education and little intelligence have to pray before they can concentrate on what they wish. And therefore it is of no importance to what one prays, since it is not the prayer but the strength of one’s desire that brings the object of desire nearer.
Andrés was well aware from long experience that prayer would not cause a single hole in the road to vanish—unless he or his fellow workers filled the hole with stones and, even then, kept a sharp lookout to prevent the carreta from coming to grief. He knew that his patrón would not raise his wage by so much as half a real however long he might kneel to the Holy Virgin. He had to fight that out with the patrón for himself, whether outright or by guile. And if an ox fell over a precipice, the most earnest prayers would never pull it up again. It meant hours of backbreaking toil before the carreteros could hoist the animal onto the road again—with lassos and tree trunks after digging out steps and excavating a way for it.
Although the church called to him so persistently through its open doorway it never for a second entered his head to beseech the Holy Virgin for the companion he desired.
2
Andrés was irresolute what to do next. Squatting there in his Indian fashion, he remained motionless as before. Seen from a little distance he looked, in the shadow of the wall behind him, like a statue put there as an ornament of the house. He did not even turn his head. He could see all he wished of what went on in the square without as much as moving his eyes. It was only within that the presence of the girls had made him restless.
He could not squat there forever, but he did not know where to go. There was nothing more to be seen. The boys and girls danced on and on, but dancing is wearisome to lookers-on.
Yet he did not want to return to the camp. The prairie was now wrapped in darkness. The carreteros were asleep, or, if not asleep, drunk and bawling senselessly to no one in particular. Carretas, oxen, and carreteros could be seen every day, but a fair—when he could sit idly looking on without a care—was a rare event in his life. There was no knowing when he would next have the chance to partake in a fiesta like this. It might be a year. It might be two.
And thinking how it might be years before another fiesta came his way, how his work might always keep him from it, owing to the long trips he might be on, he at last made up his mind to have another look around, among the stands and booths and roulette tables. There was always something of interest to be seen. He considered going to a bar and having a small comiteco. Perhaps he might meet a girl who had no boy friend and was wandering about alone like himself. His blood warmed at the thought of meeting a girl, a girl, perhaps, like one of those three who had aroused this new and strange excitement in him. It was possible he might find a girl who would be willing to talk to him, to dance with him, to stroll about the fair with him, and perhaps walk out with him beyond the last houses over the little bridge and as far as the last farms, after which there was the open prairie.
3
He stretched his legs and felt for his tall bast hat, which had slipped from his head. He was about to get on his feet when he heard a sound like a suppressed sigh.
He looked to his right. He had not once looked in that direction in all the time he had been squatting there. Everything worth looking at had been to the front of him; there could have been nothing much to see at his right.
When he now looked more closely into the darkness he could see, hunched in a corner of the house, a small bundle which appeared to be human. It was tightly rolled up as though afraid of claiming too much space from the world and other people. Indeed, this bundle did not seem to believe it had any right to any room whatever, so closely was it huddled together.
The bundle did not stir. Neither head nor feet were visible. It was entirely enveloped in a jorongo of black wool with narrow gray stripes.
4
Andrés could not make out how this bundle had come there—so close that he could almost touch it by stretching out his hand. No doubt his thoughts had been far away and he had not noticed when and how it had crouched down near him. Perhaps it had been there before he himself had sat down. In any case he had had no idea it was there, and owing to the unexpectedness of it, it seemed to him that this bundle had fallen from heaven.
He edged a little nearer, and as he did so he thought the bundle huddled itself closer together. Again he heard a gentle sigh, like the indrawn breath of a long sob.
“What are you crying for, little girl?” he asked softly.
There was no reply.
It occurred to him that perhaps she did not understand Spanish. So next he asked in Tseltal: “Why are you sad, little girl?”
The bundle stirred and sat up.
“Have you no mother?” he asked.
“Muquenal,” the bundle said softly, and sighed again.
“In the cemetery, then,” Andrés replied. “And your father?” he asked.
“Mee muquenal, tat milvil, nebahachisch, mucal aquil namal,” said the bundle, meaning: “My mother in the cemetery, my father killed, I am an orphan now, my village is far from here.”
In these few words her whole history was told.
5
Andrés moved a little closer.
“Can I help you, little girl?”
She said nothing for a time. She had to think it out. Then she said: “Bocon—I will go now.”
“Where will you go, so late in the night? The wild dogs will bite you, and drunken men about on the roads will insult you.”
“I’m not afraid,” she answered to this. “I have sharp teeth and strong nails and I’ll find two big stones and take them with me.”
While she spoke she came further and further out of her jorongo. Her head was now free.
“How old are you?” he asked her.
“Jolajuneb—I am fifteen,” she replied.
“Anelvaneg—a runaway?” he asked.
“Yes, anesvil—I’ve run away from a finca,” she said.
Her hair was tangled, matted and long uncombed—dirty and, Andrés supposed, full of lice. Her face had not been washed for days. Her skin was a dark bronze. Her eyes were black like her straggly hair, and very large and bright.
“Have you nowhere to sleep?” he asked.
“I am going out onto the prairie,” she said.
He laughed at her, and when he saw that she answered with a hesitating smile he said: “I’ll take you with me to the carretas and I’ll fix you a warm soft bed in a carreta. Will you come?”
“You are good to me, Binash Yutsil—you fine boy,” she said simply. And with this the invitation was accepted.
6
“We’ll go first to the fountain,” he suggested.
“Why?”
“Suquel—to wash ourselves.”
This was polite and gallant, for he had meant that she needed washing. As it was now a question of both of them she did not mind being told that she needed a wash.
He pulled a small piece of soap out of his pocket and gave it to her. She washed at the outer edge of the fountain, where the water ran into troughs for the cattle that were brought there to be watered.
“Stay where you are,” he said and ran off. In a moment he was back with a wooden comb he had bought at a stall for five centavos.
“And now we’ll go and give your hair a good combing.”
He took her by the hand and they went back into the shadow of the house where they had first met. She began to give her hair a thorough combing. It took a long time. It was by nature thick hair and now it was a mop.
He watched and laughed and talked with her as though he had known her for years. It seemed to do her all the good in the world to have found someone to talk to freely, and she relied on him as she would on a brother.
The confidence she had in him filled him with tenderness. He felt his heart bathed in warm sunshine. Indeed, it ran all through his veins. The longing, which had made him sad because it had no object and was only longing for longing’s sake, was now released in a gre
at and quiet joy. There was no name for it; for it was a joy that was new to him and was not connected with anything he had known before. He wished the night might never end and the girl talk on and on and never stop.
When she tossed back her hair to shake it clear and then lowered her head again and looked at him with a smile which showed the beauty of her white teeth, he felt a new world open. He felt boundlessly rich to have bought her a comb, and richer still to be able to offer her a carreta in the camp for her home.
At last she had finished with her hair. She shook it back from her face and turned to him with a smile. Then she pulled the loose hair from the teeth of the comb, tapped it against the wall, and gave it back to him.
“It is your comb,” he said, “a present from the fair.”
“But I’ve no pocket to keep it in,” she said, smiling. “Won’t you keep it in your pocket for me?”
He took it and put it in his pocket. “I’m very pleased to keep it for you. Now you’ll have to come to me when you want to comb your hair.”
“I’ll do that gladly,” she replied.
He stood up. “And now, vehel ta hacabaltic—we will go and have supper. Would you like to? Are you hungry?”
She threw back her head so as to look up at his face, for she was sitting on her heels.
“I have never been so hungry, Binash Yutsil. It’s two days since I ate.”
7
They went to the little Indian kitchen where Andrés had bought his enchiladas earlier in the evening.