Everything is Nice

by Jane Bowles

  "Suppose," she said on this particular day, "that we plan our itinerary for next spring. There are several mountains that I'd like to visit. As one grows older one has access to many more pleasures than one ever had as a young person. It's as if at a certain age a thick black curtain were wrenched aside, disclosing row upon row of goodies ready to be snatched. We're put on this earth for us to enjoy—although certain others get their thrill out of abstinence and devotion. That's just doing it the other way around. Not that I care at all what others do—too much contact spoils the essence of things. You'll agree to that, because you're a first-class hermit, anyway. Do you want to have dinner at the hotel?"

  Lane did not answer, but looked again out of the window. "If you're looking for that white dog, Lane, he's certainly deep into the woods by this time."

  Señorita Cordoba

  One morning Señorita Cordoba received a letter from her mother. She sat beside the fountain reading it.

  My Dear Violeta—

  I do hope you are enjoying every minute of your stay in the city of Antigua. It is a great miracle to think that Antigua has been destroyed once by fire and once by water. My father pointed out the beauty of this city to me at an early age. He said to me, "When you go to Europe, you need not bow your head in shame that you have come from a country inhabited almost entirely by Indians, as many Europeans are wont to believe. But say to them proudly, "If Europe were a crown and in this crown one jewel were missing— the most beautiful jewel of all—you would find it in my country situated between two volcanoes and surrounded by hills. Its name is Antigua." At that age I loved to sit among the ruins, but Aunt Mercedes (who has come to agree with me), Aunt Mercedes and I still think it a little unwise for you to have taken such a trip at this particular moment. I realize it is only a few hours away, of course. Did you say that your board was fifty cents a day? For that they should serve you all the chicken you wanted and if they don't I hope you will be sure to demand your just rights. The lady of the pension will understand. I think perhaps that I as your mother have been a little too spiritual all my life. I do not want you to be the same. Perhaps, though, spiritual would not be the correct term to apply to you. Aunt Mercedes and I have been contenting ourselves with eggs and beans. The meat has been unusually hard this week and so very dear. I don't want you to worry about this or let it spoil your lovely holiday. You might try to buy a picture of the All Saints Day parade from someone who has a camera. Try not to buy it—ask for it, nicely. Señora Sanchez was in the other evening. She was riding by on a horse and she stopped in. She was complaining bitterly about prices, and insulted me grossly, I thought, by handing me half a chicken enveloped in some newspaper, which I handed over to the servants, of course. Aunt Mercedes didn't think that was quite wise. She is a great chicken eater, while I myself am more or less indifferent to all foods, as you know. Aunt Mercedes thought it dreadful that she should be riding on a horse, so soon after her husband's death. We send you our best wishes for an agreeable holiday. May the Lord bless you and keep you well.

  Your mother

  Señorita Cordoba frowned and looked into the fountain. "Such an old-fashioned letter," she thought to herself. "My mother and my aunt are living like cliff dwellers. Such people write a letter about a chicken." She took a pencil from her bag and made some figures on a piece of paper. She knew just about how much money she needed to get back to Paris and to live there for a little while, while she was starting her dress establishment. She was going to make dresses with a Latin spirit. There was only one way for her to get hold of this money, she was certain, and that was through a man. She had seen a lot of this going on in Paris, and she thought that she would know how to handle such a situation if she could possibly meet a man rich enough in Guatemala. "It would all be in a first-class way," she had assured herself.

  On the following morning Señorita Cordoba overheard Señora Ramirez telling the children that their father would arrive that day. She was delighted to hear this, because she knew Señor Ramirez to be one of the richest men in the country .. . and a great lady lover. It was on the chance that he would come to Antigua to visit his wife and children that she herself had decided to spend the Holy Week in Señora Espinoza's pension. She knew that Señora Ramirez had been spending the Semana Santa there now for many years, or so she had heard tell from her mother and her mother's friends, who had never understood why Señor Ramirez did not send his wife to a more expensive touristic hotel. He had never been seen at the pension with her until the previous year, when he had suddenly appeared in Antigua and stayed there for several days. However, most people said that he had come to spend his time with his friend Alfonso Gutierres, who had opened an unfrequented but very elegant hotel which was reputed to have the best wine cellar and hard liquor stock in the country. Señorita Cordoba, having heard of his former visit, had been very much in hopes that he would return again this season. She had thought the short journey well worth the risk, particularly as she was tired of helping her mother with the coffee finca and the house — two things which interested her less than anything in the world. She was delighted that he was arriving so promptly. She was never able to relax or enjoy anything that was not concerned directly with the making of her life. Now she was in a feverish state, pulling her dresses out of her trunk and examining them for holes. The figure that she had decided was the minimum sum which she would demand for her trip and to cover the initial investment in her dress shop, and of course her first six months living in Paris, she had marked down on a pad which lay on the bureau. She went over and looked at the pad now, and her cheeks were quite flushed with the intensity of her figuring. She stood there for a long time and then she changed the number on the pad. She made it a little lower.

  She picked up a long silk ball dress that she had not worn for many years. It was pink, and to the bodice were pinned some shapeless silk flowers. She decided to wear this to dinner, as it was the fanciest thing she had and was certain to please a Spanish man. She lay down on the bed. Her face was strained and stiff. She shut her eyes for a moment and thought of the name of her shop. It was to be called "Casa Cordoba." "Now," she said to herself, "for what the French call beauty sleep. No thoughts—no thoughts—-just rest." She could hear marimba music playing over the radio. She loved listening to music, and it made her think of all the things which she considered beautiful—Venice and the opera and the hall of mirrors in the palace at Versailles. To her, luxury and beauty (beauty there was none without at least the luxury of past splendor) were synonymous with morality, and when people lived well she considered them to be good people and when they lived really luxuriously she considered them to be saints. The marimba music and her memory of Venice and her walk through the hall of mirrors gave her such a feeling of the goodness of God that she crossed herself and decided to buy a candle in the church after her siesta.

  The diners had all taken their places when Señorita Cordoba entered the room. The Ramirez daughters, Consuelo and Lilina, were seated on either side of their father, wearing their fiesta dresses. The servant stood in confusion before Señor Ramirez because he had ordered her not to bother with the soup but to bring him instead a large portion of meat and some beer right away.

  "Wouldn't you like some soup first?" Maria asked him. Ramirez was beginning to lose his temper when he saw Señorita Cordoba enter the room. She had brightened her cheeks with some rouge, and on the whole she looked quite beautiful. Señor Ramirez's mouth hung open. He turned completely around in his chair and stared at Violeta. The traveler rose at the same time and rushed over to Señorita Cordoba as though he had never seen her before. She blushed a bright pink and her eyebrow twitched. To get away from all this attention she went over to the English lady in the corner and began to talk to her. The English lady was very much surprised because she had never received more than a curt nod from Miss Cordoba before this moment.

  "Miss," said Violeta, "I wish you would take a walk with me some morning. I think it is a shame that we haven'
t become better acquainted with one another."

  "Yes, it is, isn't it," answered the English lady. Miss Cordoba's armpits were wet with nervous sweat. She was terribly embarrassed since she had enered the room in her ball dress. She was bending over the English lady with one hand placed flat on the table, and she noticed that the English lady was looking into her bodice, a faint expression of disgust visible in her face, the disgust of an English person who does not like to be near to a foreigner.

  "You Spanish girls all have such beautiful olive skin," she said. This was a completely hysterical thing for her to say because Violeta's skin was whiter than her own. She continued, "I would be very glad to take a walk with you but I am sure you will still be in the arms of Morpheus when I have already eaten my breakfast and written my letters for the day. I can't walk after ten because the sun tires me so. I have as a matter of fact covered the ground here thoroughly but I am looking forward to the processions. A friend described them to me so beautifully that I've been longing to see them ever since. A wonderful gift, to make other people see things. I am more or less mute myself. I have been impressed by the colors here. What a sense of color the Indians have. They are famous for it, aren't they?"

  "Oh yes, very famous. I will see you then soon?"

  "Perhaps."

  Señorita Cordoba had nothing to do but to go back to the table and submit to the stares of Señor Ramirez and the appraising glances of the traveler. Out of exuberance Señor Ramirez decided to focus his attention on his older, eleven-year-old child, Consuelo.

  "Now I think it would do you some good if you drank a big glass of beer," he said. "The Germans always give their children beer and look what a fine race of people they are."

  "I don't want any beer, thank you, papa."

  "You've never tried it so you don't know whether or not you like it." He poured her some beer and put it in front of her but she made no attempt to drink it. "You heard papa say that he wanted you to drink some beer."

  "What kind of a crazy idea is this?" asked Señora Ramirez.

  "What kind of a crazy girl is that that she won't drink beer?" answered Señor Ramirez.

  "Yes, drink, Conseulo," said Señora Ramirez. "What is the matter with you?" She pushed the glass up to her daughter's lips but Consuelo refused to drink, although her mouth was covered with foam. The girl's eyes were beginning to shine. With a sudden jerking of her arm she knocked the glass out of her mother's hand, and the beer flowed over the table. Then she jumped up and down and screamed. Señorita Cordoba turned halfway around in her chair and looked at her bitterly. And partly for this reason, and partly because Consuelo was herself in love with the traveler and certain that the traveler in turn loved Señorita Cordoba, Consuelo lunged toward her and started to scratch Señorita Cordoba's face and to tear her coiffure apart. Violeta, with an icy smile on her face, stuck her leg out in order to trip Conseulo, but in so doing she miscalculated and slid off her chair onto the floor. Consuelo ran from the room, and both the traveler and Señor Ramirez helped Violeta up from the floor. She leaned her head on her hand and cried a little because the incident had so unnerved her. Señor Ramirez ordered a glass of beer for Señorita Cordoba.

  "You drink that, Señorita," he said, "and when I am finished eating I will beat my daughter. I promise you that."

  "I hope that you will," said Señorita Cordoba.

  "Never before," said the English lady, "have I met three such horrid people. The daughter is a real Fury, unable to control herself, the father a child-beater, and the young woman full of revenge, willing to have the child beaten. My digestion is spoiled." She threw her napkin onto the table and left the room.

  "Who is that one?" Señor Ramirez asked his wife.

  "A tourist who eats here every day."

  "She takes everything hard," said the traveler, turning to Señorita Cordoba. "Single women of her age do, you know. In our country we call them old maids."

  "What is the difference what she is," said Señorita Cordoba. "To me she is no more than a flea."

  "That's right," said Señor Ramirez. "That's right. Most people are fleas—fleas with big stomachs but nothing in their heads."

  "But those big stomachs have to be fed," said the traveler, thinking that this was going to be a political discussion. "Or do you believe in letting them eat cake?"

  "Cake? I don't care what they eat." The traveler decided not to explain about Marie Antoinette. Señorita Cordoba had composed herself completely by now, and she turned to Señor Ramirez.

  "I am Señorita Violeta Cordoba," she said to him, disregarding all traditions of ladylike behavior, for she had always been able to throw tradition to the four winds without being in the least revolutionary. "Thank you for having lifted me from the floor onto my seat."

  "And what about me?" said the traveler. "Don't I count in this at all?" Señorita Cordoba nodded to him without smiling. Ramirez stood up and toasted Señorita Cordoba with his beer. "To a beautiful lady," he said, "as beautiful as a red rose." They were speaking together in English.

  "A thousand thanks," said Señorita Cordoba quickly. "Let us hope that you mean what you say, and are not just a poet."

  "I can be a poet when I want to be, but it is only one of twenty or thirty things that I can do."

  Señor Gutierres' hotel was austere but very elegant. The patio around which it was built was very small and almost always very dark. Looking down into it from the third floor, it was hard to distinguish the bushes and the few flower beds. Each bedroom was decorated in order to look as much like the bedroom of a Spanish king or nobleman as possible. The beds were on raised daises and the monogram of the hotel was on each pillow slip. The walls were rough and decorated with crossed sabres and blue or gold banners. The chairs were made of a very dark wood with carved narrow backs and little satin cushions tied to the seats by means of four tassels. Off the patio were two small dining rooms for those guests who preferred not to eat in the presence of strangers, and one large dining room that was public. In the public living room there was a veritable collection of sabres with fancy hilts, and chairs with backs that reached halfway up the wall. It was impossible to see in this room at all during the day, and at night the weak electric lamps left the corners of the room in total darkness.

  Señor Gutierres was a gloomy businessman born in Spain who claimed to have noble blood. He was out in the back court, a place to which the guests had no access, wrangling with the cook about a chicken which he was holding by its feet and pinching. He was very thin and had deep circles under his eyes. There were a great many badly made rabbit hutches around and a tremendous chicken coop. He was one of the few people in the country who kept his chickens in a coop. However, there were three large holes in the wiring and the chickens stepped in and out of the coop freely. The courtyard was a mess and it was just beginning to drizzle when Señor Ramirez came out and clapped his friend on the shoulder. "How about coming down to the bar and having a drink with me?" Señor Gutierres nodded and smiled for a second and together they went to the bar, which was underground and smelled very strongly of new wood. The bar stools were made of barrels. Señor Ramirez sat down on one of these and Señor Gutierres dropped the chicken, which he was still holding, onto the floor. The chicken began to strut around the shiny wooden floor, pecking at whatever it saw.

  "How do you like my bar now that it is completed?"

  "I will like your brandy even better when I have completed a bottle of that."

  "Do you like my bar?" Señor Gutierres said again, determined to get an answer out of Señor Ramirez.

  "Beautiful."

  "I have designed the whole hotel for movie actresses and actors when they are on their vacations. They will be coming down over that highway like flies when it is finished." He looked at Señor Ramirez to see if he was of the same opinion, but his friend was staring hard at the labels on the bottles.

  "A lot people on their honeymoons, too. Rich people who like to go far, far away when they get married." He took
down a bottle of brandy from the shelf and served himself and Señor Ramirez.

  "You don't think much about this new highway. I dream about it by day and by night. You will see a difference in the hotels in this country when it is built. You won't recognize the place you were born in inside of five years. No?"

  Señor Gutierres could never get it through his head that Norberto Ramirez was not interested in anything but having a good time and wielding a certain amount of power. He had inherited most of his money and was successful because he had the character of a bully. Señor Gutierres could not imagine that anyone as important and as impressive as Señor Ramirez should not be interested in business. He believed that his friend's disinclination to talk on any subject of interest was merely a ruse, which he had long ago decided to ignore.

  "I have built my hotel purposely so soon because later it will not be so cheap. I have already quite a few guests who come here because they know they get good quality. They are all quality people. Everything has to be right for them. It is just as cheap to be right as to be wrong, my friend, you know that, and with a war coming in Europe, all those with quality who used to go to Biarritz will come here. And I am not going to make cheap prices for them. They mustn't pay anything different from what they were paying in Biarritz, otherwise they will say to themselves, Look, what is this? There is something wrong—so cheap, and they will even get to worry that there might be lower-class people in the same hotel. No, they must be taken like sleeping babies from one bed to another, quietly, so they don't wake up. A little Spanish decoration for a change will be all right. But if you notice this hotel is made to remind you more or less of a palace."