by Jane Bowles
“Five centavos,” said the little boy.
“Absolutely not,” said the traveler. He had been warned that the natives would cheat him, and he was acually enraged every time they approached him with their wares.
“Four centavos … three centavos.…”
“No, no, no! Go away!” The little boy ran ahead of them.
“I would like a lollipop,” said Consuelo to him.
“Well, why didn’t you say so, then?” he demanded.
“No,” said Consuelo.
“She does not mean no,” explained her mother. “She can’t learn to speak English. She has clouds in her head.”
“I see,” said the traveler. Consuelo looked mortified. When they came to the end of the street, Señora Ramirez stood still and lowered her head like a bull.
“Listen,” she said to Consuelo. “Listen. You can hear the music from here.”
“Yes, mamá. Indeed you can.” They stood listening to the faint marimba noise that reached them. The traveler sighed.
“Please, let’s get going if we are going,” he said. “Otherwise there is no point.”
The square was already crowded when they arrived. The older people sat on benches under the trees, while the younger ones walked round and round, the girls in one direction and the boys in the other. The musicians played inside a kiosk in the center of the square. Señora Ramirez led both Consuelo and the stranger into the girls’ line, and they had not been walking more than a minute before she settled into a comfortable gait, with an expression very much like that of someone relaxing in an armchair.
“We have three hours,” she said to Consuelo.
The stranger looked around him. Many of the girls were barefoot and pure Indian. They walked along holding tightly to one another, and were frequently convulsed with laughter.
The musicians were playing a formless but militant-sounding piece which came to many climaxes without ending. The drummer was the man who had just played the violin at Señora Espinoza’s pension.
“Look!” said the traveler excitedly. “Isn’t that the man who was just playing for us at dinner. He must have run all the way. I’ll bet he’s sweating some.”
“Yes, it is he,” said Señora Ramirez. “The nasty little rat. I would like to tear him right off his stand. Remember the one at the Grand Hotel, Consuelo? He stopped at every table, señor, and I have never seen such beautiful teeth in my life. A smile on his face from the moment he came into the room until he went out again. This one looks at his shoes while he is playing, and he would like to kill us all.”
Some big boys threw confetti into the traveler’s face.
“I wonder,” he asked himself. “I wonder what kind of fun they get out of just walking around and around this little park and throwing confetti at each other.”
The boys’ line was in a constant uproar about something. The broader their smiles became, the more he suspected them of plotting something, probably against him, for apparently he was the only tourist there that evening. Finally he was so upset that he walked along looking up at the stars, or even for short stretches with his eyes shut, because it seemed to him that somehow this rendered him a little less visible. Suddenly he caught sight of Señorita Córdoba. She was across the street buying lollipops from a boy.
“Señorita!” He waved his hand from where he was, and then joyfully bounded out of the line and across the street. He stood panting by her side, while she reddened considerably and did not know what to say to him.
Señora Ramirez and Consuelo came to a standstill and stood like two monuments, staring after him, while the lines brushed past them on either side.
* * *
Lilina was looking out of her window at some boys who were playing on the corner of the street under the street light. One of them kept pulling a snake out of his pocket; he would then stuff it back in again. Lilina wanted the snake very much. She chose her toys according to the amount of power or responsibility she thought they would give her in the eyes of others. She thought now that if she were able to get the snake, she would perhaps put on a little act called “Lilina and the Viper,” and charge admission. She imagined that she would wear a fancy dress and let the snake wriggle under her collar. She left her room and went out of doors. The wind was stronger than it had been, and she could hear the music playing even from where she was. She felt chilly and hurried toward the boys.
“For how much will you sell your snake?” she asked the oldest boy, Ramón.
“You mean Victoria?” said Ramón. His voice was beginning to change and there was a shadow above his upper lip.
“Victoria is too much of a queen for you to have,” said one of the smaller boys. “She is a beauty and you are not.” They all roared with laughter, including Ramón, who all at once looked very silly. He giggled like a girl. Lilina’s heart sank. She was determined to have the snake.
“Are you ever going to stop laughing and begin to bargain with me? If you don’t I’ll have to go back in, because my mother and sister will be coming home soon, and they wouldn’t allow me to be talking here like this with you. I’m from a good family.”
This sobered Ramón, and he ordered the boys to be quiet. He took Victoria from his pocket and played with her in silence. Lilina stared at the snake.
“Come to my house,” said Ramón. “My mother will want to know how much I’m selling her for.”
“All right,” said Lilina. “But be quick, and I don’t want them with us.” She indicated the other boys. Ramón gave them orders to go back to their houses and meet him later at the playground near the Cathedral.
“Where do you live?” she asked him.
“Calle de las Delicias number six.”
“Does your house belong to you?”
“My house belongs to my Aunt Gudelia.”
“Is she richer than your mother?”
“Oh, yes.” They said no more to each other.
There were eight rooms opening onto the patio of Ramón’s house, but only one was furnished. In this room the family cooked and slept. His mother and his aunt were seated opposite one another on two brightly painted chairs. Both were fat and both were wearing black. The only light came from a charcoal fire which was burning in a brazier on the floor.
They had bought the chairs that very morning and were consequently feeling lighthearted and festive. When the children arrived they were singing a little song together.
“Why don’t we buy something to drink?” said Gudelia, when they stopped singing.
“Now you’re going to go crazy, I see,” said Ramón’s mother. “You’re very disagreeable when you’re drinking.”
“No, I’m not,” said Gudelia.
“Mother,” said Ramón. “This little girl has come to buy Victoria.”
“I have never seen you before,” said Ramón’s mother to Lilina.
“Nor I,” said Gudelia. “I am Ramón’s aunt, Gudelia. This is my house.”
“My name is Lilina Ramirez. I want to bargain for Ramón’s Victoria.”
“Victoria,” they repeated gravely.
“Ramón is very fond of Victoria and so are Gudelia and I,” said his mother. “It’s a shame that we sold Alfredo the parrot. We sold him for far too little. He sang and danced. We have taken care of Victoria for a long time, and it has been very expensive. She eats much meat.” This was an obvious lie. They all looked at Lilina.
“Where do you live, dear?” Gudelia asked Lilina.
“I live in the capital, but I’m staying now at Señora Espinoza’s pension.”
“I meet her in the market every day of my life,” said Gudelia. “Maria de la Luz Espinoza. She buys a lot. How many people has she staying in her house? Five, six?”
“Nine.”
“Nine! Dear God! Does she have many animals?”
“Certainly,” said Lilina.
“Come,” said Ramón to Lilina. “Let’s go outside and bargain.”
“He loves that snake,” said Ramón’s mot
her, looking fixedly at Lilina.
The aunt sighed. “Victoria … Victoria.”
Lilina and Ramón climbed through a hole in the wall and sat down together in the midst of some foliage.
“Listen,” said Ramón. “If you kiss me, I’ll give you Victoria for nothing. You have blue eyes. I saw them when we were in the street.”
“I can hear what you are saying,” his mother called out from the kitchen.
“Shame, shame,” said Gudelia. “Giving Victoria away for nothing. Your mother will be without food. I can buy my own food, but what will your mother do?”
Lilina jumped to her feet impatiently. She saw that they were getting nowhere, and unlike most of her countrymen, she was always eager to get things done quickly.
She stamped back into the kitchen, opened her eyes very wide in order to frighten the two ladies, and shouted as loud as she could: “Sell me that snake right now or I will go away and never put my foot in this house again.”
The two women were not used to such a display of rage over the mere settlement of a price. They rose from their chairs and started moving about the room to no purpose, picking up things and putting them down again. They were not quite sure what to do. Gudelia was terribly upset. She stepped here and there with her hand below her breast, peering about cautiously. Finally she slipped out into the patio and disappeared.
Ramón took Victoria out of his pocket. They arranged a price and Lilina left, carrying her in a little box.
* * *
Meanwhile Señora Ramirez and her daughter were on their way home from the band concert. Both of them were in a bad humor. Consuelo was not disposed to talk at all. She looked angrily at the houses they were passing and sighed at everything her mother had to say. “You have no merriment in your heart,” said Señora Ramirez. “Just revenge.” As Consuelo refused to answer, she continued. “Sometimes I feel that I am walking along with an assassin.”
She stopped still in the street and looked up at the sky. “Jesu Maria!” she said. “Don’t let me say such things about my own daughter.” She clutched at Consuelo’s arm.
“Come, come. Let us hurry. My feet ache. What an ugly city this is!”
Consuelo began to whimper. The word “assassin” had affected her painfully. Although she had no very clear idea of an assassin in her mind, she knew it to be a gross insult and contrary to all usage when applied to a young lady of breeding. It so frightened her that her mother had used such a word in connection with her that she actually felt a little sick to her stomach.
“No, mamá, no!” she cried. “Don’t say that I am an assassin. Don’t!” Her hands were beginning to shake, and already the tears were filling her eyes. Her mother hugged her and they stood for a moment locked in each other’s arms.
Maria, the servant, was standing near the fountain looking into it when Consuelo and her mother arrived at the pension. The traveler and Señorita Córdoba were seated together having a chat.
“Doesn’t love interest you?” the traveler was asking her.
“No … no…” answered Señorita Córdoba. “City life, business, the theater.…” She sounded somewhat halfhearted about the theater.
“Well, that’s funny,” said the traveler. “In my country most young girls are interested in love. There are some, of course, who are interested in having a career, either business or the stage. But I’ve heard tell that even these women deep down in their hearts want a home and everything that goes with it.”
“So?” said Señorita Córdoba.
“Well, yes,” said the traveler. “Deep down in your heart, don’t you always hope the right man will come along some day?”
“No … no … no.… Do you?” she said absentmindedly.
“Who, me? No.”
“No?”
She was the most preoccupied woman he had ever spoken with.
“Look, señoras,” said Maria to Consuelo and her mother. “Look what is floating around in the fountain! What is it?”
Consuelo bent over the basin and fished around a bit. Presently she pulled out her mother’s pink corset.
“Why, mamá,” she said. “It’s your corset.”
Señora Ramirez examined the wet corset. It was covered with muck from the bottom of the fountain. She went over to a chair and sat down in it, burying her face in her hands. She rocked back and forth and sobbed very softly. Señora Espinoza came out of her room.
“Lilina, my sister, threw it into the fountain,” Consuelo announced to all present.
Señora Espinoza looked at the corset.
“It can be fixed. It can be fixed,” she said, walking over to Señora Ramirez and putting her arms around her.
“Look, my friend. My dear little friend, why don’t you go to bed and get some sleep? Tomorrow you can think about getting it cleaned.”
“How can we stand it? Oh, how can we stand it?” Señora Ramirez asked imploringly, her beautiful eyes filled with sorrow. “Sometimes,” she said in a trembling voice, “I have no more strength than a sparrow. I would like to send my children to the four winds and sleep and sleep and sleep.”
Consuelo, hearing this, said in a gentle tone: “Why don’t you do so, mamá?”
“They are like two daggers in my heart, you see?” continued her mother.
“No, they are not,” said Señora Espinoza. “They are flowers that brighten your life.” She removed her glasses and polished them on her blouse.
“Daggers in my heart,” repeated Señora Ramirez.
“Have some hot soup,” urged Señora Espinoza. “Maria will make you some—a gift from me—and then you can go to bed and forget all about this.”
“No, I think I will just sit here, thank you.”
“Mamá is going to have one of her fits,” said Consuelo to the servant. “She does sometimes. She gets just like a child instead of getting angry, and she doesn’t worry about what she is eating or when she goes to sleep, but she just sits in a chair or goes walking and her face looks very different from the way it looks at other times.” The servant nodded, and Consuelo went in to bed.
“I have French blood,” Señora Ramirez was saying to Señora Espinoza. “I am very delicate for that reason—too delicate for my husband.”
Señora Espinoza seemed worried by the confession of her friend. She had no interest in gossip or in what people had to say about their lives. To Señora Ramirez she was like a man, and she often had dreams about her in which she became a man.
The traveler was highly amused.
“I’ll be damned!” he said. “All this because of an old corset. Some people have nothing to think about in this world. It’s funny, though, funny as a barrel of monkeys.”
To Señorita Córdoba it was not funny. “It’s too bad,” she said. “Very much too bad that the corset was spoiled. What are you doing here in this country?”
“I’m buying textiles. At least, I was, and now I’m just taking a little vacation here until the next boat leaves for the United States. I kind of miss my family and I’m anxious to get back. I don’t see what you’re supposed to get out of traveling.”
“Oh, yes, yes. Surely you do,” said Señorita Córdoba politely. “Now if you will excuse me I am going inside to do a little drawing. I must not forget how in this peasant land.”
“What are you, an artist?” he asked.
“I draw dresses.” She disappeared.
“Oh, God!” thought the traveler after she had left. “Here I am, left alone, and I’m not sleepy yet. This empty patio is so barren and so uninteresting, and as far as Señorita Córdoba is concerned, she’s an iceberg. I like her neck though. She has a neck like a swan, so long and white and slender, the kind of neck you dream about girls having. But she’s more like a virgin than a swan.” He turned around and noticed that Señora Ramirez was still sitting in her chair. He picked up his own chair and carried it over next to hers.
“Do you mind?” he asked. “I see that you’ve decided to take a little night air. It isn’t a
bad idea. I don’t feel like going to bed much either.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t want to go to bed. I will sit here. I like to sit out at night, if I am warmly enough dressed, and look up at the stars.”
“Yes, it’s a great source of peace,” the traveler said. “People don’t do enough of it these days.”
“Would you not like very much to go to Italy?” Señora Ramirez asked him. “The fruit trees and the flowers will be wonderful there at night.”
“Well, you’ve got enough fruit and flowers here, I should say. What do you want to go to Italy for? I’ll bet there isn’t as much variety in the fruit there as here.”
“No? Do you have many flowers in your country?”
The traveler was not able to decide.
“I would like really,” continued Señora Ramirez, “to be somewhere else—in your country or in Italy. I would like to be somewhere where the life is beautiful. I care very much whether life is beautiful or ugly. People who live here don’t care very much. Because they do not think.” She touched her finger to her forehead. “I love beautiful things: beautiful houses, beautiful gardens, beautiful songs. When I was a young girl I was truly wild with happiness—doing and thinking and running in and out. I was so happy that my mother was afraid I would fall and break my leg or have some kind of accident. She was a very religious woman, but when I was a young girl I could not remember to think about such a thing. I was up always every morning before anybody except the Indians, and every morning I would go to market with them to buy food for all the houses. For many years I was doing this. Even when I was very little. It was very easy for me to do anything. I loved to learn English. I had a professor and I used to get on my knees in front of my father that the professor would stay longer with me every day. I was walking in the parks when my sisters were sleeping. My eyes were so big.” She made a circle with two fingers. “And shiny like two diamonds, I was so excited all the time.” She churned the air with her clenched fist. “Like this,” she said. “Like a storm. My sisters called me wild Sofía. At the same time they were calling me wild Sofia, I was in love with my uncle, Aldo Torres. He never came much to the house before, but I heard my mother say that he had no more money and we would feed him. We were very rich and getting richer every year. I felt very sorry for him and was thinking about him all the time. We fell in love with each other and were kissing and hugging each other when nobody was there who could see us. I would have lived with him in a grass hut. He married a woman who had a little money, who also loved him very much. When he was married he got fat and started joking a lot with my father. I was glad for him that he was richer but pretty sad for myself. Then my sister Juanita, the oldest, married a very rich man. We were all very happy about her and there was a very big wedding.”