My brother had written to me of her with a feeling of regret because I did not have someone like her to love. He had been with her a year, sharing this house and sharing this bed. Each night they had gone side by side into this room where she was now but for me alone. Then it was that I could feel the loneliness of this night, because he had been taken away from her; while I, who had never known such love, was never to be made a part of it.
Once more she went to the bed and touched it. The room was dark and the bed was still. She knew now that she was to be alone.
She began to cry softly, as a girl cries.
Her slippers dropped from her feet, and the echo was like the throwing of a man’s solid-heeled shoes against the floor.
When she touched a comb on the table and it fell to the floor in the darkness, it might have been a man’s clumsy hands feeling in the night and knocking clocks and mirrors from their places.
Her knees touched a chair, but the sound was like a man walking blindly in a dark room, stumbling over furniture and cursing hoarsely under his breath.
The clothes she removed were laid on a chest at the foot of the bed, but it was as if a man were tossing his heavy-laden coat and trousers across the room towards a chair.
Noiselessly she raised the window, but it was as if a man had thrown it open, impatient with delay.
She sat on the side of the bed and lay down upon it, but it was like a man hurling himself there and jerking the cover over him.
Softly she turned over and lay her arm across the far pillow, but it sounded in the hollow room as if a man were tossing there, beating the pillows with his fists.
Her body began to tremble with her sobs, faintly shaking the springs of the bed and the mattress, but it was like the ruthless action of a man quick with his uncontrolled strength.
I do not know how long I had stood in the doorway waiting for a word from her to send me away. Time in the pitch blackness of the house of hollow darkness had passed quickly at first, and then slowly. It may have been an hour, it may have been five.
I parted my lips and spoke to her. The sounds of my words seemed to be without an end in their echo.
“Good night, Thomasine,” I said, trembling.
She screamed with fright and with pain. Had someone cut her heart with a knife, she could not have screamed more loudly.
Then slowly she turned over in bed and lay on her other side.
“My God! My God! My God!”
The pillow she had been clutching fell from the far side of the bed to the floor, crashing in the darkness like a felled tree deep in a forest. Evening gave way, and night in the empty room began.
(First published in Pagany)
The Day the Presidential Candidate Came to Ciudad Tamaulipas
THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE’S special train was due to arrive from Monterrey at nine o’clock, and it was expected to come into the station at eleven. The track was in poor condition farther west, but the General had taken that into consideration and had started the journey three hours ahead of schedule in order to arrive in Ciudad Tamaulipas not more than two hours late.
Three weeks earlier one of the other candidates had made the fatal mistake of not thinking about the poor condition of the track, merely leaving Monterrey on schedule. Consequently, he arrived in Ciudad Tamaulipas five hours late, and by that time all the people had decided to go home and eat and take the siesta.
The bands, cheated out of their opportunity to play three weeks before, were practicing all over town that morning. They had been up since sunrise. Three of them, along with some of the shoeshine boys and lottery-ticket vendors, were marching up and down in the dusty arroyo behind the bull ring.
In the plaza two more bands were practicing bars and scales and getting a feeling for the pitch. Several other bands were riding through the streets in trucks and practicing at the same time.
The special train bearing the General and his party suddenly puffed up to the station, the engineer tooting the whistle a long and two shorts only when it was a mere dozen rail-lengths away. Everybody was caught unprepared. It had arrived an hour and a half late, but a full thirty minutes before it was expected.
As it was, the only persons on the station platform when the General’s train puffed up and stopped were some shoeshine boys and lottery-ticket vendors, and they would have been there even if the special had not been coming that day at all.
The official welcoming committee was still in the cantina two blocks away, and the chauffeur of the limousine in which the General was to ride to the bull ring for the speech was sitting comfortably in a restaurant across the street eating fried beans. The limousine itself, however, was parked at the station platform.
The General and his party bought up all lottery tickets on which the numeral 5 appeared in the serial numbers and went directly to the limousine. Somebody blew the horn three sharp blasts. The chauffeur came running out of the restaurant with his mouth full of hot beans, thinking somebody was playing with it. When he recognized the General on the back seat, he swallowed the beans, saluted, and slid under the steering wheel.
News of the General’s arrival had already begun to spread through the town. Shopkeepers began pulling down the steel blinds over their plate-glass windows, expecting the crowds to jam the streets at any moment.
One of the bands in the plaza heard the news and opened up right away, the bandsmen pulling out all the stops in their instruments so the sound would carry four blocks across town to the station, where the General could hear and appreciate it.
But before the music reached the General’s ears, he and his party were off in a burst of scudding speed and billowy dust. Six of his rangers who could not find space inside the limousine clung to the outside along with five or six shoeshine boys, several lottery-ticket vendors, and a delegate from an ejido, who happened to be at the station early because he had misjudged the time.
Halfway to the bull ring a shoeshine boy and the ejido delegate fell off when the limousine struck a bounce in the street.
When the General arrived at the bull ring there were seven or eight thousand men in the stands, filling them to capacity, and two or three thousand more were on the outside trying vainly to gain entrance by scaling the adobe walls and tunneling with their machetes under the concrete stands.
Just as he and his party were about to enter the bull ring a squad of soldiers that had been detailed to protect the life of the presidential candidate came forward and forcibly disarmed his rangers, taking all their automatics and dumping them into a canvas sack.
The rangers resented the attitude of the soldiers, who were comrades of the revolution, too, but the General laughed and beckoned to half a dozen of the prettiest girls around him. He requested the girls to precede him through the passageway, and then they all entered the bull ring together. The rangers stayed behind and argued with the soldiers while all of them took advantage of the opportunity to get their shoes shined and buy some lottery tickets.
The General mounted the platform that had been erected in the middle of the bull ring while an ejido delegate was delivering an introductory speech to the crowd over the loud-speaker system. When the people recognized the General, their voices drowned out the words of the delegate and he had to resign himself to leaving his speech half unread.
As the clamor was dying down, two bands arrived and began playing as they marched around the platform several times. In the meantime several shoeshine boys and lottery-ticket vendors made a dash for the platform, making it safely while everyone’s attention was being held by the performance of the band.
After a while there was less noise and commotion, and the General went to the microphone and greeted the people. He was able to speak only a few words before the shouting of the crowd made it impossible to continue.
“What did the General say?” we asked one of the lottery-ticket vendors beside us.
“The General said it has made him happy to be here, because now he has seen the most beautiful
girls and the strongest men in all Mexico!”
After a while the General was able to resume his address. He spoke one full sentence and half of another into the microphone before the shouts of the people again drowned out his voice.
“Viva el General!”
“Viva Mexico!”
“Viva el General!”
In wave after wave the shouts of many thousands of voices thundered through the bull ring.
“What did the General say?” we asked excitedly.
“The General said it has made him happy to come here where all the land is rich and fertile — even the mountainsides!” the lottery-ticket vendor said, excitedly waving his arms in a gesture that took in the whole world.
Just as the General was getting ready to attempt to speak again, two more bands arrived. They began playing the marches they knew, circling the platform time after time. While they were playing, the arena gates suddenly burst open and dozens of men on horseback swarmed across the bull ring. They were carrying banners of the revolution and flags of the republic, but they had no musical instruments, and soon nobody noticed them any more.
There was a period of comparative calm in the bull ring, and the General stepped briskly to the microphone and spoke rapidly to the people. This time he completed two sentences before the crowd’s shouts of approval stilled his voice once more. He stepped back, wiped his face, and waited patiently for the din to subside.
“What did he say this time?” we asked eagerly.
“The General said he wished all the people in the world could have the good fortune to come to Ciudad Tamaulipas!”
During an unaccountable lull, the General hurried back to the microphone, but before he could utter any sound another band arrived and struck up its music as it began circling the platform. When it was all over, the General grasped the microphone firmly in both hands and quickly resumed his speech. This time he raced through several sentences before the swelling roar of the crowd forced him to pause.
“Viva el General!”
“Viva Mexico!”
“Viva el General!”
The clamor lasted for a long time, and the vendors around us had joined in so enthusiastically that it was several minutes before we could secure anyone’s attention.
“What did the General say that pleased the people so much?”
The lottery-ticket vendor gripped us excitedly by the arm, shouting into our ears.
“The General said it is a beautiful day!”
In the excitement of the moment we had failed to be aware that one of the shoeshine boys was polishing our shoes, and he startled us by raising his voice and repeating what the General had said. We looked up into the cloudless, pale blue desert sky. It was one of the most beautiful days we had ever seen in Mexico. The sun beamed down upon us like the smile of a benevolent friend, warming us to the core. We stood there in its kindly glow, feeling in the depths of our hearts that no truer words had ever before been uttered. There in the heat and clamor, breathing deeply of the pungent aroma of the scorched desert sand, we repeated to ourselves the hope that the General, who had made us aware of the beauty of the day, would secure all the votes and become the next president of his country.
(First published in Town and Country)
Over the Green Mountains
WAS READING A PIECE in the Boston paper last night about the smartest people in the whole country coming from the State of Maine. Said at the time, and I’m still here to say it: you can take your pick of any ten men in the whole Union, and I’ll back one Varmonter of my own choosing against them any day. Take ten men from any of the states you can find them in, and all of them put together won’t have the smartness that my lone Varmonter has got. Have lived in the State of Maine all my life, ninety-odd years of it, but I’ve always said that if you want some smartness you shall have to go to Varmont to get it. Varmont is where it comes from. Now, you take the farmers. Varmont farmers is that smart they can’t keep from making money while the farmers in other places is all losing money. And here is why they are so smart: not so long ago there was a Varmont farmer over here, riding around in his big auto having a good time and laughing at us farmers here because we hadn’t made enough money to retire and maybe take a trip to Florida on, in even years. I asked this Varmont farmer how it was he had made so much money running a farm. And this is what he told me: “Friend,” he said, “the secret of making money out of a farm is this: Sell all you can; what you can’t sell, feed to the hogs; what the hogs won’t eat, eat yourself.”
After he finished telling me that, he drove off laughing in his big auto to look at some more Maine farmers working and sweating in the fields because they ain’t got sense enough to make money to retire on, and maybe take a winter trip to Florida, in even years.
That sporting farmer wasn’t the first Varmonter I’d known, though. I used to know another one when I was a young man on the Penobscot.
This was a young fellow we called Jake Marks, one of them old-time Varmonters who used to come over here to the State of Maine driving teams of oxen before the railroads was built across the mountains. This Jake Marks was a smart one, if there ever was a Varmonter who warn’t. He used to drive his oxen over here hauling freight back and forth all the time. It was a long haul in them days, when you stop to think how slow them brutes travel, and Jake had a lot of mountain to cross coming and going. I don’t recall how long it took him to make one of his trips, but it was quite a time in them days when there warn’t no State roads, only trails wide enough for a yoke of oxen.
Jake was a real young man at that time, I should say about twenty-five, maybe twenty-seven. He warn’t married then, neither. But pretty soon he took a liking to a young and handsome filly who cooked his meals for him at the house in Bangor where he put up while he was changing cargo between trips. She was just the kind of young filly that Jake wanted, too. She used to come into the room where he sat waiting for his meal and make herself real frisky in his presence. Jake, he was tormented something awful by the way she cut up in front of him, and he used to have to get up out of his chair sometimes and walk real fast around the house three-four times to get control over himself.
But this Jake Marks was a cautious man, and he never undertook a deal until he had thought it out a lot beforehand and saw that he had everything on his side. Then, when he had thought it all through, he turned loose and went after whatever it was he wanted like a real Varmonter. All them old-time Varmonters was like that, I guess; anyway, the ones who used to drive ox freights over here to the State of Maine was, and Jake was just like all the rest of them.
This young filly of Jake’s got so she pestered him about marrying of her all the time he was resting up between trips. Jake, he wanted her, all right. That was one thing he was wanting all the time he was over here. But Jake, he was taking his own good time about it, I’m telling you. He was figuring the thing out like all them Varmonters who drove ox freights did. He had to be real certain that everything was on his side before he made any signs. He took the rest of the season for figuring the thing out, and he didn’t make motions of a move toward the young filly that year at all.
The next spring when the frost had thawed out of the ground and when he could make his first trip of the year over the mountains, Jake he called at the house where this young filly stayed and told her to get ready to be married to him when he got back to Bangor on his next trip. That suited the young filly first-rate. She had been uneasy all winter about Jake, taking too much at heart all the gossip that was talked about them Varmont ox freighters. But when Jake told her to get ready for marrying, she knew he would keep his promise right down to the last letter and come and marry her like he said he would.
So, Jake he went back to Varmont with his freight, promising to be ready to marry the young filly the same day he got back to Bangor on his next trip.
And just as he promised, Jake came back to get married to the young filly. He went straight to the house where she stayed, and there she was
all waiting for him. Jake told her to get ready right away for the marriage, and then he went out to find a preacher somewhere. When he got back to the house with the preacher, he called her down to the room where all the guests had gathered to see the ceremony performed.
The minute she stepped into the room where Jake and the rest of the people was, Jake took one look at the young filly and told her to go back upstairs to her room and take off her dress. Well, that was all right and proper, because in those days there was a law in the State of Maine to the effect that a man could make what was called a shift-marriage. That was to say, the man could make the woman take off the dress she was wearing while the ceremony was being performed, and in that case he could not be held legally responsible for her past debts and would not have to pay them for her if he didn’t have a mind to. Well, Jake he had heard all about this shift-law in Maine, and he was taking full advantage of its benefits. That was what he had been figuring out all the time he was driving them slow-footed oxen back and forth between Bangor and Varmont. Jake, he warn’t no man’s fool. Jake, he was a Varmonter.
After a while Jake’s young filly came downstairs dressed according to this here shift-law. She had on what women wore under their dresses in those days, and that was all she had on. But Jake, he warn’t satisfied, not completely. He told her to go back upstairs and take off everything she had on. Jake, he was a hardheaded ox freighter from Varmont, all right. He had figured all this out while he was driving them slow-footed oxen back and forth across the mountains.
In a little while his young filly came into the room again where Jake and the preacher and all the guests was, and she didn’t have nothing on, except that she had a bedsheet wrapped around her, which was a good thing, I tell you. She was a handsome-looking filly if there ever was one. They all got ready again for the ceremony, the preacher telling them where to stand and what to say to the questions he was getting ready to ask them. Then, just when they was beginning to get married, Jake he told his young filly to drop the bedsheet on the floor. Now, Jake he warn’t taking no chances over here in the State of Maine. That shift-law said that if a woman was married without her dress on, her husband couldn’t be held liable for her past debts, and Jake he figured that if the young filly didn’t have nothing at all on her, there wouldn’t be a chance in the whole world for to dun him for what she might owe, while if she had clothes on that he didn’t know the true and legal names of, a storekeeper might try to say her underclothes was her overdress. Jake, he was thinking that he might by chance get cheated out of his rights to the full benefits of the shift-law if he didn’t take care, and Jake he warn’t after taking no chances whatsoever over here in the State of Maine when he was so far away from Varmont. He was as cautious where he sat his foot as the next ox freighter from Varmont.
Stories of Erskine Caldwell Page 9