by B. TRAVEN
Both clerks were efficient. Day after day new guests came, old ones left. Every hour, day and night, new faces were seen. All nationalities were represented here. There came and went whites, blacks, browns, yellows, and reds; old and young, tall and short. But neither of the clerks ever made a mistake. Whoever passed by the window, the clerk on duty knew instantly whether he had paid or not. If he was in doubt, he glanced at the register and then watched to see into which room the man went. Since none of the shacks had locks, no keys were needed. Anyone smart enough could have gone into any of the shacks and taken a cot. But the two clerks were so well trained that they knew at once the face of a guest, the name he had given, the number of his cot, and the payment he had made, and whether or not these details coincided.
A few rooms containing old dilapidated beds were separated by cracked boards from the other rooms. These were so small that outside of the bed only a narrow space a foot wide was left for the occupants to undress in. These little cages were rented by men who brought their women along with them. For these accommodations one peso was charged for each person.
Two huts were kept solely for women patrons. Here also doors could be neither locked nor properly shut. The women who lodged here were mostly girls employed in restaurants and hotel kitchens. In spite of the fact that anybody could easily have sneaked into the women’s quarters at night and that the rest of the hotel was full of men of all sorts and kinds, the girls were safer here than in many a hotel which makes a fuss about its moral standing. The women were never molested by men coming in drunk. By the unwritten law of the hotel and of the men who lived here any man who tried to harm one of the girls would have been dead at sunrise. The men never even went near enough to the women’s quarters for a peep through the cracked clapboards. The women were the only guests in the shacks of the patio who had mosquito-bars for their cots. The men had to manage without.
Many of the guests had been living here two, three, even five years. These old-timers usually occupied the corners of the shacks in which they bunked, and so obtained a certain privacy not enjoyed by others. They were freer here than in a private house, for they could come and go as they wished. No landlady ever asked them questions or felt it her duty to pester them with her own opinions on morals and punishment hereafter.
The shacks had no closets and no wardrobes of any kind. Patrons whose cots were in the middle of the hut laid their things on a broken chair or tied them to the under side of their cots with strings. The men who occupied corners or had their cots alongside a wall hung up their clothes on nails. Others kept theirs in wooden boxes under their cots. Others, again, whose belongings hung on the wall covered them with sacking and then fastened them with strings crosswise tight against the wall, so that it would have been difficult for a thief to drag a pair of pants or a shirt out of this mass of clothes.
It rarely happened that anything was stolen. Anyone leaving with a parcel was scrutinized by the clerk in such a way that if the man was not honest he dropped the package and ran away. A thief in this hotel was never afraid of the police or of jail. He was only afraid—terribly afraid—of the beating he would receive if he was found out. The clerk had only to call into the patio, where always, day or night, a score of guests were hanging around. They would take the thief into one of the shacks and there preach him a sermon which would make such an excellent impression upon his mind and body that for the next seven days he could not move a finger or an eyelid without moaning. These sermons had proved so effective that the hotel could guarantee that no theft would recur inside of two months to come.
Only old-timers left a part of their belongings in the shacks while they were at work. Their coats, pants, and shirts were so well known by the clerks that it was hardly possible for anyone to leave wearing stolen clothing without being caught.
In the room where the clerk had his little desk there was also a safe in which the patrons’ valuables were kept, such as cash, documents, watches, rings, and instruments. Among these were all sorts of implements used by geologists, topographers, prospectors, and miners, as well as revolvers, guns, rifles, and fishing outfits on the wall, either checked here or left in lieu of payment.
In corners and on narrow shelves, near at hand for the clerk, dozens of little parcels, card-boxes, and books were piled up. These were checked to be called for within an hour or two. Most of them were never claimed. The owners of some of them were probably at the other end of the world, for if a man needed a job and was at the docks just when a ship, short a hand or two, was heaving anchor, he hopped on and left his parcels or instruments behind. You can’t eat a theodolite and you can’t sell it, not for twenty bucks, if all second-hand dealers and pawnshops are glutted with them. But a job means food, and a man would be a fool not to let instruments or fishing tackle or guns go and to seize his chance to hop on a bucket where there are three square meals a day.
A shelf with little compartments was filled with letters for patrons. Bundles of letters, many of them from a mother, a wife, or a sweetheart, were piled up, covered with thick dust. The men to whom they were addressed might be dead, or working deep in the jungles clearing new oil-fields, or on a tramp in the China Sea, or helping the Bolsheviks build up a workers’ empire, with no time to think that the letter-writers back home might be crying their eyes out over a lost sheep.
What the manager or the clerk called his desk was a small table, wabbly and well worn. On this were the register, a few letters and papers, an ink-bottle, and a pen. Every patron had to register, as a reminder that he was staying in a civilized country and not with an Indian tribe. Only his last name was written in, with the number of his shack and his cot and the amount of money he had paid. All other information concerning a patron, his nationality, his profession, his home town, was of no interest to the clerk or to the police, who never came to inspect the register except when looking for a criminal. The tax officials frequently looked into the register to find out if the hotel had made an incorrect declaration. The city had no surplus of officials, and only where there are more officials than are actually needed are people pestered to tell the police all about their private affairs.
4
Dobbs came to the window, banged his peso upon the table, and said: “Lobbs, for two nights.”
The clerk took up the register and wrote: “Jobbs,” because he had not caught the name and was too polite to ask again. His answer was: “Room seven, bed two.” “Room” meant “shack,” and “bed” meant “cot.”
Dobbs grunted something which might have been: “Okay, brother,” or perhaps: “Kiss me somewhere, you mug.”
He was hungry and had to go hunting or fishing.… But the fish would not bite. He went after a man in a white suit and whispered a few words to him; the man, without looking at him, handed him a toston—that is, half a peso.
With these fifty centavos Dobbs hurried to a Chinese restaurant. Chinese cafés are the lowest-priced in the republic, but not the dirtiest. Lunch-time was long past, but in a Chinese café one may get dinner, called “comida corrida,” at any time. If dinner is over, the meal is called “cena,” meaning “supper,” whatever time it is by the cathedral clock.
Dobbs, knowing he could pay for his meal, kept the Chinese running like the devil. Everything that was set before him he had changed for something else, exulting in feeling once more how pleasant it is to chase someone around without mercy.
Then he trudged again to the plaza, picking his teeth on the way, and rested on a bench until he felt hungry for coffee. He walked the streets for a good while without success, until a man in white finally gave him a silver coin, fifty centavos again.
“Geecries,” Dobbs said to himself, “I’m sure lucky with gents dressed in white.” He walked across the plaza to the side nearest the docks of the passenger liners and freighters. Here was a café without walls, doors, or windows, which were not needed since the café kept open twenty-four hours every day.
Dobbs ordered a glass of coffee—the greate
r part of it hot milk with coffee poured on the top of it—and two pieces of milk bread. He sweetened the coffee with a quarter of a pound of sugar. When the waiter put the ice-water on the table, Dobbs looked up at the price-list painted on the wall and yelled: “Haven’t you bandits raised the price for that stinking coffee five cents more?”
“Well,” said the waiter, chewing a toothpick, “running-expenses are getting higher. We simply can’t do it any longer for fifteen fierros.”
Dobbs did not really object to the price. He just wanted to complain, as any patron who can pay feels he is entitled to do.
“Go to hell! I don’t buy any lottery tickets,” he bellowed at a little boy who for the last five minutes had been brandishing lottery tickets right under his nose.
The little merchant, barefooted and wearing a torn shirt and ragged cotton pants, did not mind; he was used to being yelled at. “It’s the Michoacan state lottery, señor,” he said; “sixty thousand pesos the main premium.”
“Scram, you bandit, I don’t buy tickets.” Dobbs soaked his bread in the coffee.
“The whole ticket is only ten pesos, señor, and it’s a sure shot.”
“Son of a poacher, I haven’t got ten pesos.”
“That’s all right by me, caballero,” the boy said. “Why don’t you buy only a quarter of a ticket, then? That’s two pesos fifty.”
Dobbs, swallowing his coffee in big gulps, had scalded his lips. This made him mad, and he roared: “To hell with you and stay there! If you don’t leave me to drink my coffee in peace, I’ll throw this whole glass of water right in your face.”
The boy did not move. He was a good salesman. He knew his patrons. Any man who could sit at the bar of a Spanish café at this time in the afternoon and drink a huge glass of coffee and eat two pieces of milk bread must have money. A man who has money always wants more and likes it to come easy. This man was the right customer for lottery tickets.
“Why don’t you take one tenth of the ticket, señor? I’ll sell the tenth to you for one peso silver.”
Dobbs took up the glass of water and threw the contents in the boy’s face. “Didn’t I tell you, you little rascal, I’d do it if you didn’t leave me in peace?”
The boy laughed, wiped the water off his face, and shook it off his ragged pants. The lottery makes men rich—always one in twenty thousand—but the boy knew from experience that it was safer to make a certain living by selling lottery tickets than to buy them and wait for the premium. He considered the free bath merely the first sign of opening business connections with Dobbs.
Dobbs paid for his coffee and received twenty centavos change. Catching sight of these twenty centavos, the boy said: “Señor, you ought to buy one twentieth of the Monterrey lottery. A twentieth costs you only twenty centavos. Main premium, five thousand pesos cash. There, take it. It’s a plumb sure winner—an excellent number. Add the figures up and you’ll get thirteen. What better number could you buy? It’s bound to win.”
Dobbs weighed the twenty-centavo piece in his hands. What should he do with it? More coffee? He didn’t want any more. Cigarettes? He didn’t want to smoke; he liked the taste of coffee on his tongue better just now, and smoke kills any fine taste. A lottery ticket, he thought, was money thrown away. Still, money comes, money goes. There was fun in waiting for the drawing. Hoping for something is always good for the soul. The drawing was only three days off.
“All right, you brown devil,” he said. “Give me that twentieth, so that I won’t have to look at your dirty face and your damned tickets any longer.”
The little merchant tore off the twentieth of the sheet and handed it to Dobbs. “It’s un número excelente, señor. A sure winner it is.”
“If it is such a sure winner, why the hell don’t you play it yourself?” Dobbs asked suspiciously and jokingly at the same time.
“Me? No, sir,” said the boy. “I can’t afford to play the lottery. I haven’t got the money.” He took the silver piece, bit on it to see if it was good, and said: “Muchas gracias! A thousand thanks, sir. Come again next time. I always have the winners, all the lucky numbers. Buena suerte, good luck!” And off he hopped like a young rabbit, chasing another patron he had just glimpsed.
Dobbs put the ticket in his watch-pocket without looking at the number. Then he decided to go for a swim.
5
It was a long way to the open river. The river at this point was the meeting-place, so it seemed, of all the bums in port. When Dobbs arrived, the water was well crowded with a multitude of Mexicans, Indians, and whites who had reached the same social level as Dobbs. None of them wore bathing-suits. Farther up the river girls were in the water, also without bathing-suits of any sort, accompanied by boys to make the affair more lively.
On the high hills that formed the banks of the river to the east was the residential section of the port. Here, in beautiful modern bungalows, American style, the Americans, English, and Dutch who were employed by the oil companies lived with their families. The city was very low, only a few feet above sea-level, and suffocatingly hot, for it was seldom reached by the breeze coming in from the sea. The colonies of the well-to-do foreigners on these hills along the eastern river-banks had the cool sea-breeze all afternoon and during the night. For tea and afternoon bridge-parties the most desirable bungalows were those nearest the edge of the hills, from which the river could be seen. Ladies coming to a tea-party in this vicinity brought their field-glasses along, for of course they could not go down to the river and join the bathing parties, much as they would have liked to do so. Through their field-glasses they watched the men and girls bathing without swimming-suits. It was so interesting that they never for a moment thought of playing bridge. It might have been just for this reason that this colony was called Colonia Buena Vista, which means “Beautiful View.”
In the tropics bathing is always a good thing. And Dobbs could save the twenty-five centavos a short shower in the Oso Negro cost—a shower which lasted only thirty seconds. For another thirty seconds another twenty-five centavos had to be paid, because water was expensive.
Here in the river bathing was not all pleasure. The river-bottom was muddy and infested with horseshoe crabs. Any foot which invaded their dwellings was badly treated by those giant crabs, and many a bather feared that he might go home one toe short.
At this point the river spread out deltalike and it was here the crab-fishers sat. Only the Indians and poorer Mexicans fish for crabs, because it calls for a godlike patience. The bait is meat; the more it stinks, the better bait it is. A piece of this meat is fastened on a fish-hook held by a long string and thrown in the water. The fisherman lets the bait sink down into the mud and rest for a few minutes. Then he begins to draw in the line as slowly as only an Indian can. It takes many minutes before he pulls it up on the low bank. The crab, or jaiba, as they call it, grasps the bait with its claws and, eager not to lose the welcome meal, holds on so that when the line is hauled in, the crab is pulled out of the river and caught. There is no way to tell whether a crab has grasped the bait or not. Often the line has to be pulled in twenty times before a crab is caught. Sometimes the crab outwits the fisherman and takes the bait without being hooked. Patient fishermen who work from sunrise to sunset make a very fair living, for the restaurants pay rather good prices for this kind of crab, the meat of which is considered a delicacy.
Dobbs, looking out for any opportunity to make money, and watching these men fishing, yet knew that this was no work for him. Having grown up in a hustling industrial American city, he hadn’t a bit of the patience so essential for crab-fishing. He would not have caught one crab in three weeks.
6
Dobbs walked almost three miles back to town. Swimming and walking had made him hungry, so he went hunting again. For a long time no game would drop before his shots, and he had to swallow a lot of preaching and good advice for the unemployed, and nasty remarks about foreign bums molesting decent citizens. Being hungry, one cannot pay much attention to
this sort of preaching, and any feeling that begging does not become the dignity of an American goes overboard when one has to eat.
At last he saw a man dressed in white strolling across the plaza toward the Alcazar movie. Dobbs thought: “Today I have luck with gents in white; let’s try that guy.”
He won. Again fifty centavos.
Supper over, and having had a good long rest on a bench on the plaza, Dobbs thought it would be a good idea to have some ready change in his pocket, because you never know what may happen. This excellent idea occurred to him when he saw a man leisurely walking on the opposite side of the street—a man dressed in white.
Without any hesitation he approached the man and said his prayer. His victim burrowed in his pocket and brought forth half a peso. Dobbs reached out for the coin, but the man kept the piece between his fingers, saying dryly: “Listen, you, such insolence has never come my way as long as I can remember, and nobody on earth could make me believe that story.”
Dobbs stood utterly perplexed. Never before had he encountered anyone who addressed him in this way. Usually the answer was only a few angry words. He was uncertain what to do. Should he wait or should he run away? He could see the toston, which made him sure that this coin sooner or later would land in his own hand. He let the man have the pleasure of preaching, as a small return for his money. “Well, if I get fifty centavos for listening to a sermon, it may be hard-earned money, but it is cash,” he thought. So he waited.
“This afternoon you told me,” the man continued, “that you had not had your dinner yet, so I gave you one peso. When I met you again, you told me you had no money for your bed, so I gave you a half peso. A couple of hours later I met you again and you said you had had no supper and you felt hungry. Once more I gave you fifty centavos. Now may I be permitted to ask you, with due politeness: What do you want the money for now?”