“I’ll pay you soon,” he said. “Right now I need the money badly.”
“For what?”
“For my own business.”
“Why don’t you pay me some on account?”
“I can’t,” he said., “I need that money too badly. But I will pay you.”
He had only fought twice in Spain, they couldn’t stand him there, they saw through him quick enough, and he had seven new fighting suits made and this is the kind of thing he was: he had them packed so badly that four of them were ruined by sea water on the trip back and he couldn’t even wear them.
“My God,” I said to him, “you go to Spain. You stay there the whole season and only fight two times. You spend all the money you took with you on suits and then have them spoiled by salt water so you can’t wear them. That is the kind of season you have and then you talk to me about running your own business. Why don’t you pay me the money you owe me so I can leave?”
“I want you here,” he said, “and I will pay you. But now I need the money.”
“You need it too badly to pay for your own mother’s grave to keep your mother buried. Don’t you?” I said.
“I am happy about what has happened to my mother,” he said. “You cannot understand.”
“Thank Christ I can’t,” I said. “You pay me what you owe me or I will take it out of the cashbox.”
“I will keep the cashbox myself,” he said.
“No, you won’t,” I said.
That very afternoon he came to me with a punk, some fellow from his own town who was broke, and said, “Here is a paesano who needs money to go home because his mother is very sick.” This fellow was just a punk, you understand, a nobody he’d never seen before, but from his home town, and he wanted to be the big, generous matador with a fellow townsman.
“Give him fifty pesos from the cashbox,” he told me.
“You just told me you had no money to pay me,” I said. “And now you want to give fifty pesos to this punk.”
“He is a fellow townsman,” he said, “and he is in distress.”
“You bitch,” I said. I gave him the key of the cashbox. “Get it yourself. I’m going to town.”
“Don’t be angry,” he said. “I’m going to pay you.”
I got the car out to go to town. It was his car but he knew I drove it better than he did. Everything he did I could do better. He knew it. He couldn’t even read and write. I was going to see somebody and see what I could do about making him pay me. He came out and said, “I’m coming with you and I’m going to pay you. We are good friends. There is no need to quarrel.”
We drove into the city and I was driving. Just before we came into the town he pulled out twenty pesos.
“Here’s the money,” he said.
“You motherless bitch,” I said to him and told him what he could do with the money. “You give fifty pesos to that punk and then offer me twenty when you owe me six hundred. I wouldn’t take a nickel from you. You know what you can do with it.”
I got out of the car without a peso in my pocket and I didn’t know where I was going to sleep that night. Later I went out with a friend and got my things from his place. I never spoke to him again until this year. I met him walking with three friends in the evening on the way to the Callao cinema in the Gran Via in Madrid. He put his hand out to me.
“Hello Roger, old friend,” he said to me. “How are you? People say you are talking against me. That you say all sorts of unjust things about me.”
“All I say is you never had a mother,” I said to him. That’s the worst thing you can say to insult a man in Spanish.
“That’s true,” he said. “My poor mother died when I was so young it seems as though I never had a mother. It’s very sad.”
There’s a queen for you. You can’t touch them. Nothing, nothing can touch them. They spend money on themselves or for vanity, but they never pay. Try to get one to pay. I told him what I thought of him right there on the Gran Via, in front of three friends, but he speaks to me now when I meet him as though we were friends. What kind of blood is it that makes a man like that?
One Reader Writes
She sat at the table in her bedroom with a newspaper folded open before her and only stopping to look out of the window at the snow which was falling and melting on the roof as it fell. She wrote this letter, writing it steadily with no necessity to cross out or rewrite anything.
Roanoke, Virginia
February 6, 1933
Dear Doctor—
May I write you for some very important advice—I have a decision to make and don’t know just whom to trust most I dare not ask my parents—and so I come to you—and only because I need not see you, can I confide in you even. Now here is the situation—I married a man in U. S. service in 1929 and that same year he was sent to China, Shanghai—he staid three years—and came home—he was discharged from the service some few months ago—and went to his mother’s home in Helena, Arkansas. He wrote for me to come home—I went, and found he is taking a course of injections and I naturally ask, and found he is being treated for I don’t know how to spell the word but it sound like this “sifilus”—Do you know what I mean—now tell me will it ever be safe for me to live with him again—I did not come in close contact with him at any time since his return from China. He assures me he will be O K after this doctor finishes with him—Do you think it right—I often heard my Father say one could well wish themselves dead if once they become a victim of that malady—I believe my Father but want to believe my Husband most—Please, please tell me what to do—I have a daughter born while her Father was in China—
Thanking you and trusting wholly in your advice I am
and signed her name.
Maybe he can tell me what’s right to do, she said to herself. Maybe he can tell me. In the picture in the paper he looks like he’d know. He looks smart, all right. Every day he tells somebody what to do. He ought to know. I want to do whatever is right. It’s such a long time though. It’s a long time. And it’s been a long time. My Christ, it’s been a long time. He had to go wherever they sent him, I know, but I don’t know what he had to get it for. Oh, I wish to Christ he wouldn’t have got it. I don’t care what he did to get it. But I wish to Christ he hadn’t ever got it. It does seem like he didn’t have to have got it. I don’t know what to do. I wish to Christ he hadn’t got any kind of malady. I don’t know why he had to get a malady.
Homage to Switzerland
Part I
Portrait of Mr. Wheeler in Montreux
Inside the station café it was warm and light. The wood of the tables shone from wiping and there were baskets of pretzels in glazed paper sacks. The chairs were carved, but the seats were worn and comfortable. There was a carved wooden clock on the wall and a bar at the far end of the room. Outside the window it was snowing.
Two of the station porters sat drinking new wine at the table under the clock. Another porter came in and said the Simplon-Orient Express was an hour late at Saint Maurice. He went out. The waitress came over to Mr. Wheeler’s table.
“The Express is an hour late, sir,” she said. “Can I bring you some coffee?”
“If you think it won’t keep me awake.”
“Please?” asked the waitress.
“Bring me some,” said Mr. Wheeler.
“Thank you.”
She brought the coffee from the kitchen and Mr. Wheeler looked out the window at the snow falling in the light from the station platform.
“Do you speak other languages besides English?” he asked the waitress.
“Oh, yes, sir. I speak German and French and the dialects.”
“Would you like a drink of something?”
“Oh, no, sir. It is not permitted to drink in the café with the clients.”
“You won’t take a
cigar?”
“Oh, no, sir. I don’t smoke, sir.”
“That is all right,” said Mr. Wheeler. He looked out of the window again, drank the coffee, and lit a cigarette.
“Fräulein,” he called. The waitress came over.
“What would you like, sir?”
“You,” he said.
“You must not joke me like that.”
“I’m not joking.”
“Then you must not say it.”
“I haven’t time to argue,” Mr. Wheeler said. “The train comes in forty minutes. If you’ll go upstairs with me I’ll give you a hundred francs.”
“You should not say such things, sir. I will ask the porter to speak with you.”
“I don’t want a porter,” Mr. Wheeler said. “Nor a policeman nor one of those boys that sell cigarettes. I want you.”
“If you talk like that you must go out. You cannot stay here and talk like that.”
“Why don’t you go away, then? If you go away I can’t talk to you,”
The waitress went away. Mr. Wheeler watched to see if she spoke to the porters. She did not.
“Mademoiselle!” he called. The waitress came over. “Bring me a bottle of Sion, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Wheeler watched her go out, then come in with the wine and bring it to his table. He looked toward the clock.
“I’ll give you two hundred francs,” he said.
“Please do not say such things.”
“Two hundred francs is a great deal of money.”
“You will not say such things!” the waitress said. She was losing her English. Mr. Wheeler looked at her interestedly.
“Two hundred francs.”
“You are hateful.”
“Why don’t you go away, then? I can’t talk to you if you’re not here.”
The waitress left the table and went over to the bar. Mr. Wheeler drank the wine and smiled to himself for some time.
“Mademoiselle,” he called. The waitress pretended not to hear him. “Mademoiselle,” he called again. The waitress came over.
“You wish something?”
“Very much. I’ll give you three hundred francs.”
“You are hateful.”
“Three hundred francs Swiss.”
She went away and Mr. Wheeler looked after her. A porter opened the door. He was the one who had Mr. Wheeler’s bags in his charge.
“The train is coming, sir,” he said in French. Mr. Wheeler stood up.
“Mademoiselle,” he called. The waitress came toward the table. “How much is the wine?”
“Seven francs.”
Mr. Wheeler counted out eight francs and left them on the table. He put on his coat and followed the porter onto the platform where the snow was falling.
“Au revoir, mademoiselle,” he said. The waitress watched him go. He’s ugly, she thought, ugly and hateful. Three hundred francs for a thing that is nothing to do. How many times have I done that for nothing. And no place to go here. If he had sense he would know there was no place. No time and no place to go. Three hundred francs to do that. What people those Americans.
Standing on the cement platform beside his bags, looking down the rails toward the headlight of the train coming through the snow, Mr. Wheeler was thinking that it was very inexpensive sport. He had only spent, actually, aside from the dinner, seven francs for a bottle of wine and a franc for the tip. Seventy-five centimes would have been better. He would have felt better now if the tip had been seventy-five centimes. One franc Swiss is five francs French. Mr. Wheeler was headed for Paris. He was very careful about money and did not care for women. He had been in that station before and he knew there was no upstairs to go to. Mr. Wheeler never took chances.
Part II
Mr. Johnson Talks About it at Vevey
Inside the station café it was warm and light; the tables were shiny from wiping and on some there were red and white striped tablecloths; and there were blue and white striped table cloths on the others and on all of them baskets with pretzels in glazed paper sacks. The chairs were carved but the wood seats were worn and comfortable. There was a clock on the wall, a zinc bar at the far end of the room, and outside the window it was snowing. Two of the station porters sat drinking new wine at the table under the clock.
Another porter came in and said the Simplon-Orient Express was an hour late at Saint Maurice. The waitress came over to Mr. Johnson’s table.
“The Express is an hour late, sir,” she said. “Can I bring you some coffee?”
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Please?” asked the waitress.
“I’ll take some.”
“Thank you.”
She brought the coffee from the kitchen and Mr. Johnson looked out the window at the snow falling in the light from the station platform.
“Do you speak other languages besides English?” he asked the waitress.
“Oh, yes, I speak German and French and the dialects.”
“Would you like a drink of something?”
“Oh, no, sir, it is not permitted to drink in the café with the clients.”
“Have a cigar?”
“Oh, no, sir,” she laughed. “I don’t smoke, sir.”
“Neither do I,” said Johnson. “It’s a dirty habit.”
The waitress went away and Johnson lit a cigarette and drank the coffee. The clock on the wall marked a quarter to ten. His watch was a little fast. The train was due at ten-thirty—an hour late meant eleven-thirty. Johnson called to the waitress.
“Signorina!”
“What would you like, sir?”
“You wouldn’t like to play with me?” Johnson asked. The waitress blushed.
“No, sir.”
“I don’t mean anything violent. You wouldn’t like to make up a party and see the nightlife of Vevey? Bring a girlfriend if you like.”
“I must work” the waitress said. “I have my duty here.”
“I know,” said Johnson. “But couldn’t you get a substitute? They used to do that in the Civil War.”
“Oh, no, sir. I must be here myself in the person.”
“Where did you learn your English?”
“At the Berlitz school, sir.”
“Tell me about it,” Johnson said. “Were the Berlitz undergraduates a wild lot? What about all this necking and petting? Were there many smoothies? Did you ever run into Scott Fitzgerald?”
“Please? “
“I mean were your college days the happiest days of your life? What sort of team did Berlitz have last fall?”
“You are joking, sir?”
“Only feebly,” said Johnson. “You’re an awfully good girl. And you don’t want to play with me?”
“Oh, no, sir,” said the waitress. “Would you like me to bring you something?”
“Yes,” said Johnson. “Would you bring me the wine list?”
“Yes, sir.”
Johnson walked over with the wine list to the table where the three porters sat. They looked up at him. They were old men.
“Wollen Sie trinken?” he asked. One of them nodded and smiled.
“Oui, monsieur.”
“You speak French?”
“Oui, monsieur.”
“What shall we drink? Connais vous des champagnes?”
“Non, monsieur.”
“Faut les connaître,” said Johnson. “Fräulein,” he called the waitress. “We will drink champagne.”
“Which champagne would you prefer, sir?”
“The best,” said Johnson. “Laquelle est le best?” he asked the porters.
“Le meillieur?” asked the porter who had spoken first.
“By all means.”
The porter took out a pair of gold-rimmed glasses from his coat pocket and looked over the list. He ran his finger down the four typewritten names and prices.
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