A Visit to Don Otavio

by Sybille Bedford

  ‘Ought we to warn Otavio?’

  ‘I suppose he can see for himself.’

  ‘I wonder.’

  ‘See what, anyway?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it. What do we really know against Guillermo?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Exactly. It is only the unfortunate impression he makes. That is really so above-board of him.’

  ‘It will be fair warning.’

  Don Otavio returned from Guadalajara in low spirits. His aunt had been difficult. There was no pronouncement yet on the grotto.

  ‘She is getting impatient, poor woman. She said if they are not going to make up their minds soon she will turn to something else. She says that Rome is getting very stuffy these days. They were pleased enough with any little miracle when we were keeping the Faith alive under the Reform Laws, but nowadays, it’s all witnessed testimonials in triplicate. It is not enough for them to know that the goitres are gone, they want proof that the people had goitres. As if it could be a cure if they were not gone. Like a lot of tax-collecting clerks. Aunt Isabella-María says she does not like that kind of attitude, it is unbecoming to a great church.’

  Don Otavio had come back without Guillermo. He had sent him to Mexico, there was nothing for him to do here and Guillermo had expressed alacrity to go. There were a number of things to be bought that could not be had at Guadalajara, and Guillermo was taking some papers for Don Luís to sign.

  ‘The post is so unreliable,’ said Don Otavio.

  Domingo had been sent with Guillermo. ‘Bill is now our manager, it is suitable for him to have a mozo and there will be much to wrap up. We are going to have new vases everywhere. Domingo wanted to see Mexico, now that he is going to be married he will not be able to travel so much.’

  It grew warmer. Every day the lake sank a little lower, there were no signs of rain. Soledad sewed, Guadalupe fattened some turkeys, Doña Anna was asked and arranged for lending the band, Don Otavio deliberated whether he should give Domingo a bicycle. Don Jaime came out to remove his things from the Hacienda, and we were getting ready to move across to the Villa the day after the wedding. Workmen had already dumped a mess of plaster in the back patio. Proofs arrived of advertisements appearing in the travel sections of the New York and Chicago Tribunes and the Los Angeles Examiner. Don Otavio pasted them in a scrap-book – started for the occasion – and forwarded to Don Enriquez the first letter of inquiry that came from Pittsburgh and demanded particulars as to sports, recreation facilities and rates. E paced the ex-Governor’s bedroom and tried to finish a chapter.

  Three days before Soledad’s wedding we received word that Guillermo had been arrested at Mexico City.

  Don Otavio started at once for Guadalajara. He returned two days later, very quiet. He came up to the West Loggia and sat down. ‘Poor Bill is going to be all right. Enriquez is getting him out, and Luís is looking after him. There is no kitchen in his prison. I do not think it is poor Bill’s fault. It is something about his papers and their not believing that he is a foreigner. It is not unusual. Enriquez says they did not like the place they arrested Bill in, and they did not like his hotel, and that there is also something about a debt. But it is all quite sad and unfortunate. My aunt is very angry. You see, Bill used our name. Enriquez is angry, too. And Jaime. And now I must go and speak to Juan. ¿Con su permiso?’

  ‘Can you make out what happened?’ I said to E.

  ‘Only that Guillermo made his unfortunate impression on the police.’In the evening Don Otavio said, ‘there has been a general disgust and now there will be no hotel.

  ‘Oh it is not only poor Bill. The Vatican has decided against the grotto, we just heard. You see, Aunt Isabella-María had already put in quite a lot of money. She is very much upset, poor woman. She has sacked her confessor. She says in candles alone it was a fortune and what good is the land to her now. She says it makes one understand why there are so many heresies. And Enriquez, too, has taken against the hotel. He says that now that politics are again more open to us, he is not going to waste his time making up weekly bills and that I am no good, and in any case Americans with money go to Europe again now, and he’s seen what people want and it is not San Pedro. He says San Pedro is hopeless. You would have to spend millions and pull down every stone and pillar to get something that looked more like San José Purúa, and then where would you be? At Tlayacán with no road. The money has just been spent again on the President’s Ball. And a motor-boat, Enriquez says, is all very well but people want to use their cars, and such tourists future as the Republic might have, was all on the Taxco Highway, and he has heard of a nice piece of land, right on the road, not all cluttered up with old houses, and he might think of developing that. You couldn’t even sell San Pedro, he says. Nowadays the only thing to do with a place like that was to live in it, that was all it was good for.’

  ‘So the workmen will not start in the day after Soledad’s wedding?’

  ‘There will be no wedding. They took Domingo.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The Military. When the police went for poor Bill, they arrested Domingo too. It is usual. They let him go, but they found out that he had not done his service – he would have been called up last year but Enriquez got him off, only it does not count outside the Province. So they sent him straight into barracks at Uxpan.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘A few years. It depends.’

  ‘Poor Domingo.’

  ‘No, no. Domingo always said he wanted to be a soldier. He was so disappointed last year. Enriquez didn’t know, he naturally arranges exemption for our servants – something with a list in the War Office – and then it was too late.’

  ‘And what does Soledad say?’

  ‘Soledad is pleased. She says she would like to stay on as she is. She did not want to get married to anyone very much. Domingo pressed her so. That reminds me I must tell Guadalupe to take those turkeys off milk.’

  A few days later Don Otavio said, ‘Now poor Domingo will not have his wedding present. He did want a bicycle so. Perhaps I could send it to him just the same. Where he is now, he will even be able to use it. They have a road.’

  ‘Otavio,’ said I, ‘do you mind very much?’

  ‘About the hotel? It would have been nice to get rich and have charming people to stay all the time. But Enriquez says they would not always be charming and we might get poorer. Perhaps it would have been a little difficult. We had so many disgusts over it already. Who knows, perhaps Enriquez is right and I might not have been very good at business. Now there will be more room for my nieces and nephews, and E can have my father’s suite whenever she comes. Perhaps it is better so?’

  Our tickets arrived. We were flying to New York straight from Guadalajara.

  ‘You know I shall rather mind leaving here,’ said E. ‘I seem to feel no elation at the thought of returning to my native country. I am afraid Otavio will be right: we shall be quite uncomfortable and not at all happy.’

  Three days later we all went to Chapala for the Blessing of the Animals. Every beast from round the lake, in festive garb, had been taken to receive this annual benediction. I still felt uneasy in large gatherings, and the crush, the noise, the smells, were overwhelming. A crowd of mules and bullocks in garlands and fine hats was pressing in the square outside the church. The smaller animals had a difficult time of it. There were newborn calves carried on donkey’s backs, pigs clasped to bosoms, chickens clutched by clumsy children, canaries in cages, a huge, angry parrot on a stick, guinea-pigs in apron pockets, ducks in baskets, cats immune on roofs, mongrel puppies led by strings, Don Otavio’s Maltese terrier and Doña Anna’s griffon carried in the arms of chauffeurs, and smelly rabbits carried by their ears; between them wandered straying geese, shuddering horses and a superb white angora goat who was made way for by the bullocks. The church bells went like mad, the priest held up the sacrament, outlined a blessing, people knelt in the dust raising their screeching beasts towards the holy
monstrance – Mamacita del cielo, Madrecita María, Virgen, howling, braying, yelping, cackling, squeaking …

  ‘Such a kind letter from Luís,’ said Don Otavio in the evening. ‘He does not seem to mind the trouble we gave him at all. He likes Bill. He says he is very nice and useful and if he can manage to arrange poor Bill’s papers so that he can stay, he will make him his secretary. Luís says Bill is just what he always wanted, and Bill likes to be at Mexico. He would have been wasted at San Pedro.’

  The next day the Enriquez’ and the Jaime’s came down for the Fiesta of Tlayacán. Doña Concepción looked ravishing; Doña Victoria was in a good mood.

  ‘You may as well keep Mama’s silver, chiquito,’ she said to Don Otavio. ‘It belongs to San Pedro.’

  We sat over a long comida, and only started for Tlayacán in time for the bull-baiting. As we entered the pleasure grounds, the grandstand, a scaffolding of sticks and strings, collapsed and two hundred people in gay clothes, very drunk, slowly, slowly fell into the trees below.

  ‘I think I shall go now,’ I said. ‘I don’t think the fiesta can do any better than this.’

  ‘I will go too,’ said Doña Concepción; ‘I still feel the heat rather.’

  We went back to San Pedro, accompanied by Andreas. At the gates we sent him back to the fiesta. The other servants had gone, the house was still. ‘Let us sit on the west loggia,’ said Doña Concepción, ‘I like it at this hour.’

  Presently she said, ‘You are leaving tomorrow, are you not? For long?’

  I did not answer.

  ‘How lonely it will be for Tavio. You heard our news? The Enriquez’ are going to live at Mexico. Enriquez says Guadalajara has had it; and my husband will have to go quite often. So the children and I shall spend more time at San Pedro. Jaime wants the new baby to be brought up in the country. He says it is time for us to learn to live again like gentlemen.’

  ‘That will be nice for Otavio,’ said I.

  ‘Yes, I think it will. I was so sorry for him at first about the hotel. Now, I am not sure. They all turned on him and said it was his fault, and what with Enriquez having these new ideas and Aunt Isabella-María being so put out at having lost all that money and saying she was tired with dealing with confessors and managers and people like that, it was very sad for poor Otavio. But now Aunt Isabella-María has had such a charming letter from Monsignore saying that, privately speaking, everybody in Rome liked the idea of Aunt Isabella-María’s grotto so much, and that the miracles sounded splendid, but perhaps just at present it was not wise to develop another grotto, having so many on their hands, one had to be so careful these days when there are communists to think of as well as protestants. After all, if the grotto was what they all hoped it was, it was sure to triumph in the end, and Aunt Isabella-María was too faithful a daughter not to understand that it did not matter in the least whether it remained unrecognised for another hundred years or two. Aunt Isabella-María was to think of the lives of the Saints, and perhaps something could be arranged for buying back some of the candles. Meanwhile if there was any little personal favour she would like to ask, Monsignore was almost certain to be able to assure her that someone who had laboured so devotedly and so long in the Good Field would not find an unsympathetic ear.

  ‘So now, you see, Aunt Isabella-María and Monsignore are going to make poor Tavio into a kind of titular lay abbé. I do not quite know what that is; Monsignore is working at it. There was Tavio still wondering about his vocation, and not being able to be a priest because he hasn’t studied for the examinations, and not wanting to go away and be a monk somewhere. And now he is going to be made into an honorary abbé and live at San Pedro. He will be here and in the Church, and it will be so nice for him to have ecclesiastical status. No one can tease him any more for not being married. He can have us to stay with him, and all his friends. Aunt Isabella-María will leave him money to stay at San Pedro just as he is. She always said she was going to leave her money to the Church but did not like the idea of leaving it away from the family, but now of course Tavio will be in the Church in a way, so it would be leaving the money to the Church and keeping it in the family too, would it not? Perhaps it is a good thing after all about the hotel, because San Pedro will be Tavio’s retreat, and Monsignore could not have made him into that kind of an abbé if Tavio were running an hotel. Perhaps it was not meant to be. Perhaps Tavio can find out now whether he really has a vocation. Or perhaps this is his vocation? Belonging to the Church, living at San Pedro? Who knows, Doña Sibilla, it may be all for the best?’

  ‘It all is for the best,’ said I.

  About the Author

  Sybille Bedford was born in Germany before the First World War, of a German father and English mother of mixed, partly Jewish, extraction. She was brought up in Italy, England and France.

  A Visit to Don Otavio was her first published book. Originally entitled The Sudden View: A Mexican Journey, it came out in 1953 and was soon acknowledged as a classic of travel writing. Her first novel, A Legacy, appeared in 1956, followed by A Favourite of the Gods (1963), A Compass Error (1968) and Jigsaw (1989), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Sybille’s volume of memoirs, Quicksands, was published in 2005 when she was ninety four.

  Sybille Bedford also witnessed and wrote about some of the most important criminal trials of the century – including the Auschwitz trials – and wrote extensively about the law at work. Her two-volume life of Aldous Huxley, who had been a great friend, was published in 1973. The Spectator recently hailed it as ‘one of the great classic English biographies’. She was awarded an OBE in 1980, was a vice-president of English PEN and was elected a Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1994. She died in 2006.

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  Copyright

  First published in Great Britain by Victor Gollancz as

  The Sudden View in 1953

  First published by William Collins as A Visit to Don Otavio in

  1960 and by Eland Publishing Limited in 1982

  This ebook edition first published in 2014

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © Sybille Bedford 1953, 1960

  The right of Sybille Bedford to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–1–78060–065–9

  Cover Image © Getty Images

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