Please Write for Details

by John D. MacDonald

  Gam had risen to his full hairy height and waited until all conversation had stopped. He stared down at Miles and said, with measured and almost Churchillian dignity, “I request permission to have my food served to me in some far corner of this baronial hall, Mr. Drummond. The asinine chatter of that fat embarrassment at the far end of the table upsets my sensibilities and sours my stomach. Anyone who shares my limited capacity to endure vicious nonsense is invited to join me.” Thereupon he belched with the explosive finality of a spinnaker suddenly shredded in a gale, picked up his plate and silver, and stalked to a far dim corner of the room, to a small table in the shadows.

  “Disgusting sort,” Agnes said evenly in the awed silence.

  Miles said nervously, “Really … I had hoped that we all … could get along well … and there certainly is room in the world for … many theories of art.”

  No one quite dared to join Torrigan immediately. But when the coffee was served, Harvey Ardos took his over to Torrigan’s table, trying to look entirely casual. Monica Killdeering joined them. By Wednesday evening the splintering was complete. The long table was dissolved. And, as at a hotel, there was a tendency to eat at different times.

  Miles thought that the maids and Rosalinda would have violent objections, but he found that the new arrangement suited them more than the old. The preparation and serving of thirteen simultaneous meals had severely taxed Rosalinda’s organizational abilities. She far preferred extended periods of amiable confusion to a twice daily climate of crisis.

  One table for four became almost institutional in its rigidity. Agnes Partridge Keeley ruled over it with a manner more suitable to direction of the entire group. The table was composed of Agnes, Hildabeth McCaffrey, Dotsy Winkler and Colonel Hildebrandt. And they preferred to eat each meal as early as possible. And, each time, as soon as he had eaten, the colonel would ask to be excused, braying the token request at them, standing and making a half bow with iron gallantry, then striding from the room, setting his heels down hard.

  It was also during this first week that Dotsy Winkler began to lose much of her hesitant shyness as she began to edge her way into the avocation which not only improved her own morale, but vastly benefited the group.

  As Hildabeth McCaffrey put it, “Back in Elmira that Dotsy is known all over the county as a woman can take the apron off a butcher and serve it up so it turns out to be the best food you’d swear you ever put in your mouth.”

  Dotsy had wanted to see the kitchen ever since the first meal she had eaten at El Hutchinson. It took her until the following Tuesday to get up the courage to sidle furtively to the doorway while dinner was being prepared. She was appalled at the dinginess, the dirt, the primitive facilities. Had Rosalinda glowered at her, it is probable that the association which was to become very close before the summer session was over would never have begun. But Rosalinda’s approach to the world was a wide grin and a meaningless though infectious giggle. And so Dotsy had smiled back and moved hesitantly through the doorway.

  Dotsy spent a few days as observer, making Rosalinda Gomez quite uneasy, and another few days as a volunteer assistant, and a week as co-cook. From then on she was clearly in charge.

  Rosalinda would complain wonderingly to Alberto Buceada, “That Señora Winkel, she is ridden by devils, truly. All must be scrubbed, endlessly. The white paint on the walls, purchased at her order, placed there by you, Alberto, it too must be scrubbed each day. Truly, she can cook better than I had known was possible. Never has food been more delicious. And I no longer have such great responsibilities, but one would think it was intended to eat from the floor, even way back under the stove.”

  The two women worked together with the aid of sign language, the fragments of Spanish which Dotsy learned, and the bits of English Rosalinda learned from her. The work went smoothly. They smiled at each other often and with a genuine affection. And Rosalinda, for the first time in her long career as a cook, began to take an interest in the preparation of food.

  And Dotsy discovered the bewildering, noisy, filthy, labyrinthine public market. And, excited and enchanted by exotica unprocurable in Elmira’s Soop-R-Market, she would instruct Felipe Cedro to buy strange things and carry them out to the red bus where Fidelio waited behind the wheel.

  For the first time since the death of her husband, Dotsy began to feel like herself. She walked in confidence and a new air of authority, and she blushed and beamed when the others complimented her on the food.

  Miles Drummond had felt very guilty about letting the situation develop. Dotsy had little time for instruction under Agnes Keeley. In effect, Dotsy Winkler had paid five hundred dollars and her transportation expenses to come to Cuernavaca to cook for her friend, eleven other students, the staff and such guests as might appear. He felt guilty indeed, but on the other hand, it had been years since he had eaten so well. As Dotsy herself was busy and happy, and had began to expand her field of influence to include the housekeeping activities, to the extent that the insect life within the hotel was suffering a visible decline.

  The only person with violent objections was Pepe, that soiled and lazy urchin, whose knowledge of evil was surpassed only by his talent for survival. He had not thought he would be persecuted by the little old American lady. But on one horrid and memorable afternoon, without warning, Alberto, the gardener, and Felipe Cedro pounced upon him. He thought they had lost their minds. He was taken out in back to where a large tub had been prepared for him, the water steaming ominously. He was stripped of his rags. The rags were thrown into the barranca. Though he writhed and wept and pleaded, Felipe held him strongly in the tub while Alberto, with strong yellow soap and a harsh brush, scrubbed him until he glowed red through his mellow brown hide, and the water that did not splash out of the tub during his struggles was the consistency of black bean soup. They rinsed him with a hose. They cropped the heavy matted thatch of black hair, and dispossessed the contented vermin with a substance that stung most evilly. Then, exhausted and weeping, he was forced to dress himself in new clothing, a pair of new blue jeans as rigid and unbending as sheet metal, and a blazingly white shirt. He was then told that this had been the order of the Señora Winkel, that henceforth he would keep himself spotlessly clean, that he would see to it that no stain or tear marred the new clothing.

  That night Pepe left forever. Until he was found the next day by one of Felipe Cedro’s friends and brought back to the hotel, filthy, torn, squalling with rage.

  When Felipe Cedro had first reported Pepe’s desertion to Señor Drummond, he had been told that Pepe was very probably incurably lazy and dirty and it might be best to employ another boy.

  But Felipe felt it would be better to bring Pepe back. He had private reasons that he could not very well relate to Señor Drummond. When it had been Señor Drummond’s desire to staff the hotel in preparation for the Workshop, Felipe had been instrumental in selecting Rosalinda Gomez (who had turned out to be disappointingly unco-operative regarding kickbacks from food purchases), Margarita Esponjar (who, as a source of income was proving to be less effective than he had hoped), Alberto Buceada (who unprotestingly kicked back fifty per cent of his pay to Felipe) and Pepe (who had turned out to be the best bet of all).

  Only Fidelio, the driver, and Esperanza, the severe maid and waitress and potential schoolteacher, had not been added to the staff by Felipe.

  Felipe had spent many patient hours with Pepe, training him. In much the way that a bridge master might deal random hands to a novice and ask him to bid the hand in order to instruct him. Felipe had repeatedly handed Pepe a battered old wallet containing random selections of both pesos and U. S. currency. After several long sessions Felipe was certain that he had taught Pepe how to decide upon the maximum amount of money which could be stolen without the victim being likely to note anything missing. If there were two five-peso notes in a billfold or lady’s purse, only a fool would try to remove one. But if there were five, one could safely be removed. The objective was a steady return
. If the students became suspicious, the venture might end abruptly.

  Once Pepe had been trained, Felipe had given him a master key, a duplicate of the one he had at first loaned to Margarita, and later given to her after he had had copies made. And Pepe was also instructed to keep his eyes open and report on all readily portable items of value in the rooms, their location, description. Felipe did not have to take notes. He had the effective memory of the semi-illiterate. With the information furnished by Pepe he planned to quickly and efficiently clean out the hotel just before the Workshop ended.

  And so Pepe was brought back, rescrubbed, reoutfitted. When this had been done, Felipe took him back of the servants’ quarters and had a fatherly talk with the boy. He said that it would not be wise to run away again. He said that it would be excellent if Pepe kept himself spotless. To make his instructions more forceful, Felipe explained that should Pepe run to the furthest corner of Mexico, he would be brought back. Felipe took out his pocket knife and pressed the small thumb button which snapped the long slim blade open. He said that it might sadden him, but if Pepe did not co-operate, he would be forced to take out his digestive organs, one by one, and toast them over a little fire he would build in the barranca, and then throw them to the skinny savage dogs you always saw in such places.

  Pepe remained clean. After Dotsy Winkler had solved the mysteries of the primitive oven, she began to bake rolls. A white coat was purchased for Pepe. He was given a basket of hot rolls, napkin wrapped, to serve to the students at each meal. He decided he would much rather die than make such a fool of himself. But the memory of Felipe’s knife was too vivid. And so, on the first occasion, he shuffled with black scowl into the dining room, went, in torment, from table to table. But, in a very short time, he became accustomed to it. And began to enjoy it. And began to take pride in the starched white coat. He beamed at the students, and bowed, and offered rolls more frequently than was necessary. And, in time, he even began to be a little sorry that he who served them such delicious rolls with such poise and grace should be the very same person who, in the dark hours of the night, moved like smoke into their rooms and lightened their pockets.

  The other tables were not as unvarying as Agnes Keeley’s table. Gil and Jeanie Wahl were always together, of course. They had no set schedule for eating, and they missed meals often. Sometimes Miles would eat with them when they arrived in the dining room at the same time. He felt that he should change from table to table.

  There was no special pattern for the others. Paul Klauss would sit at the same table with Barbara Kilmer whenever he could arrange it, with Mary Jane and Bitsy when he couldn’t.

  The girls from Texas were not always at the same table, but Park Barnum was usually with Bitsy. Harvey and Monica were generally together. Quite often John Kemp would eat alone, an open book beside his meal.

  By that first Thursday of the Cuernavaca Summer Workshop another change had occurred in the basic behavior of the group, but this change was due to the personal wishes of Agnes Partridge Keeley and Gambel Torrigan. Had either of them suspected that their wishes were identical in any respect, the change would not have come about. But Miles for once handled it exactly right. Gam Torrigan came to Miles in the owner’s apartment of the hotel. He said, “I know the arrangement is to let the students split up, Miles, and pick their own instructor after this first week. Personally, I’d like to keep right on teaching in the afternoons, rather than having the group who will prefer me as their instructor all the whole day long. Hell, you can’t teach all day. Maybe that woman can, but I wouldn’t call that teaching. She might just as well be teaching them to knit. It doesn’t drain her emotionally. And I can work on my own stuff in the mornings.” Miles said he would think it over.

  An hour later Agnes Partridge Keeley came to him with the same request. She wanted to teach in the mornings. She hoped to go back to California with dozens of paintings. It wasn’t fair to try to do your own work and teach simultaneously. Miles said he would think it over.

  He went to Gam and Agnes and said it was his wish that the students have as varied a program as possible. He spoke to them separately, saying that the other one had objected, but finally agreed to his proposal. Agnes would instruct in the mornings, Gam in the afternoons—and any student who so desired could attend both sessions, of course. He announced this change to the students.

  And there were, of course, the individual habit patterns that were rapidly becoming solidified.

  Colonel Thomas Catlin Hildebrandt, after two sketching sessions with Agnes, ceased attending classes. And, despite the heavy wheedling and coyness and pretense of hurt feelings by Agnes Keeley, despite the anxious queries by Miles, he made it quite plain that he would not attend any more classes. He had, with great ingenuity, and with equipment tested over the years, made his room exceptionally comfortable. He had brought with him weighty and obscure studies of Mexican campaigns, from Cortez to Zapata, and prior to his arrival he had made notations on a collection of detailed maps of the countryside.

  On the first Tuesday of the Workshop he drove away and appeared some hours later, driving the old station wagon very slowly. Tethered to the tailgate, and moving with alarm tempered by resignation, was a white horse. Her name was Saltamontes. She was elderly and flabby. Her white hair seemed exceptionally skimpy. And under her hair, disturbingly visible, was hide the shade of bubble gum, or a cheap denture. Both the girls from Texas, more acquainted with horses than the other students, noted at once that Saltamontes had a habit they had never seen before. She yawned widely, silently, repeatedly. When she yawned she would shut her eyes, and expose a funereal collection of huge yellow teeth. Each gaping yawn ended in a gusty sigh. And she had in large measure that common affliction of malnourished beasts, chronic flatus. In the station wagon was the equipment furnished with the leased horse, one battered antique of a saddle with wooden stirrups.

  Colonel Hildebrandt made arrangements with Alberto Buceada to care for the horse. This consisted mostly of hazing her over onto the grassy part of the barranca slope when she was not being used, and keeping an eye on her, and tethering her behind the servants’ quarters inside the hotel wall at night.

  Each morning, when occupied on a project which could not be reached by vehicle, the colonel would saddle Saltamontes deftly, lash his painting equipment aboard, swing competently up into the saddle and clop off toward the scene of some local skirmish or ambush. The colonel had a good seat and a practiced manner on a horse. But any possibility of good effect was lost not only through the obscene pinkness of the hide under the scanty hair, but also through the frequency of the vast yawns as they rode off, and, at the end of each yawn, before the windy sigh, the audible click of the big yellow teeth snapping down on the worn bit.

  The colonel’s collection of battlefield scenes grew rapidly. Each bore two dates, the date of the action and the date it was painted. And each bore a number corresponding with the reference sheet for that particular action. Though he was far more competent in his use of perspective, there was in his work the flavor of Grandma Moses. It was a sunny and colorful world of pure pigment. But unpeopled. Where blood had run dark into the grass of long ago, where men had shot and yelled and died, all was a stillness. The branches grew out only from the sides of the trees, and each leaf had turned to face the painter.

  In the evenings when his research was done, he would sit in his room and write long letters to far places. Each day whoever brought the mail back from town would place it on the same small table in the lobby. The colonel received many letters, from Panama and the Philippines, from Washington and Tokyo.

  In his reserve and his dedication, and his correspondence with old friends, he seemed apart from all the rest of them. Some of them tried to make jokes about him. But such was his dignity the jokes never succeeded. He somehow managed to make them feel trivial in comparison to his diligence and his energy. And he seemed only remotely aware of their existence.

  Miles Drummond quickly established a
routine. He made it his custom to make a complete tour of the hotel and grounds once a day. He looked in on each class at least once. In the mornings he labored over his account books and the current inventory of supplies. He tried to make a point of speaking to each student in a friendly way at least once a day. When he received complaints, and there were many, and when he saw things that needed to be done, he would make a notation in a pocket notebook. And he would speak to Felipe. He directed the use of the bus and driver. And he tried to think up little social plans to make the evenings more enjoyable.

  Most of all, he kept telling himself that he was doing everything possible to make the Cuernavaca Summer Workshop run perfectly. But he was in a constant state of despair. The accounts did not come out right, ever. The inventory never checked out. And the money he had set aside to cover total expenses was melting away at a sickening rate. On each tour he saw multiple evidences of sloth and neglect. The temporary permit had not arrived. He would take out his pocket notebook and tell Felipe what needed to be done, what the rest of the staff should be instructed to do. Felipe would look at him with surliness and boredom and say everything would be taken care of. But it never was. And when he tried to scold Felipe, his voice would tremble with frustration and helpless anger, and he would think he could see the amusement and contempt far back in Felipe’s eyes. When he looked at the classes he was alarmed to see how poorly attended they were. And Mr. Torrigan’s class sessions seemed to grow constantly shorter. Suppose they all requested the return of their money?

  In addition, he never knew where the red bus was, or who had been taken away in it. And it broke down constantly. He thought up interesting ideas for social evenings, but there were never enough people who wanted to co-operate. In despair he would go back to his books and records. And find a notation which, even though it was in his own hand, he could not read. 12 cshaygn 48 pesos. Whatever they were, they were four pesos apiece. That, at least, was clear. What were they for? How many were there left? And how could you tell how many were left?