Gertrude finds my comment amusing, but I think Don Antonio doesn’t. I just get a forced smile from him.
“If it’s all right with you,” Gertrude says, changing the subject, “I’ll send you a chit later to see if we can arrange to do some sightseeing together.”
After agreeing and thanking them profusely, I am out of the carriage and into the hotel, shaking my head no to a bellman who wants to carry my one little bag.
The hotel is an incredibly imposing building of the Mexican-Spanish style. The entrance takes one into a large, breathtaking open court or square that is filled with flowers of various brilliant colors in clay pots; vines with purple, pink, and yellow flowers twisting and climbing up pillars that seem to reach to the sky; while scattered about on sea blue tiles are round wrought-iron tables and chairs, with colorful cushions, for the hotel guests.
I’ve stepped into paradise. It’s a perfect place to relax and be creative. I could just stay put in this courtyard and write mystery novels.6
All the rooms are arranged around this court, opening out into a circle of balconies.
I already know that the lowest floor in Mexico is the cheapest. The higher up one goes, the higher the price. The reason for this is that at the top one escapes any possible dampness and can get the light and sun and avoid the noise from the streets below. I had reserved a mid-level room.
The reception area is crowded as I make my way to the check-in desk and a clerk who speaks good English.
“Your hotel is very busy,” I remark as I fill in the registration form.
“Very. Many people have come to the city for Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead celebration. You are familiar with that tradition?”
“No, not at all. Please tell me.”
“It is a day in which we pay tribute to our dead so they know they are still in our hearts. The families of those who have passed go to the graveyard to share the joy of singing, dancing, and merriment with loved ones they have lost. There will be gifts for the dead, too. Toys will be brought for niños, flowers for mujeres, and perhaps a little tequila for the hombres, no?” He laughs.
His laughter is so contagious, I can’t help but join him, but after having French champagne, I would have to disagree with him about women receiving flowers. I think they should have champagne instead.
“The friends and family who have gathered in the graveyard will eat and drink and enjoy themselves, often until dawn, to acknowledge their departed ones.”
He points to a ceramic doll on the fireplace mantel shelf. The doll is dressed in a very pretty bright blue-and-purple evening gown. I do a double take as I realize that the doll is a skeleton.
“She’s a skeleton!” bursts out of my mouth.
“Sí. You will see esqueletos, skeletons, everywhere you go in the city. It is quite a sight. Some tourists like it, others not.”
Great. Just what I needed. First, blood-thirsty were-jaguars and now bony dead people who would frighten the wits out of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.
He checks my registration information. “You are fortunate that you have a reservation, señorita. So many people are in town for the festivities, you would find it difficult, if not impossible, to find a suitable room.”
He glances around to make sure he is not overheard. “Señorita, you would be amazed at what a rat-infested hovel people without reservations will be doomed to occupy.”
“Do you have a reservation for Roger Watkins?” I have no idea why I ask this, because Roger and I had already established we were staying at the same hotel one night when we were being civil to each other and having a pleasant conversation.
The clerk checks a long sheet. “Sí, señorita. A norteamericano, arriving today.”
“He’s asked me to cancel it for him.”
I am breathless as I head for the stairwell. What makes me do these things, I have no idea. Mother says it’s the devil taking control of me for his own devious work. I say tit for tat.
Let him eat cake! And sleep with rats.
30
My room has a redbrick floor. It’s large but has no ventilation except for the glass doors that open onto the balcony. There is a little iron cot in the corner of the room, a hard chair, a table, a washstand, and a wardrobe.
Very uninviting and very uninspiring. Nothing like their courtyard—which is a loss leader, no doubt.
The washroom with toilet and tub is down the hall and shared by all the rooms on the floor.
It all looks so miserable—if not for the glass doors to the balcony, I’d feel like I was in a prisoner’s cell. I am beginning to wish I were back home. Good thing my mother isn’t here—she would be complaining like the dickens.
Right now, I am so envious of Lily Langtry. If she doesn’t like her room—her whole floor of rooms—el presidente will probably move out of the Presidential Palace so she can use it. No question that rank has its privileges. And as I keep getting reminded, so does beauty and fame, both of which I fall very short of.
Since there is nothing I can do about it, I am going to go outside and enjoy the beautiful day and see this wonderfully strange and exotic city.
Even though I am immediately assailed by sights, sounds, and smells that seemed muted when I was in the carriage, as I exit the hotel into the crowded street, I decide that instead of seeing the city at carriage level, I am going to walk and see it on foot level.
Egad! The desk clerk wasn’t kidding. Skeletons are everywhere—walking on the street, hanging in shop windows; being sold as candy, dolls, toys, and costumes and masks in stores and by street vendors.
The Day of the Dead in Mexico is a wonderful idea. I rather like the whole concept of paying homage to those who have gone before us, not just as a mournful occasion but also in a happy way—to celebrate their lives, remembering the joy and good things they brought us.
However, their hideous skeleton costumes do remind me a bit of Halloween, the eve of All Saint’s Day. Halloween is my favorite holiday, but I think I prefer the Mexican version of raising ghosts, because although it has a religious aspect, Halloween is filled with maliciousness and mischief, not good cheer, as I would like it.
Día de los Muertos is going to be perfect for one of my articles. No one I know of celebrates the dead in this manner, and when the people in Pittsburgh read about this, they will be intrigued, though I know they won’t like the idea of remembering the dead with song and joy rather than in dark, gloomy homage. Most of my readers will call it sacrilegious.
Besides the spooky festival atmosphere, I am surprised by how much utter wealth and dismal poverty stand side by side on the streets. From the clothing people wear, there appears to be the very rich and the very poor, with very few of the large number of middle class one would expect to find on a busy street in Pittsburgh.
It’s interesting that they don’t seem to turn up their noses at one another, either; the half-clad Indian has as much room on the Fifth Avenue of Mexico City as the millionaire’s wife. This is quite refreshing. I like it.
I am also struck by the fine figures these people present. There are some really beautiful girls among this lower class of people. It’s common to see women’s hair three-quarters of the length down their backs and incredibly thick and silky smooth—like black velvet. I have to fight the urge to touch it, it’s so beautiful. They often wear it loose, but more frequently in two long plaits. Wigmakers would find no employment here. The men also wear long hair with heavy bangs.
There is one thing that the poor and rich, men and women, appear to indulge in with equal delight and pleasure—cigarette smoking. My impression is that no spot in the city is sacred from smoking. On the railway cars, up and down the streets, in shops, restaurants, even in a church I step into, everywhere smokers are to be seen—men and women, young and old, poor and elite, smoking.
Policemen also occupy the center of the street at every termination of a block, reminding one, as one looks down the streets, of so many posts. They wear whit
e caps with numbers on them, blue suits, and nickel buttons. A medieval-looking mace now takes the place of the sword of former days.
Another thing that really impresses me is how Mexican politeness extends to even those among the lowest classes. In all their dealings, they are as polite as a dancing master. The moment one is addressed, off comes his poor, old, ragged hat; he’ll stand bareheaded until you leave him. And they are not only polite to other people but among themselves, as well. One poor, ragged woman is trying to sell a broken knife and rusty lock at a pawnbroker’s stand. “Will you buy?” she asks plaintively. “No, señora, gracias” (“No, thank you”) was his polite reply.
I spot a man walking along with an open coffin on his head, from which is visible the remains of some child. In an instant, all the men in the gutters, on the walks, or in the doorways have their hats off, and remain bareheaded until the sad procession is far away. The pallbearer, if such he may be called, dodges in and out among the carriages, burros, and wagons, which fill the street, as the drivers lift their hats, but the silent bearer—the father, I suppose—moves along, unmindful of all.
As I pass along where a new building is being erected, my attention is drawn to the body of a laborer who has fallen from the building. He is lying on the sidewalk; a white cloth covers all of the body except his sandaled feet.
“The Virgin rests his soul” and “Virgin Mother grant him grace” are prayers spoken from his kind who pass by as the policeman commands the body to be carried away.
Seeing a “meat express” coming down the street makes me wish I had taken another route. An old mule or horse that has reached its second childhood serves for the carrier for the meat—a long iron rod, from which hooks project, is fastened on the back of the beast by means of straps. Slabs of beef hang on the hooks, uncovered, leaving it exposed to the mud, dirt, and flies of the streets, as well as the hair of the animal.
Men with two large baskets that hang over their shoulders from poles, one basket in front, one behind, follow behind. The baskets are filled with meat. The men have their trousers rolled up high so that the blood from the meat dripping from the reed baskets will not soil them, but instead run down their bare legs.
A tailor standing in front of his shop realizes I am a tourist and explains that the contents of the baskets are the refuse from the cow, which most people will not eat. It will be sold to the poor. “They will be as happy to get it as we are to get a fine steak off the flank,” he says.
This information still doesn’t whet my appetite; if anything, for the moment it has made me vow to give up eating meat.
The street is as crowded with men being used as pack animals as it is with mules. In fact, men seem to be working as pack animals, with cages of fowl, baskets of eggs, and bushels of roots and charcoal strung over their shoulders.
“Like mule trains, the peons come from the mountains in droves of from twenty-five to fifty, carrying packs that average three hundred pounds,” the tailor tells me.
I doubt these Mexicans, who are typically smaller-built than americanos of el norte, can carry that much weight, but from what I can see, I would not argue if someone told me they were able to lug on their backs close to their own weight.
Hucksters cry out their wares and all goes as merry as a birthday party, and the streets and parks are thronged with men and women selling ice cream, pulque, candies, cakes, and other dainties. They carry their stock on their heads while moving, and when they stop, they set it on a tripod, which they carry in their arms.
It’s quite amazing how all the care in the world vanishes as I walk down the street. Music from a Mexican band is superb; even the birds are charmed. They add their little songs. All this, mingled with the many chimes that ring every fifteen minutes, makes the scene one that is never forgotten. The rich people promenade around and enjoy themselves, similar to the poor.
The water carrier, aguador, is one of the most common sights on the street. They suspend water jars from their heads, one in front, one in back. Around their bodies are leather aprons to protect them from the water, which they get at big fountains and basins located throughout the city.
As I continue to wander around the city, I find a street on which there are no business houses or even shops serving that evil-smelling brew—pulque. It has nothing but coffin manufacturers.
From one end of the street to the other, you see in every door men and boys making and painting all kinds and sizes of coffins. The dwelling houses are old and dilapidated and the street narrow and dingy. Here the men work day after day, and never whistle, talk, or sing, as they go at their hewing, painting and gluing with long faces, as if they were driving nails into their own coffins. It is, of course, called Coffin Street.
I am sorry I have no picture of it to send back to Pittsburgh, so people could see the coffins piled up to the ceiling; a little table sits in the center, where the workman puts on the finishing touches, after which they are placed in rows against the building by the sad-visaged and silent workers to await a purchaser.
Near this somber thoroughfare is another street, where every other door is a shoe shop, the one between being a drinking house. Many of the shoemakers have their shops on the pavement, with a straw mat fastened on a pole to keep off the sun. Here he sits making new shoes and mending old ones until the sun goes down, when he lowers the pole and, taking off the straw mat, furnishes a bed for himself in some corner during the night.
Every street is very irregular, narrow in some places, wide in others, and as crooked as the path of a sinner.
What is also of unfailing interest to me are the names of these streets.
In the City of Mexico, streets and store signs and names of the different squares are not named and numbered like ours. Instead, every square is called a street and has a separate name; the same with all the stores and public buildings.
No difference how small, they have some long, fantastic name painted above the doorway. I cannot refrain from taking my pad out and writing down these names of some of the strangest and most peculiar ones to tell my readers. A restaurant is called the Coffee House of the Little Hell, and a grocery store the Tail of the Devil. Paris Boot and the Boot of Gold are both shoe stores. The Red Sombrero sells silk hats. The Surprise, the God of Fashion, the Way to Beauty Is Through the Purse, and the Land of Love are dry-goods stores kept by Frenchmen. Temptation, the Reform, the Flowers of April, the Sun of May, the Fifth of May, the Christmas Night, and the Dynamite sell pulque at a laco a mug to the thirsty natives.
The street names also honor all the saints ever heard of or imagined—the Joint of God, the Sad Indian, the Devil, Street of Bitterness, Intense Misery, a Sot, the Shutting up of Jesus, Bridge of the Holy Ghost, and many others equally.
In a weak moment, I ask a seller on the street of a Good Death if what it says on the little tinseled charm on beads he has—that it will keep away the devil and bring good luck to the wearer—is really true. I know by his answer that I have met George Washington, Jr. “Sí señorita, I cannot lie.”
I finally leave the amazing sights and sounds and head back to the hotel. With the sun so bright in this subtropical city and the air so thin because the city’s elevation is so high, I am getting tired and ready for a nap.
Everything has gone along beautifully today, starting with my triumph over Roger in getting a luxurious carriage ride.
It’s devious of me, but I can’t help but chuckle as I envision the look on Roger’s face when the clerk tells him his reservation has been canceled.
My only regret is that he probably will find a room elsewhere, or, worse, that he’ll end up in a royal suite at a better hotel!
MEXICAN FAMILY
(Six Months in Mexico)
31
When I open my room door and step in, I find Roger on my bed.
“Wha—what—”
The door slams behind me as I stand frozen in shock. He’s sprawled on my bed, smoking a pipe, with his head on my pillow, but worse than that,
he’s stripped down to a sleeveless undershirt, pants, and bare feet, reading a newspaper.
He takes the pipe out of his mouth and grins as he looks up.
“Had a hard day, dear?”
“You—you—you’re finished, kaput!” I wave my hands wildly like a steam propeller. “I’m going to have you arrested. You’ll spend the rest of your life in a Mexican prison making tortillas for big hombres.”
Spinning around, I grab the door handle and jerk the door open.
“Better ask Mr. Madden if that’s a good idea.”
I freeze in place and let out an involuntary gasp. With my hand still on the doorknob, I turn around slowly.
That obnoxious, annoying grin of triumph is spread across his face.
“My friend in Pennsylvania contacted the Dispatch to let them know their star foreign correspondent is progressing well on her assignment. Funny thing, though … it seems that Madden, the paper’s editor in chief, complained loudly that—”
With a bang that could have been heard by Lily Langtry in the heavens above, I send the door flying shut. Mustering all the strength and courage my five-foot frame can muster, I step forward, ready for battle.
“I will not be blackmailed.”
“And I will not sleep in the gutter. That’s what my sleeping arrangements became when you played your little joke.”
“I—I’ll talk to the clerk.”
“I already talked to three clerks and the manager. El presidente would have been next, but then I realized I had this room.”
“But you can’t have my room. Where will I go?”
“Madam, there is a place where I would love to send you—unfortunately, I would definitely end up in that Mexican prison you keep threatening me with if I let my anger control my common sense. As for sleeping arrangements, this room is larger than the compartment we shared on the train.”
“I will not share this room with you. It wouldn’t be decent.”
No Job for a Lady Page 14