The Complete Short Stories and Sketches of Stephen Crane

by Stephen Crane

  III

  And one day he appeared at the door of a little lodging house in Havana kept by Martha Clancy, born in Ireland, bred in New York, fifteen years married to a Spanish captain, and now a widow, keeping Cuban lodgers who had no money with which to pay her. She opened the door only a little way and looked down over her spectacles at him.

  “Good-mornin’, Martha,” he said.

  She looked a moment in silence. Then she made an indescribable gesture of weariness. “Come in,” she said. He stepped inside. “And in God’s name couldn’t you keep your neck out of this rope? And so you had to come here, did you—to Havana? Upon my soul, Johnnie, my son, you are the biggest fool on two legs.”

  He moved past her into the courtyard and took his old chair at the table, between the winding stairway and the door—near the orange tree. “Why am I?” he demanded stoutly. She made no reply until she had taken seat in her rocking chair and puffed several times upon a cigarette. Then through the smoke she said meditatively: “Everybody knows ye are a damned little mambi.” Sometimes she spoke with an Irish accent.

  He laughed. “I’m no more of a mambi than you are, anyhow.”

  “I’m no mambi. But your name is poison to half the Spaniards in Havana. That you know. And if you were once safe in Cayo Hueso, ’tis nobody but a born fool who would come blunderin’ into Havana again. Have ye had your dinner?”

  “What have you got?” he asked before committing himself.

  She arose and spoke without confidence as she moved toward the cupboard. “There’s some codfish salad.”

  “What?” said he.

  “Codfish salad.”

  “Codfish what?”

  “Codfish salad. Ain’t it good enough for ye? Maybe this is Delmonico’s—no? Maybe ye never heard that the Yankees have us blockaded, hey? Maybe ye think food can be picked in the streets here now, hey? I’ll tell ye one thing, my son: if you stay here long you’ll see the want of it, and so you had best not throw it over your shoulder.”

  The spy settled determinedly in his chair and delivered himself of his final decision. “That may all be true, but I’m damned if I eat codfish salad.”

  Old Martha was a picture of quaint despair. “You’ll not?”

  “No!”

  “Then,” she sighed piously, “may the Lord have mercy on ye, Johnnie, for you’ll never do here. ’Tis not the time for you. You’re due after the blockade. Will you do me the favor of translating why you won’t eat codfish salad, you skinny little insurrecto?”

  “Codfish salad!” he said with a deep sneer. “Who ever heard of it?”

  Outside, on the jumbled pavement of the street, an occasional two-wheeled cart passed with deafening thunder, making one think of the overturning of houses. Down from the pale sky over the patio came a heavy odor of Havana itself, a smell of old straw. The wild cries of vendors could be heard at intervals.

  “You’ll not?”

  “No.”

  “And why not?”

  “Codfish salad? Not by a blame sight!”

  “Well—all right, then. You are more of a pig-headed young imbecile than even I thought from seeing you come into Havana here, where half the town knows you and the poorest Spaniard would give a gold piece to see you go into Cabanas and forget to come out. Did I tell you my son Alfred is sick? Yes, poor little fellow, he lies up in the room you used to have. The fever. And did you see Woodham in Key West? Heaven save us, what quick time he made in getting out. I hear Figtree and Button are working in the cable office over there—no? And when is the war going to end? Are the Yankees going to try to take Havana? It will be a hard job, Johnnie. The Spaniards say it is impossible. Everybody is laughing at the Yankees. I hate to go into the street and hear them. Is General Lee going to lead the army? What’s become of Springer? I see you’ve got a new pair of shoes.”

  In the evening there was a sudden loud knock at the outer door, Martha looked at Johnnie, and Johnnie looked at Martha. He was still sitting in the patio, smoking. She took the lamp and set it on a table in the little parlor. This parlor connected the street door with the patio, and so Johnnie would be protected from the sight of the people who knocked by the broad illuminated tract. Martha moved in pensive fashion upon the latch. “Who’s there?” she asked casually.

  “The police.” There it was, an old melodramatic incident from the stage, from the romances. One could scarce believe it. It had all the dignity of a classic resurrection. “The police!” One sneers at its probability; it is too venerable. But so it happened.

  “Who?” said Martha.

  “The police!”

  “What do you want here?”

  “Open the door and we’ll tell you.”

  Martha drew back the ordinary huge bolts of a Havana house and opened the door a trifle. “Tell me what you want and begone quickly,” she said, “for my little boy is ill of the fever—”

  She could see four or five dim figures, and now one of these suddenly placed a foot well within the door so that she might not close it. “We have come for Johnnie. We must search your house.”

  “Johnnie? Johnnie? Who is Johnnie?” said Martha in her best manner.

  The police inspector grinned with the light upon his face. “Don’t you know Señor Johnnie from Pinar del Rio?” he asked.

  “Before the war—yes. But now—where is he?—he must be in Key West?”

  “He is in your house.”

  “He? In my house? Do me the favor to think that I have some intelligence. Would I be likely to be harboring a Yankee in these times? You must think I have no more head than an Orden Publico. And I’ll not have you search my house, for there is no one here save my son—who is maybe dying of the fever—and the doctor. The doctor is with him because now is the crisis, and any one little thing may kill or cure my boy, and you will do me the favor to consider what may happen if I allow five or six heavy-footed policemen to go tramping all over my house. You may think—”

  “Stop it,” said the chief police officer at last. He was laughing and weary and angry.

  Martha checked her flow of Spanish. “There!” she thought, “I’ve done my best. He ought to fall in with it.” But as the police entered she began on them again. “You will search the house whether I like it or no. Very well; but if anything happens to my boy? It is a nice way of conduct, anyhow—coming into the house of a widow at night and talking much about this Yankee, and—”

  “For God’s sake, Señora, hold your tongue. We—”

  “Oh, yes, the señora can for God’s sake very well hold her tongue, but that wouldn’t assist you men into the street where you belong. Take care: if my sick boy suffers from this prowling! No, you’ll find nothing in that wardrobe. And do you think he would be under the table? Don’t overturn all that linen. Look you, when you go upstairs, tread lightly.”

  Leaving a man on guard at the street door and another in the patio, the chief policeman and the remainder of his men ascended to the gallery from which opened three sleeping-rooms. They were followed by Martha, adjuring them to make no noise. The first room was empty; the second room was empty; as they approached the door of the third room, Martha whispered supplications. “Now, in the name of God, don’t disturb my boy.” The inspector motioned his men to pause, and then he pushed open the door. Only one weak candle was burning in the room, and its yellow light fell upon the bed, whereon was stretched the figure of a little curly-headed boy in a white nighty. He was asleep, but his face was pink with fever, and his lips were murmuring some half-coherent childish nonsense. At the head of the bed stood the motionless figure of a man. His back was to the door, but upon hearing a noise he held up a solemn hand. There was an odor of medicine. Out on the balcony, Martha apparently was weeping.

  The inspector hesitated for a moment; then he noiselessly entered the room and with his yellow cane prodded under the bed, in the cupboard, and behind the window curtains. Nothing came of it. He shrugged his shoulders and went out to the balcony. He was smiling sheep
ishly. Evidently he knew that he had been beaten. “Very good, Señora,” he said. “You are clever; some day I shall be clever, too.” He shook his finger at her. He was threatening her, but he affected to be playful. “Then—beware! Beware!”

  Martha replied blandly, “My late husband, El Capitan Señor Don Patricio de Castellon y Valladolid, was a cavalier of Spain, and if he was alive tonight he would now be cutting the ears from the heads of you and your miserable men, who smell frightfully of cognac.”

  “Por Dios!” muttered the inspector as, followed by his band, he made his way down the spiral staircase. “It is a tongue! One vast tongue!” At the street door they made ironical bows; they departed, they were angry men.

  Johnnie came down when he heard Martha bolting the door behind the police. She brought back the lamp to the table in the patio and stood beside it, thinking. Johnnie dropped into his old chair. The expression on the spy’s face was curious, it pictured glee, anxiety, self-complacency; above all it pictured self-complacency. Martha said nothing; she was still by the lamp, musing.

  The long silence was suddenly broken by a tremendous guffaw from Johnnie. “Did you ever see sich a lot of fools!” He leaned his head far back and roared victorious merriment.

  Martha was almost dancing in her apprehension. “Hush! Be quiet, you little demon! Hush! Do me the favor to allow them to get to the corner before you bellow like a walrus. Be quiet.”

  The spy ceased his laughter and spoke in indignation. “Why?” he demanded. “Aint’ I got a right to laugh?”

  “Not with a noise like a cow fallin’ into a cucumber-frame,” she answered sharply. “Do me the favor—” Then she seemed overwhelmed with a sense of the general hopelessness of Johnnie’s character. She began to wag her head. “Oh, but you are the boy for gettin’ yourself into the tiger’s cage without even so much as the thought of a pocketknife in your thick head. You would be a genius of the first water if you only had a little sense. And now you’re here, what are you going to do?”

  He grinned at her. “I’m goin’ to hold an inspection of the land and sea defenses of the city of Havana.”

  Martha’s spectacles dropped low on her nose, and, looking over the rims of them in grave meditation, she said: “If you can’t put up with codfish salad, you had better make short work of your inspection of the land and sea defenses of the city of Havana. You are likely to starve in the meantime. A man who is particular about his food has come to the wrong town if he is in Havana now.”

  “No, but—” asked Johnnie seriously. “Haven’t you any bread?”

  “Bread!”

  “Well, coffee, then? Coffee alone will do.”

  “Coffee!”

  Johnnie arose deliberately and took his hat. Martha eyed him. “And where do you think you are goin’?” she asked cuttingly.

  Still deliberate, Johnnie moved in the direction of the street door. “I’m goin’ where I can get something to eat.”

  Martha sank into a chair with a moan which was a finished opinion—almost a definition—of Johnnie’s behavior in life. “And where will you go?” she asked faintly.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he rejoined. “Some café. Guess I’ll go to the Café Aguacate. They feed you well there. I remember—”

  “You remember? They remember! They know you as well as if you were the sign over the door.”

  “Oh, they won’t give me away,” said Johnnie with stalwart confidence.

  “Gi-give you away? Give you a-way?” stammered Martha.

  The spy made no answer, but went to the door, unbarred it, and passed into the street. Martha caught her breath and ran after him and came face to face with him as he turned to shut the door. “Johnnie, if ye come back, bring a loaf of bread. I’m dyin’ for one good honest bite in a slice of bread.”

  She heard his peculiar derisive laugh as she bolted the door. She returned to her chair in the patio. “Well, there,” she said with affection, admiration, and contempt. “There he goes! The most hard-headed little ignoramus in twenty nations! What does he care? Nothin’! And why is it? Pure bred-in-the-bone ignorance. Just because he can’t stand codfish salad he goes out to a café! A café where they know him as if they had made him! Well—I won’t see him again, probably.—But if he comes back, I hope he brings some bread. I’m near dead for it.”

  IV

  Johnnie strolled carelessly through dark narrow streets. Near every corner were two orden publicos—a kind of soldier-police—quiet in the shadow of some doorway, their Remingtons ready, their eyes shining. Johnnie walked past as if he owned them, and their eyes followed him with a sort of lazy mechanical suspicion which was militant in none of its moods.

  Johnnie was suffering from a desire to be splendidly imprudent. He wanted to make the situation gasp and thrill and tremble. From time to time he tried to conceive the idea of his being caught, but to save his eyes he could not imagine it. Such an event was impossible to his peculiar breed of fatalism, which could not have conceded death until he had moldered seven years.

  He arrived at the Café Aguacate and found it much changed. The thick wooden shutters were up to keep light from shining into the street. Inside, there were only a few Spanish officers. Johnnie walked to the private rooms at the rear. He found an empty one and pressed the electric button. When he had passed through the main part of the café no one had noted him. The first to recognize him was the waiter who answered the bell. This worthy man turned to stone before the presence of Johnnie.

  “Buenos noche, Francisco,” said the spy, enjoying himself. “I have hunger. Bring me bread, butter, eggs, and coffee.” There was a silence; the waiter did not move; Johnnie smiled casually at him.

  The man’s throat moved; then like one suddenly re-endowed with life, he bolted from the room. After a long time, he returned with the proprietor of the place. In the wicked eye of the latter there gleamed the light of a plan. He did not respond to Johnnie’s genial greeting, but at once proceeded to develop his position. “Johnnie,” he said, “bread is very dear in Havana. It is very dear.”

  “Is it?” said Johnnie, looking keenly at the speaker. He understood at once that here was some sort of attack upon him.

  “Yes,” answered the proprietor of the Café Aguacate slowly and softly. “It is very dear. I think tonight one small bit of bread will cost you one centene—in advance.” A centene approximates five dollars in gold.

  The spy’s face did not change. He appeared to reflect. “And how much for the butter?” he asked at last.

  The proprietor gestured. “There is no butter. Do you think we can have everything, with those Yankee pigs sitting out there on their ships?”

  “And how much for the coffee?” asked Johnnie musingly.

  Again the two men surveyed each other during a period of silence. Then the proprietor said gently, “I think your coffee will cost you about two centenes.”

  “And the eggs?”

  “Eggs are very dear. I think eggs would cost you about three centenes for each one.”

  The new looked at the old; the North Atlantic looked at the Mediterranean; the wooden nutmeg looked at the olive. Johnnie slowly took six centenes from his pocket and laid them on the table. “That’s for bread, coffee, and one egg. I don’t think I could eat more than one egg tonight. I’m not so hungry as I was.”

  The proprietor held a perpendicular finger and tapped the table with it. “Oh, señor,” he said politely, “I think you would like two eggs.”

  Johnnie saw the finger. He understood it. “Ye-e-es,” he drawled. “I would like two eggs.” He placed three more centenes on the table.

  “And a little thing for the waiter? I am sure his services will be excellent, invaluable.”

  “Ye-e-es, for the waiter.” Another centene was laid on the table.

  The proprietor bowed and preceded the waiter out of the room. There was a mirror on the wall and, springing to his feet, the spy thrust his face close to the honest glass. “Well, I’m damned!” he ejaculated.
“Is this me or is this the Honorable D. Hayseed Whiskers of Kansas? Who am I, anyhow? Five dollars in gold!—Say, these people are clever. They know their business, they do. Bread, coffee, and two eggs, and not even sure of getting it! Fifty dol—Never mind; wait until the war is over. Fifty dollars gold!” He sat for a long time; nothing happened. “Eh,” he said at last, “that’s the game.” As the front door of the café closed upon him, he heard the proprietor and one of the waiters burst into derisive laughter.

  Martha was waiting for him. “And here ye are, safe back,” she said with delight as she let him enter. “And did ye bring the bread? Did ye bring the bread?”

  But she saw that he was raging like a lunatic. His face was red and swollen with temper; his eyes shot forth gleams. Presently he stood before her in the patio where the light fell on him. “Don’t speak to me,” he choked out waving his arms. “Don’t speak to me! Damn your bread! I went to the Café Aguacate! Oh, yes, I went there! Of course, I did! And do you know what they did to me? No! Oh, they didn’t do anything to me at all! Not a thing! Fifty dollars! Ten gold pieces!”