The Carreta

by B. TRAVEN

  However, those who frequented the place were not buying crockery, but enchiladas. Good and appetizing enchiladas were the chief thing, not the crockery—and the enchiladas were excellent.

  Hence, business was brisk. People fought for their turn. Andrés had to wait a long time before he got his enchiladas.

  2

  Except that you could buy all the rubbish that was unsaleable in any of the bigger towns, there was scarcely any real distraction at the fair. There were no merry-go-rounds, swing-boats, water-shoots or anything that gives life to a fair in other places. Such machinery could not be transported here; the transport would be so difficult and costly that the profit would be swallowed up by it.

  You had to find what entertainment you could in the cries of the dealers and in the humorous back talk and discourses of knowing salesmen who offered gold nibs which bent but never broke, glass-cutters, knife-sharpeners, needle-threaders, lenses which could be used for detecting spurious silk or for reading or as telescopes, benzine, polishes, stomach waters, eye lotions, rheumatism salves, wart pencils, corn cures.

  But Andrés found all this tedious after a while, for as soon as the man had got to the end of his pitch he began again with his quips and wisecracks in exactly the same words and with the same intonation.

  The sword-swallowers, the snake charmers, and the strong men who freed themselves from ropes and chains became wearisome too; for each of them had only one trick, which he repeated from four in the evening until eleven at night, as long as there was even one spectator who looked as if he might have even five centavos in his pocket of which he might possibly be relieved.

  The gambling tables also soon lost their attraction if you did not play yourself. Of course, there were always those people standing around and watching who did not play themselves but hit on a number and rejoiced when it lost, because it was not their money that had left its pocket.

  For the majority the only pleasure lay in wandering around—standing a moment here, listening or looking on for a quarter of an hour there, and then elbowing their way on again.

  The happiest of all were the girls and boys of the town, who made use of the crowding and squeezing to tease and come to terms with one another without being observed. In their ordinary lives they had few opportunities to do this, for even at dances mothers and aunts were always present, and the girls could go nowhere unattended. But now this chaperoning was impracticable. They might have come with their mothers to the plaza, but it was easy to be lost sight of for half an hour. It could not be helped—you got held up or separated in the crowd.

  And so it happened sometimes that these carefully watched and tended girls of the place enjoyed a stolen kiss—or even closer embraces if they were quick—under cover of the crowd or in the shadow of a house; and these delights were not to be taken too seriously, because they were all part of the fiesta which was held in honor of San Caralampio. Many a daughter of highly reputed citizens was lost for much longer than half an hour in the crowd. She was not lost for good. She returned to her anxious parents, whom she had sought everywhere in vain, with ruffled hair and a little ruffled altogether, which only showed how she had had to fight her way through the crowd in the effort to rejoin her parents.

  When the people were tired of wandering around and had seen every stand and stall three hundred and eighty times over, they put in another quarter of an hour in the church, through whose open doors could be heard the sound of the organ and the singing of the muffled women.

  At intervals the church bells began to peal. Not the hardiest stallkeeper or roulette banker could shout them down; and so the crowd was continually reminded not to waste all their money at the stalls, on roulette, on enchiladas and comiteco, but to leave some over for eternal life.

  The Catholic Church in Mexico is second to none when it comes to advertising. Again and again you will see on the poorboxes the following very attractive announcement: “Every centavito you give will be repaid in gold in heaven.” A banker who put such a notice in his window would be arrested immediately for obtaining deposits on false pretenses. He would be asked by the judge for positive proof that the deposits would be paid back in heaven and whether and where this heaven was to be found. The Church is not asked for proof. It relies on faith. And he who refuses faith blasphemes God.

  What is an Indian to make of it?

  3

  Andrés too, after he had been up and down the rows between the stalls a score of times, did not know what to do next. He heard the whining from the church and the moaning organ, which put your mind so comfortably and irresistibly to sleep that you said yes to everything. But he had not the slightest desire to enter the church a second time, all the less because a band of musicians had begun to play and sing on the side of the square near the fountain.

  The fountain was the town’s daily newspaper. The town had no newspaper, but the fountain took the place of this asset, or drawback, whichever you like to call it.

  As they had no piped water, the inhabitants were forced to get all their water from the fountain. In order to keep a supply on hand each household had several earthenware crocks, each of which held from eighty to a hundred liters. These large crocks had been made by Indians in exactly the same shape and style for two thousand years.

  There were families who considered it beneath their dignity to send their maidservants to the fountain with jugs to fill and bring back on their heads; and the dignity of these middle-class families had called into being a special trade—the purveying of water. The purveyors were Indians who had become urbanized and lived on the outskirts of the town. They had two or three donkeys which were kept at work from six in the morning until late in the afternoon. The donkeys were furnished with a framework by means of which they could carry large earthenware jars filled with water. These dealers in water went from house to house with their loads, offering their ware.

  Families who wished to be even more distinguished had a donkey of their own, and an Indian boy who served in the house fetched the water with it.

  Next in rank came the families who regularly got their water in by the load, for which they paid a real, or even less.

  Then there were the families who did not pay for water. They may have had two Indian girls and sent one of them to carry water, or only one Indian servant who had to do everything, water carrying included.

  Last in rank were the families in which there were only the wife or the children to fetch water, because they could not afford to pay for anything they could possibly do for themselves.

  Nobody, not even the professional water carriers, went to the fountain and filled his vessels at one or other of the pipes from which the water poured day and night, and then went straight away again. Everyone who came to the fountain rested for a moment and gossiped with the others who were there. The men rolled cigarettes and the girls saw to their hair or the fit of their skirts. It would have been in very bad taste to go there and get the water and then rush off again. Fetching water was a leisurely and contemplative proceeding.

  In the evenings all the girls, even from households which were too distinguished to send them to fetch water, found some excuse for going to the fountain, if only for ten minutes. They would explain in the house that the water in the large household crocks was tepid and flat, and that the health and good appetite of the master would suffer if they did not hasten out to fetch some fresh cold water from the fountain for the supper table.

  When a girl got back, particularly in the evening, her mistress was waiting for her in the kitchen—not for the water, but to hear whether it was really true that don Jorge had been three times that week to doña Amalia’s house and had not left by one in the morning; and how the quarrel of the day before yesterday between señor Osorio and his señora had gone off, and whether he had actually beaten the señora until she could not see out of her eyes; and whether it was a fact that doña Ana, the partera—the midwife—had said that señora Zavala’s baby had come a month too soon, or whether i
t really was a seven months’ child—for she was married only eight months ago. These matters were of far greater importance than such trivial facts as that, at the last re-election of President don Porfirio, only three per cent of the entire Mexican people had gone to the polls, because every Mexican, whether he had any sense or not, knew six months before the presidential election who was elected—and that there had been talk of revolution throughout the length and breadth of the Republic, so as to put an end to this tyranny.

  The girls who came to the fountain had so much to say, too, about their love affairs and their comedies and tragedies of jealousy that it was no wonder if they were to be found there until late at night with the jugs of fresh water for their masters’ suppers. And since the young fellows of the place knew that the girls they had their eyes on were sure to be found there, the fountain presented a scene of much animation every night.

  During the fair, however, the idyl of the fountain was utterly broken up and scattered. It was too noisy with the cries of dealers and the chatter of people passing to and fro. Then, too, on ordinary evenings the fountain was in dark shadow, unless there was a moon, but now not a kiss could pass unseen. The whole square was illuminated by the lights from the stalls and booths.

  4

  The musicians had taken up their stand in front of the fountain and now began to strike up with spirit. A free space had been left there which the authorities would not hire out to the traders because there had to be room for the water carriers and their donkeys. On this free space Indian boys and girls of the town now began to dance. At the end of every dance one of the boys gave the musicians five centavos, and then they began at once to play another dance.

  Once the musicians started they were pretty sure to keep it up until two or three in the morning, for as soon as the news got around Indian girls and boys from the farthest corners of the town quickly arrived in large parties. They could not forgo the prospect of a dance. There was no other large-scale diversion open to the townspeople, whatever class they belonged to.

  Even the prosperous citizens danced if they felt the need of distraction—one week in the house of the Suárez family, next week at the Cota’s, and so on the whole year through. Either it was the cumpleaños—the birthday—of the master of the house, or else it was the wife’s día de su santo—her saint’s day—or else it was a christening or a wedding. Then there were the two weeks of the posadas—the Christmas celebrations—and then the New Year festival. And if there was no better excuse for a dance, then all the bachelors of the town invited all the ladies to a ball in a hotel simply for the sake of dancing. If a young unmarried doctor left the town to go to the United States to pursue his studies, a farewell ball was got up in his honor. Another young man of the town returned from Mexico City, after completing his studies, to set himself up as a dentist or a lawyer. There was a ball to welcome him.

  What else was there for them to do? There were no cinemas, theaters, or concerts, and no lecturers undertook the toils of a journey to this remote spot. Even a starving circus troupe was a rarity.

  The Indians were carried even further by their urge to seek and find distraction in dancing. They danced even at their funeral solemnities. The coffin was placed in the middle of the largest room in the house. If they had no money the occasion did not give rise to inviting a priest—they knew he did nothing for nothing. But if the family had a few pesos to spare, they paid a priest to bless the corpse and sprinkle it with holy water. As soon as the priest had finished his murmuring, the music struck up and the couples, including the nearest relations of the dead person or persons, danced merrily around the corpse. They danced till daylight. Then the coffin was taken up, and with howling and lamentation the procession started for the cemetery.

  The Mexicans—the Ladinos—did not of course do anything like this. They regarded such behavior as heathen barbarity. They lacked the maturity of tradition, and still more they lacked a sound natural philosophy. After submitting for centuries to the influence of a Church which puts the tinsel of ceremonial in the place of a straightforward rule of life, whose aim is to be that and nothing more, these people have become mere hypocrites, and so have destroyed in themselves everything that could minister to the development of a straightforward and honest human being. For if it is considered proper to dance at the birth and christening of a child, who is thrust into the pains and sorrows of life, why, in heaven’s name, should it be improper and heathenish to dance when a person has taken leave of life’s persecutions and oppressions and returns to the land of eternal peace? But there—they are worthless hypocrites; for if they believed what their religion preaches they would have to rejoice and dance from excess of joy at the thought of the songs of praise and twanging harps which await the departed in the realm of eternity.

  The Indian, however, is too dense to appreciate the mysteries of the Catholic Church, and so he does nothing as we do it, and we are horrified at his barbarisms.

  5

  But the Indian boys and girls who danced by the fountain did not look in the least like barbarians. The girls were clothed in cheap—very cheap—but very clean dresses. They had all washed themselves well, and their long black hair had been combed more thoroughly than it could ever have been in a New York beauty parlor.

  The boys wore white trousers and white shirtlike jackets. Some of them had sandals, but most were barefoot. Most of the girls too were barefoot, though some had patent-leather shoes with very high heels.

  The girls stood or squatted on the ground on one side, and the boys stood in loose groups in a row on the other side. The Indian boy did not go up to the girl he wished to dance with, nor did he bow to her and ask in a set formula whether he might have the honor and so forth.

  The boy, as soon as the music began, advanced half a step, pulled a red handkerchief out of the pocket of his shirt, and threw it to the girl he wished to dance with—in her lap if she squatted, toward her if she was standing. If the girl accepted the handkerchief, that meant she would dance with its owner; if she threw it back it meant she refused to dance with him. She never threw it back unless the fellow was very drunk, or unless she saw that another whom she preferred was making ready to throw his handkerchief to her. It was considered bad manners to return a dancer’s handkerchief. Most girls accepted it even when the fellow was drunk, rather than offend him; and in such cases they danced for a while with him before returning to their places. The man was thus saved the shame of a refusal and was quite content.

  The boys danced in a row with the girls opposite them. The partners did not say a word while they danced, or when the dance was at an end. They did not hold each other, but danced singly, facing one another. When they changed position they danced past each other to opposite sides, so that all the boys were still on one side and the girls on the other.

  The girl held her partner’s handkerchief in her right hand during the dance. When the dance was over she gave it to him, and without a word of thanks she turned her back and rejoined the other girls to stand or squat among them.

  If the dance was too long, or the girl felt tired, or wanted for any reason to stop dancing, she went up to her partner, returned his handkerchief, and retired to her place. A girl had the right to stop whenever she wished; she had only to return the handkerchief. The boy had not the right to stop until he had recovered his handkerchief.

  It happened at times that the music went on for half an hour without a pause. If the girl was an indefatigable dancer—as Indian girls are—and if her partner was not her equal in toughness—as is usually the case—she would dance him to a standstill. The girls did this sometimes if they wanted to pay a boy back for any reason. They danced till he dropped and was out for the rest of the night. Women have a fine instinct for a sound and well-aimed revenge on a man. The Indian women in particular are accomplished in thinking out ways and means to this end, when it serves their purpose and affords them amusement.

  There were, it is true, many couples on the square who da
nced together as the Ladinos did in their ballrooms, for a good half of the boys and girls were town Indians who had been born and brought up in the town or its outskirts.

  6

  Andrés took up his position in the boys’ row. He wanted to dance but felt shy because he knew no girl. Some of the other carreteros from the camp on the prairie were there too. They dug each other in the ribs and tried to urge one or another of their number to dance so that they could then follow suit. But not one of them found the courage. They felt strange and awkward.

  Andrés, not liking to stand there foolishly like a little boy, backed by degrees out of the line of youths and strolled away toward the side of a house, where he sat down against the wall, his knees to his chin and his arms around his shins. From here the music was less strident and more harmonious, the notes blending together better because of the distance. He could dream in peace.

  As he sat there dreaming to the sound of the music, through which he caught the suppressed laughter of the girls, he was overcome by a strange feeling of not knowing what he was there for, or what anything at all was for—he might as well be dead, for all the difference it would make.

  Three girls passed close by him, smoothing and pulling at their dresses. After a while they came back, and, talking together and hugging the corner in the deep shadow of the wall, all three spoke at once in cooing voices which rose and fell in short snatches, now caught in with the breath they drew, now issuing with it on a louder, fuller note. For the first time in his life, Andrés was aware of sex.