by B. TRAVEN
If it came before the court the girl would of necessity be sentenced to a term of imprisonment. The woman, however, still in the hope of bringing the girl to her knees, came to an understanding with the chief of police not to press the charge if he would put her in the lockup and fine her fifty pesos. The chief of police very much preferred the fine. It was no profit to him to put anyone in prison, but he could always wangle a fine so that the greater part of it found its way into his pocket. These fines are one of the reasons why in the course of the municipal elections in the smaller towns from five to fifty voters, according to the fervor displayed, are left on the field of battle—dead, or, if they are lucky, crippled.
The woman expected that Rosario would wilt in jail and implore her mistress to pay the fine for her release. She intended to do so only on condition that Rosario went on her knees before the Holy Virgin and swore unconditional obedience, an obedience which was to cover every order the woman might give. But Rosario was not by any means in such dread of jail as her mistress supposed. She preferred to remain in jail rather than fall in with her mistress’s wishes.
Another reason was that Rosario was not badly treated in jail. It is true that most of the jails in the small towns of Mexico are infested with rats, fleas, lice, and every sort of pestilential filth, but that is more than made up for by the absence of all discipline. The occupants are mostly outside in the yard all day. They can play games or cards and smoke and generally do as they please. They may have visitors if they like and for as long as they like. They may have presents from their friends of food, drink, cigarettes, clothing, books, newspapers—all of which are allowed in after a merely perfunctory examination. Women usually have their children with them; infants at the breast are never taken away from them, not even as a rule in the large and well-organized state and federal prisons. It is regarded as an unnecessary cruelty to take her children away from a female prisoner. Even convicts of the worst type are allowed visits from their wives and to be alone with them all day long and sometimes even during the night. The State realizes that this is of benefit to the health and mental condition of the prisoners and conduces to orderly and normal behavior on their part.
Rosario was more favored than she had ever thought possible. As she was a strong girl and a good and willing worker she was employed the very first day in the house of the chief of police. On the second day she was already going out alone to the market to buy provisions, and the mistress of the house felt no hesitation about trusting her with the money required. On the third day she was sleeping in the house, and the chief of police was as pleased as his wife to have a maid for nothing. Indeed, as the cost of her keep was entered on the books, he could pocket those centavos, which just paid for his cigarettes.
Her former mistress was entirely balked of her revenge and still more of her hope of getting hold of a willing tool. There was now nothing more she could do as she had come to an agreement with the chief of police over the prosecution and sentence.
He, however, was more concerned about the fine of fifty pesos than about the cheap servant he had got. There were always plenty of women and girls in prison whom he could employ in his house for nothing. It was for his wife to pitch into them if they knew nothing of housework. That was not his affair.
In the third week of her imprisonment the chief of police met a doctor one day at a bar. This doctor had recently come to live in the town. He told the chief that his wife complained of being unable to find a decent cook. They talked it over and the chief of police offered the doctor Rosario, if he cared to pay her fine of fifty pesos, plus eight pesos as costs; the doctor could charge this fine to the girl and deduct it from her wages, as the law allowed in the case of all debts incurred by wage earners. The chief of police told the doctor frankly that he did not believe the girl was a thief. It was a false accusation, but he could do nothing because her former mistress was a reputable citizen, whose word counted for more than that of an Indian girl.
The doctor said he would speak to his wife. His wife said she would give the girl a trial. She took Rosario into her home and was so pleased with her work and her cleanliness that she told her husband he might pay her fine for her.
In this way the chief of police sold Rosario to the doctor for the price of her fine and the costs. The doctor’s wife was no skinflint. She gave the girl seven pesos a month—an unheard-of wage which gave rise to much talk in the town, although the girl, as the doctor’s wife openly declared, was worth twenty, since she relieved her mistress of the entire work of the house.
Rosario, however, had now to work for eight months for nothing, in order to pay off her debt. She was still a prisoner and could be shut up again if she ever made the attempt to run away before this debt was cleared. The chief of police had had to give his word to this before the doctor would go bail for the girl.
Rosario naturally needed a few things, such as shirts and dresses, and therefore she had to borrow from her mistress and so add to her debt. But at the end of eighteen months she was clear of debt and free to go where she pleased. She thought of going to Tuxtla, where higher wages were paid than in upcountry towns. But when she gave notice the doctor’s wife offered her ten pesos and she stayed on. The doctor’s wife was cut by all the women of her acquaintance for this outrage against the current rate of wages. She was beginning to make it impossible for the worthy ladies of the town to get servants on proper terms—for they were used to treating them as slaves.
Rosario spent two years in the doctor’s house, and might have spent two more if she could have had it her own way. But the doctor began to tire of his wife and, finding her inadequate, he longed for a change. So he cast his eyes on Rosario in the hope that she would have more to give him.
One day when his wife was out and the doctor was alone, he summoned the girl to his consulting room.
“Rosario,” he said, “I notice your lungs are not sound. You might easily get tuberculosis.”
He explained what this meant and frightened her by telling her that she might die. She would get thin and ugly and no one would marry her. If she did marry, her children would perish in infancy and her life would be a misery.
The last threat was decisive. Rosario wanted to marry as soon as ever she found a man to please her—she was too much of a woman to remain unmarried—and the first thing she asked of marriage was children.
She let him examine her after he had talked to her long enough to make her thoroughly frightened. He then told her that her lungs were, as he had suspected, in a very bad way and there was no time to be lost. But the treatment would cost a lot; for though he would charge her nothing as a member of the household, he had to buy the drugs and injections.
He gave her an injection on the spot to arrest the disease and told her that the injection cost three pesos. “For you I will make it two. But I shall have to give you at least three every week, if I am to save your life and restore you to health.”
“But, señor Doctor,” she said, “how can I pay you six pesos a week when I earn only two and a half?”
He busied himself with his instruments—or pretended to. Then he turned around. “Yes, I see you can’t pay that. But I can’t do it for nothing. It is my profession, and it is against professional custom for doctors to work for nothing. The training costs a lot of money and instruments and medicines are very dear. But why should you die when it is so easy to be cured? Do you want to die or not?”
“No, I don’t,” she said in alarm. “Dear señor Doctor, help me and don’t let me die.”
“That’s right,” he said more kindly. “That’s the way to talk. Why die when you can be saved to have a happy life with husband and children?”
Rosario laughed, but her eyes were moist all the same.
“I’ll tell you how it is, Rosario,” he went on. “Now listen to me—I want to tell you something. But don’t say a word to my wife or she’ll kill you. My wife is not in good health, although she looks well enough. What I want to tell you is this
—she can’t sleep with me. You understand what I mean?”
“Yes, I understand,” she replied, and it dawned on her what was coming. It was the same as with her first master, though he had put it more brutally; he had used force and beaten her and threatened to strangle and shoot her unless she took the place of his wife.
“And look here, Rosario,” said the doctor, “you’ll soon know what I mean. I must have a wife. I can’t be going every week to Tapachula or Tonalá. I’ll give you the three injections a week you need for your cure and you can pay—I mean, you can make me some return for each injection. I should think your life and your health and the children you will have some day are worth that much. Or do you think not?”
The mention of children, however, made a difficulty. “But I don’t want to have children with you, señor Doctor. It won’t be so easy then to get a good and honest husband. You know that yourself, señor Doctor.”
He patted her on the shoulder. “I am a doctor, after all,” he said reassuringly. “I am a doctor and you need have no fear. I know how to prevent that. I don’t want any fuss with my wife, so you can leave that to me. If you have children the señora will know all about it. Don’t worry about that.”
She made no reply.
“Well, there it is,” he said, becoming impatient. “If you want to die, it doesn’t matter to me.”
“I don’t want to die,” she said, sobbing. And then she added reluctantly in a low voice: “Yes—well then, I must do as you say, señor Doctor.”
Three weeks went by.
Then one evening the señora came home earlier than the señor Doctor expected and found him and Rosario in a situation which left no doubt whatever, though he swore by God and the Holy Virgin and all the saints besides. The doctor’s wife did not cry out or make a fuss. She kept all that, apparently, for the doctor.
“Rosario,” she said without ado, “pack your things and come to me at once for your wages. I’m sorry I have to let you go. You’re a good servant. But you must leave my house. You are perfectly healthy. There is no need whatever for the doctor to treat you.”
This was news to Rosario. So she was not the first whom the doctor had set out to cure of a fatal disease. And in spite of the shame of being surprised by the señora, whom she honored and reverenced, and thrown out like rubbish, she was all the same delighted to know that she did not have a mortal disease and could forgo any further treatment.
In five minutes she had packed her things, and then she presented herself rather timidly before her mistress. But the señora was not angry with her—she knew her lord and master too well. She could not divorce him since she was a Catholic. She had to put up with it and overlook the señor Doctor’s exploits in intimacy. For a moment she thought of keeping Rosario, for she knew that the next girl would certainly arrive at the same degree of intimacy with him.
But she said: “Here are your wages, Rosario, and thank you for the way you have worked for me. I am giving you ten pesos over and above your wages. But you must leave the town first thing in the morning, or else I will have you put in prison. And if you say a word about what has happened, I will see to it that you spend a year in prison for defamation of this house. So now you know. Adiós, Rosario.”
Rosario took the money. She stood barefoot before her mistress, wearing her woolen workday dress. “Mil gracias, señora, a thousand thanks for the kind way you have treated me while I have been with you. I will always remember you. And mil gracias for the money. I will go away early in the morning, as you bid me, and I will never say a word to anyone—that I promise you in the name of the Holy Virgin.”
She did not attempt to defend herself by saying that she had been the doctor’s victim against her own wishes. She thought it would only hurt the señora.
Kneeling down she kissed the señora’s hand. Then she picked up her bundle, which she had left in the passageway by the door, and left the house.
She walked over to the square and stood near the dancers with her bundle in her hand, hoping to find someone in whose company she could leave the town early in the morning. Her idea had been to join a party of traveling peddlers so that she would not have to travel alone.
“So there you are, Manuel,” she concluded. “That’s the whole story. You can take me with you now and make me your wife, or if you don’t want to, say so and I will go with some other people. I have told you all about it, because I wanted to be honest with you. Be the same with me and tell no one what I promised the señora I would tell nobody. I had to tell you, so that you should know me as I am. No one else on earth shall ever hear a word of it. The señora was always good to me. She is a santa, a saint, and I honor her far above all Holy Virgins, for none of them ever did anything for me.”
Manuel let go of her bundle and put his arms around her. “Querida linda,” he said, “I have already forgotten every word of what you told me. Now I think of it, I wasn’t really listening and most of it I didn’t even hear, because I kept thinking all the time how much more you were my wife for telling me it all. I was thinking of you and what I could do to make your heart glad. A new life is beginning for you and for me. I know now what I want, and I know it through you. I want to get away from the carretas, where there is no hope for me. I want to go with you as far as ever our feet will carry us. For freedom, we must go far away.”
Without being aware of the truth of it, speaking only from her heart, she repeated: “Yes, freedom is far away.”
9
They stood clasped in each other’s arms on the vast prairie. They said not a word more and thought no more; they merely felt and understood and trusted in one another.
The stars were above them and around them the velvet darkness of midnight. Not far away the carretas and the resting oxen were blocked out against the deep blue horizon. Then campfires leaped up in tongues of flame and brightened to a red glow, and carretas, oxen, and the carreteros going about their work stood out in the flickering light.
He let her go, picked up her bundle again, and together they walked on toward the carretas. When they got there the fellows were all stirring. The rusty coffee can and the large battered enamel pot of black beans were already on the fire. The carreteros were bringing up the oxen and yoking and harnessing them.
Manuel stood looking on for a moment at the lively scene. He felt already that he scarcely belonged to it. In his thoughts he was far away with his wife.
“Hola,” Andrés shouted cheerily, as soon as he saw Manuel, “good you’ve turned up, Manuelito. You’re the man we want. You know what a lot of use the rest of them are and we’ve got a job on with the oxen—they’ll have it and then they won’t have it. They don’t know what work means by this time.”
“Don’t you worry, Andreucho,” said Manuel, falling at once into the old rut again. “We’ll soon put some go into them.”
“I’d made up my mind,” Andrés said laughing as he pushed his hair from his face, “you’d taken on a cargo as a farewell to Caralampio and we’d have to load you up with the rest of the gear.”
“Not far off it,” said Manuel, “but I had other fish to fry.”
“Ay, hombre!” Andrés now shouted in professional style. “Hombre, look where that damned Amarillo’s got to—the one with the broken horn. He gave us the slip just when we’d got hold of him, and now there he is along with Luciano’s.”
Then Andrés saw Rosario.
“Buenos días, muchacha,” he said, greeting her.
“I am Manuel’s wife,” she said, introducing herself, “and I am going along with you down to Arriaga.”
“Felicitaciones,” Andrés cried out with a laugh, “congratulations to both of you. Bienvenida, welcome.” He took her hand and said: “So my little star will not be alone. Go over to her, muchacha. She is lying in that carreta there. Lie down beside her and have a sleep. We’ve half an hour’s hard work before we take off. Have some coffee, if you want some, and take the can to Estrellita.”
She went over to the carre
ta and crept up close to Estrellita, who woke up; and Rosario out of the fullness of her heart talked to her in whispers in their own native tongue.
They were like old friends at once. They understood each other immediately, for both were full of the same joy and hope, in which for both a new day dawned after many days of cloud and sorrow.
But before they could fall asleep the first carretas, swaying, creaking, and rumbling, began to move off, leaving the prairie behind them.
16
The carreteros had a hard time of it in the early hours of the morning. There was a stretch of more than three kilometers through primeval forest where the road clung to the edge of a stream and was nothing but a marsh. On the other side was a sheer cliff from which at every twenty feet springs welled out over the road, which was covered with decaying leaves, rotting branches and twigs, and the soil always silting down from the face of the cliff. At low-lying places on the road the stream flooded it every few days and the volume of water was so great that instead of running off at the sides it ran all along it and turned it into a bog; and the shade of the huge forest trees prevented the sun’s ever penetrating to dry the road thoroughly once in a while.
This stretch of road gave the carreteros so much to do that they could not for a minute think of anything except how they were to come through without broken wheels or the foundering of the oxen. But by nine o’clock they had reached the good part of the road and now it ran high and dry as far as Jovel.
