Herma

by MacDonald Harris

  In the corridor upstairs he tried several doors. Some of them were open and some locked. In general, the ones that were unlocked were empty, or were used for storing various kinds of junk. One contained a collection of riding boots, harness, and other equestrian paraphernalia. Another seemed to be a storeroom for ship’s hardware; there were pulleys, hooks, and shackles of the kind used to secure rigging. In another room everything was covered with dust and there was only a bare mattress on the floor. There were no mirrors in any of them.

  He had to have a room with a mirror, even if there were a certain amount of risk involved. He went on to Evelyn’s door, the last one on the corridor. Setting the suitcase down on the floor, he stood before the door listening. There was no sound from within. He tried the door cautiously; it was unlocked. The room seemed to be empty. As he slipped through the door with the suitcase he caught a glimpse of the boy Paco, at the other end of the corridor, watching him out of his blank brown face.

  When Herma came out there was no sign of Paco or anybody else. She drew the door carefully shut, so that it latched almost without a sound. The building was silent except for occasional creaks from the old planks and the rhythmic washing of the surf under the pilings. She went down the stairs at the other end of the corridor, pushed through the velvet curtain, and came directly out onto the dance floor.

  Buena Suerte, sitting at his table, caught sight of her and drew his breath in sharply. She was wearing a red dress slit to the knee, black stockings, and black dancing shoes. In her hair, in lieu of a flower, was a cluster of green strawberry leaves with a ripe strawberry in the center of them. There were no other ornaments; her wrists and throat were bare.

  He got up from the table and came toward her. He said, “Welcome, guapa.” After that he seemed to be at a loss for words. He stretched out a hand to take her arm, but she evaded him and went on ahead to the table. A place was made for her and everybody sat down.

  Buena Suerte was very polite, even respectful. Everyone else was silent. Evelyn stared at her impassively out of her brown face.

  “Will you take something? A glass of wine?” He pushed away the bottle of El Brujo beer at his elbow.

  “No thank you.”

  “But what will you have? You must take something.”

  “A cup of tea.”

  This was quickly brought. Herma asked for a slice of lemon and the waiter ran off and brought this too. She sipped a little tea from the cup and set it down. Everybody watched her. Nobody said anything for the ten minutes or so that it took her to drink the tea.

  Herma looked out at the dance floor. It seemed slightly wavy, as though it reflected the shape of the sea under it, although perhaps this was only some sort of optical effect. The room was thick with smoke, and there was an odor of beer and cheap perfume. The dancing couples moved about aimlessly, like flowers caught in an eddy; the men were mostly in black with white shirts, the women in gaudy-colored dresses. There seemed to be a shortage of girls; at the far end of the floor two men were dancing together.

  Evelyn and Ocho Veces got up and danced once, to something that the orchestra evidently intended for the “Habañera” from Carmen, and then came back and sat down without a word. Evelyn seemed to be in a bad mood. She fussed with the soiled imitation flower on her dress. Then she stared in a sulky way at Herma’s strawberry.

  Buena Suerte waited for Herma to finish her tea. He waited a little longer, drumming his fingers slowly on the table. Then he said, “Y pues?”

  “Y pues what?”

  “Do you remember what you came here for, guapa?”

  Herma smiled, in an artificial and conventional way. She got up and went off across the dance floor. At the other end she bent over to confer briefly with the bandleader. The three or four musicians were installed in a kind of shallow pit set into the floor, so that they were visible only from the waist up. The bandleader nodded. Then she herself mounted onto a tiny platform that looked as though it might be half of an apple box, except that it was made of polished hardwood.

  By this time the dancers had all left the floor and were waiting at the other end of the room. The band, as well as it was able, launched into a slow and sentimental music-hall waltz. Herma, her chin raised, still smiling faintly, sang with the ease and grace of a bird. The song told of one who, although she lived in a grand mansion and had riches at her command, was not as happy as she seemed, for a shame lay at the heart of her wealth and beauty. If Herma was touched by this it was only in a detached and artistic way. A vein of melancholy clung to her voice, with the slight catch of a tear now and then, but her expression remained quite blithe. The second time she embarked on the chorus with a slight ritardando, lingering on the key words, “sad” and “wasted.”

  “’Tis sad when you think of her wasted life,

  For youth cannot mate with age,

  And her beauty was sold for an old man’s gold,

  She’s a bird in a gilded cage.”

  Still slowing a little, she soared grandly to the high E on “gilded,” then came down to the A to finish.

  She waited for the applause to end. Then, pausing and glancing at the bandleader with her little stiff smile, she sang After the Ball in the same key. But—this was more difficult—still watching the bandleader with her eyes, she slipped up a half note to do the second chorus in B flat. The lift, the slight effort she pretended to rise to the higher key—for in fact it was effortless—intensified the gentle and restrained pathos of the song. Many a heart was aching, if you could read them all—she could almost see them aching at the tables at the other end of the room.

  Every eye was fixed on her. She exchanged another glance with the bandleader, and this time the slow melancholy waltz began even higher, in C.

  “You made me what I am today,

  I hope you’re satisfied;

  You dragged and dragged me down until

  My soul within me died.

  You’ve shattered each and ev’ry dream,

  You fooled me from the start,

  And though you’re not true,

  May God bless you,

  That’s the curse of an aching heart.”

  The “aching” in the last line rose to an incredible and yet effortless high G, and held it for a long moment before it dropped down to the C. There was no applause. Everyone was transfixed, as though they were in a church. The band too stared at her. The trumpeter examined his trumpet, as though to verify that it had really played G above high C.

  Herma waited for a moment to savor this effect. Then, with the band feeling a little more sure of itself, she sang several Spanish songs with plenty of lagrimas and corazones. The songs were about waifs who wandered about the world with no place to lay their heads, about lonely swallows and lovelorn doves, about lovers who sailed off on the sea and were never seen again, leaving suns that never set and rose. Her accent was perfect, since she had learned them on Victrola records made in Guadalajara. The trumpet player had tears in his eyes, although this was perhaps only from the effort of trying to play the two parts of the mariachi style on his single instrument. Herma concluded with one that everybody knew.

  “Ay, ay ay ay,

  Canta y no llores,

  Porque, can-tando,

  Se alegran,

  Ci-e-lito Lindo, los cor-a-zones.”

  The audience sat stunned. They had not expected this invasion of the Gringa into the complicated sentimental web of their own cultural heritage. It moved them at a place too deep to be reached by mere music. For a few moments they sat silent. Then they broke into heavy applause. It went on for a long time, the hands banging together with vigor and insistence. Someone cried, “Brava, Herma!”—the first brava of her career. A lady wiped a tear from her eye, it was not clear whether for the one who was dragged down until the soul within her died or for the thought that Cielito Lindo, in singing, might forget her sorrows and be happy.

  When Herma came back to the table Buena Suerte was standing by it, staring at her fixe
dly. Before she could sit down he reached out and stopped her. With a toss of his head down the long room he got the orchestra started again. After a few vacillations, and a thump from the percussionist, it launched into a slow Andalusian dance.

  “Come, guapa.”

  She was conscious mainly of his eyes—dark and drooping, with long, almost girl-like lashes. They never left her own eyes, except to flick upward now and then to the glossy fruit in its bed of green leaves. He held her two hands as lightly and deftly as though he were a musician holding his instrument or an assassin his weapon. He danced in a different way from Ocho Veces. There was a flamenco dignity and elegance to it. He remained always a foot distant from her, never touching her except with his arms. Steering her to one side, he marched a few steps pushing her backward. Then reversing—she following him—he moved backwards himself with the grace of a panther, while his dark eyes burned into hers. He held her hands high, so that when they switched in this way their elbows touched lightly. In between, while he marched backward and she forward, or the other way around—nothing moved above his hips. Only his lean legs in their tight-fitting black trousers slipped past each other like snakes.

  He was only a little taller than she was. He was not a large man, although he was lithe and seemed to have muscles of steel. He held her hands lightly, but she felt that freeing herself from him would have been more difficult than escaping from the strongest shackles. Switch—she was going forward again. Switch—she was going backward. Each time they crossed in this way, with elbows touching, their faces almost brushed. His small and even white teeth appeared, but not in a smile. His head bent forward a little, and the next time they switched his teeth snapped.

  She straightened a little and lifted her chin. But this gesture, intended as defensive, only gave her a proud and arrogant Spanish air that seemed to excite his passion. The orchestra went on thumping out its slow and smoky Andalusian rhythm. They switched directions again. This time the burning eyes and white teeth passed so close to her face that they were out of focus. She heard a sharp animal click. When she was able to see him with clarity again, from a foot away, he had a tiny piece of strawberry leaf in his mouth, which he spat out in disgust.

  The next time surely the teeth would close on the small and glistening fruit. The moment came—with a small stamp of his foot he switched her body to the other side. But it was in the middle of this maneuver, as her hands turned in his grasp and the positions of the four hands changed, that his hold on her was least secure. She lowered her head and twisted like a wrestler, and the grasp broke. Slightly above her she heard the teeth click in empty air. In a second she had turned and eluded him, and was moving swiftly toward the door with its velvet hanging.

  He was like a panther that, feeling the flesh of a gazelle firmly under its claws, finds in the next moment the prey inexplicably slipping away unscathed. His face darkened. He came after her across the dance floor in a long pounce.

  But Herma was quick. Flying away over the uneven floor, she faltered once, almost tripped, and left one of her light dancing slippers behind her. But the other slipper had no heel and she was able to run as swiftly as before. She was conscious of something behind her; not an odor or a sound, or the feel of a hot breath, but a twang of desire like a tensed steel spring that penetrated all the senses at once.

  For some reason Buena Suerte didn’t follow her through the velvet curtain. Perhaps he was too conscious of his own dignity, and his worth as a man, to engage in an unseemly chase up the stairs. Herma went rapidly down the corridor to the last room, pushed the door open, and entered.

  Panting a little, she locked the door firmly behind her. Then, to make sure, she jammed her remaining slipper under it at the bottom. Opening the suitcase onto the bed, she turned to the blotched and shadowy old mirror and began taking off her clothes. First the strawberry in its bed of leaves—a small crescent bitten out of one. She set it carefully into the suitcase. She pulled off the red gown over her head, folded it, and put it in the suitcase too, and the black silk stockings, and lastly her underwear, which was linen and had an oddly virginal look after the sensuous costume she had worn over it.

  Then, her arms at her sides and her feet together, she stood for some time before the mirror. Her will, seeping through the nerves of her slim and curveless body, concentrated gradually at its center. Watchful, with a slight and sibylline smile, she waited for it to happen. It took rather a long time. Perhaps she was thinking about something else rather than concentrating. She forced herself not to smile. Out it came at last, with its faint and slightly prolonged plop. The other clothes were waiting, folded neatly on the bed.

  Fred came out the door with his suitcase, shutting it behind him. He went down the stairs at a leisurely pace and pushed through the curtain into the dance hall. Buena Suerte was standing by the doorway, still holding the slipper, as though he hoped this Cinderella story would work out the way it was supposed to. When he saw Fred he threw it away. It rolled off across the dance floor, a dozen or more yards away.

  “Well?” said Fred.

  “Well?”

  “Is that all? She was just to sing a song, isn’t that right?”

  Buena Suerte smiled.

  “For the entertainment of your guests.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And there’s nothing more?”

  “No. Just sing a song.”

  Buena Suerte remained silent for a long moment. Then, without taking his eyes from Fred, and still with his little smile, he reached into his back pocket and took out a folded lump of banknotes. Most of them were twenties, Fred saw, but at least one was a hundred. Without looking at the bundle he extracted a fifty and handed it to Fred.

  “And so,” he said, “good evening, my friend.”

  “Be seeing you.”

  “Yes,” said Buena Suerte evenly. “Hasta la vista.”

  23.

  The bright daylight burned on the sand. Off in the distance the sea shimmered in little points. Fred, in cycling knickers and a sweater, parked his bicycle against the Kotton Kandy stand and went down the lane to the Flying Machine concession. There was no sign of Gambrinus. He pushed aside the flap of canvas and entered. There was nobody in sight here either. The steam flying machine was gone. A few leftover parts were scattered around; a black rubber hose lay on the ground like a dead snake. He kicked this away and turned over a steam valve with his foot. A faint scent of burning eucalyptus wood still clung in the air. That was all.

  Inspecting the inside of the canvas silo more carefully, he saw a flap or improvised door he hadn’t noticed before. He pushed this open and entered. In a small room with canvas walls Gambrinus and Marmora were sitting at a little table drinking camomile tea. The dwarf got up with ceremony as he entered. Marmora took another sip from her tiny cup, then she stood up too with her hand resting on the table. She seemed to be looking not at Fred but at a point on the canvas wall behind him, with an expression that had something pleased about it.

  “So,” said Gambrinus with diplomatic tact, “you have obtained the …”

  “Yes. I have the sum you mentioned.”

  “Excellent. We can go to the shed immediately.” He took a napkin from the table and touched it to his lips. Then he found his beaver hat and put it on. “If you don’t mind, Marmora will accompany us. She is … interested in these things.”

  “I don’t mind at all.”

  The dwarf motioned him toward the door, in a kind of majordomo gesture with both hands. Fred went out, Gambrinus and Marmora following him. Out in the rear Gambrinus walked around the dead ticket booth and led Bernard out of his hut with the wicker car following behind him. It occurred to Fred for the first time that either Gambrinus kept the dog constantly hitched or was able, through some perception, to get wind of his arrival and prepare things in advance. Bernard stopped and waited patiently, his mouth open and panting a little since it was a warm day.

  They got in. Gambrinus stood holding the reins as usual
. The sides of the small wicker basket came approximately to his waist, Fred crouched down on one side and Marmora on the other. There was hardly room for the three of them. Fred’s knees were pressed against Gambrinus’ legs, and his hand, which he set on the bottom of the basket to steady himself against the jolting, was only an inch from Marmora’s feet. Gambrinus clucked to the dog and they started off.

  Marmora smiled faintly. In the tiny basket she was only a foot or two from Fred. He examined her closely for the first time. Her complexion was so pale that it seemed made of some artificial substance. She had perhaps a touch of the albino, although her large eyes, the eyes of some nervous animal like a fawn, were pale green rather than pink. The feverish spots on her cheeks stood out sharply against this pallor. She was dressed exactly as before: black dancing tights, a black jersey curving low at the throat, slippers with ribbons around the ankles, and the gold heart on its fine chain around her neck. Her small breasts, clearly visible through the jersey, were like the halves of an undersized apple. Yet they were perfectly formed, and evidently mature. She was a child. However her childishness was like her father’s shortness. It was not something that was temporary. It was a permanent quality, the way she was. She would die a child, just as he would die a dwarf. She was older than he was, Fred saw now, perhaps twenty-five or more.

  Bernard galloped along the sand at the water’s edge. Gambrinus held his knotted black stick at the ready, but it wasn’t necessary to use it; evidently Bernard felt like running today. In ten minutes or less the T-shaped shed drew into sight, and Bernard pulled up and slowed in the softer sand.

  Gambrinus leaped nimbly out and drew open the doors. Fred got out too, and Marmora, with the grace of a ballerina, lighted on the sand like a bird. She stayed by Fred, behind him and just at his elbow, instead of following her father, who was fussing with the doors and clambering off into the inside of the shed.