The Third Hour

by Geoffrey Household

  “I do what I like,” said Paolo firmly. “But I’ll tell you a secret. I don’t drink this wine at breakfast. I wash my eyes with it. Every morning of his life my father washed his eyes with white wine, and he made me do the same. ‘Have your little guts opened this morning, Paolo?’ ‘Yes, papa.’ ‘Have you washed your eyes, Paolo?’ ‘Yes, papa.’ ‘Then have your breakfast!’ Ay! I wish I had had as many breakfasts as washings. Well, habit is habit. So even if Impe and I must go without coffee, we wash our eyes with wine and the children also.”

  Manuel laughed, and felt his depression lift in the presence of those twelve eyes bright with the liquid sunshine of two hemispheres. He improvised a coplita :

  “The soul of my life is calm,

  But her eyes are drunken.

  Would God she were drunken with love

  And her eyes were calm!”

  “Compliments at this hour!” exclaimed Impe, delighted. “You’re up to no good, Manuel, I can see that.”

  “It’s true,” Manuel admitted.

  The children giggled. It was funny that Uncle Manuel should be “up to no good.” That was what their mother said to them, and they had never heard the phrase applied to a grown-up.

  “What can we do?” asked Paolo simply. “You know that everything we have is yours.”

  “It’s a lot to ask,” said Manuel. “I have a friend in trouble with the police—and nowhere to go.”

  “Here is his house,” Impe answered, “if he isn’t particular.”

  “It isn’t a he, Impe. It’s a she.”

  “He has been unfaithful to me, Paolo! Would you believe it?”

  “Is she pretty?” asked Paolo with interest.

  “And what does it matter to you whether she is pretty or not?” Impe exclaimed. “You are not like Manuel. You have your duties at home!”

  “She wouldn’t tempt a priest,” answered Manuel. “It’s that she did a great favour to a friend of mine. She is in my room now. But if the police look for her, that’s where they would look.”

  “Between friends there is no need of explanations,” said Paolo with dignity. “She is a comrade?”

  “Qué va! She knows no more of politics than I! But I must tell Impe something else. She has a good heart, but her life hasn’t been yours, you understand.”

  “Someone has to live her life,” Impe replied. “We know what men are. She won’t be too proud, you think?”

  “Proud? She’s not used to luxury, my dear!”

  “Manuel! Not from a house?”

  “Nearly.”

  “But the children? I don’t want them to learn bad manners.”

  “Silence, wife!” roared Paolo. “Do you think Manuel would send us any but a good woman? She’s a whore—all right! But she has a good heart. Didn’t you hear him say so?”

  “Don’t pay any attention to him, Manuel. Tell her she is very welcome.”

  “But that’s what I said!” Paolo insisted loudly.

  “You know nothing! Go to work, Paolo—you are late! Can you let us have a bed, Manuel? Then she can sleep in the kitchen?”

  There were only three rooms in the tenement: the living room, where the children slept; a tiny bedroom entirely filled by a vast second-hand bed for Impe and her husband; and the kitchen.

  “Yes. I’ll carry down my own.”

  “She is really unhappy?”

  “Made dust.”

  “I’ll go with you to fetch her then. She will need a woman.”

  Paolo Salvini stuffed the onion into his mouth and winked at Manuel. Impe disentangled her two youngest sons, who instantly fell into a clinch again, and marched out on to the staircase.

  Arrived outside his room, Manuel gently knocked and called Rosario’s name. She opened the door to them, peering into the darkness. The baby-blue frock was split in a dozen places and dusty with coarse powder from cheeks and neck. Her face was white, puffy and streaked with tears, and her dyed hair had the ridiculous inhumanity of a wig that has fallen awry. She was unnatural as a village idiot. Both of them looked away. She was too grotesque for pity, too unfortunate for laughter.

  “You’ve been so long,” said Rosario.

  There was no reproach in her voice, only an echo of past fear, and thankfulness at his coming. It flashed through Manuel’s mind that voice was more certain proof of humanity than arms, legs and an upright posture. Impe and he, feeling a common and unspoken shame, entered the room with unnecessary haste.

  “I’m a little late,” Manuel answered. “But I bring good news, chica, and a friend.”

  “You shouldn’t have brought a woman!” cried Rosario—and then, monotonously: “You are very good, señora.”

  Her hands went up to her hair, smoothing it back. The gesture gave her an elementary dignity. Impe examined her curiously. She had expected at least a worn and vulgar beauty; it was incredible to think that men mingled their flesh with this.

  “Don’t worry!” said Impe, shaking her glorious tawny mane. “You see I’m not dressed for visitors myself! Are you hurt?”

  “No, but everything hurts me. I had to run, you see.”

  “Like a rabbit she ran!” said Manuel approvingly.

  “Is that so?” Impe snorted. “And you have to remind her of it! Take that bed down, Manuel! Don’t you see she is tired?”

  Manuel grinned and, folding up the legs of his bed, staggered downstairs with it. By the time that he had erected it and returned for the mattress and bedclothes, Rosario had washed her face and dressed herself in Toby’s raincoat. She looked more presentable—a raffish, motherly soul listening intelligently to Impe’s description of her third son’s last illness.

  “You are angels,” said Rosario simply.

  “Now I see that you do not know Manuel very well!” laughed Impe. “He is a devil—but with goodness. When I pray for him, I can find no words. He says that he doesn’t believe in God, but I think God doesn’t believe in him either.”

  “It doesn’t surprise me,” Rosario answered bitterly. “God forgets the good.”

  “Enough theology for to-night!” ordered Manuel, fearing lest Impe, who was a devout Catholic, should be offended. “You haven’t heard my news, Rosario. They will leave you in peace if you stay quiet for a day or two.”

  “And he?”

  “The marquis? Well, he has a nasty cut on his head. But they don’t think he will die.”

  “You believe it?”

  “I do. I learned in Mexico that heads are tough, Rosario. If you had caught him in the tripes now—”

  “Keep your disgusting memories for Paolo!” interrupted Impe. “Let’s go down.”

  They carried the bedding downstairs, and Manuel returned to his room. The rain had stopped and a misty dawn promised well. He spread a blanket in the driest corner of his terrace and fell asleep.

  He arrived at the Muelle de Flores at eleven the next morning. Two plain-clothes detectives were waiting to question him again, choosing the restaurant rather than his home in the hope of free drinks; the owner of the Muelle de Flores had already provided them, ready for any sacrifice so long as he was left in undisturbed possession of his model waiter.

  It appeared that the Spanish ambassador was away, but the chargé d’affaires was certain that he had not, and never had had, an English valet. Manuel repeated regretfully that he had not met the man Miguel before, and that he had only his word for it that he was a valet. Was it not more probable, he asked, that the individual had a grudge against Almádena, had known that he was going to the Alcázar and had used him, Manuel, simply as a blind? Possibly the criminal came from Concepción and was now on his way back by foot or train; he might easily be a German farmer down there, and not an Englishman at all; they were so much alike. The detectives thought it very likely and thanked him for his assistance.

  Manuel put on his
black jacket and apron and settled down to the routine of preparing his tables for lunch. At half-past twelve he had already begun his interminable food-bearing journeys. Between one and three he was a human shuttlecock flying to and fro between the kitchen and the restaurant, and coming to rest more often as the number of his temporary masters grew fewer and their errands less urgent. He talked to a few of his favourite customers, served liqueurs to the leisurely and helped to construct a menu for a dinner party to be given that evening. At half-past three he left the dishwashers at work, paid for the brandy he had taken the night before and strolled out into the street with three hours of liberty ahead of him.

  Outside the restaurant Paolo Salvini was waiting. He leaned against the wall, a burly blue-overalled figure, as unconcerned with time as a horse standing between shafts. Like the horse, he was employed as much for his muscles as his intelligence, and was accustomed to wait: for work, for food, for machines less trustworthy though stronger than himself.

  “Finished?” he asked.

  “Till six,” Manuel answered. “What’s up, Paolo?”

  “It’s that I wanted to know a little more. One can talk more frankly between men. Not that Impe cares, you understand. But she wants to speak her mind like all women, and so there would be long discussions when twenty little words between us are enough. This girl you brought home, she was in the misunderstanding at the Alcázar?”

  “Is it in the papers?” Manuel asked.

  “Not yet. But I have a friend in the police—we were both born in Viareggio,” he added apologetically. “And as he was directing traffic on the road where I was working, we talked a little. As you know, I will have nothing to do with them. The cossacks! The capitalist tools! But he was born in Viareggio. Who killed the señorito? She or your friend?”

  “He is not dead,” replied Manuel, “and I don’t know whose fault it was.”

  “You know that I would tell them nothing,” said Paolo quietly.

  Manuel put his arm around Paolo’s shoulders, gripped affectionately and let go.

  “I know that. But not God himself knows whose fault it was—mine as much as another’s. In a row like this, can we call one hand guilty because it strikes faster than the rest?”

  “Put it that the ceiling fell on him,” said Paolo. “It’s one capitalist the less. Is the Englishman in a safe place?”

  “Very safe—since they are searching for a servant who looks English, whereas this friend of mine has distinction and only looks English to those who know the English well.”

  As they toiled up the hill to the Casa del Corregidor a taxi passed them and stopped outside the house. Manuel saw Toby Manning cross the pavement, his face obscured by a handkerchief into which, to judge by the heaving of his shoulders, he was realistically pretending to sneeze. They found him waiting in the battered entrance hall, trying to sell an imaginary water softener to the puzzled housewife of the ground-floor left—so that Manuel could pass him by unrecognised in case his unknown companion should belong to the police.

  Manuel introduced him to Paolo, and the three, laughing, climbed the stairs to the Salvinis’ apartment. Rosario was sewing while keeping an eye on the two youngest children. She had on Toby’s mackintosh, covered from the waist down by a skirt improvised out of a dark blue bedspread. The broad lapels of the mackintosh gave her a surprisingly neat and severe appearance. She jumped up in alarm as the men entered, then smiled when she saw who they were.

  “I am Impe’s husband,” said Paolo. “You are very welcome.”

  “Thank you, Don Paolo! I owe you many, many thanks.”

  “For nothing, chica! Where’s my wife?”

  “She went out. It was so seldom, she said, that she had anyone to look after the little ones. You are very fortunate, señor.”

  “Yes,” answered Paolo. “I know that”—he kissed and disentangled his children. “What about my dinner?”

  “Hombre! Do you think such a wife would go off without thinking of you? Even me she cares for.”

  She took a steaming pot off the kitchen stove, filling the room with a rich scent of fish and garlic.

  “She started it and I finished it,” said Rosario proudly, setting the pot on the table together with cheese, bread and wine.

  “To work, all of you!” Paolo ordered.

  He and Rosario set about the dish with good appetite. Manuel and Toby, who had both lunched, one at the normal hour of the moneyed classes and one rather before it, took some cheese and wine for the sake of courtesy.

  “Have you made enquiries about boats?” Manuel asked.

  “Yes. The Santa Elisa sails to-morrow night,” Toby answered.

  “Good! You’ll have no difficulty. The Chileans are gentlemen. They don’t want fingerprints or photographs before they let you leave the country.”

  “What about Rosario?”

  “She can stay here till it’s blown over.”

  “I can always live,” said Rosario. “Of course, if you could help me a little …”

  “Claro, mujer! But you can’t go back to the Alcázar, and it won’t do you much good if I just give you money. We must make plans for you. What do you say, Manuel?”

  “You can leave it to me. There’s no reason why you should feel responsible.”

  “Yes, but I do. I can raise about a hundred pounds, if you’ll tell me how to use them.”

  Toby very definitely felt responsible for Rosario. It was unimportant whether she had saved his life or merely and unnecessarily lost her head. There was no point in arguing that she had no claim on him, when his conscience insisted that she had. The only solution was to settle her as permanently as half his savings would allow.

  “Where a pound is worth 120 pesos,” Manuel replied, “a lot can be done with a hundred of them.”

  “Have you any ideas, Rosario?” Toby asked.

  “You mean it?”

  “Naturally!”

  “Then listen!” said Rosario with her mouth full of fish. “We will be partners! I have always promised myself that if I had money I would start a little house—very clean, very correct. For customers of a certain age and discretion, you understand. And I would treat the girls well, for I know what it is to suffer.”

  The three men met each other’s eyes and looked away with embarrassment. They had all at some time or another made use of brothels. But to assist her to start one was shameful, and to refuse was hypocrisy. What Rosario said was true; she would run it decently and treat the girls with kindness.

  “It needs knowledge, chica,” said Manuel weakly.

  “I have it,” Rosario answered.

  “Good! But you can’t start young girls—” Toby began.

  “Quía! Young girls don’t start in a house—they finish in one. And they need someone understanding.”

  “Listen!” said Paolo. “If you run a house, Impe will not be pleased.”

  “She would not be pleased,” Rosario repeated sadly. “It is true.”

  Manuel and Toby looked gratefully at Paolo.

  “What about this?” asked Toby, picking up a linen tablecloth that Rosario had started to draw and embroider.

  “I like to work with a needle. I was well taught as a girl.”

  “Why not open a shop then? Buy a little stock and add it to your own work.”

  “That—yes!—would please me!” exclaimed Rosario, heaving herself up from the chair. “And I know where I shall buy.”

  “We will ask Impe to go round the convents,” Manuel said. “They have nothing else to do but make pretty things.”

  “Leave them alone!” grumbled Paolo. “The parasites!”

  “There are idle fingers in more places than convents!” Rosario laughed. “You don’t know it, but there are girls in the houses who work as daintily as nuns—and I shall buy from them and pay them well. It will be a joke, verdad?
All the rich ladies of Valparaiso wearing the work of my little friends and believing it was made in convents!”

  “Enhorabuena!” Toby congratulated her. “A scheme after my own heart! I’ll write for the money by air mail, and you, Manuel and Don Paolo, shall be trustees for the business.”

  Paolo Salvini pounded the table with joy.

  “Leave out the Don, compañero!” he shouted. “I’m not one for titles. Comrade, if you wish, or plain Paolo! Don means nothing.”

  “You’re a communist?” Toby asked.

  “Claro! What else could I be? And you?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t blame you. You are rich. And every man for himself!”

  “If I were out for myself, compañero,” Toby replied, “I should be a communist. I have more to gain than lose. Under communism I shouldn’t have to be a salesman.”

  “Then why are you not?”

  “For the same reason that I am not,” interrupted Manuel. “Come up to my room. I have a story to tell you.”

  Paolo swallowed a tremendous draught of wine and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt. The three saluted Rosario and climbed the battered stairs. Manuel set chairs and wine upon his terrace.

  “Here is your home,” he said to Toby with conventional politeness.

  The massed brown roofs of Valparaiso dropped in short platforms to the Pacific, a glistening lake cut by the pale blue roads of ships and dotted with puffs of spray from the diving pelicans.

  “I wish it were!” Toby answered, sincerely.

  “Manuel has a lot of education,” Paolo explained.

  That a man of the people had discovered a site for beauty and created it in that ruinous tenement house was Paolo’s favourite proof of the value of education; but he felt that Manuel’s speech was so unassuming that the foreigner might not have credited him with any more learning than other tenants of the Casa del Corregidor.

  “When we have the people’s republic—” began Paolo.

  “Give me leave!” Manuel interrupted impatiently. “What difference will there be? We shall work. We shall eat. We shall suffer. Only the suffering of some will be greater than ours ever was.”