by Paul Gallico
The hairdresser now brought over the black wig and with a smooth, practised gesture settled it down over the naked skull. The all-in wrestler disappeared and the Marquesa was there. The gold upon her eyes, fingernails and toes was both subtle and barbaric against the shining jet of the towering wig. Two jewellery salesmen, who exhibited to her something in a long shagreen case, the contents of which Mr. Albert could not see, were dismissed. She bought a bolt of shot silk in iridescent green and red, and a second of silver-brocaded mauve. She bought likewise a small rug no bigger than a bath mat that displayed the sheen and colours of a peacock’s plumage, and Mr. Albert saw the treasurer dig deep into his wallet to pay for it. She signed papers and letters proffered by a secretary, and dismissed two applicants with a tale of woe before they were even half-way through with their narrative. And this again brought anxiety to Mr. Albert’s heart as to how he would fare. He hoped somehow that she would be finished with her dressing before he was summoned, for he did not see how he would be able to confront, without stumbling and blushing, a woman wearing tight cami-knickers draped around huge hams. Where would his gaze come to rest?
He was to have his wish, for the Marquesa now arose from her couch; a maid divested her of her dressing coat to reveal her laced, stayed, and corseted in the manner still in vogue at the turn of the century. Petticoat after petticoat went on over her head. Simultaneously, the wardrobe mistress pushed over the dummy with the gown which opened at the back. The dummy was removed and the figure of the Marquesa inserted in its place. The swirl of attendants leaped to the rear, zipping, snapping, and hooking; a pair of shoes with red heels were slipped on to her feet; and an ivory fan with gold lace was put into her hand. She chose a ruby and diamond necklace, rings and bracelets to match, with pigeon’s-blood ruby pendants for her ears.
Mr. Albert wished now that his turn had come before the Marquesa had been completed, for whereas before she had only been disturbing because of the ridiculousness of her attire, now she was monumental, imperious—a grandiose blend of every artificiality made to transform. Two flunkeys rolled forward a full-length mirror and tilted it to the proper angle, and for a moment the Marquesa stood towering regally regarding herself, staring straight into her own compelling eyes with not so much as the tremor of an expression upon her painted face.
The mirror was removed; the Marquesa sank, not ungracefully, once more upon her chaise longue and, unfurling her fan, waited to hear the last of those who had bid for a moment of her attention. Mr. Albert became suddenly aware that she had gestured towards him. The major-domo was motioning to him frantically that he was to go to her now and say whatever it was he had to say.
The old man glanced wildly left and right, hoping somehow that it was another who was being summoned, but there was no one and so, knowing that his knees were trembling, he shuffled forward, quite forgetting that he still held the puppy and kitten nestling in his palms.
He was frightened. He was frightened to death of her, who she was, how she looked, and where he now was. This dream in which he was caught up seemed to be swelling and ballooning inside his head most appallingly. And then something happened which completed his unnerving. The Marquesa spoke to him in faultless English. She said, “My major-domo tells me you are from the circus that performed in Zalano. What is it you want?” When she spoke his language all the Spanish roughness, harshness and resonance went out of her voice, her tones were soft and her accent impeccable. What really robbed Mr. Albert of all that remained of his wits was that the voice which emerged from this tremendous and formidable woman was that of an English lady.
Mr. Albert had been preparing through all this a kind of recitation in his mind, a sequence of events that had taken place since the destruction of the circus, illuminated by words he hoped would move a heart of stone—the deterioration of the health of the lion, the tiger and the black panther, the slow disintegration of Judy, the elephant. Then he would tell of the pitiful plight of the monkeys and the death and disposal of the deer and kangaroo, with the imminent danger of further casualties to the helpless inmates of the menagerie unless help in the shape of regular and adequate food supplies was forthcoming. All this was destroyed in an instant at finding himself confronted by this Spanish autocrat who addressed him in the manner of an English duchess.
Hence Mr. Albert bobbed, shuffled, winced, found himself in an insoluble struggle as to what to do with his hat, the kitten and the puppy, and went completely to pieces. “Ma’am, them animals are starving—they ain’t getting enough to eat—they’ll die off like flies like them others—we done what we could, ma’am, but it ain’t enough unless Mr. Marvel comes back or sends us money—there ain’t enough money to feed them, like I said, and they’ll die on our hands—it’s enough to break your heart standing there watching them and nothing to do. I thought maybe if you had some food, not that I wouldn’t work for it or do anything you said like the others are earning what they can, but it ain’t enough, see? For an elephant takes a lot of feeding and them there cats will eat up all the meat you can give ’em, but there isn’t any. So I thought—” and he trailed off lamely, never revealing what it was he thought since it was by then as apparent to him as it must be to anyone present at that morning’s levee, that he had failed to engage the attention of the Marquesa.
Her fan was spread and fluttering impatiently, the painted cupid’s bow of her mouth was pursed, and her eyes were filled with boredom. She said, “Are you trying to say that your animals had to be left behind and that there is insufficient food for them?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Mr. Albert miserably. He knew that he was done for.
“There are organizations to look after such cases. I suggest you apply to them.” She folded her fan with a click of the ivory spokes, tapped it twice into her palm and looked over in the direction of her major-domo, who was frantically trying to attract the attention of Mr. Albert with hand signals given below the waist, shovings of the air in the direction of the door which read unmistakably, Out! Out! Get out!
Mr. Albert caught all the gestures and tried desperately to follow them, to unglue his limbs from the floor and propel them in the direction of the door. At this point he realised that he still had the squeaking kitten and long-nosed puppy which did not belong to him. In panic, he reached over and deposited them in the lap of the Marquesa and turned to flee. But he dropped his hat and, trying to pick it up, put his foot through it. He managed to get it off the end of his shoe and again took off for the door, this time skidding on a bit of carpet which accelerated his speed as he recovered, so that for a moment he appeared to be volplaning horizontally, aided by his coat-tails which stood out straight behind him. Never had there been quite such a futile or ignominious retreat.
“Wait!” The cry, sharp and unmistakable, came from the Marquesa and was repeated in Spanish, “Alto!”
The command caught Mr. Albert in mid-gallop as it were, and, since he had the misfortune to find himself on another one of those skittery, silken little rugs that covered the marble floor, he continued to run for a few moments violently in the same place, until he was able to bring himself to a halt and turn about to face her.
“Wait!” she repeated. “Have I not seen you before?”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied Mr. Albert, nervously concealing his damaged hat behind his back.
There was no inattention upon the florid countenance of the Marquesa now. On the contrary, there was an extraordinary shining in the reptilian eyes and the small mouth was working strangely. She poised her fan and pointed it at him like a conductor’s baton and said, “Of course, I remember you now! Fall down! Fall down for me!”
Had not Mr. Albert still been enveloped by the curious fog which he had entered upon departing from the up-to-then secure confines of Zalano and in which he had been moving ever since, he might never have been able to comply. How was one to fall down upon command and before such a terrifying woman and assemblage of strangers? And furthermore, why? But it is the curious qual
ity of the dream whether by day or by night that all things are possible, and nothing in the end seems too outrageous or extraordinary. And so Mr. Albert fell down, by the simple expedient of throwing his legs out from under him as though the rug had been jerked from his feet, and landed upon his behind. His hat being thus beneath him, disintegrated with a loud explosion. But no louder than the burst of laughter that erupted from the person of the Marquesa de Pozoblanco.
Gust upon gust, guffaw upon guffaw, booming, helpless, and hilarious, pealed through the room, and as soon as her court—the servitors, the sycophants, the adherents, and the applicants—saw which way the tornado was blowing they, too, all dissolved into such shouts as set the crystals of the chandelier to clinking and tinkling in musical accompaniment.
The Marquesa regained some measure of control and wiped her eyes with a lace handkerchief. “Jesu!” she cried. “How could I have forgotten? I have never laughed so hard in my whole life. You made me laugh so at the circus that I pissed myself, and I shall do it again if I am not careful. Come here, my little man—my funny, funny, little man—my funniest man in the whole world. I want to talk to you.”
Mr. Albert climbed to his feet, retrieved the injured bowler, now flat beyond repair, and the manner in which he regarded it was enough to send them all off into further fits and gales. For the Marquesa had established him as a comic fellow and not a ridiculous, pathetic, and foolish one—the funniest man in all the world—and whose every move and every gesture was from then on hilarious.
“Come here and sit beside me,” said the Marquesa in her lilting, beautiful English. “Don’t be afraid of me, for you have won me over. Now tell me again what it was you tried to say before.”
Now Mr. Albert no longer found himself tongue-tied or thinking about the figure he must be cutting. With more coherence and consequence he told her the story of the disappearance, first of Mr. Marvel, then of Fred Deeter, and the subsequent starvation of his beloved animals, as well as the unsuccessful attempts of the remaining humans to earn money to pay for their food.
The Marquesa questioned him as to the amount that was needed daily, and here Mr. Albert became completely glib. The answers were at his fingertips and he was not even aware that she had made a slight gesture and a secretary was taking down his words.
When the interrogation was completed, the Marquesa reflected for a moment and then said, “Yes. Very well. I shall help you. Your animals will be fed.” And here she fluttered her fan. “But I have my price.”
The remark was astonishing to Mr. Albert, but somehow not wholly unexpected. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, “thank you, ma’am. What is it?”
She pointed the fan at him. “You,” she said simply.
“Me?”
“Yes, you,” she repeated. “You shall come and live with me here, and when I ask you to, you will fall down again for me and make me laugh, won’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Mr. Albert.
“Even perhaps with the buckets of water?” the Marquesa asked. And to Mr. Albert’s astonishment, there was almost a note of wistfulness in her voice. This was only another part of the great, unending cauchemar that something so yearning and childish could come from one so appalling.
“Yes, ma’am,” repeated Mr. Albert. And then added, “For how long, ma’am?”
The Marquesa let her green glance of possessiveness rest upon him. “Until I release you,” she replied. “Perhaps forever. Do you agree?”
Mr. Albert entertained a mind picture. He saw his cats tearing at flesh, gnawing and crunching bones, the monkeys stuffing themselves with bananas, and Judy with her trunk steering endless portions of sweet alfalfa and apples down her throat. It was irresistible. “Yes, ma’am,” he said again.
“Very well then, it’s settled.”
“Do I sign anything, ma’am?” Albert asked.
“No, you have given me your word, and I have never needed any contract or paper when I have wished to bind someone to me.” She then spoke rapidly in her harsh, guttural Spanish to the secretary, to another servant there, and then to the major-domo who was looking pleased and happy for he knew that he had scored well with his mistress. And finally, she said to Mr. Albert, “Go, then, with Don Francisco,” and she indicated the major-domo with the pointer of her fan. “It is all arranged.”
Yet before he could pass through the door, she called out to him, “Wait!” And when Albert turned to see what it was she wanted she said, “Is the little one there with you? The dwarf with the crooked legs and the big head who threw the water on you?”
“Janos? Yes, ma’am.”
“I want him too,” said the Marquesa. “Bring him with you.” For this was all that was missing from the sixteenth-century court of the twentieth-century Marquesa de Pozoblanco.
Mr. Albert found something very sad and deep to say, though he did not realise it was either. “Ma’am, I can sell myself but not Janos. I don’t know that he will come.”
The Marquesa did not take offence. “No?” she said. “You think perhaps not? What is it he cares for most in all the world? Where does he come from?”
“His dogs,” Mr. Albert replied, and then added, “Hungary, I think.”
“He shall bring them with him, then. I have many dogs. They can all live here and be happy. Tell him he shall eat with me at my table. He shall eat what I do. All Hungarians love food. Will you bring him?”
“I’ll try, ma’am,” Mr. Albert said, and felt the touch of the major-domo’s hand upon his elbow, and together they went out.
They crossed the bright flowered patio once more and came into the sunlit area before the villa. Besides the clink of the blacksmith Mr. Albert heard the whine of a saw and judged that there was a carpentry shop on the premises as well. The finca, in effect, was a completely self-contained unit with stables, poultry houses, vegetable gardens, and dairy plant.
Mr. Albert asked anxiously, “Will she keep her word?”
The major-domo replied, “Yes, she will.” And then added, “For good or for evil,” and he regarded Mr. Albert seriously. “But will you keep yours?”
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Albert. “I promised.”
“And the dwarf?”
“I’ll ask him. I’ll tell him what the Markweeser said about—about his dogs being looked after and eating with her at her table. Janos loves his belly and that’s a fact.”
“She wants him,” Don Francisco said with a kind of intense fierceness. “She wants him and what she wants she will have.” And then, looking at Mr. Albert keenly, he added, “It would be better for him if he did not come.”
“Eh?” said Mr. Albert. “I thought—”
The major-domo said, “Never mind, old man. In the end she would manage somehow. Bring him if you know what is good for you.” Just inside the door there was a house telephone. He dialled a number and spoke in Spanish. When he hung up, Mr. Albert queried him, “What’s going to happen? I’ve got to get back to the camp and tell them—Toby and Rose and Janos.”
Don Francisco looked at his watch. He said, “I have ordered a car and chauffeur—a shooting brake. He is stopping to pick up a can of milk and some immediate things like fruit and vegetables. The Marquesa has ordered a steer to be slaughtered until arrangements are made to have horse meat shipped from Madrid. We have sufficient hay on hand to supply your elephant and horses until similar dispositions can be made. One of our lorries will arrive later with the steer and the fodder. In the meantime the car will take you back to Zalano. It will remain there until you are ready to return and then will bring you back—you and the dwarf. There will be room in it for his dogs.”
Mr. Albert stood blinking in the strong sunlight, holding his crushed hat. The Spaniard glanced at the wrecked headgear. “Have you another?” he asked.
“No.”
“We can order you others from Madrid. That was an amusing piece you interpolated, falling upon the hat.”
Mr. Albert regarded him with some puzzlement. So much of the talk th
at had been directed at him ever since he had come there had seemed to drift by him without ever connecting fully. “Just what is it she wants of me?” he asked.
“To amuse her,” the major-domo replied. “You are a great clown. And I believe she has seen them all—Grock, the Fratellinis, Pimpo, Marcelline, Coco. I have never known her laugh so much before.”
Mr. Albert shook his head now in genuine bewilderment. He said, “But I’m not a clown. I’m—”
The expression on the face of the major-domo was grave. He said, “If this is true, never let her know it. You have struck a bargain—and you care about your animals.”
There was a grinding of gravel and a Buick station wagon drew up before the door. In the rear were a ten-gallon milk churn and crates of cabbages, apples, oranges, bananas, carrots, and some twenty circular loaves of brown bread.
The sight of such bounty and the certain knowledge that this supply would never dry up; that he had succeeded beyond his wildest imaginings in securing life-giving food for his animals, brought such relief to Mr. Albert that he felt close to tears, but he controlled himself and took it out in emotional gratitude.
“Gaw,” he breathed. “Look at that! Won’t they be happy!” He turned his mild blue eyes upon the major-domo. “I don’t know how to say thank you enough,” he said. “If it hadn’t been for you letting me in it never would have happened. You’re a good man. That’s what you are.”
