She was greeted pleasantly by a young officer or two. On her way down to her cabin she met Frau Schmitt on her way up, carrying her knitting. “Back so soon?” Frau Rittersdorf asked. Frau Schmitt said gloomily, “I saw enough, just the same.”
Frau Rittersdorf meant to go on, but this remark stopped her in her tracks.
“There was, then, something to see?” she asked, in the tone of condescension Frau Schmitt found so infuriatingly unanswerable.
“For those who can see,” she said, “there was something.” Feeling a touch light in the head from such boldness, she did not wait for Frau Rittersdorf to rally, but went on her way to the peace and comfort of the empty lounge.
Frau Rittersdorf did not overlook this saucy speech of her cabin mate, but decided to ignore it for the moment. She had crossed some line in her thoughts she had not known was there, but already she had left it behind, and she was strangely easy as if her mind had thrown off some great load that had been exhausting and hampering her all this time.… She opened her handbag, took out her passport case, searched its compartments for a moment with two fingertips, and brought out a small photograph of her husband in a flat silver frame. Ah no—he was not like that. His splendid image in her imagination got a blow as always at sight of this rather staring, lifeless army photograph, no light, no color, the clear eyes empty, cold as agates. No, no—never again, never again. She replaced the picture and put her handbag away. She would forget this hero who had forgotten her, had left her to whatever fate might come—what a selfish cruel thing to do to a wife who adored him! No no. She would forget, and she would find another husband, a real one this time.… When this stupid voyage was over, she would stay at home where she belonged, she would be among her own people, the kind of men who would appreciate her qualities.… Names and faces began to drift into her mind. She opened her notebook and began to write them down.… “First things first,” she gently admonished herself. Her imagination began wandering over a new, springlike landscape, full of likely encounters with eligible persons, some known, some unknown, all delightful encounters full of possibilities. Scenes began to enact themselves before her eyes. Don Pedro intruded at one point, but was instantly rejected, and the charming pantomime of herself in an endless promenade with ever-changing partners went on and on while she brushed her hair hundreds of strokes, not counting. She forgot about lunch. She had been rather dreading her welcome at home, among her friends and her husband’s family after what they must regard as her failure in Mexico: for her Mexican circle had been painfully eager to keep them informed of every stage of her romance with Don Pedro—yes, even to the last … and then, there was always the haunting shade of Nemesis who would materialize, one fine day, on her doorstep in the shape of some clumsy oaf of a relative, a nephew, a second cousin, looking for the fabled member of the family who had got an education and gone out in the great world and become no doubt rich and would be glad to help them do as much. Her fears had lessened as time passed and no one came, but the danger was real, just the same. She pored over her red and gold address book, turning the pages slowly, marking a name here and there: circumstances change, so do telephone numbers: people find new homes, and hearts new dwelling places too; she must not expect miracles, but just the same, she would write half a dozen discreet notes to older admirers she felt she could trust to be pleased to hear from her again, and there was one in Bremen: to him she would announce the ship, the date, the place, the hour of her arrival, and unless she had lost her womanly intuition altogether, he would be at the shipside to greet her, yes, even with flowers as in a happier time.
“Why David, I hadn’t realized,” said Jenny, when they were safely out in the open. “How on earth do you put up with that fellow in your cabin?”
“It isn’t my cabin, altogether,” said David, reasonably.
“Don’t split hairs,” said Jenny, “you know perfectly well what I mean. It’s an outrage.”
“That’s what I thought too, at first. Now it’s just a bore. But he was really on his best behavior just now. I was surprised.”
“Exhausted after the chase maybe,” said Jenny. “Let’s look for something to buy. We didn’t buy a thing in Cuba. What kind of tourist is that?”
“What do you want?” asked David, as they walked towards the row of shops on the far side of the plaza.
“I don’t know, let’s give each other a present.” Something of the charmed mood of Havana was in them both again; they caught hands for a moment, and peered into the doorways of shops. “No baskets,” David said, and “No dolls and animals,” said Jenny, as they passed, “no pottery, no jewelry, yet, David, it should be a piece of a native or local art, shouldn’t it?”
“Maybe,” said David doubtfully, “but no sandals, no leather or woodwork.”
“No lace or embroidered linen?” asked Jenny.
“Not for me,” David assured her, firmly.
“Let’s not think about it,” said Jenny, rather wearily, “let’s just go on looking around now and then, and see what happens.”
Suiting their actions to her words, they looked around, and saw what happened. Mrs. Treadwell and Wilhelm Freytag, stepping out of a shop two doors away, wiggled their fingers in greeting and David, to his surprise, wiggled his fingers back at them with no reluctance whatever. Freytag asked, “Where are they? Did you see them?”
“He means our friends the zarzuela company,” said Mrs. Treadwell, also with unusual animation.
“They’re in there,” said Jenny, pointing, “or were, a few minutes ago. Why?”
“They promised to buy the prizes here in Santa Cruz, remember?” Freytag asked David. “Well, they’re picking them up at a great rate—it’s something worth seeing!”
“Let’s see it then,” said David, but as they moved to enter the shop Ric and Rac rushed forth, and their elders followed them in a gracefully composed group, chattering freely among themselves, turning as one body to their right away from their observers, moving swiftly to a shop three doors away, and swarming in, the children running ahead.
The woman whose shop they had just left came outside to give her opinion of them. “Look out for your back teeth!” she shouted to the listening air. “Count your fingers! That kind don’t come to buy!” With a grieving face and shaking hands she sorted over her tumbled disordered merchandise, then spoke dolefully to the Americans: “Pure linen,” she told them, “real lace, all hand-embroidery, fine beautiful things, cheap …” but it was plain she had no hope, her luck was gone for that day, she made no real attempt to attract them. She was too distressed trying to find out what had been stolen from her.
Jenny and David, Freytag and Mrs. Treadwell entered the next shop after the dancers. Pepe, on guard at the door, stepped aside bowing slightly. The shopkeeper was waiting on Frau Schmitt, who was looking for real linen handkerchiefs, with a plain black mourning border. The sudden entrance of this mixed mob of strangers, whom she divided at a glance into respectable and lowlife, unnerved her. She had shown Frau Schmitt box after box of perfectly correct mourning handkerchiefs, but they were all too large or too small, too thick or too thin, the black borders too narrow or too wide, all too expensive or too cheap. In a panic she gathered up the handkerchiefs and spoke shrilly to Frau Schmitt: “Señora, I can do nothing for you! Nothing! Nothing!” for she saw in despair that the respectable strangers were standing back, and the thieving flock of crows was descending upon her.
Frau Schmitt, shocked, deeply hurt at such a change of manner, backed away, and saw with happy surprise her shipmates—not the Spaniards, she did not count them—the odd Americans, odd but nice, after all. She could not help but remember Herr Scott and his good feeling for the poor little woodcarver in the steerage—it was all very well to be stern and cold and right about everything, as the Captain most certainly was, but it was also touching to be human, to love one’s fellow creature, to have mercy on the poor and the unfortunate. In a single thought, she was glad to see Herr Scott’s face here i
n this unfriendly spot, even if it was like a wax face with blue marble eyes. The young woman with him she could not understand, the widow she did not trust, and Herr Freytag had most surely done wrong to pass himself off as a Christian when he was in fact married to a Jew … “Yet, oh God,” said Frau Schmitt plaintively, and made the sign of the Cross with her thumb and forefinger, “what shall I do? Die of my loneliness?”
She moved nearer the group, and they all spoke to her, and smiled, so that she stood near them, and they all saw the same thing, each with his own different way of seeing. The zarzuela company went through their well rehearsed act with their unswerving attention to the business of the moment, with the same bold contempt for the bystander they had shown on board ship, and it was like a play: Amparo and Concha went to one side of the shop, calling to the shopkeeper, distracting her attention by holding up objects and asking the price loudly, both at once. Manolo joined Pepe outside. Pastora and Lola kept up a noisy conversation on the other side of the shop with Pancho and Tito, now and again flurrying their way across to the shopkeeper, carrying some object, turning her eyes from Amparo and Concha, whom she rightly suspected as the ones worth watching. But the whole company was in constant movement, all over the place, running to the door to show Manolo and Pepe what they were thinking of choosing and asking their advice, then back to the shelves to pull down and scatter more stuff and turn it over. Ric and Rac bustled about, always at their best when playing in a show, begging and tormenting: “Please, Mama, buy me this, buy me that,” brandishing whatever they had been able to pick up. Stern Lola then would threaten to smack them, order them to put everything back where they found it, and in a few minutes, sure enough, the whole company surged out of the narrow door, bitterly protesting there was nothing in the place worth having after all, or that they would never pay such bandit prices! This shopkeeper too was left in her little corner burning with helpless fury, all her goods in such disorder she would spend hours searching and folding and counting before she might miss what had been stolen.
It went on, in other plazas, with other witnesses. Herr Professor and Frau Hutten met them piling out of a little cubbyhole jeering and taunting a wild-eyed little man who cursed them for thieves. They laughed their bloodcurdling laugh, and flaunted on. Frau Hutten said to her husband, “They are just the same as they are on the ship! Is there nothing we can do? Where are the police? The Guardia Civil? They look so very able. Where are they? Should we not call them?”
Herr Professor Hutten gave her arm an affectionate squeeze; no doubt about it, what he had found most endearing in her, that quality which outlasted youth, beauty, slenderness, blue-veined breasts, hollow, sweet-smelling armpits and a firm rosy chin was this: her eternal female imbecility of faith that there was a power in this world existing solely for the purpose of rushing infallibly when called upon to the rescue of the innocent and oppressed …
“Call the police,” she said, the dear idiot.
“Listen, my love,” he said, “this is not any country we know, and its customs are strange to us. They cannot like us, we are from another country and speak another language—”
“We speak Spanish as well as they do, and maybe better,” said Frau Hutten, with girlish vanity. Her husband made love to her often now, she was confident as a bride with him. Ever since the night the poor Basque had been drowned rescuing Bébé, her husband had seemed restored to his first manhood again. It made her feel like a young woman, too: she was beginning to look at herself, and to plan what she must do to keep herself attractive; the first thing, to grow thin. The streaks of gray in her hair must be tinted. Her husband would undoubtedly find a professorship in a good German college. She would demand that he have a secretary to free her from the slave-work of research, typing, correcting proofs, the whole tedious existence of a professor’s wife. She would save herself for love.
“You are right,” she said, taking his arm, “it is not our affair, not in the least.”
Frau Schmitt followed Herr Freytag and his friends a few steps into the street, but stopped when she heard him invite his party for a drink. All too obviously she was not included, in fact they seemed to ignore her. It was not of course, could not be, that they intended a rudeness to her; they were lighthearted careless people, thinking only of themselves. Frau Schmitt had her proper pride and it never failed her when she needed it most: wounded she might be, newly widowed and tender, but she would die rather than force her presence where it was not wanted. She returned to the ship after stopping to buy a little sack of candied fruits. She ate morsel by morsel as invisibly as she could, knowing well that only persons of inferior breeding would be seen eating in the streets. She could only hope she was not seen.
Herr Glocken, looking about vaguely for some article of attire to brighten up his shabby suit, fingered with envy the wide scarlet waistbands to be worn only by male dancers, the delightful white pleated bosoms, the coquettish narrow collars of shirts made for bullfighters. The neckties seemed to be either narrow black strings, or so gaudy they could only be intended for masquerades or other fancy dress events. He fingered covetously a fine silk scarf in his favorite color, bright red, and was gathering courage to ask the price, knowing without asking that he must not afford to buy it, when the shopkeeper, a woman riddled with anxiety, spoke to him kindly: “Come inside—I have much better things inside, not expensive—”
Herr Glocken was not such a fool as to think her hardbitten face had a trace of coquetry. She wanted something, but what? Then he heard the all-familiar hateful sounds of the zarzuela company, and the woman said urgently: “Come inside, please. Help me watch them!” He followed her not so much to be of help as for protection, and he backed his hump against the folds of shawls and mantillas.
He saw that the woman was shrewd and wary. She greeted the invaders with a harsh voice, and commanded them all to stay out but one, one only, whoever they chose to come in and buy. As if she had not spoken they rushed and crowded into the little cubby, began pulling at things and asking prices, arguing among themselves. Concha saw Herr Glocken trying to hide. She called in delight, “Oh, look, here is our little luck piece!” and flew to touch his hump. Then each in turn added to the confusion by struggling to reach him. He defended himself by backing more deeply into the shawls and flattening his hands on his shoulders. But they touched him anyway, anywhere they could reach, slapping him sharply with open palms, until he could bear no more. In a panic he broke through and got to the open air, where Ric and Rac, on guard, shrieked and chased him to get their share of good luck, too. Blindly he careered into the Baumgartners, and just beyond them, the Lutzes. Mrs. Lutz again rose instantly to her duties as a mother: all in a breath, she tripped Ric with her foot and sent him sprawling, seized Rac by the arm, smacked her most satisfyingly, and spoke sternly to Herr Glocken: “Why did you not defend yourself? What were you thinking of?”
Ship of Fools Page 50
