Sandoval had faced the problem of buying stock, of getting jewels for the jewelry shop. After the initial expenses, renting the place and the floor above and buying furniture, he had very little left. The day the doors were opened to the public, there was a plain sign outside which read Joyeria La Estrella. In the window there were half a dozen knives, forks and spoons very finely made and the best to be had. Inside the store the shelves and counter were curtained in velvet: “So that the public will think that the treasures are hidden there,” as Sandoval told Ledesma that memorable day.
In later years he used to say jokingly: “I was an early pioneer of the Anti-display Curiosity-arousing League which has invaded these modern days of fake merchandising.”
“But how did you manage without stock?” some friend would ask him. “Suppose someone came in to buy something that was neither knives nor forks?”
“I sold them spoons.”
“But supposing still that they wanted something else?”
“I sold some things on samples and then got the stuff on credit. In other cases I would say that a particular thing had to be made in France. You know the allure France still has for Spaniards who buy in Spain. I did a number of things to pull me out of every difficult situation. I gathered prestige and then a friend lent me money to buy some private stock. After that the business sailed beautifully and. here I am.”
“Here you are and all your plans worked out.”
“Yes, mine and Ledesma’s. I got the jewelry shop in Madrid and made a success of it, but this wouldn’t have been possible without Ledesma. That fellow has literally slaved for me.”
“Everything worked out exactly as planned.”
The rise and fall of the Sandoval family was a thing which people in Madrid commented about for a long time.
After the Sandovals came to Madrid, they rose steadily and rapidly. They owned a good business in town. Despite their wealth, however, the aristocracy of the town had closed its doors to them. They were obviously newly rich, at least the older generation, and behaved as such publicly.
At the present moment, money has more weight in Spain and it could conceivably pave the road to a higher social level. Not then, though, when the Sandoval family rose.
Unfortunately, as society grew more lax, disgrace closed upon the Sandovals whose fall was as steady and fast as its rise. Misfortune persecuted them mercilessly and for many years it was like a siege. As many people in Madrid say, it seemed as if a curse hung upon the family.
According to many, the Sandovals did everything in their power to precipitate misfortune. Of course people in Madrid contribute their own theories to every gossip which trails along the town, but several of them knew the family closely enough to discover the authentic facts.
It was known to everybody that the Sandovals were boastful and ostentatious, that incompetence in the younger generation annihilated the business, that discord reigned among them, that, as they would say now, neuroses ran in every member of the family, but as they said then, they were all crazy in the head.
There were many things said about the Sandovals. Things spoken too loudly to be believed and things spoken too softly to be understood. But through that struggle against misfortune and against themselves, the stronger walked quietly upon the road which leads to peaceful rest; the others scattered wildly in that sad stampede of the weaklings toward oblivion.
Doña Rosario had once said almost prophetically: “The place where people are brought up has a decided influence upon their lives, it charts their existence which acquires in time almost the same shape that their place of origin and early development presents.”
And Ledesma had answered cautiously: “One should never generalize. In that case everybody who has been brought up in the same place would have exactly the same kind of life to live,” and she persisted: “They usually do.”
Ledesma granted politely but not convinced: “Perhaps.”
However, the life of the Sandovals ran very much in the same style of the city they came from, Jauja and its characteristic sloping ground, if that is what Doña Rosario meant. It was accidented inasmuch as it rose and then descended, but the temperament of the Sandovals always ran true to form. It always traveled in a straight line and only the accidents of life met it occasionally. Sometimes it seemed as if the depths rose to the plane of their existence.
That family was broken like the houses of Jauja, their path was accidented, their temperament straight as if it found, by thus continuing, its restful level on the slanting ground.
Had it not happened in this age, it would have very well formed a legend. However, the happenings are too recent and only constitute gossip, but considering that the gossip of today forms the legend of tomorrow, one may assume that this story will accumulate with time a certain degree of significance worth recording.
Garcia looked at me over the page he was reading and which I noticed with relief was the last: “I expect to write the facts exactly as I learned them and only change the names and places slightly in order to avoid the accusation of libel and also to spare some people any embarrassment.” He resumed his reading:
At this time of true narratives, biographies and earnest confessions, when many people seem convinced that even if truth is not stranger than fiction, it leaves more to the imagination, it is well to risk this deficient account of unreliable data, too short and incomplete to be considered the biography of a family or even to satisfy this general thirst for supposed truth. But as things when written have an inevitable tendency to wrap themselves in the unfitting garments of secondhand literature, this will probably turn out to be but a grotesque parody of what once was truth.
He began to stack up his papers and pocket them: “Well?”
“Oh, it is fine, fine — the only thing: to come all the way to New York to write a novel about a family in Spain. ”
“I did not come here to write it, you ought to know that. I am here and I happened to think of writing it. That’s all.”
“But who is going to read it? Unless it is for your own satisfaction or records. ”
“I am not thinking of publishing it in Spanish here. I have in mind one or two publishing houses in Latin America, or perhaps even Spain, although I would rather — but what I was really thinking is that you might help me with the English translation. I will show you some other parts I have already written out, even if they still need a little polishing.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. My English is not so good. I think that an American. ”
“Now, come, it would not be the same thing. You come over to my place one of these nights and I will show you what I have written.”
“All right. We’ll see.”
The seats were getting hard and in spite of all the wine, or maybe because of it, I was growing a bit chilly and this was summer. It seems that with a man away from his native land the weather is like the coffee, either too hot or too cold. We both stretched.
“Let’s go in and watch the billiards.”
“It is getting late,” I said, “and I will have to be going. I am having dinner with Dr. de los Rios.”
“Come in for a while anyway and let us finish these in the barroom.”
Bottles in hand we went through the dining room which was empty at this time of day and into the barroom with the billiard tables.
The bartender was leaning on the bar following the progress of the game, his chin firmly planted on the heel of his hand, yet his head bobbing up and down. He was chewing gum. When he saw us he came immediately to attention, but Garcia waved him at ease and he resumed his acquiescent pose with relish. The men playing were mostly Basque and laborers, probably factory workers, one could see from their good clothes. At one table they were playing plain billiards with three balls, and at the other, some Spanish version of the game with a dish in the middle of the table which had some coins in it.