“Sometimes I wish you were a man. You wouldn’t do this then.”
This was strange because Begoña looked cruel and if he was standing around when the kids played ball and the ball bounced his way, he always struck it hard against the wall and sent it far and then laughed when the kids had to chase it across the park and sometimes he hit it way over the wall of the frontón and onto his wife’s heredad and the kids had to go up the stairs on the side of the park behind the public school building and walk all the way around and past the old tree of Vizcaitia on Santa Clara, to the other side of the court, and when they looked for the ball in the heredad, la Euscarra hollered at them. But Begoña was a great ball player and he had traveled and fought in Morocco and everybody liked and respected him and the kids were proud that he even hit their ball.
Lanky Chapelo was also in the tavern leaning against a wall and talking across the room to the Gorriti. His boina was on the back of his head and a lock of blond hair hung down in front and his mustache was also blond and hung but turned gently at the ends, not sharp like Begoña’s. He was the clown of the handball court and a very uneven player, but when he had one of his good days, no one could match him, everybody said. He was gay and easygoing, this Chapelo, with his fine blue eyes. He was talking to el Gorriti in Spanish and el Gorriti answered little and in Vascuence. They all could speak Vascuence and el Gorriti could also speak Spanish, but they always spoke Spanish and el Gorriti was the only one around who spoke Vascuence most of the time.
The kids only knew by sight the other three men sitting at the table next to the window.
La Nescacha looked up at the kids and said “hello,” being their close friend, and the kids said “hello,” but none of the men noticed them except Chapelo and he smiled their way and they smiled back. Chapelo sometimes played ball with them and acted like a clown, falling down or striking the ball under his leg or backhand like. Then el Gorriti called la Nescacha.
“This porrón is empty, Nescacha.”
She got up and walked on her new patent leather high-heeled shoes. She always had new shoes on with very high heels since la Nescacha liked to be all dressed up with fine clothes and she wore rings in her ears and on her fingers and also bracelets, but she never wore stockings with her fine shoes as the kids could tell by seeing the coppery fuzz on her muscular legs.
La Nescacha took the empty porrón behind the counter and from the small room in the back, she brought out another covered with fresh moisture but before she could lay it on the floor beside her master, el Gorriti took it from her and began to drink and the kids watched him closely. Then la Nescacha filled two glasses with wine and took some biscuits from the shelf and gave them to the kids.
They said “thanks” and she patted their heads and the kids stood outside the door watching the ball game that was in progress. It was not an important game because the Gorriti was sitting inside. If the game was good and Begoña or Chapelo or any of his boys, as the Gorriti called the better players, were out there, he always sat outside in his chair and watched with his porrón beside him. Therefore this was not a good game and the porrón and the Gorriti were inside.
And then the kids saw the woman coming through the park and across the clearing in front of the tavern with people following behind. She was talking loudly and stepping so hard that she raised dust when she crossed the dried clearing where the sun beat. The kids entered the tavern again and then stood to one side of the door to let her pass, but she stopped right at the door. She was la Euscarra, a swarthy and powerfully built woman.
Begoña had one arm around la Nescacha when he saw his wife. He did not remove his arm, though. He only said: “What do you want, woman?”
She shouted in a loud masculine voice that sounded like a man almost: “I want to see your guts in the sun, bad man. I knew you were here carrying on with this girl and I come to tell you that you cannot do that to me,” and she went on like that to insult him using very abusive and bad language.
La Nescacha disengaged herself from Begoña’s arm and, walking around the table, stood before la Euscarra very serene: “Why do you tell him, if you want to tell me? I know you have been talking behind my back. If you have anything against me, tell me.”
“You stay out of this,” la Euscarra said. “I am talking to my man now.”
The other one said: “Yes, you talk to him because you don’t dare talk to me like that. He is a real man and can do nothing. Why do you come here? If you have a quarrel with me, let’s have it over with.”
The kids saw la Euscarra pale under her sunburned skin.
“You are only a fresh girl and you ought to be ashamed to run around with men twice your age. You are not even a woman and you should not try to compete with grown-ups or you will learn a good lesson.”
La Nescacha was very furious then and she said: “I am more of a woman than you will ever be and it will not be you who will teach me any lesson. I run around with him and what are you going to do about it?” And then the two women insulted each other and used vile language.
El Gorriti talked from his chair in the back of the room: “Don’t bring your quarrels here, women.” But then Chapelo, who was spinning his boina on a finger, said that it was better for the men to stay out of women’s troubles and let them fight it out themselves and he also made a joke which made everybody laugh except the kids who did not understand it. Begoña looked unconcerned with a cigarette between his sharp teeth and his face without expression. La Euscarra yelled at him:
“Come home with me, man without conscience. You sit and drink while I work all day in the heredad and I will murder you yet. I am not a woman to play with.”
Begoña removed the cigarette from between his teeth. He pointed the wet end at his wife and he told her: “I am tired of you and I stay. You do what you want. I have heard you many times and others have also heard you say that you were going to kill la Nescacha. Well, she is right in front of you now and I don’t see you do anything.” La Euscarra looked very embarrassed, and he finished: “What are you waiting for?”
And then la Nescacha, hands on swaying hips, closed in on the bigger woman. She had courage, la Nescacha. Her well set-off body was almost rubbing against her rival’s and there was insulting challenge in every curve of it.
“You are going to kill me?” she laughed aloud and impudently up into la Euscarra’s face. “You don’t have what a woman should have to kill. Get out of here now.”
Everybody looked on with great suspense. A crowd of people had collected before the door of the tavern attracted by the loud voices because they all wanted to see the fight between the two women. The kids were still holding their glasses of wine and had forgotten about them. They were afraid for la Nescacha, because they liked her and the other woman always hollered at them when they walked in her heredad after their ball. La Euscarra was not hollering anymore now, though. She was mumbling:
“I won’t go until he comes, and besides I don’t have to go if I don’t want to, as anybody has a right to come in here because this is a tavern.” She was talking stupidly and everybody began to think she was talking this way because she was afraid of la Nescacha, which was very surprising because she was bigger and looked stronger and then she had said she was going to kill la Nescacha. The ball game had stopped also and everything and the day was very quiet and silent so that the kids could hear very plainly the voice of la Nescacha: