The kids went up the stairs also and they walked along Santa Clara overlooking the park below, like a pond of sunny leaves. There were also trees in that part of town, bigger trees even. One of them stood leafless and branchless inside a large glass case, right where it was born and had flourished and died. It was the old tree of Vizcaitia looking through the dusty glass panes of its case at its son, a very large and leafy tree like the others, a short distance away.
That was something, that old tree, and the two kids were always impressed when they came upon it because it was hundreds and hundreds of years old and once upon a time the important men of the province sat under it to take some kind of an oath. The other kid said that any one of the other big trees around that spot might have been the old tree of Vizcaitia if the important men of the province had sat under it and taken their oath many hundreds of years ago, but little Garcia had told him that they probably chose that one because it was the largest then and gave more shade and the others must have been only saplings at the time and so it was considered like something holy by everybody, because the older a thing is, the holier it grows and for this it was the old tree of Vizcaitia and stood in a glass case for everyone to see and respect.
But the kids were not thinking of this as they were watching la Euscarra who was sitting on the edge of a horse trough. She was crying yet for the reason that this was the worst thing that could happen to a woman and she was washing the blood off her face that was all cut and puffed very badly and then she began to fix her hair too. The kids stood there looking at her and the other kid held the knife behind his back because maybe she would want it again. La Euscarra saw them and said to them:
“What are you standing there for? What do you want? What are you staring at?” But she did not holler at them as she always did when they went into her heredad. She talked as if she were choking. So she cried again and told them: “Go away and leave me in peace.” But the kids did not go away as they were no longer afraid and they wanted to see a woman who had had the worst thing happen to her. So they stood there for a while until they saw Begoña coming along.
Begoña did not notice the kids, because he never did, but when he passed his wife he stopped watching her and she covered her face again and began to sob louder. He said nothing though, and only shrugged his wide shoulders. Then he took out a key from his pocket and dropped it on the ground at her feet, so when she saw this through her fingers, she cried even louder yet, but Begoña went on his way walking in that manner of his that the kids tried to imitate because it looked like a Cabo de Gastadores on parade and he went on to his house that was past the other end of the park. After a while, la Euscarra picked up the key and followed her husband.
The kids, having nothing more to do there, decided to go back to the tavern of the Gorriti but when they arrived, almost everybody had gone. Chapelo was still there eating percebes and joking with el Gorriti who did not answer because he was very busy sewing the wet leather cover on a ball and he had to be careful because this was a difficult job that must be done right and nobody else could make balls like el Gorriti.
La Nescacha was putting things in order and then she finished because she said that she was going home and therefore the kids went along with her because, although they had never found out where she lived, it was somewhere else and they still had time before supper for the walk. So the kids walked one on each side of la Nescacha and she had her hands on their shoulders. After a while she saw the other kid was carrying the knife and she said: “What have you there?”
And he said: “That is the knife la Euscarra brought to kill you with, but it belongs to me now.”
“And to me also,” added little Garcia, so the other kid said: “All right.”
La Nescacha laughed, which sounded very pleasant and clear, everything being so quiet all around: “You give me that knife,” she said, “and maybe I will have a collection soon with all these wives who want to kill me and they only talk behind my back and then do nothing because women are like that.” She took the knife from the kid: “You chavales must not have a knife. When you grow up mavbe you will have to fight and then you must do it like men, like me. You don’t understand these things now, which are important things, but you will understand them when you are older,” and she kept the knife.
But the kids understood and besides they did not mind because this was vacation time and this made them very happy and now they never had to go to school and they could play forever and the summertime went on and on. They understood better than the grown-ups because they were still that age when they could even understand eternity and they did not mind anyway because la Nescacha was their friend and she had so much courage and she also gave them anis biscuits with wine and balls to play with. She was a fine girl, la Nescacha.
After that, she said good night and “until we meet again,” which would be the next day and they also said good night and went home for supper. It was dark already.
We were walking home this night; Garcia and I, after seeing a performance of the Spanish Theater and we were commenting about it.
Now, this Spanish Theater in New York, at least at the time of which I speak, was a living and dying monument to the tenacity of Spanish traditions. It had had countless starts under different managements and usuallv performed once a week on Saturdays or Sundays. At present it was run by a very complex character, a Señor Olózaga who was also rumored to own El Telescopio Café, although I have never succeeded in tracking down these rumors.
Señor Olózaga was very vague in his dealings and spoke little of himself or his past. Everything about him was hearsay. I even doubt that he was Spanish, but one doubts so many things. It was known that he had managed bullfighters in Spain and a couple of Spanish prizefighters in this country who had made out rather well for themselves and for him. He seemed to have a finger in every Spanish activity which might yield a dollar, but this last venture of the Spanish Theater appeared to be doomed to financial failure. Its artistic failure had been achieved since its inception. His wife, the Señora Olózaga, better known to the Spanish colony as Tia Mariquita, had a part in every play and it was said that he had taken over the Spanish Theater more as a means to indulge her weakness for the theater. She fancied herself quite the great actress, this Tia Mariquita, and she maintained to have played in Spain on the professional stage, before large audiences, who went delirious with applause and acclaim at her performances and every night turned the stage into a florist shop. She also affirmed that she had performed before the king and queen of Spain by royal command and before tumultuous South American audiences and she reeled off names of cities, like Madrid, Barcelona and Buenos Aires, all scenes of her triumphs, and also the names of famous actors and actresses, such as Morano, Valverde, Vico, Lamadrid and Guerrero and Mendosa, all of whom had considered her their dearest friend and greatest trouper ever. She did not keep her dates and places straight, though.