“I am going away!” the man almost screamed, and he rushed toward the door where he met Lunarito and the woman Carmen bringing in the casseroles with the paella. Lunarito stood aside, holding the heavy casserole with both hands, a towel wrapped around it: “Are you not going to stay to eat?”
“No. I ate already. I believe in eating at a civilized hour and in the middle of the day only a light lunch. I, for one, watch my figure.” It was pitiful.
“But if only for the company, stay a while.”
The woman called Carmen said that she was not going to stand there while they argued: “This thing is heavy and hot.” She walked to the table and planted the casserole on top of a pad.
“No. I am going. I wouldn’t stay anyway and eat with this man — and I still think that Spaniards are backwards and crazy, and when they insist on remaining the same after they have the fortune of leaving Spain, I think they are crazier still. So there!” The man was indignant in earnest. He stood at the door surveying us all superciliously and then spat down his shoulder the words: “Good-bye, Spaniards,” and walked down the corridor.
The Moor greeted that parting shot with triumphant and louder laughter. He had attained his point and now was wiping his eyes and still laughing some more.
When we heard the front door bang, Dr. de los Rios regarded the Moor reproachfully and said without much conviction: “Satisfied now? You made the poor man go away in a huff. What a Moor!”
“Yes, you know? Very satisfied. That is not a man; it is an emetic, and although one knows the inclinations of which Moors have been often accused, that is not one of mine. One gets tired of the fellow and of stepping on his verbal droppings. It has reached the point that whenever he arrives someplace, people go away. It is high time that one begins to stay and make him go— But let’s attend to something more pleasant, like this paella.” He reached unceremoniously and began to pile his plate: “Look at that rice! I tell you—” He frowned at a clam speared in his fork and chewed it with concentration.
“All right, eh?” said Lunarito. “No shells to bother with, and if only the chicken had no bones—”
“And perhaps you would also want the peppers and the chorizos without the skins? What kind of a paella is this? If we continue with the refinements, it is going to be like the refrigerator — the vanishing paella.” He began to pour the wine all around while the others were helping themselves to food. He had a way of becoming the host wherever he was. Everybody began to talk, mainly on the subject of this country. It is the usual thing in front of new arrivals from one’s land. It is the necessity of explaining a different people and its different habits and sense of values and also of explaining one’s own minor concessions and surrenders, almost like giving them a new tariff on life. The bullfighter, however, was not listening. He was telling and seemed well satisfied with his rash appraisal of the country which he was almost explaining to all the others with that authority which comes from lack of familiarity with a subject. Without hesitation, he listed what was wrong with the country, what was right, and what was fantastic, insane and incomprehensible to any person with common sense. Because of his misadventure with the Señor Olózaga, he had soon found out about the ASPCA — he pronounced it Aspca — and was talking about it. He mentioned that he had seen a moving picture of a bullfight in Mexico and that the part when the torero kills the bull as well as the placing of picas and banderillas had been suppressed, but not the part where a bull gored and killed the torero: “Well, I think a man is at least as deserving as an animal,” he concluded with moving candor.
“It is not the Aspca you are thinking of, but the Society for the Extermination of Men, of which Dr. Jesucristo here is president,” the Moor was bantering. “The trouble with you is that you have no conception of foreign sportsmanship. Have you ever heard about fox hunting? Of course not. You are a torero of sorts and have no feeling for the chase.”
El Cogote pursued his theories with obstinacy: “They are crazy, but absolutely crazy. From home to the office and then back home. No life at all, but only work from morning to night. No loitering, no killing time, no nothing. Only the other day in the subway — you know — one of those big crowds was waiting and then the train arrived, and when the doors opened, the people inside rushed out and the people outside rushed in, all at the same time. Like two bulls in a head-on collision and no one gave ground. They stood there and fought it to a dead heat, toe to toe, knee to knee, shoulder to shoulder; and in the end, the doors were closed again and those who were in stayed in, and those who were out stayed out. Now I ask you—” He interrupted himself to eat some more but held up a hand all the while to forestall any objections: “And the restaurants— Last week with Carmen here. She will bear me out— You know they don’t put a bottle of water on the table as we always do.” He pointed at the bottles of water which, incidentally, no one had touched. “And they don’t drink any wine with their food, and so I forgot myself and asked the waiter in Spanish to bring some water and of course he looked blank, which was not surprising, so I repeated only the word, mind you — I know now that the word in English is ‘water’, but I didn’t know it then — and I repeated as clearly as possible ‘agua’ and went like this, you know.” He pointed with his thumb toward his open mouth. “Nothing. So, and I am very patient, I repeated the word slowly, almost spelling it out. You’d think anyone would have understood, but not that waiter. He stood there, stiff as Don Tancredo, until Carmen here picked up a glass — mind you, they put glasses on the table and no wine or water— and showed it to him and then he understood. I ask you again— This lack of water everywhere. I have never been so thirsty — and also lack of public places where to get rid of it.” I looked at Garcia, remembering an experience that I am sure he wanted to forget “Once more, I ask you—” but he barred any answer with raised hand while chewing rapidly. He went on to praise highly the status of women in this country, that they could go about the streets by themselves without the men pinching them or dropping obscenities in their ears. This seemed to impress him very much, but immediately he regretted having found a tendency in the majority to flat chests, being too tall and having exceedingly long feet. This worried him and he was not certain what to attribute it to:
“I don’t know whether it is due to the independence, or maybe those sensible shoes they wear, which I think make for an ungainly walk. I still think that independence or no independence, the only sensible thing for a woman is to look pretty. I remember some of those women back in our land, walking so gracefully and lightly; as they say, like a bit of paper blown by the wind. But I think it is wonderful for women to be so self-reliant. Just like men, you know?”
Don Pedro stopped eating just long enough to say: “If you continue along that line, you will soon be talking like the green man. Look, you have only been a few months in this country. You still don’t speak or understand the language and cannot even read the newspapers, but already you know what is wrong and what is right with the whole country. A lifetime is not enough to understand a country, or anything for that matter.” He spoke to de los Rios: “I tell you, these Spaniards are ineffable. One glance at a situation and they know all about it.”
Dr. de los Rios was temporizing as usuaclass="underline" “That is not an exclusive Spanish trait. You can hear most people, when they are in the mood, not only finding what’s right or wrong with a country, but with life itself.”
“This Dr. Jesucristo, always with the cape to the feint.” He moved his arm imperceptibly, yet his gesture was so eloquent and well-aimed that for a moment one could see the bull coming out of a pica and being suctioned by the cape in the most decelerating veronica. Instantly El Cogote was on his feet. With his serviette, he made two very stylized low passes and ended with a half veronica that as far as form could not be improved: “And I could show you a farol — but I have no room here.” He sat down again: “Excuse me. I was carried away. It is a long time since I have felt the tools in my hands.”