“Never mind — now I have a surprise for you.”
“What is it?”
“Guess who is here.”
“A lot of imbeciles, I am sure. I could mention them to you. I still remember most of them.”
“No. Your son is here.”
“Legitimate or illegitimate?”
“Oh, quite legitimate.”
“Which one?” Paco had stood up: “Is it Ricardito?”
“No. Ricardo died at a hospital in Barcelona last year.”
“Oh, he did. ” Serrano said this flatly.
“Yes, from consumption.”
There was a silence.
“Then it is Jacintito. How did you find him?”
“I met him tonight. The Marquis of N. introduced him. When I heard his name, of course I knew who he was, together with other things I had already heard. I did not tell him you would be here in case you did not want to see him. Shall I bring him in?”
Paco hesitated, he pressed his lips together and joined his fingertips. Then he swung around and sat on the arm of the chair looking down at his dirty attire. “I don’t know, I don’t know. ”
“Don’t worry. He won’t be more ashamed of you than you will be of him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Paco, what a family!” She had laid her hands on his shoulders: “Paco, do you really think it is too late? Have you lost all hope?”
“Too late for what? Hope for what?”
“Everything, Paco. You still have me. You will always have me. Say the word and you will be master of all this. You will own everything I have.”
Paco looked at her but his gaze was centered upon his own souclass="underline" “You know, Laura? There is greatness in what you say, but I think I would rather have your charity. It has been worth living until tonight to see what a great character you have. I don’t think I will see you again. Perhaps I only came to hear you say what you did and also to find my son.”
“Do you want to see him?”
“Yes; bring him in.”
“But remember my offer, Paco. Think it over. I shall always be waiting with open arms. But if it is going to annoy you, I will never mention it again.”
A wave of music flooded the room as she went out, then it was silenced again by the closing door. Paco stood still. For a moment he felt an overwhelming desire to run after her, to cry, “Yes, I accept!” but he checked himself and the fear of his decision descended upon him like a cold draft. He slid down into the chair, adjusted his clothes and brushed off his coat with the palm of his hand. Then he lighted a cigarette and waited.
He listened absently to the music that filtered into the chamber. He straightened himself and listened more attentively.
They were playing the waltz “Caballero de Gracia” from La Gran Via. The music brought back his whole life. He remembered the first night he had heard it. He too was a caballero then, a graceful caballero, pampered by Madrid. He had thought that when old, he would be as graceful and neat as that old crisp dandy who sang it on the stage, like the gentlemen he imagined listening to it now, dancing to it, without hiding, shining in society as he had shone once. And what was he now?
He heard a transparent, silvery laugh behind him. It was so vivid that he almost turned around. It was a mocking laugh, the same laugh he had often heard since his wife’s death— Yes, what was he now? Perhaps still a caballero, a gentleman in the Spanish sense of the word. His hands were fine, his fingers long, although his nails were broken and dirty. He was a caballero, but not graceful. He was a disgraced caballero.
Now, in the intermission between dances, they were playing the “Jota de los Ratas.” It pierced through his ears like a jesting deadly gimlet of persistent sarcasm. Was he a caballero? Perhaps, but he was this now: a rata, a petty thief, a crook. It was not the shame of it, it was the failure it represented that wounded him; to be a rata, hiding from the light. In a few moments the music had framed his life, had brought a realization of things upon him, of the wretchedness that was his. It was a cruel parody of his truth. It had happened as if carefully prepared, as if it were a sentimental snare, a trap where he had been caught like the rat he was.
The music had changed. They were playing a well-known tango. He had heard it in Paris a few nights ago, where the whole city swayed to its rhythm with the tango fad above and below street level. His present rose before him. He threw the cigarette in the fireplace and buried his face in his hands until another flood of music filled the room. He lifted his head. In the door stood Laura and Jacinto.
Paco rose slowly. Father and son looked at one another for some moments, the son with superficial curiosity, the father probingly:
“Jacinto.”
“Father.”
They embraced tightly.
“Jacinto— Jacintito— It has been a long time. I suppose you did not even remember your father?”
Jacinto leaned his head on his father’s shoulder and played with the dirty lapel. Paco looked down and frowned slightly. There was an incipient smile on the lips of Laura worthy of the Gioconda. She said: “I must go back to my guests now. I will leave you two alone. You must have a great deal to talk about — and Jacinto, don’t keep your Marquis waiting too long.” Her laugh was drowned by the music.
Paco had disengaged himself from his son and his eyes narrowed and seemed to stretch as if to grasp the whole scene, its meaning and the meaning of this entangled world. His look was abstract. Then he said to his son: “Jacinto, I gather that you have managed to keep ahead of the times — but one has to live.”
“Possibly. And I notice that you have remained behind the times — but one must not die.”
“Very probably,” and Paco’s face grew horribly cynical. “Perhaps we can get together and synchronize ourselves to life in the happy medium of convenience.”
And so they did. The last that was heard from them is that together they were leading the same outlaw existence and that the father was speculating on the eccentricities of the son.
Then they say that they joined the famous band of Bonnot, and that in the last raid on this band, they died fighting like fiends to the last.
La Torre, who was fond of making round sentences, used to say that Paco Serrano as a caballero had proved to be a regular bandit, but that as a bandit he had behaved like a true caballero.
Some other people said that it was only Paco who died in that raid and that his son Jacinto escaped, and during the war of 1914 he was raided with other apaches in Paris, that he joined the army and died on the field of battle.
Whether he died bravely or not, no one says, and since one has accepted so many novelistic touches, shall one give him the benefit of a glorious ending?
Garcia pocketed his papers satisfied, and I stretched and shifted my position on the sofa.
The women had not returned since they went to the kitchen. El Cogote had turned on the radio some time before, which was the signal for the Moor to leave, carrying Dr. de los Rios with him without bothering to say good-bye. It had also awakened Bejarano, who sat up while Garcia finished, again frowning but not listening. It was not his professional frown, it was the ferocious scowl of bad temper, of one gathering his wits after a heavy sleep. I thought he must have had a nightmare which shattered all his good intentions of being a polite host, but later I learned that he always woke up in a terrible mood. He mumbled something about having to get ready for his show and we left.
On our way out Garcia confided: “I think I will leave it the Merry Widow waltz. It must have been at the height of its popularity about the time of these happenings.”
But all this happened the last time I had been at the Bejaranos’. On this particular occasion and what I began to say is that the Moor and I went to see Bejarano at another and smaller apartment he kept for himself, where he could entertain his lady friends under more auspicious circumstances.