On entering I immediately saw Don Pedro. The old maestro was holding forth at a table surrounded by an improvised clique and unquestionably he had begun to test his drinking capacity early. Greeting acquaintances as I passed, I hurried to join his group and found a place near him.
The Moor was talking in that voluble, disjointed and kidding way of his, as he did whenever he was happy or surrounded by several people, which is the same thing. He stopped in the middle of a sentence and fixed me with his most theatrical and Mephistophelian look without saying anything, holding the suspense for no reason at all. Then without taking his eyes from me, he waved and ordered loudly: “Wine for the gentleman, and don’t throw the bottle; this one is not very adept.” He cut the end of the sentence in midair with the edge of his hand and the long and dramatic silence continued; he regarded me, his head and eyes brushing approval up and down my perplexity, until the waiter arrived with the wine. Only then, he released his grip on the audience: “Very good, man, very good,” and turned again to the table.
As if this had been a signal to break ranks, everyone around began to talk and I began to survey the company.
It was incredible. From one end of the room to the other, and most of the tables were occupied, practically everybody was drinking out of a bottle. The scene was one of almost ritualistic bacchanalia. To think that this was happening on Manhattan Island was surrealistically comical. I reached for my bottle.
Don Pedro distinguished me again: “How do you like it? Not bad, not bad; like babies drinking out of the biberón,” and with impudent disdain he lifted his glass of sherry in silent toast to the gathering. This was the limit. After he had got almost everybody drinking out of the bottle, he chose to drink out of a glass.
“I tell you,” he continued, “these Spaniards are extraordinary. The moment they leave Spain they don’t know what it’s all about any more than the Americans. In fact, anyone outside of Spain doesn’t know what it’s all about—” His thumb grazed his lower lid and the palm of his hand slid down an invisible undulating toboggan: “Like this sherry. You see?” The same thumb pointed at a girl sitting at our table who was all smiles and admiration. She was the American vocalist in his band — his Trilby as someone had said once — and obviously a tourist there. She exuded the happy, breathless expectancy of one gloating in the contemplation of a chamber of horrors. “Look at her.” He glowered at her with fingers stretched under his chin: “Boo!” he ejaculated and she winced but recovered at once:
“You can’t frighten me or anybody else, Gus, old boy. We all know you. Under that exterior—”
“Quiet!” he expostulated with paternal authority. “She does not have much up here,” pointing at his head, “but she is good.” He gave her a kindly look and lifted his glass to her: “The sherry, remember? Completely misinformed about it. She read some place that good sherry has a nutty flavor— Paradisiac innocence!” He lowered his voice, imparting the esoteric knowledge: “Good sherry tastes of breast, you know, teat. That’s what any good catador will tell you in Spain. Put a rubber nipple on the bottle and you are in your second childhood. That’s why we call wine the milk of old people— Nutty flavor indeed!” He eyed her sideways while addressing the rest: “Nuts to you, sister!” and roared his laughter. “Not bad, eh? Nuts to you.”
“That’s not fair,” the girl was whimpering. “You talk in Spanish so that I cannot understand what you are saying and then you finish in English, ‘nuts to you,’ and I don’t think that’s fair.” But one could see that she was enjoying it all.
“That’s not fair, that’s not fair,” he mimicked. “That’s what she is always saying. I tell you: doesn’t know what it’s all about,” he mused thoughtfully. “Fair, fair— The moment one leaves Spain, one finds this obsession with fairness. I never heard the word as long as I lived there—”
I let him ramble on and again began to take stock of the people gathered there. At our table and aside from the Moor, there was no one of particular distinction that I knew of. True, there was Garcia but perhaps I knew him too well to consider him distinguished, and his retiring manner, albeit his prematurely white hair, did not contribute to make him outstanding. He was sitting at the other end of the table in his usual melancholy mood and more than usual dejection, clutching a bottle like an anchor; but again, the presence of the Moor always seemed to make him shrink. He waved at me in dismay. I sighted the faces one by one, along the sides of the bottle. Someone sitting by the windows said loudly enough for me to hear that Dr. de los Rios had just driven up and was getting out of his car. I continued to sight the faces, closing one eye and looking with the other.
And then I met his eyes. He was sitting opposite me at the other end of the long table, near Garcia. It was that Fulano something-or-other, the little meek man I had met once before. There were the thick lenses that met my eyes with an impact which then melted into yielding suction. I could not look away and my hand came down slowly and set the bottle on the table. The thick lenses acted like microscopes focused in his interior and I was once more in the extraordinary position of reading a man’s mind, suddenly, without warning, in this incongruous place:
This time his thoughts were not willful daydreaming like the last time. He was concerned and obviously very much concerned with his dreams which had taken place when asleep. He was going through them and remembered them well enough. There was that one about the woman who had kidnapped a child under circumstances that made it the horror crime of the century. He was not clear on whether the woman had been finally located, caught, or had given herself up. His mind concentrated on the last possibility because his thoughts, which had thus far been a hazy jumble, sprang into brilliant colors.
The woman had announced that she would give herself up, that she would return of her own accord with the body of the child to make whatever amends were expected. He was standing on Riverside Drive, looking up the Hudson River, and the whole length of the drive was packed with an expectant mob, clamoring for justice, long cordons of police endeavoring to hold it back, swaying back and forth all along and all the way from the line of buildings to the shore that was devoid of train tracks and had a very narrow beach.
Then they saw the little rowboat floating down the river with the woman in it. The day was very bright and everything on the other side and up the river very clear and there were millions of extended arms, pointing fingers like the bayonets of a marching army.
The boat turned and slowly, with deliberation, made for the shore. As the boat approached, the angry roar of the mob rose, fearfully, brutal avenging, like a howling storm. When the boat reached the embankment, the woman bent over, picked the body of the child up from the bottom of the boat and stood up facing the mob. He could see her clearly although she was quite distant from where he stood. She was wearing a dirty white sweater, a brick-colored skirt and a black beret. She waded calmly toward the beach bearing the child’s body in her arms, walked straight into them and then the mob broke loose and engulfed her.
Then he decided to go home but it was difficult to find it in this enormous city. The town was enlarged and idealized to fantastic proportions. The buildings were like mountains and their lower part carved out of the very rock in immense arches and columns, the roofs so enormous that what amounted to cities were built upon them. And here he must find his own little room, his home, and yet it was pleasant to be thus lost and to look so hopelessly for a home.
Going up the buildings was like climbing a sierra. He knew that his room was not up there, that it was down below, way down, but as he did not know where it was, he could always explain that he was looking for it, should anyone question his motives. It was a good reason and he wanted to go up.