“Gracious!” one of the ladies exclaimed. “One can certainly get drunk in a hurry drinking this way.”
“You ought to be spanked, you naughty girl. Don’t be silly! You don’t have to swallow it that fast. Fool them. Make believe you are drinking but take little sips, stopping it with your tongue like this, see?” and he demonstrated expertly. “I believe you are pretty tipsy already. You should get a good spanking, you bad girl.”
I studied the man. He had that peculiar cast to his upper lip and over-sensitive nostrils typical of individuals of his ilk. I had heard the Moor discuss it with Dr. de los Rios. He said that perhaps not all those with such inclinations had that kind of stigma, but that he had never seen one with it who did not have such inclinations. Dr. de los Rios, as usual, had been noncommittal and I was considering it now.
The other lady was eyeing the table occupied by the strongman and the bullfighter with that daring which alcohol induces in her type. She whispered to her companions and the green man laughed with exhibitionistic squeals. I looked in the general direction of somewhere else and a prayer of thanks rose in me at the contrast.
She was all saffron and cream; an extraordinary-looking woman with titian hair and the most enormous mask-like, green, fishy eyes, surrounded by thickly blackened lashes. I recognized her from pictures and posters. So, this was Leonor Amboto, La Colombina, foremost exponent of classical Spanish dance, referred to by critics as priestess and vestal, her existence dedicated to her art, a mysterious woman without family and without love, whose life, the little that was known of it, was miraculously untouched by gossip. With her was the Señor Olózaga, a man whose past life was as mysterious as hers, but because of the conflicting gossip heaped upon it.
This inscrutable man fascinated me because, like Don Pedro, he was a prototype, but whereas the Moor gave the impression of inaccessible recesses, lost in a labyrinth alive with jutting traps, the Señor Olózaga gave the impression of inaccessible recesses locked into a solid stone structure. He was big, fat, with an Oriental countenance that justified the nickname of Chink given him by the Moor, the hair around the bald spot as white as the full droopy mustache.
To listen to all the stories and adventures for which he was praised or condemned, one would have thought that the man had lived for centuries. Everything regarding his life was confused and heresay. Some said that he had been a magnate and political boss in the days of the Spanish colonies, which he left during the Spanish-American War in order to reconquer them later on with more complex business enterprises of more or less legitimate nature. Others, that he had owned coffee and sugar plantations in the West Indies and traded in white slavery, all of which seemed to such persons very reprehensible; that he was a polygamist and had become a widower several times under circumstances that had engaged the attention of the police in various countries. Others, that he was Chinese or Malayan and had only taken Spanish citizenship for reasons of expediency. Even that at one time he had been a champion wrestler and sold out to lose his championship, thus creating a scandal that kept him away from this country several years; that he was a gambler of inconceivable skill and daring and had extended his activities to cover all world markets and create economical crises in various countries. Again, that his real name was not Olózaga but Chinelato, with other aliases, and that under such assorted names he had carried on simultaneously diverse evil activities and bold coups, that in truth, he was a sinister international figure, moving governments like chessmen and that whenever great events shook the world, one could be certain that behind the scenes was the masterful hand of the Chink.
Yet, all that remained from all this dark past splendor was this jovial, old, big gentleman with a strongman whose ambition was to compete with an anvil, a stranded winter bullfighter on his hands, surrounded by several performers he had brought to this country and who had then made good on their own, their only link with him now a fast-fading memory of dubious gratitude; a man who played at palming amateurishly poor theatrical productions on a homesick colony and whose very ownership of El Telescopio was only rumored and still in doubt. All one could see was a fat old man sitting there placidly like a Buddha, smoking a cigar, indeed with the aspect of a prosperous planter with a weakness for women and rum, but also with undying eagerness for any petty promotion, ready to jump at the drop of a coin, a man who could not help trying to use people, whose favorite greeting was: “Just in time to listen to a little proposition—” or: “The very person I was looking for. I want you to do me a little favor—”
It may well be that this was only a blind to hide greater activities, but it is also possible that the Señor Olózaga may have been one of the most ill-judged of men. The Moor had described him in his chromathematical style as a polynomial in x of degree n, all whose terms but one have zero coefficients.
I remember the time I had seen him last before this day. I had gone with Dr. de los Rios to the Museum of Natural History and we met the Señor Olózaga engrossed in the study of the butterfly collection there. He commented that he would have liked to have been an entomologist but the rushing activities of life— It was astonishing and touching. Then we walked along Central Park West, and he and Dr. de los Rios must have known each other long and well because they held an animated conversation about old days in which they mentioned the Philippines, but I did not follow the conversation because I was considering the manner of our meeting and I will always remember him like that — a man with an aura of adventure, looking at dead butterflies.
And now he was sitting at a table, smoking a cigar, drinking rum and talking expansively to La Colombina, and she listened detached, with unfathomable smile, her gestures deliberate, clean-cut, like tiles in a mosaic of circumspection, like a witch casting her spell all around her, but very careful to avoid contamination. This was good: Buddha and the Witch.
Then I looked at the man at the opposite end of the room from La Colombina. He was standing, leaning against something, I don’t remember what, close to the wall. He was tall, slender, with a beautiful build. Very fair and pale, with cold gray eyes and an unaffectedly patronizing manner, he was all romantic arrogance. This was Miguel Pinto, also considered the greatest classical dancer in Spain, whose rivalry with La Colombina was well known. Unlike her, his life was public property and a continuous chain of furious and spectacular love affairs, but like her, he kept his distance and the chasm of their professional jealousy had grown with their fame. It is a sure thing that their meeting in New York was accidental and a source of mutual consternation and their presence at El Telescopio an imposition played by some irresponsible prankster. I thought of the Moor and the Chink.
Dr. Jose de los Rios appeared, acknowledging greetings right and left, and it was obvious that the gathering was now complete. As he passed our table, Don Pedro said: “Hola, Jesucristo,” and de los Rios answered: “Hola, you infidel Moor,” and he moved to the other end of the room where he engaged an elderly couple in conversation.
“Look at him,” Don Pedro was saying. “Every day he looks more like Jesus Christ, with that clean air about him, those blue eyes and light hair and well-kept beard. I used to think that he was Saint Joseph, you know? because of the José, but now I know that the name only threw me off and that he is Jesus son of Mary — if he only wore his hair longer — and as castizo as they come — but who else but a Spaniard? Why, the very Almighty is a Roman Catholic from the albaicín and as castizo and cañi as the next one.” He continued to look in the direction of Dr. de los Rios with fond approvaclass="underline" “Look at him — too bad he does not like me better — and of course, the first one he talks to is the head of the Sociedad Española de Socorro — I tell you: Jesus Christ.”