“A little rough at the end.”
“Figúrate. Imagine it. It’s a big norther. Have you eaten?”
“There’s nothing to eat.”
“I brought eggs and the milk and bread. Tú,” he said to the second houseboy. “Go in and prepare the caballero’s breakfast. How do you want the eggs?”
“As usual.”
“Los huevos como siempre,” Mario said. “Was Boise there to meet you?”
“Yes.”
“He has suffered very much this time. More than ever.”
“And the others?”
“Only one bad fight between Goats and Fats.” He used the English names proudly. “The Princessa was a little sad. But it was nothing.”
“¿Y tú?”
“Me?” He smiled shyly and very pleased. “Very well. Thank you very much.”
“And the family?”
“All very well, thank you. Papa is working again.”
“I am glad.”
“He is, too. Did none of the other gentlemen sleep here?”
“No, They all went into town.”
“They must be tired.”
“They are.”
“There were calls from various friends. I have them all written down. I hope you can recognize them. I can do nothing with the English names.”
“Write them as they sound.”
“But they do not sound the same to me as to you.”
“Did the Colonel call?”
“No sir.”
“Bring me a whisky with mineral water,” Thomas Hudson said. “And bring milk for the cats, please.”
“In the dining room or here?”
“The whisky here. The milk for the cats in the dining room.”
“Instantly,” Mario said. He went to the kitchen and came back with a whisky and mineral water. “I think it is strong enough,” he said.
Should I shave now or wait until after breakfast? Thomas Hudson thought. I ought to shave. That’s what I ordered the whisky for, to get me through the shaving. All right, go in and shave then. The hell with it, he thought. No. Go in and do it. It’s good for your damned morale and you have to go into town after breakfast.
Shaving, he sipped the drink halfway through lathering, after lathering, and during the process of relathering, and changing blades three times in getting the two-week stubble off his cheeks, chin, and throat. The cat walked around and watched him while he shaved and rubbed against his legs. Then suddenly he bounded out of the room and Thomas Hudson knew he had heard the milk bowls being put down on the tiled floor of the dining room. He had not heard the click himself nor had he heard any calling. But Boise had heard it.
Thomas Hudson finished shaving and poured his right hand full of the wonderful ninety-degree pure alcohol that was as cheap in Cuba as miserable rubbing alcohol in the States and doused it over his face, feeling its cold bite take away the soreness from the shaving.
I don’t use sugar, nor smoke tobacco, he thought, but by God I get my pleasure out of what they distill in this country.
The lower parts of the bathroom windows were painted over because the stone paved patio ran all around the house, but the upper halves of the windows were of clear glass and he could see the branches of the palm trees whipping in the wind. She’s blowing even heavier than I thought. There would almost be time to haul out. But you can’t tell. It all depends on what she does when she goes into the northeast. It certainly had been fun not to think about the sea for the last few hours. Let’s keep it up, he thought. Let’s not think about the sea nor what is on it or under it, or anything connected with it. Let’s not even make a list of what we will not think of about it. Let’s not think of it at all. Let’s just have the sea in being and leave it at that. And the other things, he thought. We won’t think about them either.
“Where would the señor like to have breakfast?” Mario asked.
“Any place away from the puta sea.”
“In the living room or in the señor’s bedroom?”
“In the bedroom. Pull out the wicker chair and put the breakfast on a table by it.”
He drank the hot tea and ate a fried egg and some toast with orange marmalade.
“Is there no fruit?”
“Only bananas.”
“Bring some.”
“Are they not bad with alcohol?”
“That is superstition.”
“But while you were away a man died in the village from eating bananas when he was drinking rum.”
“How do you know he wasn’t just a banana-eating rummy who died from rum?”
“No, señor. This man died very suddenly from drinking a small amount of rum after eating a large quantity of bananas. They were his own bananas from his garden. He lived on the hill behind the village and worked for the route number seven of the buses.”
“May he rest in peace,” Thomas Hudson said. “Bring me a few bananas.”
Mario brought the bananas, small, yellow, ripe, from the tree in the garden. They were hardly bigger, peeled, than a man’s fingers and they were delicious. Thomas Hudson ate five of them.
“Observe me for symptoms,” he said. “And bring the Princessa to eat the other egg.”
“I gave her an egg to celebrate your return,” the boy said. “I also gave an egg to Boise and to Willy.”
“What about Goats?”
“The gardener said it was not good for Goats to eat much until his wounds are healed. His wounds were severe.”
“What sort of a fight was it?”
“It was very serious. They fought for nearly a mile. We lost them in the thorn brush beyond the garden. They fought with no noise at all; the way they fight now. I don’t know who won. Big Goats came in first and we took care of his wounds. He came to the patio and lay beside the cistern. He couldn’t jump to the top of it. Fats came in an hour later and we cared for his wounds.”
“Do you remember how loving they were when they were brothers?”
“Of course. But I am afraid now that Fats will kill Goats. He must weigh nearly a pound more.”
“Goats is a great fighting cat.”
“Yes, señor. But figure out for yourself what a full pound means.”
“I don’t think it can mean as much in cats as it does in fighting cocks. You think of everything in terms of fighting chickens. It doesn’t mean much in men unless one man must weaken himself to make the weight. Jack Dempsey weighed only 185 pounds when he won the championship of the world. Willard weighed 230. Goats and Fats are both big cats.”
“The way they fight, a pound is a terrible advantage,” Mario said. “If they were being fought for money, no one would give away a pound. They would not give away ounces.”
“Bring me some more bananas.”
“Please, señor.”
“You really believe that nonsense?”
“It’s not nonsense, señor.”
“Then bring me another whisky and mineral water.”
“If you order me to.”
“I ask you to.”
“If you ask, it is an order.”
“Then bring it.”
The boy brought in the whisky with ice and cold, charged mineral water and Thomas Hudson took it and said, “Observe me for symptoms.” But the worried look on the boy’s dark face made him tire of the teasing and he said, “Truly, I know it will not make me sick.”
“The señor knows what he is doing. But it was my duty to protest.”
“That’s all right. You’ve protested. Has Pedro come yet?”
“No, señor.”
“When he comes tell him to have the Cadillac ready to go to town at once.”
Now you take a bath, Thomas Hudson said to himself. Then you dress for Havana. Then you ride into town to see the Colonel. What the hell is wrong with you? Plenty is wrong with me, he thought. Plenty. The land of plenty. The sea of plenty. The air of plenty.