“Suppose you drink de wat-tah here, sah, you cahn-not stay away!”
„En otros paises, senor, otros lugares, dicen manana. Pero, por aca, senor, se dice ningun!”
And so forth.
Limekiller had perambulated every street and lane, had circumambulated town. Like every town and the one sole city in British Hidalgo, St. Michael’s had no suburbs. It was clustered thickly, with scarcely even a vacant lot, and where it stopped being the Town of St. Michael of the Mountains, it stopped. Abruptly. Here was the Incorporation; there were the farms and fields; about a mile outside the circumambient bush began again.
He could scarcely beat every tree, knock on every door. He was too shy to buttonhole people, ask if they had seen a knockout redhead. So he walked. And he looked. And he listened. But he heard no women’s voices, speaking with accent from north of the northern border of Mexico. Finally he grew a little less circumspect.
To Mr. John Paul Peterson, Prop., the Emerging Nation Bar and Club:
“Say. are there any other North Americans here in town?”
As though Limekiller had pressed a button, Mr. Peterson, who until that moment had been only amiable, scowled an infuriated scowl and burst out, “What the Hell they want come here for? You think them people crazy? They got richest countries in the world, which they take good care keep it that way; so why the Hell they want come here? Leave me ask you one question. Turn your head all around. You see them table? You see them booth? How many people you see sitting and drinking at them table and them booth?”
Limekiller’s eyes scanned the room. The question was rhetorical. He sighed. “No one,” he said, turning back to his glass.
Mr. Peterson smote the bar with his hand. “Exactly!” he cried. “No one! You not bloody damn fool, boy. You have good eye in you head. Why you see no one? Because no one can afford come here and drink, is why you see no one. People can scarce afford eat! Flour cost nine cent! Rice cost fifteen cent! Lard cost thirty-four cent! Brown sugar at nine cent and white sugar at eleven! D.D. milk twen-ty-one cent! And yet the tax going up, boy! The tax going up!“
A line stirred in Limekiller’s mind. “Yes — and, ‘Pretty soon rum going to cost fifteen cents,’” he repeated. Then had the feeling that (in that case) something was wrong with the change from his two- shillings piece. And with his having made this quotation.
“What you mean, ''fifteen cent’?” demanded Mr. Peterson, in a towering rage. Literally, in a towering rage; he had been slumped on his backless chair behind the bar, now stood up to his full height. and it was a height, too. “ Whattt? ‘Fif-teen-cent?’ You think this some damn dirty liquor booth off in the bush, boy? You think you got swampy,” referring to backwoods distilled goods, “in you glass? What 'fifteen cent?’ No such thing. You got pure Governor Morgan in you glass, boy, never cost less than one shilling, and pretty soon going to be thirty cent, boy: thir-ty-cent! And for what? For the Queen can powder her nose with the extra five penny, boy?” Et cetera. Et cetera.
Edwin Rodney Augustine Bickerstaff, Royal British Hidalgo Police (sitting bolt-upright in his crisp uniform beneath a half-length photograph of the Queen’s Own Majesty):
“Good afternoon, sir. May I help you, sir?”
“Uh. yes! I was wondering… uh… do you know if there are any North Americans in town?”
Police-sergeant Bickerstaff pondered the question, rubbed his long chin. “Any North Americans, you say sir?”
Limekiller felt obliged to define his terms. “Any Canadians or people from the States.”
Police-sergeant Bickerstaff nodded vigorously. “Ah, now I understand you, sir. Well. That would be a matter for the Immigration Officer, wouldn’t you agree, sir?”
“Why… I suppose. Is he in right now?” This was turning out to be more complex than he had imagined.
“Yes, sir. He win. Unofficially speaking, he is in. I am the police officer charged with the duties of Immigration Officer in the Mountains District, sir,”
“Well — ”
“Three to four, sir.”
Limekiller blinked. Begged his pardon. The police-sergeant smiled slightly. “Every evening from three to four, sir, pleased to execute the duties of Immigration Officer, sir. At the present time,” he glanced at the enormous clock on the wall, with just a touch of implied proof, “I am carrying out my official duties as Customs Officer. Have you anything to declare?'
And, So much for that suggestion, Limekiller thought, a feeling of having only slightly been saved from having made a fool of himself tangible in the form of something warmer than sunshine round about his face and neck.
The middle-aged woman at the Yohan Yahanoglu General Mdse. Establishment store sold him a small bar of Fry’s chocolate, miraculously unmelted. Jack asked, “Is there another hotel in town, besides the Grand?”
A touch of something like hauteur came over the still-handsome face of Sra. Yohanoglu. “Best you ahsk wan of the men,” she said. And. which one of the men? “Any men,” said she.
So. Out into the sun-baked street went lonely Limekiller. Not that lonely at the moment, though, to want to find where the local hookers hung out. Gone too far to turn back. And, besides, turn back to what?
The next place along the street which was open was the El Dorado Club and Dancing (its sign, slightly uneven, said).
Someone large and burly thumped in just before he did, leaned heavily on the bar, “How much, rum?” he demanded.
The barkeep, a ’Paniard, maybe only one-quarter Indian (most of the Spanish-speaking Hidalgans were more that that), gave a slight yawn at this sudden access of trade. “Still only wan dime,” he said. “Lahng as dees borrel lahst. When necessitate we broach nudder borrel, under new tox lah, iay! Pobrecito! Going be fifteen cent?'
“¡En el nornbre del Queen!” proclaimed the other new customer, making the sign of the cross, then gesturing for a glass to be splashed.
Limekiller made the same gesture.
“What you vex weed de Queen, varon?” the barkeeper asked, pouring two fingers of “clear” into each glass. “You got new road, meb-be ah beet bum-py, but new; you got new wing on hospital, you got new generator for give ahl night, electricity: whattt? You teenk you hahv ahl dees, ahn not pay ah new tox? No sotch teeng!”
“No me hace falta, ‘ahl dees,’ ” said the other customer. “Resido en el bush, where no hahv not-ting like dot.”
The barkeep yawned again. “Reside en el bush? Why you not live like old-time people? Dey not dreenk rum. Dey not smoke cigarette. Dey not use lahmp-ile. Ahn dey not pay toxes, not dem, no.”
“Me no want leev like dot. Whattt? You cahl dot ‘leev’?” He emptied his glass with a swallow-, dismissed any suggestion that Walden Pond and its tax-free amenities might be his for the taking, turned to Limekiller his vast Afro-Indian face. “Filiberto Marin, senor, is de mahn to answer stranger question. Becahs God love de stranger, senor, ahn Filiberto Marin love God. Everybody knows Filiberto Marin, ahn if anyone want know where he is, I am de mahn.” Limekiller, having indeed questions, or at any rate, A Question, Limekiller opened his mouth.