She was sitting there, looking at her coffee glass and not saying anything. She had a way of dozing off like that, between the talk, like some kitten that falls asleep as soon as you stop playing with it. I told you she looked like some high school girl in that little white dress. I kept looking at her, trying to figure out how old she was, when all of a sudden I forgot about that and my heart began to pound. If she was to be the madame of the joint, she couldn’t very well take care of any customers herself, could she? Then who was going to take care of her? By her looks, she needed plenty of care. Maybe that was supposed to be my job. My voice didn’t quite sound like it generally does when I spoke to her.
“... Señorita, what do I get out of this?”
“Oh — you live, have nice cloth, maybe big hat with silver, yes? Some pecos. Is enough, yes?”
“—And entertain the señoritas?”
I don’t know why I said that. It was the second mean slice I had taken since we started out. Maybe I was hoping she’d flash jealous, and that would give me the cue I wanted. She didn’t. She smiled, and studied me for a minute, and I felt myself getting cold when I saw there was the least bit of pity in it. “If you like to entertain señoritas, yes. Maybe not. Maybe that’s why I ask you. No have any trouble.”
Chapter 3
Early next morning I shaved, washed, and packed. My earthly possessions seemed to be a razor, brush, and cake of soap, two extra shirts, a pair of extra drawers I had washed out the night before, a pile of old magazines, and the black-snake whip I had used when I sang Alfio. They give you a whip, but it never cracks, and I got this mule-skinner’s number with about two pounds of lead in the butt. One night on the double bill a stagehand laid it out for Pagliacci, and the Nedda hit me in the face with it. I still carry the scar. I had sold off all the costumes and scores, but couldn’t get rid of the whip. I dropped it in the suitcase. The magazines and my new soapdish I put on top of it, and stood the suitcase in the corner. Some day, maybe, I would come back for it. The two extra shirts I put on, and tied the necktie over the top one. The extra drawers I folded and put in one pocket, the shaving stuff in another. I didn’t mention I was leaving, to the clerk, on my way out. I just waved at him, like I was on my way up to the postoffice to see if the money had come, but I had to slap my hand against my leg, quick. She had dropped a handful of pesos in my pocket, and I was afraid he’d hear them clink.
The Ford was an open roadster, and I lost a half hour getting the boot off and the top up. It was an all-day run to Acapulco, and I didn’t mean to have that sun beating down on me. Then I rolled it out and pulled down to 44b. She was on the doorstep, waiting for me, her stuff piled up around her. The other girls weren’t up yet. She was all dressed up in the black dress with purple flowers that she had had on when I first saw her, though I thought the white would have been better. The main baggage seemed to be a round hatbox, of the kind women traveled with fifteen years ago, only made of straw and stuffed full of clothes. I peeled off the extra shirts and put them and the hatbox in the rumble seat. Then there was the grass mat that she slept on, rolled up and tied. I stuck that in, but it meant I couldn’t close the rumble. Those mats, they sell for sixty centavos, or maybe twenty cents, and it didn’t hardly look like it was worth the space, but it was a personal matter, and I didn’t want to argue. Then there was a pile of rebozos, about every color there was, but mainly black. I put them in, but she ran out and took one, a dark purple, and threw it over her head. Then there was the cape, the espada, and the ear. It was the first time I ever saw a bullfighter’s cape, the dress cape, I mean, not the fighting cape, up close so I could really look at it. I hated it because I knew where she had got it, but you couldn’t laugh off the beauty of it. I think it’s the only decently made thing you’ll ever see in Mexico, and maybe it’s not even made there. It’s heavy silk, each side a different color, and embroidered so thick it feels crusty in your hands. This one was yellow outside, crimson in, and against that yellow the needlework just glittered. It was all flowers and leaves, but not in the dumb patterns you see on most of their stuff. They were oil-painting flowers, not postcard flowers, and the colors had a real tone to them. I folded it, put a rebozo around it, to protect it from dust, and laid it beside the hatbox. The espada, to me, was just one more grand-opera prop. It’s what they use to stick the bull with, and I didn’t even take it out of the scabbard to look at it. I threw it down in the bottom.
While I was loading the stuff in, she was standing there stroking the ear. I wouldn’t have handled it with tongs. Sometimes, when a bullfighter puts on a good show, they give him an ear. The crowd begins to yell about it, and then one of the assistants goes over and cuts an ear off the bull, where he’s lying in the dirt with the mules hooking on to his horns. The bullfighter takes it, holds it up so you can see all the blood and slime, and goes around with it, bowing every ten steps. Then he saves it, like a coloratura saves her decoration from the King of Belgium. After about three months it’s good and rank. This one she had, there were pieces of gristle hanging out of it, and it stunk so you could smell it five feet away. I told her if it went on the front seat with us the deal was off, and she could throw it back there with the espada. She did, but she was plenty puzzled.
The window popped open then, and the fat one showed, with some kind of a nightgown on, and her hair all frazzled and ropy, and then the other ones beside her, and there was a lot of whispering and kissing, and then we got in and got started. We lost about ten minutes, out on the edge of town, when we stopped to gas up, and another five when we came to a church and she had to go in and bless herself, but finally, around eight o’clock we leveled off. We passed some wooden crosses, another little feature they’ve got. Under Socialism, it seems that there’s only one guy that really knows how it works, and if some other guy thinks he does, it’s a counter-revolutionary act, or, in un-socialist lingo, treason. So back in 1927, a guy named Serrano thought he did, and they arrested him and his friends down in Cuernavaca, and started up to Mexico with them in a truck. But then up in Mexico somebody decided it would be a good idea if they never got there at all, and some of the boys started out in a fast car to meet them. They fastened their hands with baling wire, lined them up beside the road, and mowed them down with a machine gun. Then they said the revolution was over, and the American papers handed it to them that they had a stable government at last, and that a strong man could turn the trick, just give him the chance. So wooden crosses mark the spot, an inspiring sight to see.
We had some coffee in Cuernavaca, then pushed on to Taxco for lunch. That was the end of the good road. From there on it was just dust, curves, and hills. She began to get sleepy. A Mexican is going to sleep at one o’clock, no matter where he is, and she was no exception. She leaned her head against the side, and her eyes drooped. She wriggled, trying to get set. She slipped off her shoes. She wiggled some more. She took off a string of beads around her neck, and unfastened two buttons. She was open to her brassiere. Her dress slipped up, above her knees. I tried not to look. It was getting hotter by the minute. I didn’t look, but I could smell her.