Something always occurred to throw them off; mysteriously the combinations separated, re-formed with different partners, until at last, early in the evening, all seemed to be over—a question of money no doubt, decided Wilhelm Freytag, who had got into talk over beer with Arne Hansen. They had been watching the little scenes here and there.
“What else could it be,” asked Arne Hansen, and he watched one of the girls especially, his choleric blue eyes softened to simple admiration. She was indeed very beautiful, and though of a type with the others, Hansen could see a difference in her, even if he could not point it out to another eye. They all had fine dark eyes, shining black hair smoothed over their ears, their round small hips swayed as they walked in a self-conscious meneo, their narrow, high-arched feet were stuffed without mercy into thin black pumps. They all painted, with dark red grease paint, large square brutal mouths over their natural lips, which were thin and hard: but the one he preferred was called Amparo, he had found that out. Already he faced in his thoughts the first obstacle: he spoke very little Spanish and Amparo, so far as he knew, spoke nothing else.
“I can’t imagine what they do,” said Wilhelm Freytag, “besides of course what they are doing now. They look like a set of gypsies. I saw them dancing and collecting money in the streets at Veracruz.”
Hansen could tell him about that. They were a zarzuela company from Granada, gypsies maybe, or pretending to be. They had got stranded in Mexico as such outfits always did, the great Pastora Imperio herself had just barely got out with the clothes on her back, he had heard—and the Mexican government was sending them home, as usual, at its own expense. Freytag considered they looked a tough lot, the four men especially, oblique-looking characters with their narrow skulls and thugs’ eyes—a combination of table-top dancer, pimp, and knife-thrower.
Hansen studied them. “I think not dangerous,” he judged, “unless it was fairly safe.” He settled back comfortably in his powerful frame and stretched his long legs under the table.
The men of the dancers’ troupe were sitting in the bar with the children, obviously keeping out of the way while their ladies practiced their arts. They were silent, entirely too graceful in their few movements, and watchful as cats. Sitting over a series of cups of coffee, they smoked constantly; and the children, who were subdued in a way they were not when the women were present, finally leaned their heads and arms on the table and went to sleep.
Frau Baumgartner sat head on hand wearily at a small table with her husband, who had begun his long evening of methodical drinking to ease his constant pain. His hair already was damp and plastered to his temples. For just a short time after taking food, he felt relief in his stomach, but he could not face the beginning of pain again, and hurried to his first glass of brandy and water. These pains had begun about two years before, when Herr Baumgartner lost three important cases in the Mexican courts. His wife knew why he had lost them: he was drinking so steadily he could not properly prepare his arguments, he could not make a good impression in court. Back of that was the sad mystery—why had he begun to drink? He could not explain and he could not resist his longing for brandy. From hour to hour throughout the day and into the evening, he drank—without pleasure, without any lightening of spirit, without relief, without will, in helpless suffering of conscience, his hand still stole out to the bottle and he poured into his glass quite literally in fear and trembling.
On those few days at long intervals when his wife persuaded him not to drink, he would take to his bed with frightful pains in his stomach, writhing, groaning, until the family doctor was called to give him an opiate. They called in specialists, each of whom made his own guess corresponding to his field of interest: ulcers, mysterious entanglements of his intestines, acute (or chronic) infections of one kind and another: one had even hinted at cancer: but none had been able to bring him any ease. He seemed to grow no worse, but he never improved, either. Frau Baumgartner to her own constant self-reproach no longer believed that her husband’s illness was real. She did not know what she believed, indeed she believed nothing: and her unbelief was formless, a darkly moving cloud of suspicion that her husband’s trouble, once known, would prove to be some kind of terrible reproach upon her. Whenever a marriage was unhappy, or the husband failed in his business, everybody knew it was the wife’s fault. She would have to blame herself, too, for as she often said, her husband was the best and kindest of men. He had given her love of the kind she understood as love: faithful and pleasant every day, every day in the year, and thoughtful. Until he began to spend his money recklessly on drink, they kept a good comfortable house and saved money; and the savings were, she thanked God, safely invested in Germany since the mark was restored and business was flourishing and all promised well in that country. Her husband had fought all through the war, and had come out without a scratch—a miracle in itself for which he should be grateful, but no—he never spoke but with bitterness of his sufferings in that time. They were married after the war and went to Mexico, a new land of promise for Germans … Oh, what could have happened, what did she do, that their lives had come to this? All had seemed to go so well.…
“Oh, Karl, don’t take another, that will be four already and it is not two hours after dinner.”
“I can’t bear it, Gretel, I can’t bear it, you cannot understand what this pain is like!”
The same old cry. His face drew together, his mouth twisted and trembled; his bright empty blue eyes grew fierce with suffering.
“Karl, how can it help? Tomorrow it will be the same thing.”
“Please, Gretel, be patient a little longer. With one more, I promise to get through the night.” He bowed over in grief, in shame. “Forgive me,” he said and his humility made her blush for him.
“Don’t, my dear,” she said. “Go on and take it, if it will make you feel better.” She leaned over and gazed at the tablecloth to avoid seeing his face knotted in the expression of pain he made no attempt to conceal or control. The doctors had said he must go home, it might work a cure. She had hoped that the peaceful long voyage, the easy safe life of the ship, away from the false friends who drank with him, away from the place where he had failed, would be a good beginning. It was not going to happen. Herr Baumgartner drained the last drop from his tall glass.
“Now, my dear,” he said, in a tearful voice, “now, if you will help me.” He rose wavering and she stood close beside him. He leaned upon her heavily as they moved away through the crowded bar, and Frau Baumgartner, her eyes fixed straight ahead, felt sure that everybody was staring with contempt at her drunken husband who was pretending to be an invalid.
Herr Löwenthal, who had been put at a small table by himself, studied the dinner card, with its list of unclean foods, and asked for a soft omelette with fresh green peas. He drank half a bottle of good white wine to comfort himself (the one hardship of travel was this question of finding something he could eat in a world almost altogether run by the heathen) and ate the small basket of fruit brought him for dessert. Afterward he hung around searchingly for a while, first in the salon, then in the bar, then out on the decks, wandering and disturbed; but no one spoke to him and he therefore spoke to nobody. He peered here and there, at every face he saw, a quick glance and away, trying to pass unobserved himself, yet hoping to see one of his own people. It was hardly to be believed. In all his life it had never happened to him, but here it was, the thing he feared most was upon him: there was not another Jew on the whole ship. Not one. A German ship, going back to Germany, and not a Jew on board besides himself. Instantly his pangs of instinctive uneasiness mounted to positive fright, his natural hostility to the whole alien enemy world of the Goyim, so deep and pervasive it was like a movement of his blood, flooded his soul. His courage came back on this tide, incomplete, wavering, but bringing its own sense of restored good health of the mind. He made the rounds once more, this time with a bolder eye and a well-composed air which concealed his worry—but no, of course, why look any longer? If
there had been another, they would have seated him at the same table. Two Jews would have recognized each other before now. Well, there would be nobody to talk to, but just the same, it wouldn’t cost him anything to be friendly with these people; he intended to get along as well as possible on the voyage, there was no percentage in asking for trouble. He sat down in the bar near a rather decent-looking pair of middle-aged fat Gentiles with a white bulldog at their feet, thinking that if they spoke to him he might pass a half hour in some sort of sociability—better than nothing, and that was barely all it could be. But he never liked to speak to Gentiles first, you might run into anything, and they did not turn their heads his way. After two beers he decided he was tired, ready for bed.
The cabin was empty except for the other passenger’s luggage. Herr Löwenthal put his sample case out of the way, laid out his modest toilet articles, got into the lower berth and said his prayers, wondering what sort of cabin mate he had drawn. Perhaps the fellow would be quite pleasant. After all, in a business way at least he had known some very decent Gentiles. Maybe this would be one. He lay there with the light on, unable to settle down, waiting and watching for what kind of man would open the door. At last, at the sound of entry, he lifted his head eagerly. “Grüss Gott,” he said, almost before he got a glimpse of the fellow.
Herr Rieber stopped short. Almost instantly a deep look of repulsion set itself upon his snubby features; he drew his brows down and pursed his lips.
“Good evening,” he said, with immense, cold finality of dismissal.
Herr Löwenthal fell back upon his pillow, knowing the worst as if he had always known it. “My God, the luck! and for such a long voyage,” he mourned. “And yes, there is no doubt, he looks like a pig even more than a Gentile.” But he would be careful, he could look out for himself, he would see that that fellow did not get the advantage of him. “Let’s just see what he does next, after this start. Now I know what to expect, I should be ready for him. I know most of their tricks … he can’t surprise me.”
So he worried and fretted, turning over and over, suppressing sighs; yet he slept after a while, his brows still knitted, but very deeply and restfully in spite of Herr Rieber’s snores.
By nine o’clock the lighted decks were empty, the bar and writing rooms nearly deserted. No life was apparent except some movement on the Captain’s bridge and a few calm-faced sailors going about their routine duties. In the depths of the ship, the bakers began setting, kneading, rolling and baking the breakfast bread; and still lower, in the engine room, stout fellows labored and sweated freely all night keeping the ship to her regular speed of twelve knots. She would do a little better when the Gulf Stream got behind her.
Life on shipboard in only two days had begun to arrange itself with pleasant enough monotony, but on the third there was repeated the excitement of being in port again, in Havana. This time, the travelers had nothing to worry about, nothing to do for once but to enjoy the scene so far as they were able. Fresh hot-weather dress appeared on all shapes and sizes, and there was a rush for the gangplank before it had fairly settled.
Even Herr Glocken went ambling down the dock by himself, wearing a gay necktie frayed at the knot, smiling like a gargoyle as he dodged with practiced quickness a bold young woman who darted forward to touch his hump for luck.
The ladies of trade, arriving at home from their business trip to Mexico as casually as though returning from a day’s shopping in town, walked away together in white linen backless dresses and fine wide-brimmed Panama hats. William Denny, a discreet distance behind, followed them determinedly, to find out if possible what sort of roof sheltered these haughty creatures on their native heath. He was soured and baffled by their resolutely unbusinesslike behavior towards him.
“Women peddling tail don’t usually carry it so high, where I come from,” he remarked to David Scott. “It’s just cash on the barrelhead and no hurt feelings.”
David merely remarked that he thought that could easily be a bore. So Denny set out by himself, resolved to track them down to their lair and boldly invite himself inside. Along a narrow street of shops one of them turned about unexpectedly to look into a window, saw Denny, nudged the other. They both looked back then, and breaking into high girlish screams of derisive laughter, they darted through a narrow shop doorway and disappeared once for all. Denny, scalded bitterly, let a pale sneer cover his face for the benefit of some possible witness, and an ugly short epithet form in his mouth for his own satisfaction; then, like a man who had plans of his own, he took a small map meant for tourists out of his pocket and began a search for Sloppy Joe’s.
Though it was only four o’clock in the afternoon, the troupe of Spanish dancers appeared dressed for the evening, in serviceable black of daring cut, the gentlemen wearing wide pleated red silk belts under their short jackets, the ladies gallantly exposed as to breast and shoulder. Amparo’s ear lobes were half again their natural length, trailing the weight of immense imitation rubies. They all limped a little in their cruel footgear as they set out stubbornly in discomfort and bitter bad temper for an evening of professional gaiety. The twins, left on the ship, at once began to shriek and hoot and run circles in a kind of demon dance around the wheel chair of the small sick man, until the golden-haired boy pushing the chair drove them away with loud curses in German. They then ran to the rail, climbed up and leaned out and screamed desperately, “Jai alai, Mama! Mama, jai alai!” A good distance away, at the sound all four of the women whirled about, and the one they called Lola shouted harshly, “Shut up!”
“Let’s be real tourists this once,” said Jenny angel to David darling, for so they were feeling towards each other for the moment. “I have no prejudice against tourists—I consider that a low form of snobbism. I envy them savagely, lucky dogs with money to spend and time on their hands, all dressed up and on their way! I always have to work. If I wasn’t on a job I wouldn’t be there, wherever I am: I’m doing a job or running an errand for some editor … even in Paris if I ever get there, I’ll still have to do those silly drawings for somebody’s foul little stories. Now David darling, don’t tell me I’m riddled with self-pity …”
“You always say that, I never have said it.”
“All right, you liar,” said Jenny, tenderly, “but just the same never in my whole life since I was a child have I ever gone anywhere merely to look at the scenery. Now is the moment; let’s take a Fordito and see the sights, such as they may be. I’ve passed through Havana this is the fourth time and it may be the last, and I’ve never seen the beach and that famous Drive, what’s its name?”
David lapsed into what Jenny called his speaking silence; she saw by the expression drifting over his face that the notion appealed to him. They had not far to seek, for there on the first corner was an aged Negro with a crippled Ford car—“a real Fotingo if there ever was one!” said Jenny fondly—it was a Mexican popular name for such a vehicle—and he was waiting and hoping for just such as they. The Negro’s skin was the color of brown sugar; he had one light gray eye and one pale tan eye, he believed that he spoke English, and he had a high-flown speech of solicitation made up and learned by heart. They waited politely to the end before nodding their heads; he settled them at once in the back seat where the door rattled on its hinges and the stuffing was coming out in lumps. Setting off instantly with an impressive roar and clatter of mechanical locomotion, he gained an appalling speed almost at once, and began another set speech which flew back to them in fragments of loud croaks and low mutters as they whirled along the splendid white road beside the sea.
“We are passing … Monument,” he shouted, as they rushed by an incoherent mass of bronze, “WHICH COMMEMORATES …” he pronounced largely and carefully, then fell to a mutter. Then, “This,” his voice rose again, “… the war of … year of Our Lord … and afterwards,” he said clearly, “the Sons of Cuban Independence erected this noble monument for the view of strangers.” Mutter, mutter, mutter. “We are now passing …” and th
ey spun perilously around a long curve, “the building called … erected for the view of strangers … TO YOUR LEFT!” he called warningly, and Jenny and David craned to the left instantly, but the spectacle was already far behind, “you see a tragic Memorial erected by the Sons of … for the view of strangers.”
They slowed down with dizzying suddenness, stopped with a hard jolt. Their guide pushed back his cap and pointed to a vast, nondescript edifice shining through tall palms and heavy treetops in a small park. “And there,” he said, in rather smugly censorious tones, “is the famous Casino, where rich North Americans gamble away, before the eyes of the starving poor, hundreds of thousands of dollars every night.”
His passengers gawked as they were expected to; then David said to Jenny in an aside, “I don’t think so much of our touring, do you?” and in Spanish to the guide, who seemed to be regarding them with a certain possessiveness, “Now let’s just drive back the same way, very slowly.”
“I understand English perfectly,” said the guide in Spanish. “Your touring is not a success yet because you have not seen all. There are monuments of the utmost grandeur and sentiment the whole length of this noble Carrera, some of them more expensive and important than those you have seen. You are paying to see them all,” he said virtuously, “I do not wish to defraud you.”
“I think our touring is perfect,” said Jenny. “It is just what I expected. Let’s see them all!” They leaped away like a kangaroo in flight, saw all the monuments in shapeless flashes, and were set down again, wind-blown and flushed with sunburn, under palms on a fine terrace freshly washed and steaming, with great wicker bird cages along the wall and a banana tree in the patio. The waiter brought tall glasses of iced tea with rum in it.