In his ignorance Ashley spent an evening at Joly’s. Toward the end of it Joly approached him and asked him in a low voice, “Are you from St. Louis?”
“No.”
“I thought you was Herb Benson from St. Louis? You’re in the tambour?”
Ashley didn’t know why he should be in any “drum,” but he compliantly said that he was.
“Where did you work?”
“Up in Illinois.”
“Chicago?”
“Near it.”
“Great in Chicago, eh? Great?”
“Yes.”
“Well, well! Baba’s Louis had to go up the river. You know Baba? She’s the one just went out—the fat one. She told me to tell you it’s all right, if you’d take care of her. She’d bring you thirty dollars a week—more, if you’d jump with it.”
“Why would she bring me thirty dollars?”
Joly’s breath stuck in his windpipe. His eyes started out of his head. “Get up and get out of here! Get out of here quick! Get! Get!”
Ashley stared at him, put down a coin, and went out the door. Joly flung the money after him down the street.
Ashley’s stratum was that of those who had failed in both the orderly and disorderly life. Their café was Quédebac’s—men returned from long prison sentences, unlucky housebreakers, unlucky gamblers, ex-pimps, ex-touts, spiritless men, many with tremulous hands and tremulous cheeks. They fed in the sheds at the back doors of convents. Some, intermittently, washed dishes in restaurants; some, intermittently, earned their living at the dismalest of all professions—were orderlies in hospitals. Ashley heard from them of their work and thought of applying for it. He was ready to master his repulsion; he was afraid of nothing except himself. Fastidiousness is a timidity. He did not know if hospitals demanded to see the “papers” of orderlies. In the meantime he was searching for Spanish speakers; he found one and paid for his lessons in drink. Women came and went, the last rejects of their profession.
“M’ssieu James, will you buy me a verte?” (Absinthe.)
“I can’t afford it tonight, Toinette. You can have a beer.”
“Thank you, M’ssieu James.”
The word “reprobate” is used loosely; this was the world of reprobates. All speech was obscene, but not from any intention to startle or even to convey emphasis. Reprobates are incapable of anger; they have lost the right to it. They have been judged and they agree with their judges. They tell few lies. They have nothing to hide and little to gain. They are generous to one another, but not from any largeness of heart. Abjection devaluates money.
All was new to Ashley. Quédebac’s made little claim on compassion, even if he had possessed a measure of it. But Quédebac’s increased the turmoil of questioning within him—the constant urgent unanswerable questions. Yet he did not find the café uncongenial; he even pushed open the door with a stirring of anticipation. He was casually welcomed. The even flow of conversation was uninterrupted. The process of learning is accompanied by alternations of pain and brief quickenings of pleasure that resemble pain.
It took him a year and two weeks to reach Chile. He moved down the coast, finding passage in small ships, avoiding the larger ports when he could. There was generally work for a man who could do sums, was of open approach, and had an air of authority—provided, however, that he wore a workman’s clothes. Work for a gentleman would be hard to find. He kept accounts in warehouses. He weighed produce on plantations. When questioned about his papers he told a story of losing all his belongings in a hotel fire in Panama. He was believed or indulged.
He tallied cargoes in Buenaventura.
He supervised turtle hunts on the low islands off San Barto.
Ashleys give all of themselves to whatever task lies before them. Everywhere he was asked to stay, but he moved on. He sat late in bars; he played cards. His knowledge of the seaboard dialect progressed rapidly. When there was no work to be found he even picked up a little money as a public letter writer.
He spent three months at Islaya. It is a truth well known but seldom uttered that almost any foreigner is a better foreman over a group of Ecuadorian laborers than any Ecuadorian. He slept on the stinking decks of guano boats and closely observed their management. After several trips he was put in charge of one. He was shipwrecked among silver barracudas and lost a third of his crew. It was perhaps his fault, for he pretended to a knowledge of navigation he did not possess, but bad conscience did not trouble his sleep. At the bottom of society all men are threatened with hunger, hidden reefs, and storms; all waters are shark-infested. It later became common knowledge that all the Ashleys were incorrigibly immoral.
He quickly made a place for himself in the oil fields at Salinas. He could have settled down and advanced far. Everywhere there were card games far into the night—here under the tent of netting and the hurricane lamp. Dr. Andersen, the Dane, was a pleasant fellow. There was an American, Billings, traveling in pharmaceuticals.
“Slap it down, Billings. Slap it down.—How’s your rat list?”
“Slow, very slow.”
“Do you know what the rat list is, Tolland?”
“No.”
“It’s a list of hunted men with a price on their head. Who are you looking for now, Billings?”
“Vice-president of a Kansas City bank. Run off with a hundred thousand dollars and a sixteen-year-old girl.”
“Probably down here?”
“Pretty sure. Nobody’s thinking of running to Mexico this year.”
“What’s the money?
“Three or four thousands.”
“What are his marks?”
“About forty-four. Round pink face. Two gold teeth.”
“Slap it down, Billings!—Did they ever catch the judge?”
“Found him dead in Santa Marta. Took his own life, looked like. Tired of running. Seems like people got tired of feeding him, too. Two hundred pounds down to ninety.—Just got word of a new one—four thousand dollars. Man in Indiana—shot his best friend in the back of the head. Terrible type. Wouldn’t want to meet him on a dark night. Shot his way free, single-handed, out of a posse of twelve men.”
“Old or young?”
“Has grown children.”
“Any marks?”
“I forget.—Do you know a good way to catch a rat?” Billings lowered his voice and narrowed his eyes. “All these rats have changed their names. Well, if you think you’ve spotted your man, you come up behind him and shout his real name ‘HOPKINS’ or ‘ASHLEY’—like that!”
In Callao, Ashley got work in a Chinese importing firm. His employers had seldom encountered honesty outside their own race. He was advanced to a position just short of partnership. His duties, however, increasingly required his calling at important firms in Lima. He resigned.
He moved to a squalid lodging by the sea near Callao. He had journeyed thousands of miles. He had entered realms far stranger to him than those described by the geographers. He was now idle. Hitherto constant activity had concealed from him the full burden of his widening knowledge. While waiting for a coastal steamer he fell gravely ill. Despair probes the organs one by one, seeking the easiest entrance for the kill. He was saved from death by the sisters, old and young, turn and turn about by his bed. His convalescence was surrounded by gales of laughter. “Don Diego, el canadiense.”
His ascent had begun, perhaps.
“That’s Chile,” said the Captain pointing toward the low shore.
Ashley’s heart gave a leap. He had reached Chile. He was still alive. This was the land of his adoption. But he was not yet ready for Arica or Antofagasta. He asked to be rowed ashore at San Gregorio. There he learned that a Norwegian trading ship would put in at any time—in a few days or in a few months.
He was low in funds. Most of the hundred and fifty dollars he had saved in Callao had been stolen from him. A hard core of money which throughout the year he had sewn into the lining of his belt was safe; that was held intact for his final throw of the
dice: his passage to Antofagasta and his presentation of himself to the mining authorities there. Once ashore in San Gregorio he looked about for work. There was none to be found. He engaged a bed at Pablito’s tavern—the cheapest to be had, a pallet under an overhang in the stables. He busied himself with removing the filth as best he could. He was the governor of his mind: He did not permit himself to be aware of hunger or to recognize the disgust he felt at the vermin he harbored. He sat in Pablito’s tavern all day and far into the night.
Within a week he was playing cards with the mayor, the chief of police, and the leading merchants. He lost a little; one evening in three he gained what he had lost and more. He was blackened by the sun; his hair was long and unruly. In spite of his mastery of the dialect and abject lodging, he was “Don Diego” or “Don Jaime”—he preferred the latter. He explored the little town and its environs. He made friends. Through no efforts of his own he again became a public letter writer. His charges were moderate, a few coppers. People who had not sent a letter for years remembered their aged parents or their dispersed children. There was much correspondence about inheritances, dictated by those who had bitterly learned to avoid lawyers. Tradesmen wanted letters written in dignified castellano. There were love letters and threatening letters to be delivered after dark by the town’s clever hunchback. He even wrote prayers that were to be hung over a child’s bed as amulets. He listened to long feverish whispered stories. He advised, he consoled, he reprehended. His hands were being continually kissed. Don Jaimito el bueno.
From his card partners he began to pick up information about copper mining in the Andes, about the Scotchmen and Germans who worked the mines, and about the cold and heat that alternated above ten thousand feet. The city fathers returned to their homes at eleven o’clock for dinner and left Ashley to silence, warm beer, and María Icaza.
María Icaza was midwife, abortionist, maga, teller of fortunes, interpreter of dreams, go-between, exorcisor of devils. She was Chilean and Indian, yet there was a blue cast to her complexion; she said she was “Persian.” Bluest of all were her heavy eyelids, which descended over her eyes like hoods. She said she was over eighty. The claim added to her authority; she was probably seventy. She sat against the wall and brooded about crime, disease, folly, and death. From time to time her clients consulted her or called her away. Ashley’s customers likewise drew up their chairs beside him. Both held office hours in whispers. Both had dogs that would not stir a yard from their feet—María Icaza’s Fidel and Ashley’s Calgary—good friends for lack of better. There were fleas on the ground and gnats in the air; a slight mitigation of the heat could be felt toward two in the morning.
They exchanged salutations.
She directed one of her customers to his table; there was a letter to be written. He directed one of his customers to hers; there was a crisis to be met. Finally, they were playing cards, a pile of pebbles between them. Often no more than a few dozen words were exchanged in an hour. From time to time María Icaza would be shaken by fits of coughing. The long red scarf which she pressed to her mouth was streaked dark brown with blood. When she felt a severer fit coming on she and Fidel walked with dignity to the outhouse, whence the sounds of her agony could be heard in the long silence of the night.
“Where did you catch this cold, María Icaza?”
“High—high in the Andes.”
Their friendship grew in their silences; it was cemented by their destitution; it was nourished by the prevalence of misery in San Gregorio.
The second week he was “Don Jaime,” the third “Jaimito,” the fourth “mi hijo.” She frequently laid out her pack of cards in his intention or somberly studied the palms of his hands. He told her he put no faith in such things. She replied, using a vulgar idiom, that that made no difference to her.
One night, in the third week, she put her blue forefinger on a card and waited until he had looked up into her face. She made the gesture of a rope around her neck.
Looking at her interrogatively he flung the rope around his neck and pulled the end abruptly toward the ceiling.
“I don’t know,” she answered surlily.
One night as she laid out the cards he asked, “How many children have I?”
“Do not ask me such questions. If you doubt me, you can go and stand on your head in the excrement! You have four or five children.”
“Are they well?”
“Why would they not be well?”
One night he began telling her his whole story. She interrupted him, saying, “What happens is not interesting.”
“What is interesting, María Icaza?”
“God,” she replied, pointing first to her forehead, then to his.
María Icaza was a singer when her health permitted. Old Pablo rarely allowed the town’s prostitutes to frequent his distinguished saloon before midnight. Once in a while, when the city fathers had gone to their homes, he nodded a grave permission to one or other of the choicest—to Consuelo or Maridolores. They were required to sit sedately with a glass before them.
Occasionally it made for good business. Maridolores, the joyous one, would murmur, “María Icaza of my heart, one song! One song! Don Jaime, ask María Icaza to sing one song.”
Fidel seemed to understand what was wanted. He would plant his forepaws on her lap and plead for a song. Ashley would glance at her with affectionate anticipation. Old Pablo would place a glass of rum before her with a bow.
María Icaza would begin abruptly in a voice of extraordinary volume and range. A long heart-chilling cadenza, “Aïe!” would fill the room. Then:
“The lacemaker sits at her window
Blind! Blind!
Comb your hair, little one.
There’s enough sadness to come.”
or:
“Are you on your way to Bethlehem,
My sons, my daughters?”
Fidel looked eagerly from face to face to make sure that all would rise to this privilege. At the refrain the girls beat their saucers with spoons. Maridolores leapt to the floor, her heels resounding like drumbeats. The pharmacist next door woke, dressed, and came down with his guitar. The room filled. Oh, what an hour! What passion! . . . ? What memories! A throng gathered in the street outside the tavern. What a clapping of hands!
“María Icaza, the beautiful—sing!”
Finally Ashley would whisper, “Don’t sing any more, María Icaza! Save your breath, for the love of Christ!”
The festival would come to an end. Fidel lay down, his muzzle against his mistress’s stocking, replete with pleasure. A transient happiness had descended upon San Gregorio.
María Icaza asked Ashley to tell her his dreams. He answered he could not remember them. She laughed contemptuously.
During the fourth week she said, “You look bad. You have not been sleeping. I will tell you your dreams. You are having the dream of the universal nothingness. You walk down, down, into valleys of nothing, of chalk. You stare, you stare into pits where all is cold. You wake up cold. You think you will never be warm again. And there is this nothing—nada, nada, nada—but this nada laughs, like teeth striking together. You open the door of a cupboard, of a room, and there is nothing there but this laughing. The floor is not a floor. The walls are not walls. You wake up and you cannot stop your trembling. Life has no sense. Life is an idiot laughing.—Why did you lie to me?”
He said slowly, “I could not tell anyone about them.”
He went out the door and stood a long time with his hands on the parapet above the waves. When he returned she gestured to him to deal the cards.
“You have nothing to say, María Icaza?”
“Later.—Play!”
An hour later she said, “Naturally, you have these bad dreams, mi hijo.”
“Why, naturally?”
“God in His goodness sends them to you.”
He waited.
“He does not want you to be ignorant any longer. You are ignorant. You are very ignorant.—Cut the pack
. I wish to read what the cards tell me.”
She laid them out, yet seemed scarcely to glance at them.
“You are forty-one or forty-two years old.” She drew her finger across her face. “You have no wrinkles here—from care and thought. You have no wrinkles here—from laughter. Your understanding is like a little fetus—a poor little twisting and turning fetus—trying to be born. When God loves a creature He wants the creature to know the highest happiness and the deepest misery—then he can die. He wants him to know all that being alive can bring. That is His best gift.”
Ashley looked down and said in a low voice, “I have been very happy.”
She swept her hands in scorn across the cards on the table, the landscape of his life. “That? That—happiness? No! No! There is no happiness save in understanding the whole. You are a creature whom God loves—particularly loves. You are being born.”
Here she fell into a fit of coughing and drew the red scarf across her mouth. When she had recovered she put her hand into a voluminous and bulging pocket in her skirt. She drew out a small crucifix rudely carved from thornwood.
“Before you go to sleep look at it well. Think of that suffering. Not the nails. The nails are not important. There are nails everywhere. But think of the suffering—there!” She put her fingers on the center of her forehead. “He who held in His mind a hundred thousand San Gregorios and Antofagastas and Tiburones and—what town do you come from?”