JOSEPH AND THE BRIGHT SHAWL
He had never before heard of Cuba, but a chance mention of its name, Cuba, dominated Joseph completely. The Spaniards were shooting Cubans down there. Boys, younger than himself. And they were shot with muskets, guns. That was so much more horrible than if they were shot with candlesticks or white mice.
Instantly he knew that he must liberate Cuba. He must shoot the beastly Spanish Captain-General in his gold-laced abdomen, tummy; himself be shot in return or elsewhere, and die heroically, while a competent brass-band played “Annie Laurie.” So should Cuba be free.
He quickly settled every visible, every audible detail save one, his last dying words. “Don’t give up the ship!” seemed inappropriate. “I owe a cock to Æsculapius; see that it is paid,” was too long. “Kiss me, Hardy!” was short, but heaven knew what utter stranger might accept the invitation. At last he fixed upon “Sic semper tyrannis!” to be said as he fired, and “Et tu, brute!” as he was shot; “brute” with a small “b” seemed so nicely to combine defiance and grim humor.
⁂
Providing a costume for the event was a puzzling matter. It should be of the period, but what was the present year of grace? It was in the fall, exactly forty years before the return of the Americans from the Great War in 1919. Was this then 1879? Impossible, since Grant was President, and Fish, Secretary of State, and that would make it not later than 1876.
He gave it up, threw chronology to the winds, bought a plum-colored cape, vintage of the Regency, and a lot of very high stocks, period of Daniel Webster. Perhaps, in this he was misled by reading in a newspaper that stocks were very high.
His armament was one small pearl-handled derringer, date 1849. He wore it suspended by a string inside of one leg of a trouser, a pant, and could always verify its presence by sitting down. It had been given him by his father and was not really a dangerous weapon, since it was necessary to turn down all its grease-cups daily, else it would not go off, shoot.
⁂
On the deck of the Morro Castle, whence all but he had fled, stood a solitary figure, little Joe, the Boy Liberator. The tallest of stocks seemed to proclaim the Duke of Wellington; the plum-coloredest of capes, Beau Brummell. Like Napoleon, he depended greatly on his heavy artillery, which, in turn, depended inside a nicely-cut trouser.
⁂
Andrés Escobar called on him at the Hotel Inglaterra.
“Is this your first visit to Cuba?” he asked. “What do you think of our Cuban women?”
“It is. I do not,” laconic Joseph replied.
“I mean I don’t think about them at all,” he continued. “My mind has been singularly purified. I have a sensation of remoteness from my flesh.”
“Ah,” said Andrés, “I see. Something like un esqueleto, a skeleton. Very nice for the hot weather.”
“Not exactly,” said Joseph doubtfully. “Still, come to think of it, there is something in what you say. But lissen, friend, amigo! I came here to shoot, tirar, el Capitan-General in his gold-laced tummy and to get shot in the fracas or somewhere else. Thus Cuba shall be freed.
“I have been here twenty-four hours. We are both still alive and Cuba is not yet free. My fiery nature will not brook such delays. Can you not lead me to el Capitan-General, so that I may fulfil muh destiny?”
Andrés clasped his hand. “Maravilloso!” he cried. “We Cubans are not so precipitado. We bide our tiempo. Let me tell you our watchword, college-yell, secretissimo! ‘Wait, wait for ’98!’ Ah, then, Cuba shall be libre. Meanwhile we conspire, oh! so discreetly.”
⁂
At Escobar’s house, the entire family sat in a silent circle, upon gilt chairs. A crystal chandelier cast upon them an icy flood of light, bathed them in a vitreous fluid, preserving them in a hard pallor forever—think of that! The Escobars had been much besought by ambitious undertakers desiring to use this really effective embalming process.
Andrés and Joseph came in. Andrés, silent, faultless, sat down immobile. But Joseph and Narcissa, the daughter, withdrew to the balcony.
It was night. Narcissa was decidedly fetching. But, fetch her darnedest, she could not fetch Joseph.
“I love you,” said she.
Joseph put his arm, one arm, around her shoulders, not her waist, and kissed her cheek, not her lips—once.
“Lissen,” said he, “love is not for me. You know my name. Have you grasped its significance? Read your bible! Moreover,” he continued, “I am devoted to one purpose. I must shoot el Capitan-General in his gold-laced—well—that is—in his gold-laced uniform—yes. And get shot myself in—well—that is a detail, a mere detail. Anyhow, thus shall Cuba be libre.”
“Now lissen you to me,” said Narcissa. “I’m in trouble. I’m engaged to marry a fat planter of fifty. I loathe him. I shall kill him or myself. Get me out of this. Get me on a steamer, so I can go to my aunt in New York. Help me!”
“Oh, really, you know, I couldn’t,” replied dauntless Joseph. “I might get arrested or spanked or something—and sent home to mother before I get properly shot. Oh! it wouldn’t do at all.”
No, it wouldn’t do. It would free only a single Cuban, Narcissa. He must free the whole Cuban people, caboodle, and perish in the attempt.
⁂
He was at the theatre, teatro, when he first saw the Shawl—that orange, blue, emerald, scarlet, magenta, vermilion, crimson atrocity. Incidentally, there was a woman inside it, La Clavel, the dancer. Joseph thought it was the woman who thrilled him until he could support it no longer—it made him so ashamed of himself! But it wasn’t. It was the Shawl, for he was—Joseph.
He went to her room, sat there, day after day. They talked, conversed, interminably—and that was all. Once she kissed him and was severely frost-bitten. He was annoyed, seriously, and told her he didn’t know what she would think of him for letting her do a thing like that.
She gave him messages for his friends, the Fabians, cunctators, who conspired so sweetly to pass the time until 1898. Joseph felt that he was just the cutest little plotter in all Cuba. Oh! it was grand!
⁂
He was in her room when Santaclaus entered, Capitan Santaclaus, one of the rudest of the rude Spaniards.
“You are conspiring against the King, el Rey,” said Santaclaus. “You and your young devotee, little Josie here. You will both be killed. It will be very enjoyable.”
The time had come! Santaclaus, while not the Capitan-General, was notably well equipped for the proper reception of the sacred bullet. Joseph hoisted out the artillery, leveled it, pulled the trigger. Click! Nothing more. Joseph stared dully at the faithless weapon. “Oh, sugar! You’re a mean old thing!” was all he said.
“Ah! ha!” sneered Santaclaus. “You forgot to turn down the grease-cups this morning.”
It was sneerly his last sneer. Although he knew it not, he was sneering his end. La Clavel had not yet begun to fight. When she did there certainly was one turrible old battle. Joseph stood bravely by, a chair raised above his head, almost resolved to give Santaclaus a hard knock.
One round was all. Santaclaus, prostrate, prone, defunct, dead, took the count. Joseph carefully replaced the chair.
“Now look what you’ve done,” said he. “Now, remember, you killed him. I didn’t do a thing to him. Don’t tell on me—please! I came down here to get killed, nice and clean, with one bullet. I certainly don’t want to get all mussed up by a firing-squad. Mother wouldn’t like me to.”
La Clavel was arrested—tortured, shot, hung, drawn and quartered, for all Joseph knew. But she sent him the Shawl. So it was his lucky day, after all.
⁂
Pilar de Lima was a lovely little Chink. She tried it on with Joseph, but Joseph continued to be—Joseph. Andrés took her up.
“Lend me the Shawl, viejo cimo, old top!” said he. “Pilar wants it to wear at the danzon, dance.”
“No,” Joseph responded, answered.
“Mio caro compañero, my dear fellow,” protested Andrés, “please remember that The Bright Shawl is the principal character in this piece, the title rôle. It must have stage-center and the spotlight all the time. The whole show is built around it. And this is to be the climax of the third act.”
“True,” said Joseph, “true. If it wasn’t for The Bright Shawl, where would all of us be?—Still in the inkwell.”
⁂
Pilar wore it at the danzon in the teatro. Joseph sat in a box and Arco de Vaca told him that Andrés was about to be killed. He loved Andrés with his whole soul, such as it was, so he watched the last scene with interest from a safe place. To free Cuba and be shot while the band played was one thing. To mix up in the murder of his best friend and maybe get arrested—that was something else again.
But his iron nerve failed him. He took his hat and fled blindly—right into the midst of the fracas, where Pilar was stabbing Andrés and ink flowed like blood. Some kind friend batted Joseph over the head and he passed out. Curtain.
⁂
That was about all—except that the S. P. C. C. shipped the little dare-devil back to his mother, unpunctured.
He thought the matter over for forty years and was finally inclined to the belief that the blow on his head....
Well, maybe it did and maybe it didn’t. Who can tell?
THE JUDGE
or
TURNING THE TEA TABLES
Illustrating the influence of Henry James upon an otherwise perfectly good novelist,
Rebecca West