VI
At that time, Eustace and I knew very little about Spanish custom.
We looked upon our mild flirtation as a pleasant and instructive way of spending the evening while waiting for another boat.
Herminia and Lolita would pass us two or three times, always with that promising flash of eyes, and a murmured “Adios.” Presently they would stop at a bench beyond, and glance back. Thereupon we would rise, stroll around the park as we had seen Mexican youths do, and stop casually, as though by accident, at the girls’ bench.
And conversation, as I recall it, invariably ran somewhat as follows:
Ay, but one was surprised that to-night we came to their bench! After the way we had stared at Carmen Rosa María de la Concepción Purísima Rodríguez, one expected that we might have gone to her bench. Ay, but both of them had seen! And Carmen Rosa María was the most beautiful girl in Mazatlán, no? No? Then who was? Ay, gracias, gracias, señores! So nice it was that we should say so! Did we really think so? Ay, but we were simpatico—muy simpatico—to say it!
Then commenced the Spanish lesson. It seemed, at times, a trifle impractical, for it was usually limited to phrases conveying admiration of feminine charm. If the male Latin-American revels in flattery, the female lives upon it, and these two señoritas were merely typical of most of their sisters in Mexico. A young man in their country was expected to spend the entire evening raving about their beauty. It mattered not how elaborate were his phraseology; he could expand his theme to a degree which would have brought any American flapper to her feet with the disgusted exclamation of, “How do you get that way? Do you think I’m a dumb-bell?”, yet here it was not only accepted, but demanded. This, as any traveling Gringo soon discovers in Mexico, was the theme most interesting to a señorita.
I suspected, at times, that I lacked the true grace of the Spanish cavalier. Since my command of the language was still somewhat limited, it was necessary to repeat the same phrases with tiresome regularity. I became aware of a foreboding, as we sat there beneath the coco-palms, that if I recited those phrases once more, all the cocoanuts would drop on me.
But when I suggested, as a change of entertainment, that we stroll over to a little café on the harbor-front for ice cream, the señoritas were quite shocked.
Ay, but one was now in Mexico! It was not custom! People would talk! And was it true that in the United States the girls—nice girls—could do such things? One had heard so, but it sounded incredible. One had even heard that young people went away, without chaperones, to theaters or dances. And was this true? One had actually heard that there were petting parties. How delightfully wicked! Ay, what a wonderful place must be the United States!
There was a pleasing simplicity about these little convent-sheltered maidens. If they craved flattery until it seemed a bit monotonous, one could at least pay it with veracity. And the plaza, although it was overpopulated with observers, was always pleasant. One had the illusion, particularly in the evening, that it was a theater where one collaborated with the rest of the populace in enacting a polite comedy-drama. The palms and ferns hung lifeless in the tropic calm, and the red hibiscus resembled paper flowers. The old cathedral transformed itself into a backdrop. The strains of the band came to one as from an orchestra hidden off-stage. There was something unreal about the soft whispers and the rippling laughter of the other youths and maidens. And when, as the chimes announced the hour of ten, the señoritas betook themselves homeward with cheerful little calls of “Adios until to-morrow!”, I waited expectantly for a curtain to descend.
One evening, after the girls had departed, Werner stopped at our bench.
“Just thought I’d warn you,” he said. “I know you don’t mean any harm. There’s something about this place that makes one lonesome for feminine company. But down here, unless you show very definitely that you intend marriage, they take it for granted you’re up to monkey business. So just go easy, or you’ll have their family jumping on your necks.”
We thanked him. It was timely advice. And when, on the following evening, the girls suggested that we meet the family, we agreed. It seemed advisable as an indication of the highly sanitary state of our consciences.
Theirs was the usual one-story dwelling of solid masonry characteristic of the country. A faded and crumbling plaster front concealed a pleasing, albeit conventional interior. The living room was floored with cool tiling. The furnishings—except for a piano with yellowed keys, and a marble-topped table littered with forbidding pictures of stout female ancestors—consisted mainly of stiff-backed chairs formally arranged in a row along each wall; yet the conventional effect was relieved somewhat by numerous white lace doilies on the seats, or by potted palms which gave the room the semblance of a garden.
The family proved gracious, but not entertaining. Papa and mama assured us that the house was ours—as is customary when a stranger enters the Latin-American home. Then, one by one, they brought forward their relatives and presented them—a daughter or two, several sons, a few cousins, nephews or nieces, a flock of aunts, some assorted uncles or brothers-in-law with their respective families, and finally grandma. Having informed us in turn that they were our servants, they took seats until the walls were lined with them, and silence fell upon the gathering.
Papa opened the conversation with a pleasant inquiry regarding the object of our visit to Mazatlán. Ah, we were writers! An admiring nod ran around the circle, finally reaching grandma, where it stopped momentarily until Uncle Somebody transmitted our answer through an ear trumpet. Grandma seemed a trifle perplexed, as though she did not know just what writers might be, but she nodded politely. Thus the conversation proceeded, papa acting as spokesman for the entire party, until—after the ordeal had continued for an hour or more—a servant entered with glasses of vermouth, and our reception closed in a toast proposed by papa to the “very distinguished guests, who have honored our humble household to-night.”
Our necks seemed to be free from the likelihood of assault, for upon the following evening the girls announced that they had permission to stroll beyond the plaza, as far as the driveway that bordered the harbor.
“Never have our parents permitted it with our own countrymen,” they added. “Our people trust Americans more than themselves.”
To show our appreciation, we took the girls home each night, even though it involved another session at which the family lined up around the wall to nod while papa conducted another tedious conversation. Yet, if we were occasionally bored, our two weeks passed rapidly.