CHAPTER II
El Garro—Marcos Calatrava—The Master—Confidences
One night Manuel left the Círculo in company of a puny, sickly looking fellow. They were both bound in the same direction; they entered the Café de Lisboa; there the dwarf met a corpulent woman and sat down at a table with her. Manuel approached his cousin.
“What were you talking about to him?” asked Vidal.
“Nothing. About indifferent matters.”
“I warn you that he’s one of the police.”
“Is that so?”
“I should say.”
“But I saw him at the Círculo.”
“Yes. He goes there to collect graft. He’s married to that fatty he’s with now; her name’s La Chana, and she’s an old hand at swindling. She used to live on the Calle de La Visitación when I went around with Violeta. At that time La Chana ran a ‘fence.’ She knew every inspector on the force and lived with a bully called The Minister who was killed on the Calle de Alcalá. Watch out for El Garro; if he asks you anything, don’t answer a word. On the other hand, if you can pump anything out of him, by all means do so.”
The next day El Garro again managed to join Manuel, asking who he was and where he came from. Manuel, now on his guard, told him a string of lies with a face of the utmost innocence, pretending to be the dupe of Vidal and the Cripple.
“I want to tip you off that those fellows are a pair of shrewd birds,” said the police agent.
“Gee! You don’t say!”
“Uf! It would be better if they were out of sight! The Cripple, especially, is as crooked as they make them. Don’t get mixed up with him, for he’s likely to do anything.”
“Is that how wild he is?”
“You just bet. I know his history, all right, though he doesn’t know that I do. His name is Marcos Calatrava, and he comes of good family. Only two years ago he was studying medicine.”
El Garro related the entire life story of Marcos. At first he had been an excellent student. Then all at once he became a habituée of dives and dens, in one of which he once stole a cape. He was unfortunate enough to be caught red-handed; they took him off to the Model Prison and he stayed there two months. The following year he made up his mind to give up studying, and since they no longer sent him money from home he began a life of bullying around gambling resorts and joints. During a fight he was stabbed, and for a while this cooled his enthusiasm for swaggering. When he got well he went to see the Mother Superior of the San Carlos Sisters of Charity and asked her for some money. He wished to become a monk, he said; he had been touched by the divine grace. With his honeyed speech he convinced the woman; he not only got the money from her, but also a letter to the prior of a monastery of Burgos.
Calatrava squandered the money and within two or three months was at the point of starvation. Hereupon he organized a company of strolling players whom he exploited in the most conscienceless manner, and about a year or so after he had received the letter from the Mother Superior, during a period of terrible famine, he came upon it at the bottom of a trunk and made up his mind to use it. As he was a man of rapid decisions, he did not hesitate, took the train without a ticket, and arrived at Burgos amongst the freight. He presented himself at the monastery and entered as a novice. Within a short time he requested them to send him among the towns collecting alms. At first he was excellent, even distinguishing himself for his zeal. Soon, however, he began to commit barbarities, scandalizing the pious inhabitants of the villages. When the prior, who had been apprised of his exploits, sent him an order to return to the monastery, Calatrava, paying no attention to the command, continued to swindle the townsfolk. When they were about to apprehend him, he returned to Madrid. After three or four months in the capital he exhausted all his money and his credit, and decided to enlist in the medical section of the army and go off to the Philippines.
An army physician, seeing how clever and ready to assist this Marcos was, tried to help him complete his course and placed him as an interne in the military hospital at Manila.
At once Calatrava set about robbing the hospital pharmacy of medicines, bandages, apparatus,—whatever he could lay hands upon to sell. He was discharged; he asked for permanent papers and gave himself up to exploiting the gamblers in the Manila dives. As he was so fastidious, life there soon became impossible for him, whereupon he fell back upon a military club and succeeded in having them raise a collection for him. With that money he returned to Spain.
Once in Madrid he was soon out of funds again, but as he was not of the kind who drown in a little water, he enlisted in a battalion of volunteers en route to Cuba. Marcos won distinction through his bravery in many a battle, rose soon to a sergeantcy, when a bullet entered his leg and they had to amputate it in the Havana Hospital. The fellow now returned to Spain, with no future ahead of him and only a ridiculous pension to fall back upon.
Here he went around pretending to be one of the secret service, tramping the streets, until he took up with a partner and dedicated himself to burial swindles, which, despite the extent of their practice, still yield results to professional imposters. At one time he formed a society of espadistas and domestics for the robbing of houses; he forged notes; then there was no deceit or swindle to which he would not stoop; and as he was a nimble-witted, clear-eyed fellow, he made a methodical study of all the known methods of trickery; he weighed the pros and the contras of each and every one, and found that they all had their disadvantages.
“At last,” concluded El Garro, “he met the Master, who has retired. I don’t know myself where they got the money for these dives; but the fact is that they have them.”
“Are there more than one of these Círculos?” asked Manuel.
“This is the only one that’s open to the public. But they have the house belonging to the Colonel’s wife, where much more gambling goes on. That’s where the Master is every night. Haven’t you ever been to that house?”
“No.”
“They’ll take you there, all right. If you have any money to lose, between Vidal and the Cripple they’ll take you there. Then the Colonel’s wife, since she’s launching her daughter as a dancer, is going to open a salon.”
“Is this Colonel’s wife a Cuban?” asked Manuel.
“Yes.”
“Then I know her. And I know a friend of hers, too, whose name is Mingote.”
The agent eyed Manuel with a certain suspicion.
“Then you may say,” he went on, “that you know the worst scoundrels in Madrid. Mingote is at present with Joaquina la Verdeseca. They run a high-toned house of assignation. Women come there and leave their photographs. It was Mingote who organized that celebrated ball. It cost a duro to get in, and at the end they raffled off a woman: the daughter of Mingote’s mistress.”
A few days after this conversation Manuel, leaving the Círculo and coming upon Vidal, felt the need of confiding to his cousin the dissatisfaction he felt with this sort of life. That night Vidal was in a gloomy mood himself and confided several sad tales to Manuel, too.
They went to a theatre, but there was no audience to speak of; they entered a café, and after spending a terribly cold night Vidal suggested that they go to La Concha’s, on the Calle de Arlaban, for a bite.
Manuel was averse, for he felt neither like eating nor like doing anything else. He tagged after Vidal, however. It was very warm inside; they took seats and Vidal ordered a couple of whiskys and cutlets.
“A fellow must forget,” he said, after giving his order.
Manuel made a gesture of displeasure and emptied a glass of wine that Vidal had poured out.
Then he told the story that El Garro had related to him. His cousin drank in every word.
“I didn’t know Calatrava’s life history,” he confessed, after Manuel had finished.
“Well, tit for tat,” answered Manuel. “You tell me, now, who is this Master?”
“The Master ... is a colossus. Did you ever read ‘Rocambole?’”
“No.”
Vidal paused a while; the figure of Rocambole[6] struck him, no doubt, as most fit for a likeness to the Master.
“Very well. Then imagine a man like the Cripple. Get me? But ever so much cleverer; a man who can imitate any handwriting, who knows four or five languages, who’s always master of himself, who can wear a workman’s smock or a frock coat with the same ease, who can talk to a lady and appear the finest of gentlemen, and then gossip with a street-walker and seem a loafer; and add to this that he’s a sort of clown, that he plays the accordion, that he can imitate a train, make funny motions and mock at everybody. And yet, with all this, boy, you can catch him sometimes half in tears at sight of a half-naked ragamuffin on the street, or because a little girl has asked him for an alms.”
“And what’s his name?”
“How should I know? Nobody does. Some folks say that they knew his father and mother, but it’s not so. I’ve wondered myself whether he mightn’t be the illegitimate son of some noble, but I can’t altogether believe that, for if it had really been so, it would be shocking that they should have arrested him, as they did, when he was seventeen.”
“He began early.”
“Yes. They arrested him without cause. He was in the employ of a fellow who’d managed some swindle, and they shut him up in the Saladero together with his employer. He tells the story himself. One day, it seems, the judge was about to take a deposition from some prisoner, and as the clerk was copying the deposition he was taken suddenly ill and they had to remove him to his home. The judge asked the jailer whether they had any prisoner who could copy down from dictation, whereupon the jailer summoned the Master. He sat down in the clerk’s chair, looked over the documents and began to write. The judge, after the deposition was over, casts a glance at the papers and opens his eyes in amazement. It was impossible to tell where the Master had begun and where the clerk had left off; the handwriting of one and the other was the same.
“What a clever rogue!”
“When the Master told this story, he said that if the judge hadn’t been a stupid ass, he would not have met such a bad end; but the only thing that occurred to the judge was to declare that this boy was a dangerous fellow and that they’d have to keep a close watch upon him. The Master, who noticed that they became even more watchful, and this after he had done them a favour, naturally got angry. Later, in the Saladero, he became acquainted with a notorious forger, and between the two of them, in the prison itself, they did a Frenchman out of forty thousand duros through a burial certificate.”
“The scoundrels!”
“They got away with five or six tricks of the sort. At last it was discovered that they were the culprits and they were prosecuted on fresh charges. They asked one of them: ‘Who wrote this?’ So one of them answered, ‘I’. Then they asked the other, ‘Who wrote this?’ And he too answered, ‘I.’ They simply couldn’t discover which it really was. Then it occurred to the judge to have each of them put into a separate room and made to write the letter through which they had learned that a burial was being prepared. And, boy! The two wrote in the same handwriting, and even made the same erasures. Just imagine how clever that fellow must be, if several times, when there have been balls and banquets at the Royal Palace, he has forged invitations, has put on a dress suit and gone off to the king’s residence, rubbing elbows with dukes and marquises.”
“The deuce you say!” exclaimed Manuel, with admiration. “And is his companion of the Saladero still living?”
“No. I believe he died in America.”
“Has the Master ever been to America?”
“He’s been everywhere. He’s travelled over half the globe, and in every corner of it he has left behind him some ten or a dozen forgeries.”
“He must be rich.”
“You just bet.”
“And what does he do with his money?”
“That’s something I don’t know. He doesn’t go in much for good times, nor has he any women. The Cripple told me once that the Master has a daughter who’s being brought up in France, and that he would leave her a fortune.”
“And where does this man live?”
“Over toward Chamberí. I think he spends the days there reading and playing the guitar, and kissing his daughter’s photograph.”
“I’d be curious to find out just what he does.”
“Don’t you try. I once felt the same curiosity. One day I saw him leave a bowling alley on the Cuatro Caminos. ‘Let’s see what this guy is up to,’ I said to myself. I went there the next day and met him. He was in a jovial mood, playing, chatting, gesticulating. It seemed that he hadn’t recognized me. The next day the Cripple says to me:
“‘Don’t return to the place you visited yesterday, unless you want to break with me forever.’ I took the hint and never returned.”
The life of this unknown master, so pure and simple, yet so embroiled in swindlery and deception, was exceedingly curious. Manuel listened to his cousin as one who listens to a fairy tale.
“And the Colonel’s wife?” he asked.
“Nothing.... A gawky skirt. She was the mistress of a watchmaker, who got tired of her because she’s such an ordinary thing, and then she tied up with that soldier. She’s a wicked, filthy old creature.”
“She’s wicked, to be sure. That’s how she struck me from the first day I laid eyes on her.”
“Wicked? She’s a wolf, and has an awful temper. She’s capable of the lowest tricks. Formerly, when some young gentleman would follow one of her daughters, she’d have him come into the house and there she told him that as to her daughters, there was nothing doing. They could have her, though. Now she hangs around the barracks. She’s the cheapest of indecent hags.... But what she’s doing with her son is even worse.”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing. Just for the fun of it they dress him up as a girl and paint him up and don’t call him Luis, which is his real name, but Luisita la Ricopelo.”
“Christ!” muttered Manuel, bringing his fist down upon the table. “That’s too much. That ought to be reported.”
Three men and a girl took seats at the side table.
One of them was a rouged old man with a face seamed with soft wrinkles and an air of repugnant cynicism; the other looked like a wig-maker, with his carefully groomed side-whiskers and his curled hair; the third, bald, with a red nose and yellow, matted hair, looked like the symbol of decrepit youth.
The girl was very pretty; she had a thin nose, very fine lips, black hair, evenly parted; she wore a pearl-coloured cape with a collar of feathers; her mantilla was caught up in her chignon, framing her face and falling across her bosom.
Her features betrayed a constant restlessness and a sarcastic expression; she could not keep quiet for a moment; even when she listened, she fidgeted about and nervously moved her lips.
The cheeks of the entire quartet were aglow and their eyes glittered. The bearded fellow kept asking the girl one question after the other; she answered with the utmost impudence.
Manuel and Vidal cocked their ears to catch the conversation.
“And you really believe in free love?” said the bearded fellow.
“Sure.”
“Wouldn’t you like to get married?”
“No, sirree.”
“She’s a cold fish,” interrupted he of the side-whiskers. “She doesn’t understand matters of affection.”
“Bah. I don’t believe that.”
“The trouble with the poor girl is that she’s very ... brutish,” muttered the old man in a whisky-soaked voice.
“And your wife?” she asked, hitching about in her seat and looking at the old man out of cold, jesting eyes. The girl gave the impression of some wasp or other creature endowed with a sting. Whenever she was about to say something she changed position, stung her interlocutor, and sat back, content and calm for a moment.
The old man mumbled a string of blasphemies. The fellow with the red whiskers continued his interrogatory of the girl:
“But haven’t you ever loved anybody?”
“Not a bit of it. What for?”
“Haven’t I told you she’s as cold as marble?” muttered the chap who looked like a wig-maker.
“When I first became acquainted with that guy,” she went on, laughing and pointing to the fellow with the side-whiskers, “I had a man who paid for my room, and the landlady passed as my mother. Besides, I had other gentleman friends; well, you see, nobody saw anything wrong.”
“That’s terrible,” exclaimed the bearded old man, filling a glass with wine and gulping it down. “They don’t care a bit for us, and here we imagine that they have a heart. But really, in all truth, tell me, haven’t you ever loved anybody?”
“Nobody. Nobody.”
“Haven’t I told you,” repeated the wig-maker’s double, “that she’s as cold as marble? If you only knew the crazy things I’ve done for her! I would ask for her timidly at the porter’s lodge; a month would go by before I plucked up the courage to speak to her; and finally, after I’d got her, I discovered that she was the kind of woman to whom a fellow may say: ‘Are you free tomorrow at such and such an hour?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, then, see you tomorrow.’”
“Just as one would speak to a piano-tuner,” interjected the bearded gentleman, discovering some relation or other between people and pianos. “It’s awful,” he added. And then, in an access of anger, he pounded his fist down upon the table and set all the glasses dancing.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked the old fellow.
“Nothing. This piggish human brood of ours ought to be destroyed. I feel that I’m an anarchist.”
“Bah! I think you feel drunk,” interrupted he of the side-whiskers.
“Holy God! Just because you happen to be an indecent bourgeois given up to business....”
“You’re more bourgeois than I am.”
The man with the red nose and the yellow beard lapsed into an indignant silence; then, turning to the girl, he said to her in an angry voice:
“Tell that imbecile that when a man of talent speaks he ought to keep his mouth shut. It’s really our fault, for we give him the right of belligerency.”
“Poor man!”
“Idiot!”
“You’re more of a bore than any of the articles you write!” shouted he of the side-whiskers. “And yet, if all this pride you pretend were only truly felt, it would be well. But you don’t feel it. You’re an unfortunate wretch who recognize your own imbecility; you spend your whole life boring us stiff with the recitation of articles you’ve already published,—articles that aren’t even your own, for you steal them right and left....”
At this the bearded gentleman turned so pale that his interlocutor cut short his remarks. The trio continued their conversation in ordinary tones.
All at once the old man broke out into a howl.
“Then he can’t be a respectable person!” he cried.
“Why not?” asked the woman.
“Because he can’t. He must be a carpenter, a street-sweeper, a thief, or the son of a bad mother, for I can’t see what reason a respectable person can have for getting up in the morning.”
Manuel and Vidal had their supper. Shortly afterward the girl and her three escorts rose from their places.
“And now a fellow goes home,” grumbled he of the red whiskers in a funereal tone, “makes his bed, gets in, lights a cigarette, drinks a glass of water, urinates and falls asleep. Life is disgusting.”
As the quartet went into the street, Vidal followed after.
“I’m going to find out who she is,” he explained to Manuel. “See you tomorrow.”
“So long.”