CHAPTER V
General Strike—Gay Times—The Dance at the Frontón—Initiation Into Love
Jesús’s sister welcomed most enthusiastically the two orphans befriended by the compositor on the day before Christmas; La Salvadora and the tiny tot became at once part of the family.
La Salvadora was of a shy, yet despotic disposition; she was so fond of cleaning, sweeping, dusting and shaking that she provoked Jesús and Manuel. She loved to arrange and put things in order; she was as energetic as she was thin. She brought their meals to Jesús and to Manuel, because they spent too much at the tavern; at noon she would be off for the printing-shop with a basket of food that was bulkier than herself. With the savings of three months La Fea and La Salvadora purchased a new sewing-machine at an instalment house.
“That girl isn’t going to let us live in peace,” said Jesús.
The typesetter’s life had returned to normal. He no longer got drunk. Yet despite the care lavished upon him by his sister and La Salvadora, he became daily more sombre and glum.
One winter’s evening when he had received his pay and was leaving the shop, Jesús asked Manuel:
“See here. Aren’t you tired of working?”
“Pse!”
“Aren’t you bored stiff by this routine, monotonous existence?”
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
“Anything rather than keep this up!”
“If you were only alone, as I am!”
“La Fea and La Salvadora are on the way to taking care of themselves,” said Jesús. In the spring, he added, he and Manuel ought to undertake a hike over the road, working a bit here and there and always seeing new faces and new places. He knew that the Department of the Interior helped out such travellers with a sum that consisted of two reales for every town through which they passed. If they could get such aid they ought to be off at once.
They were crossing the Plaza del Progreso, engrossed in this discussion, when a band of strolling students passed by playing a lilting march. It was beginning to snow; it was very cold.
“Shall we have a good supper tonight? What do you say?” asked Jesús.
“They’ll be waiting for us at home.”
“Let ’em wait! A day is a day. Are we going to stick there all our lives long, skimping, to save up a few nasty coins? Save! For what?”
They retraced their steps, hurrying along through the Calle de Barrionuevo, and on the Calle de la Paz they entered a tavern and ordered supper. As they ate they discussed their projected journey with enthusiasm. They drank several toasts to it. Manuel had never been so merry. They were fully agreed, ready to explore the North Pole.
“Now we ought to go to the dance at the Frontón,” mumbled Jesús at dessert in a stuttering voice. “We’ll pick up a couple of skirts and whoop ’er up for a gay old time! As for the printing-shop,—devil take it.”
“That’s what,” repeated Manuel. “To the dance! And let the lame boss go to hell. Get a move on, you!”
They got up, paid their bill, and as they walked through the Calle de Caretas they entered another tavern for a couple of glasses more.
Stumbling against everybody they reached the Calle de Tetuán, where Jesús insisted that they have two more glasses. They entered another tavern and sat down. The compositor was consumed by a raging thirst: he slouched there, a pallid wreck. Manuel, on the other hand, felt that his blood was on fire and his cheeks darted flames.
“Come on, let’s be moving,” he said to Jesús. But the typesetter could not stir. Manuel hesitated whether to remain there or leave Jesús sleeping with his head fallen upon the table.
Manuel staggered to the street. The snowflakes, dancing before his eyes, made him dizzy. He reached the Puerta del Sol. At the corner of the Carrera de San Jerónimo he caught sight of a girl who was accosting men. At first he confused her with La Rabanitos, but it was not she.
This girl had a face swollen with erysipelas.
“Hey, what are you doing?” asked Manuel of her, bruskly.
“Can’t you see? I’m selling Heraldos.”
“And nothing else?”
She lowered her voice, which was hoarse and broken, and added:
“And ready for a good time.”
Manuel’s heart began to throb violently.
“Haven’t you a sweetheart?” he inquired.
“I don’t want any steadies.”
“Why not?”
“They take away all the money a girl earns and then finish up the job with a good beating. Yes, they do....”
“How much’ll you take for coming along with me?”
“Ha! There’s a joke for you! Why, you haven’t a céntimo!”
“Who said so?”
“I’ll bet you haven’t.”
“I have, too,” muttered Manuel boastfully. “Five duros to blow and you’re no use to me at all.”
“Neither are you to me.”
“Listen here,” blurted Manuel. Seizing the girl by the arm he gave her a rude shove.
“Hey, you. Quit that, asaúra!” she cried.
“I don’t feel like it.”
“You’re nobody, you ain’t. And keep your hands where they belong, d’ye hear?”
“If you’re willing, I’ll treat you to coffee,” and Manuel jingled the money in his pocket.
The girl hesitated, then gave the newspapers that she held in her hand to an old woman. She tied her kerchief about her neck and went off with Manuel to a bun shop on the Calle de Jacometrezo. A cinnamon-hued puppy ran after them.
“Is that your dog?”
“Yes.”
“What’s his name?”
“Sevino.”
“And why do you call him that?”
“Because he walked right into our house without anybody bringing him.”[3]
They entered the bun shop. It was a spacious place, adorned with columns, at the rear of which was the kitchen, with its huge caldron for making buns. Two gas-lights, the burners of which were surrounded by white globes, shed a sad illumination upon the walls and the square columns, which were covered by white tiles bearing blue designs. Manuel and the girl sat down at a table near a door that led to a back street.
The girl prattled away at a merry clip as she dipped pieces of a bitter coffee-cake into the cup of chocolate. Her name was Petra, but they called her Matilde because that sounded so much better. She was sixteen years old and lived on the Calle del Amparo in an attic. She got up at two; but by the time she arose her mother had already done the house chores. She did not go out till evening. She sold a handful of Heraldos and ten Correos, and after that ... whatever turned up. All the money she earned she gave to her mother, and when her mother suspected that she was holding any back, she caught it hot and heavy.
Manuel sipped his glass of whiskey gravely, listened to what she said yet understood hardly a word.
The lass was ugly, in all truth. Her face was caked with powder. To Manuel, after a long scrutiny, it occurred that she looked like a fish smothered in flour, waiting for the frying-pan. As she spoke she made all manner of grimaces and moved her white, bulging eyelids, which fell over her darting eyes.
The girl babbled on about her mother, her brother, an uncle of hers who owned a news-stand and every morning advanced a duro to the kids who sold the Blanco y Negro, requiring the children to bring back the duro plus a peseta at the end of the day,—and about a host of other matters.
As she chattered away, Manuel recalled that Jesús had made some mention of a dance, although he could no longer remember just where it was to be held.
“Let’s go to that ball,” he said.
“Which? Over at the Frontón?”
“Yes.”
“Come on.”
They left the bun shop. It was still snowing. Proceeding through several deserted by-ways they reached the handball court. The two arc lights at the entrance threw a powerful illumination upon the white street. Manuel bought two tickets; he checked his cape and she her cloak, and they went in.
The Frontón was a large rectangular area, with one of the longer walls painted a dark blue and marked at regular intervals with white lines and numbers. The other long wall supported the tiers and the boxes.
Two large green screens bounded the shorter walls of the court. Above, at the top of the high roof, amidst the iron framework, ten or twelve glowing arc lamps, free of crystal globes, flashed a dazzling light.
This vast space, painted a dark hue, looked like an unoccupied machine shop.
A number of night birds of very low flight, bedecked with Manila mantles and flowers in their hair, displayed their busts in the boxes. It was cold.
When the military band burst into its noisy music the people from the corridors and from the restaurant came dancing out on to the floor, and in a little while the couples were whirling around the hall. There were no more than half a dozen masks. The dance grew more animated. By the cold, crude light from the arc lamps one could see the couples turning around, all the dancers very solemn, very stiff, as lugubrious as if they were attending a burial.
Some of the men rested their lips against the women’s foreheads. But one felt no atmosphere of passionate desire or fever. It was the dance of a people in whom life had been extinguished, of puppets with eyes that bespoke weariness or repressed anger. At times some wag, as if feeling the necessity of proving that this was a carnival ball, would stretch himself out on the floor or let out a piercing yell. There would be a momentary confusion, but soon order was restored and the dancing was resumed.
Manuel was filled with an impulse to do something wild. He got up and began to dance with his girl. She, however, vexed because he could not keep in time, went back to her seat. Disconsolate, Manuel did the same. Couples tripped by before them; the women with daubed faces and darkened eyes, with a beastly expression upon their rouged lips, and the men with an arrogant mien and an aggressive glance.
Angrily the men ripped through the streamers that were thrown down from the boxes, entangling the dancers.
A drunken negro, seated near Manuel, greeted the passing of some good-looking woman with a shout that mimicked a child’s voice:
“Olé there! My gipsy baby!”
“Hello, Manolo,” came a voice to Manuel’s ears. It was Vidal, who was dancing with an elegant mask, tightly clasping her waist.
“Come see me tomorrow,” said Vidal.
“Where?”
“Seven at night, at the Café de Lisboa.”
“Good.”
Vidal was soon lost with his partner in the whirlpool of dancers. The music paused for an intermission.
“Shall we leave?” asked Manuel of the girl.
“Yes, let’s be going.”
Manuel was all atremble with emotion at thought that the tragic moment was approaching. They went to the check-room, got their clothes and left.
It was still snowing. The light from the electric globes over the door of the Frontón illuminated the street, which was covered with a white sheet of snow. Manuel and the girl crossed the Puerta del Sol in haste, went up the Calle de Correos, turned into the Calle de la Paz and stopped before an open gate which was lighted by the half confidential, half mysterious glow that came from a large, very lugubrious lantern.
They pushed aside a glass door and disappeared up the dark staircase.