Frijolita remained at the more expensive hotel, giving out daily interviews to the press about the many royal scions who had committed suicide because she could not respond to their love. Her husband sometimes came to call upon us. He was a dapper little fellow; his hair was very long; his face was always neatly powdered; his smile was endearing. He would greet us with a gentle wave of the hand or a gesture of his cane; ask after our health; and withdraw gracefully, a vision of dainty, silken-clad ankles, leaving a trail of haunting perfume behind him.
A week elapsed. Maestro devoted it to informing his acquaintances that Frijolita was treating him like a dog. Then came the much-awaited début.
The theater was a shabby structure of European design, its two balconies consisting of boxes and loges, where sat the ladies of society. The unattached men filled the pit, many with their hats on, craning their necks to stare aloft. We waited an hour and a half for the President. He finally arrived. Every one rose. The orchestra played the national anthem. It was greeted with vast applause. Little withered Maestro turned and bowed. Then the orchestra played again—that piece about daybreak or springtime or something wherein the trapdrummer usually toots upon a bird-whistle. Here the trapdrummer had no bird-whistle. But the curtain went up just the same, revealing a conventional backdrop, and a huddled mass of plumes in the foreground which proved to be none other than Frijolita herself, apparently asleep.
More applause! Thunderous applause! It awakened Frijolita. Very slowly she arose from the floor and commenced to undulate. At some time in the distant past, one sensed that she had been a great dancer. Nowadays one felt that she had reached the stage where she ought to interpret only the classics. She was just a bit too heavy to do popular stuff. But she was game. She undulated faster and faster. She flitted and romped and turned somersaults. Applause became a roar of approval. The music ceased. She bowed, leaped behind the curtain, emerged in a Spanish shawl, unwound it and threw it away, leaped back behind the curtain, emerged in another shawl—
There were fourteen shawls to be unwound, while the roar grew to a tumult. Then she was gone. Bosco, who was not singing to-night, came out of the wings, and hurried through the auditorium with a preoccupied air to let the public know he was connected in some way with the troupe, while Maestro acknowledged with grateful genuflections the approval of the spectators. It was an exhibition such as might be seen in any second-rate vaudeville house on Broadway as a curtain-raiser, but it was an event in Managua. Most of the Nicaraguans recognized it as an inferior performance, but outwardly they maintained an air of joyous appreciation largely patriotic.
Frijolita had no supporting troupe. There was a brief intermission; then she broke loose again. This time she displayed an elephantine pair of bare legs, and the roar of approval increased. Again and again she danced, interpreting thereby—according to the program—the latest wiggles of every land from Egypt to Japan. She came finally to her masterpiece, the genuine Hawaiian hula-hula. And then occurred the unexpected climax. Maestro, either by accident or malicious design, stopped his music too soon, leaving her with one foot in the air.
Frijolita flew into a rage. Her far-famed temperament burst all bounds. Rushing to front-stage, she screamed revilement at the musician. All Managua cheered her. Rising in his wrath, Maestro screamed revilement at her. And all Managua cheered him. Frijolita was outraged. She seized such pieces of scenery as were not nailed down, and commenced to hurl them. The President, feeling that the whole affair was beneath his dignity, took his departure. Frijolita’s husband came teetering forward to mediate.
“Qué pasa?” he inquired pleasantly. “What’s the trouble?”
Frijolita glared at him.
“What sort of man are you? Why don’t you defend me?”