Poor Folk in Spain

by Jan Gordon; Cora Gordon

So Antonio, the clerk, the zapatero, Jan and I set out for the lawyer's office. We had expected the bootmaker to leave us on the threshold, but he stalked gravely in our rear, and introduced himself to the lawyer's clerks as a friend of the family. The lawyer's office was a large apartment with a black and white tiled floor, at one end of which was the clerk's table and at the other that of the lawyer. He was a thick-set man covered with a huge golfing cap in loud checks. Over his head was suspended from the ceiling, with outstretched wings, a stuffed and dilapidated eagle from which generations of moth had stolen all hint of beauty. We discovered that this eagle, in some form or another, is the recognized trademark of the lawyer. One is tempted to wonder if this bird of prey hovers thus emblematically over the head of the man of law as a sort of symbolic warning to the simple-minded peasants.

The legal preliminaries were brought to a stop by the discovery that Jan had forgotten the passports; so, while he set off in a hurry to get them, we sat around in an uncomfortable circle. Meanwhile the chill from the tiled floor crept upwards through my feet. To break the silence the lawyer began to pay me the usual compliments on my Castilian. Immediately in came the zapatero.

"She is a talented lady," he exclaimed. "Not only does she speak English in addition to our language, but she can paint pictures, and play on musical instruments. These I have seen and heard myself. Furthermore, she has other talents: she can read and write, and so can her husband. In case you do not believe this latter statement I can prove it."

Whereupon he pulled from his pocket the address which Jan had written for him at Lorca and, unfolding it with some solemnity, placed it on the lawyer's desk. The latter, perceiving nothing humorous in the zapatero's action, read the writing gravely and handed it back with expressions of approval.

But the arrival of Jan with the passports by no means seemed to satisfy the lawyer. He turned the papers over and over and said that with these nothing could be done. After much difficulty we discovered that no justice could be claimed in Spain unless one were registered at the municipal offices. The tax for registration depended upon one's station and possessions. There was just time, with luck, to get ourselves registered before the offices were shut; so, fearful that we should miss another day, we hurried through the narrow Murcian streets, led by Antonio and followed by the bootmaker. On the way a sudden doubt attacked Jan. His passport name is Godfrey Jervis, but he generally signs himself by his pen-name of "Jan." Thoughtlessly he had signed the claim in the station book "Jan" and was afraid that if this name was not entered in the other papers a legal flaw might be entailed. The municipal registry office was a long, dark passage pierced with small, square, deep-set pigeon-holes and about large enough to admit the passage of a head. Through one of these holes we made our claim, asking for tramps' certificates—the cheapest of all. My municipal paper was filled in easily enough, but we had a tough struggle to induce the official to alter "Godfrey Jervis" to "Jan."

At first, as is official habit, he was hidebound, but in Spain by persistence one can achieve anything. In turn Jan, myself, Antonio and the zapatero, thrust a head through the hole adding urging to expostulation. Luckily the passport name was not very clearly written, and at last the official admitted a compromise: he put "Godfrey Jan," and our spirits rose once more.

Back we went to the lawyer's office, where, with some delays, and the expenditure of eighteen pesetas, we turned Antonio into our representative against the railway companies. We may add that one year and six months have passed since then; we have since paid twenty-two pesetas more for another document; and a few months ago we were informed that possibly our case would come up for settlement next year.[31]

Before the night was over we also learned to our satisfaction that Luis had found a job for the zapatero, and that Antonio had got him a bedroom at the small confectioner's in a street close by.