The Man Inside

by Natalie Sumner Lincoln

THE long hot tropic day was drawing to its close. The shadows were gradually rising and filling the narrow street, and every now and then from the side of the open drain which ran through the middle of the street a large black carrion bird flew up. There was no sidewalk, the cobblestones running right up to the low white house walls. The windows which opened on the street were for the most part few in number, small and heavily barred. It was not by any means the best quarter in Colon. One building, more pretentious than the rest, was distinguished from its neighbors by large French windows, also protected by the iron screen or reja.

It was impossible to tell the nationality of the one man lounging along the street. He seemed profoundly buried in his own thoughts. Dark as his skin was, and black as was his beard, there was something about him which negatived the idea that he was a Spaniard. His rolling walk suggested the sailor’s life.

As he passed the building with the long French windows, the tinkle of a guitar roused his attention, and he stepped inside the front door and glanced furtively at the few men who lounged about the tables which dotted the long room. Passing by several empty tables and chairs, the stranger seated himself in the corner of the room on the side further from the street, near a window which opened on a neglected garden. A tropical vine thrust its branches against what had once been a wood and glass partition which formed the end of the room, the branches and leaves twining in and out among the broken panes of the window.

Some of the occupants of the room had glanced indifferently at the stranger on his entrance, but his haggard, unshaven face and worn clothing did not arouse their curiosity, and they again turned their attention to their wine.

The stranger, after contemplating the view from the window for some moments, leaned back in his chair, thrust his hands in his pockets, and stretched his long legs under the table; then indolently studied his surroundings. The room reeked with tobacco smoke and the odor of spirits. The scene reminded him of Port Said. Not quite as many nationalities were represented in Colon as haunt the entrance to the Suez Canal, but the low chatter of tongues which greeted his ears was polyglot. The men in the room were types of the born ne’er-do-well. Lazy, shiftless, they had drifted to Colon, thinking to pick up whatever spoils came their way during the construction of the Panama Canal. Drinking and gambling, gambling and drinking—the sum total of their lives. The stranger’s lips curved in a sardonic smile, and he crooned softly:

Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like
the worst,
Where there aren’t no Ten Commandments an’ a man can
raise a thirst.

His smile deepened as he caught the scowl of a Spaniard sitting near him. His glance traveled on, and, as he studied the flushed, sodden faces, a sudden horror of himself and his surroundings shook him. He passed a nervous hand over his damp forehead. Why had his memory played him so scurvy a trick? The past few years were not pleasant to contemplate, and the future even less so. He half started from his chair, then sank back and summoned the mozo. Quickly he gave his order in fluent Spanish, and waited impatiently for the man’s return. He had been fortunate at the gaming table the night before, and could purchase a moment’s respite from the torments of an elusive memory. Memory, in whose wondrous train follow the joys of childhood, parents and home! The stranger’s strong hand trembled as he stroked his beard. Why was he an outcast? For him alone there were no childhood and no home; his thinking life began as a full-grown man. Was there to be no awakening?

In a few moments the mozo returned, and placed a glass and bottle of liquor before him. The stranger hastily filled and drank. As the stimulant crept through his veins, a feeling of physical contentment replaced all other sensations, and, lighting a cigar, he was slowly sinking once more into reverie when from behind the partition he heard a voice:

“No names, please.”

The words, spoken clearly in English, startled him from his abstraction, and he glanced through the vine and, himself unseen, saw two men sitting at a table. They had apparently entered the patio from another part of the house.