After awhile, however, he observed that these ornaments, which were the pride of his establishment, did not attract everybody to his inn. On the contrary, if they attracted some they kept others away; for there were other Andalusians in the community beside the “Galician,” and they did not have the same interest as he in conquering their aversion to serpents. And besides these there were Italians and others who, although they were quite ready to praise the quality of the drink to be obtained at the store, did not dare step inside. It was all well enough to toss off a glassful under the yellow paunch and the four extended claws of the crocodiles—they could go that—but, to see that serpent breathing out flies, and showing, as it moved, the hair-raising marks on its back, whenever on lifting your glass, you looked up at the ceiling—no—that was going too far!
The boldest of these spirits ventured to come in only after tightly clenching their right fists; then they advanced holding out the thumb and little finger so as to form horns to conjure away ill-luck. “Lizard! Lagarto!” they muttered, turning their eyes so as not to see what was above their heads. But there were others who, notwithstanding this protection, did not venture to come in but stayed outside, even in mid-winter, their hands in their belts, puffing out streams of vapor from their mouths, and calling loudly to Friterini, the Galician’s servant, to bring their drinks out to them.
So once more the proprietor sacrificed his convenience to that of his patrons. The boa was unhooked and sold to a tavern in that district of the port of Buenos Aires known as La Boca, where most of the customers were sailors and men from ships. So the four crocodiles remained as the sole ornaments, swaying from the ceiling like extinguished funeral lamps.
Another embellishment of the place was the collection of flags which on feast days fluttered from the roof, and the rest of the year adorned the boliche’s one room. All the colored rags ever chosen by men eager to make themselves a group apart, distancing other men in their pursuit of distinction, were to be found in this fly-infested shack in Patagonia; flags of nations now in existence, of nations which had died and desired to live again, of nations which had never lived at all, and were struggling to be born.
There was not a workman in this “land of all the world” who could not find some bit of rag with his national colors at the Galician’s. Antonio Gonzalez had, long before they were known in the embassies of Europe, become familiar with the flags which years later were to be consecrated by the events of the Great War. And he had room for them all; the flag of the Irish nation was there as well as that of the Zionist republic, later to be established in Jerusalem. Only once had he raised any objections in the matter, and that was when some of his compatriots from Barcelona tried to get him to put up the Catalan emblem.
“I admit this flag to membership here,” he said with a majestic wave of the hand towards the walls already bristling with banners. “The only condition I make is concerning its size.” He quite firmly required that it should not exceed a fourth part of the Spanish emblem.
On national holidays, aided by Friterini, he always adorned his roof with the exhibits of his “flag museum,” offering explanations as he did so to the comisario, the only representative of authority in the settlement. One might have thought him the keeper of the royal seal consulting with the prime minister.
“Don Roque, you know many things, but in this matter of banners, I know the oxen I am plowing with better than you do. The first point to consider is this. The Argentine flag must be placed higher than any of the others. Then, to the right of it, the Spanish flag. No other can have that place. In this country we come next to the Argentinians, as you know ... Isabel, la catolica ... Solis ... Don Pedro de Mendoza ... Don Juan de Garay....”
He produced these names of navigators and explorers without the slightest consideration for chronology, while, from below, he watched his Italian waiter placing the flags on the roof. Argentina was all right? Spain beside her? No danger of their tumbling down with the wind? Well then, Friterini could finish up the job to his taste.
“Aren’t we all equal in this, everybody’s land?” inquired the tavern keeper.