An Officer and a Lady (4 page)

Well, there was only one thing to do. I didn’t stop to explain what I was about to suffer for her sake, nor what she was up against herself. I thought she’d find out soon enough.

We took a subway express downtown again, got off at Brooklyn Bridge and with the help of three policemen and a cripple found an L train for Bath Beach. As we started out from the terminal I wondered if I would ever get back. Even a Harlem flat looks like a real home, sweet home to a man when he gets lost in the wilderness.

We’d been under way about twenty minutes when the niece turned to me looking puzzled.

“What place is this?” she asked. “It’s so—funny. It seems that I’ve seen it in a dream.”

“It must have been a nightmare,” said I. “Don’t talk so loud. This is Brooklyn.”

For miles and miles, and it seemed hours and hours, we sat there in silence, waiting for the end. Finally the guard called out “Bath Beach!” and we jumped off onto a pile of ashes and tin cans. Then, after waiting a quarter of an hour for a trolley car that didn’t come, we started off down the street.

I gave a sigh of relief as I went up the steps of a brown and green two-story house and rang the bell. Almost immediately the door opened, and the niece started forward, then fell back again as she caught sight of the old dried up woman that looked through at her.

“Is this Robinson’s?” I asked.

“Naw,” she said. The door slammed in my face.

I looked at the number over the door, then at the sign on the street corner, then at the niece. “This is 6123 Bath Avenue,” I said sternly.

For answer she sat down on the porch step and began to cry. “I
thought
it was 6123,” she said between sobs.

She got all right in a minute or two, and we started for the nearest drug store to look at a directory. Then she remembered that the Robinsons had moved down there only a few months ago, so the directory would be useless. She stopped and began to think.

“It might have been 6132,” she said.

I left her at the drug store, and tried 6132, 6312, 6321, 6231 and 6213. Then I got desperate and went about three miles down to 3261. Just to save time and paper, figure out for yourself how many combinations there are in that damnable figure. I got back to the drug store about six o’clock.

“Nothing doing,” I said, as friendly as I could. “There’s no Robinsons in Bath Beach. There’s only one thing to do. Come home with me. My wife’ll be glad to have you.”

The niece got ready to cry again. “But I can’t,” she said. “She doesn’t know me.”

“I can introduce you, can’t I?” I demanded. “Unless you want to stay at a hotel.” But I could see she wouldn’t do that.

She was silent for a minute; then, “I’m going back to Poughkeepsie,” she said. “When can I get a train?”

I could see she meant it, and besides, I realized it was the best thing to do. So I didn’t waste any time in argument.

On the trip back my spirits jumped a notch every time the wheels went round. It was a combination of relief and expectation that I can’t exactly define. I suppose I should have had a premonition, but I know I didn’t.

At Grand Central we found out that the next train to Poughkeepsie was at 8:20. I looked at the niece. She was leaning against the window rail and seemed kind of limp.

“That’s an hour,” she said, glancing at the clock.

“Yes,” said I. “What’s the matter? Don’t you feel well?” She was gazing across the room in a kind of trance. Looking in the same direction I saw a big double door, and over the top the word “Restaurant.”

Of course I should have thought of it sooner, but I’d been so darned busy looking for Robinsons I hadn’t had time for anything else.

“Good Lord!” I exclaimed. “We haven’t had anything to eat since morning!”

“Yesterday,” she said. “I never eat breakfast.”

Instinctively we started together for the big double doors. About halfway across I suddenly stopped. “Listen,” I said. “We have a full hour. Why not go to a
good
place? It’s close.”

“Anywhere,” said the niece. “But I don’t want to miss the train.”

Why I chose Rector’s I don’t know. But I did. It was pretty well crowded but we found a table over on the Broadway side, and I ordered everything I could recognize.

The companionship of the knife and fork has always appealed to me. I suppose that’s what made me feel so friendly; but there were other considerations. When two people go to Brooklyn together they are forever bound by a sort of mutual sympathy. Also, I felt grateful to her for going back to Poughkeepsie instead of coming home with me. So by the time we’d finished with the roast we were almost chummy. It had even got to the place where I was trying to show her the advantages of being married. When I got through she stretched a hand across the table to me.

“Mr. Keeler,” she said, “I believe you. I really don’t know anything about it, but I’ll take your word for it. And after all your kindness to me, I’d like to congratulate the girl that was lucky enough to get you. I’d like to meet your wife.”

Suddenly she stopped and looked up. So did I. Two women and a man had stopped on their way out and were looking down at us. It was my wife, her mother and her brother.

If you expected to hear a good story, of course you’re disappointed. There isn’t even any use explaining to you that I’ve spent five months trying to explain it to my wife, and she won’t listen.

I’ve been a Secret Sorrow, I’ve been a Faithful Husband, and I’ve been a Fool. As I hinted before, if you want to make me believe that Carrie Nation smashed a joint, you’ve got to show me the hole in the window.

I’m going to give my wife just one more chance. I’m going to write it all out, have it typewritten, and maybe have it printed in a magazine. Then if she don’t believe it—well, the niece is still at Poughkeepsie, and as I said before, no man who has any self-respect can allow a pretty woman to go around talking about freedom.

A
NNUNCIO LAY PEACEFULLY SLEEPING
in the shade of a scrub mesquite. Now and again a curious, errant mud dauber, adventure-bent, explored the mazes of his wavy, ebony hair, or viewed from the vantage point of nose or chin the offerings of the surrounding country. Anon, a giant, home-returning ant, holding aloft a world of stolen grain for winter use, crawled across the bare, hemp-sandaled feet. But Annuncio still dreamed on. In easy reach of his brown-fingered hand, which yet retained half-lovingly the aged bow lay, dusty on the earth, an old violin, whose gracious curves and simple elegance of form revealed the master workman’s craft. Annuncio’s grandsire himself knew little of its history or of how the instrument had come to them, save only that his own father had played him to sleep in childhood with the selfsame bow. And now Annuncio played and dreamed, and waked to play again upon its ancient strings the lullabies and love songs of his people.

Within the low, thatch-roofed adobe house nearby, Eulalia began at last the preparation of their evening meal, humming low to herself as she ground the maize in the stone bowl and formed the cakes for baking. Eulalia was not as happy with her ardent wooing lover as she had thought to be. No poet she. To her, life meant more than dreaming through the sunny day and playing half-forgotten love songs to the tropic stars at night. Hers was the daily task of managing the little household cares, buying their scant supplies, and bargaining for all their simple, homely wrought apparel. And so it was that the wife had come to be the real ruler of the home, whom Annuncio indulged in every whim if only he might be allowed to dream and play. But poor Eulalia was not content with all this homage. She loved the bright mantillas of her richer sisters in the town, and gazed with longing that was not wholly free from envy at the
coche
and four white, prancing horses of Las Esperanzes’ mayor whenever that dignitary passed by on a visit to some neighboring ranch.

The first cool evening breeze came wandering down from the mountain and wakened Annuncio. Sitting up, he raised the violin for an ante-supper melody. And while he played, slowly, unnoticed along the road approached a man, at once a
gringo
and a
vaga-bundo.
Attracted as much, perhaps, by the sweetness of the melody he heard as by the savory odor of
tortillas
coming from the house, the stranger left the highway and drew near the spot where Annuncio was sitting. With a single glance he appraised the ordinary surroundings of the peon’s home, but when his eyes, furtive and shifting, rested on the native’s violin, a new interest dawned in them.

The tune ended, Annuncio rose, aware for the first time of the stranger’s presence. The latter showed a small coin and asked for supper and a place to sleep. Annuncio, eyeing with distrust the American’s ragged clothes and unkempt exterior, began to refuse his hospitality, when Eulalia, coming out to fetch her man, caught sight of the
real
and bade the
gringo
enter.

The tortillas and frijoles eaten, Annuncio again took up his violin to play away the evening. The
gringo
listened for a space and then, turning to Annuncio, told him to bring the instrument close to the candle. Taking it from the reluctant hand of its owner, the
gringo
scrutinized the scratched and grimy case with half-concealed satisfaction. This done, he played, or rather wrenched from the unaccustomed strings, a few measures of Strauss’ waltz, and handing back to miserable Annuncio his ravaged pet, he said: “My friends, I am a lonely man. On my travels often I need the music to urge my tired feet. This little violin could help me much. I wish you to sell me it for company.”

Annuncio at once and firmly demurred. Eulalia, the discontented, desired to know what the Señor would give. The Señor had but five
pesos dos reales
by him in silver, but this would scarce suffice to pay them for so great a boon, the life-long friendship of the violin, and so, the Señor would—ah, what cared he for gold, he wished for companionship—they had each other, but he went all alone—would give them for their charity to him, a lonely wayfarer, a lottery ticket sure to win the grand prize of 10,000
pesos,
sold him by a friendly officer of the lottery Nacional whom he had saved from drowning but last month. This would he give to them, his friends.

Annuncio thought of all the starry nights to come without the solace of a single melody, and sadly shook his head; Eulalia thought of all the glories of a
coche
and four white, prancing steeds, of soft laces, silver combs, and silken shawls, a house in town, servants—and smiling, nodded her assent.

“And we will buy you many new violeens, all cherry red and shining,” whispered she to hesitating ’Nuncio, and so the bargain ended.

The tenth of August came and early in the morning Eulalia rose to furbish up the threadbare jacket and breeches of ’Nuncio. Today began the new life, for was not the grand prize already theirs, waiting now in Esperanzes for the presentation of the winning ticket. Of a certainty. And so ’Nuncio was to trudge the ten hot, dusty miles on foot, but to return—ah, that triumphant march, had not Eulalia dreamed it over a dozen times? To return proudly borne back the weary way in a
coche
drawn by four white, prancing horses, even as the worthy
corregidor
of the town. The fertile brain of Eulalia had planned it all. They would destroy all vestige of their former poverty in one grand offering to the kindly gods of chance. Together they piled all their meager household goods—the shaky table, the rude chairs, and all the rest—into a little hillock beneath the center of the thatched roof. Their little store of maize and coffee, too, were placed thereon, and flung atop the heap lay whatever clothes they had other than those they wore. No single thing of all their former state would they retain. A little brush-wood fire smouldered without the door, and from this Eulalia, at first glimpse of returning
coche
and four, would take a brand and kindle that within. So they had planned and so it was to be.

Two o’clock saw ’Nuncio, dusty and worn, enter the main street of Esperanzes, the
Calle Alvarez.
Easily he found the office of the Nacional and entered, smiling round the crowd of loiterers standing by the door. In one minute the prize would be his, and he the richest man in many kilometers around. He stepped to the desk and presented the worn, tattered ticket.

“My ten thousand
pesos
,
si gusta
.”

The clerk smiled affably.

“The ticket is two years old,
pobrecito,
” he said, “and wasn’t worth a
centava
even then.”

“But the Señor said”—began ’Nuncio pleadingly.

The clerk only nodded pleasantly toward the door and commenced to talk to the little stenographer.

Annuncio stumbled to the sidewalk and started slowly away. He thought dazedly of his long journey home on foot and of the sad news he must tell his wife. Someone gave him a
peseta
and bade him get a drink. He went to a nearby store and purchased a bottle of mezcal, stupidly wondering if the Señor would ever bring back his precious violin, now that the lottery ticket was no good. Surely so kind a man as the Señor would not keep a poor man’s property if he knew.

Thus sorrowfully musing, Annuncio wandered to the edge of town and took up the long way back to Eulalia. But now the road seemed strangely long to his tired feet. He began to resort to frequent drinks from the bottle. After a time he sat down to rest by the roadside. Some vehicle was coming from the city. Maybe they were coming after him to say that there had been some mistake. Or perhaps it was the mail
coche
to San Luis. Then he recognized the mayor’s equipage. Ah yes, ’Nuncio remembered this was the evening of the grand
baile
at Madero’s, and doubtless the Señor Corregidor was overtaking him on his way thither. And would the Señor be so kind as to give him a lift, being very tired with the long walk? Of a certainty the Señor would. ’Nuncio might get up on the seat with the driver.

Thankfully he did so, and the
coche
proceeded toward the Madero ranch, the hacienda next beyond his own humble adobe. Little by little ’Nuncio’s body relaxed, lulled by the easy rolling
coche
, and soon he forgot the troubles of the day, lost in a half-dream of near-forgotten melodies.