A Visit to Don Otavio (12 page)

A
T GUADALAJARA we were met by Anthony. He was wearing a green seersucker suit and a large Mexican hat.

‘I’ve laid on a car for you,’ he said.

Later, when we were rolling through long handsome streets in a Studebaker, he said, ‘I’ve been hanging round this bus terminal since noon.’

‘When did you get in?’ said I.

‘Eleven o’clock. On this plane from Mex City.’

‘How long did it take you?’ said E.

‘Couple of hours.’

‘Indeed,’ said E.

‘Did you enjoy yourself?’ said I.

‘Oh, fine. They didn’t serve breakfast though. Lousy little plane.’

‘I meant in Mexico City.’

‘Oh, that was fine.’

Anthony is a second cousin of E’s, and one of the best-looking young men I’ve ever set eyes on. We are all very fond of him.

Later he said, ‘That was quite a rat-race you led me. I ought to be mad. I could have saved time and flown out to this Guadalajara straight from Baltimore.’ He smiled sweetly. Anthony is the kind of boy whose radiant looks make him content with the world that gives him such a warm reception, rather than with himself.

We pulled up in front of a large and beautiful sixteenth-century
palace. ‘Hotel Guzman,’ said Anthony. ‘Don’t worry, it’s all fixed up new inside. You’ve never seen such bathrooms. Solid black marble.’

We all shot up in a small, fast lift. The manager flung open a door and ushered us into a splendid apartment full of divan beds and somebody’s clothes.

‘Why that’s
my
room,’ said Anthony.

‘Yes, Sir. I had beds for the ladies moved in while you were absent.’

‘Now, see here …’ said Anthony.

E took over. ‘We do not want to be three in a room,’ she said gently.

‘No room for three? But the gentleman said he was expecting two ladies.’

‘Yes, and here we are. But you see we don’t want all three to share one room.’

‘That is all right, Señora. It is a large room. In Holy Week when there are many travellers we would have a family of seven, nine persons in such a room. And their servants in the bathroom.’

‘But this isn’t Holy Week.’

‘It is not, Señora. In Holy Week there would be a family and servants in every room, now it is only one gentleman and two ladies. It costs more in Holy Week, too.’

‘Look here,’ I said, ‘we have strange habits and we want two, or at least one other room. Have you got them?’

‘Yes, yes, many rooms. We are the newest hotel in Guadalajara.’

‘Well, can we see them?’

‘They are very new, Señora. More new than this room. We are still working on the newness.’

After a good deal more of this, a bed for Anthony was moved into a cupboard leading out of our room. The cupboard had a window, but it opened into a corridor. Ours had an open view over red-tiled roof tops and a brilliant nocturnal sky. The night was warmer than it had been in Morelia. We were very hungry.

A cry of distress from E in the bathroom. ‘My dear, I can’t make the water run. Do try.’

Indeed: hot tap, cold tap, tub and basin, not a drop. There was a telephone on the wall, I picked it up.

‘There doesn’t seem to be any water in our bathroom.’

‘Of course not, Señora. It has not been laid on. One thing after another. Perhaps next year? Yes, certainly next year. If we do well. You will recommend us?’

Ready first, I proceeded to go downstairs. I walked up the corridor, none too well-lit, then saw, caught myself, and knees buckling reeled a step backward, collapsed against a wall and howled for Anthony.

He came running. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘THERE ARE NO STAIRS.’

‘Well, what d’you want stairs for?’

‘I was about to go down.’

‘What’s wrong with the elevator?’

‘Oh God, Anthony, don’t be so yourself. And don’t let’s have a Mexican conversation. Go and see … No, don’t go! Be careful!’

Anthony went a few steps up the corridor. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said.

The corridor ended in space. Seventy feet below, at the bottom of the crater left by flights of marble recently ripped out, lay invisible in a dim pool of light the reception desk, the leather armchairs and the spittoons of the entrance hall. Between, a void. They had begun working on the newness on the top floor. Anthony and I fetched E from the room and we all went down in the lift.

Anthony was already familiar with a glittering establishment exotically called the Glass of Milk. It had a chromium bar, brand-new murals in a cubist style, and cafeteria furniture. In this cosy setting we first drank sherry, then Spanish claret, then coffee, then white rum. In between – it took a long time to come – we ate a mixed grill, toasted
tortillas
stuffed with cheese and lettuce, and some avocado pears. It was very crowded. There were tables with sparse American ladies in cotton frocks, and tables with round American ladies in print dresses, and tables and tables with middle-aged men with the more comfortable cast of Spanish features in beautifully cut silk suits.

Anthony said, ‘Some friends of yours kept calling me in Mex City. They wanted to know where you’d gone, and could they have your address, and they wanted to take me places.’

‘Who were they?’

‘Can’t remember their names. I didn’t care for them too much. I guess they’re fairies.’

‘Why, Anthony, how old-fashioned you sound,’ said E.

‘They did take me to this place where we had cocktails and a great big steak.’

‘Their names weren’t Rosenkranz and Guildenstern?’

‘Maybe,’ said Anthony. ‘Yes, that’s it.’ Then he said with sudden suspicion, ‘Could it?’

‘Who paid for the steak and cocktails?’

‘Well I did,’ said Anthony.

Then we told him about the bandits.

He said, ‘Just imagine the poor bastards’ faces when they saw all that paper stuff of yours.’

‘That is a thought,’ said E. ‘At least they have my clothes to console themselves with.’

It was after one o’clock when we left the Glass of Milk, and the streets though quiet enough were not oppressed by the exaggerated silence of Morelia and Mexico City at a similar hour. For the first time the night felt what it was, a late summer night in a provincial town. Perhaps it was the presence of Anthony, perhaps it was the rum: Goya was far and Lawrence had been wrong. We went for a long stroll.

Guadalajara is a university town; a junction of the South-Pacific Railway; the capital of Jalisco, the richest of the ex-Hacienda states; the centre of an agricultural region, the hub of the native gin manufacture, the last stronghold of Creole aristocracy and the second largest city in Mexico. It was founded almost immediately after the Conquest and is full of handsome, florid buildings of that epoch in patinaed red
tezontle
. The town shows dignity and powers of assimilation, appearing to be neither in decay nor straining to build itself out of sense and form, and to have escaped so far, but for such thin ends of the wedge as the Glass of Milk, the mongrelisation of Mexico City.

We were waked early next morning by Anthony, hair on end, wild-eyed, bursting in.

‘There’s a man in my room.’

‘A man?’ E sat up. ‘Anthony, have you become a Victorian lady? Did you look under your bed?’

‘He’s in my window.’

‘What does he want?’

‘That’s what I’ve been trying to make out for the last half-hour,’ said Anthony. ‘He’s smiling horribly, and now he’s threatened me with an instrument. No, I won’t go back. I won’t.’

E and I put on dressing-gowns and advanced into the alcove. A very small man in an alpaca suit was leaning into the room. He held up a black leather bag, and his smile was indeed a little fixed. On seeing us, hope gleamed again, and he broke into chatter.

‘
Dentista
,’ he said, and shook his bag. ‘
Dentista
, see?’

‘As a matter of fact, I don’t,’ said E.

‘Please call back the Señorito. The Señorito took fright. He did not understand. Tell the Señorito it is the dentist. And perhaps Your Excellencies also,’ he opened his bag, ‘are Americans?’

‘And
who
,’ said E, ‘called you?’

‘I call. I am the American dentist.’

‘God,’ said E, and left the room.

‘All is clear, my dears,’ I said when I rejoined them, ‘whenever Americans arrive at this hotel, the management lets him know. Americans always ask for an American dentist. He is the American dentist, the dentist for Americans.’

Our Consulates took it in their strides.

‘I guess you’re insured,’ said the American Vice-Consul, a friendly young man in a large office in a fine renaissance mansion.

‘I’m not,’ said E.

‘That’s too bad.’

‘Should we go to the police?’

‘I shouldn’t waste my time.’

‘You see, we are most anxious to get those papers back.’

‘We’ll be glad to put a call through for you, Mrs A,’ said the Vice-Consul.

‘Where to?’

‘That’s up to you.’

At the British Consulate, less splendidly installed, they said, ‘Unfortunately, these things do happen here. The bus people are supposed to be in on it. I shouldn’t stress the point though if I were you.’

‘Police?’

‘No harm in that.’

‘You see, I really want to get those papers back.’

‘Well, there’s always the Thieves’ Market at Mexico City.’

‘The Thieves’ Market?’

‘It’s a place where thieves offer goods for sale during a limited time to give the owners a chance. That is to say, goods of more sentimental value that would fetch less elsewhere.’

‘Look here,’ I said, ‘you are not suggesting that I should go all the way back to Mexico City on the chance of finding my manuscript and photographs in the public thieves’ market?’

‘I am suggesting nothing of the kind. You must make your own decisions.’

E and I met in great dejection at the Glass of Milk, where Anthony was eating scrambled eggs, grilled ham, hot waffles and avocado pears.

‘Tough on you,’ he said.

‘Succinct as usual, my dear Anthony,’ said E.

‘Tell you what I’d do. What about those pals of yours in Mex City? I’d call them and ask them to look for your things.’

‘Oh nonsense, Anthony.’

‘Let them work on it.’

‘No, no. Why should they, anyway?’

‘They seem to want to get in good with you. I shouldn’t worry about
them
. I’m going to call them right now.’

‘And how do you propose to telephone to Mexico City?’

‘From the Consulate, of course.
And
the call’s on them.’

‘Well,’
said E, delighted, ‘as an American taxpayer I should think that I was entitled.’

‘Right now,’ said Anthony. ‘And then we can clear out of this dump tonight and go someplace we can swim.’

And so once more, Guenther von der Wildenau-Schlichtleben and Karl-Heinz-Horst von Rautenburg were put on our track.

We did, however, not leave Guadalajara as quickly as Anthony had hoped. The call to Mexico City did not get through that afternoon, nor the next day. By then E was quite as keen on it as Anthony himself and very cross and pompous about
Our
Foreign Service. Then it turned out that the Barons had left the Pensión Hernandez under a cloud, and E and Anthony insisted that the Foreign Service find out their new address. They spent most of their time between the Consulate and the Glass of Milk, working out tactics over Bacardi cocktails. Then E had to get herself some clothes. Guadalajara has a few good shops and a department store run by a French family. Meanwhile Anthony made friends. He met the American Consul-General and his wife, a charming and hospitable couple, and soon he was drinking their Bourbon and riding their motor cars. I began to learn Spanish irregular verbs.

I should have learned patience from the woman who sat on the pavement opposite the Glass of Milk. She was there every morning and vanished sometime in the night. She neither begged nor had anything to sell and her clothes were decorous. She always sat perfectly still and her expression told one nothing. There are many such persons in the streets.

‘What do they think they’re doing?’ said Anthony.

‘Neither,’ said E.

‘What?’ said Anthony.

‘Wait for revelation,’ said I.

‘Apocryphal,’ said E.

‘Oh,’ said Anthony, ‘mystics.’

He had also met, in barber-shops and bars and without benefit of grammar, some Guadalajarans, male members of the
jeunesse dorée,
the sons of the gentlemen in silk suits at the Glass of Milk. They took him to the French Club and a rodeo, engaged him in versions of gin rummy played for high stakes, and he ceased to wear his Mexican hat.

E and I were full of curiosity. ‘What do you talk about? Do tell us what they’re like,’ we said.

‘They’re all right.’

Later he said, ‘They talk about sex all day, but they don’t seem to know any girls.’

One morning, he said, ‘We’ve had a bust-up. You see there was this night club. It didn’t amount to much in the first place. And there were all these whores. It wasn’t any fun. I mean who wants to dance with a lot of whores? Some of them just kids. I mean what’s the point. So I said to Don Orazio and to Don Joaquím, now if we had some nice girls to take out, haven’t you boys got any sisters to introduce to a fellow? Then didn’t they get mad. They said their sisters were at the True Cross in England and the Sacred Heart at Seville and my suggestion was an outrage and they guessed I didn’t know any better. They were sure my intentions were not dishonourable, but I ought to have realised that as a Protestant I wasn’t eligible and where was I brought up. So I said to Don Orazio and to Don Joaquím, in the first place I was an Episcopalian, and not to be such boobies, and all the men in Princeton asked one another’s sisters down for the proms; and they said they’d rather die and they expected I believed in divorce too and I was lucky I was their guest. And then they all started jabbering to each other in Spanish.’