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By the late afternoon of Thursday, the sixth day of July and the fifth full day of instruction, certain patterns of behavior had started to become apparent, and it was reasonable to expect that as the Cuernavaca Summer Workshop continued, these patterns would become more evident and inescapable.

It is a most fundamental part of the nature of the human animal that he responds to a new environment by establishing for himself those little routines which, however meaningless they may be in essence, serve the far greater purpose of giving him comfort and a sense of place and purpose whenever he conforms to them.

Place five men adrift in an open boat and in an astoundingly brief time they will establish a pecking order, will each have settled into some small area of the boat which he will think of as his place, will have established a schedule fordoing things—and the more intricate the schedule the more satisfying, and, having cozied up their environment to the greatest extent possible, will await either rescue or death with that accretion of composure which can only come through the establishment of a complete social order, no matter how evanescent it may be.

With the possible exceptions of jail, school and military organizations, where one of the more important uses of authority
is to prevent the group from composing its own group mores and structure, the weight of group desire is always more potent than the wishes of any self-constituted authority.

The communal dining table, which Miles Drummond felt was both pleasant and necessary, was the first social device to yield to group pressure. At dinner, on the first Monday, Gam Torrigan overheard Agnes Partridge Keeley say, in a voice that was meant to carry, “No one of taste or perception would ever hang in their home one of those horrid meaningless things that look like a dish of liver and spaghetti. The place for such paintings is in those shabby little pinko galleries in New York.”

Gam had risen to his full hairy height and waited until all conversation had stopped. He stared down at Miles and said, with measured and almost Churchillian dignity, “I request permission to have my food served to me in some far corner of this baronial hall, Mr. Drummond. The asinine chatter of that fat embarrassment at the far end of the table upsets my sensibilities and sours my stomach. Anyone who shares my limited capacity to endure vicious nonsense is invited to join me.” Thereupon he belched with the explosive finality of a spinnaker suddenly shredded in a gale, picked up his plate and silver, and stalked to a far dim corner of the room, to a small table in the shadows.

“Disgusting sort,” Agnes said evenly in the awed silence.

Miles said nervously, “Really … I had hoped that we all … could get along well … and there certainly is room in the world for … many theories of art.”

No one quite dared to join Torrigan immediately. But when the coffee was served, Harvey Ardos took his over to Torrigan’s table, trying to look entirely casual. Monica Killdeering joined them. By Wednesday evening the splintering was complete. The long table was dissolved. And, as at a hotel, there was a tendency to eat at different times.

Miles thought that the maids and Rosalinda would have violent objections, but he found that the new arrangement suited them more than the old. The preparation and serving of thirteen simultaneous meals had severely taxed Rosalinda’s organizational abilities. She far preferred extended periods of amiable confusion to a twice daily climate of crisis.

One table for four became almost institutional in its rigidity. Agnes Partridge Keeley ruled over it with a manner more suitable to direction of the entire group. The table was composed
of Agnes, Hildabeth McCaffrey, Dotsy Winkler and Colonel Hildebrandt. And they preferred to eat each meal as early as possible. And, each time, as soon as he had eaten, the colonel would ask to be excused, braying the token request at them, standing and making a half bow with iron gallantry, then striding from the room, setting his heels down hard.

It was also during this first week that Dotsy Winkler began to lose much of her hesitant shyness as she began to edge her way into the avocation which not only improved her own morale, but vastly benefited the group.

As Hildabeth McCaffrey put it, “Back in Elmira that Dotsy is known all over the county as a woman can take the apron off a butcher and serve it up so it turns out to be the best food you’d swear you ever put in your mouth.”

Dotsy had wanted to see the kitchen ever since the first meal she had eaten at El Hutchinson. It took her until the following Tuesday to get up the courage to sidle furtively to the doorway while dinner was being prepared. She was appalled at the dinginess, the dirt, the primitive facilities. Had Rosalinda glowered at her, it is probable that the association which was to become very close before the summer session was over would never have begun. But Rosalinda’s approach to the world was a wide grin and a meaningless though infectious giggle. And so Dotsy had smiled back and moved hesitantly through the doorway.

Dotsy spent a few days as observer, making Rosalinda Gomez quite uneasy, and another few days as a volunteer assistant, and a week as co-cook. From then on she was clearly in charge.

Rosalinda would complain wonderingly to Alberto Buceada, “That Señora Winkel, she is ridden by devils, truly. All must be scrubbed, endlessly. The white paint on the walls, purchased at her order, placed there by you, Alberto, it too must be scrubbed each day. Truly, she can cook better than I had known was possible. Never has food been more delicious. And I no longer have such great responsibilities, but one would think it was intended to eat from the floor, even way back under the stove.”

The two women worked together with the aid of sign language, the fragments of Spanish which Dotsy learned, and the bits of English Rosalinda learned from her. The work went smoothly. They smiled at each other often and with a genuine
affection. And Rosalinda, for the first time in her long career as a cook, began to take an interest in the preparation of food.

And Dotsy discovered the bewildering, noisy, filthy, labyrinthine public market. And, excited and enchanted by exotica unprocurable in Elmira’s Soop-R-Market, she would instruct Felipe Cedro to buy strange things and carry them out to the red bus where Fidelio waited behind the wheel.

For the first time since the death of her husband, Dotsy began to feel like herself. She walked in confidence and a new air of authority, and she blushed and beamed when the others complimented her on the food.

Miles Drummond had felt very guilty about letting the situation develop. Dotsy had little time for instruction under Agnes Keeley. In effect, Dotsy Winkler had paid five hundred dollars and her transportation expenses to come to Cuernavaca to cook for her friend, eleven other students, the staff and such guests as might appear. He felt guilty indeed, but on the other hand, it had been years since he had eaten so well. As Dotsy herself was busy and happy, and had began to expand her field of influence to include the housekeeping activities, to the extent that the insect life within the hotel was suffering a visible decline.

The only person with violent objections was Pepe, that soiled and lazy urchin, whose knowledge of evil was surpassed only by his talent for survival. He had not thought he would be persecuted by the little old American lady. But on one horrid and memorable afternoon, without warning, Alberto, the gardener, and Felipe Cedro pounced upon him. He thought they had lost their minds. He was taken out in back to where a large tub had been prepared for him, the water steaming ominously. He was stripped of his rags. The rags were thrown into the barranca. Though he writhed and wept and pleaded, Felipe held him strongly in the tub while Alberto, with strong yellow soap and a harsh brush, scrubbed him until he glowed red through his mellow brown hide, and the water that did not splash out of the tub during his struggles was the consistency of black bean soup. They rinsed him with a hose. They cropped the heavy matted thatch of black hair, and dispossessed the contented vermin with a substance that stung most evilly. Then, exhausted and weeping, he was forced to dress himself in new clothing, a pair of new blue jeans as rigid and unbending as sheet metal, and a blazingly white shirt. He was then told that
this had been the order of the Señora Winkel, that henceforth he would keep himself spotlessly clean, that he would see to it that no stain or tear marred the new clothing.

That night Pepe left forever. Until he was found the next day by one of Felipe Cedro’s friends and brought back to the hotel, filthy, torn, squalling with rage.

When Felipe Cedro had first reported Pepe’s desertion to Señor Drummond, he had been told that Pepe was very probably incurably lazy and dirty and it might be best to employ another boy.

But Felipe felt it would be better to bring Pepe back. He had private reasons that he could not very well relate to Señor Drummond. When it had been Señor Drummond’s desire to staff the hotel in preparation for the Workshop, Felipe had been instrumental in selecting Rosalinda Gomez (who had turned out to be disappointingly unco-operative regarding kickbacks from food purchases), Margarita Esponjar (who, as a source of income was proving to be less effective than he had hoped), Alberto Buceada (who unprotestingly kicked back fifty per cent of his pay to Felipe) and Pepe (who had turned out to be the best bet of all).

Only Fidelio, the driver, and Esperanza, the severe maid and waitress and potential schoolteacher, had not been added to the staff by Felipe.

Felipe had spent many patient hours with Pepe, training him. In much the way that a bridge master might deal random hands to a novice and ask him to bid the hand in order to instruct him. Felipe had repeatedly handed Pepe a battered old wallet containing random selections of both pesos and U. S. currency. After several long sessions Felipe was certain that he had taught Pepe how to decide upon the maximum amount of money which could be stolen without the victim being likely to note anything missing. If there were two five-peso notes in a billfold or lady’s purse, only a fool would try to remove one. But if there were five, one could safely be removed. The objective was a steady return. If the students became suspicious, the venture might end abruptly.

Once Pepe had been trained, Felipe had given him a master key, a duplicate of the one he had at first loaned to Margarita, and later given to her after he had had copies made. And Pepe was also instructed to keep his eyes open and report on all readily portable items of value in the rooms, their location,
description. Felipe did not have to take notes. He had the effective memory of the semi-illiterate. With the information furnished by Pepe he planned to quickly and efficiently clean out the hotel just before the Workshop ended.

And so Pepe was brought back, rescrubbed, reoutfitted. When this had been done, Felipe took him back of the servants’ quarters and had a fatherly talk with the boy. He said that it would not be wise to run away again. He said that it would be excellent if Pepe kept himself spotless. To make his instructions more forceful, Felipe explained that should Pepe run to the furthest corner of Mexico, he would be brought back. Felipe took out his pocket knife and pressed the small thumb button which snapped the long slim blade open. He said that it might sadden him, but if Pepe did not co-operate, he would be forced to take out his digestive organs, one by one, and toast them over a little fire he would build in the barranca, and then throw them to the skinny savage dogs you always saw in such places.

Pepe remained clean. After Dotsy Winkler had solved the mysteries of the primitive oven, she began to bake rolls. A white coat was purchased for Pepe. He was given a basket of hot rolls, napkin wrapped, to serve to the students at each meal. He decided he would much rather die than make such a fool of himself. But the memory of Felipe’s knife was too vivid. And so, on the first occasion, he shuffled with black scowl into the dining room, went, in torment, from table to table. But, in a very short time, he became accustomed to it. And began to enjoy it. And began to take pride in the starched white coat. He beamed at the students, and bowed, and offered rolls more frequently than was necessary. And, in time, he even began to be a little sorry that he who served them such delicious rolls with such poise and grace should be the very same person who, in the dark hours of the night, moved like smoke into their rooms and lightened their pockets.

The other tables were not as unvarying as Agnes Keeley’s table. Gil and Jeanie Wahl were always together, of course. They had no set schedule for eating, and they missed meals often. Sometimes Miles would eat with them when they arrived in the dining room at the same time. He felt that he should change from table to table.

There was no special pattern for the others. Paul Klauss would sit at the same table with Barbara Kilmer whenever he could arrange it, with Mary Jane and Bitsy when he couldn’t.

The girls from Texas were not always at the same table, but Park Barnum was usually with Bitsy. Harvey and Monica were generally together. Quite often John Kemp would eat alone, an open book beside his meal.

By that first Thursday of the Cuernavaca Summer Workshop another change had occurred in the basic behavior of the group, but this change was due to the personal wishes of Agnes Partridge Keeley and Gambel Torrigan. Had either of them suspected that their wishes were identical in any respect, the change would not have come about. But Miles for once handled it exactly right. Gam Torrigan came to Miles in the owner’s apartment of the hotel. He said, “I know the arrangement is to let the students split up, Miles, and pick their own instructor after this first week. Personally, I’d like to keep right on teaching in the afternoons, rather than having the group who will prefer me as their instructor all the whole day long. Hell, you can’t teach all day. Maybe that woman can, but I wouldn’t call that teaching. She might just as well be teaching them to knit. It doesn’t drain her emotionally. And I can work on my own stuff in the mornings.” Miles said he would think it over.

An hour later Agnes Partridge Keeley came to him with the same request. She wanted to teach in the mornings. She hoped to go back to California with dozens of paintings. It wasn’t fair to try to do your own work and teach simultaneously. Miles said he would think it over.