Ship of Fools (65 page)

“The unhappy Condesa,” she wrote, “where is she now, abandoned, a prisoner on this Island of the Dead?” Frau Rittersdorf raised her chin and swung a glance in a half-circle, taking in quite a busy scene, men, women, children of all ages, an assortment of domestic animals, obviously going about their particular business, full of unimaginable interests.
What
had such poor shabby tired-looking beings to live for? This was her great question, could they be called alive at all?

A woman sitting on the ground, not ten feet away, with her baskets of wilting market stuff around her, laid her baby in her cradle of a lap between her crossed knees, and put him to her great naked breast with its brown nipple big as a thumb, while she ate voraciously of onions, tomatoes, sausages, apricots, all wrapped in a disk of tough half-baked unleavened bread. The baby suckled and kicked in bliss, she put her food down now and then to wait upon her customers, they holding their woven palm leaf bags to receive the vegetables, she counting out change from the small flat basket beside her. Frau Rittersdorf was so revolted by the spectacle she was unable to take up her pencil. The baby was fat, and should obviously have been weaned months ago. The woman's neck, face and hands were like old leather, all her side teeth were gone, she mangled and tore her food with her front teeth, yet ate like a wolf. The baby climbed out of her lap, and stood up. He wore a single dirty shirt that reached barely to his navel. He squared himself off on his feet and spread legs, his infant male tassel rose and pointed acutely skywards and a very energetic spout of water ascended in a glittering arc, pattering in the dust not three feet from Frau Rittersdorf's immaculate light-colored shoes and gossamer stockings. She was so startled she almost cried out, but stood quickly, backing away and drawing in her skirts. The mother did not understand either her movement or her stare, for she reached out and patted her baby encouragingly on the back, with utter love and tenderness, while the baby finished his proper business with deep-breathed joyous noises of satisfaction. The mother pulled him back and covered his adorable shame with her bare hand, smiled gaily at Frau Rittersdorf and called out with pride. “
Es hombre, de veras
!”—He's a man, all right!—as if that explained everything and made it a happy secret among women. Frau Rittersdorf gathered up her things and walked away in a chill of horror as if a bony hand reached out of the past clutching her coldly and drawing her again into the awful wallow of ignorance and poverty and brutish living she had escaped oh barely—barely! The dirt-floored hut of her grandparents, with the pigpens and the cattle stalls and the chicken roosts all opening into the one room where the whole family lived: the dull mean village cottage of her shoemaking father and her seamstress mother, who felt they had risen high in their world; their ambition for her to become a teacher in the village school—Oh, oh, oh, cried the whole frightful memory, not only in the voices and faces of those dead and gone people she had tried all these years to forget, to deny; but the very animals, the smothering walls and the dirt floors and the stinking shoe leather, the taste of lard on the slice of sour bread she took to school with her—the very bread itself, all rose again out of that deep pit in which she had buried them, and one was as alive as the other; in a terrible voiceless clamor they cried and lamented and accused her, soundless as screams in a nightmare. The floors, the pigs, the bread, her grandfather and grandmother, her parents, all cried in the same voice the same terrible words she could not understand, though she knew what they meant to tell her. Frau Rittersdorf stood swaying somewhat, her right hand flattened on her forehead. The old man in the dirty apron spoke to her politely, holding out his hand. “Oh yes,” she said, “I owe you something,” and carefully she counted the exact sum into his palm in Spanish coin that she had got from the ship's exchange, with a few coppers over. There was a roaring in her ears, and the ground under her swayed like the deck of the
Vera
. “I must be having an attack of some kind,” she said aloud, in German, and the waiter answered agreeably, “
Si, si, Señora, naturalmente
!” which struck her as being rather uncalled for. As she walked, she recovered rapidly; still she was puzzled as to what exactly had happened to her. She decided to go back to the
Vera
, and have lunch there. As she picked her way carefully over the stones, she saw Señora Ortega with her nurse and baby leisurely rolling along (with not a care in the world, on her way to Paris and her husband, a successful diplomat!) in one of those rather absurd but chic miniature conveyances called a caleche, or they could be chic if they had proper horses and drivers. She realized she was tired, and might hail one for herself. An uneasiness about the expense halted her. Such extravagances, she foresaw, would be preparing for her an old age of loneliness, a servile existence in middle-class houses, a superannuated governess on board and keep with an occasional holiday tip, putting up with insufferable children in common families no young, able woman would look at.… If Otto could have dreamed she would be left to such a fate, would he have gone with never a thought of her to a hero's death? What had he left to her? An iron cross and his dress uniform and sword. If it had not been for his parents' leaving her his modest inheritance, where would she be today? But oh, Otto, Otto, if you could see me now, if you could have dreamed what was to become of me, oh surely you could not have thrown away your life for nothing.

She was greeted pleasantly by a young officer or two. On her way down to her cabin she met Frau Schmitt on her way up, carrying her knitting. “Back so soon?” Frau Rittersdorf asked. Frau Schmitt said gloomily, “I saw enough, just the same.”

Frau Rittersdorf meant to go on, but this remark stopped her in her tracks.

“There was, then, something to see?” she asked, in the tone of condescension Frau Schmitt found so infuriatingly unanswerable.

“For those who can see,” she said, “there was something.” Feeling a touch light in the head from such boldness, she did not wait for Frau Rittersdorf to rally, but went on her way to the peace and comfort of the empty lounge.

Frau Rittersdorf did not overlook this saucy speech of her cabin mate, but decided to ignore it for the moment. She had crossed some line in her thoughts she had not known was there, but already she had left it behind, and she was strangely easy as if her mind had thrown off some great load that had been exhausting and hampering her all this time.… She opened her handbag, took out her passport case, searched its compartments for a moment with two fingertips, and brought out a small photograph of her husband in a flat silver frame. Ah no—he was not like that. His splendid image in her imagination got a blow as always at sight of this rather staring, lifeless army photograph, no light, no color, the clear eyes empty, cold as agates. No, no—never again, never again. She replaced the picture and put her handbag away. She would forget this hero who had forgotten her, had left her to whatever fate might come—what a selfish cruel thing to do to a wife who adored him! No no. She would forget, and she would find another husband, a real one this time.… When this stupid voyage was over, she would stay at home where she belonged, she would be among her own people, the kind of men who would appreciate her qualities.… Names and faces began to drift into her mind. She opened her notebook and began to write them down.… “First things first,” she gently admonished herself. Her imagination began wandering over a new, springlike landscape, full of likely encounters with eligible persons, some known, some unknown, all delightful encounters full of possibilities. Scenes began to enact themselves before her eyes. Don Pedro intruded at one point, but was instantly rejected, and the charming pantomime of herself in an endless promenade with ever-changing partners went on and on while she brushed her hair hundreds of strokes, not counting. She forgot about lunch. She had been rather dreading her welcome at home, among her friends and her husband's family after what they must regard as her failure in Mexico: for her Mexican circle had been painfully eager to keep them informed of every stage of her romance with Don Pedro—yes, even to the last … and then, there was always the haunting shade of Nemesis who would materialize, one fine day, on her doorstep in the shape of some clumsy oaf of a relative, a nephew, a second cousin, looking for the fabled member of the family who had got an education and gone out in the great world and become no doubt rich and would be glad to help them do as much. Her fears had lessened as time passed and no one came, but the danger was real, just the same. She pored over her red and gold address book, turning the pages slowly, marking a name here and there: circumstances change, so do telephone numbers: people find new homes, and hearts new dwelling places too; she must not expect miracles, but just the same, she would write half a dozen discreet notes to older admirers she felt she could trust to be pleased to hear from her again, and there was one in Bremen: to him she would announce the ship, the date, the place, the hour of her arrival, and unless she had lost her womanly intuition altogether, he would be at the shipside to greet her, yes, even with flowers as in a happier time.

“Why David, I hadn't realized,” said Jenny, when they were safely out in the open. “How on earth do you put up with that fellow in your cabin?”

“It isn't my cabin, altogether,” said David, reasonably.

“Don't split hairs,” said Jenny, “you know perfectly well what I mean. It's an outrage.”

“That's what I thought too, at first. Now it's just a bore. But he was really on his best behavior just now. I was surprised.”

“Exhausted after the chase maybe,” said Jenny. “Let's look for something to buy. We didn't buy a thing in Cuba. What kind of tourist is that?”

“What do you want?” asked David, as they walked towards the row of shops on the far side of the plaza.

“I don't know, let's give each other a present.” Something of the charmed mood of Havana was in them both again; they caught hands for a moment, and peered into the doorways of shops. “No baskets,” David said, and “No dolls and animals,” said Jenny, as they passed, “no pottery, no jewelry, yet, David, it should be a piece of a native or local art, shouldn't it?”

“Maybe,” said David doubtfully, “but no sandals, no leather or woodwork.”

“No lace or embroidered linen?” asked Jenny.

“Not for me,” David assured her, firmly.

“Let's not think about it,” said Jenny, rather wearily, “let's just go on looking around now and then, and see what happens.”

Suiting their actions to her words, they looked around, and saw what happened. Mrs. Treadwell and Wilhelm Freytag, stepping out of a shop two doors away, wiggled their fingers in greeting and David, to his surprise, wiggled his fingers back at them with no reluctance whatever. Freytag asked, “Where are they? Did you see them?”

“He means our friends the zarzuela company,” said Mrs. Treadwell, also with unusual animation.

“They're in there,” said Jenny, pointing, “or were, a few minutes ago. Why?”

“They promised to buy the prizes here in Santa Cruz, remember?” Freytag asked David. “Well, they're picking them up at a great rate—it's something worth seeing!”

“Let's see it then,” said David, but as they moved to enter the shop Ric and Rac rushed forth, and their elders followed them in a gracefully composed group, chattering freely among themselves, turning as one body to their right away from their observers, moving swiftly to a shop three doors away, and swarming in, the children running ahead.

The woman whose shop they had just left came outside to give her opinion of them. “Look out for your back teeth!” she shouted to the listening air. “Count your fingers! That kind don't come to buy!” With a grieving face and shaking hands she sorted over her tumbled disordered merchandise, then spoke dolefully to the Americans: “Pure linen,” she told them, “real lace, all hand-embroidery, fine beautiful things, cheap …” but it was plain she had no hope, her luck was gone for that day, she made no real attempt to attract them. She was too distressed trying to find out what had been stolen from her.

Jenny and David, Freytag and Mrs. Treadwell entered the next shop after the dancers. Pepe, on guard at the door, stepped aside bowing slightly. The shopkeeper was waiting on Frau Schmitt, who was looking for real linen handkerchiefs, with a plain black mourning border. The sudden entrance of this mixed mob of strangers, whom she divided at a glance into respectable and lowlife, unnerved her. She had shown Frau Schmitt box after box of perfectly correct mourning handkerchiefs, but they were all too large or too small, too thick or too thin, the black borders too narrow or too wide, all too expensive or too cheap. In a panic she gathered up the handkerchiefs and spoke shrilly to Frau Schmitt: “Señora, I can do nothing for you! Nothing! Nothing!” for she saw in despair that the respectable strangers were standing back, and the thieving flock of crows was descending upon her.

Frau Schmitt, shocked, deeply hurt at such a change of manner, backed away, and saw with happy surprise her shipmates—not the Spaniards, she did not count them—the odd Americans, odd but nice, after all. She could not help but remember Herr Scott and his good feeling for the poor little woodcarver in the steerage—it was all very well to be stern and cold and right about everything, as the Captain most certainly was, but it was also touching to be human, to love one's fellow creature, to have mercy on the poor and the unfortunate. In a single thought, she was glad to see Herr Scott's face here in this unfriendly spot, even if it was like a wax face with blue marble eyes. The young woman with him she could not understand, the widow she did not trust, and Herr Freytag had most surely done wrong to pass himself off as a Christian when he was in fact married to a Jew … “Yet, oh God,” said Frau Schmitt plaintively, and made the sign of the Cross with her thumb and forefinger, “what shall I do? Die of my loneliness?”