The Quest by Pio Baroja

P >> Pio Baroja >> The Quest

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

Manuel did not care for Bizco's company; Bizco sought only to hobnob
with thieves. He was forever taking Manuel and Vidal to haunts
frequented by bandits and low types, but since Vidal seemed to think
it all right, Manuel never objected.

Vidal was the link between Manuel and Bizco, Bizco hated Manuel, who
in turn, not only felt enmity and repugnance for Bizco, but showed
this repulsion plainly. Bizco was a brute,--an animal deserving of
extermination. As lascivious as a monkey, he had violated several of
the little girls of the Casa del Cabrero, beating them into
submission; he used to rob his father, a poverty-stricken cane-weaver,
so that he might have money enough to visit some low brothel of Las
Penuelas or on Chopa Street, where he found rouged dowagers with
cigarette-stubs in their lips, who looked like princesses to him. His
narrow skull, his powerful jaw, his blubber-lip, his stupid glance,
lent him a look of repellant brutality and animality.

A primitive man, he kept his dagger--bought in El Rastro--sharp,
guarding it as a sacred object. If he ever happened across a cat or
dog, he would enjoy torturing it to death with oft-repeated stabs. His
speech was obscene, abounding in barbarities and blasphemies.

Whether anybody induced Bizco to tattoo his arms, or the idea was
original with him, cannot be said; probably the tattooing he had seen
on one of the bandits that he ran after had suggested a similar
adornment for himself. Vidal imitated him, and for a time the pair
gave themselves up enthusiastically to self-tattooing. They pricked
their skins with a pin until a little blood came, then moistened the
wounds with ink.

Bizco painted crosses, stars and names upon his chest; Vidal, who
didn't like to prick himself, stippled his own name on one arm and his
sweetheart's on the other; Manuel didn't care to inscribe anything
upon his person, first because he was afraid of blood, and then
because the idea had been Bizco's.

Each harboured a mute hostility against the other.

Manuel, always with a chip on his shoulder, was disposed to show his
enemy challenge; Bizco, doubtless, noticed this scornful hatred in
Manuel's eyes, and this confused him.

To Manuel, a man's superiority consisted in his talent, and, above
all, in his cunning; to Bizco, courage and strength constituted the
sole enviable qualities; the greatest merit of all was to be a real
brute, as he would declare with enthusiasm.

Because of the great esteem in which he held craft and cunning, Manuel
felt deep admiration for the Rebolledos, father and son, who also
lived in the Corralon. The father, a dwarfed hunchback, a barber by
trade, used to shave his customers in the sunlight of the open, near
the Rastro. This dwarf had a very intelligent face, with deep eyes; he
wore moustache and side-whiskers, and long, bluish, unwashed hair. He
dressed always in mourning; in winter and summer alike he went around
in an overcoat, and, by some unsolved mystery of chemistry his
overcoat kept turning green while his trousers, which were also black,
kept quite as plainly turning red.

Every morning Rebolledo would leave the Corralon carrying a little
bench and a wooden wall-bracket, from which hung a brass basin and a
poster. Reaching a certain spot along the Americas fence he would
attach the bracket and put up, beside it, a humorous sign the point of
which, probably, he was the only one to see. It ran thus:

MODERNIST TONSORIAL PARLOUR
Antiseptic Barber
Walk in Gents. Shaving by Rebolledo.
Money Lent

The Rebolledos were very skilful; they made toys of wire and of
pasteboard, which they afterward sold to the street-vendors; their
home, a dingy little room of the front patio, had been converted into
a workshop, and they had there a vise, a carpenter's bench and an
array of broken gew-gaws that were apparently of no further use.

The neighbours of the Corralon had a saying that indicated their
conception of Rebolledo's acute genius.

"That dwarf," they said, "has a regular Noah's ark in his head."

The father had made for his own use a set of false teeth. He had taken
a bone napkin-ring, cut it into two unequal parts, and, by filing it
on either side, had fitted the larger to his mouth. Then with a tiny
saw he made the teeth, and to simulate the gums he covered a part of
the former napkin-ring with sealing-wax. Rebolledo could remove and
insert the false set with remarkable ease, and he could eat with them
perfectly, provided, as he said, there was anything to eat.

Perico, the son of the dwarf, promised even to outstrip his father in
cleverness. Between the hunger that he often suffered, and the
persistent tertian fevers, he was very thin and his complexion was
citreous. He was not, like his father, deformed, but slender,
delicate, with sparkling eyes and rapid, jerky motions. He looked, as
the saying is, like a rat under a bowl.

One of the proofs of his inventive genius was a mechanical snuffler
that he had made of a shoe-polish tin.

Perico cherished a particular enthusiasm for white walls, and wherever
he discovered one he would sketch, with a piece of coal, processions
of men, women and horses, houses puffing smoke, soldiers, vessels at
sea, weaklings engaging in struggle with burly giants, and other
equally diverting scenes.

Perico's masterpiece was the Don Tancredo triptych, done in coal on
the walls of the narrow entrance lane to La Corrala. This work
overwhelmed the neighbours with admiration and astonishment.

The first part of the triptych showed the valiant hypnotizer of bulls
on his way to the bull-ring, in the midst of a great troop of
horsemen; the legend read: "Don Tancredo on his _weigh_ to the
bulls." The second part represented the "king of bravery" in his
three-cornered hat, with his arms folded defiantly before the wild
beast; underneath, the rubric "Don Tancredo upon his pedestal." Under
the third part one read: "The bull takes to flight." The depiction of
this final scene was noteworthy; the bull was seen fleeing as one
possessed of the devil amidst the toreros, whose noses were visible in
profile while their mouths and both eyes were drawn in front view.

Despite his triumphs, Perico Rebolledo did not grow vain, nor did he
consider himself superior to the men of his generation; his greatest
pleasure was to sit down at his father's side in the patio of La
Corrala, amidst the works of old clocks, bunches of keys and other
grimy, damaged articles, and ponder over the possible utilization of
an eye-glass crystal, for example, or a truss, or the rubber bulb of a
syringe, or some similar broken, out-of-order contrivance.

Father and son spent their lives dreaming of mechanical contraptions;
they considered nothing useless; the key that could open no door, the
old-style coffee-pot, as queer as some laboratory instrument, the oil
lamp with machine attachment,--all these articles were treasured up,
taken apart and put to some use. Rebolledo, father and son, wasted
more ingenuity in living wretchedly than is employed by a couple of
dozen comic authors, journalists and state ministers dwelling in
luxury.

Among the friends of Perico Rebolledo were the Aristas, who became
intimate with Manuel.

The Aristas, two brothers, sons of an ironing-woman, were apprentices
in a foundry of the near-by Ronda. The younger passed his days in a
continuous capering, indulging in death-defying leaps, climbing trees,
walking on his hands and performing acrobatic stunts from all the door
transoms.

The elder brother, a long-legged stutterer whom they called Ariston in
jest, was the most funereal fellow on the planet; he suffered from
acute necromania; anything connected with coffins, corpses, wakes and
candles roused his enthusiasm. He would like to have been a
gravedigger, the priest of a religious confraternity, a cemetery
warden; but his great dream,--what most enchanted him,--was a funeral;
he would imagine, as a wonderful ideal, the conversations that the
proprietor of a funeral establishment must have with the father or the
inconsolable widow as he offered wreaths of immortelles, or as he went
to take the measure of a corpse or strolled amidst the coffins. What a
splendid existence, this manufacturing of last resting-places for men,
women and children, and afterward accompanying them to the
burial-ground. For Ariston, details relating to death were the most
important matter in life.

Through that irony of fate which almost always exchanges the proper
labels of things and persons, Ariston was a supernumerary in one of
the vaudeville theatres, through the influence of his father, who was
a scene-shifter, and the job disgusted him, for in such a playhouse
nobody ever died upon the stage, nobody ever came out in mourning and
there was no weeping. And while Ariston kept thinking of nothing but
funereal scenes, his brother dreamed of circuses, trapezes and
acrobats, hoping that some day fate would send him the means to
cultivate his gymnastic talents.

CHAPTER V

La Blasa's Tavern.

The frequent quarrels between Leandro and his sweetheart, the
Corrector's daughter, very often gave the neighbours of the Corrala
food for gossip. Leandro was an ill-tempered, quarrelsome sort; his
brutal instincts were quickly awakened; despite his habit of going
every Saturday night to the taverns and restaurants, ready for a
rumpus with the bullies and the ruffians, he had thus far managed to
steer clear of any disagreeable accident. His sweetheart was somewhat
pleased with this display of valour; her mother, however, regarded it
with genuine indignation, and was forever advising her daughter to
dismiss her Leandro for good.

The girl would dismiss her lover; but afterwards, when he returned in
humility, ready to accede to any conditions, she relented.

This confidence in her power turned the girl despotic, whimsical,
voluble; she would amuse herself by rousing Leandro's jealousy; she
had arrived at a particular state, a blend of affection and hatred, in
which the affection remained within and the hatred outside, revealing
itself in a ferocious cruelty, in the satisfaction of mortifying her
lover constantly.

"What you ought to do some fine day," Senor Ignacio would say to
Leandro, incensed by the cruel coquetry of the maiden, "is to get her
into a corner and take all you want.... And then give her a beating
and leave her soft as mush. The next day she'd be following you around
like a dog."

Leandro, as brave as any bully, was as meek as a charity-pupil in the
presence of his sweetheart. At times he recalled his father's counsel,
but he would never have summoned the courage to carry it through.

One Saturday afternoon, after a bitter dispute with Milagros, Leandro
invited Manuel to make the rounds that night together with him.

"Where'll we go?" asked Manuel.

"To the Naranjeros cafe, or to the Engrima restaurant."

"Wherever you please."

"We'll make the rounds of those dives and then we'll wind up at La
Blasa's tavern."

"Do the hard guys go there?"

"I should say. As tough as you make 'em."

"Then I'll let Roberto know,--that fellow who came for me to take him
to la Doctrina."

"All right."

After work Manuel went off to the boardingrhouse and took counsel with
Roberto.

"Be at the San Millan cafe about nine in the evening," said Roberto,
"I'll be there with a cousin of mine."

"Are you going to take her there?" Manuel asked in astonishment.

"Yes. She's a queer one, a painter."

"And is this painter good-looking?" asked Leandro.

"I can't say. I don't know her."

"Damn my sweet---- ... ! I'd give anything to have this woman come
along, man."

"Me, too."

They both went to the San Millan cafe, sat down and waited
impatiently. At the hour indicated Roberto appeared in company of his
cousin whom he called Fanny. She was a woman between thirty and forty,
very slender, with a sallow complexion,--a distinguished, masculine
type; there was about her something of the graceless beauty of a
racehorse; her nose was curved, her jaw big, her cheeks sunken and her
eyes grey and cold. She wore a jacket of dark green taffeta, a black
skirt and a small hat.

Leandro and Manuel greeted her with exceeding timidity and
awkwardness; they shook hands with Roberto and conversed.

"My cousin," said Roberto, "would like to see something of slum life
hereabouts."

"Whenever you wish," answered Leandro. "But I warn you beforehand that
there are some pretty tough specimens in this vicinity."

"Oh, I'm prepared," said the lady, with a slight foreign accent,
showing a revolver of small calibre.

Roberto paid, despite Leandro's protests, and they left the cafe.
Coming out on the Plaza del Rastro, they walked down the Ribera de
Curtidores as far as the Ronda de Toledo.

"If the lady wishes to see the house we live in, this is the one,"
said Leandro.

They went into the Corralon; a crowd of gamins and old women, amazed
to see such a strange woman there at such an hour, surrounded them,
showering Manuel and Leandro with questions. Leandro was eager for
Milagros to learn that he had been there with a woman, so he
accompanied Fanny through the place, pointing out all the holes of the
wretched dwelling.

"Poverty's the only thing you can see here," said Leandro.

"Yes, yes indeed," answered the woman.

"Now if you wish, we'll go to La Blasa's tavern."

They left the Corralon for Embajadores lane and walked along the black
fence of a laundry. It was a dark night and a drizzle had begun to
fall. They stumbled along the surrounding path.

"Look-out," said Leandro. "There's a wire here."

He stepped upon the wire to hold it down. They all crossed the path
and passed a group of white houses, coming to Las Injurias.

They approached a low cottage with a dark socle; a door with clouded
broken panes stuffed with bundles of paper, through which shone a
pallid light, gave entrance to the dwelling. In the opaque
transparency of the glass appeared from time to time the shadow of a
person.

Leandro opened the door and they all went in. A stuffy, smoky wave of
atmosphere struck them in the face. A kerosene lamp, hanging from the
ceiling and covered with a white shade, provided light for the tiny,
low-roofed tavern.

As the four entered, the customers greeted them with an expression of
stupefaction; for a while the habituees whispered among themselves,
then some, resumed their playing as others looked on.

Fanny, Roberto, Leandro and Manuel took seats to the right of the
door.

"What'll you have?" asked the woman at the counter.

"Four fifteen-centimo glasses of wine."

The woman brought the glasses in a filthy tray, and set them upon the
table. Leandro pulled out sixty centimos.

"They're ten apiece," corrected the woman in ill-humoured tones.

"How's that?"

"Because this is outside the limits."

"All right; take whatever it comes to."

The woman left twenty centimos on the table and returned to the
counter. She was broad, large-breasted, with a head that set deep in
between her shoulders and a neck composed of some five or six
layers of fat; from time to time she would serve a drink, always getting
the price in advance; she spoke very little, with evident displeasure
and with an invariable gesture of ill-humour.

This human hippopotamus had at her right a tin tank with a spigot, for
brandy, and at her left a flask of strong wine and a chipped jar
covered with a black funnel, into which she poured whatever was left
in the glasses by her customers.

Roberto's cousin fished out a phial of smelling salts, hid it in her
clamped hand and took a sniff from time to time.

Opposite the place where Roberto, Fanny, Leandro and Manuel were
seated, a crowd of some twenty men were packed around a table playing
cane.

Near them, huddled on the floor next the stove, reclining against the
wall, could be seen a number of ugly, scraggly-haired hags, dressed in
corsages and ragged skirts that were tied around their waists by
ropes.

"Who are those women?" asked the painter.

"They're old tramps," explained Leandro. "The kind that go to the
Botanical Garden and the clearings outside the city."

Two or three of the unfortunates held in their arms children belonging
to other women who had come there to spend the night; some were dozing
with their cigarettes sticking from the corner of their mouths. Amid
the old women were a few little girls of thirteen or fourteen,
monstrously deformed, with bleary eyes; one of them had her nose
completely eaten away, with nothing but a hole like a wound left in
its place; another was hydro-cephalous, with so thin a neck that it
seemed the slightest movement would snap it and send her head rolling
from her shoulders.

"Have you seen the large jars they have here?" Leandro asked Manuel.
"Come on and take a look."

The two rose and approached the group of gamblers. One of these
interrupted his game.

"Please make way?" Leandro said to him, with marked impertinence.

The man drew in his chair sourly. There was nothing remarkable about
the jars; they were large, embedded in the wall, painted with
red-lead; each of them bore a sign denoting the class of wine inside,
and had a spigot.

"What's so wonderful about this, I'd like to know?" asked Manuel.

Leandro smiled; they returned as they had come, disturbing the player
once more and resuming their seats at the table.

Roberto and Fanny conversed in English.

"That fellow we made get up," said Leandro, "is the bully of this
place."

"What's his name?" asked Fanny.

"El Valencia."

The man they were speaking about, hearing his sobriquet mentioned,
turned around and eyed Leandro; for a moment their glances crossed
defiantly; Valencia turned his eyes away and continued playing. He was
a strong man, about forty, with high cheek bones, reddish skin and a
disagreeably sarcastic expression. Every once in a while he would cast
a severe look at the group formed by Fanny, Roberto and the other two.

"And that Valencia,--who is he?" asked the lady in a low voice.

"He's a mat maker by trade," answered Leandro, raising his voice. "A
tramp that wheedles money out of low-lives; before he used to belong
to the _pote_,--the kind that visit houses on Sundays, knock, and
when they see nobody's home, stick their jimmy into the lock and
zip!... But he hasn't the courage even for this, 'cause his liver is
whiter than paper."

"It would be curious to investigate," said Roberto, "just how far
poverty has served as centre of gravity for the degradation of these
men."

"And how about that white-bearded old fellow at his side?" asked
Fanny.

"He's one of those apostles that cure with water. They say he's a wise
old fellow.... He has a cross on his tongue. But I believe he painted
it there himself."

"And that other woman there?"

"That's La Paloma, Valencia's mistress."

"Prostitute?" asked the lady.

"For at least forty years," answered Leandro with a laugh.

They all looked closely at Paloma; she had a huge, soft face, with
pouches of violet skin, and a timid look as of a humble beast; she
represented at least forty years of prostitution and all its
concomitant ills; forty years of nights spent in the open, lurking
about barracks, sleeping in suburban shanties and the most repulsive
lodgings.

Among the women there was also a gypsy who, from time to time, would
get up and walk across the tavern with a saucy strut.

Leandro ordered some glasses of whiskey; but it was so bad that nobody
could drink it.

"Hey, you," called Leandro to the gipsy, offering her the glass. "Want
a drink?"

"No."

The gypsy placed her hands upon the table,--a pair of stubby, wrinkled
hands incrusted with dirt.

"Who are these gumps?" she asked Leandro.

"Friends of mine. Will you drink or not?" and he offered her the glass
again.

"No."

Then in a shrill voice, he shouted:

"Apostle, will you have a drink?"

The Apostle rose from his place amongst the gamblers. He was dead
drunk and could hardly move; his eyes were viscous, like those of an
angered animal; he staggered over to Leandro and took the glass, which
trembled in his grasp; he brought it to his lips and gulped it down.

"Want more?" asked the gypsy.

"Sure, sure," he drooled.

Then he began to babble, showing the stumps of his yellow teeth, but
nobody could understand a word; he drained the other glasses, rested
his forehead against his hand and slowly made his way to a corner,
into which he squatted, and then stretched himself out on the floor.

"Do you want me to tell your fortune, princess?" asked the gipsy of
Fanny, seizing her hand.

"No," replied the lady drily.

"Won't you give me a few coins for the _churumbeles_?"

"No."

"Wicked woman! Why won't you give me a few coins for the
_churumbeles_?"

"What does _churumbeles_ mean?" asked the lady.

"Her children," answered Leandro, laughing.

"Have you children?" Fanny asked the gipsy.

"Yes."

"How many?"

"Two. Here they are."

And the gipsy fetched a blond little fellow and a girl of about five
or six.

The lady petted the little boy; then she took a duro from her purse
and gave it to the gipsy.

The gipsy, parting her lips in amazement and bursting forth into
profuse flattery, exhibited the duro to everybody in the place.

"We'd better be going," advised Leandro. "To pull one of those big
coins out in a dive like this is dangerous."

The four left the tavern.

"Would you like to make the rounds of this quarter?" asked Leandro.

"Yes. Let's," said the lady.

Together they wound in and out of the narrow lanes of Las Injurias.

"Watch out, the drain runs in the middle of the street," cautioned
Manuel.

The rain kept falling; the quartet of slummers entered narrow patios
where their feet sank into the pestiferous slime. Along the entire
extension of the ravine black with mud, shone but a single oil lamp,
attached to the side of some half crumbled wall.

"Shall we go back?" asked Roberto.

"Yes," answered the lady.

They set out for Embajadores lane and walked up the Paseo de las
Acacias. The rain came down harder; here and there a faint light shone
in the distance; against the intense darkness of the sky loomed the
vague silhouette of a high chimney....

Leandro and Manuel accompanied Fanny and Roberto as far as the Plaza
del Rastro, and there they parted, exchanging handshakes.

"What a woman!" exclaimed Leandro.

"Nice, eh?" asked Manuel.

"You bet. I'd give anything to have a try at her."

CHAPTER VI

Roberto In Quest of a Woman--El Tabuenca and his Inventions--Don
Alonso or the Snake-Man.

A few months later Roberto appeared in the Corrala at the hour when
Manuel and the shoe-shop employes were returning from their day's
work.

"Do you know Senor Zurro?" Roberto asked Manuel.

"Yes. He lives here on this side."

"I know that. I'd like to have a talk with him.

"Then knock at his door. He must be in."

"Come along with me."

Manuel knocked and Encarna opened; they went inside. Senor Zurro was
in his room, reading a newspaper by the light of a large candle; the
place was a regular storehouse, cluttered with old secretaries,
dilapidated chests, mantlepieces, clocks and sundry other items. It
was close enough to stifle a person; it was impossible to breathe or
to take a step without stumbling against something.

"Are you Senor Zurro?" asked Roberto.

"Yes."

"I have come at the suggestion of Don Telmo."

"Don Telmo!" repeated the old man, rising and offering the student a
chair. "Have a seat. How is the good gentleman?"

"Very well."

"He's an excellent friend of mine," continued Zurro. "I should say so.
Well, young man, let me know what you wish. It's enough for me that
you come from Don Telmo; that assures you my best services."

"I should like to learn the whereabouts of a certain girl acrobat who
lived about five or six years ago in a lodging-house of this vicinity,
or in Cuco's hostelry."

"And do you know this girl's name?"

"Yes."

"And you say that she used to live in Cuco's hostelry?"

"Yes, sir."

"I know somebody who lives there," murmured the second-hand dealer.

"Yes, that's so," said Encarna.

"That man with the monkeys. Didn't he live there?" asked Senor Zurro.

"No; he lived in la Quinta de Goya," answered his daughter.

"Well, then.... Just wait a moment, young man. Wait a moment."

"Isn't it Tabuenca that lives there, father?" interrupted Encarna.

"That's the fellow. That's it. El Tabuenca. You go and see him. And
tell him," added Senor Zurro, turning to Roberto, "that I sent you.
He's a grouchy old fellow, as testy as they make 'em."

Roberto took leave of the second-hand man and his daughter, and in
company of Manuel walked out to the gallery of the house.

"And where's this Cuco's hostelry?" he asked.

"Over there near Las Yeserias," answered Manuel.

"Come along with me, then; we'll have supper together," suggested
Roberto.

"All right."

They both went on to the hostelry, which was situated upon a
thoroughfare that was deserted at this hour. It was a large building,
with an entrance-vestibule in country style and a patio crowded with
carts. They questioned a boy. El Tabuenca had just come, he told them.
They walked into the vestibule, which was illuminated by a lantern.
There was a man inside.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16