Jane Bowles - My Sister's Hand in Mine - The Collected Works of Jane Bowles

“Because I don’t like to hear music. I hate it!”

“Why?” asked her mother absently, taking another large mouthful of her food. She spoke in a deep voice like a man’s. Her head, which was set low between her shoulders, was covered with black curls. Her chin was heavy and her skin was dark and coarse; however, she had very beautiful blue eyes. She sat with her legs apart, with one arm lying flat on the table. The child bore no resemblance to her mother. She was frail, with stiff hair of the peculiar light color that is often found in mulattoes. Her eyes were so pale that they seemed almost white.

As the traveler came in, the child turned to look at him.

“Now there are nine people eating in this pension,” she said immediately.

“Nine,” said her mother. “Many mouths.” She pushed her plate aside wearily and looked up at the calendar beside her on the wall. At last she turned around and saw the stranger. Having already finished her own dinner, she followed the progress of his meal with interest. Once she caught his eye.

“Good appetite,” she said, nodding gravely, and then she watched his soup until he had finished it.

“My pills,” she said to Lilina, holding her hand out without turning her head. To amuse herself, Lilina emptied the whole bottle into her mother’s hand.

“Now you have your pills,” she said. When Señora Ramirez realized what had happened, she dealt Lilina a terrible blow in the face, using the hand which held the pills, and thus leaving them sticking to the child’s moist skin and in her hair. The traveler turned. He was so bored and at the same time disgusted by what he saw that he decided he had better look for another pension that very night.

“Soon,” said the waitress, putting his meat in front of him, “the musician will come. For fifty cents he will play you all the songs you want to hear. One night would not be time enough. She will be out of the room by then.” She looked over at Lilina, who was squealing like a stuck pig.

“Those pills cost me three quetzales a bottle,” Señora Ramirez complained. One of the young men at a nearby table came over and examined the empty bottle. He shook his head.

“A barbarous thing,” he said.

“What a dreadful child you are, Lilina!” said an English lady who was seated at quite a distance from everybody else. All the diners looked up. Her face and neck were quite red with annoyance. She was speaking to them in English.

“Can’t you behave like civilized people?” she demanded.

“You be quiet, you!” The young man had finished examining the empty pill bottle. His companions burst out laughing.

“O.K., girl,” he continued in English. “Want a piece of chewing gum?” His companions were quite helpless with laughter at his last remark, and all three of them got up and left the room. Their guffaws could be heard from the patio, where they had grouped around the fountain, fairly doubled up.

“It’s a disgrace to the adult mind,” said the English lady. Lilina’s nose had started to bleed, and she rushed out.

“And tell Consuelo to hurry in and eat her dinner,” her mother called after her. Just then the musician arrived. He was a small man and he wore a black suit and a dirty shirt.

“Well,” said Lilina’s mother. “At last you came.”

“I was having dinner with my uncle. Time passes, Señora Ramirez! Gracias a Dios! ”

“ Gracias a Dios nothing! It’s unheard-of, having to eat dinner without music.”

The violinist fell into a chair, and, bent over low, he started to play with all his strength.

“Waltzes!” shouted Señora Ramirez above the music. “Waltzes!” She looked petulant and at the same time as though she were about to cry. As a matter of fact, the stranger was quite sure that he saw a tear roll down her cheek.

“Are you going to the band concert tonight?” she asked him; she spoke English rather well.

“I don’t know. Are you?”

“Yes, with my daughter Consuelo. If the unfortunate girl ever gets here to eat her supper. She doesn’t like food. Only dancing. She dances like a real butterfly. She has French blood from me. She is of a much better type than the little one, Lilina, who is always hurting; hurting me, hurting her sister, hurting her friends. I hope that God will have pity on her.” At this she really did shed a tear or two, which she brushed away with her napkin.

“Well, she’s young yet,” said the stranger. Señora Ramirez agreed heartily.

“Yes, she is young.” She smiled at him sweetly and seemed quite content.

Lilina meanwhile was in her room, standing over the white bowl in which they washed their hands, letting the blood drip into it. She was breathing heavily like someone who is trying to simulate anger.

“Stop that breathing! You sound like an old man,” said her sister Conseulo, who was lying on the bed with a hot brick on her stomach. Consuelo was small and dark, with a broad flat face and an unusually narrow skull. She had a surly nature, which is often the case when young girls do little else but dream of a lover. Lilina, who was a bully without any curiosity concerning the grown-up world, hated her sister more than anyone else she knew.

“Mamá says that if you don’t come in to eat soon she will hit you.”

“Is that how you got that bloody nose?”

“No,” said Lilina. She walked away from the basin and her eye fell on her mother’s corset, which was lying on the bed. Quickly she picked it up and went with it into the patio, where she threw it into the fountain. Consuelo, frightened by the appropriation of the corset, got up hastily and arranged her hair.

“Too much upset for a girl of my age,” she said to herself patting her stomach. Crossing the patio she saw Señora Córdoba walking along, holding her head very high as she slipped some hairpins more firmly into the bun at the back of her neck. Consuelo felt like a frog or a beetle walking behind her. Together they entered the dining room.

“Why don’t you wait for midnight to strike?” said Señora Ramirez to Consuelo. Señorita Córdoba, assuming that this taunt had been addressed to her, bridled and stiffened. Her eyes narrowed and she stood still. Señora Ramirez, a gross coward, gave her a strange idiotic smile.

“How is your health, Señorita Córdoba?” she asked softly, and then feeling confused, she pointed to the stranger and asked him if he knew Señorita Córdoba.

“No, no; he does not know me.” She held out her hand stiffly to the stranger and he took it. No names were mentioned.

Consuelo sat down beside her mother and ate voraciously, a sad look in her eye. Señorita Córdoba ordered only fruit. She sat looking out into the dark patio, giving the other diners a view of the nape of her neck. Presently she opened a letter and began to read. The others all watched her closely. The three young men who had laughed so heartily before were now smiling like idiots, waiting for another such occasion to present itself.

The musician was playing a waltz at the request of Señora Ramirez, who was trying her best to attract again the attention of the stranger. “Tra-la-la-la,” she sang, and in order better to convey the beauty of the waltz she folded her arms in front of her and rocked from side to side.

“Ay, Consuelo! It is for her to waltz,” she said to the stranger. “There will be many people in the plaza tonight, and there is so much wind. I think that you must fetch my shawl, Consuelo. It is getting very cold.”

While awaiting Consuelo’s return she shivered and picked her teeth.

The traveler thought she was crazy and a little disgusting. He had come here as a buyer for a very important textile concern. Having completed all his work, he had for some reason decided to stay on another week, perhaps because he had always heard that a vacation in a foreign country was a desirable thing. Already he regretted his decision, but there was no boat out before the following Monday. By the end of the meal he was in such despair that his face wore a peculiarly young and sensitive look. In order to buoy himself up a bit, he began to think about what he would get to eat three weeks hence, seated at his mother’s table on Thanksgiving Day. They would be very glad to hear that he had not enjoyed himself on this trip, because they had always considered it something in the nature of a betrayal when anyone in the family expressed a desire to travel. He thought they led a fine life and was inclined to agree with them.