Cormac McCarthy - Cities of the Plain

Evenin. I'll have a Old Grandad and water back.

Yessir.

The barman moved away. John Grady put his boot on the polished brass footrail and he watched the whores in the glass of the backbar. The men at the bar were mostly welldressed Mexicans with a few Americans dressed in flowered shirts of an intemperately thin cloth. A tall woman in a diaphanous gown passed through the salon like the ghost of a whore. A cockroach that had been moving along the counter behind the bottles ascended to the glass where it encountered itself and froze.

He ordered another drink. The barman poured. When he looked into the glass again she was sitting by herself on a dark velvet couch with her gown arranged about her and her hands composed in her lap. He reached for his hat, not taking his eyes from her. He called for the barman.

La cuenta por favor.

He looked down. He remembered that he'd left his hat with the hostess at the door. He took out his wallet and pushed a fivedollar bill across the mahogany and folded the rest of the bills and put them in his shirtpocket. The barman brought the change and he pushed a dollar back toward him and turned and looked across the room to where she sat. She looked small and lost. She sat with her eyes closed and he realized that she was listening to the music. He poured the shot of whiskey into the glass of water and set the shotglass on the bar and took his drink and set out across the room.

His faint shadow under the lights of the great glass tiara above them may have brought her from her reveries. She looked up at him and smiled thinly with her painted child's mouth. He almost reached for his hatbrim.

Hello, he said. Do you care if I set down?

She recomposed herself and smoothed her skirt to make room on the couch beside her. A waiter moved out from the shadows along the walls and laid down two napkins on the low glass table before them and stood.

Bring me a Old Grandad and water back. And whatever she's drinkin.

He nodded and moved away. John Grady looked at the girl. She leaned forward and smoothed her skirt again.

Lo siento, she said. Pero no hablo inglZs.

Est++ bien. Podemos hablar espa-ol.

Oh, she said. QuZ bueno.

QuZ es su nombre?

Magdalena. Y usted?

He didnt answer. Magdalena, he said.

She looked down. As if the sound of her name were troubling to her.

Es su nombre de pila? he said.

S'. Por supuesto.

No es su nombre. su nombre profesional.

She put her hand to her mouth. Oh, she said. No. Es mi nombre propio.

He watched her. He told her that he had seen her at La Venada but she only nodded and did not seem surprised. The waiter arrived with the drinks and he paid for them and tipped the man a dollar. She did not pick up her drink then or later. She spoke so softly he had to lean to catch her words. She said that the other women were watching but that it was nothing. It was only that she was new to this place. He nodded. No importa, he said.

She asked why he had not spoken to her at La Venada. He said that it was because he was with friends. She asked him if he had a sweetheart at La Venada but he said that he did not.

No me recuerda? he said.

She shook her head. She looked up. They sat in silence.

Cu++ntos a-os tiene? he said.

Bastantes.

He said it was all right if she did not wish to say but she didnt answer. She smiled wistfully. She touched his sleeve. Fue mentira, she said. Lo que dec'a.

C-mo?

She said that it was a lie that she did not remember him. She said that he was standing at the bar and she thought that he would come to talk to her but that he had not and when she looked again he was gone.

Verdad?

S'.

He said that she had not really lied. He said she'd only shook her head, but she shook her head again and said that these were the worst lies of all. She asked him why he had come to the White Lake alone and he looked at the drinks untouched on the table before them and he thought about that and about lies and he turned and looked at her.

Porque la andaba buscando, he said. Ya tengo tiempo busc++ndola.

She didnt answer.

Y c-mo es que me recuerda?

She half turned away, she almost whispered. TambiZn yo, she said.

Mande?

She turned and looked at him. TambiZn yo.

In the room she turned and closed the door behind them. He couldnt even remember how they got there. He remembered her hand in his, small and cold, so strange to feel. The prismbroken light from the chandelier that ran in a river over her naked shoulders when they passed beneath. Half stumbling after her like a child.

She went to the bedside and lit two candles and then turned off the lamp. He stood in the room with his hands at his sides. She reached to the back of her neck and undid the clasp of her gown and reached behind and pulled down the zipper. He began to unbutton his shirt. The room was small and the bed all but filled it. It was a fourpost bed with a canopy and curtains of winecolored organza and the candles shone through onto the pillows with a winey light.

There was a light knock at the door.

Tenemos que pagan she said.

He took the folded bills from his pocket. Para la noche, he said.

Es muy taro.

Cu++nto? He was counting out the bills. He had eightytwo dollars. He held it out to her. She looked at the money and she looked at him. The knock came again.

Dame cincuenta, she said.

Es bastante?

S', s'. She took the money and opened the door and held it out and whispered to the man on the other side. He was tall and thin and he smoked a cigarette in a silver holder and he wore a black silk shirt. He looked at the client for just a moment through the partly opened door and he counted the money and nodded and turned away and she shut the door. Her bare back was pale in the candlelight where the dress was open. Her black hair glistened. She turned and withdrew her arms from the sleeves of the dress and caught the front of it before her. She stepped from the pooled cloth and laid the dress across a chair and stepped behind the gauzy curtains and turned back the covers and then she pulled the straps of her chemise from her shoulders and let it fall and stepped naked into the bed and pulled the satin quilt to her chin and turned on her side and put her arm beneath her head and lay watching him.

He took off his shirt and stood looking for some place to put it.

Sobre la silla, she whispered.

He draped the shirt over the chair and sat and pulled off his boots and put his socks in the tops of them and stood them to one side and stood and unbuckled his belt. He crossed the room naked and she reached and turned back the covers for him and he slid beneath the tinted sheets and lay back on the pillow and looked up at the softly draped canopy. He turned and looked at her. She'd not taken her eyes from him. He raised his arm and she slid against him the whole length of her soft and naked and cool. He gathered her black hair in his hand and spread it across his chest like a blessing.

Es casado? she said.

No.

He asked her why she wished to know. She was silent a moment. Then she said that it would be a worse sin if he were married. He thought about that. He asked her if that was really why she wished to know but she said he wished to know too much. Then she leaned and kissed him. In the dawn he held her while she slept and he had no need to ask her anything at all.

She woke while he was dressing. He pulled on his boots and crossed to the bedside and sat and put his hand against her cheek and smoothed her hair. She turned sleepily and looked up at him. The candles in their holders had burned out and the bits of wick lay blackened in the scalloped shapes of wax.

Tienes que irte?

S'.

Vas a regresar?

S'.

She studied his eyes to see if he spoke the truth. He leaned and kissed her.