Felipe Alfau - Chromos

As one of their friends said — an individual who having arrived here six months before them felt entitled to become their spiritual cicerone in the labyrinth of American life:

“That is the convenience of New York, Don Hilarión. On one side you have progressive Nordics who do gymnastics and read science, and on the other you have retrograde Latins who procreate behind shut windows and read the catechism.”

“You have said it.” Don Hilarión spoke with a very profound and important manner: “On one side you have one thing and on the other you have the other thing. On one side the wrong and on the other the right.”

Don Hilarión felt very important, and his family thought that he was and therefore they also felt very important. Don Hilarión was a notario, not a notary, mind you; that does not quite convey the meaning, but a notario. A notario in Spain, at least in Don Hilarión’s day, was a title given to a man having achieved the summit of his career in the field of law. It was the coronation of every law student. When parents addressed good children showing particular brilliance, they always said: “Study law, my boy. It has many applications, among them the diplomatic service, and you may even someday be a notario and always be respected and looked upon as an important citizen, not to speak of the good profits you will derive.” And the good children always imagined themselves with beard, silk hat and a frock coat, walking along the street acknowledging the deferential greetings and respectful salutations of the admiring crowds.

Don Hilarión had been one of those boys.

He had studied law.

He did not enter the diplomatic service because he only had studied two dead languages.

He did not wear a silk hat and a frock coat, because his friend and spiritual guide had advised him that in this country one did not have to be ceremonious, but do as one pleased; a somewhat exaggerated statement, but safe where Don Hilarión was concerned.

He did not have any greetings to acknowledge, except occasionally those of the janitor and of one or two acquaintances, because the rest of the population did not know him from Adam.

But Don Hilarión was a notario. He felt important. His family felt important. But they were Spaniards of the old school and therefore were gloomy.

Their obvious reason was that Don Hilarión could not practice law in New York because he was not a citizen and besides, his knowledge of English was very limited. However, he had set up one of his rooms as an office, with all his law books, solid cabinets, large imposing desk and heavy chairs. The room was small, Don Hilarión fat, and consequently it was difficult to move about the place. Once he succeeded in sitting at the chair behind his desk, it was not easy to induce him to abandon his post and leave the room, and Don Hilarión sat there all day, reading newspapers from Spain, and it made him feel like a very busy man. This room was at the end of the long corridor and it was from there that Don Hilarión, finding it difficult to extricate himself, called out to his wife who was most of the time with Vicenta, the servant, in the kitchen, unfortunately located at the other end, and she had to look in every one of the rooms, when she very well knew that he could be but in one, held there at the mercy of his furniture.

Doña Dolores arrived breathless: “What is it, Hilarión?”

“Nothing, woman, what can it be? The usual thing. Can you lend a hand? I want to get out of here and I am in a hurry. Where did you think I was?”

By this time she had already got hold of his hand, heaved and given him a good start. “That’s enough now, woman. I can manage the rest by myself.’’

“Such small rooms in this country! In Spain this furniture was lost in that office you had, remember?” Her voice was very throaty, very weepy.

“No use complaining, woman. Nothing gained by that,” Don Hilarión finished, heading for the bathroom, newspaper in hand.

Doña Dolores walked back swiftly along the corridor wailing at her memories, at her wretched present: “Those were rooms! At least one had that in one’s poverty.” She assumed a very resigned air, very browbeaten. “But when one is so poor one does not even have the right to complain. ” She reentered the kitchen and ably turned her lingering remarks into a fitting continuation and confirmation of her interrupted talk with Vicenta:

“I should say one has no right to complain. With sufferings, one finally does not mind anymore. But still there are things that reach your marrow. Don’t think I don’t notice, Vicenta. I did not want to say anything the other day about the incident of the shoes of Hilarión— but the procession goes on inside.”

She referred to her husband having had a patch placed on one of his shoes. Then he had met some friends and they had walked. One of them was a Spanish writer who wrote chronicles about New York for South American papers and was always making bad suggestions. This time he suggested that they all examine their feet, right where they were, on Seventh Avenue, to determine who had the largest.

Don Hilarión suspected that the writer had spied his repaired shoes and was calling attention very indelicately to the fact. He had arrived home feeling very depressed and had discussed the incident with his wife in front of Vicenta. The matter had gradually diminished in his mind, but in Doña Dolores’s it had behaved like a rolling snowball, reaching the phenomenal proportions of a unanimous world comfabulation to vex them, to mock their honorable poverty.

Vicenta tried to soothe her with the usual speech: “Don’t think about it, Doña Dolores. A writer! Like all the rest of them. They are always talking for the sake of talking. Who takes writers seriously?”

But Doña Dolores persisted. She relished such experiences that made her feel like a martyr. She resented Vicenta’s lightly discarding the matter, simply because she had no appearances to maintain, robbing this succulent humiliating morsel of all its imagined seasoning. She skillfully misinterpreted:

“All right, Vicenta, you let it go at that. It does not hurt you. When one is poor, one does not even have the privilege of complaining. Being poor is the worst sin I suppose, which must be constantly expiated, paid for, when one can pay for nothing else.” She compressed her lips and a wistful smile sent her eyes in search of remote places of mournful reveries.

Vicenta, whose salary had not been attended to for the last six months, misunderstood sincerely: “Doña Dolores, you know very well that I am not one to think of certain things and I am very happy to work for you as it is. But what you do is like someone stabbing you and then you take the knife and twist it around.”

“Now I twist it around! When one is in my position, one must be even accused, held to blame for one’s own sufferings.” She shifted to the other section of her servant’s speech which offered opportunities too tempting to pass over: “And as for the other matter, Vicenta, you will be paid. Don’t worry.” Her voice rose to eloquent heights: “you will be paid even if I have to tear the flesh off my bones like that famous merchant of Italy, and you can have the blood too.”

“Please! Doña Dolores! I am not worrying—” Vicenta gave up in hopelessness and turned to proceed with her chores and made an attempt at changing the conversation: “What shall we order from the grocer’s today?”

“Anything,” said Doña Dolores, disgusted with her servant’s reluctance to continue her pet type of talk. “You know better than I. That is, if they want to send it. We also owe them money and—”

An interruption was advancing tumultuously along the corridor and invaded the kitchen. It was her two children, a boy and a girl, Jeremias and Angustias, both thin, sallow-complexioned and darkly sad-eyed. Both spoke with the same tearful throatiness of their mother and showed already strong-inherited and well-encouraged tendencies to gloom, contrasting with their noisy if not cheerful behavior. This last strange and unexpectedly inconvenient attitude for Doña Dolores was resignedly explained in her mind by what she considered the vulgarizing influence of the environment. Superficially, both children had become thoroughly Americanized in an amazingly short time. They were even called Jerry and Angie in school, a thing which extracted most devilishly from their names all the glorious, tragic implications.