Felipe Alfau - Chromos

Doña Dolores pursed her lips and looked her husband up and down: “Yes — I suppose so. The purpose would be the same. I only promised not to let them take him away, and I am a woman of my word, but I suppose he will be better off that way.”

And Don Hilarión, in the collapsible condition he had reached, was easily crammed into a trunk and sent down to the basement.

Time moved on to the melancholy accompaniment of Doña Dolores’s lamentations, seasons followed seasons, and years pursued years with gradual acceleration, and the story might close one day when Mr. Goldstein, the landlord, called on the Coellos, thus saving them from perishing under the ruins of the building which had to be demolished, and incidentally to render them the service of another apartment in another building which he also owned. Mr. Goldstein did not know that day, when disregarding coat and hat he left his office on the other side of Mount Morris Park, that his visit would bring to an end the incidents of which he fortunately had never learned. He walked on one of those splendid New York summer days that last about an hour and was thinking big, generous, humane thoughts. His heart was warm toward his fellow man. That building had developed a weak spot and was unsafe. He might as well tell the tenants to move, since the building had to come down anyway. He wanted to keep a clear conscience.

As he reached the park’s sidewalk, he was nearly run down by a speeding car and one wonders what he thought of worrying about other people’s troubles.

At that moment Doña Dolores was speaking with bitterness to Vicenta: “I suppose I should be happy enough to sing, after all the misery I have known, after all the misfortune that has piled upon my head. I did not want to say anything the other day about the incident of Angustias’s party dress, but the procession. ”

The usual, unavoidable interruption was advancing loudly along the corridor.

Jerry entered the kitchen and suggested in comically deep tones: “What about food, Mama? I have to rush back for the meet.” His voice was changing and his gloom only seemed increased by his puberty.

“It is high time you thought of something else besides playing. If your poor father were alive. ”

The bell rang. Mr. Goldstein had arrived.

The moment he explained the object of his visit, Doña Dolores put her hands to her head. “Ay Dios mio! Vicenta! Listen to what this man says. The house is going to fall down. This is the very dregs in the cup of bitterness which has been my life. Even the house where I live is going to fall on me, all because poor people cannot afford to live in solid buildings. Oh my God, my God, my God! When a person is as unfortunate as I am, she has no reason for living. I may as well die right now. Let’s get out of here this minute!”

The magnanimous offer of Mr. Goldstein to move to another of his houses was accepted as soon as he had reassured Doña Dolores that all his other buildings were sound, solid as a rock, and the preparations for moving were begun at once.

The next day as Doña Dolores stood on the sidewalk and saw the two moving vans drive away packed with their belongings and heavy furniture, she turned exhausted on Vicenta: “Did we forget anything?” she asked feebly.

“I don’t think so, Doña Dolores,” the servant answered through a yawn that nearly turned her inside out.

“Well; it would make no difference anyway. We are too poor to own anything of any value. How tired I am!” She addressed her two children who stood there looking very bored and dutifully sad. “All right then, let’s go.”

The group walked slowly in the direction of the new house.

And the last incident one may accept since one has accepted so many others is that one day after the old unsafe building had been duly demolished and nothing remained but abandoned foundations replete with debris, a tramp was rummaging through and came upon a bundle of dark clothes covered with dirt and dust. He picked it up, shook it and more dust dropped from it, mixing with the other. Having found the clothes acceptable, he walked away still brushing and shaking from them the last traces of dust, without bothering to think whether it was the stuff houses are made of, or the stuff men are made of.

By now I have allowed these things to fall out of chronological step, but it is just as well. Possibly the order in which incidents happen may not always be as acceptable as the pattern they form when seen in their totality. But be that as it may, I go back now to things I got ahead of in this haphazard account of recollections.

After the death of his landlady, there followed several unpleasant days demanding Garcia’s attention to details he did not like. A will turned up which left to him the house where they lived and also most of her money, but Garcia suffered an attack of Castilian pride and wouldn’t hear of it. I suspect that it was due to fear created by seeing Latins often depicted as graceful pimps and also in the way of an atonement for his past weakness. He had been weak, allowing his impractical dreamy nature and circumstances which he considered himself incapable of conquering to place him in the suspected position of a man living off a woman, a woman of whom he had felt ashamed, but not ashamed enough to do anything about his position, and he had even allowed that shame to carry over to her very end. Perhaps he had been only human but he was in the mood to judge himself sternly. In his own eyes he had been weak in her life and weak at her death, and now he was twice as ashamed of himself. He knew that she had a sister in Pennsylvania and communicated with her. She came with her husband and at first they were unfriendly and belligerent and threatened to bring matters to court without bothering to find out his attitude in the matter, but when finally it penetrated their minds and they realized that he was giving up everything in their favor, they became all beaming and effusive courteousness, calling him a fine Spanish gentleman and scholar, and the husband arranged everything with a lawyer and paid for all expenses, funereal and otherwise, mentioning that Garcia was in no condition to be bothered with sad financial details and showing the generosity of one who insists jovially that this round is on him.

Then Garcia, who had brought to my place what he considered his valuable personal property, most of which were his manuscripts and notes and his typewriter, said that he was going away, but he did not say where and I did not ask. I knew him well. The man was ashamed after the ordeal, like one unmasked, to have his position openly and officially discussed as the object of legal consideration when he signed his claims away. He was ashamed the way one who has suffered an accident is ashamed of his torn, dirty undergarments exposed to the public gaze. He went away with his eyes averted, but only from his former haunts and stayed in town. I did not see him for a long time but heard from him now and then through various sources.

This was the beginning of what he considered his long expiation, the downgrade epic into the mud bath. His sentimentality led him to all established situations of romantic degradation, and from his material suffering he must have derived some spiritual satisfaction.

The amount of anonymity and tolerance dispensed in these parts is amazing. He could never have gotten away with it in Spain. Hours spent on public benches with the bottle of self-justification, waiting for the final crucifixion when the policeman on the beat told him to move along to wind up naturally on the Bowery, the acknowledged Mecca. He had the romanticism of the Bowery and I had heard him speak of ending his days there in wretched, sentimental glory. The life of a hobo fascinated him as it would anyone who has not tried it. It was inevitable. One can imagine days of dark, exultant, alcoholic confusion culminating in the peregrination over the Manhattan or Brooklyn Bridge, from the benches of one city hall square to another, and then on to other side streets, but never, no matter how bad the stupor, down Atlantic Avenue and Columbia Street to any Spanish café where he would be seen by his countrymen. It may pass to be a bum to strangers, to play the role for foreign consumption as he would say, but not in front of those with whom one has closer bonds, even if they are impersonal. You cannot let your own people see you when you are wallowing in your own mess.