Felipe Alfau - Chromos

Garcia expected to dedicate a full chapter, no less, to the delivery and for this he was going to consult books on obstetrics and whatnot. He did not say, but I could see more projected assaults upon Dr. de los Rios’s busy schedule. He was convinced that this should prove a surefire trick with the readers, a courageous literary challenge to prudish critics. His persistent attacks on the harmless squeamishness of others did not stop there. He had saved for this point his most subtle contrast, what he might call the brochette that bound his plot together, when the reader, who had been dealt with as a pendulum throughout, finally came to well-deserved rest. Garcia here read a scene where Lolita, on her way to some village where she was to meet her brother Jorge, stops off at the farm for a short visit with her sister. There the horror of her life is brought to her with mind-shattering force, she breaks down and sobs in her sister’s arms, there she knows repentance and the desire for expiation, there she kisses the captain’s hand and blesses him for having saved her sister and made her so happy, and also there she meets the captain’s brother and they both fall in love. But the subtle touch, which Garcia thought that of a masterful hand, was that during the whole visit Lolita kept on a dark cloak carefully wrapped about her person. Garcia said that he expected to make his novel magnificently shocking.

The implication, too obvious to miss and too disgraceful to contemplate, considering the background, only seemed to elate Garcia. The love between Lolita and her young intellectual, nature’s nobleman, was to culminate in marriage during an epilogue or apotheosis on the sun-drenched farm which Garcia had all but written for the end of his masterpiece.

I was speechless and only continued to shake my head.

“Now what?” Garcia demanded.

The whole thing was ridiculous beyond conception; not only an objectionable plot, whether true to life or not, but the final affrontery of a young Spaniard of those days indulging in clean fun and marrying a girl with a past like that of Lolita’s — even if one lets her keep her cloak on. All that obsession with sunshine and normality, health and wholesome living intended to relieve the hangover of pornography, or perhaps to justify it; that true story alibi for militant salacity, disclosing an even more insidious fundamental prudishness; all that progressive youth and ideas nonsense, paraded like a drum majorette in shorts before the ogling eyes of those who would never visit a brothel openly. Everything was absolutely un-Spanish in its well-schooled hypocrisy and, what is worse, it was absolutely unlike Garcia. It reminded me of these diligent dirtmongers, pitchmen of smut with a holier-than-thou attitude in reverse who, in their craposanct exultation, invoke misrepresented laws of biology and even the freedom of the press to advance the cause and promote the sales of the biggest industry yet: organized sex with all its ramifications and agencies, from intimate underthings to the bridal gown, from the peep show to the maternity ward.

I thought all those things, but I only said: “I think that you are giving Spain an awful black eye.”

This was a great day for El Telescopio. When we arrived the place was resplendent with decorations and luminaries of the Spanish colony. The sun coming through the windows added to the gaiety which was not mitigated even by the joyful gloom of the Spanish music filling the rooms. There were farolitos, those paper lanterns that look like colorful concertinas, hanging from the ceiling, to be lighted later, and the whole place was decorated in very Spanish style.

On entering I immediately saw Don Pedro. The old maestro was holding forth at a table surrounded by an improvised clique and unquestionably he had begun to test his drinking capacity early. Greeting acquaintances as I passed, I hurried to join his group and found a place near him.

The Moor was talking in that voluble, disjointed and kidding way of his, as he did whenever he was happy or surrounded by several people, which is the same thing. He stopped in the middle of a sentence and fixed me with his most theatrical and Mephistophelian look without saying anything, holding the suspense for no reason at all. Then without taking his eyes from me, he waved and ordered loudly: “Wine for the gentleman, and don’t throw the bottle; this one is not very adept.” He cut the end of the sentence in midair with the edge of his hand and the long and dramatic silence continued; he regarded me, his head and eyes brushing approval up and down my perplexity, until the waiter arrived with the wine. Only then, he released his grip on the audience: “Very good, man, very good,” and turned again to the table.

As if this had been a signal to break ranks, everyone around began to talk and I began to survey the company.

It was incredible. From one end of the room to the other, and most of the tables were occupied, practically everybody was drinking out of a bottle. The scene was one of almost ritualistic bacchanalia. To think that this was happening on Manhattan Island was surrealistically comical. I reached for my bottle.

Don Pedro distinguished me again: “How do you like it? Not bad, not bad; like babies drinking out of the biberón,” and with impudent disdain he lifted his glass of sherry in silent toast to the gathering. This was the limit. After he had got almost everybody drinking out of the bottle, he chose to drink out of a glass.

“I tell you,” he continued, “these Spaniards are extraordinary. The moment they leave Spain they don’t know what it’s all about any more than the Americans. In fact, anyone outside of Spain doesn’t know what it’s all about—” His thumb grazed his lower lid and the palm of his hand slid down an invisible undulating toboggan: “Like this sherry. You see?” The same thumb pointed at a girl sitting at our table who was all smiles and admiration. She was the American vocalist in his band — his Trilby as someone had said once — and obviously a tourist there. She exuded the happy, breathless expectancy of one gloating in the contemplation of a chamber of horrors. “Look at her.” He glowered at her with fingers stretched under his chin: “Boo!” he ejaculated and she winced but recovered at once:

“You can’t frighten me or anybody else, Gus, old boy. We all know you. Under that exterior—”

“Quiet!” he expostulated with paternal authority. “She does not have much up here,” pointing at his head, “but she is good.” He gave her a kindly look and lifted his glass to her: “The sherry, remember? Completely misinformed about it. She read some place that good sherry has a nutty flavor— Paradisiac innocence!” He lowered his voice, imparting the esoteric knowledge: “Good sherry tastes of breast, you know, teat. That’s what any good catador will tell you in Spain. Put a rubber nipple on the bottle and you are in your second childhood. That’s why we call wine the milk of old people— Nutty flavor indeed!” He eyed her sideways while addressing the rest: “Nuts to you, sister!” and roared his laughter. “Not bad, eh? Nuts to you.”

“That’s not fair,” the girl was whimpering. “You talk in Spanish so that I cannot understand what you are saying and then you finish in English, ‘nuts to you,’ and I don’t think that’s fair.” But one could see that she was enjoying it all.

“That’s not fair, that’s not fair,” he mimicked. “That’s what she is always saying. I tell you: doesn’t know what it’s all about,” he mused thoughtfully. “Fair, fair— The moment one leaves Spain, one finds this obsession with fairness. I never heard the word as long as I lived there—”

I let him ramble on and again began to take stock of the people gathered there. At our table and aside from the Moor, there was no one of particular distinction that I knew of. True, there was Garcia but perhaps I knew him too well to consider him distinguished, and his retiring manner, albeit his prematurely white hair, did not contribute to make him outstanding. He was sitting at the other end of the table in his usual melancholy mood and more than usual dejection, clutching a bottle like an anchor; but again, the presence of the Moor always seemed to make him shrink. He waved at me in dismay. I sighted the faces one by one, along the sides of the bottle. Someone sitting by the windows said loudly enough for me to hear that Dr. de los Rios had just driven up and was getting out of his car. I continued to sight the faces, closing one eye and looking with the other.