A FAMILY ENTERPRISE
Though spring had not yet come, the sun was so hot, that day, that the
Rector and Tonet, to talk things over down on the beach, had sought out
the shade of an old boat drawn up high and dry on the sand. There would
be plenty of time to get their tan on when they got out to sea. The two
men talked slowly and sleepily as if the glare and the heat along shore
had gone to their heads. A real day, come now! Who would have thought
Easter was still a week away, when, usually, there were squalls all the
time and sudden tempests.
The sky, overflowing with sunlight, had a whitish sheen. A few silver
clouds were lazily drifting along like handfulls of foam scattered
hap-hazard over the expanse of heaven; and from the heated sands a damp
radiation was shimmering, giving tremulous, hazy outlines to objects in
the distance. Nothing was going on along the beach itself. The _casa del
bous_, where the launching oxen were idly chewing their cud, rose with
its red roof and its blue trimmings, over long lines of boats drawn up
on shore to make a sort of nomad city with streets and cross roads, much
like a Greek encampment of the Heroic Age, when the triremes were used
for entrenchments. The lateen masts, gracefully tilted forward, with
their points blunt and fat, looked like a forest of headless lances. The
tarred ropes twined and intertwined like lichens and vines. Under the
big sails, which had been lowered to the decks, a whole people of
amphibians was swarming,--red legs bare and caps pulled down over
ears--repairing nets or tending galley fires where fish were frying with
appetizing fragrance. The hulls, of wide bilge, painted white or blue,
stretched away along the glaring shore, like big-bellied sailors lying
on their backs and taking the sun.
In this improvised city, which might, before the night was over, be
broken up and scattered to the four winds beyond the girdling horizon,
the order and symmetry of a modern town laid out by a surveyor could
have been discerned. In the front line, nearest the waves which rippled
in like thin blades of crystal over the spangled sand, were the little
boats, the trollers, _al volanti_, tiny spry craft that looked like
chicks of the heavy boats lying, in the row behind, in pairs of the same
size and color--_barcas del bou_. In the third file, the retired
veterans of the shore, old hulks, their sides wide open, their
worm-eaten ribs showing through the black gaps, reminded one of the
decrepit nags used in the bull ring, and lay meditating, it seemed, on
the ingratitude of men who do so little for deserving old age.
Rust-colored nets, with flannel shirts and trousers of yellow baize,
were strung along most of the masts; and above this array of color, some
gulls, apparently drunk with sunshine, were leisurely planing in wide
circles, occasionally dropping for a moment into the sea, where the
water was shivering and seething in blebs of light under the high noon.
The Rector was talking about the weather, letting his yellowish eyes
wander sleepily and placidly over the sea and down the coast. Along the
green horizon line some pointed sails dotted the sky like wings of doves
that might have been drinking off there. The shore at this point
receded, forming a bight in the land, with masses of green and clusters
of white cottages alternating along the coast. Here were the hills of
the Puig, big swellings in the low-lying strand, which the sea sometimes
swept over in its angry moods. And there was the castle of Sagunto, its
wavy ramparts curling up and down along the summit of the ridge of
caramel brown. Beyond that, and closing the horizon shoreward, was the
saw-toothed Cordillera, with ripples of red granite, its unmoving crests
reaching up to lap the sky like tongues.
Yes, the good weather had come early that year! You could take it from
the Rector! Everybody from the Cabanal knew that, in such matters, he
had inherited from his master, _tio_ Borrasca, an instinct that never
failed. A puff or two next week, a bit of chop, but nothing much! The
stormy season was over ahead of time, thank heaven, and a fellow could
earn an honest day's pay without fear of putting to sea.
The Rector talked drawlingly, biting at a black "cardoon" from a
smuggler's stock, his whole being swallowed up in the majestic slumber
of the shore. Above the peaceful lulling whispers of the sea, the voice
of a girl came from far away, up from under the ground, it seemed,
chanting the monotonous cadence of a hoisting song: _Oh ... oh ... isa!_
and a number of boys would tug at the mast they were stepping, pulling
all together at the proper beat in the sleepy rhythm. It was dinner
time; and tangle-haired women kept calling in shrill notes from the
galley doors; for the "cats" were off gadding in the barn, looking at
the oxen. In every direction the heavy mallets of calkers could be heard
hammering away in deadening regularity. And all these noises evaporated,
as it were, into the vast, light-filled calm, where sounds and things
took on outlines of fantastic indistinctness.
Tonet studied his brother's face expectantly, waiting for that
phlegmatic fellow, to whom words came so hard, to finish formulating his
proposal.
At last the Rector came to the point. In two words, he was tired of
making money penny by penny and day by day. He wanted to make a killing
as so many others had done. There was a living in the sea for any man.
Some people ate bread black, after sweating for it; others took it white
and without the crust, for a moment's work--but risking something! You
get the idea, eh, Tonet!
But the Rector did not wait for Tenet's reply. He got up and walked to
the bow of the old boat, to see if any one were eavesdropping on the
other side.
Not a soul! The beach was deserted as far as the eye could see, away
along to the bath-houses at the resort, where the Valencians came to
play in summer. Beyond lay the harbor, prickly with masts from the
shipping, and flags everywhere, a maze of cross-trees and yards, red and
black smokestacks and cranes that looked like gibbets. Seaward stretched
the Breakwater, a cyclopean wall of red bowlders heaped up in confusion
to make a lee on that storm-swept shore. As background to the whole
scene, the tall buildings of the Grao, warehouses, office
buildings,--the aristocracy and money of the port; and then a long
straight line of roofs, the _Cabanal_, the _Canamelar_, the _Cap de
Fransa_, a rambling agglomeration of many colored houses, less close
together as they left the water, summer places in front with many
stories and slender cupolas, white cabins behind, where the farm land
began, the thatched coverings of the huts rumpled by the strong sea
winds.
There were no spies around. The Rector sat down again at his brother's
side.
His wife had put the idea into his head. He had thought it over
carefully, and come to the conclusion it was a good one. A trip "across
the way," as people remembered his father used to say, over to the
_costa d'afora_, to Algiers! No fishing, you understand. Fish aren't
always around when you need them most. No, not that! But a cargo of
contraband, the boat crammed to the decks with _alguilla_ and _flor de
mayo_, God of Gods! There, _rediel_, was business for you! And that was
what the old man had done a thousand times. Well, what did Tonet say?
The honest Rector, who would never have dreamed of breaking a town
ordinance or a harbor rule, laughed like a saint in heaven at the
thought of that haul of tobacco which for days and days had been dancing
before his eyes, till now he could actually see the fragrant bundles
standing there wrapped in burlap on the sand. He was a son of the
Spanish coast, proud of the deeds of his ancestors. In his eyes
smuggling was the one thing a self-respecting sailor could take up when
he got tired of fishing.
Tonet thought it was a bright idea. He had made two trips like that,
though as ordinary seaman. Now that business was dull on the wharves,
and _tio_ Mariano hadn't gotten him that job in the coast and harbor
survey he had wanted so, there was no reason why he shouldn't go along
with his brother.
The Rector rounded out the plan. The most important thing he had
already--his own boat, _la Garbosa_. Tonet gasped with surprise, so the
Rector enlarged further on that detail. Of course he realized the tub
was broken amidships, the ribs strained, the deck warped and sagging in
the middle--squeaking like an old guitar every time a sea went under
her, ready for breaking up, about. But they hadn't fooled him, they
hadn't fooled him! Thirty _duros_, he had paid, not a cent more. And the
firewood in her was worth that much. But she would keep afloat under men
who knew the taste of salt water. For his part, he could negotiate that
pond in a shoe with the tap gone! Besides, you see,--and he gave a
knowing wink--if the revenue people caught them and confiscated the
boat--well, thirty _duros_! And that clinched the argument for the wily
Rector. Not a thought of the chance he was taking with his life in such
a sieve!
The crew?... Himself, his brother, and two men he knew and could trust.
That was all there was to that. Now all he needed to do was have a talk
with _tio_ Mariano, who was on the inside track down in Algiers, as an
old hand at the business. And like a man who has his mind made up and is
afraid he'll change it if he waits too long, he thought he would go at
once to see that influential personage whom they both could be mighty
proud to call their uncle. They would probably find him--it was around
noon you see--up at the _Carabina_, where he usually went to sit a while
and smoke.
And the two brothers started off in that direction. On walking past the
ox-barn they glanced casually at the tavern-boat, blacker and more
ramshackle every day. _Adios, mare!_ They had caught sight of their
mother's glossy wrinkly face peering over the counter in front of the
opening into the wine store, her head swathed as usual in a white
kerchief like a coif. Some dirty underfed sheep were browsing the marsh
grass near the first houses of the village. From the pools of fresh
water behind the dunes frogs were croaking in monotone, their _garumps_
faintly blending with the murmuring of the surf. Wine-colored nets, the
warps festooned with cork toggles, were spread out on the sand, and
among them some young roosters were pecking about or grooming their
shiny feathers, all agleam with a metallic rainbow luster. Along the
drain from the Gas House a number of women on hands and knees were
scrubbing clothes or washing dishes in a pestilential water that stained
the stones on its edges black. Here was the frame of a new boat about
which some carpenters were pounding, and from a distance the skeleton of
unpainted timber looked like the remains of some prehistoric saurian.
Across the drain, some rope-walkers, hanks of hemp about their waists,
were backing away from the lathe, letting the yellow strands revolve
between their deft fingers. And then the Cabanal, so called from the
miserable cabins there which sheltered the very poorest of all those
toilers of the sea! The streets were as straight and regular as the
buildings were capricious, of every shape and size. The red-brick
sidewalks went joyously up and down at different levels according to the
height of the door sills on the huts. The roads were sloughs of mud,
with deep ruts, and puddles from rain that had fallen weeks before. Two
rows of dwarf olive trees brushed the heads of passersby with their
dusty branches, and ropes were stretched from trunk to trunk to serve as
clothes-lines for the wash of the water-front, which was waving like a
regalia of banners in the fresh sea-breeze.
Cabins alternated with tenements of several stories. Those incorrigible
tars could not forget the water-line even when they were ashore, for all
the buildings were finished off with spar-varnish, and painted in two
colors, like boats. Many a front door had a figure-head carved in wood,
as though that portal were the bow-sprit of the sailor's habitation,
which, in all its details of architecture, of color and line, called up
memories of life at sea. The village looked like a collection of
grounded craft. In front of some of the cabins stout masts with pulleys
had been set up, and the pulley and mast meant that there lived a
skipper of a pair of _bou_-boats. At the top of the staffs, the most
complicated tackle was out drying, waving in the wind like the majestic
emblem of a consul. The Rector eyed those poles in envy unconcealed.
When would that Christ up at the Grao answer his prayer so that he could
plant a mast like that in front of his door in honor of Dolores?
Now the drain had come to an end. They were well into the village, in
the section where people from Valencia had their summer cottages. The
houses here were low studded, with bulging gratings, painted green, over
the windows. Everything was closed and silent. Footsteps echoed back
across the broad sidewalks as in an abandoned town. Tufted plane trees
were languishing in the solitude, pining for the gay nights of summer
when there was laughing everywhere, people running about, and a piano
banging in every cottage. Now scarcely any one was in sight. An
occasional villager went by, in his pointed cap, with his hands in his
pockets, and his pipe in his mouth, sauntering lazily toward this tavern
or that; for the cafes were the only places where anything was going on.
The _Carabina_, for instance, was crowded. Under the awning in front
were any number of blue coats, black silk caps, and weather-beaten
countenances. Dominoes were rattling on the tables, and though
everything was open to the air, the strong smell of gin and tobacco
struck you in the face.
Tonet had pleasant memories of the place--the scene of his triumphs in
generosity in the first months of his marriage to Rosario.
At one of the stands sat _tio_ Mariano, pulling at his pipe and waiting,
probably, for the sheriff, or some other town notable, to enjoy the
usual afternoon chat. He was listening in disdainful condescension to
_tio_ Gori, an old ship-carpenter from down the beach, who had been
going to that cafe every afternoon for twenty years, to read the
newspaper aloud, advertisements and all, to a greater or smaller number
of sailors, according to the chance offshore; and the men would sit
there silent and attentive till nightfall.
"So then, if you are ready, gentlemen ... _Sinor_ Segasta has something
to say to us to-day...."
But _tio_ Gori held up his reading to observe to the man next to him:
"That Segasta is a humbug, you know!"
And with that comprehensive annotation, he adjusted his spectacles, and
the Premier's speech in the Cortes began to unwind, syllable by
syllable, from under the carpenter's white tobacco-stained mustache:
"Gen-tle-men-of-the-Cham-ber!
In-re-ply-to-what-the-Hon-o-ra-ble-De-pu-ty-said-yes-ter-day...."
But before getting to the reply, the carpenter again looked up from his
paper and, with a smile of canny superiority, observed to his speechless
expectant audience:
"That is a d---- d lie!"
Though the Rector had also spent whole afternoons at the feet of that
man of letters, he now failed to notice _tio_ Gori at all. Respectfully
and obediently, he advanced, instead, directly toward his uncle, who had
gone so far as to take the pipe out of his mouth to call to his nephews
with an: "Hey there, boys!" and motion to them to take the chairs he had
been keeping for his influential friends. Tonet sat down with his back
to his brother and uncle, so as to follow the fast game of dominoes that
was rattling in a lively fashion at the next table. At times his eyes
would wander off through the smoky atmosphere toward the bar, where the
pretty daughter of _tio_ Carabina--for him the principal attraction of
the cafe--was serving drinks under a line of marine chromos.
_Senor_ Mariano _el Callao_--though no one dared use that last epithet
in his hearing--was getting on toward sixty, but was still a muscular
and rather handsome man, with a weather-beaten face, blood-shot eyes, a
gray mustache as stiff and long and prickly as a tom-cat's whiskers, and
the general bullying air of an uneducated lout who had money enough to
live on without working. People had dubbed him _el Callao_ because at
least a dozen times every day he told the story of that famous battle
for the Peruvian seaport--the last that Spain relinquished in South
America--which he had witnessed as an ordinary seaman on the _Numancia_.
In these narratives he mentioned the admiral, Mendez Nunez, in every
other sentence,--"and don Casto says to me, says he"--as if the hero had
had him for his most intimate friend and right-hand man. What delighted
his audiences invariably, however, was his description of the actual
combat, with imitations of a broadside from his glorious frigate: _boom!
boo-oo-oo-oo--m!_
In addition _tio_ Mariano was one of the big men about town. He had been
a smuggler in the happy days when revenue agents, from Captain of the
Port to ordinary patrolman, had hands but never eyes. And even now, when
things were not so lax, he would take a passive share in some enterprise
of the sort. But his principal activity was doing charity--lending the
fishermen, or their wives, advances on their pay at fifty per cent a
month; and this had given him a grip on the throats of the poorest
elements along shore, so that he could deliver their vote bodily in
every election campaign. His nephews could hardly contain their pride
when they heard him calling mayors and sheriffs by their first names, or
saw him, even, going up to Valencia in his best clothes and a top hat,
as member of a committee of leading citizens, to wait on the Governor.
A grasping, heartless Shylock, _tio_ Mariano had a scent for loosening
his purse strings at the right moment. He knew the inside workings of
every home for miles around. The Rector and Tonet, who owed him nothing
but the hope they had of inheriting something when he died, thought him
the most respectable and kindly man in the whole village, though very
seldom had they been admitted to his pretty house on Queen street,
_Calle de la Reina_, where he lived alone with a good-looking
housekeeper, the only person in town who dared talk back to him, and was
intimate enough with his affairs even to know where he kept his "pile."
_Tio_ Mariano listened to the Rector with eyes half closed and a
vertical line knit between his eyebrows. "Be d---- d, be d---- d! Of
course! Not a bad idea at all, not at all!" That's the way he liked
people--with some gumption! And he seized the occasion to brag of his
own biography as a fool successful in getting rich, telling how he had
left the navy without a cent in his pocket, and, to get out of the rut
his father and grandfather had been in as fishermen, had started off on
the underground route to Gibraltar and Algiers, to do his bit toward
keeping business going and to give people something else to smoke
besides the stink-weed forced on the public by the government! Thanks to
the Lord, who had stood by him through thick and thin, and to his own
guts--don't forget that--he had made a little something--enough to keep
him from worrying in his old age! But times weren't what they had been!
The revenue men were now in charge of young navy officers just off the
school-ships, with all sorts of stuck-up ideas in their heads and ears a
yard long to catch any talk that was going around; and not a one of them
would keep his eyes shut for an hour, if you paid him half his weight in
gold. Why, last month they had caught three boats coming from Marseilles
with a cargo of cloth! You had to be careful, you had to be careful! Too
much blabbing going on all the time. The Q. T., that was the watchword!
The Rector had made up his mind? Well, then, straight ahead! His Uncle
Mariano would not be the man to throw cold water on an idea like that.
He wanted the boys in his family to have ambition and try to get
somewhere in the world. Poor old Pascualo would have turned out better
if he'd stuck to that business and not gone back to fishing!
Well, how much did the Rector need? Quite frank now!--as though he were
talking to a father. If it had been a matter of fishing, not a penny.
Hell of a trade for a fellow, that, where you killed yourself working
and died poor as a rat. But for something of that other kind, all he
wanted, all he wanted! Somehow or other, this business of cheating the
government always appealed to _tio_ Mariano! A man's job!
The Rector timidly outlined what he thought he ought to have, stopping
every other word, as though he were afraid of asking too much. But his
uncle took the short cut to the conclusion. Boat? He had the boat. Very
well! He, _tio_ Mariano, would see to all the rest. He would drop a line
to some friends of his on the "market" at Algiers. They would give the
Rector a good load on credit, and if he were spry and got it ashore all
right, a way would be found to sell it. "Thanks ever so much, uncle,
_grasies, tio!_ _Que bo es voste!_ It's certainly nice of you." And the
Rector's eyes were almost running over with tears. But _tio_ Mariano
didn't like sentiment. What was he in the family for? He always had poor
Pascualo on his mind. What a way to die! There was a man of pluck for
you! Oh, by the way, the Rector would get a full third of the proceeds
... seeing he was one of the family.... You couldn't stick on your full
rights with a boy of your own flesh and blood! And the Rector, still
moved at his uncle's lavish kindness, nodded grateful assent.
They sat on in silence for a while. Tonet was all taken up with the game
nearby, and did not try to follow the conversation which the two men
were carrying on, as much with their eyes, almost, as with their lips,
which hardly moved.
And when were they intending to start, _tio_ Mariano went on. Right
away, he supposed; so he had better get his letter off without delay.
The Rector assured him, however, it would be out of the question to sail
before Easter-Saturday. He would be better pleased to leave earlier in
the week, but there was that procession to the Sepulcher with the body
of Christ on Good Friday, and he had promised to lead the mob of "Jews."
Something he couldn't really miss. Been in the family, years and
years--that part in the ceremonies of Holy Week, and many people were
waiting for a chance to get it. The hangman's costume he wore for that
occasion had belonged to his father.
Though _tio_ Mariano passed for an infidel in town, because the curate
never got a red cent out of him on any pretext, he nodded solemn
approval of his nephew's pious intention. Quite right, quite
right--everything in its own time and place! The Rector and his brother
rose to their feet on seeing that the august personages their uncle had
been expecting were approaching. They could depend on him, then. Yes,
and another talk later on to fix on the last details. Would they have a
little something? What? Not been to dinner yet? Well, it would be
waiting for them at home, probably! _Hasta la vista, chiquets!_ And the
two boys walked slowly off down the deserted sidewalk on their way back
to the cabin district.
"And what did uncle say?" Tonet asked casually.
The Rector, who never wasted any words if he could help it, moved his
head up and down vertically. Tonet beamed with excited joy. A sure
thing, then! Fine! Pascualo was at last on the road to money, and he,
well, at least, he could see his way through the summer. The
good-natured Rector kept reflecting to himself on what an unselfish
fellow his brother was, and almost felt like hugging him. Yes, that
boy's heart was in the right place! Fond as could be of him and of
Dolores, and he loved little Pascualet as though the baby were his own
child! If only their two wives could get along together a little
better....