TWO WOMEN QUARREL
It had stopped raining about daybreak. At five o'clock the street lamps
of Valencia were still burning, their flickering lights mirrored red as
blood in the puddles of the uneven pavement. The irregular line of
housetops was just beginning to stand out against an ashen background of
sky brightening with the first glow of morning. The night watch-men were
unhooking their lanterns from their stations at the street-crossings and
walking off, stamping their chilled feet after wishing a listless _bon
dia_ to the pairs of hooded policemen who would not be relieved until
seven o'clock. Faint from the distance through the stillness came the
whistling of the morning trains leaving the suburbs. The church towers
were beginning to clang with the first calls to the mass of sunrise,
some of the bells droning and indistinct like the voices of old women,
others shrill and high pitched like the chirping of children. From roof
to roof--their city quarters--cocks were exchanging strident challenges
to battle.
And now the deserted, rain-soaked streets were slowly awakening with
the strangely resonant sounds of footsteps, as the earliest risers
stepped out upon the sidewalks, though the closed doors and the grated
windows still transmitted the subdued murmur of a city in the last heavy
breathings of tranquil slumber. The sky was growing gradually brighter
as if numberless thin veils were being torn asunder one by one from
across the pathway of the invisible sun. A gray, cold pallor was
stealing over the darker alleys and side streets, while, like a fade-in
on the cinema screen, the contours of the town began to come into
clearer view: the fronts of the houses shining from their recent
drenching; the eaves dripping with the last few drops of rain; the roofs
gleaming like polished silver; the trees along the broader avenues,
naked and shorn as brooms, shaking their leafless branches, while water
seemed to ooze from their fungus-covered trunks.
The Gas House of Valencia, weary from its sustained labors of a night,
was snorting with the last puffs of steam. The huge gasometers were
sinking low between their steel girders; and the tall brick chimney was
throwing out its final belches of thick black smoke, which spread
curling over the field of space in an ever-widening blotch. In the
neighborhood of the Sea Bridge, the customs agents, burying their faces
in their mufflers, were walking up and down to shake off the damp chill
of the morning. Through the windows of the revenue office the clerks
who had just arrived could be seen moving their sleepy heads to and fro.
They had been waiting there for the vendors to come into town--a
quarrelsome crew trained to haggling and embittered by poverty, ready,
for the difference of a centime, to spend a limitless capital of
swear-words and insults, and never successful in reaching market without
a string of brawls with the guards who laid the duties on their goods.
The produce wagons and the milch cows with their rattling bells had gone
through before daybreak. Only the fisherwomen were still to come, a
noisy flock of witches, dirty, slimy, in rags, making the air ring with
their shrieks and wrangling, stinking to heaven with dead fish and all
the odors of shore life which clung to their uncouth petticoats.
It was broad day, and the light, now harsh and blue, was throwing every
object into a clean-cut outline up against the leaden sky, when, with a
lazy tinkle of distant bells, four _tartanas_ hove in view, making their
way toward the Sea-Bridge, drawn by wretched nags that seemed able to
keep their feet only because the drivers, huddled low in their seats,
their coat collars turned up over their ears, kept pulling at the reins.
The black bodies of the two-wheeled wagons pitched about over the ruts
in the road like old belly-cracked boats tossing at the mercy of the
waves. The wagon-hoods showed their reed framework here and there
through the rents in their tarred canvas. Plasters of red paste covered
some of the smaller holes. The ironwork was squeaky and broken, the
breaks repaired with strings. The wheels were splashed and scaly with
the winter's mud. Outfits, decidedly, that had seen better days!
The front openings of the wagon-coverings were protected by flaps,
painted, for one trace of ornament, at least, in a red, now faded.
Looking into the vehicles from behind, where everything was open, the
_senoras_ of the Fishmarket, sitting in rows with their baskets, might
have been seen, each woman wearing a checkered shawl, with a colored
kerchief covering breast and shoulders. So the rickety carts came on,
leaving behind them as they passed a sickening stench of rotting
sea-life. They tilted alarmingly as one wheel would sink into a deep
hole, till the wheel on the other side would find a chasm just as deep,
and the hood careened in that direction.
The four _tartanas_ pulled up in front of the office; and down over
their steps numberless worn-out shoes, undarned stockings, dirty,
protruding heels began to come, under a flutter of skirts caught up in
front over yellow petticoats with black arabesques. The baskets were set
down in line near the platform of the scales, each covered with a wet
cloth. From underneath the strip of canvas shone the silver of a herring
or the vermilion of a salmon, or the greenish blue of a lobster's claw,
quivering with the tremor of agony. Alongside the baskets lay the
bigger fish, broad-tailed sea-bass, their circular jaws wide open,
showing the white, round tongues and the dark throats, while their
bodies were stretched backward, taut in the contraction of death; and
flat, enormously wide skates, their fins spread out on the ground like
kites of brown cloth, slimy and viscous to the touch.
The scales happened to be occupied by some out-of-town bakers,
good-looking fellows with square leather aprons, their sleeves rolled
up, and flour in their hair and eyebrows. They were weighing out bags of
fresh, nutty bread, which seemed to bring a fragrance of life into that
nauseating ambient of sea-carrion. Waiting for their turn, the
fish-women were blarneying with customs men or idlers who stood about
looking at the big fish with the curiosity of landlubbers. Meanwhile,
other women were coming in on foot from down the coast, carrying their
baskets on their heads or by the handles. The group was growing in
numbers every minute, and the line of baskets now reached clear from the
scales to the bridge.
The officials were getting bad-tempered with that snarling, loud-talking
mob of harpies who wore them out every morning with their
quarrelsomeness and unreasonable haggling. Every one of them shouted at
you as if you had no ears, reenforcing every other word with an
interjection from that inexhaustible store of epithet native to the
shores of the Mediterranean. Rivals, on meeting here again after a
set-to on the beach the day before, would revive the passions of the
unsettled argument, annotating insults with obscene gestures,
emphasizing accusations with cadenced slapping of hands on thighs, or
lifting clenched fists above their heads as if they were about to
strike. And then, when you would think of calling the police, if not the
undertaker, laughter, suddenly everywhere, as though the hens in a big
hen coop had started cackling all at once! Some one of the combatants
had scored with an unusually cutting or scurrilous phrase!
The bakers were slow in getting off the scales; so gibes began to rain
on them; and they, for their part, were not the men to accept such
taunts in silence. Indecencies, blasphemies, slanderous genealogies
began to fly back and forth, though the deadliest thrusts seemed to
rouse only friendly grins and guffaws.
Outstanding in the thickest of the riot, and the center of most
attention, stood Dolores, _la del Retor_, as comely as usual and better
dressed than any of the others, carelessly leaning against a corner of
the office shanty, her arms folded behind her back, her magnificent bust
thrown forward, smiling with satisfied complacency at the interested
glances that reached her tan shoes and the red stockings so blatantly
advertising her well-shaped ankles. At the sharpest jokes she heard she
opened her luscious lips and her man-eating jaws wide enough to show two
rows of strong, even, pearl-white teeth that gave a suggestion of marble
luminousness to her darkish features.
A girl of "prestige," obviously--and why not? A solid cuff in that plump
right hand of hers, and a tongue in her head, I can tell you, when she
had a mind to use it! The wife of Pascualo _el Retor_, besides, a
good-natured fat-head who ate out of her hand and never dared peep
inside his own house; but all there, when it came to making a living out
of the sea--a pot of money, earned, every cent of it, by good, honest,
straightforward fishing.
All this Dolores knew. And that, doubtless, was why she stood there with
the self-possession of a Grand Duchess, surveying that dirty-mouthed,
dirty-clothed rabble of the Fishmarket, and perking her lips
disparagingly when some one noticed her real pearl earrings, or the
Algerian scarf, or the red-flannel petticoat from Gibraltar the Rector
had given her! In fact, the only woman she thought quite her class was
"Granny" Picores, _agueela Picores_, a veteran of the Fishmarket, a whale
of a woman, mastodontic, who cowed every policeman in the market with
one glare from her incinerating eyes, or one bellow from that cavernous
mouth of hers, the center upon which all the wrinkles in her face
converged.
"_Cristo_, when will you fools be through!" Dolores finally shouted at
the bakers, her seductive arms akimbo. And the husky young men, moving a
little slower than usual, if anything, answered in kind, but tossing
their salacious repartees in the direction of the fish-hags who lined up
around the scales with hands folded over protruding abdomens and adding
a grotesque enlargement to those already conspicuous bulges. But at last
the weighing of the fish could begin: "Hey there, me first, you----!"
"No, my turn, you----!" "You were first yesterday!" The usual morning
fight for precedence was on, waiting for arbitration by _tia_ Picores,
with her cannonading voice and formidable obscenities. But Dolores had
not joined the squabble--she even missed the place her basket held, by
rights, in the line. Something on the bridge had caught her eye; and, in
fact, over the side rails of that structure the head and shoulders of a
straggler could be seen advancing slowly, staggering along under the
weight of a heavy load.
An expression of diabolical cruelty overspread the handsome countenance
of Dolores; and when the laggart fish-woman had reached the nearer end
of the bridge, near the customs office, the girl burst into an
insolent, ridiculing laugh. She touched _agueela_ Picores on the arm:
"Look, granny, late as usual. And what can you expect from a mess of
lazy-bones like that!"
Rosario grew pale as death, and it was with a sigh of faintness and
fatigue that she set her basket on the ground. She looked at Dolores,
with what hatred her exhaustion could let gather in her eyes. Then she
sat down on the burden she had been carrying. For a second the two
enemies surveyed each other from head to foot, their year-long
resentment boiling up within them.
Dolores wiped her nose with an arm, snorting, as at a pinch of snuff.
"Yes, I'd sit down, if I were you, mud-puppy. God, when Tonet was taking
a wife, why didn't he get a woman!" Rosario did her best to parry the
flood of insults: Sit down? Why not sit down--since God had given her
something to sit on and she had a place to put it! Besides, an honest
woman need not be afraid to be seen walking. She couldn't hire a
coach-in-four--by playing fast and loose with her husband! "And it's me
you're talking to!" exclaimed Dolores, stepping forward with blood in
her eyes. But she did not go far. For her "Granny's" clawed talons were
upon her shoulder, pulling her back. "Into the cart with you! Your fish
is weighed! No public scenes to-day! It's late, and they want their
orders up in the Market! Of all the loving pairs of sisters!..." And
the old Tartar was now in front of Dolores, thrusting the girl back
toward the _tartana_ with bumps from her huge stomach. But the beauty's
lips were trembling white with emotion, though she obeyed; but with one
foot on the step of the cart, she hurled back one parting shot:
"_Tu, ya se vorem, Rosario!_"
Have it out later? Of course they would. You say when, Dolores! And
Rosario, her arms really so weak and flaccid, laid hold on a heavy
basket in an impulse of rage and tossed it like a pebble on to the
scales.
The clouds from the night's storm were burning off with the advent of
the sun, which was making a triumphant entrance upon the day, rolling
its molten gold horizontally over the streets, gilding the puddles, and
painting the house fronts and window-panes with the reddening brilliancy
of a conflagration. The town was now quite awake. The street-cars were
crowded with people, and the sidewalks on either hand were lined with
still drowsy laborers on their way to work, their lunch baskets hung
over their shoulders and cigar butts in their mouths. Pairs of relief
horses for the police were being driven through the street by boys
riding bareback on one of their two steeds.
Servant girls were tripping along toward market. Street sweepers were
busy at work on the mud the rain had washed into the gutters, where
cows at intervals were being milked. The sheet-iron coverings of store
windows were being raised, letting the light in upon the colorful
displays inside. Through open doors the scratching of brooms on floors
could be heard, while clouds of dust came driving out, making
Jacob's-ladders of the sunbeams.
When the _tartanas_ reached the _Pescaderia_ the women porters there
hurried out to meet them and help the sailors' wives unload. Servile
before these latter, whom they regarded as bosses, they trooped in line
through the narrow cell-like doors of the fish-portico, fetid air-holes,
through which the stenches from inside poured out. The baskets were
dumped on the marble flooring and the fish arranged in line on beds of
seaweed. On every hand were trundles of big fish and barrels where the
"produce" of the day before was packed in ice.
Across the market was another line of vendors, dressed in costumes like
those from the Cabanal, but more miserable in appearance, if anything,
and with more repulsive faces still. They were the women of Albufera, a
strange concentration of poverty and degradation, housing in wretched
shanties a people that lives among the reeds and mud of the lake
marshes, fishing in the murky, shallow waters from black, bluff-bowed
boats that look like coffins. On these ashen, weather-beaten features
indigence was drawn in its most ghastly outlines. Every eye was aglow
with the wild gleam of fever; and the odors that came from clothes,
here, had not the vigorous pungency of the open seashore, but the subtle
nausea of swamp land and the infectious muck of stagnant pools. The bags
these women were emptying on the tables were squirming masses of life.
As the eels came out they twisted into rings of black slime, or wriggled
on their white bellies, or lifted their pointed heads like snakes.
Nearby, whitening, dead, lay the fresh-water fry, tench, for the most
part, insufferably noisome, glittering with the subdued metallic luster
of poisonous tropical fruit. Here, too, was a higher and lower caste in
misery, for the least fortunate vendors of this section had seats, not
at the tables, but on the floors, whence they were offering frogs strung
on sticks with their four legs distended.
Business was just beginning in the Fishmarket. The customers were coming
in, and mysterious signals were flying back and forth among the stalls
mixed with strange words from the jargon of the fish-mongers. The
inspectors were outside! As fast as possible false scales vanished under
aprons or petticoats. Meanwhile, old and grimy knives were slitting the
silvery bellies of the fish, the guts falling hap-hazard under tables or
counters. An occasional dog would come running by, sniffing at the
offals lying around and with a snort of disgust passing on toward the
neighboring porticos, where the butchers were holding forth. The
fish-women who had been playfully twitting each other an hour before in
their _tartanas_ or at the customs house now sat watching each other,
whenever a marketer came along, with hostile jealousy. An atmosphere of
struggle, of relentless competition pervaded the ill-smelling, reeking
environment. The women kept calling off their fish in shrill, piercing
tones, or beating on their dirty scales to attract the attention of some
possible purchaser. Smiles and quaint greetings of endearment would
welcome the housewife as she came up; but if she found prices too high
and passed on, a deluge of filthy epithet would follow after her, and
the insolent ridicule would be taken up by the whole crew of vendors,
instinctively standing together against the buyer.
_Tia_ Picores, towering with the majesty of a battle-scarred whale in
her tall armchair, sat twitching her wrinkly mustached lips and
frequently changing position to get the full warmth of the brazier she
kept daily burning at her feet till full summer-time. As a veteran of
the market, she had her regular trade and did not try overmuch to
attract new customers. Her delight it was to take the lead in spitting
curses upon the grumbling townswomen who went in person to do their
shopping with their maids; and her drawling voice always had the last
word in the disputes that went on. Her hair-raising obscenity and the
apothegms from her philosophy of shame, which she got off with the
solemnity of an oracle, were the principal sources of mirth throughout
the portico. The stall across the aisle in front of her belonged to
Dolores, who worked with her sleeves rolled up, playing with the bright,
gilded scales she owned or showing her beautiful teeth in coquettish
smiles when men came by. For many gentlemen in town went marketing by
themselves, filling their neat, red-edged baskets at her counter for the
pleasure of a chat with the charming girl. Rosario, two tables beyond
_tia_ Picores, was busy putting the freshest of her wares to the fore.
The two girls were thus face to face, though they avoided each other's
eyes disdainfully, each turning her back when the other one looked her
way, though immediately afterwards they would be staring impudently and
angrily at each other again.
It was not long before a pretext for their daily quarrel was available.
A man had stopped at Rosario's counter and was bargaining, when Dolores,
with a vigorous rapping on her scales and one of her prettiest smiles,
enticed him in her direction. "Thief! Thief! He was my customer--one of
my best! And you've taken him away! I sell fish, I do; but you sell
...!" And the pale, bony cheeks of the frail, overworked Rosario flamed
red with spite and her gleaming eyes flashed fire. Dolores, drawing
herself up to her most crushing height of haughtiness, seemed to sniff
with her chubby but handsome nose: "Huh! Thief! Never mind about
thieves, darling! People here know who I am; and they know who you are;
and if they come to me ..."
The outlook for an interesting morning in the market suddenly improved.
The fish-women brightened on every hand, even neglecting their custom to
crane their necks and take in everything that was going on. With smiles
of amusement, the customers began to crowd around, while the inspector,
foreseeing what was coming, prudently slipped out, though he had
scarcely begun his rounds. _Tia_ Picores, in despair at such everlasting
quarrelsomeness, contented herself with a resigned invocation to heaven.
"Thief is what I said," Rosario resumed. "And everybody knows it. You
want everything I've got, and I can prove it. Here you steal my
customers and down at the Cabanal you steal ... well, you steal ...
something else ... something else.... She's not fooling me, I can tell
you, even if she is pulling the wool over her husband's eyes ... dolt
that he is, fool of a Rector, who don't know his chin from his elbow."
But Dolores was not moved from her patronizing self-possession. She
could see from the faces of the onlookers that every one was wondering
how she would take those allusions to herself and her good-natured
husband; and she was not going to let the Fishmarket have a day's fun at
her expense. "Close your mouth, deary, before you slip and fall into
it! Don't be bitter! You can't have all the men there are. You're
envious!" "Me, envious!" Rosario retorted. "Envious of your reputation,
I suppose,--the best in the Cabanal, as even the lamp-post knows!
Thanks! I'm a decent woman, I am, I never tried to get another girl's
husband!" "And whose husband could you get with that sculpin-face? No,
dearest, no one is jealous of you!" And Rosario, growing paler than
ever, sunk her nails into her clenched hands, while Dolores, her fists
on her hips, wreathed her delicious countenance in a smile, which seemed
to serve for volumes of insults.
The joy of combat had taken possession of the whole portico. Idlers had
gathered in throngs at the doors. The fish-women were leaning far
forward over their counters with the eager appetites of furies, clacking
their tongues as though they were sicking two dogs upon each other and
banging on their scales to applaud each cutting thrust. It was time for
Dolores to fall back on the _ultima ratio_ of a fish-woman's contempt.
"Look, Rosario! Don't talk to me! Talk to this!"
And she turned squarely around and, bending slightly, registered a
resonant slap on the pair of spacious hips that trembled under her
calico skirt with all the elasticity of her firm flesh.
This _trovata_ had immense success with the audience. Women fell from
their chairs in the contortions of laughter. The tunny-men in the near
section doubled up in the gripes of joy, while the hilarity found its
outer boundaries in the meat-market, stalls and stalls away. Staid
gentlemen from town set their baskets down to do full justice with their
clapping hands to the beauty and the wit of the inimitable Dolores.
But the triumph of the Rector's wife was of short duration. As she
looked around to see the effect her blow had had, a handful of sardines
struck her full in the face. Rosario was blind with fury. "Come out of
that stall! Show your face out here where I can get at you, you
low-lived street-walker!" And Dolores did show her face. Rolling her
sleeves up still higher, as though clearing for action, she strode forth
from her stall, her eyes aglow with the enthusiasm of combat. Toward her
Rosario came running, brushing aside the arms that tried to restrain
her, aquiver with rage from head to foot and shrieking curse on curse.
They met in the wet, slippery passageway between the two lines of
counters. Head down, the smaller woman rushed full tilt into her taller
and sturdier antagonist. It was a shock of nerve on muscle. Dolores was
scarcely stirred, and the blows Rosario rained on her did not seem even
to ruffle her temper. Answering in kind, she began to deliver the most
merciless slaps upon the pale, bony cheeks of her assailant, which grew
red under the punishment.
But suddenly Dolores shrieked in agony and raised both hands to one ear.
"The dog! The dog!" she cried.
Rosario's fingers had closed over one of those pearl earrings that had
been the admiration of the Fishmarket. She had torn it out. The pretty
girl began to sob, pressing her torn ear under both her hands, while
blood streamed through her fingers. "Was that the way to fight fairly?"
she moaned. That showed the kind of woman she had to deal with. People
had gone to jail for life for less than that! Then, whipped to a violent
rage by the pain she felt, she started once more for her enemy. But the
fish-women had gathered round her, petting and consoling her, and they
held her back. _Tia_ Picores, meanwhile, was spitting oaths and insults
into the face of Rosario, who stood there pale, fainting, in fright and
horror at what she had done.
Above the crowd outside the portico the top-knots of several policemen
had appeared. The forces of law and order were trying to elbow their way
into the throng. Sh ... h ... h! _Tia_ Picores assumed command. "Back to
your stalls, everybody! And mum's the word! Those pretty boys will be in
here with their summonses and their papers! Nothing's the matter,
remember, everybody, nothing happened at all!" Some one threw a big
handkerchief over the bleeding ear of the wounded girl. The women were
all in their places looking straight ahead as solemnly as in church, and
calling off their prices with laughable mechanicalness. As the officers
passed from counter to counter the market was again in turmoil, but of a
different kind. "What are those dudes doing in here? Some people never
know where they belong. What's the idea? Just butting in, eh,
lolly-pop!" And the police marched out as wise as they had entered,
chased away by the drawling voice of _tia_ Picores--who could never
understand how people allowed such a government of thugs and grafters to
exist among honest people--and marking time to the banging of metal
scales, which all began to clatter as a parting salutation.
The market returned to its usual routine. The vendors were busy with
their custom. Rosario, like a sphinx in dudgeon, stood upright and stiff
behind her counter, indifferent to the passing trade, spots on her
cheeks and temples turning black-and-blue from the buffets they had
received. Dolores kept her back turned toward her enemy, but she was
doing her best to stifle the cries that her pain was almost tearing from
her. _Tia_ Picores seemed to be in a thoughtful mood, as she talked
aloud and in monologue to the fish lying about in front of her. And
those spit-fires would keep at it for the rest of their lives, eh! I
kill you or you kill me! Fine! And all over a man! Men! Men! As though
there weren't enough hogs in the world to go round! But she would put a
stop to it, she would. Any more of their nonsense and she would thrash
them, thrash them both, by God! And perhaps they didn't think she could!
Well, she would see!
Distractedly she seized the lunch that the char-woman brought at eleven
o'clock--a roll of black bread with two dripping chops--and she
swallowed it in a few hurried mouthfuls. Then, wiping her furrowed face
with her dirty, greasy apron, she walked over to her niece's stall,
planted herself with arms folded in front of it, and began her lecture.
That business had got to stop, if you please! The family of _tia_
Picores could not be the talk of the Fishmarket all the time. It had got
to stop! She had made up her mind, and when _tia_ Picores made up her
mind to a thing, she got what she wanted, even if God himself got in the
way, even if she had to lick half of Spain to get it. _Tia_ Picores had
a bit of a temper herself when she got really mad. What had just
happened would be nothing, nothing, compared to the fuss there'd be when
she set out on the warpath. Those girls would have to make up!
"No, no!" Dolores groaned, clenching her fists and shaking her head
decisively.
"No, no! No, no!" mimicked _tia_ Picores. "What's the meaning of that?
No, no! No, no! Like it or lump it, but you make up, you make up! The
idea, such a scandal in the family! And lucky you are in the family,
both of you. That gives you a chance to make up. She tore your ear? Now,
now, Dolores, think of those blows you gave her on the face. Tit for
tat, with tit having a little the best of it. There's a good girl now!
No, no--no use arguing ... you just mind your auntie!"
And thence the fish-woman passed to the table of Rosario, where her
language was stronger still. And Rosario called that being a lady? A mad
dog, rather, a mad dog, yes--not to use the real word! "Don't you look
at me like that, you jackanape, or I'll give you this pair of scales
over your head, I will! That's what I get for being nice to you two
brats. That's the way you treat an old friend of your mother! Well, now,
Your Highness, this nonsense is going to stop, and stop here--just
because I say so, I! Look at that poor Dolores over there, crying
because her ear hurts so. Is that the way decent people fight, pulling
each other's ears off? Only sneaks fight like that--sneaks, do you hear?
When you fight, you fight straightforward and honest. Strike as hard as
you want, but where it won't do any harm. Man alive! In my time I've
pulled the hair of every wench in the market. You get their skirts up,
and you take your shoe, and there, where it's all soft and tender,
whack, whack, whack, till they have to sit on one side for a week. But
after that ... a cup of chocolate in the cafe, and then ... better
friends than ever. Yes, sir, that's the way respectable people fight.
And that's what you are going to do, if I have to lick you every inch of
the way. You won't, eh! Well, we'll see! Dolores is stealing your man,
eh! Ten thousand fleas on the good-for-nothing, anyhow! Excuse me, the
girls don't chase the men. It's the men that chase the girls. Listen to
me, dearie. If you want that man of yours to mind his business, you just
keep things going at home right and proper. Keep him busy! Keep him
busy! Then he won't go browsing around where he don't belong. _Dios!_
such girls as are growing up nowadays. As much brains as so many geese.
I'd like to see a man of mine with enough to him to have anything to
spare for other women! Anyhow ... this mess is all over. You're going to
make up ... because I say so, if not for a better reason.... Otherwise
_tia_ Picores will take a hand...."
And with a mixture of threats and words of endearment the sturdy dean of
the fish-women went muttering back to her place, to sell the rest of her
stock.
Work was over early that day. There was quite a demand for fish in town,
and the counters were emptying by noontime. The vendors began to sweep
their leavings into kegs of cracked ice and to cover them with damp
cloths. The teamsters were collecting their baskets, large and small,
and piling them up in the tails of their rickety _tartanas_. _Tia_
Picores was putting on her checked shawl and chatting, in the middle of
the portico, with a group of old women of her time who went shares with
her in paying for a wagon. She still had that matter of the two girls on
her mind; and as soon as everything was ready for the drive home she
made for their stalls, and pushed and pinched till she had brought the
rivals together.
Dolores and Rosario, unable to resist the brow-beating of the terrible
woman, stood with lowered heads, as though deeply humiliated at what was
going on, but not daring to say a word. "We're going to stop a minute at
the chocolate place," _tia_ Picores directed to her teamster; and the
company of mottled shawls and dirty skirts went out of the _Pescaderia_,
the flagstones echoing to the clatter of heavy shoes. In Indian file the
women crossed the crowded market, where the last bargainings were in
progress, _tia_ Picores opening her way through the throngs with her
vigorous elbows, behind her the bevy of wrinkly-faced, yellow-eyed
veterans, then Rosario with her load of baskets,--for she always went to
and fro on foot--and finally Dolores, her ear still smarting cruelly,
but able, nevertheless, to raise a smile of pleasure when her pretty
brown face, no less winsome under the rude bandage around her head,
attracted remarks of appreciation from the men around.
They invaded and occupied the chocolate shop, where they were regular
customers. Rosario set her reeking, smelly baskets on one of the marble
tables, and the odor of stale fish mingled through the room with the
fragrance of cheap cocoa that drifted out from the adjoining kitchen.
_Tia_ Picores gave a grunt of satisfaction as she settled into a chair.
Chocolate after the day's work was her greatest comfort in life. How
well she knew that little cafe, with its striped matting on the floor,
its white tiled walls, its frosted glass windows with red curtains; in
front of the doors, ice-cream freezers in cork casings with metal
covers; the counter, then, with its jars for cookies and sweets, and
behind it the proprietor of the place sleepily brushing at the flies
with a bundle of long paper streamers fastened to a stick.
And what would they have? Same as usual, of course; a half-pint cup all
around, and a glass of lemon water apiece. This would make the fourth
chocolate that _tia_ Picores had downed that fore-noon; but the stomachs
of those tough daughters of the sea were poison proof, and they could
sip gallons of that imitation "Venezuela" with the gusto of sybarites.
Nothing to beat chocolate! Drink a lot of it if you wanted to last
beyond your apportioned three-score and ten! And eagerly the aged
cronies sniffed at the bluish steam that was rising from the plain white
cups before dipping pieces of bread into the muddy paste and raising
them, dripping brown, to the toothless caverns of their mouths. The two
girls sat there, however, barely touching the good things in front of
them, their chins on their breasts and avoiding each other's eyes. But
when _tia_ Picores's cup was almost empty her thundering voice came out
to change the situation. "Did you ever see such a pair of sillies! Still
mad, still mad! Well, well, the girls in the Market these days are not
what they used to be! Once their faces are out of joint, there's no
ironing them out again! Mad once, mad for always, eh! Couldn't be worse
if they were tony folks up town! No, there's something wrong with the
hearts of girls nowadays. And if you don't believe it just see here. Is
there one of you at this table that at some time or other hasn't had her
hair pulled or her face slapped by me? No! Not a one. What's more, I'll
bet that if any one of you were to show the place you sit on, you'd find
the scars of where I beat you with a hob-nailed shoe. No? Well, there
you are! And we've never been better friends, and we're ready to stand
by when any one of us gets into trouble. And that's the way for people
to be. Quick-tempered? Very well. But ready to make up afterwards, like
honest Christians. Leave your grumps at the door and have a cup of
chocolate, say I. And that's what my old ma said, in her day. And that's
what the Fishmarket people always said. 'Don't swallow hard feelings!
Throats are made for chocolate, white bread and _quinset_,' as the old
song runs:
_'Pesar, d'asi no has de pasar._
_Chocolat, bollet, y got de quinset!_'"
And although the glasses they had before them were not of "quinset,"
since the season for ices had not yet come, all the old women, to show
their approval of the philosophy expounded, drank their lemon-water
instead with gulps and gapes of satisfaction. _Tia_ Picores, meanwhile,
was getting angry at the steadfast balkiness of the two rivals. "Well,
now, speak up, numskulls! Haven't you tongues in your heads? You're
going to stick to it, I suppose. You think I am talking just to hear
myself talk. Well, you're wrong. See here, Rosario, what have you got to
say? You're the most to blame. Come now."
The poor little woman sat there with her head still lowered, playing in
her embarrassment with the ends of her shawl. She muttered something or
other about her husband, and then said slowly: "If she promises ... to
keep him away!"
Dolores started like a shot.
"Keep him away! What do you take me for? A scarecrow, to keep people
away from the house? That fine husband of yours, I'll have you know, is
my husband's brother. You expect me to shut the door in his face and
spit fire at him when he comes around? But, after all, what do I
care?... I don't want to be quarreling all the time, and be made the
talk of half Spain. All those stories about me and Tonet are lies of
people who don't know how else to make trouble in a good family....
Tonet went with me before Pascualo and I were married. Well, was it
wrong to marry his brother? Bosh! Was I the first to do a thing like
that? Well, why else should people talk? No ... all I want is to be let
alone, and not be plagued all the time. Keep Tonet away, no. I won't be
mean to him. However, if I have seemed to be too intimate, I'll be more
careful in the future, even though he's one of the family ... just so
people will have no reason to say anything ...!"
_Tia_ Picores beamed. "Now, that's the way to talk! Some heart in that
girl after all, come now! Well, Rosario! Are you satisfied at last?
There's a good girl! One smack, and bygones are bygones!"
Reluctantly, the women actually pushing the two heads toward each other,
the girls kissed, but without rising from their chairs. _Tia_ Picores,
in the full flush of triumph, could not work her tongue fast enough.
"The idea of two women fighting over a man, as if there were only one in
the world! And that's just what the rascals want you to do, sillies.
Every time you quarrel over a man his stock goes up, and he thinks he's
got so much more hold on you. No, indeed, women have got to stand their
ground, good and hard, the way I did. My husband? Why, if he ever went
on a rampage, I brought him to order mighty quick, I did; and the first
thing he knew he was for asking my pardon. Was there ever a man in the
world worth getting jealous over? Not much! Why worry then? Do you ever
know where your man is when he is away from home? Of course, you don't.
Just take it for granted he is up to mischief, and then forget about it.
The less you fret about them, the better they like you. I led my man a
song and dance, I can tell you. 'What are you doing in my bed! No, sir,
where you spent the summer you can spend the winter!' And out he'd go,
in a hurry. No 'dear this,' and 'dear that,' with my man! And he
followed me around like a dog. That's the way to keep them tamed!"
Dolores, reserved and on her dignity, kept biting her lip as though she
were trying to repress a laugh that was tickling at her palate. Rosario
did not agree with _tia_ Picores. No, she lived with her husband like a
good wife, and she had a right to expect him to do as well by her. She
didn't like quarreling and lying all the time. But the old woman did
not let her talk. "All nonsense! Nonsense! Good wife, good husband! Such
rot makes me sick! You've got to take men as God made them, haven't you,
girls?" And the "girls" assented with approving nods of their aged
heads. "Count the men, and you'll get the number of dogs there are in
the world! Kick them, and they eat out of your hand! But if you want to
keep your husband faithful to you, it's very easy. Just tie him to the
foot of your bed, with your petticoat, and never let him out of the
house.... So much for men!"
The teamster several times had looked in at the door. "What do you old
hens think this wagon is, your private coach?" "What's the matter with
you, codfish? What are you paid for?" roared the gentle _tia_ Picores.
But on seeing that her comrades were drawing out their "purses," she
extended her brown arm over the table majestically. "Put those bags back
where they belong! This is all mine, all mine! I'm celebrating to-day.
We've put some sense into these girls' heads!" And lifting her skirt and
petticoat, she unhooked her own bag from a belt she wore next to her
skin. From it came a pair of scissors she used in opening fish with
heavy scales; then a knife that was rusty with grime; finally a handful
of coppers which she threw down on the table. She sat for some moments
counting the sticky money over and over again. Then leaving a pile of
coins on the bare marble, she went out of the shop to join her
companions, who were already in the cart.
Rosario, carrying her empty baskets, was out on the sidewalk with
Dolores. The two girls were looking at each other and did not know what
to say.
"Come along with us, Rosario," _tia_ Picores suggested. "We'll be a bit
crowded, but we can get you home."
The girl refused, however. "Good-by, Rosario," said Dolores, smiling
graciously. "You know, we are friends now." And she climbed in after her
aunt. The wagon creaked under these two solid additions to its burden,
but finally drove off with a music of squeaking joints and loose wheels.
Rosario stood looking after it as if she were awakening from a dream.
Could it all be true? Had she really made friends again with that
hateful thing?