The quest through _la Boca_ proved vain. No one would give him any
information. But he was sent hither and yon, serving now as a joke and
now as a prey to robbers. He was always assured that such and such
an individual could no doubt tell him what he wanted to know, and
Monsalvat would run this clue down, from café to café, from tavern to
tavern. In this fashion he traversed the entire district of _la Boca_,
that sinister "Tenderloin" of Buenos Aires. He went to gaming houses,
lupanars, saloons. He entered cheap hotels and lodging houses.
Here English or German phrases fell on his ear; there he heard
Norwegian, Russian, or Finnish. In another quarter he found a medley
of Balkan tongues, and in yet another he recognized the barbarous Arab
dialects of Northern Africa. One day he found himself at a Korean bar;
on another in a Chinese eating house. Once he made his way into a
gathering of Turks. In the course of one month he encountered all kinds
of people. A motley throng of gamblers, down-and-outs, and criminals
passed before him: yet all was useless. He learned nothing of Nacha.
He went back one afternoon to the house where she had been kept a few
days, and wondered why he had not thought of doing so before. Instead,
however, of questioning the girls, he interviewed the proprietress in
person, and offered to give her a thousand _pesos_ if she could provide
him with reliable information concerning Nacha's whereabouts. The
woman was an old creature full of cunning and lies, hard to understand
because of her mumbling and her odd use of words. She was smoking
stubby cigars which she made herself, from Paraguay tobacco. But the
sum this caller offered for a little information made her open her
wrinkled eyelids wide. She began to tell him all she knew.
It so happened also that she detested Pampa. He had treated her
badly on various occasions, using her for the accomplishment of his
crimes, and then failing to pay for her services. With the help of
his _patota_, and Mauli, he had brought Nacha to her house where she
was kept locked up like a prisoner. She would not allow any man to
come near her, however, screaming, scratching and biting like a fury.
Finally Arnedo, revolver in hand, made her write to Monsalvat, thinking
to tame her in that way and show her how useless any resistance was.
"How did she receive Arnedo's attentions?" Monsalvat asked.
"You ought to have seen her!" the old woman replied, drawing at her
cigar butt. "She called him names, just the way she did me, and
everyone else she could think of. What words she used! And he didn't
run after her much either! I guess he brought her here to get even with
someone. With whom? How should I know, son?"
"And you don't know where Nacha is?"
"Yes. She's...."
She moved her cigar stump to the other side of her mouth.
"See here, young man, if you put down fifty _pesos_ of that thousand
now, I'll give you a pretty little piece of information. True as I'm
telling you! This old body wouldn't lie! I was raised to speak the
truth, and I'll die doing the same!"
Monsalvat handed her the sum she asked, and the old creature gave him
two bits of advice. He was to talk to a certain Amiral, a poor wretch
who was a friend of Arnedo's, and who, for money, would get the truth
out of Pampa. However, the other, and the better course to follow, in
her opinion, was to see a washerwoman named Braulia, who knew all the
vicious resorts of the district for she kept them "stocked" with girls.
Braulia proved to be a negress, who lived in a shanty, at the back of
a vacant lot. After much chattering she told him that she would answer
his question the following night, when he was to meet her at a certain
café, on the river bank. Fearing a decoy, for he had learned to be
mistrustful, he asked her why he could not wait on the street corner,
or in some café he knew. The negress replied that he would have to go
where she told him, and if that didn't suit him he could go without
what he was looking for.
The next evening he went to the café designated. His entrance there
appeared not to attract attention. As a matter of fact its patrons had
instantly spotted him, but they pretended not to notice his presence.
The place was a foul den, much like a cave, so low was its roof. The
chairs, benches and tables were greasy and ill-smelling. A mulatto in
his shirt-sleeves was waiting on the customers. Three North American
negroes, so drunk they could not stand, were singing something with
a cakewalk rhythm. Opening their mouths wide, they stretched their
thick lips from ear to ear, showing their red gums and gleaming white
teeth. One of them was playing a large accordion. From the table where
Monsalvat was sitting he could see the port light of a boat, and above,
the starry sky. Every few minutes a drunken man staggered up the street.
While he was waiting for some message from the negress, a man came up
to him, and, telling him he belonged to the secret police, advised him
to leave. "This is no place for you," he said. "Whoever it was told you
to come here is just planning to rob you." Monsalvat left the place,
and never returned to it.
He decided to see Amiral; but this turned out to be more easily planned
than done. Amiral apparently never ate at home and rarely slept there;
and it was of course useless to write to him since he was quite
likely to show the communication to Arnedo. So, while trying to find
the elusive Amiral, Monsalvat continued his seeking of Nacha. He was
beginning now to absent himself from his office for entire afternoons.
List in hand, he went about stirring up all the back waters of this
dismal slough of despond.
"She is not here. We don't know her," they would tell him.
Then he would go to another house, and another, and yet another. He
would explain his object, argue with the unfriendly "Madames," give
countless details about Nacha. At times he begged for help; but at
others, he would become enraged and insult the woman who told him "She
is not here." Exasperated, maddened, he would rush out and stumble
into the first taxi that passed, giving addresses of yet other houses.
For he could think of nothing but this purpose. He came to the point
of believing that everyone was in league to outwit him. But he would
succeed yet! He had one irresistible ally: the will to find her!
"She is not here. We don't know her."
"What? Not here either?" Then the earth must have swallowed her! They
all knew nothing about her, these people? That was a lie! They wanted
to lead him on, exploit him, as they had done countless times. There
was nothing but lies and hypocrisy and evil in these women. And he
had defended them, ruined himself for them! Ah, Nacha! Nacha! What
had her unhappy destiny brought her to? She asked him not to look for
her, since she was destined to a bad life! But all the more would he
persist, with all the more eagerness, all the more desperation! He
would seek her, not for love, but to save her from those stagnant
waters on whose brim ill-fated women and girls lurched and staggered,
dizzy with the poisonous gases of that loathsome morass!
"She is not here. We don't know her."
Every word fell on him like a whip-lash. He would come out of these
accursed houses, sick, in physical pain; and he could not grow used
to disappointments. At first his heart had been high with hope. But
now his step was beginning to falter, and a strange expression had
come over his face. His eyes glanced nervously about at people and
objects in the room, or stared at the woman he was questioning. He knew
that she too would say, "She is not here." Yet he went on to the next
house and to the next, repeating his frantic question. Then, almost
invariably, without a word more he would rush out; though once, to the
stupefaction of the women, he uttered an exclamation of anguish, and
staggered to a chair.
"She is not here. We don't know her," was the unvarying reply.
At the thought that she might be dead his throat tightened and closed,
while the rest of his body felt the oppression as of a great weight of
earth upon it. Nacha dead! What was he to do in a world without Nacha?
Should he return to the place he had formerly occupied in life? Or
consecrate himself to those other wretches of the underworld? But then
Nacha could not have died without his feeling it, without his knowing
it! No, Nacha could not be dead! She was alive! She loved him! She was
waiting for him!
"She is not here. We don't know her."
Well, didn't he know that Nacha wasn't there? Nacha loved him, and was
expecting him, somewhere. That much was sure! If he had come to this
particular house to inquire it was merely to be thorough. The people
there could all go to the devil for all he cared! He wasn't going to
ask any favors of them! Nacha was waiting for him.... What did the rest
of the world matter ... society, or its victims, or the cabaret, or the
workmen murdered in the Square, or his mother's death, or his sister's!
Nacha was expecting him! His heart, where a sweet, incessant song was
singing, leapt, mad with joy, like the throbbing breast of a bird!
Nacha was expecting him....
But where?
Meanwhile Monsalvat was not altogether unmindful of himself. He
noticed that at times his mind became blank, and that at such moments
he would turn deathly pale, and be unable to walk. Then again he
suffered from pains at the base of his brain, as if a wedge had been
hammered into his skull at that point. He wondered if this presaged
mental derangement. Was he going mad? He ate next to nothing, and slept
little. Worried about his condition, he spent a week in bed.
One afternoon a letter came from the Ministry. It contained his
dismissal. Monsalvat read the document, smiling. With it was a letter
from the under-secretary who expressed his chief's regrets at being
forced to take such action; but Monsalvat's frequent absences from the
office, his lack of attention to his work, which, of course, might
result in serious consequences, left the Minister no choice in the
matter.
Monsalvat tossed both communications to the floor. "What does such
nonsense matter to me? Nacha is waiting for me!"
The "nonsense," nevertheless, had serious implications. November was
upon him and he had paid only a third of the interest on the mortgage.
The Bank was insisting on payment, but he had no idea where to get the
three thousand _pesos_ needed. Moreover he was constantly giving away
more than he could possibly afford, and naïvely letting himself be
robbed on every hand. He had borrowed at high rates and had never paid
any of the accumulating interest. The Bank, however, came to his rescue
by selling the tenement, obtaining scarcely sixty thousand at the
auction, which occurred on an oppressive November day. Very few bidders
appeared; for it was just the beginning of that financial crisis which
was to come to a head some fifteen months later, in 1913. Property
values were going down. Money stringency was acute. No one was risking
investment in real estate except at a bargain. The Bank recovered its
forty thousand _pesos_ with the interest. Monsalvat paid his minor
borrowings and in the end found himself possessed of some ten thousand
_pesos_. He now felt quite at ease. On that sum he could live two
years in case he found no work. But it was written that bad luck was
to pursue him. The bank in which he deposited his money failed within
three months!
He met Amiral one morning, and, without preamble, told him that he
wanted him to find out from Arnedo, as skillfully as possible, where
Nacha was. Amiral, at mention of this name, smiled understandingly. He
stroked his long brown mustache, and stretching out his thin arms, he
exclaimed:
"Just what I always said! Of course a man like you who has lived in
Paris--why, when they told me you were trying to reform our girls over
here, I wouldn't believe them, for I felt sure you knew better....
Well, I'm glad to see I was right!"
Monsalvat wanted to knock the fellow down but contained himself.
Amiral, thoroughly pleased with his penetration, added, in a
confidential tone:
"It was clever of you to think of this disguise; because here in Buenos
Aires, alas! there is no atmosphere.... One has to provide it ... ha!
ha! ... provide it!"
Monsalvat wasted no time trying to correct Amiral's interpretation of
his conduct, but with brutal directness offered him a thousand _pesos_
to find out where Nacha was. Amiral staggered back dramatically. He
thought that it perhaps became him to be angry; but, having consulted
his conscience, he decided to accept. There was no need of being
offended for so small a sum! Had it been fifty or a hundred thousand...!
Several days passed. Monsalvat was frightened by a rapid change for
the worse in his nervous condition. One afternoon as he was drinking
some coffee in a pastry shop near the business centre of the town, the
mental blankness he knew and dreaded came upon him. His hands trembled,
and he broke into a cold sweat. A waiter helped him into a cab. When
he reached his room he found he could neither read nor write. His mind
seemed scattered, broken into bits. All his strength was gone. From
day to day his organism seemed to lose coordination, as if all the
parts of his being had escaped the control of his will. Different men
seemed to manifest themselves within him; as he wonderingly observed
them, he found the acts and thoughts of these other Monsalvats quite
inexplicable.
Finally, one December morning, Amiral told him that Arnedo knew nothing
about Nacha. After keeping her several days locked up in a certain
house, he had taken her to another, from which, after a week or two,
she had run away.
Monsalvat believed her lost forever. At the same time he was astonished
at the slight impression Amiral's words seemed to make on him. He
stood motionless for a long time gazing blankly into the distance, but
he felt so ill that he yielded to a desire to go to some friend. He
called on de Castro, preferring not to see Torres, who might think him
either sick or insane. Ruiz was profoundly distressed at sight of him.
Monsalvat noticed his friend's pitying expression and stammered some
incoherent words. Then he collapsed.
A deep, painful night had settled on him, body and soul, nor could
his mind see in that sudden darkness. His whole being had become
insensible. For him now there was no longer either Nacha or Monsalvat;
nor struggling nor rest; for him there was neither truth or beauty; the
world had been blotted out.