Next morning the cathedral bells roused Strawbridge with dreams of
fire-alarms. He thought he was in a burning house and he struggled
terrifically to move a leg, to twitch an inert arm. Somewhere in the
sleeping bulk of the drummer a strange, insubstantial entity sent
out desperate alarms. At last a finger flexed, an eyelid trembled,
then suddenly something in the sleeper's brain expanded, flowed out
through and identified itself with the whole body. It was reinstated
as a traveling salesman with trade ambitions who pursued devious ends
through ways and means imposed on him by custom and training. The
drummer opened his eyes and sat up. He wiped the sweat from his face
and damned the bells for waking him. The fact that by some strange
means he had been cut off a moment or two from his body, that he had
engaged in a terrific struggle to regain its control, did not suggest a
mystery or provoke a question in his mind. He had had a nightmare. That
explained everything. He often had nightmares. To Thomas Strawbridge's
type of mind anything that happens often cannot possibly contain a
mystery.
Nevertheless his experience left him in a dour mood. He turned out of
bed, shoved his feet into some native alpargatas, and shuffled to the
bath which adjoined his chamber.
The bath-tub was a basin of white marble, rather dirty, and built
into the tiled floor. It was a miniature swimming-pool. Overhead was
a clumsy silver nozzle on a water-pipe. The drummer turned it on, and
the water which sprayed over him was neither cool nor very clean. The
roaring and banging of the cathedral bells continued as if they would
never leave off.
As Strawbridge soaped and rubbed he recalled somewhat moodily his
engagement to go with General Fombombo's force to San Geronimo. At this
hour of the morning the adventure did not appeal to him. It was rather
a wild-goose chase, and he decided he would tell the general he had
changed his mind, and have Saturnino remove his name from the lists.
The bells continued their uproar. They did not stop until the drummer
had finished his bath and was back in his room. Then their silence
brought into notice a distant, watery note. This came from the
cataracts in the Rio Negro somewhere below Canalejos. The disquietude
of the water was rumored through the room, over the city, and it
spread across the llanos for miles and miles. It held a certain
disagreeableness for Strawbridge. He liked a quiet morning. Somewhere
on the street a native donkey-cart rattled. The cathedral bells started
again, but this time not for long--merely to gather in the faithful
their previous tumult had awakened. But it all struck Strawbridge on
raw nerves.
In fact, every morning Strawbridge was subject to what he called his
grouch. He got up with a grouch on. It was a short daily reaction from
his American heartiness, his American optimism, his tendency to convert
every moment into a fanfare and a balloon ascension. This early morning
depression continued until he had had his coffee and the fife-and-drum
corps of his spirit started up their stridor again. It is just possible
that the American flag, instead of stars, should bear forty-eight
coffee beans rampant.
A woman in black passed the barred windows of Strawbridge's room. The
drummer, after the manner of men, moved slowly about his window to keep
her in sight as long as possible. He fussed with his tie as he did so.
He watched her cross the plaza. She passed under a row of ornamental
evergreen trees which looked as if they had dark-green tassels hung
at regular intervals on perfectly symmetrical limbs. The grace of the
trees somehow lent itself to the girl who passed beneath them. At the
same moment an odor of frangipani drifted in through the bars, out of
the morning.
When any man is looking at a woman, any odor that comes to his nostrils
automatically associates itself with her--a relic, no doubt, of our
animal forebears, during their mating seasons.
Strawbridge watched the girl intently until at last he had his face
pressed against the bars to get a final glimpse of her at a difficult
angle.
When he straightened from this rather awkward posture and returned to
his tie, he became aware that the maid had entered his room with his
morning coffee. She was a short girl, of dusky yellow color, and was
evidently half Indian and half negro, or what the Venezuelans call
a _griffe_. She also had moved about the window to its last angular
possibility, and when Strawbridge saw her she was peering with very
bright black eyes to see who had been the gentleman's quarry.
At this the drummer became acutely aware of every movement he had made.
He frowned at the _griffe_ girl.
"Here, give me the coffee! Don't stand all day staring like that!"
The girl started and nervously handed her salver to him.
"Whyn't you knock when you came in?" demanded Strawbridge.
"I did, señor, but I thought you were asleep," she said, a little
frightened.
It was the maid's custom to find her master's guests asleep, to
steal in noiselessly, awaken them, and administer in a tiny cup two
tablespoonfuls of Venezuelan coffee, black as the pit and strong as
death.
The incident of the servant-girl counteracted, to a certain extent,
the heartening effect of the coffee. Strawbridge looked out on the
brightening morning and wondered if by any chance her gossip might
affect his landing General Fombombo's order for rifles, because he knew
that the girl in black he had been watching at such inconvenience was
the Señora Fombombo. He felt sure the _griffe_ girl knew it also. But
he decided optimistically that she would say nothing about it, or, if
she did, it would have no influence on his sale.
The big, somber bedroom to which General Fombombo had assigned his
guest was a good observation point, and no doubt the dictator had
chosen it for this very reason. The scene at which Strawbridge was
looking might have aroused enthusiasm in a more susceptible man. At an
angle it gave a view of the Plaza Mayor and a glimpse of the cathedral
seen through the trees. Straight east a bit of paved street showed, and
beyond that a garden with a side gate facing Strawbridge's window. A
heavy hedge divided the garden from the plaza. Beyond the garden rose
the walls and buttresses of the rear of the cathedral, and this was a
handsome thing. In the soft morning light it was an aspiration toward
God.
Beyond the cathedral, the wide river stretched eastward. Two hundred
yards down the river bank rose another low, massive building, more
heavily built and gloomier even than the palace. In the uncertain light
Strawbridge thought he discerned two or three figures on the flat roof
of this building.
A little later the sun's limb cut the far eastern reach of the river.
Distant quivering reflections marked the rapids whose subdued turmoil
brooded over the city and the llanos. The light increased momentarily.
Against its widening flame blinked tiny black native boats, like
familiar demons traversing the fires of some wide and splendid hell.
None of this interested Strawbridge. He stared at it through the same
mechanical compulsion that causes a moth to head toward light, but he
did not see it. The first thing that really caught his attention was
a bugle blowing reveille; the next breath, from the top of the low
building came the flash of a cannon, faintly seen against the brilliant
east. After an interval came a brief, hard report.
The concussion not only startled Strawbridge but did some obscure
violence to his sensibilities. It did not roar and rumble and so
suggest the pomp and panoply of war. The flatness of the llanos lent
no echo. The shot was just a hard, abrupt blow, a smash, then silence.
There was something dismaying about it. Then Strawbridge could see the
figures on the flat roof leaving their cannon and descending.
Like all good Americans who observe a foreign military demonstration,
Strawbridge thought:
"That's nothing. An American army with big American guns could blow
that little toy right out of existence." Nevertheless he continued to
be depressed and somehow dismayed by the hard and savage suddenness of
the sunrise gun, and in his heart he determined firmly that he would
not go with the army to San Geronimo. In his mind Strawbridge uttered
these thoughts resolutely, and he felt himself to be one of those
strong-willed men who, having once settled on a program, never vary
from it, no matter what chance befalls.
A gong announcing _almuerzo_ brought the drummer out of his reverie and
moved him toward the breakfast table. As he went he shook off his mood,
and resumed, as if he were putting on a suit of clothes, his quick
American walk, his optimism, and his dashing business manner. As he
moved briskly down the great hallway, a guard with a rifle directed him
to the _comidor_.
The palace was divided into an east and a west wing, by a series of
patios, and the breakfast-room proved to be a little place latticed off
from one of the smaller patios. The lattice was overgrown with vines.
In this retreat Strawbridge found a small basketry table laid with
snowy linen, on which were oranges, sweet lemons, rolls, and coffee.
Thanks to Strawbridge's quick movements, he was the first person
here. He sat down at the table and enjoyed the sunshine glinting at
him through the vines. Through an end door of the breakfast-room
he could see the kitchen. Its principal furnishing was a Venezuelan
cooking-range. This was a great stone table punctured with little iron
grates each holding a handful of charcoal fire. Above the table spread
a big sheet-iron canopy, to convey away the gases and fumes. Ranged on
the little fires were pots and pans and saucepans. At the farther end
of the kitchen a wrinkled old negress was on her knees on the earthen
floor, pouring boiling water into an old stocking leg filled with
ground coffee. The beverage dripped out into a silver pot which sat on
the ground in front of the crone. Beyond the negress, in the sunshine,
stood a meat block with a machete stuck in it and a joint of meat lying
on it. Around the meat the flies were so thick that they appeared to
Strawbridge as a kind of wavering shadow over the block.
A sound behind the drummer caused him to turn, and he saw the Señora
Fombombo, in her religious black, evidently just returned from early
mass. The sight of her gave Strawbridge a certain faint satisfaction,
but at the same time it brought back the vague embarrassment he had
felt on the previous evening. He returned her salutation of "_Buenos
dias_," and was pondering something else to say, when she expressed
a fear that the sight of a Venezuelan _cocina_ (kitchen) would be
disagreeable to him. She had heard how spotless were American kitchens.
The salesman began a hasty assurance that the kitchen was very
interesting, but the señora called to a servant to close the shutter.
The same _griffe_ girl whom Strawbridge had seen that morning answered
the call, and before she retired she gave the señora and the salesman a
certain understanding look, which linked up in Strawbridge's mind with
what the girl had seen an hour or two earlier.
The señora herself was proceeding with her table talk.
"We can get only native servants here in Canalejos," she was saying
in the faintly mechanical manner of a hostess who has an uninteresting
guest, "and they prepare everything in the native way."
Strawbridge said he liked Venezuelan cooking.
"It is monotonous," criticized the señora. "The chicken is always
cooked with rice, and the plantains are always fried."
Strawbridge started to say that he loved chicken and rice and fried
plantains, but even his imperfect sense of rhetoric warned him that he
had already overworked those particular phrases. So he checked that
sentiment, cast about for a substitute, and finally fished up:
"I saw you going to early mass this morning, señora."
The girl glanced at him, agreed to this, and continued peeling her
orange with a knife and fork, in the Venezuelan fashion.
The drummer wanted strongly to follow this opening with something
brisk and lively to compel her attention and interest, but his head
seemed oddly empty. His embarrassment persisted and made him a little
uncomfortable. He wondered why. It was irritating. Why didn't he tell
her a joke, one of his parlor jokes? Strawbridge knew scores and scores
of obscene jokes, and perhaps half a dozen parlor jokes which he kept
for women. Now, to his discomfiture, he could not recall a single one
of his parlor jokes. For some reason or other, he told himself, the
señora crabbed his style.
She was a smallish woman with a rather slender, melancholy face, and
her eyes had that slightly unfocused look which is characteristic of
all pure-black eyes. Her eyebrows and lips were engraved in black and
red against a colorless face. Her nun's bonnet and the white cloth that
passed beneath it across her forehead concealed the least trace of
hair. And Strawbridge speculated with a sort of apprehension whether or
no she really had shaved her head nun fashion. If so, the Virgin had
exacted a bitter price for her sister's recovery.
During these meditations, however, the salesman was not dumb. He
automatically started one of those typically American conversations
which consist in a long string of disconnected questions asked without
any object whatever. Strawbridge himself regretted these questions. He
had hoped to do something amusing and rather brilliant.
"Have you lived here long, señora?"
"About two years. I came here immediately after I was married to
General Fombombo."
"Then you were not married here?"
"No, in Spain."
"Then you are a Spanish girl?"
"Yes, I lived in Barcelona."
"How do you like it here?"
"Very well."
"I suppose you miss the stir. I hear Barcelona is the livest town in
Spain."
"I believe it is," she agreed a little uncertainly.
"What do they export? Anything besides olive-oil? I understand they
export a lot of olive-oil."
Señora Fombombo touched her slender fingers to her lips a moment and
then said she believed they exported olive-oil.
"I suppose the girls go in for business over there, too--bookkeepers,
you know; stenogs, clerks, cash girls ...?"
"Ye-e-es."
"What was your line before you married?"
The señora came awake and looked at the drummer.
"My _line_?"
"Yes," said Strawbridge, becoming a little less of an automaton and a
little more of a human. "What was your job before you hooked up with
the general?"
The señora almost stared at the American. Then she drew in her under
lip and seemed to compress it rigorously, thoughtfully, perhaps to
assist her in recalling what her line was before she hooked up with the
general. Then she said:
"I ... I did a little music."
"Teach?" probed the American.
"Well ... no.... Really, I'm afraid I didn't do anything."
Strawbridge nodded as if some puzzle had been solved for him.
"Now, that's where you made your mistake," he explained paternally. "A
woman ought to have a job just the same as a man. She ought to be able
to hold over her goods until the market is right. Now take me: suppose
I had to sell my rifles right now because I didn't have the overhead
to keep them ninety days longer; I'd be in a bad way. It's the same
way with you girls. With no overhead, it's no wonder you married Ge--"
He caught himself up abruptly, aghast at the implication to which his
monologue had led him. He floundered mentally in an effort to turn
it off, but all he could do was simply to moisten his lips and stop
talking. He wondered chillily if the señora had caught it.
Apparently she had not. A spray of flowers swung near her from the
vine. She drew a raceme to her face and began smoothly:
"I know feminism is very modern and up to date, but somehow we Spanish
women don't care for it. We are as idle as these flowers." She turned
and looked at the blossoms. "This variety of wistaria grew in my garden
in Barcelona; that's why I had it planted here. It reminds me of
home." She looked up at the American, smiled faintly, and added rather
disconnectedly:
"It may seem strange to you, Señor Strawbridge, but once I very nearly
entered a convent in Barcelona."
By this time Strawbridge was convinced that she had not observed
his false step. He was still warm, and a little shivery, but he was
recovering. He said very simply and truthfully:
"Well, I'm glad you didn't. If I have to stay in Canalejos, I'm glad
there is an agreeable woman in it to talk to."
The señora expressed her pleasure if she could enliven his stay
at Canalejos, and as they talked Coronel Saturnino entered the
breakfast-room. He bowed to the señora and inquired of Strawbridge, in
his somewhat amused voice, if he had slept well after his enlistment.
Oh, yes, he had slept like a top.
"Enlistment?" echoed the señora.
"_Seguramente_," smiled the colonel. "Señor Strawbridge has enlisted in
the cavalry to march against San Geronimo."
Señora Fombombo seemed utterly astonished. She stared at the colonel,
then at the drummer.
"You don't mean Señor Strawbridge will be in the cavalry attack on San
Geronimo?"
"Yes, señora; I arranged his billet last night." The colonel made a
smiling bow.
The girl turned to the American.
"But why are you going to fight at San Geronimo, señor?" she asked.
Strawbridge hesitated, cleared his throat, glanced through the
vine-grown lattice into the sunshine, then apparently came to some
inward decision.
"Now, it's like this, señora," he began, getting back the ring and
confidence in his voice which had heretofore been missing: "It's like
this. In order to meet your clients' needs you've got to get first-hand
information." He patted his right fingers against his left palm and
looked the señora squarely in the eye for the first time. "Before you
can grasp your patrons' problems, you've got to make 'em yours. Why,
the first thing my old man said to me, he said: 'Strawbridge, an
expert salesman is first aid to the financially injured; he's the star
of Bethlehem to the sinners of commerce.' He's a cutter, my old man is.
I wish you could know him, señora."
"You mean your father?" hazarded the President's wife.
"Holy mackerel, lady! no!" cried the drummer, with a touch of Keokuk
gusto in his voice. "I mean my boss, the head knocker of my firm. Great
old chap, and rich as Limburger cheese. Say, he owns fifty-one per
cent. of the Orion Arms stock, and he started in as a water boy. How do
you like that?" Mr. Strawbridge gave his auditors a little triumphant
smile.
"_Caramba!_ Very American, I say," laughed the colonel.
The señora interposed quickly:
"And very good and very fine, I say, Señor Strawbridge!" She looked
at the colonel with a certain little light in her eye, then added
emphatically, "I am sure I should like him."
She was rising to leave the table.
Coronel Saturnino, who was about to seat himself, said:
"If I concede his admirable qualities, I wonder if you would stay and
eat another orange, señora?"
But the girl pleaded that she must practise some music in the cathedral.
Strawbridge hesitated, half-way out of his chair. He was undecided
whether to stay with Coronel Saturnino or to go with the señora. He
decided for the latter and walked out of the breakfast-room with her,
but he was vaguely embarrassed for fear he had done the wrong thing.