"But Manuel, dear Manuel, can't you remember as children how you did so
many things for me? You were willing to go across the town on some
little errand. When I was ill you made the cook let you bring me my
soup?" Another woman would have said: "Do you remember how much I did
for you?"
"Yes."
"I, too, Manuel have lost. I too ... once. We know that God has taken
them into His hands...." But this did not do at all. Esteban turned
vaguely and walked away from her. When he had gone about twenty paces he
stopped and stared down a side-street, like a dog who wants to go away,
but is reluctant to offend the master who calls him back.
That was all they could get out of him. When the fearful procession
passed through the city, with its black hoods and masks, its candles in
broad daylight, its display of heaped-up skulls, its terrifying psalms,
Esteban followed it in the parallel streets, catching glimpses of it
from a distance, like a savage.
All Lima was interested in this separation of the brothers. Housewives
whispered together sympathetically about it as they unfurled their
carpets from the balconies. The men in the wineshops, alluding to it,
shook their heads and smoked in silence for a while. Travellers from the
interior told of seeing Esteban as he strayed with eyes like coals along
the dried-up beds of rivers or through the great ruins of the old race.
A herder of llamas had come upon him standing upon a hilltop, asleep or
dazed, wet with dew under the stars. Some fishermen surprised him
swimming far out from shore. From time to time he would find work to do,
he would become a shepherd or a carter, but after a few months he would
disappear and stride from province to province. But he always returned
to Lima. One day he appeared at the door of the Perichole's
dressing-room; he made as though to speak, gazed earnestly at her and
vanished. One day a sister came running into the office of Madre María
del Pilar with the news that Esteban (whom the world called Manuel) was
lingering about the door of the convent. The Abbess hurried out into the
street. For months she had been asking herself what strategy could
reconcile this half-demented boy to living among them again. She
assembled as grave and calm a manner as she was able and appearing at
the street door murmured "My friend" and looked at him. He gazed back at
her with the same glance of longing and distrust that he had shown her
before, and stood trembling. Again she whispered "My friend" and moved a
step forward. Suddenly Esteban turned and breaking into a run
disappeared. Madre María del Pilar rushed stumbling back to her desk
and fell upon her knees, exclaiming angrily: "I have prayed for wisdom
and You have given me none. You have not chosen to give me the least
grace. I am a mere scrubber of floors...." But during the penance she
set herself for this impudence the thought came to her to send for
Captain Alvarado. Three weeks later she had a ten-minute conversation
with him. And the next day he started for Cuzco where, it was said,
Esteban was doing some copying for the University.
There was this strange and noble figure in Peru during these years, the
Captain Alvarado, the traveller. He was blackened and cured by all
weathers. He stood in the Square with feet apart as though they were
planted on a shifting deck. His eyes were strange, unaccustomed to the
shorter range, too used to seizing the appearances of a constellation
between a cloud and a cloud, and the outline of a cape in rain. His
reticence was sufficiently explained for most of us by his voyages, but
the Marquesa de Montemayor had other light on the matter. "_Captain
Alvarado is bringing you this letter in person_," she wrote to her
daughter. "_Introduce him to some of your geographers, my treasure,
though it may make them a little uncomfortable, for he is the diamond of
sincerity. They will never see anyone who has travelled so far. Last
night he described to me some of his voyages. Imagine him pushing his
prow through a sea of weeds, stirring up a cloud of fish like
grasshoppers in June; or sailing between islands of ice. Oh, he has been
to China and up the rivers of Africa. But he is not merely an adventurer
and he seems to take no pride in discovering new places; nor is he a
mere merchant. One day I asked him narrowly why he lived so, and he
avoided my question. I found out from my laundress what I think is the
reason of his wandering: My child, he had a child; my daughter, he had a
daughter. She was just old enough to cook a holiday meal, and do a
little sewing for him. In those days he merely sailed between Mexico and
Peru and hundreds of times she waved him farewell or welcome. We have no
way of knowing whether she was more beautiful or intelligent than the
thousands of other girls that lived about him, but she was his. I
suppose it seems ignoble to you that a great oak of a man should go
about the world like a blind man about an empty house merely because a
chit of a girl has been withdrawn from it. No, no, you cannot understand
this, my adored one, but I understand and grow pale. Last night he sat
with me and talked of her. He laid his cheek against his hand and
looking into the fire, he said: 'It sometimes seems to me that she is
away upon a voyage and that I shall see her again. It seems to me that
she is in England.' You will laugh at me, but I think he goes about the
hemispheres to pass the time between now and his old age_."
The brothers had always entertained a great respect for Captain
Alvarado. They had worked for him a short time and the silence of the
three of them had made a little kernel of sense in a world of boasting,
self-excuse and rhetoric. So now when the great traveller came into the
dark kitchen where Esteban was eating the boy drew his chair farther
into the shadow, but at a distance, he was glad. The Captain gave no
sign of recognizing or even of seeing him until he had finished his
meal. Esteban had finished long before, but not wishing to be spoken to,
waited until the Captain should have left the cave. At last the Captain
walked over to him and said:
"You are Esteban or Manuel. You helped me once with some unloading. I am
Captain Alvarado."
"Yes," said Esteban.
"How are you?"
Esteban muttered something.
"I am looking for some strong fellows to go on my next trip with me."
Pause. "Would you like to come?" Longer pause. "England. And Russia....
Hard work. Good wages.... A long way from Peru.--Well?"
Apparently Esteban had not been listening. He sat with his eyes on the
table. At last the Captain raised his voice, as to a deaf person:
"I said: Do you want to go on my next trip with me...."
"Yes, I'll go," answered Esteban suddenly.
"Fine. That's fine. I want your brother, too, of course."
"No."
"What's the matter? Wouldn't he want to come?"
Esteban mumbled something, looking away. Then half rising, he said: "I
got to go now. I've got to see somebody about something."
"Let me see your brother myself. Where is he?"
"... 'dead," said Esteban.
"Oh, I didn't know. I didn't know. I'm sorry." "Yes," said Esteban. "I
got to go."
"Hmm.--Which are you? What's your name?"
"Esteban."
"When did Manuel die?"
"Oh, just a ... just a few weeks. He hit his knee against something
and ... just a few weeks ago."
They both kept their eyes on the floor.
"How old are you, Esteban?"
"Twenty-two."
"Well, that's settled then, you're coming with me?"
"Yes."
"You may not be used to the cold."
"Yes, I'm used to it.--I've got to go now. I got to go in the city and
see somebody about something."
"Well, Esteban. Come back here for supper and we'll talk about the trip.
Come back and have some wine with me, see. Will you?"
"Yes, I will."
"Go with God."
"Go with God."
They had supper together and it was arranged that they were to start for
Lima the next morning. The Captain got him very drunk. At first they
poured and drank and poured and drank in silence. Then the Captain began
to talk about ships and their courses. He asked Esteban questions about
tackle and about the guide-stars. Then Esteban began to talk about other
things, and to talk very loudly:
"On the ship you must give me something to do all the time. I'll do
anything, anything. I'll climb up high and fix ropes; and I'll watch all
night,--because, you know, I don't sleep well anyway. And, Captain
Alvarado, on the ship you must pretend that you don't know me. Pretend
that you hate me the most. So that you'll always give me things to do. I
can't sit still and write at a table any more.--And don't tell the other
men about me ... that is, about ..."
"I hear you went into a burning house, Esteban, and pulled someone out."
"Yes. I didn't get burned or anything. You know," cried Esteban, leaning
across the table, "you're not allowed to kill yourself; you know you're
not allowed. Everybody knows that. But if you jump into a burning house
to save somebody, that wouldn't be killing yourself. And if you became
a matador and the bull caught you that wouldn't be killing yourself.
Only you mustn't put yourself in the bull's way on purpose. Did you ever
notice that animals never kill themselves, even when they're sure to
lose? They never jump into a river or anything, even when they're sure
to lose. Some people say that horses run into bonfires. Is that true?"
"No, I don't think that's true."
"I don't think it's true. We had a dog once. Well, I mustn't think of
that.--Captain Alvarado, do you know Madre María del Pilar?"
"Yes."
"I want to give her a present before I go away. Captain Alvarado, I want
you to give me all my wages before I start--I won't need any money
anywhere--and I want to buy her a present now. The present isn't from me
only. She was ... was ..." Here Esteban wished to say his brother's
name, but was unable to. Instead he continued in a lower voice: "She had
a kind of a ... she had a serious loss, once. She said so. I don't know
who it was, and I want to give her a present. Women can't bear that kind
of a thing like we can."
The Captain promised him that they would choose something in the
morning. Esteban talked about it at great length. At last the Captain
saw him slip under the table, and himself, rising up, went out into the
square before the inn. He looked at the line of the Andes and at the
streams of stars crowding forever across the sky. And there was that
wraith hanging in mid-air and smiling at him, the wraith with the
silvery voice that said for the thousandth time: "Don't be gone long.
But I'll be a big girl when you get back." Then he went within and
carried Esteban to his room and sat looking at him for a long while.
The next morning he was waiting at the bottom of the stairs when
Esteban appeared:
"We're starting when you're ready," said the Captain.
The strange glitter had returned to the boy's eyes. He blurted out: "No,
I'm not coming. I'm not coming after all."
"Aïe! Esteban! But you have promised me that you would come."
"It's impossible. I can't come with you," and he turned back up the
stairs.
"Come here a moment, Esteban, just a moment."
"I can't come with you. I can't leave Peru."
"I want to tell you something."
Esteban came down to the foot of the stairs.
"How about that present for Madre María del Pilar?" asked the Captain
in a low voice. Esteban was silent, looking over the mountains. "You
aren't going to take that present away from her? It might mean a lot to
her ... you know."
"All right," murmured Esteban, as though much impressed.
"Yes. Besides the ocean's better than Peru. You know Lima and Cuzco and
the road. You have nothing more to know about them. You see it's the
ocean you want. Besides on the boat you'll have something to do every
minute. I'll see to that. Go and get your things and we'll start."
Esteban was trying to make a decision. It had always been Manuel who had
made the decisions and even Manuel had never been forced to make as
great a one as this. Esteban went slowly upstairs. The Captain waited
for him and waited so long that presently he ventured half the way up
the stairs and listened. At first there was silence; then a series of
noises that his imagination was able to identify at once. Esteban had
scraped away the plaster about a beam and was adjusting a rope about it.
The Captain stood on the stairs trembling: "Perhaps it's best," he said
to himself. "Perhaps I should leave him alone. Perhaps it's the only
thing possible for him." Then on hearing another sound he flung himself
against the door, fell into the room and caught the boy. "Go away,"
cried Esteban. "Let me be. Don't come in now."
Esteban fell face downward upon the floor. "I am alone, alone, alone" he
cried. The Captain stood above him, his great plain face ridged gray
with pain; it was his own old hours he was reliving. He was the
awkwardest speaker in the world apart from the lore of the sea, but
there are times when it requires a high courage to speak the banal. He
could not be sure the figure on the floor was listening, but he said "We
do what we can. We push on, Esteban, as best we can. It isn't for long,
you know. Time keeps going by. You'll be surprised at the way time
passes."
They started for Lima. When they reached the bridge of San Luis Rey, the
Captain descended to the stream below in order to supervise the passage
of some merchandise, but Esteban crossed by the bridge and fell with it.