Mayflower (Flor de mayo): A Tale of the Valencian Seashore

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 vosté! 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…

CHAPTER IV

MARY AND JESUS MEET

Though the early morning sky was bright and cloudless, the streets of the Cabañal were rumbling as in a thunderstorm. People jumped out of bed as the crashing almost split their eardrums; and good women of the village, their hair still down and in wrappers hastily thrown on, went out on the sidewalk in front of their doors to see what was going on. The bluish transparency of dawn was barely gilded with the rays of the still invisible sun. But the "Jews of Jerusalem" were on a rampage, banging their harsh cymbals together as they marched along the streets. One would have thought the Calendar had suddenly gone mad and transported Carnival to Easter week. The most grotesque horribles were gathering in the squares. The young folks of the town were out in costume; for the procession of the Encuentro, in the environs of Valencia, is virtually a masquerade.

Far down the long street, what looked like an army of cockroaches could be seen assembling, figures, called las vestas, in tall, black, sharp-pointed hoods, like so many astrologers, or judges of the Inquisition, their cloth masks rolled up over their foreheads, their long black trains hung over their arms, and each with a baton painted black in one hand. Some of the paraders, to add a touch of ingenuity, had slipped white petticoats on, well ironed and pleated, and from under them pairs of trousers protruded with the legs turned up, and, at the very bottom, top-shoes unutterably tormenting enormous feet accustomed to walking bare on the sands.

Then came the "Jews," fierce villains apparently snatched from some lowly stage for dramas of the Middle Ages that could afford only a conventional costume of poor quality. Their induments were what the Valencian populace refers to as its "war trappings," short skirts or kilts, much mottled with spangles, trimmings and lace fringes, like the tunic of the Apaches; helmets topped off with huge cock plumes, arms and legs "armored" with a rude fabric of cotton tufts to give a distant suggestion of mail. To cap the climax of caricature and anachronism, following the vestas and the "Jews," came – tall and handsome fellows all – the "Virgin's Grenadiers," wearing high-fronted caps like those of Frederick's Prussian guards, with black uniforms decorated with silver lace that must surely have been ripped from the caskets in an undertaker's store.

A stranger might have laughed at that naïf array had he dared brook the wrath of those solemn boys whose faces all wore expressions of stern professional seriousness. It is never safe to make fun of an army ready to fight; and these "Jews" and "grenadiers" who were to guard the crucified Christ and his mother were carrying, unsheathed in their hands, all the varieties of sword known from the dawn of history to the present time, beginning with the heavy cavalry saber of the ordinary marcher, to the slender, delicate rapier of the drum-major.

Following the march, or keeping up with it along its flanks, trooped the gamins of the town, enviously studying the colorful uniforms. Mothers, sisters and sweethearts looked on admiringly from their doorways: "There he is, there! Do you see him? Reina y siñora! How grand he looks!" The devout procession, like the parade that heralds the coming of a circus to town, seemed to recall to the sinful, backsliding population of the Cabañal that at seven A. M. sharp Jesus and his mother would meet – hence the name Encuentro – in the middle of the Calle de San Antonio, in front of the "Side of Bacon," the tavern of tio Chulla.

As the twilight brightened into the rosy glow of sunrise, promising a warm spring day, the martial uproar about the village grew. There were drums, cornets and brass horns sounding on every hand. An army seemed suddenly to have descended on the Cabañal. The various companies —collas, as they are called – had formed four abreast, and solemn, stiff, and as much admired as soldiers returning from victory, were marching to the homes of their respective captains to collect the banners displayed there – weird standards of black velvet embroidered with the horrifying symbols of the Passion.

The Rector was hereditary captain of the "Jews," and long before dawn he had gotten up and crammed his person into the handsome costume that was kept securely locked in a chest at other times of the year and was revered by the whole family as the treasure of the house. Lord help us! What are we coming to! Every Easter the poor Rector was getting fatter and fatter and finding it a more and more serious task to stuff his corpulency into that tight-fitting "coat-of-mail." Dolores, in her nightgown and with her hair down, was making the tour of his spacious waist, pushing in the stomach here, and stretching the cloth there, to make room for one more cubic inch of husband inside the cotton armor. On the bed sat little Pascualet gazing in amazement and alarm at that helmet with Indian plumes on the man's head and at that menacing cavalry saber which clanked against the walls and the furniture every time the Rector turned around. Could that be papa?

At last the dread toilette was over. Not exactly what you would call comfortable, but they had spent enough time over it. The Rector's underwear, at odds with the stringency encircling it, was all lumpy, and what looked like tumors could be seen standing out under the "Jew's" stockings. And those trousers! They were so tight around the middle that the poor man could hardly breathe. His helmet, far too small for his head, kept slipping forward and bumping on his nose. But this was a day for dignity, not for ease! And the Rector drew his saber, struck up a rub-a-dub-dub in his stentorian voice, and began to stride up and down the room, as though the baby there were a crown prince reviewing guard. His wife's golden, mysterious eyes followed him as he walked back and forth from one wall of the bedroom to the other like a bear in a cage. She was tempted to laugh at those bandy legs; but no – she liked him better in that costume than in the tarred and pitchy clothes he came home from work in at night, tired out and stupid from toil.

And now they were coming! The "Jews" could be heard, with their band, down the street. They would be wanting their banner. Dolores hastily threw a wrapper on, while the captain advanced to the frontiers of his domain to welcome his army. The lurid company drew up in front of the house. The drum-beat softened in tone, but continued to give the rhythm for the privates who stood there marking time, keeping their heads and bodies and legs moving energetically in space but without moving from their positions. Tonet and two other "Jews" came gravely forward, entered the house, and started for the second story, whence the standard was hanging from a window.

Dolores met her brother-in-law on his way upstairs, and instantly, instinctively, she drew the overwhelming comparison. There was a real soldier, a general! Tonet had something about him that distinguished him from the uncouthness and clumsiness of the others – of the other. His legs were straight, and his stockings had no wrinkles – everything in his make-up was stylish, well fitting, sleek. He belonged to the Juan Tenorios, the royal don Pedros, the Henri Lagardères, she had seen on the stage of the theater of La Marina, reciting verses and fighting duels that had thrilled her to the bottom of her soul.

And now all the collas were off toward the church, their bands and banners in front of them, looking, from a distance, like troops of glossy insects moving up and down in the rhythm of the march. The Encuentro was at hand! Two processions were coming-down different streets. In one was the Virgin, weeping, sorrowful, escorted by her guard of funereal grenadiers; in the other, Jesus, in a showy purple mantle spangled with gold, his hair awry, his face stained with blood, collapsing under the burden of the Cross. The image had fallen on the rocks of painted cork that covered its pedestal. Around the Christ, to prevent his escape, crowded the ruthless "Jews," who, in line with their parts, had marshaled ferocious scowls; and with the "Jews" came the vestas, their masks lowered now and their trains dropped and dragging through the puddles. The whole scene was so dreadful, so awe-inspiring, that children along the road began to scream and to hide in fright behind their mothers' skirts.

Siñor!.. Ay, siñor, Deu meu!.. the old fisherwomen murmured sympathetically at sight of the bleeding Christ in the clutches of that mob of infidels.

The low-pitched cymbals were clanging meanwhile, and the cornets were shrieking long-sustained, ear-splitting blasts like the bellowing of calves in a slaughter-house. In the midst of the throng of cruel guards marched some tall, well-built girls, with painted cheeks, and in costumes copied from the Turkish maidens of comic opera. They carried water jugs to show they were the Biblical women from Samaria. From their mothers they had borrowed earrings and breast-pins. Their plump legs were ostentatiously exposed in open-work stockings under short Polish peasant skirts. But this was not the occasion for mocking raillery from the men in the crowds.

Among the spectators, to be sure, were a few pale faces and blue-ringed eyes – revelers who had been up all night and, to finish their carousals, had come down from Valencia to witness the famous popular festival. But if such people ventured a smile at any incongruity in the costumes, a soldier of Pilate would step up and raise his saber menacingly, calling them to order in righteous indignation:

"Morrals! Morrals! Hey, there, you pig! This is not a joke! The idea! The most religious ceremony of the coast, and as old as the Cabañal itself! You're no gentleman! You must come from Valencia. But I'll teach you manners, if you don't behave yourself!"

The "meeting" place, on a crossing of the Calle de San Antonio, along which, every now and then, some tiles of curious design had been placed to mark the stations of the march to Calvary, was drawing the bulk of the crowd. Rough, aggressive shore-women, in checkered shawls and with kerchiefs on their heads for hats, were competing restlessly for places in the front line.

Among a group of older ones Rosario was stoutly defending her excellent position on the sidewalk with her elbows and her knees. Had they seen her Tonet? Not a "Jew" in the whole lot to compare with him! And in all this enthusiasm for her handsome husband, the poor woman was still rubbing the bruises he had inflicted on her that morning in the course of getting his costume out and on. But suddenly Rosario felt a rude shove which brushed her aside, while a compact, muscular female body crowded into the place she had been occupying. She looked around. Did any one ever hear of such brazen impudence! It was Dolores, leading Pascualet by the hand! They had at last forced their way through the crushing throng. The comely girl still had her usual pout of disdain as she looked at people and carried herself with her habitual queenly pride. The harlot! Yet how everybody made way for her and fawned upon her in spite of her conceit!

To the exceeding alarm of tia Picores, the two women stood there frowning at each other angrily. Their reconciliation some days before in the ice-cream place had been nothing but a truce. They had promised to be good friends, but without much warmth, and one could see from the looks in their eyes at the time that there would be trouble again soon. Rosario, taken aback by the violence of the push that had displaced her, rested content with a grimace. What nice manners some people had! Some people wanted the earth with a fence around it! Gangway for Her Majesty the Queen! Well, there are people and people in this world! And the wrong sort reveal themselves – you don't have to bother to point them out.

As the pale, sickly woman muttered on, her face grew redder and redder with the intoxication of her own words. Her friends near by kept nudging her, egging her on to stand her ground. Dolores, meanwhile, began to toss her gorgeous head like a lioness preparing to cuff at a hornet buzzing behind her back. However, the processions were debouching into the square, and a wave of expectancy swept over the multitude.

Slowly the two lines of celebrants approached each other, measuring their steps so as to reach the designated spot at exactly the same moment. The sun was darting its first golden rays upon the purple robe of Jesus, the maze of plumes, helmets and upraised swords of the guards – one bright, sparkling brilliancy. From the other direction came the Virgin, bobbing up and down on her throne in rhythm with the footsteps of her bearers, dressed in a black velvet gown with widow's weeds, some big wax tears glistening on her face, and – to catch them, supposedly – a black-bordered mourning handkerchief in her stiff, lifeless hands. She it was who riveted the attention of all the mothers present. Many of them began to weep. Ay reina y soberana! How she must be suffering! A mother finding her boy in a fix like that! Suppose I should meet my boy – do you see him over there, and isn't he handsome? – handcuffed, and on the way to the penitentiary! And I'm only an ordinary mother! The fisherwomen were now groaning and weeping all around the square, not forgetting, meanwhile, to study the Virgin's costume for any improvement or shortcoming as compared with the year before.

The exciting moment was now at hand. The drums ceased beating, the cornets interrupted their dolorous bleating, and the bands were hushed. The images of Jesus and Mary were face to face. A plaintive, tremulous voice began to recite in monotone some stanzas which told how very sad and mournful the whole scene was. Tio Grancha, an aged velvet-spinner, came down from Valencia every year to declaim those couplets, and his art was one of the attractions of the festival! What a voice! How it went to your heart! And that is why a riot almost started when some gamblers in the "Side-of-Bacon" began to laugh at a turn in their game, and people rushed to the doors exclaiming angrily:

"Shut up … shut up … you vermin!"

The images tilted back and forth, in symbolic pantomime of desperate and sorrowful farewell!

Meanwhile, Dolores could not take her eyes off the arrogant, elegant "Jew" who contrasted so favorably with his bandy-legged captain. She was standing with her back toward Rosario, but that did not prevent the latter from divining the object of her gaze. And did you see that? A married woman making eyes at a married man, and right in the presence of her husband! And all this in public! And what went on in private, when that Tonet went to her house on the pretext of playing with the baby, and found her alone?

The two processions had now joined and were going back toward the church. The jealous, infuriated woman continued, in a half-audible voice, to hurl her insulting tirade over those broad, exuberant shoulders in front of her – a splendid pedestal for a beautiful head with luxuriant hair. Dolores turned around with a smirk of biting ridicule on her face. Beg pardon! Had all that been for her? When would that dirty scullion stop annoying a lady? Couldn't a person look at a parade without being insulted? And a glitter of gold sparkled with a wicked gleam in the pupils of her sea-green eyes.

Yes, came the reply. It had all been for her, every word! An immoral, impudent wench, who was always eyeing other women's husbands! Dolores laughed contemptuously. Thanks! Rosario could keep her husband, for all she cared. What a jewel he was, besides! She had her own man and that was enough for her. Tonet might do for other women, if they were fool enough to take him on. But for the thief there's nobody in the world but thieves! No, madam, her job in life was not stealing husbands, but slapping the faces of lying gossips who talked too much!

"Mare, Mare!" screamed Pascualet, clinging to the skirts of his beautiful mother, who, her dark skin pale as death, had drawn herself up to her full height preparing to throw herself upon her enemy. Rosario, meanwhile, was struggling to shake off a number of women who were holding her pinioned by her weak, flaccid arms.

"What's going on here? At it again, eh?" It was the harsh, scolding voice of tia Picores, who had interposed her towering form between the combatants. She would settle the row! She knew how to handle those hot-heads. "You, Dolores, home with you! And you, you groveling, lying slanderer, get out of my sight and hearing." And with a shove and a threat, first in one direction and then the other, she put them both to rout.

Lord, Lord, what people! And on Good Friday! On Good Friday! And right in front of Mary and Jesus! God might forgive them, but she wouldn't! The thousandth time! And that's the way they bring up girls nowadays. And when the stern old woman saw that the younger ones were still shouting insults at each other from a distance, she went at them again, shaking her fists and calling them names, till they were dragged away by their partisans.

The quarrel was soon the talk of all the Cabañal. After the services were over there was another disturbance in the household of Tonet, who, without waiting to take his costume off, thrashed his wife within an inch of her life for making a fool of him in public. And the Rector also brought the subject up while Dolores was prying him out of his uniform, and his flesh was gradually resuming its normal rotundity. He was sorry to say so, but that poor Rosario was crazy. Tonet might be all he might be – and it was true that brandy didn't do him any good! Just the same, it was a pity to see him tied to a woman about as easy to handle as a porcupine. But a brother was a brother in his eyes! He wasn't going to break with the son of his own father just to please that fool of a woman! Much less at that particular moment, when there would be a chance to make a real man of Tonet. Dolores, though hardly yet recovered from the excitement of the brawl, nodded approval to all he said.

And the Rector thought no more about it. He had that little matter on his mind. And, in fact, the following day, just as the bells were ringing for the service of Holy Saturday, while revolvers were being fired in festive celebration about town, and gamins were going from house to house beating upon front doors with sticks, la Garbosa, that leaky death-trap hardly able to keep afloat, with a complete outfit for fishing aboard to make her look like a seiner, raised her huge lateen sail, new and strong and white, and slipped away from the beach of the Cabañal, taking the first sea swells like a time-worn beauty, frilled and painted up to make one last conquest.

CHAPTER V

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 señoras 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.