The Acrobats (13 page)

“Sweetheart,” a young soldier said in a falsetto voice, “how much to do a little job for me?”

All the men on the bench giggled.

The old man spat over his shoulder. “What a soldier! How much do you earn a month, boy? Is it enough to spend fifteen minutes with Pilar? Or do you think you could last that long?”

“Old pimp! Is it true that the girls play games with you after the house closes down?”

“You talk as if you feel at home here, boy. Perhaps your mother works here?”

“Say that again!”

“Perhaps your mother works here? Or perhaps she only drops in to bring your sister sandwiches?”

Two of the other men got up and pushed the soldier back on the bench.

“Don’t be a fool!”

“He’s just a filthy old bastard!”

The old man roared with laughter.

The girls, dressed in kimonos or black underwear or sheer gowns, gossiped noisily in a corner of the room. They sat around like stuffed animals, absently scratching their thighs. Their faces were dull and their bodies weary, legs and arms as impersonal as empty stockings. They were neither sad nor forlorn – just empty, like dead souls. None was older than thirty or younger than fourteen. Some of them had been dancers, others had played bit parts in music halls. Occasionally one of the girls would break away from the group and spring on to one of the young men’s laps, kissing and fiddling
with him. This failing to encourage him she would soon abandon him, slapping him playfully in parting. Soon another girl came along – blonde following brunette, fat following lean, young following old – until the aroused men were forced into selecting a partner. Amid laughter they would make their way to the bedroom.

“They are very young here,” Luís said.

“I like the one in the black slit skirt. Hell, she looks like the goods all right!”

“Shall I call her over?”

Barney hesitated. “You’re sure they’re okay, huh? No clap or anything?”

“I am certain.”

“How many times do you think they get it every night?”

“I don’t know. It depends.”

“There must be at least thirty of them here, huh?”

“Yes.”

“She must really clean up!”

“We call her the Queen.”

“Why?”

“It’s difficult to explain.”

“I’ll bet it is. This is no place for a queen!”

The girls were gathered around Lolita. She was new, from Cadiz. She had first gone into a brothel in Seville, five years ago, when she had been fourteen. That year, among the tourists in town for Holy Week, there had been a phenomenal demand for virgins. An enterprising pimp had picked her up in the slums of Cadiz and offered her five hundred pesetas to come to Seville. What a girl she had been then! Such a body! (She showed the others a photo.) Now she was weary – always as if she had just finished running a race. She no longer excited men –
Qué lástima, Lolita!
You make love like a dead woman. Isn’t my money as good as the next man’s? And now she was only able to attract clients by permitting the perversions that had horrified her four years ago. And even then she was only an
extra girl, working small towns that lacked for amusements during the off-season.

Spread out on her lap was an album, cheap blurred snaps of the Photomaton variety. Each tawdry photo represented one of her lovers, lovers of a night and sometimes lovers of a month. In her whining, frightened voice she was telling the girls about Ramón. Yes, she agreed with Carmen, he hadn’t been as handsome as López or as generous as René, but he had been really funny. And if Jaime had been free and easy with his money hadn’t he been the one who had infected her? Yes … (slowly, nostalgically, she flipped over the page). Ah, here was orge! He came every night for six weeks. Look, the Norwegian! And Julian, who had paid extra so that he might beat her with a belt. But, the Norwegian. Arne, I think, was his name.…

Suddenly Valentina kicked up her leg and the album went flying through the air. Photos scattered in all directions, flipping and twisting, slowly spiralling downwards.

Lolita gasped. She turned pale. “Why did you do that? You didn’t have to do that.”

Pilar snickered. The others remained silent. Valentina was chieftain among the girls. Also, she was Francisco’s mistress. It was Francisco who arranged those appointments for the afternoon and those lovely week-ends in the country. It was Francisco who journeyed to Palma for hashish. If one offended Valentina one was liable to be cut off for a week.

“Silly bitch!” Valentina said. “What do we care for your pictures? If you are going to work here you will have to learn not to be proud. Understand?”

Lolita got down on her hands and knees and began to gather up the photos.

A few of the girls laughed grimly.

“Do you think they get any fun out of it?” Barney asked.

“It’s just a job.”

“You know it’s okay with a whore if you know what I mean. You can horse around a bit. With your wife it’s a different
story. I mean a guy feels kind of dirty. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes.”

A dark girl caught Barney’s eye and smiled at him beneath drooping eyelids. Smiling still, she ran her hands down her kimono. She fondled herself not in joy or with a sense of wonder, but as if she understood, as if everyone understood. Slowly she walked towards him.

She sat down beside him, her kimono hanging open.

“Cómo se llama su amigo?”
she asked Luís.

“No capishe!” Barney said.

“She wants to know your name.”

“My name is Jones … Henry Jones.”

“
Él se llama Enrique.”

“Quién es?”

“Es un tonto Americano.”

“What’s going on? What did she say?”

“She says you are very handsome.”

“Tell her she’s okay.”

“Él dice que tu es muy guapa.”

“Tío! Claro.”

Long locks of hair fell down to her shoulders and gathered in silken tangles on her black kimono. The richer black of her hair glistened on the shabby robe like strands of ebony. She sat down on Barney’s lap and kissed him. Barney laughed.

“Hey! She’s really the goods.” Barney kissed her and he was careful not to touch her lips. “Me come. Me you boom-boom!”

She laughed, tickling him under the chin.

“Ask her how much.”

Across the room Pilar found herself a lover. The old man, the guardian of the pails and towels, was dozing. The couple crept up on him silently and careful not to awaken him. Then, just as they were upon him, Pilar turned her plump behind on him and broke wind. The old man awakened with a start.

“Ask her how much!”

I
N FRONT OF
the
Correos y Telégrafos
building a slim civil guard with grieving black eyes and a tiny black mustache yanked uncomfortably at his gunstrap. Two other guards, shining black submachine-guns strapped to their shoulders, paced to and fro before the building. Then, towering above the crowds, came a slender artillery captain. Quickly the men in grey jerked to attention. Then they slumped again, turning their faces to the crowds wandering about the plaza.

Barney groaned. He cracked his knuckles and he crossed his legs; he uncrossed his legs and he lit a cigarette – impatiently he ground the cigarette to bits with his heel. What kind of fiesta was this, he thought? Fireworks, and fireworks. Three times a day they try and blow your head off! Parades, bands. When were they gonna burn the goddam things? Money for this and money for that. Soon there’ll be a special charge for breathing! (This made him laugh.) And the heat! Sonavabitch heat, cost-too-much-money heat, underwear-sticking heat. New Orleans woudiv been more like it, man! All those juicy nigger broads just begging for it! Not Jessie lying ice-cold on a slab (Conchita thought he was fine) waiting till
you’re
all puffed out and then turning her motor on.

The mob jamming around him on the terrace of Café Ruzafa was yelling, drunken, and sweating. Was Litri superior
to Aparicio? Is it true that Luís Miguel was finished?
Fútbol? Fútbol?
 … a giant of a man yelled. Who in the hell gives a damn about
fútbol?
Somebody has seen the bulls.
Muy feo!
A novice –
un novicio, hombre!
my five-year-old son could dance around such bulls and kill a hundred in an afternoon. Who has seen Miguel?
MIGUEL
! The bastard has run off with my tickets! A whore swears she has slept with Manolete. What? With Manolete? This barrel of flesh! Belly laughter, beer laughter. Three times I slept with him! Howling laughter. Did you hear? Ha! She, yes this one.
With Manolete
. Three times! Pinches for her rosy cheeks, pinches for her bum. Gómez shoves a ten-peseta note down her bosom.
BRING HER DRINKS
! Shall Manolete’s mistress die of thirst? Sweat, laughter, joy. She’s old enough to have slept with Manolete’s father! Scalpers drift in and out among the men selling tickets for the afternoon fights. Old enough to – ho, ho. That was good! Did you hear? Eh? More cognac!
MORE COGNAC
! Miguel;
PEPE!
Impossible to walk on the streets. Crowds,
get yourself a table and don’t let go
. Boiling sun! Not a cloud, not a cloud. If only it lasts until evening. What?
Litri tiene miedo?
Hey, look – look!
A FIGHT
! Not today, not today. Cognac for all! That’s it, shake hands.
MIGUEL
! What? You slept with Móntez? What a day! All the great whores of Spain here. For after the fights, for after the drinks.
Cien pesetas para sombre? Vamos, hijo de puta!
Such women. My, my.
Drinks
,
DRINKS!
Guapa!
such a lovely ass. What? Come on, fiestas don’t last for ever. Gómez!
GOMEZ
! Did you hear what she asked me? And she stinks so much from sweat.
PEPE
! Rowdy, happy, crazy.
Camarera! Por favor!
What, fighting again?
Amigos, amigos! No, señor!
IT IS APARICIO WHO IS AFRAID
! Separate them! Quick! Have a drink. Have Manolete’s mistress!
PEPE!

Barney stirred uneasily in his seat. If he could join these men for a drink, if he could share their jokes. No, always he was the outsider. So what! They were just a bunch of nogoods –
he could buy and sell a dozen in an afternoon! Barney got up unsteadily, and pushing his way through the mob, he attempted to cross the street. He got mixed up in a parade and an enormous woman tried to dance with him. Barney swore under his breath, shoved the woman, and managed to break away.

The men were still yelling:
GÓMEZ
! Pepe!

Barney was sorry he had so much to drink and he was sorry he had been to the brothel. He felt cheap. Knocking against people, falling back again, bumping against others, he finally forced his way across the street. He rubbed the breast pocket of his jacket as if he was brushing away dust and only when he felt the reassuring bulge was he satisfied. Now, suddenly, he discovered that he was standing in front of the Mocambo Club.

The bar was empty. Apparently it was closed. But the bartender – a plump, stocky, grey-haired man, sipping muscatel himself – made no objection when Barney sat down on a stool.

“Cognac,” Barney said.

The bartender set a bottle and a glass down on the bar and moved away. He sat down in a chair that was tilted against the wall and began to read a book.

The dark and empty bar frightened Barney.

He poured himself a cognac. His hands were shaking.
She’s in love with the Goy André
. Among the crowds it had only been a whisper: now it was a shout. All the things that have happened to me, he thought. Always everybody against me. Maybe if I had had an education, maybe if I had studied law like Louis. But when was there money in the family? When could I have afforded it? And what about Louis? Look at him! Coming around begging for cases – an ambulance-chaser! Always studying, always pulling off those crazy marks in school, always talking his head off about books. Now look at him, earning less than a waiter.
Scholarships!
Married to that
TB
Abromovitch girl. Making a jerk out of himself for Wallace. (As if there are no pogroms in Russia; as if anybody,
anybody at all –
all!)

He remembered his happy jobbing days, his struggle. The one-horse towns and the half-assed Ford always breaking down on the road, the meals that were always waiting for him at home on the weekends –
gefilte fish, latkas
, roast chicken,
kreplach
. His mother smiling and crazy, his father always full of questions. (So they were bad to you, the
Goyim?
So they talked behind your back? A black year on them! Hitlers!) And the mad miscellany of goods he had carried – children’s toys, flashlights, washable playing cards, combination cigarette-lighter pens, household gadgets, luminous paint. Anything that would make those goddam hicks open up their eyes. The short-order joints in the Bronx. Then, the others, in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Jersey, Yonkers. Business expanding, everything good. Then, finally, the
real
restaurants. Miss Raymond of Garfield-Connelly had been hired to promote the first of the restaurants. (He had known few women. There had been the Delancy Street girls, who were always pulling off the marriage act; and the blondes in the hotels on the road, okay for horsing around with but how did it improve a guy?) Suddenly, here was Miss Raymond! Like the girls he had seen, and having seen, adored, going to church Sunday morning in Utica; like the girls in the
Collier’s
stories and
Saturday Evening Post
illustrations. Miss Jessica Raymond of the Jacksonville Raymonds. (Even now it was so clean and good to say. Listen: Jessica Raymond of the Jacksonville Raymonds.) He was going places, he was smart; he was going places where he could not drag a ghetto girl with her singsong and her red red lipstick.