Fombombo/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
CANALEJOS was no exception to the general rule that all Venezuelan cities function upon a war basis. At the entrance of a calle, just outside the city wall, stood a faded green sentry-box. As the motor drove up, a sentry popped out of the box, with a briskness and precision unusual in Venezuela. He stood chin up, heels together, quite as if he were under some German martinet. With a snap he handed the motorists the police register and jerked out, from somewhere down in his thorax, military fashion:
“Hup… your names… point of departure… destination… profession…”
It amused Strawbridge to see a South American performing such military antics. It was like a child playing soldier. He was moved to mimic the little fellow by grunting back in the same tones, “Hup… Strawbridge… Caracas… Canalejos… sell guns and ammunition…” Then he wrote those answers in the book.
An anxious look flitted across the face of the sentry at this jocularity. His stiff “eyes front” flickered an instant toward the sentry-box. While the negro and the bull-fighter were filling in the register, a peon came riding up on a black horse. He stopped just behind the motor and with the immense patience of his kind awaited his turn.
While his two companions were signing, Strawbridge yielded to that impulse for horse-play which so often attacks Americans who are young and full-blooded. He leaned out of the motor very solemnly, lifted the cap of the sentry, turned the visor behind, and replaced it on his head. The effect was faintly but undeniably comic. The little soldier's face went beet-colored. At the same moment came a movement inside the sentry-box and out of the door stepped a somewhat corpulent man wearing the epaulettes, gold braid, and stars of a general. He was the most dignified man find had the most penetrating eyes that Strawbridge had ever seen in his life. He had that peculiar possessive air about him which Strawbridge had felt when once, at a New York banquet, he saw J. P. Morgan. By merely stepping out of the sentry-box this man seemed to appropriate the calle, the motor and men, and the llanos beyond the town. Strawbridge instantly knew that he was in the presence of General Adriano Fombombo, and the gaucherie of having turned around the little sentry's cap set up a sharp sinking feeling in the drummer's chest. For this one stupid bit of foolery he might very well forfeit his whole order for munitions.
Gumersindo leaped out of the car and, with a deep bow, removed his hat.
“Your Excellency, I have the pleasure to report that I accomplished your mission without difficulty, that I have procured an American gentleman whom, if you will allow me the privilege, I will present. General Fombombo, this is Señor Tomas Strawbridge of New York city.”
By this time Strawbridge had scrambled out of the motor and extended his hand.
The general, although he was not so tall as the American, nor, really, so large, drew Strawbridge to him, somehow as if the drummer were a small boy.
“I see your long journey from Caracas has not quite exhausted you,” he said, with a faint gleam of amusement in his eyes.
Strawbridge felt a deep relief. He glanced at the soldier's cap and began to laugh.
“Thank you,” he said; “I manage to travel very well.”
The general turned to the negro.
“Gumersindo, telephone my casa, that Señor Strawbridge will occupy the chamber overlooking the river.”
The drummer put up a hand in protest.
“Now, General, I'll go on to the hotel.”
The general erased the objection:
“There are no hotels in Canalejos, Señor Strawbridge; a few little eating-houses which the peons use when they come in from the llanos, that is all.”
By this time Strawbridge's embarrassment had vanished. The general somehow magnified him, set him up on a plane the salesman had never occupied before.
“Well, General,” he began cheerfully, using the American formula, “how's business here in Canalejos?”
“Business?” repeated the soldier, suavely. “Let me see,… business. You refer, I presume, to commercial products?” “Why, yes,” agreed the drummer, rather surprised.
“Pues, the peons, I believe, are gathering balata. The cocoa estancias will be sending in their yield at the end of this month; tonka-beans—”
“Are prices holding up well?” interrupted Strawbridge, with the affable discourtesy of an American who never quite waits till his question is answered.
“I believe so, Señor Strawbridge; or, rather, I assume so; I have not seen a market quotation in…” He turned to the editor: '“Señor Gumersindo, you are a journalist; are you au courant with the market reports?”
The negro made a slight bow.
“On what commodity, your Excellency?”
“What commodity are you particularly interested in, Señor Strawbridge?” inquired the soldier.
“Why… er… just the general trend of the market,” said Strawbridge, with a feeling that his little excursion into that peculiar mechanical talk of business, markets, prices, which was so dear to his heart, had not come off very well.
“There has been, I believe, an advance in some prices and a decline in others,” generalized Gumersindo; “the usual seasonal fluctuations.”
“Si, gracias,” acknowledged the general. “Señor Gumersindo, during Señor Strawbridge's residence in Canalejos, you will kindly furnish him the daily market quotations.”
“Sí, señor.”
The matter of business was settled and disposed of. Came that slight hiatus in which hosts wait for a guest to decide what shall be the next topic. The drummer thought rapidly over his repertoire; he thought of baseball, of Teilman's race in the batting column; one or two smoking-car jokes popped into his head but were discarded. He considered discussing the probable Republican majority Ohio would show in the next presidential election. He had a little book in his vest pocket which gave the vote by states for the past decade. In Pullman smoking-compartments the drummer had found it to be an arsenal of debate. He could make terrific political forecasts and prove them by this little book. But, with his very fingers on it, he decided against talking Ohio politics to an insurgent general in Rio Negro. His thoughts boggled at business again, at the prices of things, when he glanced about and saw Lubito, who had been entirely neglected during this colloquy. The drummer at once seized on his companion to bridge the hiatus. He drew the espada to him with a gesture.
“General Fombombo,” he said with a salesman's ebullience, “meet Señor Lubito. Señor Lubito is a bull-fighter, General, and they tell me he pulls a nasty sword.”
The general nodded pleasantly to the torero.
“I am very glad you have come to Canalejos, Señor Lubito. I think I shall order in some bulls and have an exhibition of your art. If you care to look at our bull-ring in Canalejos, you will find it in the eastern part of our city.” He pointed in the direction and apparently brushed the bullfighter away, for Lubito bowed with the muscular suppleness of his calling and took himself off in the direction indicated.
At that moment the general observed the peon on the black horse, who as yet had not dared to present himself at the sentry-box before the caballeros.
“What are you doing on that horse, bribont” asked the general.
“I was waiting to enter, your Excellency,” explained the fellow, hurriedly.
“Your name?”
“Guillermo Fando, your Excellency.”
“Is that your horse?”
“Sí, your Excellency.”
“Take it to my cavalry barracks and deliver it to Coronel Saturnino. A donkey will serve your purpose.”
Fando's mouth dropped open. He stared at the President.
“T-take my caballo to the… the cavalry…”
A little flicker came into the black eyes of the dictator. He said in a somewhat lower tone:
“Is it possible, Fando, that you do not understand Spanish? Perhaps a little season in La Fortuna…”
The peon's face went mud-colored. “P-pardon, su excellenciat” he stuttered, and the next moment thrust his heels into the black's side and went clattering up the narrow calle, filling the drowsy afternoon with clamor.
The general watched him disappear, and then turned to Strawbridge.
“Caramba! the devil himself must be getting into these peons! Speaking to me after I had instructed him!”
The completely proprietary air of the general camouflaged under a semblance of military discipline the taking of the horse from the peon. It was only after the three men were in Gumersindo's car and on their way to the President's palace that the implications of the incident developed in the drummer's mind. The peon was not in the army; the horse belonged to the peon, and yet Fombombo had taken it with a mere glance and word.
Evening was gathering now. The motor rolled through a street of dark little shops. Here and there a candle-flame pricked a black interior. Above the level line of roofs the east gushed with a wide orange light.
The dictator and the editor had respected the musing mood of their guest and were now talking to each other in low tones. They were discussing Pio Barajo's novels.
In the course of their trip the drummer had that characteristic American feeling that he was wasting time, that here in the car he might get some idea of the general's needs in the way of guns and ammunition. In a pause of the talk about Barajo, he made a tentative effort to speak of the business which had brought him to Canalejos, but the general smoothed this wrinkle out of the conversation, and the talk veered around to Zamacois.
The drummer had dropped back into his original thoughts about the injustice and inequalities of life here in Rio Negro, and what the American people would do in such circumstances, when the motor turned into Plaza Mayor and the motorists saw a procession of torches marching beneath the trees on the other side of the square. Then thfe drummer observed that the automobile in which he rode and the moving line of torches were converging on the dark front of a massive building. He watched the flames without interest until his own conveyance and the marchers came to a halt in front of the great spread of ornamental stairs that flowed out of the entrance of the palace. A priest in a cassock stood at the head of the procession, and immediately behind him were two peons, a young man and a girl, both in wedding finery. They evidently had come for the legal ceremony which in Venezuela must follow the religious ceremony, for as the car stopped a number of voices became audible: “There is his Excellency!” “In the motor, not in the palacio!” The priest lifted his voice:
“Your Excellency, here are a man and a woman who desire—”
While the priest was speaking, a graceful figure ran up the ornamental steps and stood out strongly against the white marble.
“Your Excellency,” he called, “I must object to this wedding! I require time. I represent the father of the bride. It is my paternal duty, your Excellency, to investigate this suitor.”
Every one in the line stared at the figure on the steps. The priest began in an astonished voice:
“How is this, my son?”
“I represent the father of this girl,” asserted the man on the steps, warmly. “I must look into the character of this bridegroom. A father, your Excellency, is a tender relation.”
A sudden outbreak came from the party:
Who is this man?“ ”What does he mean by ‘father’? Madruja's father is with the ‘reds.’ “
General Fombombo, who had been watching the little scene passively, from the motor, now scrutinized the girl herself. It drew Strawbridge's attention to her. She was a tall pantheress of a girl, and the wavering torchlight at one moment displayed and the next concealed her rather wild black eyes, full lips, and a certain untamed beauty of face. Her husband-elect was a hard, weather-worn youth. The coupling together of two such creatures did seem rather incongruous.
General Fombombo asked a few questions as he stepped out of the car: Who was she! What claim had the man on the steps? He received a chorus of answers none of which were intelligible. All the while he kept scrutinizing the girl, appraising the contours visible through the bridal veil. At last he waggled a finger and said:
“Cá! Cá! I will decide this later. The señorita may occupy the west room of the palace to-night, and later I will go into this matter more carefully. I have guests now.” He clapped his hands. “Ho, guards!” he called, “conduct the señorita to the west room for the night.”
Two soldiers in uniform came running down the steps. The line of marchers shrank from the armed men. The girl stared large-eyed at this swift turn in her affairs. Suddenly she clutched her betrothed's arm.
“Esteban!” she cried. “Esteban!”
The groom stood staring, apparently unable to move as the soldiers hurried down the steps.
By this time General Fombombo was escorting the drummer courteously up the stairs into the deeply recessed entrance of the palace. Strawbridge could not resist looking back to see the outcome of this singular wedding. But now the torchbearers were scattering and all the drummer could see was a confused movement in the gloom, and now and then he heard the sharp, broken shrieks of a woman.
His observations were cut short by General Fombombo who, at the top of the stairs, made a deep bow:
“My house and all that it contains are yours, señor.”
Strawbridge bowed as to this stereotype he made the formal response, “And yours also.”