I stopped a couple of English-looking guys and asked the direction to the music halls. They were Germans, though they dressed like Englishmen and spoke the language with a guttural accent. As soon as it was clear that I meant concert music and not girly shows they pointed out the way and I found a large concert hall.
A large poster displayed the gaunt head of Gabrilowitsch. Even though I'd never heard him play and never seen him, I'd have known him. His name was clearly printed in large letters. I hastily looked over the range of prices listed alongside the box-office window and picked a cheap one and thrust two pesos fifty centavos through the window at an elderly man with long white mustachios who sat there dressed in a few sweaters, coats, and a small cloth cap.
He looked up as my money came through and I nodded toward the Gabrilowitsch poster in the lobby. He grunted something and shoved my money back at me. Evidently all the low-priced tickets were gone, so I piled on another peso and slid my money back. Again it came back to me. The old man simply said, "Miercoles" as if that settled it. So I slapped on a couple of more pesos and he shoved back my money. Again he said, "Miercoles" abruptly—back came my slowly growing pile of pesos.
Evidently this old fellow didn't realize how I hungered for a bit of music, how much I yearned for Gabrilowitsch. All right, so I wouldn't have dinner—and I piled on pesos and shoved them through. He seemed to be irritated as he kept repeating miercoles until it had become a shout.
When my last peso and all the loose centavos I had in my pocket had made their last journey in and out that window with the old man's mustachios bristling and his nostrils flaring as he shouted miercoles, we glared fire at each other through that barred window. We'd come to an impasse. A tall, long-nosed man stepped out of the queue which had lined up in back of me and tapped me on the shoulder.
''Miercoles —that means Wednesday," he said gently, as if that explained everything.
"Oh—well, why don't he say so?"
Then I asked this Englishman who seemed so well informed where I could hear some music that night, and he directed me toward the Teatro Colon—the big Opera House on Avenida del Mayo.
I walked off wondering why the old guy hadn't taken my money anyway. H the concert was for the following Wednesday, it would have just been my loss. He couldn't have known I was in town for that night only. But then it might have been for the Wednesday passed, and they just neglected to take that bill poster down, like the circus posters one sees in the late fall on windows of unrented stores.
The posters on the big, ornate Teatro Colon indicated that Adolf Bohm would dance Petrouchka and Stravinski's Firebird would glow through the rest of the wet night.
Hastily I bought a ticket—a pretty good one—and spent a little more than I'd planned. Then I walked along the Avenida del Mayo for a short spell. The green-yellow street lights were coming on and that fashionable avenue looked dreary. I spent a little time poking around one of those flowery, bronze-dripping monuments that the French Beaux Arts sculptors delight in sticking up in the squares of the cities of South America. When I felt the cold wet night seeping through my jacket, I went hunting a reasonable restaurant not too far from the Teatro Colon.
The effect of the beer had worn off completely and I was cold as I tramped those side streets. I had found a place that looked pretty good. There were pagodas painted on the window and the sign said Cafe Oriental—a chop-suey joint! I walked in with confidence. Here at least I'd not have to eat Stek Caballero.
The place was empty—it must have been too early for dinner. I sat down at one of the tables and enjoyed the luxury of the first clean white tablecloth I'd seen in months. Then I opened the large cardboard menu to choose which one of the numerous chop sueys I'd like to eat. I always liked fried onions (and who doesn't?); the shredded shrimp, pork or beef which christens these vegetable stews I felt was never of much moment. So I galloped down the menu to Cocina China and found no chop suey at all—not even plain.
There were plenty of incomprehensible Spanish words preceded by "China," but nothing that even remotely resembled the mysterious hashes I'd eaten on Mott Street. Maybe here they really let themselves go. I'd been told there are things done with fat little puppy dogs, venerable fish eyes, and tender young rats I'd not like to meet up with hidden in a thick soybean, sauce.
A young Chinese waiter had come to my table and stood there waiting for my decision. Finally, I frankly asked him:
"Haven't you any chop suey at all?"
He just stood there, and when I repeated my question a little louder he broke out with a grin. He didn't understand a word of English!
For some reason that amazed and annoyed me. It seemed natural and I could understand these Argentinians not speaking our American English—but a Chinese waiter in a chop-suey joint—I tried repeating chop suey and varied the accent to get him to understand I wanted any one of the numerous combinations of fried onions, celery, etc., that his ancestral grandfathers had dreamed up on our West Coast long ago, the beggar's hash they call chop suey—but no dice. He giggled and just shrugged his shoulders, so I sadly ordered Stek Cabal-lero.
He took my order back to the kitchen and waited near the door until it was cooked for me. A sleazy young Argentinian who had come in and seated himself at one of the back tables there gave him the wink. My waiter walked over to his table, leaned over it, and they both snickered at me as they gabbled in Spanish. To them, I was funny!
The Stek Caballero which was finally served me was no different from a dozen or so I'd already eaten during the past week. After I downed it, I rapped for that smirking little waiter and asked for a Cafe Expresso with Martel cognac. He understood that all right and wasn't grinning any more when he served it.
There was one difference in that food and drink from any other I'd already had in Rio Santiago—it cost a lot more. After I paid my bill I found I had one peso and a few loose centavos left from my original wad. That settled everything. Unless something happened I'd have to get the last train back that night.
I looked up the train schedule that I had thoughtfully carried with me—the last train left at 10:30. I hunted my ticket for the Teatro Colon; the performance started at nine. Well, it looked as if I'd get one hour of Stravinski's Petrouchka or the Firebird, depending on which they started the evening with, before I'd have to dash for that last train to Rio Santiago.
It was too early for the opera. I sat there nursing my drink. There never was a little cup of cold black coffee that was coddled as carefully and as long as I fondled that Cafe Ex-presso. The restaurant was filling up, and my young waiter had flicked and straightened the cloth at my table about a dozen times before I finally took the hint and walked out.
I stood in a doorway out of the wind across from the big Teatro awhile, until I'd seen a few people enter who looked as if they might be some of the audience—patrons of the opera same as myself. Then I crossed over and, after giving my hair a quick lick with my pocket comb, straightened my tie, folded my wet collar back into place, gave my mustache a pinching twirl, and entered the big lobby of the Teatro Colon.
It was rather quiet there. A few men wearing white tie and tails who turned out to be ushers stood around talking. When they saw I held a ticket, one approached me and studied my precious pasteboard and indicated I was to climb the stairs. It was a long climb up, but after an usher led me to my seat I realized it could have been a lot longer. There were a lot of balconies above the one I sat in and there seemed to be quite a few below—I must have been seated midway. I felt like a fly in the center of that huge web of seats.