Not a hundred and fifteen - ninety-nine - he handed me a calendar and invited me to count. It was at that point that I discovered that our lovely Tuesdays did not reduce our committed time. Or so said our patrón.
'And besides that, Alexandro,' he added, 'you have failed to figure the interest on the unpaid balance; you haven't multiplied by the inflation factor; you haven't allowed for taxes, or even your contribution for Our Lady of Sorrows. If you fall ill, I should support you, eh?'
(Well, yes. While I had not thought about it, I did think a patrón had that duty toward his peones.) 'Don Jaime, the day you bid in our debts, the clerk of the court figured the, contract for me. He told me our obligation was one hundred and twenty-one days. He told me!'
'Then go talk to the clerk of the court about it.' Don Jaime turned his back on me.
That chilled me. Don Jaime seemed as willing for me to take it up with the referee authority as he had been unwilling to discuss Margrethe's tips with the court. To me this meant that he had handled enough of these debt contracts to be certain how they worked and thus had no fear that the judge or his clerk might rule against him.
I was not able to speak with Margrethe about it in private until that night. 'Marga, how could I be so mistaken about this? I thought the clerk worked it out for us before he had us countersign the assignment of debt. One hundred and twenty-one days. Right?'
She did not answer me at once. I persisted, 'Isn't that what you told me?'
'Alec, despite the fact that I now usually think in English - or in Spanish, lately - when I must do arithmetic, I work it in Danish. The Danish word for sixty is 'tres'- and that
is also the Spanish word for three. Do you see how easily I could get mixed up? I don't know now whether I said to you, "Ciento y veintiuno" or "Ciento y sesentiuno" - because I remember numbers in Danish, not in English, not in Spanish. I thought you did the division yourself.'
'Oh, I did. Certainly the clerk didn't say, "A hundred and twenty-one." He didn't use any English, that I recall. And at that time I did not know any Spanish. Señor Muñoz explained it to you and you translated for me and later I did the arithmetic again and it seemed to confirm what he had said. Or you had said. Oh, shucks, I don't know!'
'Then why don't we forget it until we can ask Señor Muñoz?'
'Marga, doesn't it upset you to find that we are going to, have to slave away in this dump an extra five weeks?'
'Yes, but not very much. Alec, I've always had to work. Working aboard ship was harder work than teaching school - but I got to travel and see strange places. Waiting tables here is a little harder than cleaning rooms in the Konge Knut - but I have you with me here and that more than makes up for it. I want to go with you to your homeland... but it's not my homeland, so I'm not as eager to leave here as you are. To me, today, where you are is my homeland.'
'Darling, you are so logical and reasonable and civilized that you sometimes drive me right straight up the wall.'
'Alec, I don't mean to do that. I just want us to stop worrying about it until we can see Señor Muñoz. But right this minute I want to rub your back until you relax.'
'Madame, you've convinced me! But only if I have the privilege of rubbing your poor tired feet before you rub my back.'
We did both. 'Ah, wilderness were paradise enow!'
Beggars can't be choosy. I got up early the next morning, saw the clerk's runner, was told that I could not see the clerk until court adjourned for the day, so I made a semi-appointment for close-of-court on Tuesday - 'semi' in that we were committed to show up; Señor Muñoz was not. (But would be there, Deus volent.)
So on Tuesday we went on our picnic outing as usual, as we could not see Señor Muñoz earlier than about 4 pm. But we were Sunday-go-to-meeting rather than dressed for a picnic - meaning that we both wore our shoes, both had had baths that morning, and I had shaved, and I wore my best clothes, handed down from Don Jaime but clean and fresh, rather than the tired Coast Guard work pants I wore in the scullery. Margrethe wore the colorful outfit she had acquired our first day in Mazatlán.
Then we both endeavored not to get too sweaty or dusty. Why we thought it mattered I cannot say. But somehow each of us felt that propriety called for one's best appearance in visiting a court.
As usual we walked over to the fountain to-see our friend Pepe before swinging back to climb our hill. He greeted us in the intimate mode of friends and we exchanged graceful amenities of the sort that fit so well in Spanish and are almost never encountered in English. Our weekly visit with Pepe had become an important part of our social life. We knew more about him now - from Amanda, not from him - and I respected him more than ever.
Pepe had not been born without legs (as I had once thought); he had formerly been a teamster, driving lorries over the mountains to Durango and beyond. Then there had been an accident and Pepe had been pinned under his rig for two days before he was rescued. He was brought in to Our Lady of Sorrows apparently DOA.
Pepe was tougher than that. Four months later he was released from hospital; someone passed the hat to buy him his little cart; he received his mendicant's license, and he took up his pitch by the fountain - friend to streetwalkers, friend to Dons, and a merry grin for the worst that fate could hand him.
When, after a decent interval for, conversation and inquiries as to health and welfare and that of mutual acquaintances, we turned to leave, I offered our friend a one-peso note.
He handed it back. 'Twenty-five centavos, my friend. Do you not have change? Or did you wish me to make change?'
'Pepe our friend, it was our intention and our wish that you keep this trivial gift.'
'No no no. From tourists I take their teeth and ask for more. From you, my friend, twenty-five centavos.'
I did not argue. In Mexico a man has his dignity, or he is dead.
El Cerro de la Nevería is one hundred meters high; we climbed it very slowly, with me hanging back because I wanted to be certain not to place any strain on Margrethe. From signs I was almost certain that she was in a family way. But she had not seen fit to discuss it with me and of course I could not raise the subject if she did not.
We found our favorite place, where we enjoyed shade from a small tree but nevertheless had a full view all around, three hundred and sixty degrees - northwest into the Gulf of California', west into the ` Pacific and what might or might not be clouds on the horizon capping a peak at the tip of Baja California two hundred miles away, southwest along our own peninsula to Cerro Vigia (Lookout Hill) with beautiful Playa de las 0las Altas between us and Cerro Vigía, then beyond it Cerro Creston, the site of the giant lighthouse, the 'Faro' itself commanding the tip of the peninsula - south right across town to the Coast Guard landing. On the east and north-east were the mountains that concealed Durango a hundred and fifty miles away... but today the air was so clear that it felt as if we could reach out and touch those peaks.
Mazatlán was spread out below like a toy village. Even the basilica looked like an architect's scale model from up' here, rather than a most imposing church - for the umpteenth time I wondered how the Catholics, with their (usually) poverty-stricken congregations, could build such fine churches while their Protestant opposite numbers had such a time raising the mortgages on more modest structures.
Look, Alec!' said Margrethe. 'Anibal and Roberto have their new aeroplano!' She pointed.
Sure enough, there were now two aeroplanos at the Coast Guard mooring. One was the grotesque giant dragonfly that had rescued us; the new one was quite different. At first I thought it had sunk at its moorings; the floats on which the older craft landed on the water were missing from this structure.