f) Progress at our annual national prayer meeting on several subjects in which I was interested. One was the matter of how to remove the tax-free status of any private school not affiliated with a Christian sect. Policy on this was not yet complete because of the thorny matter of Roman Catholic schools. Should our umbrella cover them? Or was it time to strike? Whether the Catholics were allies or enemies was always a deep problem to those of us out on the firing line.
At least as difficult was the Jewish problem - was a humane solution possible? If not, then what? Should we grasp the nettle? This was debated only in camera.
Another matter was a pet project of my own: the frustrating of astronomers. Few laymen realize what mischief astronomers are up to. I first noticed it when I was still in engineering school and took a course in descriptive astronomy under the requirements for breadth in each student's program. Give an astronomer a bigger telescope and turn him loose, leave him unsupervised, and the first -thing he does is to come down with pestiferous, half-baked guesses denying the ancient truths of Genesis.
There is only one way to deal with this sort of nonsense: Hit them in the pocketbook! Redefine 'educational' to exclude those colossal white elephants, astronomical observatories. Make the Naval Observatory the only one tax free, reduce its staff, and limit their activity to matters clearly related to navigation. (Some of the most blasphemous and subversive theories have come from tenured civil servants there who don't have enough legitimate Work to keep them busy.)
Self-styled 'scientists' are usually up to no good, but astronomers are the worst of the lot.
Another matter that comes up regularly at each annual' prayer meeting I did not favor spending time or money on: 'Votes for Women'. These hysterical females styling themselves 'suffragettes' are not a threat, can never win, and it just makes them feel self-important to pay attention to them. They should not be jailed and should not be displayed in stocks - never let them be martyrs! Ignore them.
There were other interesting and worthwhile goals that I kept off the agenda and did not suffer to be brought up from the floor in the sessions I moderated, but instead carried them on my 'Maybe next year' list:
Separate schools for boys and girls.
Restoring the death penalty for witchcraft and satanism.
The Alaska option for the Negro problem.
Federal control of prostitution.
Homosexuals - what's the answer? Punishment? Surgery? Other?
There are endless good causes commending themselves to guardians of the public morals - the question is always how to pick and choose to the greater glory of God.
But all of these issues, fascinating as they are, I might never again pursue. A sculleryman who is just learning the local language (ungrammatically, I feel sure!) is not able to be a political force. So I did not worry about such matters and concentrated on my real problems: Margrethe's heresy and more immediate but less important, getting legally free of peonage and going north.
We had served more than one hundred days when I asked Don Jaime to help me work out the exact date when we would have discharged the terms of our debt contract - a polite way of saying: Dear Boss, come the day, we are going to leave here like a scared rabbit. Plan on it.
I had figured on a total obligated time of one hundred and twenty-one days... and Don Jaime shocked me almost out of my Spanish by getting a result of one hundred and fifty-eight days.
More than six weeks to go when I figured that we would be free next week!
I protested, pointing out that our total obligation as listed by the court, divided by the auction value placed on our services (pesos sixty for Margrethe, half that for me, for each day), gave one hundred and twenty-one days... of which we had served one hundred fifteen.
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.