Concha liked it very much when he’d have friends in to eat with him Sundays. She would wait on them very pleasantly and send her little brother Antonio round for beer and cognac and always have cakes in the house to bring out if anybody dropped in. Mac would sometimes think how much pleasanter this was than when he’d lived with Maisie in San Diego, and began to think less often about going out to join Zapata.
The Polish proofreader, whose name was Korski, turned out to be a political exile, a socialist and a wellinformed man. He would sit all afternoon over a half a glass of cognac talking about European politics; since the collapse of the European socialist parties at the beginning of the war he had taken no part in anything; from now on he’d be an onlooker. He had a theory that civilization and a mixed diet were causing the collapse of the human race.
Then there was Ben Stowell, an independent oil promotor who was trying to put through a deal with Carranza’s government to operate some oilwells according to the law. He was broke most of the time and Mac used to lend him money, but he always talked in millions. He called himself a progressive in politics and thought that Zapata and Villa were honest men. Ben Stowell would always take the opposite side of any argument from Korski and would infuriate the old man by his antisocial attitude. Mac wanted to make some money to send up to Maisie for the kids’ schooling. It made him feel good to send Rose up a box of toys now and then. He and Ben would have long talks about the chances of making money in Mexico. Ben Stowell brought round a couple of young radical politicians who enjoyed sitting through the afternoon talking about socialism and drinking and learning English. Mac usually didn’t say much but sometimes he got sore and gave them a broadside of straight I.W.W. doctrine. Concha would finish all arguments by bringing on supper and saying with a shake of her head, “Every poor man socialista… a como no? But when you get rich, quick you all very much capitalista.”
One Sunday Mac and Concha and some Mexican newspaper men and Ben Stowell and his girl, Angustias, who was a chorusgirl at the Lirico, went out on the trolley to Xochimilco. They hired a boat with a table in it and an awning and an Indian to pole them round through the poplarbordered canals among the rich flowerpatches and vegetablegardens. They drank pulque and they had a bottle of whisky with them, and they bought the girls calla lilies. One of the Mexicans played a guitar and sang.
In the afternoon the Indian brought the boat back to a landing and they strolled off in couples into the woods. Mac suddenly felt very homesick and told Concha about his children in the U. S. and about Rose particularly, and she burst into tears and told him how much she loved children, but that when she was seventeen she had been very very sick and they’d thought she was going to die and now she couldn’t have any children, only Porfirio and Venustiano. Mac kissed her and told her that he’d always look after her.
When they got back to the trolleystation, loaded down with flowers, Mac and Ben let the girls go home alone and went to a cantina to have a drink. Ben said he was pretty tired of this sort of thing and wished he could make his pile and go back to the States to marry and have a home and a family. “You see, Mac,” he said, “I’m forty years old. Christ, a man can’t bat around all his life.” “Well, I’m not far from it,” said Mac. They didn’t say much, but Ben walked up with Mac as far as the office of The Mexican Herald and then went down town to the Iturbide to see some oilmen who were staying there. “Well, it’s a great life if you don’t weaken,” he said as he waved his hand at Mac and started down the street. He was a stocky bullnecked man with a bowlegged walk.
Several days later Ben came around to the Plaza del Carmen before Mac was out of bed. “Mac, you come and eat with me this noon,” he said. “There’s a guy named G. H. Barrow here I want to kinda show the town a little bit. He might be useful to us… I want to know what he’s after anyway.” The man was writing articles on the Mexican situation and was said to have some connection with the A. F. of L. At lunch he asked anxiously if the water was safe and whether it wasn’t dangerous to walk round the streets after nightfall. Ben Stowell kidded him along a little and told him stories of generals and their friends breaking into a bar and shooting into the floor to make the customers dance and then using the place for a shooting gallery. “The shooting gallery, that’s what they call congress here,” said Mac. Barrow said he was going to a meeting of the Union Nacional de Trabajadores that afternoon and would they mind going with him to interpret for him. It was Mac’s day off so they said, “All right.” He said he’d been instructed to try to make contacts with stable labor elements in Mexico with the hope of joining them up with the Pan-American Federation of Labor. Gompers would come down himself if something could be lined up. He said he’d been a shipping clerk and a Pullman conductor and had been in the office of the Railroad Brotherhood, but now he was working for the A. F. of L. He wished American workers had more ideas about the art of life. He’d been at the Second International meetings at Amsterdam and felt the European workers understood the art of life. When Mac asked him why the hell the Second International hadn’t done something to stop the World War, he said the time wasn’t ripe yet and spoke about German atrocities.
“The German atrocities are a Sundayschool picnic to what goes on every day in Mexico,” said Ben. Then Barrow went to ask whether Mexicans were as immoral as it was made out. The beer they were drinking with their lunch was pretty strong and they all loosened up a little. Barrow wanted to know whether it wasn’t pretty risky going out with girls here on account of the high percentage of syphilis. Mac said yes, but that he and Ben could show him some places that were all right if he wanted to look ’em over. Barrow tittered and looked embarrassed and said he’d just as soon look ’em over. “A man ought to see every side of things when he’s investigating conditions.” Ben Stowell slapped his hand on the edge of the table and said that Mac was just the man to show him the backside of Mexico.
They went to the meeting that was crowded with slender dark men in blue denim. At first they couldn’t get in on account of the crowd packed in the aisles and in the back of the hall, but Mac found an official he knew who gave them seats in a box. The hall was very stuffy and the band played and there was singing and the speeches were very long. Barrow said listening to a foreign language made him sleepy, and suggested that they walk around town; he’d heard that the red light district was… he was interested in conditions.