The Infinite Moment

All the same, and unlikely though it seemed at the moment, there must be a future of some kind lying ahead of her…

She read about Mastery of one’s Fate, Development of one’s Personality, Guidance of one’s Potentialities, and through a number of testimonials from persons who had been greatly helped, valuably guided, spiritually strengthened, and generally rendered more capable of managing themselves by the sympathetic counsels of Se–ora Rosa.

It was the word “guidance” occurring several times that set up the most responsive echo. Frances did not exactly imagine that she could go to this perfect stranger and extract a plan for living a neatly readjusted life, but the world, ever since she had handed that small, registered package across the post-office counter, had become a place for which she had no plans of her own, and she felt that an improved acquaintance with one’s potentialities might give some kind of a lead…

She turned. She glanced along the street both ways, with an air of noticing and approving the freshness of the early summer day. Then, having observed no one whom she knew, she edged into the doorway, and climbed the dusty stairs “Marriage, of course,” said Se–ora Rosa, with the slightest trace of a hiccup. “Marriage! That’s what they all want to know about. Want to know what he looks like Ôs’ if that mattered. Don’t want to know if he’ll beat Ôem, or leave Ôem, or murder Ôem. Jus’ what he looks like so they’ll know where to throw the lash—the lasso.” She took a drink from the glass beside her, and went on: “Same with babies. Not interested to know if they’ll turn out to be gangsters or film shtarsh. Jus” want to know how many. No “riginality. No “magination. Jus” like a lot of sheep ‘cept, of course, they want to ram each.” She hiccupped discreetly again.

Frances started to get up. “I think, perhaps” she began.

“No. Sit down,” the Se–ora told her. Then, while Frances hesitated, she repeated not loudly, but quite firmly: “Sit down!”

Against her inclinations, and rather to the front of the chair, Frances sat down.

She regarded the Se–ora across the small table which held a crystal and a lamp, and knew that she had been a fool to come into the place at all. The Se–ora, with her swarthy skin, glittering dark eyes, and glaringly unnatural red hair, was difficult to visualise in the role of sympathetic counsellor at the best of times: slightly drunk, with the high comb which supported her mantilla listing to the right, an artificial rose sagging down over her left ear, and her heavy eyelids half-lowered against the trickle of her cigarette’s smoke, she became more than displeasing. It was, in fact, absurd not to have turned back at the very first sight of her, but somehow Frances had lacked the resolution then, and not been able to gain it since.

“Fair return. That’s my rule, an” no one’s going to say I break it,” announced the Se–ora. “Fee in advance, an” fair return. Mind you, there’s nothing against a bit more for special satisfaction given, but fair return you shall have.”

She switched on a small, heavily pink-shaded lamp close to the crystal, crossed the room a trifle uncertainly to draw the window curtains, and returned to her chair.

“Cosier,” she explained. “ÔS easier to conshentrate, too.”

She stubbed out her cigarette, drank off most of the remaining contents of her glass, gave her comb a push towards the vertical, and prepared to get to work.

“ÔS on me today,” she observed. “Some days it’s on you; some days it’s not, never can tell till you start. But I can feel it now. Tell you pretty near anything today, I could, wouldn’t, of course; doesn’t do, but could. Something special you’d be wanting to know, beyond husband, babies, an” the usual?”

The low lighting worked quite a change in the Se–ora. It modified the redness of her hair, made the lines of her face more decisive; it glinted fascinatingly on her long brass earrings swinging like bellclappers, and glistened even more brightly in her dark eyes.

“Erno,” said Frances. “As a matter of fact, I think I’ve changed my mind. So if you”

“Nonsense,” the Se–ora told her, shortly. “You’ll only be back in a day or two if you do, and then it might not be on me the way it is today. We’ll start on your future husband.”

“No. I’d really rather not” began Frances.

“Nonsense,” said the Se–ora again. “They all want that. Jus” you keep quiet now. Got to conshentrate.”

She leaned forward, shading the crystal with one hand from the direct light while she gazed into it. Frances watched uncomfortably. For a time nothing happened, except that the earrings swung slowly to a stop. Then: “H’m,” said the Se–ora, with a suddenness that made Frances jump. “Nice looking young fellow, too.”

Frances had a vague feeling that such pronouncements, whatever their worth, were usually made in a more impressive tone and form, but the Se–ora went on: “Nice tie. Dark blue an” old gold, with a thin red stripe in the blue.”

Frances sat quite still. The Se–ora leaned closer to the crystal.

“Couple of inches taller than you, I’d say. “Bout five foot ten. Smooth fair hair. Nice mouth. Good chin. Straight nose. Eyes sort of dark grey with a touch of blue. Got a small, crescent shaped scar over his left eyebrow, an old one. He “Stop UP Frances snapped.

The Se–ora looked up at her for a moment, and then back to the crystal.

“Now, as to children” she went on.

“Stop it, I tell you!” Frances told her again. “I don’t know how you found out about him, but you’re wrong.

Yesterday I’d have believed you, but now you’re quite wrong!” The recollection of putting the ring with its five winking diamonds into its nest of cottonwool, and closing the box on it became unbearably vivid. She was exasperatedly aware of tears starting to well up.

“There’s often jus” a bit of a tiff” began the Se–ora.

“How dare you! It’s not just a tiff, at all. It’s finished. I’m never going to see him again. So you might as well stop this farce now,” Frances said.

The Se–ora stared. “Farce!” she exclaimed, incredulously. “You call my work farce! Why, youI’d have you know”

Frances was angry enough for tears to wait.

“Farce!” she repeated. “Farce, and cheating! I don’t know how you find out about people, but this time it hasn’t worked. Your information’s out of date. You... you you’re just a drunken old cheat, taking advantage of people who are unhappy. That’s what you are.”

She stood up to get herself out of the room before the tears should come.

The Se–ora glared back at her. She snatched across the table, and caught her wrist in a grip like a steel claw.

“Cheat!” she shouted. “Cheat! Why, you... you silly ignorant little ninny! Sit down!”

“Let me go,” Frances told her. “You’re hurting my wrist.”

The Se–ora leaned closer. Her brows were lowered angrily over eyes that glittered more than ever. “Sit down there!” she ordered again.

Frances suddenly found herself more scared than angry. She stood for a moment, trying to outstare the Se–ora; then her eyes dropped. She sat down, partly because the grip on her wrist was urging her, but more from sheer nervousness.

Se–ora Rosa sat down again, too, but she continued to hold Frances” wrist across the table.

“Cheat!” she muttered. “You called me a cheat!”

Frances avoided meeting her gaze.

“Somebody must have told you about me and Edward,” she said, stubbornly.

“That told me,” said the Se–ora, pointing her free hand at the crystal. “That, an” nothing else. Tells me a lot, that does. But you don’t believe it, do you? Think I’m a liar as well as a cheat, don’t you?”