— Listen…
— The fourth. .
— Listen. .
— And when the fifth monkey gets up there, there's no place for him to sit down, so…
— You're picking up the language? Where.
— Marga taught me all I know. That's love. Or say, I'm encoñado.
— What's that encoñado?
— That's a local invocation to call men into bed.
— Where do you think you're going now?
— I'll go to sleep if I can. If I can't I'll go down and dance with the gypsies.
— You keep away from them down there. Tomorrow. .
— Good night.
— Tomorrow. .
But Mr. Yak was restless. It was barely eleven at night, and a good deal of noise came to him from Alphonso del Gato below. He went out alone for coffee.
The streets were thronged with people very different from those of early morning, the girls and old women in black, the line before the charcoal seller's. But the cries were the same, — Cien iguales me quedan!. . Cien iguales para hoy!. . The sound of English in the street was startling, a blond boy on the arm of a man, — But I'm not even sure where Spain is… A tall woman passed, speaking to her husband, — I've gotten used to poverty by now. — You mean other people's? — Yes, it doesn't bother me at all like it did, remember when we got here yesterday and I was giving money out everywhere?. .
Mr. Yak found he had walked in a large circle, and returned to the Villa Rosa. He entered its Moorish interior, ordered coffee, looked sharply away from two girls, and was raising his cup when he heard something familiar from a room down the back hall. It was La Tani.
He found Stephan presiding at a juerga. There were bottles of wine on the table, three people were eating, a man was tuning a guitar, and the girl on Stephan's knee smiled uncertainly at Mr.
Yak. Now, if Marga had put him off, Pastora stopped him dead. Her coarse black hair stood out round her dark face. And her large and dark eyes were gravely excited. They shone with a strained surprise, reflected in the face so close there, and she turned them up with something fierce and proud in them. Her teeth were large, her nose slightly flattened, and her shaded upper lip was curled in what, on another face, might have been a pout, but here lay tinged with ferocity, suggesting the savage gifts her voice assured, and her quick simple movements confirmed. Her faded cerise blouse had pulled out of the skirt whose zipper was apparently broken, as was one of the straps on her high-heeled sandal, and she could not have been more than nineteen. From the hostility of the smile with which she greeted Mr. Yak's intrusion, her acquaintance with the man whose neck she got an arm round now was apparently not too recent.
— How long have you had this one? Mr. Yak demanded, sitting down. She watched him mistrustfully, understanding nothing but the tone in his voice, and sulked miserably when she was put down. — I see you still got your diamond ring, anyway, Mr. Yak said.
— Es un amigo tuyo? Pastora brought out, her voice harsh, uncertain.
— Tell her, she wants to know if I'm a friend of yours, Mr. Yak challenged. — Come on, what are you grinning about, you that drunk already?
— Krishna seduced sixteen thousand maidens.
— Listen, tomorrow. .
— You'll believe me if I tell you. . Krishna was the sun, and they. . they were dewdrops.
— Tomorrow we've got work, do you hear me? You don't want to do this, you don't want to let yourself go to hell like this, do you hear me?
— No, he whispered, leaning abruptly over before Mr. Yak's face, — It's just the other way, he whispered, looking up craftily at Mr. Yak's eyes. — Have you ever heard of the… I am. . encoñado, and she. . she's acara. . acarajotada, un. . understand? Known in vulgar English as… as being in love, understand?
— I'm not going to stand by and see a tramp like this. .
— They let the path stay dirty, you. . you see? To fool people, to fool reasonable people, like you. But I… I… His head swayed, and he blinked his eyes in Mr. Yak's face. — See? he managed to add. Pastora got up suddenly, and stood beside him. The guitar broke a chord at the other end of the table. Someone there commenced to clap. Pastora put a hand on his opposite shoulder, nearest Mr. Yak, all the time watching Mr. Yak with animal alertness, even as he stood and reached to dislodge her hand and help his friend away.
— Déjame! she snarled across the sunken shoulders, and then in her hoarse whisper, — Déjale!. . sounding that j with the guttural intensity of the Arabs'S.
— Hoy los nobios se van a casar. . someone at the end of the table began singing. Mr. Y;'tk withdrew his hand slowly, and lowered his eyes to the figure slumped at the head of the table, where he stared for a moment while Pastora watched him and did not move. Then he looked sharply up at her. — Ten cuidado, he said, warning her, and before she could answer he turned away and was gone, past the diners, the guitar, the bottles, the heels, the singer's — No sale la cuenta porque falta un churumbel.
Pastora, at every instant with him as near to joy as to woe, waiting to be told, for joy to burst over her at the slightest assurance, despair at the first slight, tears of helpless anger at indifference, recovering in surly contempt, but still waiting to be told, — Me quieres? She with nothing of her own, not even her words but in question, until forced to cry out at last, — Yo te quiero y tu no me quieres.
They kept on there until the wine was gone. Then she lit one of the harsh yellow cigarettes and put it to his lips. — Vámonos. . Esteban! Vámonos?. .
At night, — Vida!. . Cielo!… no termína… mi vida! And still in the dark, and in fun so she means it to sound, — Vamos hacer un niño!. . gone unanswered, Pastora listening in the dark, no answer but the sound of the bed and she goes limp through her thin body under the steady silent weight, or a hand at the brown nipple of her small breast, and flings up her arms to pull the weight closer, her head back, sobbing, sobs shaking her occupied body and that part so full, still unfulfilled, forgotten for this anguish, her face wet, turned away from the silent lips she has drawn down to her, waiting, to cry out at last, — Me quieres?. . Dime lo, aunque no es ver-darl!. .
Pastora woke alone in the damp bed, the sheets twisted, to call, — Esteban?. . and hear nothing but her own breath in the dark. She got up naked and opened the inside shutters, and daylight separated the louvers of the outside. A blanket and her skirt lay on the dirty worn tiles of the ground floor. She put on her slip, her skirt, her shoes, shook the pitcher, found it empty, called loudly for water, and when it was brought she poured some in the basin, rinsed her face, wet her hair, and combed its coarse strands down with a comb from her purse. On the table by the bed, as she put on her blouse, she found an empty Ideal packet, and another one-hundred peseta note.
Mr. Yak was out of bed and dressed before his morning coffee was brought. He did not wait for it in fact, but locked his room, tapped at the door down the hall, opened it and found the room empty, and interrupted a girl on a trip with two chamber pots down the chill front passage. She opened the front door for him, smiling, — Vaya Usted con Diós. . and he went out, down the stairs and into the street, his hair square on his head and his mustache set stiff with purpose.
He passed the blind boy with the lottery tickets pinned to his coat, the line of women in black, before the charcoal-seller's, children carried by bundled like Eskimos, men in bedroom slippers, cloth hemp-soled shoes, berets, mufflers drawn over the chin, capes out of Goya across half the face. The sound of English in the streets was startling: the same tall woman passed, pointing to a tattered old man before her, — Now there, I want some sandals like those, see them? — Those aren't sandals, mumbled her husband beside her, — those are his feet.