Vagabond life in Mexico/The Public Scribe

by Gabriel Ferry

 

CHAPTER I.

The Public Scribe.—Pepito Rechifla.—The China.—The Callejon del Arco.

At the commencement of the year 1835 I happened to be in Mexico, engaged in the prosecution of a troublesome piece of business. This concerned the somewhat problematical recovery of a very considerable sum of money due me by an individual of whom I could not find the slightest trace. The business demanded the most energetic measures, and I addressed myself, in consequence, to several lawyers, well known for their success in dealing with such difficult cases. They all at first promised their assistance, but when I mentioned my debtor's name (he was called Don Dionisio Peralta), one and all of them excused themselves from having any share in the business. One said he could never pardon himself if he gave the slightest cause of uneasiness to so gallant a man as Señor Peralta; a second, that he was attached to him by a compadrazgo^[1] of long standing; a third suddenly remembered that he had been a bosom friend of his in his youth. A fourth, more communicative than the others, enlightened me as to the cause of such friendly scruples; these gentlemen had the fear of a dagger before their eyes, a mode of procedure of which Señor Peralta had availed himself more than once, to shake himself free of creditors who had been too pressing. "I don't know," he added, "a single person who will undertake your business, if the licentiate Don Tadeo Cristobal refuse: he has a heart of rock and a hand of iron; he is the man for you." I ran immediately to the Calle de los Batanes, where I was told he lived; but another check awaited me there. Don Tadeo had quitted that place, and no one could tell me his present abode. Wearied and dejected in the evening, after a whole day spent in running up and down to no purpose, I was walking listlessly to and fro in the Merchants' Arcades (Portales de los Mercadores), which stands on the grand square of Mexico. Despairing of success, I resolved to ask for some information about Don Tadeo from some of the numerous public writers, whose stalls under the gallery are so many public intelligence offices; but, once there, I completely forgot the motive which had brought me into this kind of bazar, the daily resort of all the idlers of Mexico, and my attention was completely distracted by the animated picture which was unrolled before my eyes. The spectator will be less astonished at this if he figure to himself the almost magical appearance the Plaza Mayor presents an hour before sunset. The Portales de los Mercadores occupy, in fact, almost one complete side of this immense square. The Cathedral, the Ayuntamiento, and the President's palace form, as the reader already knows, the other three sides. The most beautiful streets in Mexico debouch between those buildings; there is the street Primeria Monterilla, crowded with elegant shops; another, called los Plateros (the street of the goldsmiths), whose shops are almost exclusively occupied by jewelers or lapidaries, while the petty Mexican merchant seems to have chosen, for the display of European commodities, the dark arcades of the los Mercadores. At the time of my stay in Mexico, French innovation had not yet ventured to alter the picturesque appearance of these arcades, which, in their general aspect, bore a remarkable resemblance to the Piliers des Halles in Paris. The heavy arches are supported on one side by vast warehouses, on the other by pillars, at the foot of which are ranged shops (alacenas) well stocked with religious books, rosaries, daggers, and spurs. Close by these shops, as if to represent all the grades of trafficking, léperos, in rags, hawk about articles of glassware, and, sticking one of them on the tip of their finger, they search for customers with great eagerness. Every now and then the venders of wild duck ragouts, or tamales,^[2] seated in the shade of the arches, strike in, amid the din of the crowd, with their well-known cry,^[3] Aqui hay poto grande, mi alma; Señorito venga sted, or that as popular but shorter call, Tamales^[4] queretanos. The passers-by and purchasers are as worthy of observation as the sellers. The ever-varying color of gowns and tapalos,^[5] the gold of the mangas, and the motley color of the serapes, form, under the dim, hazy light which prevail in the pilastera, a brilliant mixture of different colors, which reminds one strongly of the most fantastical Venetian masquerades. In the evening, when the stalls and shops are closed, the Merchants' Arcades become a kind of political club. Seated on the threshold of the gates, or striding along in this kind of cloister, officers and townsmen talk about revolutions that have been effected, or are to be effected, till the time when the almost deserted galleries serve only as a retreat for lovers, and their low whispers is all that is heard beneath the silent arcades.

I had now sauntered for a long time in the Merchants' Arcades, when the sight of a writer's stall reminded me of my business there. Among the working population of the Portales, the public writers form a considerable portion of the community. You must remember that in Mexico primary instruction is not at all general, and that the office of a public writer, among this illiterate population, has lost nothing of its primitive importance. The tractable pen of the evangelists (that is the name they bear) is required for a thousand commissions, more or less delicate, and often of the most equivocal character from the venal love-letter down to the note sent by a bravo to lure his intended victim to some secret ambuscade. The evangelist whom I had remarked among the rest of his tribe was a little squat fellow, his head almost bald, scarcely encircled with a few gray hairs. What principally drew my attention to this man was an expression of sardonic joviality which shone in his otherwise insignificant face. I was just about to make some inquiries of him about Don Tadeo, when an incident made me suddenly pause, and continue to look on in silence. A young girl came to the stall of the evangelist. The long wavy hair, which escaped in plaits from her open rebozo, her complexion of a slight umber tint, the brown shoulders that her chemise of fine linen, fringed with lace, left almost bare, her slender figure, which had never been deformed by stays, and, above all, the three short petticoats of different colors, which fell in straight folds over her pliant haunches, all pointed out the young woman as a genuine specimen of the China.^[6]

"Tio Luquillas," said the maiden.

"What is it?" replied the evangelist.

"I need your assistance."

"I don't doubt that, since you come to me," replied Tio; and, fancying he had divined the message she was going to send, he began complaisantly to fold a sheet of rose-tinted vellum paper, highly glazed, and embossed with cupids. But she made a gesture of impatience with her little brown hand.

"What," said she, "would a man, who is almost breathing his last, care for your rose-tinted billetdoux?"

"The devil!" said the scribe, in a passionless tone, while the girl wiped her streaming eyes with one of her long plaits: "is it a farewell epistle, then?"

A sob was the only reply; then, stooping to the scribe's ear, she forced herself to dictate a short letter, not without frequent pauses to take breath and to wipe away her tears. The contrast between the unsusceptible old man and the passionate girl appeared to me most striking. I was not the only observer; every one who passed the booth of Tio Luquillas could not help casting a glance of pity, not unmingled with curiosity, upon the young China. The evangelist was about to fold the letter, but had not yet written the address, when a passer-by, bolder and more curious than the rest, came unceremoniously to have some conversation with the old man. The new-comer's features were not unknown to me, and I remembered that he had, when standing next me at a bull-fight a few days before, dilated, in the most attractive manner, on a sport which I passionately loved. The time did not seem to me suitable for making any inquiry of the evangelist, and I thought it best not to approach the three. I consequently remained a few paces from the booth, waiting patiently till the visitor would take his departure. The man, with whom an hour or two's chat had made me acquainted, had inspired me with a certain degree of interest. He was about forty years of age. His features were marked with a certain kind of nobility, in spite of a sarcastic expression which he sometimes threw into them. Although I might have forgotten we had ever met, the odd costume in which he was habited stamped him on my recollection. At the bull-fight he wore a wide-flowing blue cloak, lined with red, and on his head an enormous sombrero of yellow vicuna cloth, trimmed with-gold lace.

"For whom is the letter, my dear?" he asked of the China, somewhat authoritatively.

The girl pointed to the prison of the presidential palace, and muttered a name which I did not catch.

"Ah! for Pepito?" said the unknown, aloud.

"Alas! yes; and I don't know how to get it conveyed to him," replied the girl.

"Well, never despair. Here's an opportunity that Heaven sends you."

At this moment the people hastily left the galleries, and scattered themselves hastily upon the Plaza Mayor. What motive had they for leaving? The commission of a deed but too common in Mexico; an assassination had been perpetrated on the public street. They had seized the murderer, raised the victim, and the melancholy cortege was on its way to the nearest prison. This place of confinement happened to be precisely that in which the lover of the young girl was imprisoned, and I could easily comprehend the tenor of the words of hope which my new acquaintance had addressed to the China.

The procession, which was now making its way across the square, had partly a comical, partly a mournful appearance, with an originality in its arrangement truly Mexican. A cargardor (porter) marched in front, bearing on his shoulders, by means of a leathern belt passed round his forehead (as all Mexican porters do), a chair, upon which was strapped a man, or rather a corpse, wrapped in a bloody sheet. The assassin, guarded by four soldiers, followed closely behind. Some gaping idlers, and a few friends of the dead man, who seemed to be making a sorry attempt to appear sad, closed the procession. Of all the individuals of which that crowd was composed, the man most at his ease was the criminal himself, who, with a cigar in his mouth, marched along with perfect coolness, addressing himself every now and then to the bloody corpse, which, to his great surprise, uttered not a word in reply. "Come, now," said he, "none of your waggish tricks, Panchito; you know quite well that I can't make your wife any allowance. You are shamming death well; but I am not to be done in that style." But Panchito was quite dead, let the assassin say what he might, and I could feel a cold shudder creep over me when the hideous corpse was borne close past me. Its eyes (for the sheet did not cover the face), with a stony glitter, stared at the sun with immovable fixity. The bull-fight amateur, who was doubtless more accustomed to such sights, walked right up to the procession, stopped it, and holding the letter of the China out to the murderer, "Pay attention!" said he. "Have you not some acquaintance with the illustrious Pepito Rechifla—he who is to be garroted to-morrow?"

"Of course; I am a chum of his."

"Well, as you will, in all probability, not be executed before him, you will see him just now in the prison. Give him this letter from me."

"Ah! Señor Cavalier," said the Mexican girl, suddenly, who, with face bathed in tears, and a palpitating bosom, made her way through the crowd, threw herself at the murderer's feet, and seizing the corner of his cloak, after the ancient fashion, said, "By the blood of Christ, and the merits of the Virgin in her seven sorrows, do not forget to give him this letter, which contains my last farewell! I am so unhappy at not being able to see him!"

"Yes, Linda mia, I will," replied the murderer, carrying his hand to his eyes, and trying to give his voice a pathetic tone. "I have as feeling a heart as you; and had not this d—d Panchito been always thwarting me, I should not have been here, I swear; but keep up your spirits, preciosita de mi alma."

A piece of money which the sporting character threw to the prisoner cut short his eloquent speech; the soldiers surrounded him, and they resumed their march to the prison. The procession soon disappeared round a corner of the Ayuntamiento, while some women, with a delicacy peculiar to Mexican females, surrounded the young China, but were unable to persuade her to go home. In a short time, in spite of all their entreaties, I saw her walk to the prison, seat herself at the foot of its dark wall, and, veiling her face with her rebozo, remain there immovable. My friend of the bull-fights was lost in the crowd, and I had now a fitting opportunity for consulting the evangelist. I stepped up to the old man, and tapped him gently on the shoulder.

"Can you tell me," said I, "where the licentiate Don Tadeo Cristobal lives?"

"Don Tadeo Cristobal, do you say? He was here a minute ago."

"Was Don Tadeo here?"

"Did you not see how obligingly he caused a message to be delivered to the bandit Pepito Rechifla, that one of the prettiest Chinas in Mexico dictated to me?"

"What! was that man in the sombrero and red cloak Don Tadeo the licentiate?"

"It was."

"And where shall I find him now?"

"I do not know; for, to say the truth, he has no settled abode, but lives a little every where. If, however, you wish to consult him on urgent business, go this very evening, between the hours of nine and twelve o'clock, to the Callejon del Arco (blind alley of the arcade); you are sure to find him in the last house on the right as you pass the square."

I thanked the scribe, and, after giving him a few reals for his trouble, directed my steps to the Callejon del Arco. Although it was scarcely seven o'clock in the evening, I went to try to find out, before nightfall, the house which I intended to visit two hours afterward. Experience had taught me that such precautions were not useless in Mexico; besides, the Callejon del Arco had long been notorious as one of the most dangerous places in the Mexican capital.

The appearance of the alley justified but too well the reputation which it had acquired. The dense mass of houses, of which the Merchants' Arcades form a part, known by the name of the Impedradillo, does not form one compact cuadra. On the southwest side of the Cathedral, a narrow lane runs into the Impedradillo; this is the Callejon del Arco. It is like one of those caverns which the sea sometimes hollows out in the face of a cliff. When still blinded by the over powering rays of the sun with which the square is flooded, and which beat in all their intensity on the white walls and granite pavement, the eye, at first dazzled by the glare, sees only after a few moments another street cutting this one at right angles, and forming with it a dark cross-road. There, as in the caverns by the sea-shore, you cannot hear the noise without, except it be a dull, mournful hum, which resembles as much the wail of the wind-tossed waves as the tumult of a populous city. A few rope-spinners' shops, their massive doors fast closed, and here and there a few dark passages, are the only signs which remind you that you are in a city, and in the midst of inhabited houses. Water is constantly oozing out of the walls; a perpetual moisture reigns everywhere; and scarcely, even at midday, at the time of the summer solstice, does a sunbeam visit this dismal den. A little new life then begins to stir, till the sun has advanced into the winter solstice, when it relapses into its former gloom and silence.

It was there, then, in one of these sinister-looking houses, that I was to meet a man able to settle a piece of business for me from which all the other lawyers in Mexico had recoiled. I stopped some moments to gaze with wonder and amazement upon the situation chosen for the office of the lawyer; but had not the episode, which I had witnessed a short time before, already prepared me for the eccentricities of Don Tadeo? How could I explain the easy, familiar tone which he had employed with the wretch to whom he was consigning the message to Pepito Rechifla? How the relations which appeared to exist between the bandit and the licentiate? The strange intimacy of a lawyer with thieves and assassins seemed, at first sight, not at all to be expected. The hope, however, of obtaining a solution of this seeming enigma decided me, and I left the Callejon del Arco with the intention of visiting it again two hours afterward.

 

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1. Lit., a compaternity
2. A kind of meat pudding, strongly seasoned with pimenta.
3. Here's your fine duck, my jewel; come, buy, my young master.
4. Tamales, made in Queretaro, a town about forty leagues from Mexico.
5. A shawl, which is sometimes used as a head-dress.
6. A China is, in Mexico, what the manola is in Madrid, and the grisette in Paris.