SOCORRO

So my Señora and I watched the next few years go by, the neighbors’ children grow up like colts, and then the war came, the Yanquis clattering down the Calle Real and occupying the citadel. Our troops fought like tigers, but their officers were fools. Anybody could see that. Their idea of glory was exposure and risk, the heroic gesture, the hopeless stand. They got it. The cannier Yanquis saved their bravery for the inconspicuous times when it really counts, and overwhelmed them. So much for heroism.

It doesn’t take long for an occupying garrison to become part of the social fabric. That may seem hard to believe, but life has to go on; people meet at the well or the pump, soldiers have to eat, farmers have to sell their vegetables, whores have a living to make, respectable ladies their position to keep up. When those dashing blue uniforms are gracing the salon of one’s social rival, their wearers dancing with her daughters and paying clumsy heartfelt compliments in tortured Spanish, blushing and tongue-tied, it’s not long before almost every house in town opens its doors.

My Señora enjoyed being popular. Who wouldn’t? There was a Yanqui Major with splendid mustachioes who came out of her bedroom buttoning himself. I was more surprised than shocked. He returned two or three times, but she sent him away after that. I know why. He was only good for five minutes at the most. Then he’d say ‘Gracias’ in an execrable accent and pull his pants back on. I could see her face: don’t thank me, you idiot, you dolt – return the favor! Are you cruel or ignorant? I could have told him: kiss her a little at least, I could have said; where do you think you are, in a whorehouse? I’m almost surprised he didn’t leave money.

Afterwards her face was sadder than ever. My poor Señora. Her virtue traded for a carnal act, a hurried and loveless one. Pobrecita!

So I could hardly blame her for setting her sights on the teniente. Ah, he was different. Shy, to begin with, though his Spanish was already superior to most of them; and not after her for that. He liked talking to her. She took it on herself to correct his mistakes, and he learned very quickly.

Oh, and whenever I happened to pass by he smiled, and gave me a little nod. If I brought wine and lemonade mixed in a pitcher he would say ‘Gracias, Señorita.’ My Señora looked bemused when he did that, taking notice of me as if I were a human being, but she clearly enjoyed what she thought of as his democratic eccentricities, another one being not trying to seduce her, and they became friends.

It was one of those afternoons that he brought his little wooden box of paints over and stood on the balcony upstairs, spilling the light straight out of the sky onto his page. My Señora was busy with some artistic creation of her own, she liked to decorate china plates with piles of fruit or gaudy bouquets of flowers and that sort of thing, so they worked companionably side by side together. I brought little cakes, sweet almond pastries flavored with orange-rind and rosewater; and lemonade. As I passed each time his picture drew my eyes like a magnet. I had never seen anyone do anything like it. When I returned to clear away the plates, hoping there might be at least a broken pastry left over for me to eat before bed-time, my Señora had gone down to the courtyard. I could have fetched whatever it was she wanted, but I suspect she liked to think of herself down there, how she would look viewed from above, the deep cleft between her breasts with a flower tucked casually into it, wandering among the bright pots of blooms, snipping one here and there. She did make a charming picture. Perhaps she hoped he’d paint it.

He didn’t, though. He wet another piece of paper and did the same view over again, the same mountains fading into the distance, only this time with the new rose hues which the setting sun had washed them in. I stared, transfixed. He worked so fast: a dab here, a long line there, and the suggestions of the hills became the hills themselves, leaping right up off the page at you. Then he picked up a sketchbook and pencil, and looked across at me. I was holding the empty jug. His eyes moved up and down rapidly, from me to the paper, and the pencil flew in his hand. He was looking at me, but our eyes didn’t meet. I was looking down and flushing. I wondered if he was drawing the hump on my back.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘Mira. Sus manos.’ He used the polite form of you to me, as if I were a lady. My breath stalled in my throat. He held the book out to me. There on the page were my hands, my hands, with the strong square thumbs and big knuckles, holding the empty pitcher. Just my hands. They looked beautiful, as if the simple act of holding gave them purpose, shape, dignity. Then he smiled at me. ‘Con permiso?’ he said.

‘Si,’ I replied, ‘como no?’

‘Me llamo Luis,’ he said: ‘my name is Lewis. Lewis Armstrong. What’s yours? I want to title the drawing, your hands, the hands of – ’

‘Socorro,’ I said.

‘Socorro,’ he repeated. You’d think I had said something profound. Some gentle thing moved in his eyes: something sad. Not pity. ‘Socorro, eh? What a beautiful thing to name a person. Help. Succour. Socorro.’ He mused out loud, half to me, half to himself. ‘Encantado, Señorita Socorro – I’m enchanted to meet you.’

I said nothing. I didn’t know what to say.

He looked sideways at me, a crease between his eyebrows, the sketchbook still in his outstretched hands: ‘Socorro, what’s wrong?’

‘Con permiso,’ I whispered, and turned, and fled.

 It wasn’t long after that that she made her move. I answered her bell and she was sitting beside him, with her hand on his arm. They were alone together. The electricity from that touch crackled in the room. Her knee pressed against his through layers of organdie and U.S. Army wool. ‘Tell me more about her,’ my Señora was saying as I entered. ‘Ah. Socorro. Some orchate. And a little plate of candy.’ Sweets were her weakness, specially sugared almonds. I knew then that she was going to get something sweeter than anything that ever came out of my kitchen.   I could tell that soon she wouldn’t be able to keep her hands off him.   I wondered how he would cope with that.

I was right. I could have told her. Not so fast, I would have said, look at him: he’s stretched as taut as a guitar string. She drew him into her bedroom and closed the door. I crept outside and waited; counted. In less time than it takes to undress, he cried out.

I heard her comfort him, tell him not to worry, that it was all right.

He stayed all night.

I didn’t stay to listen.

Back in my room I sucked on a sugared almond and asked God why He gave me life.

They were lovers for about a month all told, I suppose. Once he was over the initial shock of it all he was candidly straightforward about the purpose of his visits. In my village people who were having an affair used to hide and sneak off, making sure of not being seen together. No-one was ever fooled. He didn’t do that. She still held her parties, she loved the buzz of conversation; she lived for the moments she was the center of attention. She invited just enough other women to be sure the American officers would come. She didn’t sleep with anyone else at that time, though.

Sometimes she would ask me to change the sheets in the middle of the day. I don’t know how he was able to get away from his post, but he would, for an hour, and then I had it to do all over again, the stale sheets from last night’s visit and now another armful. I took them down to the kitchen and buried my face in the dampness and smelled him.

Once he came up behind me while I was struggling to hang the sheets over the line in the back of the courtyard, next to the cistern. I am not tall; if the Lord had seen fit to make my back straight I would have come up to his chin. Crooked, I hardly reached the third button on his uniform. He took the wet sheet out of my hands – it was dazzling in the noon sunlight and it slapped his face as he stretched it above his head. He laughed. 

‘I make extra work for you, Socorro,’ he said.

‘I don’t mind,’ I said.

‘What can I do, to show my appreciation?’

‘You already have, teniente,’ I said, and drew myself up to my full height. The washing-line was two strands of rope twisted together. We pulled the sheet through in little tugs, a row of white rabbit-ears all along the line. I held the clean edge up off the ground. It went much faster, with two. When it was in place, he fetched the prop and set it upright. The washing billowed in the breeze like sails on one of those ships the padre and I never took.

‘Don’t give me money,’ I said quickly, in case he was thinking of it. ‘Please.’ 

He shook his head.

‘Please,’ I said again.

‘Luis!’ came the Señora’s voice across the courtyard. He touched my arm.

‘Gracias,’ he said. ‘Muchas gracias, Socorro.’ And he carried my empty basket back across the sun-baked red earth, his long strides covering twice the ground each of mine did.

He went upstairs to take leave of her. He was so young and carefree, he used to take the stairs two at a time as often as not. I heard their voices laughing. They were good friends, as well as everything else. She relaxed, in his company: stopped trying to be entertaining and bright, and became herself, with those dancing eyes and sad mouth in the same face. 

The teniente knocked at the doorway of the kitchen, on his way out. I was making tortillas; the sweat ran down my face and stung my eyes. My blouse clung to me, stained also with sweat in the armpits.   ‘Señorita Socorro...?’ he said.

I wiped my hands on my skirt. The maize dough was sticky. He stood awkwardly, his weight on one leg, holding something out to me. ‘Para usted,’ he said. ‘Las manos de Socorro.’

It was the drawing of my hands holding the pitcher. A line of writing looped underneath them. I didn’t tell him I couldn’t read. The hands said it all, anyway. His look was earnest. He didn’t move his eyes from my face until I met his gaze; then he smiled. I took the sheet from him with trembling hands. It was the first gift I had ever received. Cast-offs I have been given, and left-over food, and an unwanted half-drowned kitten, once, when I lived with padre Miguel. All the food I have ever cooked has been for others to sit down to before myself. I cannot remember a time when I did not work, even standing on a stool in the kitchen beside the padre’s housekeeper.

And now, this: and, as if it were not enough already, more than I had ever received in my life, he bowed to me, as if I were the Señora, or someone even grander; and he lifted my hand, and kissed it, right there on the scarred red knuckles.

‘Adios,’ he said.

I don’t remember making the tortillas, after that. Some machine moved my arms and legs, to get the job done. I didn’t eat anything, either. I had the runs all night. I told you, kindness undoes me.