Mayflower (Flor de mayo): A Tale of the Valencian Seashore

There were no spies around. The Rector sat down again at his brother's side.

His wife had put the idea into his head. He had thought it over carefully, and come to the conclusion it was a good one. A trip "across the way," as people remembered his father used to say, over to the costa d'afora, to Algiers! No fishing, you understand. Fish aren't always around when you need them most. No, not that! But a cargo of contraband, the boat crammed to the decks with alguilla and flor de mayo, God of Gods! There, rediel, was business for you! And that was what the old man had done a thousand times. Well, what did Tonet say?

The honest Rector, who would never have dreamed of breaking a town ordinance or a harbor rule, laughed like a saint in heaven at the thought of that haul of tobacco which for days and days had been dancing before his eyes, till now he could actually see the fragrant bundles standing there wrapped in burlap on the sand. He was a son of the Spanish coast, proud of the deeds of his ancestors. In his eyes smuggling was the one thing a self-respecting sailor could take up when he got tired of fishing.

Tonet thought it was a bright idea. He had made two trips like that, though as ordinary seaman. Now that business was dull on the wharves, and tio Mariano hadn't gotten him that job in the coast and harbor survey he had wanted so, there was no reason why he shouldn't go along with his brother.

The Rector rounded out the plan. The most important thing he had already – his own boat, la Garbosa. Tonet gasped with surprise, so the Rector enlarged further on that detail. Of course he realized the tub was broken amidships, the ribs strained, the deck warped and sagging in the middle – squeaking like an old guitar every time a sea went under her, ready for breaking up, about. But they hadn't fooled him, they hadn't fooled him! Thirty duros, he had paid, not a cent more. And the firewood in her was worth that much. But she would keep afloat under men who knew the taste of salt water. For his part, he could negotiate that pond in a shoe with the tap gone! Besides, you see, – and he gave a knowing wink – if the revenue people caught them and confiscated the boat – well, thirty duros! And that clinched the argument for the wily Rector. Not a thought of the chance he was taking with his life in such a sieve!

The crew?.. Himself, his brother, and two men he knew and could trust. That was all there was to that. Now all he needed to do was have a talk with tio Mariano, who was on the inside track down in Algiers, as an old hand at the business. And like a man who has his mind made up and is afraid he'll change it if he waits too long, he thought he would go at once to see that influential personage whom they both could be mighty proud to call their uncle. They would probably find him – it was around noon you see – up at the Carabina, where he usually went to sit a while and smoke.

And the two brothers started off in that direction. On walking past the ox-barn they glanced casually at the tavern-boat, blacker and more ramshackle every day. Adiós, mare! They had caught sight of their mother's glossy wrinkly face peering over the counter in front of the opening into the wine store, her head swathed as usual in a white kerchief like a coif. Some dirty underfed sheep were browsing the marsh grass near the first houses of the village. From the pools of fresh water behind the dunes frogs were croaking in monotone, their garumps faintly blending with the murmuring of the surf. Wine-colored nets, the warps festooned with cork toggles, were spread out on the sand, and among them some young roosters were pecking about or grooming their shiny feathers, all agleam with a metallic rainbow luster. Along the drain from the Gas House a number of women on hands and knees were scrubbing clothes or washing dishes in a pestilential water that stained the stones on its edges black. Here was the frame of a new boat about which some carpenters were pounding, and from a distance the skeleton of unpainted timber looked like the remains of some prehistoric saurian. Across the drain, some rope-walkers, hanks of hemp about their waists, were backing away from the lathe, letting the yellow strands revolve between their deft fingers. And then the Cabañal, so called from the miserable cabins there which sheltered the very poorest of all those toilers of the sea! The streets were as straight and regular as the buildings were capricious, of every shape and size. The red-brick sidewalks went joyously up and down at different levels according to the height of the door sills on the huts. The roads were sloughs of mud, with deep ruts, and puddles from rain that had fallen weeks before. Two rows of dwarf olive trees brushed the heads of passersby with their dusty branches, and ropes were stretched from trunk to trunk to serve as clothes-lines for the wash of the water-front, which was waving like a regalia of banners in the fresh sea-breeze.

Cabins alternated with tenements of several stories. Those incorrigible tars could not forget the water-line even when they were ashore, for all the buildings were finished off with spar-varnish, and painted in two colors, like boats. Many a front door had a figure-head carved in wood, as though that portal were the bow-sprit of the sailor's habitation, which, in all its details of architecture, of color and line, called up memories of life at sea. The village looked like a collection of grounded craft. In front of some of the cabins stout masts with pulleys had been set up, and the pulley and mast meant that there lived a skipper of a pair of bòu-boats. At the top of the staffs, the most complicated tackle was out drying, waving in the wind like the majestic emblem of a consul. The Rector eyed those poles in envy unconcealed. When would that Christ up at the Grao answer his prayer so that he could plant a mast like that in front of his door in honor of Dolores?

Now the drain had come to an end. They were well into the village, in the section where people from Valencia had their summer cottages. The houses here were low studded, with bulging gratings, painted green, over the windows. Everything was closed and silent. Footsteps echoed back across the broad sidewalks as in an abandoned town. Tufted plane trees were languishing in the solitude, pining for the gay nights of summer when there was laughing everywhere, people running about, and a piano banging in every cottage. Now scarcely any one was in sight. An occasional villager went by, in his pointed cap, with his hands in his pockets, and his pipe in his mouth, sauntering lazily toward this tavern or that; for the cafés were the only places where anything was going on.

The Carabina, for instance, was crowded. Under the awning in front were any number of blue coats, black silk caps, and weather-beaten countenances. Dominoes were rattling on the tables, and though everything was open to the air, the strong smell of gin and tobacco struck you in the face.

Tonet had pleasant memories of the place – the scene of his triumphs in generosity in the first months of his marriage to Rosario.

At one of the stands sat tio Mariano, pulling at his pipe and waiting, probably, for the sheriff, or some other town notable, to enjoy the usual afternoon chat. He was listening in disdainful condescension to tio Gori, an old ship-carpenter from down the beach, who had been going to that café every afternoon for twenty years, to read the newspaper aloud, advertisements and all, to a greater or smaller number of sailors, according to the chance offshore; and the men would sit there silent and attentive till nightfall.

"So then, if you are ready, gentlemen … Siñor Segasta has something to say to us to-day…"

But tio Gori held up his reading to observe to the man next to him:

"That Segasta is a humbug, you know!"

And with that comprehensive annotation, he adjusted his spectacles, and the Premier's speech in the Cortes began to unwind, syllable by syllable, from under the carpenter's white tobacco-stained mustache:

"Gen-tle-men-of-the-Cham-ber! In-re-ply-to-what-the-Hon-o-ra-ble-De-pu-ty-said-yes-ter-day…"

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