Debes salir, she whispered.
Prométeme.
Sí. Sí. Lo prometo.
When he passed through the salon it was all but empty. The blind pianist who sat in for the string trio at these late hours was at the bench but he was not playing. His young daughter stood beside him. On the piano lay the book which she had been reading to him as he played. John Grady crossed the room and took his last dollar but one and dropped it into the barglass atop the piano. The maestro smiled and bowed slightly. Gracias, he said.
Cómo estás, said John Grady.
The old man smiled again. My young friend, he said. How are you? You are well?
Yes, thank you. And you?
He shrugged. His thin shoulders rose in the dull black stuff of his suit and fell again. I am well, he said. I am well.
Are you done for the night?
No. We go for our supper.
It is very late.
Oh yes. It is late.
The blind man spoke an old-world english, a language from another place and time. He steadied himself and rose and turned woodenly.
Will you join us?
No thank you sir. I need to get on.
And how is your suit advancing?
He wasnt sure what that meant. He turned the words over in his mind. The girl, he said.
The old man bowed his head in affirmation.
I dont know, John Grady said. All right, I think. I hope so.
It is an uncertain business, the old man said. You must persevere. To persevere is everything.
Yessir.
The girl had taken her father’s hat from the piano and stood holding it. She took his hand but he made no motion to leave. He faced the room, empty save for two whores and a drunk at the bar. We are friends, he said.
Yessir, John Grady said. He wasnt sure of whom the old man spoke.
May I speak in confidence?
Yes.
I believe she is favorable. He placed one delicate and yellowed finger to his lips.
Thank you sir. I appreciate that.
Of course. He held out one hand palm up and the girl placed the brim of his hat in his grip and he took it in both hands and turned and placed it on his head and looked up.
Do you think she’s a good person? John Grady said.
Oh my, said the blind man. Oh my.
I think she is.
Oh my, said the blind man.
John Grady smiled. I’ll let you get on to your supper. He nodded to the girl and turned to go.
Her condition, the blind man said. You know her condition?
He turned back. Sir? he said.
Little is known. There is a great deal of superstition. Here they are divided in two camps. Some take a benign view and others do not. You see. But this is my belief. My belief is that she is at best a visitor. At best. She does not belong here. Among us.
Yessir. I know she dont belong here.
No, said the blind man. I do not mean in this house. I mean here. Among us.
He walked back through the streets. Carrying the blind man’s words concerning his prospects as if they were a contract with the world to come. Cold as it was the Juárenses stood in the open doorways and smoked or called to one another. Along the sandy unpaved streets nightvendors trundled their carts or drove their small burros before them. They called out leeen-ya. They called out quero-seeen-a. Plying the darkened streets and calling out like old suitors in search themselves of maids long lost to them.
II
HE WAITED but she didnt come. He stood at the window with the hangings of old lace gathered back in his hand and watched the life in the streets. Anyone who would have looked up to see him there behind the untrue panes of dusty glass could have told his story. The afternoon grew quiet. Across the street a merchant closed and locked the iron shutters of his hardware shop. A taxi stopped in front of the hotel and he leaned with his face against the cold pane but he could not see if anyone got out. He turned and went to the door and opened it and walked out to the head of the stairwell where he could look down into the lobby. No one came. When he went back and stood at the window again the taxi was gone. He sat on the bed. The shadows grew long. After a while it was dark in the room and the green neon of the hotel sign came on outside the window and after a while he rose and took his hat from the top of the bureau and went out. He turned at the door and looked back into the room and then pulled the door shut behind him. If he’d stood longer he’d have passed the criada La Tuerta in the shabby stairwell instead of the lobby as he did, he any lodger, she any old woman with one clouded eye struggling in from the street. He stepped out into the cool evening and she labored up the stairs and knocked at the door and waited and knocked again. A door down the hallway opened and a man looked out. He told her that he had no towels.
HE WAS LYING on his bunk staring up at the roughsawed boards of the ceiling of the bunkroom when Billy came and stood in the doorway. He was slightly drunk. His hat was pushed back on his head. What say, cowboy, he said.