D’Arrast turned around. On all sides pilgrims were waiting, without looking at him, impassive under the water dripping from the trees in thin sheets. He too was waiting in front of the grotto under the same film of water, and he didn’t know for what.
He had been waiting constantly, to tell the truth, for a month since he had arrived in this country. He had been waiting—in the red heat of humid days, under the little stars of night, despite the tasks to be accomplished, the jetties to be built, the roads to be cut through—as if the work he had come to do here were merely a pretext for a surprise or for an encounter he did not even imagine but which had been waiting patiently for him at the end of the world.
He shook himself, walked away without anyone in the little group paying attention to him, and went toward the exit. He had to go back to the river and go to work.
But Socrates was waiting for him at the gate, lost in voluble conversation with a short, fat, strapping man whose skin was yellow rather than black. His head, completely shaved, gave even more sweep to a considerable forehead. On the other hand, his broad, smooth face was adorned with a very black beard, trimmed square.
“He’s champion!” Socrates said by way of introduction. “Tomorrow he’s in the procession.”
The man, wearing a sailor’s outfit of heavy serge, a blue-and-white jersey under the pea jacket, was examining D’Arrast attentively with his calm black eyes. At the same time he was smiling, showing all his very white teeth between his full, shiny lips.
“He speaks Spanish,” Socrates said and, turning toward the stranger, added: “Tell Mr. D’Arrast.” Then he danced off toward another group. The man ceased to smile and looked at D’Arrast with outright curiosity.
“You are interested, Captain?”
“I’m not a captain,” D’Arrast said.
“That doesn’t matter. But you’re a noble. Socrates told me.”
“Not I. But my grandfather was. His father too and all those before his father. Now there is no more nobility in our country.”
“Ah!” the Negro said, laughing. “I understand; everybody is a noble.”
“No, that’s not it. There are neither noblemen nor common people.”
The fellow reflected; then he made up his mind.
“No one works? No one suffers?”
“Yes, millions of men.”
“Then that’s the common people.”
“In that way, yes, there is a common people. But the masters are policemen or merchants.”
The mulatto’s kindly face closed in a frown. Then he grumbled: “Humph! Buying and selling, eh! What filth! And with the police, dogs command.”
Suddenly, he burst out laughing.
“You, you don’t sell?”
“Hardly at all. I make bridges, roads.”
“That’s good. Me, I’m a ship’s cook. If you wish, I’ll make you our dish of black beans.”
“All right.”
The cook came closer to D’Arrast and took his arm.
“Listen, I like what you tell. I’m going to tell you too. Maybe you will like.”
He drew him over near the gate to a damp wooden bench beneath a clump of bamboos.
“I was at sea, off Iguape, on a small coastwise tanker that supplies the harbors along here. It caught fire on board. Not by my fault! I know my job! No, just bad luck. We were able to launch the lifeboats. During the night, the sea got rough; it capsized the boat and I went down.
When I came up, I hit the boat with my head. I drifted. The night was dark, the waters are vast, and, besides, I don’t swim well; I was afraid. Just then I saw a light in the distance and recognized the church of the good Jesus in Iguape. So I told the good Jesus that at his procession I would carry a hundred-pound stone on my head if he saved me. You don’t have to believe me, but the waters became calm and my heart too. I swam slowly, I was happy, and I reached the shore. Tomorrow I’ll keep my promise.”
He looked at D’Arrast in a suddenly suspicious manner.
“You’re not laughing?”
“No, I’m not laughing. A man has to do what he has promised.”
The fellow clapped him on the back.
“Now, come to my brother’s, near the river. I’ll cook you some beans.”
“No,” D’Arrast said, “I have things to do. This evening, if you wish.”
“Good. But tonight there’s dancing and praying in the big hut. It’s the feast for Saint George.” D’Arrast asked him if he danced too. The cook’s face hardened suddenly; for the first time his eyes became shifty.
“No, no, I won’t dance. Tomorrow I must carry the stone. It is heavy. I’ll go this evening to celebrate the saint. And then I’ll leave early.”
“Does it last long?”
“All night and a little into the morning.”
He looked at D’Arrast with a vaguely shameful look.
“Come to the dance. You can take me home afterward. Otherwise, I’ll stay and dance. I probably won’t be able to keep from it.”
“You like to dance?”
“Oh, yes! I like. Besides, there are cigars, saints, women. You forget everything and you don’t obey any more.”
“There are women too? All the women of the town?”
“Not of the town, but of the huts.”
The ship’s cook resumed his smile. “Come. The Captain I’ll obey. And you will help me keep my promise tomorrow.”
D’Arrast felt slightly annoyed. What did that absurd promise mean to him? But he looked at the handsome frank face smiling trustingly at him, its dark skin gleaming with health and vitality.
“I’ll come,” he said. “Now I’ll walk along with you a little.”
Without knowing why, he had a vision at the same time of the black girl offering him the drink of welcome.
They went out of the garden, walked along several muddy streets, and reached the bumpy square, which looked even larger because of the low structures surrounding it. The humidity was now dripping down the plastered walls, although the rain had not increased. Through the spongy expanse of the sky, the sound of the river and of the trees reached them somewhat muted. They were walking in step, D’Arrast heavily and the cook with elastic tread.
From time to time the latter would raise his head and smile at his companion. They went in the direction of the church, which could be seen above the houses, reached the end of the square, walked along other muddy streets now filled with aggressive smells of cooking. From time to time a woman, holding a plate or kitchen utensil, would peer out inquisitively from one of the doors and then disappear at once. They passed in front of the church, plunged into an old section of similar low houses, and suddenly came out on the sound of the invisible river behind the area of the huts that D’Arrast recognized.
“Good. I’ll leave you. See you this evening,” he said.
“Yes, in front of the church.”
But the cook did not let go of D’Arrast’s hand. He hesitated. Finally he made up his mind.
“And you, have you never called out, made a promise?”
“Yes, once, I believe.”
“In a shipwreck?”
“If you wish.” And D’Arrast pulled his hand away roughly. But as he was about to turn on his heels, he met the cook’s eyes. He hesitated, and then smiled.
“I can tell you, although it was unimportant. Someone was about to die through my fault. It seems to me that I called out.”
“Did you promise?”
“No. I should have liked to promise.”
“Long ago?”
“Not long before coming here.”
The cook seized his beard with both hands. His eyes were shining.
“You are a captain,” he said. “My house is yours. Besides, you are going to help me keep my promise, and it’s as if you had made it yourself. That will help you too.”
D’Arrast smiled, saying: “I don’t think so.”
“You are proud, Captain.”
“I used to be proud; now I’m alone. But just tell me: has your good Jesus always answered you?”
“Always . . . no, Captain!”
“Well, then?”
The cook burst out with a gay, childlike laugh.
“Well,” he said, “he’s free, isn’t he?”
At the club, where D’Arrast lunched with the leading citizens, the Mayor told him he must sign the town’s guest-book so that some trace would remain of the great event of his coming to Iguape. The Judge found two or three new expressions to praise, besides their guest’s virtues and talents, the simplicity with which he represented among them the great country to which he had the honor to belong. D’Arrast simply said that it was indeed an honor to him and an advantage to his firm to have been awarded the allocation of this long construction job.
Whereupon the Judge expressed his admiration for such humility. “By the way,” he asked, “have you thought of what should be done to the Chief of Police?” D’Arrast smiled at him and said: “Yes, I have a solution.” He would consider it a personal favor and an exceptional grace if the foolish man could be forgiven in his name so that his stay here in Iguape, where he so much enjoyed knowing the beautiful town and generous inhabitants, could begin in a climate of peace and friendship. The Judge, attentive and smiling, nodded his head.
For a moment he meditated on the wording as an expert, then called on those present to applaud the magnanimous traditions of the great French nation and, turning again toward D’Arrast, declared himself satisfied. “Since that’s the way it is,” he concluded, “we shall dine this evening with the Chief.” But D’Arrast said that he was invited by friends to the ceremony of the dances in the huts. “Ah, yes!” said the Judge. “I am glad you are going. You’ll see, one can’t resist loving our people.”
That evening,
