The Cotton-Pickers by B. TRAVEN

Author:B. TRAVEN [TRAVEN, B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Traven, IWW, cotton, Mexico
Published: 2012-04-21T13:31:39+00:00

13

Two police officials in green-braided uniforms called on Señor Doux and handed him the closing order. It came as a terrible shock to him, and he shouted to his wife: “Now, you see, we’ve got a proper Bolshevik government. They’ve played a nice trick on me.”

“What’s the matter?” she called as she came waddling up to him.

“They’ve closed us down.”

“I always told you we shouldn’t have come here. This country is stark, raving mad. There’s no law and order here. You can go on paying your taxes, and paying them on the dot, but you never get a say in anything.”

“You must close at once,” said the official who had handed Doux the order, “or there will be a fine of over a hundred pesos.”

“But surely my guests may finish their drinks?”

The official consulted his watch and said: “Half an hour, and then you must close. An officer will be posted here to see that no more customers are admitted. And you must pay the officer.”

“I pay him?”

“You don’t imagine that we’ll pay him, do you? We have no funds available just to ensure that you obey the order.”

The two officials went out, posted themselves at the entrance, and waited for the half hour of grace. When it was up, they shouted inside. Doux, furious with rage, shut the doors. Only the corridor entrance to the hotel remained open, for the hotel hadn’t disturbed the peace.

Peace, however, didn’t descend upon the café. On the contrary. Things became even livelier, for the Douxs themselves came to blows.

The Señora was consumed with fury; every centavo lost to the business ate into her heart. She waddled about in her slippers among the empty tables and made her husband’s life a hell. She wore only a sleeveless negligee gathered loosely about her, the fat, flabby flesh of her bosom exposed, and bright yellow silk stockings over her bulging calves. Only her youth kept these overflowing masses looking somewhat more seductive than repulsive. Another five years and the seductiveness would certainly have vanished, leaving repulsiveness triumphant. The whole length of her arms protruded from the negligee, arms which might have passed for a wrestler’s except that they were as flabby as the rest of her body. At the back of her neck there was a bulge of flesh that, for the present, protruded only shyly; but in a few years’ time it would be a real landmark.

She always wandered about the place like this. Anywhere else she would have been taken for a brothel madame with whom it did not do to trifle. Occasionally she changed her negligee; she had a gray one, a pink one, a green one, a deep-yellow one, and a pale-mauve one. Whether or not she had other clothes I don’t know, for I never saw her in anything else.

Señor Doux was always to be seen in shirt and trousers, and only when he went to the market did he put on a hat. He wore black trousers only, secured with a narrow leather belt, and a white shirt with a black bow tie.

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