RUBIO Y MORENA
his
cigarette and the corridor of the hotel was almost lightless. About
three A.M. a figure appeared in the doorway.
It
was so tall that he
took it to
be
a man. He said nothing but went on smoking and the
figure in the doorway appeared to be staring in at him. He had
heard things about the deportment of guests at the Texas Star Hotel
and so he was not surprised when the door pushed further open
and the figure came in and advanced to the edge of the bed. It was
only when the head inclined over him and the heavy black hair came
tumbling over his bare flesh that he realized the figure to be a
woman's. No, he said, but the caller paid no attention and after
a while Kamrowski was reconciled to it. Then pleased and, at last,
delighted. The meeting had been so successful that in the morning
Kamrowski had kept her with him. He asked her no questions. She
asked him none. They simply went off together, and seemingly it
did not matter where they went. . . .
For a few months Kamrowski and the Mexican girl named
Amada, had traveled around the southern states in a rattle-trap car
held together by spit and a prayer, and most of that time the girl
sat mutely beside him while he thought his own thoughts. What her
thoughts were he had not the least idea and not much concern. He
only saw her turn her head once and that was when they were
passing down the main street of a little town in Louisiana. He turned
to see what she looked at. A gaudily dressed negro girl stood on a
street-corner in a cluster of roughly dressed white men. Amada
smiled faintly and nodded.
Putana,
she said, only that: but the
faint smile of recognition remained on her face for quite a while
after the corner had slipped out of sight. She did not often smile
and that was why the occurrence had stuck in his mind.
Companionship was not a familiar or easy thing for Kamrowski,
not even the companionship of men. The girl was the first he had
lived with at all continuously, and to his content he found it possible
to forget her presence except as some almost abstract comfort like
that of warmth or of sleep. Sometimes he would feel a little aston–
ished, a little incredulous over this sudden alliance of theirs, this acci–
dental coming together of their two so different lives. Sometimes
he wondered just why he had taken her with him and he could not
explain this thing to himself and yet he did not regret it. He had
not realized, at first, what a curious-looking person she was, not until
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