326
PARTISAN REVIEW
black, her face of a remarkable dead blue-white. For no single clear
reason Bradshaw had the impression that the woman was mad. About
her, but keeping well to the street, skipped and chanted a gaggle of
children. Barefoot, ragged, some brown, some the color of red clay,
they danced before this ageless and pitiful creature. Bradshaw saw
that from the folds of her nun-like robe protruded a white claw in
which she held a sweetmeat of chemical green. She seemed to beckon
to appease her tormentors but, every now and then, the boys would
push forward one of their number who would shriek and giggle in a
pantomime of terror. It was an ugly thing, made memorable for
Bradshaw by the fact that it had been the liveliest event in all his
first day's reconnaissance of San Rafael. Only malice, it seemed, could
animate these people. Furthermore, it was evidently no extemporized
game but a ritual cruelty like a bullfight. And the song they had
chanted! Bradshaw made out the words:
ccT£a Dulces
ccSiempre
...
1"
Auntie Candy, Bradshaw translated. Always.... Some obscen–
ity probably. Whatever it was, it was time to break it up. "Scat,"
said Bradshaw, experimentally. "Shoo!
V
amonos niiios!"
But the
horrible children carried on with their game. However, his words had
some effect. One of the boys turned and unwarily came within the
radius of the madwoman's arm which darted out like a striking
snake. There was a scuffle and a yelp of sincere pain from the ragged
boy. The game was over, the children ran yelling down the street.
CCChingao!"
that invariable expletive.
CCChingao!"
they shouted back.
Because there seemed nothing else to do, Bradshaw raised his panama.
ccBuenas tardes,"
he said politely to the lady.
Such had been the events of his first day. That night, in a letter
to
his
wife
in
Alexandria, Virginia, he had tried to order these hap–
penings to his satisfaction. "D-Day plus 12 hours," he had dated the
letter, for with his wife he cultivated such little facetiousnesses against
which the essential solemnity of mind showed to greater effect.
"It
all made me wonder why I had ever hesitated to take on this job,"
he wrote. "Apart from the cruelty of it. All children, of course, are
cruel. Remember little Hank and the Chambers boy's frog collec–
tion? ... the appalling thing is that nobody sees anything wrong in it.
Here
it
is perfectly O.K. to make fun of insane people. Medieval. ..."
