BRADSHAW'S TOMBSTONE
331
The very name of the great Foundation which employed Bradshaw
spoke of entrenched millions. Bradshaw, to be sure, did not talk like
a businessman, but Senor Orquienz assumed that this was merely
Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy. They are too smart, he reasoned, these
N orte–
americanos,
to say what they have in mind. Then, of course, there
had been Bradshaw's foolish remark to the patron of the Gran Hotel,
which had been promptly reported to Senor Orquienz.
Furthermore, Bradshaw, proud of a fluency newly acquired in
an intensive course with language discs, sometimes insisted upon talk–
ing Spanish, but, alas, he was most at home
in
the present tense.
This fact may have aroused
in
his auditor a misapprehension that the
projects he was dealing with were of greater immediacy than they
actually were.
Thus firmly based on misconception, a friendship of a sort had
sprung up between the two. There had been minor troubles, such as
the time Senor Orquienz had arranged a meeting with the local
jete
of the department of public health. This official, rightly concluding
that the inquisitiveness of this meddlesome
gringo
spelled work or
trouble of some kind for him, had evaded Bradshaw successfully. A
word from the potent Orquienz had made a meeting. At first Brad–
shaw had thought that he was a guest at the house of Senor Orquienz,
for the address he had been given had brought him before an arched
wrought iron gate. Bradshaw had been (as his generation said) "to
bed" with seven women, and with all the best of reasons was horrified
to discover that his business rendezvous was the town brothel. The
place had seemed appropriate for two reasons. Despite the total am–
biguity of his character, Senor Orquienz sometimes had an enviable
directness of mind. His own house was unsuitable for such a meeting;
it was filled, it seems with religious women, his sister, his mother and
an aunt or two. Here,
in
any case, was the best evidence of the exist–
ence of the department of public health; its neatly-framed certificates,
decorated a wall in each room.
Cerveza Mot;,tezuma,
the excellent
beer of Orizaba, was brought to them by modes,t and respectful girls,
who retired to sit apart and giggle, Bradshaw was uncomfortably
aware, mostly at him.
One looked at him through her fingers spread like a child's.
There was embarrassment too from the side of the "health" official
who turned out to be, Bradshaw was amazed to note, his own clerk-
