across the way.
“What is it?” Katya asked in a whisper.
“The Drowned Virgin. Watch.”
A firework tube was struck near the mouth of the alleyway, and its flaring, sputtering light turned the walls of the buildings a vivid red. Then the stick drum took up a funereal beat to the tempo of which a line of costumed mourners emerged from the gap between buildings and began their slow march across the square, the crowd soberly parting to make way for them. First came two children robed all in white, their faces covered with a chalky masklike makeup, their eyes and mouths accented in black. Behind them strode a richly costumed man (presumably the brother of the accused woman) dragging heavy penitential chains that clattered over the cobbles. Next came two young men dressed in rags and patches, each carrying a heavy stone with a hole bored through it, and through the holes were passed knotted ropes like those used to weigh the accused woman down when she was thrown into the river. Finally came the Virgin, a girl of fifteen or so, chosen for beauty from among the girls of the district, borne on the shoulders of six young men, three to the right, three to the left, walking in exact chain step. She lay stiff on their shoulders, her head thrown back and her hair falling to the waist of the lead bearer. Her white dress of gossamer material had been soaked in water, and it clung most revealingly to her plump body, her nipples dark beneath the fabric. Her long hair had been drenched with oil and combed out in a stiff, inhuman way, and drops of the oil dripped on the cobbles.
The swaying line of mourners passed very close to us, and at the sight of the Drowned Virgin, Katya grasped my arm, her fingers digging into it. I felt her tremble.
As the mourners approached the narrow alleyway directly opposite the one from which they had emerged, another red firework tube was struck, and they disappeared into a hell like the one from which they had materialized. For a prolonged moment, there was absolute silence.
Then the men of the crowd broke into shrieks of the long, yapping
Instantly, the band struck up another Kax Karot tune, and the dancing, the laughter, the drinking was all about us.
“What does it mean?” Katya asked in a subdued voice.
“Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. It’s just an ancient ritual. Shall I get us something to drink?”
“No, don’t leave!” She held my arm tighter. Then, in a calmer voice, “Let’s dance. I want to dance.”
I was sure my lungs would burst and my legs crumple beneath me by the time we came to the last frantic leaps of the Kax Karot and we were all laughing and clapping one another on the back. Katya had reacted to the stunning effect of the ritual of the Drowned Virgin with a vivacity more vibrant and life-embracing than before. There was, in fact, a kind of desperate energy in her dancing and laughter that made me a bit uneasy.
Once again we took refuge in our little niche by the buildings, as I tried to regain my breath. “Too many years… of study in the big city…” I panted. “I’m not up to this. I must get something… to drink… or I shall die right here… unnoticed and unmourned.”
She laughed. “Poor sickly thing. Oh, very well.”
It was not customary for women to enter the bars, so I offered to leave her with her father or brother while I fought my way through the crowd to get something for us to drink.
“Do you know where they are?”
“No, but we’ll find them.” I began to search the throng over the heads of the people near us.
“No, I’ll be perfectly fine right here.”
“Alone?”
“What harm could come to me? And if you’re concerned about my reputation, I have a feeling that a woman who is not Basque doesn’t have a reputation worth saving anyway.”
I laughed and confessed that she was perceptive in her estimate of Basque views of outlanders, those poor creatures who lacked the touch of God. After only a moment of hesitation, I gave her hand a farewell squeeze and shouldered my way through the milling throng until I had gained the door of one of the cafйs in which all the tables were crowded with old men sitting before their glasses, their veined faces alight with drink and merriment. As I pressed towards the zinc bar I caught a glimpse of Monsieur Treville at a table, surrounded by aged Basque peasants. On the table was a nearly empty bottle of Izarra, that delicious, expensive, and very strong Basque liqueur that tastes of mountain flowers. It was evident that Monsieur Treville was buying the drinks and that the old Basque men were paying for his hospitality by responding to his questions about customs and traditions, each holding forth in his broken French until he was interrupted by contradictions and clarifications (both lengthy and irrelevant) by another of the men, for one of the devices in the devious Basque temperament is flooding the other fellow’s mind with scrupulously precise detail—concealing the true behind the factual. I thought to warn Monsieur Treville of the deceptive potency of Izarra, but he did not see me in the dense crowd, nor was their any point in calling out to him, as my voice would have been lost in the din and babble. Just as his table was blocked from my sight, I saw him catch the eye of the harassed waiter to order another bottle of Izarra, which gesture the old men greeted with sober nods. It was clearly the right and proper thing for an outlander to do. I knew that the old men would soon reach the point in their drinking at which it became obligatory to sing in their high, strained voices with their peculiar harmonies. I wondered with a smile if Monsieur Treville would join in.
I was able to capture a glass of red for myself and a corked bottle of citronade for Katya, but I was pressed away from the bar before I could collect my change, and I had to make space for myself with an extended arm to be able to drink off my wine before the glass was jostled empty. It was the good, acrid, harsh wine I remembered, and it scratched away some of the dryness in my throat. Soon, by the natural and irresistible eddy of the throng, I found myself back outside the bar, without my change, but in possession of their glass—a fair enough exchange, as I doubted that Katya would prefer to drink her citronade from the bottle.
The dancing was in full swing under the colored paper lanterns, and crocodiles of mischievous children linked hands and snaked in and out of the crowd, into the paths of dancers to pester and annoy their elders, who responded with laughs and half-hearted slaps at the backs of dodging heads. To avoid the heaviest tides of the throng I eased my way around the rim of the square close to the buildings, where the occasional drunk sought to relieve himself in a passageway, and pairs of young lovers found the haven of dark doorways. I was blocked for a time at one of the temporary buvettes set up before a shop, a simple pair of planks laid across two barrels where a man sloshed wine from a big bottle back and forth over rows of stout glasses until they were more or less full on the puddled planks. The man deftly caught the coin I tossed over the head of the person in front of me, and I reached around and snatched up a glass and emptied it in two swallows before replacing it on the planks to be refilled without the indignity of being washed in public.
“…Katya?” I heard the name through the medley of babble and music, and I looked around to discover Paul standing not far away in one of the doorways. “Where is Katya?” he shouted again, enunciating carefully over the din.
I pointed in the direction I had left her; then I raised up the bottle of citronade to indicate why I had left her alone.
He gestured for me to join him, and I pressed through the mass of people until I was beside him in the doorway. It was only then I realized he was standing with a young lady dressed in high fashion, quite out of keeping with the colorful handmade dresses of the Basque women. I recognized her as one of the girls who had been in the motorcar that had nearly overturned us back on the road. Paul put his good arm about her and hugged her to him a bit roughly as he made introductions. “Dr. Montjean, I would like you to meet Mlle… I assume you have a name, my dear?”
“Of
“Don’t tell it to me. Preserve the attractive mystery. Doctor, I would like to introduce Mlle Somebodyoranother, a ravishing bit of fluff without an idea in her little head.”
The young woman tsked and coyly pushed at his chest with her gloved hand, the gesture affirming his evaluation of her intellectual capacities while it revealed that she was a bit tipsy. She had one of those pretty, vacant faces that conceal nothing, as there is nothing to be concealed. Small round eyes, up-tipped nose, pert mouth, full rosy cheeks—one of the decorative types that does not wear well, but which is happily never required to. It was evident that she was smitten by Paul’s undeniable good looks and his smooth patter of rakish nonsense.
“Delighted,” I said uncertainly.
