Essential Stories by V.S. Pritchett Page B

spluttering, choking, spitting, and, seeing he was drowning, for the man
was
drowning, caught hold of me, and we both went under. Angel was like a beast. He clung to me like seaweed. I, seeing this, awarded him a knock-out—zum—but as the tenacity of man increases with unconsciousness, Angel stuck to me like a limpet, and in saving myself there was no escape from saving him.”
    “That’s true,” said Angel, admiring his finger nails. And Caesar nodded his head up and down twice, which made it true.
    Juan then swung round and called out, “Eat! Food! Let us order. Let us eat. We haven’t ordered. We do nothing but talk, not eat. I want to eat.”
    “Yes, come on,” said Felix. “Eat. What’s the fish?”
    “The fish,” said the proprietor, “is bacalao.”
    “Yes,” everyone cried. “Bacalao, a good bacalao, a very good one. No, it must be good. No. I can’t eat it unless it’s good, very good
and
very good.”
    “No,” we said. “Not fish. We don’t want it.”
    “Seven bacalaos then?” said the proprietor.
    But Fernando was still on his feet.
    “And the beach inspector said, ‘What’s his name and address and has he any identity papers?’ ‘Man,’ I said, ‘he’s in his bathing dress. Where could he keep his papers?’ And Juan said, ‘Get a doctor. Don’t stand there asking questions. Get a doctor.’ ”
    “That’s true,” said Juan gloomily. “He wasn’t dead.”
    “Get a doctor, that was it,” Angel said.
    “And they got a doctor and brought him round and got half the Bay of Biscay out of him, gallons of it. It astonished me that so much water could come out of a man.”
    “And then in the evening,” Juliano leaped up and clipped the story out of Fernando’s mouth, “Angel says to the proprietor of the hotel . . .”
    Juan’s head had sunk to his chest. His hands were over his ears.
    “Eat,” he bawled in a voice of despair so final that we all stopped talking and gazed at him with astonishment for a few moments. Then in sadness he turned to me appealing. “Can’t we eat? I am empty.”
    “. . . said to the proprietor of the hotel,” Fernando grabbed the tale back from Juliano, “who was rushing down the corridor with a face like a fish, ‘I am the man who was drowned this morning.’ And the proprietor who looked at Angel like a prawn, the proprietor said, ‘M’sieu, whether you were drowned or not drowned this morning you are about to be roast. The hotel is on fire.’ ”
    “That’s right,” we said. “The hotel was on fire.”
    “I remember,” said Felix. “It began in the kitchen.”
    “How in the kitchen?”
    This then became the argument.
    “The first time ever I heard it was in the kitchen.”
    “But no,” said Angel, softly rising to claim his life story for himself. Juliano clapped his hands and bounced with joy. “It was not like that.”
    “But we were all there, Angel,” Fernando said, but Angel who spoke very rapidly said:
    “No and no! And the proof of it is. What was I wearing?” He challenged all of us. We paused.
    “Tripe,” said Juan to me hopelessly wagging his head. “You like tripe? They do it well. Here! Phist!” he called the proprietor through the din. “Have you tripe, a good Basque tripe? No? What a pity! Can you get me some? Here! Listen,” he shouted to the rest of the table. “Tripe,” he shouted, but they were engrossed in Angel.
    “Pyjamas,” Fernando said. “When you are in bed you wear your pyjamas.”
    “Exactly, and they were not my pyjamas.”
    “You say the fire was not in the kitchen,” shouted Fernando, “because the pyjamas you were wearing were not yours!” And we shouted back at Angel.
    “They belonged to the Italian ambassador,” said Angel, “the one who was with that beautiful Mexican girl.”
    Then Caesar, who, as I have said, was the oldest of us and sat at the head of the table, Caesar leaned his old big pale face forward and said in a hushed voice, putting out his hands like a