Those shoes, they were huaraches, the leather thongs wrapped several times around her ankles. They were desperately ragged huaraches; the woven leather had become unravelled. When I saw them I was very grateful, for it was a defect about her that deserved criticism. She was tall and straight-shouldered, a girl of perhaps twenty, faultless in her way, except for her tattered huaraches. And so I fastened my stare on them, watched them intently and deliberately, even turning in my chair and twisting my neck to glare at them, sneering and chuckling to myself. Plainly I was getting as much enjoyment out of this as she got from my face, or whatever it was that amused her. This had a powerful effect upon her. Gradually her pirouetting and dancing subsided and she merely hurried back and forth, and at length she was making her way stealthily. She was embarrassed, and once I saw her glance down quickly and examine her feet, so that in a few minutes she no longer laughed; instead, there was a grimness in her face, and finally she was glancing at me with bitter hatred.
Now I was exultant, strangely happy. I felt relaxed. The world was full of uproariously amusing people. Now the thin bartender looked in my direction and I winked a comradely greeting. He tossed his head in an acknowledging nod. I sighed and sat back, at ease with life.
She had not collected the nickel for the coffee. She would have to do so, unless I left it on the table and walked out. But I wasn’t going to walk out. I waited. A half hour passed. When she hurried to the bar for more beer, she no longer waited on the rail in plain sight. She walked around to the back of the bar. She didn’t look at me anymore, but I knew she knew I watched her.
Finally she walked straight for my table. She walked proudly, her chin tilted, her hands hanging at her sides. I wanted to stare, but I couldn’t keep it up. I looked away, smiling all the while.
‘Do you want anything else?’ she asked.
Her white smock smelled of starch.
‘You call this stuff coffee?’ I said.
Suddenly she laughed again. It was a shriek, a mad laugh like the clatter of dishes and it was over as quickly as it began. I looked at her feet again. I could feel something inside her retreating. I wanted to hurt her.
‘Maybe this isn’t coffee at all,’ I said. ‘Maybe it’s just water after they boiled your filthy shoes in it.’ I looked up to her black blazing eyes. ‘Maybe you don’t know any better. Maybe you’re just naturally careless. But if I were a girl I wouldn’t be seen in a Main Street alley with those shoes.’
I was panting when I finished. Her thick lips trembled and the fists in her pocket were writhing under the starched stiffness.
‘I hate you,’ she said.
I felt her hatred. I could smell it, even hear it coming out of her, but I sneered again. ‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘Because there must be something pretty fine about a guy who rates your hatred.’
Then she said a strange thing; I remember it clearly. ‘I hope you die of heart failure,’ she said. ‘Right there in that chair.’
It gave her keen satisfaction, even though I laughed. She walked away smiling. She stood at the bar again, waiting for more beer, and her eyes were fastened on me, brilliant with her strange wish, and I was uncomfortable but still laughing. Now she was dancing again, gliding from table to table with her tray, and every time I looked at her she smiled her wish, until it had a mysterious effect on me, and I became conscious of my inner organism, of the beat of my heart and the flutter of my stomach. I felt that she would not come back to my table again, and I remember that I was glad of it, and that a strange restlessness came over me, so that I was anxious to get away from that place, and away from the range of her persistent smile. Before I left I did something that pleased me very much. I took the five cents from my pocket and placed it on the table. Then I spilled half the coffee over it. She would have to mop up the mess with her towel. The brown ugliness spread everywhere over the table, and as I got up to leave it was trickling to the floor. At the door I paused to look at her once more. She smiled the same smile. I nodded at the spilled coffee. Then I tossed my fingers in a salute farewell and walked into the street. Once more I had a good feeling. Once more it was as before, the world was full of amusing things.
I don’t remember what I did after I left her. Maybe I went up to Benny Cohen’s room over the Grand Central Market. He had a wooden leg with a little door in it. Inside the door were marijuana cigarettes. He sold them for fifteen cents apiece. He also sold newspapers, the Examiner and the Times. He had a room piled high with copies of The New Masses. Maybe he saddened me as always with his grim horrible vision of the world tomorrow. Maybe he poked his stained fingers under my nose and cursed me for betraying the proletariat from which I came. Maybe, as always, he sent me trembling out of his room and down the dusty stairs to the fog-dimmed street, my fingers itching for the throat of an imperialist. Maybe, and maybe not; I don’t remember.
But I remember that night in my room, the lights of the St Paul Hotel throwing red and green blobs across my bed as I lay and shuddered and dreamed of the anger of that girl, of the way she danced from table to table, and the black glance of her eyes. That I remember, even to forgetting I was poor and without an idea for a story.
I looked for her early the next morning. Eight o’clock, and I was down on Spring Street. I had a copy of The Little Dog Laughed in my pocket. She would think differently about me if she read that story. I had it autographed, right there in my back pocket, ready to present at the slightest notice. But the place was closed at that early hour. It was called the Columbia Buffet. I pushed my nose against the window and looked inside. The chairs were piled upon the tables, and an old man in rubber boots was swabbing the floor. I walked down the street a block or two, the wet air already bluish from monoxide gas. A fine idea came into my head. I took out the magazine and erased the autograph. In its place I wrote, ‘To a Mayan Princess, from a worthless Gringo.’ This seemed right, exactly the correct spirit. I walked back to the Columbia Buffet and pounded the front window. The old man opened the door with wet hands, sweat seeping from his hair.
I said, ‘What’s the name of that girl who works here?’
‘You mean Camilla?’
‘The one who worked here last night.’
‘That’s her,’ he said. ‘Camilla Lopez.’
‘Will you give this to her?’ I said. ‘Just give it to her. Tell her a fellow came by and said for you to give it to her.’
He wiped his dripping hands on his apron and took the magazine. ‘Take good care of it,’ I said. ‘It’s valuable.’
The old man closed the door. Through the glass I saw him limp back to his mop and bucket. He placed the magazine on the bar and resumed his work. A little breeze flipped the pages of the magazine. As I walked away I was afraid he would forget all about it. When I reached the Civic Centre I realized I had made a bad mistake: the inscription on the story would never impress that kind of a girl. I hurried back to the Columbia Buffet and banged the window with my knuckles. I heard the old man grumbling and swearing as he fumbled with the lock. He wiped the sweat from his old eyes and saw me again.
‘Could I have that magazine?’ I said. ‘I want to write something in it.’
The old man couldn’t understand any of this. He shook his head with a sigh and told me to come inside. ‘Go get it yourself, goddamnit,’ he said. ‘I got work to do.’
I flattened the magazine on the bar and erased the inscription to the Mayan Princess. In place of it I wrote:
Dear Ragged Shoes,
You may not know it, but last night you insulted the author of this story. Can you read? If so, invest fifteen minutes of your time and treat yourself to a masterpiece.