Free Ask the Dust by John Fante Page B

them to play Strauss,” I said. “Something Viennese.”
    She picked up a quarter, but I made her take it all. The musicians were aghast. Camilla pointed at me. They waved and beamed. I nodded with dignity. They plunged into Tales from the Vienna Woods . The new shoes were hurting Camilla’s feet. She didn’t have her old sparkle. She winced as she walked, gritted her teeth.
    â€œYou want a beer?” she asked.
    â€œI want a Scotch highball,” I said. “St. James.”
    She discussed it with the bartender, then came back. “We don’t have St. James. We have Ballantine’s, though. It’s expensive. Forty cents.”
    I ordered one for myself and one each for the two bartenders. “You shouldn’t spend your money like that,” she said. I acknowledged the toast from the two bartenders, and then I sipped my highball. I screwed up my face.
    â€œRotgut,” I said.
    She stood with her hands stuffed inside her pockets.
    â€œI thought you’d like my new shoes,” she said.
    I had resumed the reading of Hackmuth’s letter.
    â€œThey seem all right,” I said.
    She limped away to a table just vacated and began picking up empty beer mugs. She was hurt, her face long and sad. I sipped the highball and went on reading and rereading Hackmuth’s letter. In a little while she returned to my table.
    â€œYou’ve changed,” she said. “You’re different. I liked you better the other way.”
    I smiled and patted her hand. It was warm, sleek, brown, with long fingers. “Little Mexican princess,” I said. “You’re so charming, so innocent.”
    She jerked her hand away and her face lost color.
    â€œI’m not a Mexican!” she said. “I’m an American.”
    I shook my head.
    â€œNo,” I said. “To me you’ll always be a sweet little peon. A flower girl from old Mexico.”
    â€œYou dago sonofabitch!” she said.
    It blinded me, but I went on smiling. She stomped away, the shoes hurting her, restraining her angry legs. I was sick inside, and my smile felt as though tacks held it there. She was at a table near the musicians, wiping it off, her arm churning furiously, her face like a dark flame. When she looked at me the hatred out of her eyes bolted across the room. Hackmuth’s letter no longer interested me. I stuffed it into my pocket and sat with my head down. It was an old feeling, and I traced it back and remembered that it was a feeling I had the first time I sat in the place. She disappeared behind the partition. When she returned she moved gracefully, her feet quick and sure. She had taken off the white shoes and put on the old huaraches.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said.
    â€œNo,” I said. “It’s my fault, Camilla.”
    â€œI didn’t mean what I said.”
    â€œYou were alright. It was my fault.”
    I looked down at her feet.
    â€œThose white shoes were so beautiful. You have such lovely legs and they fitted so perfectly.”
    She put her fingers through my hair, and the warmth of her pleasure poured through them, and through me, and my throat was hot, and a deep happiness seeped through my flesh. She went behind the partition and emerged wearing the white shoes. The little muscles in her jaws contracted as she walked, but she smiled bravely. I watched her at work, and the sight of her lifted me, a buoyancy like oil upon water. After a while she asked me if I had a car. I told her I didn’t. She said she had one, it was in the parking lot next door, and she described her car, and we arranged to meet in the parking lot and then drive out to the beach. As I got up to leave the tall bartender with the white face looked at me with what seemed the faintest trace of a leer. I walked out, ignoring it.
    Her car was a 1929 Ford roadster with horsehair bursting from upholstery, battered fenders and no top. I sat in it and fooled with the