Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Oneevening,asIwaswanderingaroundthetownbeforeturninginIsawamovingpicture
show being announced, and thought it might be interesting to see what it was like.
The
teatro
as they pompously called the place was a dirty and stuffy wooden shanty. The
alta sodedad
(highsociety)satbelow,whererowsofwoodenbenchesformedthestalls.Proud
mothers were squatting like clucking hens beside their - in some cases - pretty daughters,
whilst father, grandmother, uncle, and a few aunts formed the regulation escort of chaperons,
without which no respectable girl must be seen out at any time. Such escorts accompany girls
de buena familia
(ofgoodfamily) wherever they go,beit tochurch, toadance ortoanyother
social function, and even when a
caballero
visits a girl in her home with the heavily barred
windows, the whole family assembles in the
sala
or in the
patio
, where they all sit like marble
statues in old European cathedrals. A battered pianola with many missing notes supplied the
tinny music, a barefooted guttersnipe doing the 'pumping' and straightening of the torn music
rolls whenever they slipped.
The young
caballeros
, who had carefully plastered down their oily black hair, were wear-
ing their very best clothes for the occasion and preferred to stand along the walls, from where
they had a better view of the señoritas, who nervously and self-consciously fingered their
dresses. If a young lady had the audacity to cast a quick glance around and happened to see
the longing and lingering eyes of a gentleman acquaintance of hers who looked at her as a
forsaken lover looks at the moon, she would greet him with a slight nod and a quick, nervous
smile would flash over her face, and then all the chaperons would stiffly turn their heads like
prairieowlsandlookatthedaringyoungfellow,whowouldfingerhisbestnecktieandloosen
his collar as if he were choking. This is South American courting. The poor people, chiefly
men and boys, were perched up on a wooden gallery, and from there their bare feet were
dangling down like dummy legs in the window of a manufacturer of artificial limbs.
After a great deal of whistling and stamping by the excited crowd the show was ready to
begin, well over an hour after the advertised time. As soon as the lights went out there was a
general rustle as everybody shifted into a more comfortable position. The film they showed
must have been many years old and flickered so much that my eyes were aching. I could not
keep count of how often it tore or slipped, but the crowd was delighted, and whenever an ex-
citing part came on, the howls and shrieks of the public made me think I was at a bull fight.
LongbeforetheshowwasfinishedIwasfastasleepinthehotel,butmyslumbersweredis-
turbed by visions of beautiful and smiling señoritas, surrounded by vulture-necked and pock-
marked chaperons, who, when they discovered me sneaking towards the queen of my heart,
overpowered me, and as they were rolling me on the floor I felt the pain of many pins being
stuckintome.Iwokeupbathedinperspirationandentangledinthetornsheetsofmybed;my
body was hot with irritation and itching, and when I struck a match I saw legions of bed bugs
running helter-skelter like a defeated army after battle.
I had made the acquaintance of an English lady who was visiting Cuzco, and as I was
crossing the main plaza one morning, she came running towards me in a terrible state of ex-
