Tish: The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions Read online

  IV

  I shall pass over the next month, with its unpleasantnesses; overCharlie Sands's coming one evening with a black tie and, on the strengthof having killed a dog with his machine, asking for money to bury it,and bring another one from Syria! I shall not more than mention Hannah,who kept Tish physically comfortable and well fed and mentally wretched,having a teakettle of boiling water always ready if Tufik came to theapartment; I shall say nothing of our success in getting him employmentin the foreign department of a bank, and his ending up by washing itswindows; or of the position Tish got him as elevator boy in herhospital, where he jammed the car in some way and held up four surgeonsand three nurses and a patient on his way to the operating-room--untilthe patient changed his mind and refused to be operated on.

  Aggie had a brilliant idea about the census--that he could make thecensus reports in the Syrian district. To this end she worked for sometime, coaching Tufik for the examination, only to have him fail--failabsolutely and without hope. He was staying in the Syrian quarter atthat time, on account of Hannah; and he brought us various temptingoffers now and then--a fruit stand that could be bought for a hundreddollars; a restaurant for fifty; a tailor's shop for twenty-five. But,as he knew nothing of fruits or restaurants or tailoring, we refused toinvest. Tish said that we had been a good while getting to it, but thatwe were being businesslike at last. We gave the boy nine dollars a weekand not a penny more; and we refused to buy any more of his silly linensand crocheted laces. We were quite firm with him.

  And now I come to the arriving of Tufik's little sister--not that shewas really little. But that comes later.

  Tufik had decided at last on what he would be in our so great America.Once or twice, when he was tired or discouraged, Tish had taken him outin her machine, and he had been thrilled--really thrilled. He did notseem able to learn how to crank it--Tish's car is hard to crank--but helearned how to light the lamps and to spot a policeman two blocks away.Several times, when we were going into the country, Tish took himbecause it gave her a sense of security to have a man along.

  Having come from a country where the general travel is by camel,however, he had not the first idea of machinery. He thought Tish madethe engine go by pressing on the clutch with her foot, like a sewingmachine, and he regarded her strength with awe. And once, when we werefilling a tire from an air bottle and the tube burst and struck him, hedeclared there was a demon in the air bottle and said a prayer in themiddle of the road. About that time Tish learned of a school forchauffeurs, and the three of us decided to divide the expense and sendhim.

  "In three months," Tish explained, "we can get him a state license andhe can drive a taxicab. It will suit him, because he can sit to do it."

  So Tufik went to an automobile school and stood by while some one drewpictures of parts of the engine on a blackboard, and took home lists ofwords that he translated into Arabic at the library, and learnedeverything but why and how the engine of an automobile goes. He stillthought--at the end of two months--that the driver did it with hisfoot! But we were ignorant of all that. He would drop round in theevenings, when Hannah was out or in bed, and tell us what "magneto" wasin Arabic, and how he would soon be able to care for Tish's car andwould not take a cent for it, doing it at night when the taxicab wasresting.

  At the end of six weeks we bought him a chauffeur's outfit. The nextday the sister arrived and Tufik brought her to Aggie's, where we werewaiting. We had not told Hannah about the sister; she would not haveunderstood.

  Charlie Sands telephoned while we were waiting and asked if he mightcome over and help receive the girl. We were to greet her and welcomeher to America; then she was to go to the home of the Syrian with thelarge mustache. Charlie Sands came in and shook hands all round,surveying each of us carefully.

  "Strange!" he muttered. "Curious is no name for it! What do we know ofthe vagaries of the human mind? Three minds and one obsession!" he saidwith the utmost gentleness. "Three maiden ladies who have livedimpeccable lives for far be it from me to say how many years; andnow--this! Oh, Aunt Tish! Dear Aunt Tish!"

  He got out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes. Tish was speechless withrage, but I rose to our defense.

  "We don't want to do it and you know it!" I said tartly. "But when theLord sends want and suffering to one's very door--"

  "Want, with large brown eyes and a gentle voice!" he retorted. "My dearladies, it's your money; and I dare say it costs you less than bridge atfive cents a point, or the Gay White Way. But, for Heaven's sake, myrespected but foolish virgins, why not an American that wants a realjob? Why let a sticky Oriental pull your legs--"

  "Charlie Sands!" cried Tish, rising in her wrath. "I will not enduresuch vulgarity. And when Tufik takes you out in a taxicab--"

  "God forbid!" said Charlie Sands, and sat down to wait for Tufik'ssister.

  She did not look like Tufik and she was tired and dirty from thejourney; but she had big brown eyes and masses of dark hair and shespoke not a single word of English. Tufik's joy was boundless; his softeyes were snapping with excitement; and Aggie, who is sentimental, wasobliged to go out and swallow half a glass of water without breathing tokeep from crying. Charlie Sands said nothing, but sat back in a cornerand watched us all; and once he took out his notebook and made amemorandum of something. He showed it to us later.

  Tufik's sister was the calmest of us all, I believe. She sat on a stiffchair near the door and turned her brown eyes from one to the other.Tish said that proper clothing would make her beautiful; and Aggie,disappearing for a few minutes, came back with her last summer's foulardand a jet bonnet. When the poor thing understood they were for her, shelooked almost frightened, the thing being unexpected; and Tufik, in aparoxysm of delight, kissed all our hands and the girl on each cheek.

  Tish says our vulgar lip-osculation is unknown in the Orient and thatthey rub noses by way of greeting. I think, however, that she ismistaken in this and that the Australians are the nose-rubbers. I recalla returned missionary's telling this, but I cannot remember just wherehe had been stationed.

  Things were very quiet for a couple of weeks. Tufik came round onlyonce--to tell us that, having to pay car fare to get to the automobileschool, his nine dollars were not enough. We added a dollar a week underprotest; and Tish suggested with some asperity that as he was only busyfour hours a day he might find some light employment for the balance ofthe day. He spread out his hands and drew up his shoulders.

  "My friends are angry," he said sadly. "It is not enough that I study? Imust also work? Ver' well, I labor. I sell the newspaper. But, to buynewspapers, one must have money--a dollar; two dollars. Ver' leetle;only--I have it not."

  We gave him another dollar and he went out smiling and hopeful. Itseemed that at last we had solved his problem. Tish recalled one of herSunday-school scholars who sold papers and saved enough to buy asecond-hand automobile and rear a family. But our fond hopes were dashedto the ground when, the next morning, Hannah, opening the door at Tish'sto bring in the milk bottles, found a huge stack of the night-before'snewspapers and a note on top addressed to Tish, which said:-

  _Deer Mother Tish_: You see now that I am no good. I wish to die! I hav one papier sold, and newsboys kell me on sight. I hav but you and God--and God has forget!

  TUFIK.

  We were discouraged and so, clearly, was Tufik. For ten days we did nothear from him, except that a flirty little Syrian boy called for the tendollars on Saturday and brought a pair of Tufik's shoes for us to haveresoled. But one day Tish telephoned in some excitement and said thatTufik was there and wanted us to go to a wedding.

  "His little sister's wedding!" she explained. "The dear child is allexcited. He says it has been going on for two days and this is the dayof the ceremony."

  Aggie was spending the afternoon with me, and spoke up hastily.

  "Ask her if I have time to go home and put on my broadcloth," she said."I'm not fixed for a wedding."

  Tish said there was no time. She would come round with
the machine andwe were to be ready in fifteen minutes. Aggie hesitated on account ofintending to wash her hair that night and so not having put up hercrimps; but she finally agreed to go and Tish came for us. Tufik was inthe machine. He looked very tidy and wore the shoes we had had repaired,a pink carnation in his buttonhole, and an air of suppressed excitement.

  "At last," he said joyously while Tish cranked the car--"at last myfriends see my three mothers! They think Tufik only talks--now theysee! And the priest will bless my mothers on this so happy day."

  Tish having crawled panting from her exertion into the driver's seat andtaken the wheel, in sheer excess of boyish excitement he leaned over andkissed the hand nearest him.

  The janitor's small boy was on the curb watching, and at that he set upa yell of joy. We left him calling awful things after us and Tish's facewas a study; but soon the care of the machine made her forget everythingelse.

  The Syrian quarter was not impressive. It was on a hillside above theRussian Jewish colony, and consisted of a network of cobble-pavedalleys, indescribably dirty and incredibly steep. In one or two of thesealleys Tish was obliged to turn the car and go up backward, her machineclimbing much better on the reverse gear. Crowds of children followedus; dogs got under the wheels and apparently died, judging by theyelps--only to follow us with undiminished energy after they had pickedthemselves up. We fought and won a battle with a barrel of ashes andcame out victorious but dusty; and at last, as Tufik made a lordlygesture, we stopped at an angle of forty-five degrees and Tufik bowed usout of the car. He stood by visibly glowing with happiness, while Tishgot a cobblestone and placed it under a wheel, and Aggie and I took inour surroundings.

  We were in an alley ten feet wide and paved indiscriminately with stonesand tin cans, babies and broken bottles. Before us was a two-story brickhouse with broken windows and a high, railed wooden stoop, minus twosteps. Under the stoop was a door leading into a cellar, and from thiscellar was coming a curious stamping noise and a sound as of an animalin its death throes.

  Aggie caught my arm. "What's that?" she quavered.

  I had no time to reply. Tufik had thrown open the door and stood asideto let us pass.

  "They dance," he said gravely. "There is always much dancing before awedding. The music one hears is of Damascus and he who dances now is asheik among his people."

  Reassured as to the sounds, we stepped down into the basement. That wasat four o'clock in the afternoon.

  I have never been fairly clear as to what followed and Aggie's memoryis a complete blank. I remember a long, boarded-in and floored cellar,smelling very damp and lighted by flaring gas jets. The center was emptysave for a swarthy gentleman in a fez and his shirt-sleeves, wearing apair of green suspenders and dancing alone--a curious stamping dancethat kept time to a drum. I remember the musicians too--three of themin a corner: one playing on a sort of pipes-of-Pan affair of reeds,one on a long-necked instrument that looked like a guitar with zitherambitions, and a drummer who chanted with his eyes shut and kept timeto his chants by beating on a sheepskin tied over the mouth of a brassbowl. Round three sides of the room were long, oil cloth-covered tables;and in preparation for the ceremony a little Syrian girl was sweeping uppeanut shells, ashes, and beer bottles, with absolute disregard of theguests.

  All round the wall, behind rows of beer bottles, dishes of bananas,and plates of raw liver, were men,--soft-eyed Syrians with whiteteeth gleaming and black hair plastered close and celluloidcollars,--gentle-voiced, urbane-mannered Orientals, who came up gravelyone by one and shook hands with us; who pressed on us beer and peanutsand raw liver.

  Aggie, speaking between sneezes and over the chanting and the drum, benttoward me. "It's a breath of the Orient!" she said ecstatically. "Oh,Lizzie, do you think I could buy that drum for my tabouret?"

  "Orient!" observed Tish, coughing. "I'm going out and take theswitch-key out of that car. And I wish I'd brought Charlie Sands!"

  It was in vain we reminded her that the Syrians are a pastoral peopleand that they come from the land of the Bible. She looked round hergrimly.

  "They look like a lot of bandits to me," she sniffed. "And there'salways a murder at a wedding of this sort. There isn't a woman here butourselves!"

  She was exceedingly disagreeable and Aggie and I began to getuncomfortable. But when Tufik brought us little thimble-sized glassesfilled with a milky stuff and assured us that the women had only gone toprepare the bride, we felt reassured. He said that etiquette demandedthat we drink the milky white stuff.

  Tish was inclined to demur. "Has it any alcohol in it?" she demanded.Tufik did not understand, but he said it was harmless and given to allthe Syrian babies; and while we were still undecided Aggie sniffed it.

  "It smells like paregoric, Tish," she said. "I'm sure it's harmless."

  We took it then. It tasted sweet and rather spicy, and Aggie said itstopped her sneezing at once. It was very mild and pleasant, and rathermedicinal in its flavor. We each had two little glasses--and Tish saidshe would not bother about the switch-key. The car was insured againsttheft.

  A little later Aggie said she used to do a little jig step when she wasa girl, and if they would play slower she would like to see if she hadforgotten it. Tish did not hear this--she was talking to Tufik, and amoment later she got up and went out.

  Aggie had decided to ask the musicians to play a little slower and I hadmy hands full with her; so it was with horror that, shortly after, Iheard the whirring of the engine and through the cellar window caught aglimpse of Tish's machine starting off up the hill. I rose excitedly,but Tufik was before me, smiling and bowing.

  "Miss Tish has gone for the bride," he said softly. "The taxicab hav'not come. Soon the priest arrive, and so great shame--the bride is nothere! Miss Tish is my mother, my heart's delight!"

  When Aggie realized that Tish had gone, she was rather upset--shedepends a great deal on Tish--and she took another of the little glassesof milky stuff to revive her.

  I was a little bit nervous with Tish gone and the sun setting andanother tub of beer bottles brought in--though the people were orderlyenough and Tufik stood near. But Aggie began to feel very strange,and declared that the man with the sheepskin drum was winking at her andthat her head was twitching round on her shoulders. And when a dozen orso young Syrians formed a circle, their hands on each other's shoulders,and sang a melancholy chant, stamping to beat time, she wept with sheersentiment.

  "Ha! Hoo! Ta, Ta, Ta!" they chanted in unison; and Tufik bent over us,his soft eyes beaming.

  "They are shepherds and the sons of shepherds from Palestine," hewhispered. "That is the shepherd's call to his sheep. In my country manyare shepherds. Perhaps some day you go with me back to my country, andwe hear the shepherd call his sheep--'Ha! Hoo! Ta, Ta, Ta!'--and we hearthe sleepy sheep reply: 'Maaaa!'"

  "It is too beautiful!" murmured Aggie. "It is the Holy Land all overagain! And we should never have known this but for you, Tufik!"

  Just then some one near the door clapped his hands and all the noiseceased. Those who were standing sat down. The little girl with the broomswept the accumulations of the room under a chair and put the broom in acorner. The music became loud and stirring.

  Aggie swayed toward me. "I'm sick, Lizzie!" she gasped. "That paregoricstuff has poisoned me. Air!"

  I took one arm and Tufik the other, and we got her out and seated on oneof the wooden steps. She was a blue-green color and the whites of hereyes were yellow. But I had little time for Aggie. Tufik caught my handand pointed.

  Tish's machine was coming down the alley. Beside her sat Tufik's sister,sobbing at the top of her voice and wearing Aggie's foulard, a pair ofcotton gloves, and a lace curtain over her head. Behind in the tonneauwere her maid of honor, a young Syrian woman with a baby in her arms andfour other black-eyed children about her. But that was not all. In frontof the machine, marching slowly and with dignity, were three beardedgentlemen, two in coats and one in a striped vest, blowing on curiousdouble flutes and making a s
hrill wailing noise. And all round werecrowds of women and children, carrying tin pans and paper bags full ofparched peas, which they were flinging with all their might.

  I caught Tish's eye as the procession stopped, and she lookedsubdued--almost stunned. The pipers still piped. But the bride refusedto move. Instead, her wails rose higher; and Aggie, who had paid noattention so far, but was sitting back with her eyes shut, looked up.

  "Lizzhie," she said thickly, "Tish looks about the way I feel." And withthat she fell to laughing awful laughter that mingled with the bride'scries and the wail of the pipes.

  The bride, after a struggle, was taken by force from the machine andplaced on a chair against the wall. Her veil was torn and her wreathcrooked, and she observed a sulky silence. To our amazement, Tufik wasstill smiling, urbane and cheerful.

  "It is the custom of my country, my mothers," he said. "The bride leavewith tears the home of her good parents or of her friends; and she speakno word--only weep--until she is marriaged. Ah--the priest!"

  The rest of the story is short and somewhat blurred. Tish having brokenher glasses, Aggie being, as one may say, _hors de combat_, and I havingdeveloped a frightful headache in the dust and bad air, the real meaningof what was occurring did not penetrate to any of us. The priestofficiated from a table in the center of the room, on which he placedtwo candles, an Arabic Bible, and a sacred picture, all of which he tookout of a brown valise. He himself wore a long black robe and a beard,and looked, as Tish observed, for all the world as if he had steppedfrom an Egyptian painting. Before him stood Tufik's sister, the maid ofhonor with her baby, the black-mustached friend who had brought Tufik tous after his tragic attempt at suicide, and Tufik himself.

  The real meaning of what was occurring did not penetrateto any of us]

  Everybody held lighted candles, and the heat was frightful. The musicceased, there was much exhorting in Arabic, much reading from the book,many soft replies indiscriminately from the four principals--and thensuddenly Tish turned and gripped my arm.

  "Lizzie," she said hoarsely, "that little thief and liar has done usagain! That isn't his sister at all. He's marrying her--for us to keep!"

  Luckily Aggie grew faint again at that moment, and we led her out intothe open air. Behind us the ceremony seemed to be over; the drum wasbeating, the pipes screaming, the lute thrumming.

  Tish let in the clutch with a vicious jerk, and the whir of the enginedrowned out the beating of the drum and the clapping of the hands.Twilight hid the tin cans and ash-barrels, and the dogs slept on thecool pavements. In the doorways soft-eyed Syrian women rocked theirbabies to drowsy chants. The air revived Aggie. She leaned forward andtouched Tish on the shoulder.

  "After all," she said softly, "if he loves her very much, and there wasno other way--Do you remember that night she arrived--how he looked ather?"

  "Yes," Tish snapped. "And I remember the way he looked at us every timehe wanted money. We've been a lot of sheep and we've been sheared goodand proper! But we needn't bleat with joy about it!"

  As we drew up at my door, Tish pulled out her watch.

  "It's seven o'clock," she said brusquely. "I am going to New York on thenine-forty train and I shall take the first steamer outward bound--Ineed a rest! I'll go anywhere but to the Holy Land!"

  We went to Panama.

  * * * * *

  Two months afterward, in the dusk of a late spring evening, CharlieSands met us at the station and took us to Tish's in a taxicab. We werehomesick, tired, and dirty; and Aggie, who had been frightfully seasick,was clamoring for tea.

  As the taxicab drew up at the curb, Tish clutched my arm and Aggieuttered a muffled cry and promptly sneezed. Seated on the doorstep,celluloid collar shining, the brown pasteboard suitcase at his feet, wasTufik. He sat calmly smoking a cigarette, his eyes upturned in placidand Oriental contemplation of the heavens.

  "Drive on!" said Tish desperately. "If he sees us we are lost!"

  "Drive where?" demanded Charlie.

  Tufik's gaze had dropped gradually--another moment and his brown eyeswould rest on us. But just then a diversion occurred. A window overheadopened with a slam and a stream of hot water descended. It had beencarefully aimed--as if with long practice. Tufik was apparently notsurprised. He side-stepped it with a boredom as of many repetitions,and, picking up his suitcase, stood at a safe distance looking up.First, in his gentle voice he addressed the window in Arabic; then froma safer distance in English.

  "You ugly old she-wolf!" he said softly. "When my three old women comeback I eat you, skin and bones,--and they shall say nothing! They loveme--Tufik! I am their child. Aye! And my child--which comes--will betheir grandchild!"

  He kissed his fingers to the upper window which closed with a slam.Tufik stooped, picked up his suitcase, and saw the taxi for the firsttime. Even in the twilight we saw his face change, his brown eyesbrighten, his teeth show in his boyish smile. The taxicab driver hadstalled his engine and was cranking it.

  "Sh!" I said desperately, and we all cowered back into the shadows.

  Tufik approached, uncertainty changing to certainty. The engine wasstarted now. Oh, for a second of time! He was at the window now, peeringinto the darkness.

  "Miss Tish!" he said breathlessly. No one answered. We hardly breathed.And then suddenly Aggie sneezed! "Miss Pilk!" he shouted in delight. "Mymothers! My so dear friends--"

  The machine jerked, started, moved slowly off. He ran beside it, a handon the door. Tish bent forward to speak, but Charlie Sands put his handover her mouth.

  And so we left him, standing in the street undecided, staring after uswistfully, uncertainly--the suitcase, full of Cluny-lace centerpieces,crocheted lace, silk kimonos, and embroidered bedspreads, in his hand.

  That night we hid in a hotel and the next day we started for Europe. Weheard nothing from Tufik; but on the anniversary of Mr. Wiggins's death,while we were in Berlin, Aggie received a small package forwarded fromhome. It was a small lace doily, and pinned to it was a card. It read:--

  For the sadness, Miss Pilk!

  TUFIK.

  Aggie cried over it.