Villanazul went shyly out.
Villanazul came shyly home.
‘Picture it, ’ he said, not looking at them, looking at the floor, talking to the floor. ‘The Green Plaza, a group of elderly business men gathered under the stars and they are talking, nodding, talking. Now one of them whispers. All turn to stare. They move aside, they make a channel through which a white hot light burns its way as through ice. At the centre of the great light is this person. I take a deep breath. My stomach is jelly. My voice is very small, but it grows louder. And what do I say? I say, “Friends. Do you know Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus? In that book we find his Philosophy of Suits.…” ’
And at last it was time for Martinez to let the suit float him out to haunt the darkness.
Four times he walked around the block. Four times he paused beneath the tenement porches, looking up at the window where the light was lit. A shadow moved, the beautiful girl was there, not there, away and gone, and on the fifth time, there she was, on the porch above, driven out by the summer heat, taking the cooler air. She glanced down. She made a gesture.
At first he thought she was waving to him. He felt like a white explosion that had riveted her attention. But she was not waving. Her hand gestured and the next moment a pair of dark-framed glasses sat upon her nose. She gazed at him.
Ah, ah, he thought, so that’s it. So! Even the blind may see this suit! He smiled up at her. He did not have to wave. And at last, she smiled back. She did not have to wave either. Then, because he did not know what else to do, and he could not get rid of this smile that had fastened itself to his cheeks, he hurried, almost ran, around the corner, feeling her stare after him. When he looked back, she had taken off her glasses and gazed now with the look of the nearsighted at what, at most, must be a moving blob of light in the great darkness here. Then, for good measure he went around the block again, through a city so suddenly beautiful he wanted to yell, then laugh, then yell again.
Returning, he drifted, oblivious, eyes half-closed, and seeing him in the door the others saw not Martinez but themselves come home. In that moment, they sensed that something had happened to them all.
‘You’re late!’ cried Vamenos, but stopped. The spell could not be broken.
‘Somebody tell me,’ said Martinez. ‘Who am I?’
He moved in a slow circle through the room.
Yes, he thought, yes, it’s the suit, yes, it had to do with the suit and them all together in that store on this fine Saturday night and then here, laughing and feeling more drunk without drinking, as Manulo said himself, as the night ran and each slipped on the pants and held, toppling, to the others and, balanced, let the feeling get bigger and warmer and finer as each man departed and the next took his place in the suit until now here stood Martinez all splendid and white as one who gives orders and the world grows quiet and moves aside.
‘Martinez, we borrowed three mirrors while you were gone. Look!’
The mirrors, set up as in the store, angled to reflect three Martinezes and the echoes and memories of those who had occupied this suit with him and known the bright world inside this thread and cloth. Now, in the shimmering mirror, Martinez saw the enormity of this thing they were living together and his eyes grew wet. The others blinked. Martinez touched the mirrors. They shifted. He saw a thousand, a million white-armoured Martinezes march off into eternity, reflected, reflected, for ever, indomitable, and unending.
He held the white coat out on the air. In a trance, the others did not at first recognize the dirty hand that reached to take the coat. Then:
‘Vamenos!’
‘Pig!’
‘You didn’t wash!’ cried Gomez. ‘Or even shave, while you waited! Compadres, the bath!’
‘The bath!’ said everyone.
‘No!’ Vamenos flailed. ‘The night air! I’m dead!’
They hustled him yelling out and down the hall.
Now here stood Vamenos, unbelievable in white suit, beard shaved, hair combed, nails scrubbed.
His friends scowled darkly at him.
For it was not true, thought Martinez, that when Vamenos passed by, avalanches itched on mountain-tops. If he walked under windows, people spat, dumped garbage, or worse. Tonight now, this night, he would stroll beneath ten thousand wide-opened windows, near balconies, past alleys. Suddenly the world absolutely sizzled with flies. And here was Vamenos, a fresh-frosted cake.
‘You sure look keen in that suit, Vamenos,’ said Manulo sadly.
‘Thanks.’ Vamenos twitched, trying to make his skeleton comfortable where all their skeletons had so recently been. In a small voice, Vamenos said, ‘Can I go now?’
‘Villanazul!’ said Gomez. ‘Copy down these rules.’
Villanazul licked his pencil.
‘First,’ said Gomez, ‘don’t fall down in that suit, Vamenos!’
‘I won’t.’