"You're separated, aren't you?" asked Serge, and was then sorry he said it because innocent remarks like that could leave an opening for a lurid confession of marital problems.

"Yeah, but I'm going to call her and ask her if I can come home. What am I doing living in a bachelor pad? I'm forty-two years old. I'm going to tell her we can make it if we have faith."

That's just swell, Serge thought. Black Martin worked his magic on the h.o.r.n.y old b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

Serge dropped Blackburn at the station and drove back to Brooklyn deciding he'd have some Mexican food. Some carnitas carnitas sounded good and there were a couple of places on Brooklyn that gave policemen half price and made sounded good and there were a couple of places on Brooklyn that gave policemen half price and made carnitas carnitas Michoacan style. Michoacan style.

Then he thought of Mr. Rosales' place. He hadn't been there in a few months and there was always Mariana who looked better and better each time he stopped. One of these days he might ask her out to a movie. Then he realized he hadn't dated a Mexican girl since high school.

He didn't see Mariana when he first entered the restaurant. He had been coming in once or twice a month, but had missed the last few months-because of a thirty-day vacation and a waitress that Blackburn was trying to seduce at a downtown drive-in who was unaccountably interested in the old boy and was supplying them with hot dogs, hamburgers, and occasional pastramis courtesy of the boss who did not know she was doing it.

"Ah, senor Duran," said Mr. Rosales, waving Serge to a booth. "We have not seen you. How are you? Have you been sick?"

"Vacation, Mr. Rosales," said Serge. "Am I too late to eat?"

"No, of course not. Some carnitas carnitas? I have a new cook from Guanajuato. She can make delicious barbacoa barbacoa and and birria." birria."

"Maybe just a couple tacos, Mr. Rosales. And coffee."

"Tacos. Con todo? Con todo?"

"Yes, lots of chile."

"Right away, senor Duran," said Mr. Rosales, going to the kitchen, and Serge waited but it was not Mariana who returned with the coffee, it was another girl, older, thinner, inexperienced as a waitress, who spilled a little coffee while pouring.

Serge drank the coffee and smoked until she brought him the tacos. He was not as hungry as he thought, even though the new cook made them just as good as the last one. Every bit of fat was trimmed off the tiny chunks of pork and the onions were grated with care, with cilantro sprinkled over the meat. The chile sauce, Serge thought, was the best he ever tasted, but still he was not as hungry as he thought.

Midway through the first taco, he caught Mr. Rosales' eye and the little man hurried to his table. "More cafe?" he asked.

"No, this is fine. I was just wondering, where's Mariana? New job?"

"No," he laughed. "Business is so good I have two waitresses now. I have sent her to the market. We ran out of milk tonight. She will be back soon."

"How's her English? Improving?"

"You will be surprised. She is a very smart one. She talks much better than I do."

"Your English is beautiful, Mr. Rosales."

"Thank you. And your Spanish, senor? I have never heard you speaking Spanish. I thought you were Anglo until I learned your name. You are half Anglo, perhaps? Or a real Spaniard?"

"Here she comes," said Serge, relieved to have Mariana interrupt the conversation. She was carrying two large bags and closed the door with her foot, not seeing Serge who took a grocery bag from her hand.

"Senor Duran!" she said, her black eyes glowing. "How good it is to see joo."

"How good it is to hear you speak such beautiful English," Serge smiled, and nodded to Mr. Rosales, as he helped her take the milk to the kitchen.

Serge returned to the table and ate heartily while Mariana put on an ap.r.o.n and came to his table with a fresh pot of coffee.

"Two more tacos, Mariana," he said, noting with approval that she had gained a few pounds and was now rounding into womanhood.

"Joo are hungry tonight, senor Duran? We have missed you."

"I'm hungry tonight, Mariana," he said. "I've missed you too."

She smiled and returned to the kitchen and he was surprised that he could have forgotten that clean white smile. Now that he saw it again, he thought it astonishing that he could have forgotten. It was still too thin and delicate a face. The forehead was ample, the upper lip still a bit long, the black eyes heavy-lashed and full of life. It was still the madonna face. He knew the tiny fire of longing still lived in spite of what the world had told him, and that flame was glowing red hot at this moment. He thought he'd let it smolder for a while because it was not unpleasant.

When Mariana brought the second plate of tacos, he brushed against her fingers. "Let me hear you speak English," he said.

"What do joo wish me to say?" she laughed, self-consciously.

"First of all, stop calling me senor. You know my name, don't you?"

"I know it."

"What is it?"

"Sergio."

"Serge."

"I cannot say that word. The end is too harsh and difficult. But Sergio is soft and easy to say. Try it jurself."

"Ser-hee-oh."

"Ay, that sounds berry comic. Can you no' say Sergio?" she laughed. "Sergio. Two sounds. No more. No' three sounds."

"Of course," he smiled. "My mother called me Sergio."

"Joo see," she laughed. "I knew that joo could say it. But why don' joo ever talk Spanish?"

"I've forgotten," he smiled, and thought, you couldn't help smiling at her. She was a delightful little child. "You're a dove," he said.

"What is a dove?"

"Una paloma."

"But that is my name. Mariana Paloma."

"It fits. You're a little dove."

"I am no' so little. It is that joo are a big man."

"Did you ever see a man so big in your country?"

"No' many," she said.

"How old are you, Mariana, nineteen?"

"Jas."

"Say yes."

"Jes."

"Y-y-yes."

"J-j-jes."

They both laughed and Serge said, "Would you like me to teach you to say yes? Yes is easy to say."

"I wish to learn all English words," she answered, and Serge felt ashamed because her eyes were innocent, and she didn't understand. Then he thought, for G.o.d's sake, there are plenty of girls even if Paula wasn't enough which she most certainly was. What would it prove to take a simple child like this? Had he lived so long alone that self-gratification had become the only purpose for living?

Still he said, "You don't work Sundays, do you?"

"No."

"Would you like to go somewhere with me? To dinner? Or to a theater? Have you ever seen a real play? With music?"

"Joo want me to go with joo? De veras? De veras?"

"If Mr. Rosales will let you."

"He will let me go anywhere with joo. He thinks joo are a good man. Joo mean it?"

"I mean it. Where shall we go?"

"To a lake. Can we go to a lake? In the afternoon? I will bring food. I have never seen a lake in this country."

"Okay, a picnic," he laughed. "We call it a picnic when people bring food and go to a lake."

"That is another hard word," she said.

Serge thought several times on Sat.u.r.day of calling Mr. Rosales' restaurant and calling off the outing. He never was aware of having any particular respect for himself. He realized that he was always one who wanted only to get along, to do things the easiest, least painful way, and if he could have a woman, a book, or a movie, and get drunk at least once a month, he thought that he had mastered life. But now there was the l.u.s.t for the girl and it was not that he was Don Quixote, he thought, but it was a totally unnecessary bit of cruelty to take a child like her who had seen or done nothing in a short difficult life, and to whom he must seem something special with a one-year-old Corvette and expensive gaudy sports coats which Paula bought for him. He was degenerating, he thought. In three years he'd be thirty. What would he be then?

In order to sleep Sat.u.r.day night, he made a solemn promise to himself that under no circ.u.mstance would he engage in a cheap seduction of a girl who was the ward of a kindly old man who had done him no harm. And besides, he grinned wryly, if Mr. Rosales found out, there would be no more free meals for the Hollenbeck policemen. Free meals were harder to come by than women-even if she were truly the Virgin of Guadalajara.

He picked her up at the restaurant because that Sunday she had to work two hours from ten until noon when the afternoon girl came on. Mr. Rosales seemed very glad to see him and she had a shopping bag full of food which she called her "chopping sack." Mr. Rosales waved to them as they drove away from the restaurant and Serge checked his tank because he intended to drive all the way to Lake Arrowhead. If she wanted a lake, he'd give her the best, he thought, complete with lakeside homes that should open those gleaming black eyes as wide as silver pesos.

"I didn't know if joo would come," she smiled.

"Why do you say that?"

"Joo are always joking with senor Rosales and with the other girl and me. I thought maybe it was a joke."

"You were ready, weren't you?"

"I still thought it was maybe a joke. But I went to a berry early Ma.s.s and prepared the food."

"What kind of food? Mexican?"

"Claro. I am I am Mexicana Mexicana? No?"

"You are," he laughed. "You are muy Mexicana." muy Mexicana."

"And joo are completely an American. I cannot believe that joo could have a name like Sergio Duran."

"Sometimes I can't believe it either, little dove."

"I like that name," she smiled, and Serge thought she's not a wilting flower, this one. She carries her face uplifted and looks right in your eye, even when she's blushing because you've made her terribly self-conscious.

"And I like your red dress. And I like your hair down, long like that."

"A waitress cannot wear her hair like this. Sometimes I think I chould cut the hair like American girls."

"Never do that!" he said. "You're not an American girl. Do you want to be one?"

"Only sometimes," she said, looking at him seriously, and then they were silent for a while but it was not an uncomfortable silence. Occasionally she would ask him about a town they pa.s.sed or an unusual building. She amazed him by noticing and knowing the names of several species of flowers that were used to decorate portions of the San Bernardino Freeway. And she knew them in English.

She surprised him again when she said, "I love the flowers and plants so much, senor Rosales was telling me I chould perhaps study botany instead of language."

"Study?" he said in amazement. "Where?"

"I am starting college in Se'tember," she smiled. "My teacher at my English cla.s.s says that my reading of English is good and that I will speak also berry good after I begin to study in college."

"College!" he said. "But little girls from Mexico don't come here and go to college. It's wonderful! I'm very glad."

"Thank joo," she smiled. "I am happy that joo are pleased with me. My teacher says that I may do well even though I have no' too much ed-joocation because I read and write so good in Spanish. My mother was also a berry good reader and had a good ed-joocation before she married my poor father who had none."

"Is your mother alive?"

"No, not for three years."

"Your father is?"

"Oh jes, he is a big strong man. Always berry alive. But not so much as before Mama died. I have ten junger sisters. I will earn money and I will send for them one by one unless they marry before I earn money."

"You're an ambitious girl."

"What means this?"

"You have great strength and desire to succeed."

"It is nothing."

"So you'll study botany, eh?"

"I will study English and Spanish," she said. "I can be a teacher in perhaps four jeers or a translator in less time working for the courthouse if I work hard. Botany is just a foolish thought. Could joo see me as an ed-joocated woman?"