The Day it Rained Forever

‘Here!’

Vamenos, chewing an old cigar, scattering sparks, slipped. The dummy, falling, toppled, turned over twice, and banged down the stairs.

‘Vamenos! Dumb! Clumsy!’

They seized the dummy from him. Stricken, Vamenos looked about as if he’d lost something.

Manulo snapped his fingers. ‘Hey, Vamenos, we got to celebrate ! Go borrow some wine!’

Vamenos plunged downstairs in a whirl of sparks.

The others moved into the room with the suit, leaving Martinez in the hall to study Gomez’s face.

‘Gomez, you look sick.’

‘I am,’ said Gomez. ‘For what have I done?’ He nodded to the shadows in the room working about the dummy. ‘I pick Dominguez, a devil with the women. All right. I pick Manulo, who drinks, yes, but who sings as sweet as a girl, eh? Okay. Villanazul reads books. You, you wash behind your ears. But then what do I do? Can I wait? No! I got to buy that suit! So the last guy I pick is a clumsy slob who has the right to wear my suit –’ He stopped, confused. ‘Who gets to wear our suit one night a week, fall down in it, or not come in out of the rain in it! Why, why, why did I do it !’

‘Gomez,’ whispered Villanazul from the room. ‘The suit is ready. Come see if it looks as good using your light bulb.’

Gomez and Martinez entered.

And there on the dummy in the centre of the room was the phosphorescent, the miraculously white-fired ghost with the incredible lapels, the precise stitching, the neat button-holes. Standing with the white illumination of the suit upon his cheeks, Martinez suddenly felt he was in church. White! White! It was white as the whitest vanilla ice-cream, as the bottled milk in tenement halls at dawn. White as a winter cloud all alone in the moonlit sky late at night. Seeing it here in the warm summer night room made their breath almost show on the air. Shutting his eyes, he could see it printed on his lids. He knew what colour his dreams would be this night.

‘White …’ murmured Villanazul. ‘White as the snow on that mountain near our town in Mexico which is called the Sleeping Woman.’

‘Say that again,’ said Gomez.

Villanazul, proud yet humble, was glad to repeat his tribute.

‘… white as the snow on the mountain called –’

‘I’m back!’

Shocked, the men whirled to see Vamenos in the door, wine bottles in each hand.

‘A party! Here! Now tell us, who wears the suit first tonight? Me?’

‘It’s too late!’ said Gomez.

‘Late! It’s only nine-fifteen!’

‘Late?’ said everyone, bristling. ‘Late?’

Gomez edged away from these men who glared from him to the suit to the open window.

Outside and below it was, after all, thought Martinez, a fine Saturday night in a summer month and through the calm warm darkness the women drifted like flowers on a quiet stream. The men made a mournful sound.

‘Gomez, a suggestion.’ Villanazul licked his pencil and drew a chart on a pad. ‘You wear the suit from nine-thirty to ten, Manulo till ten-thirty, Dominguez till eleven, myself till eleven-thirty, Martinez till midnight, and –’

‘Why me last?’ demanded Vamenos, scowling.

Martinez thought quickly and smiled. ‘After midnight is the best time, friend.’

‘Hey,’ said Vamenos, ‘that’s right. I never thought of that. Okay.’

Gomez sighed. ‘All right. A half-hour each. But from now on, remember, we each wear the suit just one night a week. Sundays we draw straws for who wears the suit the extra night.’

‘Me!’ laughed Vamenos. ‘I’m lucky!’

Gomez held on to Martinez tight.

‘Gomez,’ urged Martinez, ‘you first. Dress.’

Gomez could not tear his eyes from that disreputable Vamenos. At last, impulsively, he yanked his shirt off over his head. ‘Ay-yeah!’ he howled. ‘Ay-yeee!’

Whisper rustle … the clean shirt.

‘Ah…!’

How clean the new clothes feel, thought Martinez, holding the coat ready. How clean they sound, how clean they smell!

Whisper … the pants … the tie, rustle … the braces. Whisper … now Martinez let loose the coat which fell in place on flexing shoulders.

‘Olé!’

Gomez turned like a matador in his wondrous suit-of-lights.

‘Olé, Gomez, olé!’

Gomez bowed and went out the door.

Martinez fixed his eyes to his watch. At ten sharp he heard someone wandering about in the hall as if they had forgotten where to go. Martinez pulled the door open and looked out.

Gomez was there, heading for nowhere.

He looks sick, thought Martinez. No, stunned, shook up, surprised, many things.

‘Gomez! This is the place!’

Gomez turned around and found his way through the door.

‘Oh, friends, friends,’ he said. ‘Friends, what an experience! This suit! This suit!’

‘Tell us, Gomez!’ said Martinez.

‘I can’t, how can I say it!’ He gazed at the heavens, arms spread, palms up.

‘Tell us, Gomez!’