The Hive

by Camilo José Cela

  Pirula has had good luck. Pirula used to work at the printer’s with Victorita, also as a packer; then she was taken away by a gentleman. He not only keeps her like a queen, giving her whatever she fancies, but he also is fond of her and respects her. Pirula would not say No if Victorita asked her for money. But while she might give her a hundred pesetas, she naturally has no reason to give her more. Nowadays Pirula lives like a duchess. Everybody calls her Señorita; she is well dressed and has a little apartment with a radio set. One day Victorita saw her in the street. In one year of living with her gentleman-friend the girl had changed beyond belief; she did not look the same woman, she even seemed to have grown, and so forth.

  Victorita would not ask for so much. . . .

  The policeman Julio García Morrazo has a talk with the night watchman, Gumersindo Vega Calvo, who comes from the same region.

  “A lousy night.”

  “I’ve seen worse.”

  For the last few months, the policeman and the night watchman have been pursuing a subject of conversation which gives them both pleasure, and to which they return night after night with tenacious enjoyment.

  “So you say you come from the Porreño district?”

  “That’s right, from near there; I’m from Mos, I am.”

  “Well, I’ve got a sister who’s married in Salvatierra, her name’s Rosalía.”

  “The wife of Burelo, the nail maker?”

  “That’s her.”

  “She’s in clover, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, she is. That one’s made a good marriage.”

  The lady in the mezzanine continues with her conjectures; she is something of a gossip.

  “Now he’s with the night watchman. He must be asking him for information about someone who lives here, don’t you think?”

  Don José Sierra goes on reading with exemplary stoicism and resignation.

  “Night watchmen always know everything there is to know, don’t they? Things people like us have no idea about are old stories to them.”

  Don José Sierra has finished reading a leader on social insurance and embarks on another, dealing with the procedure and prerogatives of the traditional Spanish Chamber of Deputies.

  “Perhaps there’s a secret Freemason in one of these houses. After all, you never know by looking at people.”

  Don José Sierra makes a strange sound in his throat, a sound that may mean “Yes” or “No,” or “Who knows?” Don José is a man who, by dint of having to bear with his wife, has learned to live through many hours, and sometimes through days on end, without saying more than an occasional “H’m!” followed by a further “H’m!” after a certain interval, and so on. This is an extremely discreet way of indicating to his wife that she is a fool, without telling her in so many words.

  The night watchman is happy about his sister Rosalía’s marriage; the Burelos are people with a good name in the whole district.

  “She’s got nine brats already, and the tenth coming.”

  “Did she marry a long time ago?”

  “Yes, quite a long time. She married ten years ago.”

  The policeman takes some time working it out, but the watchman does not let him finish his arithmetic; he resumes the thread of their conversation.

  “Our family comes more from over La Cañiza way. We’re from Covelo. Haven’t you heard of the ‘Baldies’?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Well, that’s us.”

  The policeman Julio García Morrazo feels bound to reciprocate.

  “They call my father and me the Foxes.”

  “Do they, now?”

  “We don’t mind it at all, everybody calls us that.”

  “Do they?”

  “The guy who kicked up rough was my brother Telmo, the one who died of typhoid. They used to call him the Mangy Whistler.”

  “Did they, now? Some people have a nasty character, haven’t they?”

  “And how! Some people are the very devil. My brother Telmo couldn’t stand being kicked.”

  “People like that always come to a bad end.”

  “That’s what I say.”

  The policeman and the watchman converse in Castilian; they want to prove to one another that they are no yokels.

  At this hour the policeman Julio García Morrazo always begins to feel sentimental.

  “It’s a good country, ours, isn’t it?”

  The night watchman Gumersindo Vega Calvo is a Galician of the other kind, rather skeptical and shy of admitting that things are plentiful.

  “It’s not so bad.”

  “Of course it isn’t. There’s a good life for you, what?”

  “That’s right.”

  From a bar on the other side of the road that is still open at this hour, there drifts into the cold street the sounds of a slow fox trot meant to be heard, or danced to, in private.

  Somebody comes up and calls for the night watchman: “Sereno!”

  The night watchman is intent on his memories.

  “The best things at home are the potatoes and the sweet corn, and then there’s wine, too, in the part we come from.”

  The man who has turned up calls him again, this time with more familiarity: “Sindo!”

  “Coming!”

  At the entrance to the underground station Narváez, a few steps from the corner of the Calle de Alcalá, Martin comes across his friend the “Uruguayan” out with another man. At first he pretends not to see her.

  “Hullo, Martin, you frightened mouse.”

  Martin turns his head, since he cannot escape.

  “Hullo, Trinidad, I didn’t see you.”

  “Now, come here, I want to introduce you.”

  Martin goes up to them.

  “Here you’ve a good friend of mine, and this is Martin—he’s a writer.”

  They call her the Uruguayan because she comes from Buenos Aires.

  “This chap you see here,” she tells her friend, “actually writes poetry. Come on, for goodness sake, shake hands now I’ve introduced you.”

  Obediently, the two men shake hands.

  “It’s a pleasure. How are you?”

  “Well dined and well wined, thank you.”

  The Uruguayan’s companion is one of those men who like to be funny. The couple burst into loud laughter. The Uruguayan’s front teeth are blackish and decaying.

  “Come, have a coffee with us.”

  Martin hesitates because it seems to him that the other fellow might not like it.

  “Really . . . I don’t think . . .”

  “Yes, sure, come and join us, do. Of course you must!”

  “It’s very nice of you. Just for a few minutes.”

  “Don’t be in a hurry, stay as long as you like. The night’s young! Do stay with us, I think poets are great fun.”

  They sit down in a café on the corner, and the sucker orders coffee and brandy for three.

  “Send me the cigarette boy.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Martin has placed himself opposite the couple. The Uruguayan is slightly tipsy.

  The cigarette boy comes up: “Good evening, Señor Flores. It’s quite a time since we last saw you here. . . . Do you wish anything?”

  “Yes, give us two cigars, good ones. Say, Uruguaya, have you got anything to smoke?”

  “I’ve very little tobacco left. Get me a packet.”

  “All right, a packet of Virginians for her.”

  Celestino Ortiz’s bar is empty. It is a tiny bar with a dark-green signboard that reads “Aurora—Wines and Meals.” At present there are no meals to be had. Celestino intends to start serving meals once things go better for him; you can’t do everything in one day.

  The last customer, a policeman, is drinking his wretched glass of anis at the counter.

  “That’s just what I’m telling you. I’m not swallowing their fairy tales.”

  As soon as the policeman is gone, Celestino means to close down, pull out his mattress, and go to sleep. Celesti
no does not like late hours, he prefers to go to bed early and lead a healthy life, at least as healthy a life as he can.

  “It doesn’t matter a damn to me, I tell you.”

  Celestino sleeps in his bar for two reasons: because it is cheaper, and because this way he will not be robbed the night he least expects it.

  “The seat of the evil is higher up. Not over there, I assure you.”

  Celestino soon became proficient in making up an excellent bed—though he sometimes tumbles off it—by stretching his horsehair mattress over eight or ten chairs placed together.

  “It doesn’t seem fair to me to arrest the black-market women in the underground. People have got to eat, and if they can’t get work, they must fend for themselves as best they can. The cost of living has gone up sky-high, you know it as well as I do, and what they issue on ration is nothing, it isn’t even a start. I don’t want to offend anyone, but I do think if a few poor women sell cigarettes and bread it’s wrong for you of the police to be after them.”

  The policeman drinking his anis is no dialectician.

  ”I do as I’m told.”

  “I know. Don’t think I can’t appreciate the difference.” After the policeman’s departure, Celestino rigs up the contraption on which he sleeps, lies down, and reads for a short while. He likes to cheer himself up a bit by reading before he turns off the light and falls asleep. In bed, Celestino usually reads ballads and broadsheets; he keeps Nietzsche for the daytime. He has a whole pile of them and knows some of the sheets by heart from A to Z. They all are lovely, but the ones he likes best are two ballads entitled “The Insurrection in Cuba” and “An Account of the Murders committed by the two True Lovers, Don Jacinto del Castillo and Doña Leonor de la Rosa, so as to attain the Fulfillment of their Vows of Love.” The second of the two is a ballad in the classic style, one of those that open in the good old way:

  “Holy Virgin Mary, Our Lady,

  Light of the Vaults of Heaven,

  Daughter of the Eternal Father,

  Mother of the All-Highest Son,

  And Spouse of the Holy Spirit,

  For, through virtue and power,

  The most gracious of Beings,

  In your Virgin Womb conceived,

  After nine months was born,

  The Author most divine

  Of the Redemption of Man,

  Clothed in human flesh,

  While your intact womb remained

  Chaste, clean, unspotted and pure.”

  These old-fashioned ballads are Celestino’s favorites. To justify his taste, he sometimes talks about the wisdom of the common people and other gibberish of the same kind. He is also very fond of the last words of Corporal Pérez when facing the firing squad:

  “Soldiers, now that my fate

  Has brought me to such a pass,

  I shall give you four duros,

  So that you give me a good death.

  Pérez asks of you only

  To see that your aim be straight,

  Although he has done no evil

  To make this slaughter right.

  Let two of you aim at his temples

  And two of you at his heart.”

  “There was a fellow! They were real men in the old days!’ Celestino says, aloud, before switching off the light.

  At the back of a dimly lit room a long-haired violinist, brimful of literary reminiscences, plays Monti’s czardas with great passion.

  The guests are drinking. The men, whiskey; the women, champagne or, if they had sat in a porter’s lodge until a fortnight ago, creme de menthe. There are plenty of unoccupied tables in the place; it is still rather early.

  “Oh, Pablo, I love this stuff.”

  “Then drink as much as you can, Laurita, that’s all you have to do.”

  “Tell me, is it true that it makes one get excited?”

  The night watchman goes to the house where they call him.

  “Good evening, Señorito.”

  “Hullo.”

  The watchman takes out his key and pushes the door open. Then, as though it were of no importance, he holds out his open hand.

  “Thank you very much.”

  The watchman turns on the light in the staircase, closes the front door, and ambles off, knocking on the pavement with his pointed stick, to resume his talk with the policeman.

  “That fellow comes every night round about this hour and doesn’t leave till four. He’s got a young lady in an attic flat. She’s a fair marvel. Her name’s Señorita Pirula.”

  “That’s the way to live.”

  The lady in the mezzanine never takes her eyes off them.

  “They must be talking about something, because they stay together all the time. Just think, when the watchman has to open a door to somebody, the policeman waits for him.”

  The husband puts down his paper. “You do love to stick your nose in other people’s business. I expect he’s waiting for some servant girl to come out.”

  “Of course, you’ve always got a quick answer to everything.”

  The gentleman who keeps his mistress in the attic flat takes off his overcoat and drops it on the sofa in the hall. It is a minute hall, with no more furniture than a sofa with room for two and a wooden shelf under a gilt-framed mirror.

  “What news, Pirula?”

  Señorita Pirula has come to the door on hearing his key in the lock.

  “Nothing, Javier darling, for me there’s no news except you.”

  Señorita Pirula is a young girl with a very refined and very educated manner, although it is scarcely more than a year since she used to use slangy expressions.

  From an inner room, softly lit by a low-placed lamp, comes the discreet sound of a radio.

  “Would you dance, Señorita?”

  “Thank you, no, kind sir. I’m rather tired. I’ve been dancing the whole evening.”

  The couple bursts into laughter, though not—of course— into loud laughter like the Uruguayan and Señor Flores, and then they kiss.

  “Pirula, you’re a little girl.”

  “And you a big schoolboy, Javier.”

  The pair walks to the inner room, arms tightly enlaced round each other’s waists, as though going down an avenue of acacias in bloom.

  “A cigarette?”

  The ritual is the same every night, and the words they speak are more or less the same, too. Señorita Pirula has a shrewd conservative instinct; she will probably get on well in her career. Anyhow, for the time being she cannot complain: Javier treats her like a queen, he is fond of her, he respects her. . . .

  Victorita does not ask for so much. All that Victorita asks for is to have enough to eat and to go on loving her young man in case he ever gets well. Victorita has no desire for a loose life, but needs must when the devil drives. She has never yet behaved as a slut; she has never slept with anyone except her young man. Victorita has strength of character, and though she is sensuous enough, she knows how to keep herself in hand. She has always behaved well to Paco and has never once deceived him.

  Once, before he fell ill, she had told him: “I like all men, that’s why I don’t go to bed with anybody except you. If I started at all, there wouldn’t be an end to it.”

  The girl was blushing and choking with laughter while she made this confession, but her young man failed to appreciate the joke.

  “If I’m the same to you as any other man, do as you like, go and do whatever you feel like.”

  One day, when he was already ill, a smartly dressed man followed her in the street.

  “Where to in such a hurry, Señorita?”

  The girl liked the man’s appearance; he was a fine man with an elegant air who knew how to introduce himself.

  “Please leave me alone. I’m going to work.”

  “But, my dear young lady, why should I leave you alone? It’s good to hear that you’re going to work. It’s a sign that you’re a decent girl, young and pretty as you are. But what harm is there in our exchanging a few words?”<
br />
  “None, as long as there isn’t more to it.”

  “And what more could it be?”

  The girl felt the words escaping her. “It could be what I’d like . . .”

  The well-dressed man remained impassive.

  “Of course. Remember, a man isn’t a cripple either, he does what he can.”

  “And what they let him do.”

  “Well, yes, and what they let him do.”

  The gentleman walked a little way with Victorita. Shortly before they came to the Calle de la Madera, Victorita dismissed him: “Good-by, leave me alone now. Anyone from the printing works might see us.”

  The gentleman frowned.

  “So you work at a printer’s hereabouts?”

  “Yes, right in the Calle de la Madera. That’s why I asked you to go. We can meet another day.”

  “Wait a moment.” Smiling, the gentleman took the girl’s hand. “Would you like us to?”

  Victorita, too, was smiling. “And you?”

  The gentleman looked straight into her eyes. “What time do you finish work this afternoon?”

  Victorita dropped her gaze. “At seven. But don’t come to fetch me. I’ve got a fiancé.”

  “And he comes to fetch you?”

  Victorita’s voice had a sad tinge. “No, he doesn’t. Good-by.”

  “Till we meet again.”

  “Well, if you like. Till we meet again.”

  At seven, when Victorita came from her work at El Porvenir, she found the gentleman waiting for her on the corner of the Calle del Escorial.

  “It’s just for a moment, Señorita, I quite realize that you have to go and see your fiancé.”’

  Victorita was surprised that he had returned to a formal mode of address.

  “I shouldn’t like to cast the slightest shadow between you and your fiancé. Please understand that I’ve not the least interest in doing so.”