The Ingenious Gentleman and Poet Federico García Lorca Ascends to Hell

by Carlos Rojas

  “I didn’t arrest him. I was ordered to arrest him, God keep him in His glory, poor thing! Yes, I was ordered to arrest him and I had to obey because we were at war, when all orders are sacred. I swear by the Blessed Virgin!”

  “Is this the truth?”

  “This is the beginning of the truth,” he specified after thinking about his answer. “The governor of Granada was visiting the front that day. An officer whose name I forget because with age even the most terrible memories become confused and grow dim, gave me unavoidable orders. ‘Look,’ he told me, ‘this gentleman has to appear in the offices of the Civilian Government because that’s what the governor has ordered. He wants to find him here when he returns from the front, with no delays and no excuses. He’s very interested in talking to him and wants him brought in duly protected: no one touches a hair on his head. For this service he has thought of a person with authority and prestige, like you, Ruiz Alonso.”’

  He spoke in a very quiet voice, almost in whispers that the man with the scar sometimes made note of beneath the Cross of Lorraine. He said the most terrible memories became clouded but seemed eager to please as undoubtedly he hadn’t been when he was sent to arrest me, assuming everything had happened in the way he said. The yellow dribble had dried at the corner of his mouth and his hand trembled when he persisted in wiping it away with his palm.

  “I was familiar with that version of the orders you say are sacred in wartime.” Again he spoke with absolutely no irony, looking at the cups of cold coffee as if they were a still life by a master, while Ruiz Alonso nodded his head. “As you must understand, it’s impossible to believe.”

  “Yes, yes, I understand that too. But that’s how things were back then. We were at war, an all-out war to the death, don’t forget that. I can swear to you by all the saints in heaven that this is the truth of the matter.” He stammered now and was ashen, as if he had reached the end of his strength. Suddenly he flared up, hitting the table with his fist. An unexpected rage brought him back to life. “Then all kinds of atrocities were told to slander me. They’re so absurd that I laugh, yes, I laugh, when I think of them.”

  “What do you laugh at, Señor Ruiz Alonso?”

  “Let’s do one thing at a time and put things in some order! Yes, in some order, eh? All right, well look, to begin with, that gentleman, may he rest in peace, was a degenerate. When I say it like that, with my usual frankness, I don’t intend to insult his honorable memory, because everybody knows and talks about it. Look, I’m a man from another time. A time that today seems very distant to me, in light of so much pornography and crime. Well, with my sense of morality and my religious piety, I say that his aberration doesn’t matter to me at all because it’s part of his private life. Yes, sir, his private life … ”

  “And with his death, even more private.”

  Ruiz Alonso stopped speaking to look at him indecisively. Suspicious and vulnerable, he seemed fearful of missing any sarcasm at his expense. Then, unexpectedly, blinking as if dazzled, he thought he understood. His eyelashes were growing in white, and a labyrinth of small veins flared on his pale cheeks.

  “Yes, yes, I understand. Death is as private as life, because no one can live or die for another person. You can’t for me, and I can’t for you.”

  “Or you for that man.”

  “What man are you talking about?”

  “The one you arrested or were ordered to arrest.”

  “Ah, yes, may God have pardoned him! I pray for him every Sunday at Mass, though they wanted to crucify me alive. I was getting to that, but I lost the thread and forgot what I was saying! I said I didn’t care whether that gentleman was queer or not, if you’ll excuse my plain speaking, because more than anything else I respect the privacy and dignity of a human life, follow? The disgraceful thing, the unspeakable thing, is what they did to me.”

  “What did they do to you, Señor Ruiz Alonso?”

  “Defamed me. Yes, sir, defamed me in writing and in printed books. That Englishman or Irishman, the one who secretly picked up everything I said on a … What did you say it was called?”

  “A tape recorder.”

  “Yes, that’s it, on a tape recorder. Well, he told me a Frenchman had written a biography of that gentleman who was shot, may he be in glory! And it said, just as it sounds, that I arrested him because he caused jealousy and arguments among us homosexuals. I admit that when I heard an insult like that, I lost my temper, because each man has his honor and mine is double: being very Christian on one hand but also very much a man on the other. ‘You tell this French gentleman,’ I said in just these words, or others like them, ‘that if he doubts my virility he can bring me his mother, his wife, or his daughters, and though I’m an old man I’ll use them as they deserve, given their profession, which the police in their country have on file.’ I wasn’t boasting, I swear, because here where you see me, a decrepit old man, I still get a hard-on that’s a joy to see.”

  The afternoon was dying over the Sierra on the stage in hell. The sky reddened like the mouth of a furnace. Then it moved to ocher and scarlet, like the onyx slipper snail in my last dream in Madrid. (“It’s called Crepidula onyx, which is its exact technical name in Latin. In the tropical Pacific, it’s known as the onyx slipper snail,” Dalí had told me in his accent of a Catalan comic. Then, with no transition: “Have you read Proust? No? Never? You still need to be educated, but with a little luck I’m going to smooth and varnish you until you begin to look like an authentic poet. As a child, before he was taken to the theater for the first time, Proust thought all the spectators were watching the same drama but remained isolated from one another. In other words, the way we read history or a voyeur shamefacedly spies through the keyhole.”) The lights went on in the Lyon and at that uncertain hour Ruiz Alonso’s shrill voice grew louder, proclaiming his attributes. Loving couples on sofas and old men engrossed in open newspapers suddenly looked at him, smiling.

  “Everyone is looking at you, Señor Ruiz Alonso,” said the man with the scar in the same quiet, uninflected voice.

  The old man pretended he hadn’t heard, or perhaps he hadn’t, since he was lost in his farce, as unreal and outsized as that of a clown in the earliest films. He didn’t turn to confirm the presence of his unexpected audience, but he lowered the tone of his complaints.

  “And I forgive everything because at my age one knows that we’re nobody. I forgive everything, I do, but I don’t understand what pleasure these foreigners find in harming us. In another time I would have said that this is the eternal anti-Spanish conspiracy. Now the truth is I don’t know what to say.” He shook his head wearily, but again, suddenly he seemed to recover. “Listen, where were we?”

  “According to you, the acting governor ordered you to arrest him.”

  “Ah, yes! That’s the truth. ‘Take the protection you need and arrest him immediately,’ he repeated. I said I didn’t need any, and my prestige and courage were enough. ‘Even so you should take along an escort,’ he said unwillingly and as if it pained him to tell me the whole truth, ‘because he’s hiding in the house of a Falange officer. A high-ranking officer.’ The news surprised and even shocked me, because back then I was very young and inflexible. I called a spade a spade, understand? Either them or us, period. Anyway, I stood firm in my intention to arrest that gentleman, may he rest in peace, all by myself, because my morality and reputation would open all the doors in the city to me.”

  “There are very different versions of events. Even today people swear that soldiers and armed men in civilian clothes, all following your orders, occupied the street, and that you even stationed men on the roofs to prevent a poet from escaping.”

  “Lies! Nothing but vicious lies! The people who were hiding him, I’m ashamed to even say their names and not because I hid him, of course, but because of the vile things they said about me, they were the ones who circulated those rumors. They claim I assaulted their house protected by an army, as if it were a fortress. No, sir! I did it
alone and unprotected because, as I told you, I’m very Christian but also very macho.”

  “On this point I can’t believe you.”

  “What? What did you say?”

  “I said that on this point I can’t believe you. There are many witnesses who claim the exact opposite. The street was occupied.”

  “Lies! Nothing but vicious lies! If you knew the number of falsehoods that distort the truth of events, almost all of them intended to dishonor me! Look, let’s take an example that refers more to that poor gentleman, may he rest in peace, than to myself. They’ve told the fairy tale of his pathological panic. Being a queer meant he also had to be a coward. That’s how their minds work, these evil, primitive people who then pass themselves off as educated … ”

  “Who?”

  “What? What did you say? … ”

  “I asked whom you were referring to.”

  “Well, all of them! Who else would I be referring to? The Englishman or Irishman, the Frenchman, and you too if you don’t believe the truth when I testify to it on my word of honor. The fact is this: that gentleman, God rest his soul, always maintained a courage that deserves to be commended. I’ll swear to that with my hand on the Bible. I told him to hurry, but I allowed him to say goodbye to the people who were sheltering him. He came back almost immediately and spoke to me very calmly. ‘Well the family here says the best thing is for me to go with you. But why do they want me at the Civilian Government?’ ‘I have no idea,’ I replied, not lying to him. ‘They’ve only asked me to guarantee that you arrive safe and sound. I have no other mission. Will you come with me?’ ‘Well, then, yes, in that case I’ll come with you.’ ‘Very good, very good,’ I agreed. ‘Then let’s go.’ When we entered the Civilian Government building, someone tried to hit him with the butt of a short musket, because there are cowards like that everywhere. I jumped in like a wild animal; I ordered him to attention and shouted: ‘How dare you, you wretch? In my presence!’ That poor gentleman, may God have mercy on him! felt so grateful he offered me a cigarette. ‘No, thank you very much. I’ve never smoked. But if I can be of service in any way, you need only ask.’ ‘No, sir, I wanted only to give you my thanks and an embrace …’ Those were his exact words: ‘… give you my thanks and an embrace for your kindness to me. I’ll never forget how you’ve behaved.’ We embraced and I was going out, leaving him under guard in the governor’s waiting room, when it occurred to me to say: ‘At least permit me to send an orderly for some chicken broth. A nice broth, even if it’s a Maggi, never does any harm,’ because that’s how courteous and gentlemanly I am. ‘All right, some broth then,’ he agreed, and those were the last words I heard him say, because yours truly left then for his house. I never saw him again, and never imagined on that afternoon that they would kill him. That’s the complete truth, and I’d repeat it if we were in the presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ, nailed on His cross. That’s also how I’ll testify before His divine tribunal, when my final hour comes and I appear for judgment … ”

  “There are other versions of events very different from yours. Testimonies from people who would also confirm them in the presence of God or any man, yourself included. You’ve been quoted as saying, at the moment you arrested him: ‘I’ve come to arrest you and take you to the Civilian Government because you did more harm with your books than others have with their pistols.”’

  “Death and damnation! May God strike me dead, right here at this table, if that isn’t the biggest of the lies! By the Holy Sacrament! … Are you listening to me? By the Holy Sacrament, I swear to you again that this is the vilest of all the libels.” Ruiz Alonso spoke very quietly, and the man with the marked face frowned as if making an effort to hear him or believe him. “How could I have said anything so absurd if I hadn’t read any of his books back then?”

  “And you’ve read them now?”

  “Yes I have read them, after I bought the leather-bound edition of his Complete Works in a single volume. I’ve already told you that as the years go by, even the worst memories become muddied and cool down. Still, you must understand that I couldn’t sit down alone with his poems if I felt responsible for his death. When he was arrested I had only heard about one of his poems, the one about the unfaithful wife, because at that time all of Spain was reciting it … All right, what do you want me to say? I’m going to be very sincere about this too. Back then I thought it was an obscenity, because I’m essentially a Christian gentleman and believe that sins like that, and I’d never throw the first stone, should not be available to innocent, impressionable young people.”

  “You said you still had erections that were a pleasure to see, Señor Ruiz Alonso. You added that it wasn’t a boast.”

  “And it isn’t, my dear sir, it isn’t because even though I’m devout, I’m a man and a sinner. I’m also older and find in that poem artistic merits I couldn’t see before. Even so, I still don’t like it. The one I love is the one about the man who’s told he’s been summoned by death on June 25th and on August 25th he lies down to die, with the supreme dignity of heroes and saints. Look, it has so much grandeur in its simplicity that sometimes tears came to my eyes when I read it and remembered the poor gentleman accepting his final broth from me.”

  “Very well, go on.”

  “I don’t want to hide anything from you. I, my dear sir, am an open book. If you ask my opinion regarding the death of that unfortunate …”

  “I didn’t ask you for it.”

  “I know, but supposing you had, as the man with the tape recorder did not refrain from doing, I’d answer as I answered him. I believe his shooting was reprehensible, because as a practicing, pious Christian, I condemn the death of man at the hands of man. I don’t care if the victim’s red, white, or polka-dotted. I’m an enemy of violence no matter where it comes from. On the other hand, if you ask what I think of his death in relation to his work … ”

  “I didn’t ask you about that either.”

  “I’ll tell you anyway, with my usual sincerity, that if the death of the man was a sin, the death of the writer was a benefit to him because at the end he was producing only nonsense and blasphemy; may God have forgiven him for that at the hour of judgment. Without changing the subject, but also without biting my tongue, I’ll add that I don’t understand the prestige he enjoys today, even greater abroad than in this country, I believe. Why so much interest in what he did and what he wrote? It must be because the poor man died the way he did, that’s what I tell myself, because if he had survived nobody would remember him.”

  “Not the bulls, or the fig trees, or the horses, or the ants in his house,” said the man with the cut face, looking into Ruiz Alonso’s eyes for the first time.

  “That’s what he says, may he rest in peace, in his elegy to Sánchez Mejías; I understand very little of it though I remember almost the whole poem,” replied Ruiz Alonso. “You see now that a poor typesetter also has a right to memory, though memories are sometimes his curse. Why don’t we all forgive one another for the sin of being born? Why don’t we let the dead bury the dead, as Our Lord Jesus Christ wanted? Why do you, Señor Vasigli, a Spaniard though your name sounds Italian, insist on writing a book about that unhappy man instead of dedicating a Mass for his soul?”

  “Vasari, Sandro Vasari.”

  “Fine, Vasari. Why do you keep returning, Señor Vasari, to those times, when you must have been a boy, to tell us about the life or death of an unfortunate who had so many crosses to carry, from his homosexuality to his shooting and including his wasted talent? Better to let him rest in peace, wherever he may be rotting, waiting for the Final Judgment.”

  “I don’t want to write a book, Señor Ruiz Alonso, but a dream.”

  “A dream?”

  “The one I had on April 1st of this year. I dreamed about hell and saw it as an endless spiral, along which a carpeted corridor ascended.” The man with the scar folded down the last written page in his notebook and drew a view of the spiral on the next one. Three equidista
nt lines crossed it, which he pointed at abstractedly with the tip of his pen. “Some theaters open onto the corridor, and a dead person corresponds to each of them. And in one of those theaters, the man you arrested and, according to what they say, also denounced, is waiting for judgment … ”

  “I didn’t denounce anybody! I’m not an informer!”

  “Be that as it may. In my dream, the man you arrested evoked fragments of his past in pieces and flashes. Those memories materialized immediately and were represented on the stage of his theater. From his orchestra seat, he seemed to watch and see them from a bird’s-eye view, becoming aware of everything in my nightmare in the sight of God. I said to myself: ‘This is impossible, you went crazy while you were dreaming.’ And then: ‘While you were dreaming you went to hell.’ Parts of that nightmare, perhaps the most terrible ones, disappeared when I woke. As you said, Señor Ruiz Alonso, the most terrifying memories become muddied with time. Dreams too, as the hours pass. In this way, forgetting preserves our sanity. Still, I remember having seen him while he was still a boy, on a stage transformed into the Carriage Drive in the Retiro. Another boy his age was with him and two little girls, perhaps younger than the boys; they were clearly his siblings. Their parents, dressed in their Sunday best and very provincial, proudly encouraged them. They all commented frequently on this, the children’s first trip to Madrid, capital of the kingdom. An open carriage passed where Machaquito and Vicente Pastor were talking and laughing. They both wore Panama hats and high boots that buttoned with a hook. Vicente Pastor combined a white silk neckerchief with a three-looped watch chain across his chest and a carnation in his buttonhole. The carnation, very red and full, seemed to have just opened on that luminous morning.”

  I was deceived when I thought Ruiz Alonso would take him for a madman. On the contrary, the fatigue that at first had thickened his voice was completely gone now. Gradually his spine straightened beneath his weary shoulders as he listened attentively to Sandro Vasari and strained his eyes contemplating the spiral of his notebook. From time to time he shook his head with a gesture not of disbelief but of wondering astonishment. Finally, with an index finger stained by tobacco-colored shadows, he indicated two of the three lines that cut across the sketch, in the middle of one of its curves.