The Taxidermist

by Enrique Laso

  In one of the manuals he once lent me, I found a photograph that attracted my attention enormously. There was José, in a sort of wasteland surrounded by a dirty, graffitied wall. He looked very young, he must have been about twenty. The photographic paper was already quite damaged, the black and white had yellowed, maybe helped in part by the pages of the old manual. The taxidermist was holding a beautiful young woman by the waist. She was the same age and height as him. The girl had straight, dark, shoulder-length hair, her eyes were large and dark; she smiled happily at the camera. I turned the picture around and I found a handwritten note: «José and Elena, summer of 1943». I spent a few days obsessed with the smiling image of the young woman; I remembered José had said that name once, when he was nearly asleep. Was it the same person? While studying, Elena's face often appeared before my eyes, in her soft sepia tones.

  "Who is she?" I asked the taxidermist, as soon as I saw him on the only June morning I managed to go and see him.

  José stared at the photograph I'd given him, confused and maybe even a little sulky. His blue eyes darkened, and the hand holding the picture started trembling very slightly.

  "Where did you get this?" he asked, nonchalantly, as if it'd been impossible that it could've got to my hands.

  "It was among the pages of one of the manuals you lent me," I answered, watching him closely. "Who is she?"

  "Elena... the only woman I have ever loved, and also the only one to understand, before anyone else, that I was a genius. She knew it when my pieces were no more than a handful of lifeless skins, often an easy prey for decay..."

  The taxidermist spoke almost breathlessly, as if breathing was suddenly difficult for him. He could not take his eyes from the photograph, as if an invisible ghost had been waiting in it, hidden from everyone but him. I noticed that his thumb stroked the picture subtly, in the area where the smiling girl was.

  "What became of her?"

  "I don't know. Eventually, she tired of me, of my eccentricities, I guess... One fateful day, she just disappeared."

  José was truly crestfallen. His eyes were clouded by the past. In one of his hands was a fragment of his past, of which he'd obviously rather not have heard of again. I regretted giving the photograph back to him. I could have pretended that I had not seen it, put it back where I'd found it in the manual. But curiosity had got the better of me once again.

  "And you never fell in love again..?" I asked, trying to move forward in time and give him a chance to change the subject.

  "No, never again. I understood I'd lost the woman of my dreams forever, simple as that. And that I had no one else to blame for losing her." José said, putting the photograph back into one of the manuals again. "I was left without the will or strength to care for anyone else..."

  I thought my teacher had taken too radical a decision, and that surely, had he tried hard enough, he would've found another girl like that one. I thought Elena leaving him had provided him with the perfect excuse to shut himself away for good.

  "She was very pretty. Maybe you could try to find her and beg her to forgive you. It's never too late," I declared, with my typical naïveté.

  The taxidermist gave me one of his enigmatic smiles. He took a few steps towards the swimming pool, then he put his hands on his hips.

  "Next week we'll clean the swimming pool, and you'll be able to go for a dip. Try to pass everything and you'll have a good summer. You'll see how good it feels to be able to dive into the pool after school."

  I felt offended. It was clear that he didn't want to talk about the woman anymore, but I thought there were better ways to let me know this. Ignoring my words was quite thoughtless, when I was just trying to be kind and to help him. My immature reaction was to plough on.

  "José, it's never too late..."

  He turned around brusquely. His face was sombre and he seemed tremendously angry with me.

  "I tried, once, and it was a mistake, do you get it? It was a horrible mistake," he said, covering his face with his hands.

  I understood that he was not angry with me, but rather with himself. The taxidermist seemed to be trying to wipe away the past with his palms, but the memory was indelible, it was etched behind his eyelids, his eyes, in the most hidden corner of his brain. I moved closer to him and touched his arm lightly.

  "I'm sorry. I hope you can forgive me," I muttered.

  José stood up straight and we started walking together towards the back of the house, our particular classroom. He'd recovered and there was no trace of sadness or anger. His face was bright again and he looked excited and cheerful like a child.

  "Today I'm going to teach you how to use two key elements in our trade, but you need to treat them with the utmost care. If you use them wisely, your work will live on, as beautiful as the day you made them."

  "And what are these elements?" I asked, intrigued.

  "Cyanide and arsenic."

  IX

  My exams came and went, and luckily I not only managed to pass them all, but I also obtained an excellent average mark, which allowed me to chose any university course I wanted. When I finished, I was exhausted and just wanted to rest and have a nice summer, three months to reflect unhurriedly about my future. Despite all this, my parents hassled me constantly with their recommendations about what course would be most adequate, or inviting me to visit a good friend or other, who was a doctor, a lawyer or an architect and could give me good advice. However, I preferred to keep going, almost secretly, to the taxidermist's and continue with my top-notch training.

  The month of July flew by. José carried on teaching me, not just taxidermy but also about life, dreams and how to make the best use of the time we're given. He philosophised with the melancholy of those who sense they don't have much time left to live. I tried to cheer him up, but he always said that my presence and my yearning to learn were more than enough for him, And yet, I knew that a great sorrow was tormenting him, which I could see in his languid gestures or in the dull tone his voice would sometimes take on. He would, from time to time, have one of those moments when he seemed to leave this world, sinking into a distant, maybe even possibly invented past. When he came round he'd give me a puzzled, confused look, then finally smile one of his kind smiles, which I received as a caress.

  In those peaceful days I would visit him more often, sometimes unexpectedly, without previous warning. I'd take the bus and get to his home. He always received me happily, and sometimes I would stay for lunch with him and Adela, who was an extraordinarily good cook. In the summer, the house acquired new colours: the green and purple from the fig tree, the light blue of the water in the swimming pool , the resplendent white of the lower façade, the red, yellow and pink of the carnations grown in numberless pots... I used to bathe in the pool, then I laid in the sun, my eyes closed, enjoying the pleasant warmth of the summer on my eyelids and the light breeze from the mountain gently touching my wet skin. The taxidermist would read to me, sitting in a deck chair; sometimes, he'd fall asleep with a book in his hands. I think those were the happiest days of my life.

  One of those days, in early August, I went to the taxidermist's house without calling beforehand. When I got to the gate, I shook it vigorously, as if pushing a doorbell. Adela soon turned up from behind the house, with her mechanical, difficult movements. I was happy to see the woman's fresh, kind face, for whom I felt a sincere, deep affection.

  "Enrique, you're here today? Don José is in the city. He had a medical check-up He has one every year, around this time," said Adela, somewhat embarrassed.

  I seemed to remember that the taxidermist had mentioned something of that nature the previous weekend, but I had paid no attention. I shook my head, silently reproaching myself.

  "In that case, I had better go home," I said, resignedly.

  "Since you are here, if you want, you can come in and have a dip. Afterwards, you can go home, or stay and wait for Don José."

  I gladly accepted the invitation, because I had no interest in
climbing down the long slope so soon. I was hot and sweaty and I thought a dip would do me no harm at all.

  "You can change inside, in the first room on the right. It's open," said Adela, as she walked away on one side of the house, going back to whatever she had been doing.

  I went inside the house feeling a bit apprehensive. I hadn't been inside for a long time, and the fears that had haunted me so much in the past returned as if I'd never really managed to get over them. The deer's head I liked so much received me in the lobby. It was still there, stately and undaunted, in its lookout post about seven feet up. When I got to the corridor, the first thing I did was push the light switch, which flooded it in a faint yellowish light. It wasn't much, to be honest, but at least it reduced the gloomy darkness that stimulated my imagination so much. The first door on my right was in fact open. Much to my surprise, I discovered it was the taxidermist's bedroom. There was his unmade bed, a large wardrobe where he kept his clothes; a chest of drawers; a large mirror, over five feet tall; a coat stand and two bedside tables with lamps on them. Everything was made of elegant mahogany. The walls were covered in photographs and diplomas. In the former, José never appeared. They were pictures of his best pieces, exhibited in museums and private collections; in the latter, there were acknowledgments of various kinds, always with the same name written in ostentatious typefaces: José Vaquerizo Yepes. I spent quite a while looking at the pictures and reading the diplomas, all splendidly framed. Then I put on my swimming trunks, which I had in a bag, along with a manual the taxidermist had lent me a few days ago, and which, as usual, I had devoured in just a few hours. I decided to return the book to its place before I went to the swimming pool, so I overcame my fears and went to the library. I soon discovered the space left by the manual and, very carefully, I returned it to its place. Then, almost by chance, I run into the most valued book among all those that José possessed: the “Manuel du Naturaliste Préparateur”, by Pierre Boitard. I took it in my hands as gently as I could, feeling that I was holding an exceptional work, as much as any of the exceptional pieces the taxidermist had created throughout his life. Suddenly, a piece of paper slid out from between its pages, and it fell on the floor. I didn't react right away, because I thought it was a page from the book, falling out despite my careful handling. When I could breathe again, I discovered, much to my relief, that it was a black and white photo: it was a close-up picture of a woman's face, the same one who smiled beside José in that distant summer of 1943, Elena. She seemed to me even more beautiful, and I was not surprised at all that the taxidermist had been in love with her. But, if in the previous photograph her face was glowing with happiness, in this one it reflected deep sadness. That sadness caught on me in a surprisingly quick manner. Guided by an absurd intuition, I turned the photograph around and I found what I had expected: something was written there.

  «José, I'm leaving. I've tried everything, but I can see now that nothing is possible between us. I love you very much, but I don't want to be destroyed by you, dragged in your frenzied rush to the abyss, which you seem so keen on. You are an exceptional man. I beg you from the bottom of my soul, do not ruin the virtues that nature has bestowed upon you. Goodbye, my love».

  I turned the portrait around again: the young woman was looking at me from the photo with increased intensity, and possibly more sadness. Those words revealed a love story full of disagreements that, I knew, had continued up to the present. The taxidermist's cloudy eyes showed this from time to time. I thought I would ask him about this the next time I saw him, but I discarded the idea right away. It wasn't any of my business. Besides, half a century had gone by and I should not stir things up now. Anyway, and surely guided by a newly-found investigative spirit, I decided it was the right day to try and go into the loft, protected by José's absence and Adela's chores. Holding tightly on to the Boitard book from 1825, among the pages of which I'd put Elena's photograph again, I went to the corridor looking for the last door on the left, the last before the large living room. I recalled the taxidermist's sombre face the only time I'd seen him coming from there, and I felt a slight unease that did not stop my feet from going forward. I opened the door very quietly, as if somebody in the house might hear me and reprimand me, or as if on the other side of that door there could be somebody sleeping who should not be awakened under any circumstances. I didn't find the light switch in that room, and I had to just leave the door open and let the weak light from the corridor slowly creep into it. When my eyes got used to the darkness, I discovered four bare walls, with nothing hanging on them, and nothing else. There was no furniture in the room, nor anything else, apart from a window, doubly covered, first by blinds, then by curtains. At the back, on the right, was the space for the stairs that led to the loft. I pretty much felt my way to the first step. It was shrouded in total darkness, and I had to climb guided by intuition, and moving my hands clumsily before me. I made my way up very slowly, remembering that in my nightmare, at some point there was a little light coming from the skylight on the façade. Although I wasn't particularly scared, my legs started trembling a bit, and more than once I was on the verge of rolling down the stairs because of my insecure walk. I also felt anxious, because I somehow suspected that I was about to reveal some strange secret about the taxidermist. I imagined the loft populated by stuffed animals, in a petrified, dead zoo that was at the same time, teeming with life. I wanted to discover what pieces he had kept for himself: the genius who had so skilfully flooded the world with his art. I also predicted that the best books, and maybe his own notes, would be there, hidden at the bottom of a trunk or among less valuable volumes. But all these fantasies and hopes were cut short: at the top of the stairs there was a locked door. I had to go back, disillusioned and with a stressful sense of urgency. To make matters worse, as soon as I went back to the corridor, I run into Adela, who looked puzzled.

  "What are you doing, Enrique?" she asked, no hint of malice or reproachfulness.

  "I was... I got confused, I wanted to go to the library, and I came into this room by mistake," I stammered.

  "The antique book library is this one" said Adela, pointing at the door which I knew would take me to the taxidermist's most valuable books and manuals, "and the one with the more modern books is over there," she explained, now pointing to the opposite door.

  "Oh... I see... I was totally wrong."

  "I came because I walked past the swimming pool and I thought it was strange that you weren't there. Also, since I know you don't much like the inside of the house, I came to check that you hadn't fainted or anything," said the woman, winking at me and giving me a tiny push.

  "No, I was going to the swimming pool now, but first I wanted to return this manual José had lent me," I replied, showing her the Boitard book.

  "Well then, if everything's ok, I'll go back to my business. Not everyone is lucky enough to have three months' holiday," she added, a light-hearted complaint with a hidden criticism.

  I waited until the woman had gone towards the kitchen and, in a new fit of madness, I ran to the bedroom and hid the Boitard book among my things. Then I took a quick dip and sunbathed for about ten minutes, just enough time for my skin to dry. I went back to José's bedroom, put on my clothes as fast as I could, and went to say goodbye to Adela. She tried to convince me to stay for lunch, but I invented an implausible excuse and run away like a small time crook, like a granny scammer. I dragged my shame all the way home, where I could not look my parents in the eye, but rather stormed past them with a few words to greet them. Once in the comfortable safety of my room, behind a locked door, I delighted myself in the enjoyment of the two items I had looted with my horrendous crime: the Boitard taxidermy manual in its first French edition and Elena's picture with her dramatic farewell words. I studied them both for five hours, until the afternoon faded into evening and my parents knocked, worried, on my door. Then I broke down in tears as I realized that I had just killed the innocent child I had kept, until then, nestled inside m
e.

  X

  Remorse casts a long, bleak shadow that dyes in its filth everything it touches. I had never imagined, until then, how one rash, spontaneous act can take over our minds and subject it to the cruellest torture. Some may consider my crime a trivial action, compared with other, more important crimes, but I think the inner condemnation a person can be subjected to when they have transgressed the moral order has more to do with their interpretation of the actual act committed than with the general assessment of it that society may make. In one's own intimate solitude, of the mind subordinated to silence, thoughts will flow freely, involuntarily, and it is at that time when the real "I" that we carry inside, surfaces. My real self was constantly tormenting me, but my adolescent pride prevented me from finishing this punishment in any unequivocal way. I felt unable to go back to the taxidermist's house, offer my apologies and return his property. It was preferable to maintain the internal derision in order to maintain a childish honesty before everyone else, under an invisible cover of lies and appearances. Some may even think that this process is called "maturing"; however, I prefer to call it a sort of brutalisation process.

  It took three weeks for me to dare go back to the taxidermist's after the despicable book incident. When I did so, I tried -rather successfully- to feign a cheerful normality, which I had rehearsed for days.

  "I've missed you," said José, as soon as he saw me. He was standing by the fig tree, collecting some fruit.

  "I was away with my parents," I lied. They had, in fact, gone to Paris for a few days, but I had chosen to stay home on my own.

  "I hope you haven't forgotten anything of what I've taught you. It is now when you will have to face the most ambitious challenges," the taxidermist explained. He was talking without looking at me, busy with his harvesting task.

  "All of it is more present than ever in my mind. I've had time to reflect on things," I said, trying to sound nice.