Next, at a word from the King, the women dressed in white put down their baskets and trays in front of him. And what did they contain but precious stones of different kinds, many, many, heaps higher than a house, rubies the size of chick-peas, pearls like pigeons eggs, huge diamonds – so many that they would fill enough sacks to load up a removal van; emeralds like walnuts and topazes as big as his fist.
The three women listened fascinated, silent, their eyes fixed on the blind man’s face, their mouths half open. At the beginning of the story they were sceptical, but by the end they believed him, prompted by their hunger for good things, luxuries, to compensate for the degrading poverty in which they lived. Almudena put his whole soul into his voice; every muscle of his face and even the hairs of his black beard were in motion. It was a kind of sign language, legible hieroglyphics, an oriental script that the listeners could read without knowing how. The end of the splendid vision was that the King told good Mordejai that he could only give him one of the two things he had asked for, either riches or a woman; he must choose between the precious stones which were enough to provide him with a fortune greater than that enjoyed by all the kings of the earth, and a good woman, beautiful and hard working, a jewel so rare that it could hardly be found without searching the world over. Mordejai did not hesitate a moment and told the King of the Underworld that he held all the bushels of precious stones as worth nothing, if he could not also have a woman.
“I would love her, love my wife, and without a wife I not want precious stones, nor money nor nothing.”
The King then pointed a female out to him who, in a cloak which completely covered her including her face, was walking along the road. He told him that she was his and that he should follow her, or rather chase after her, because the creature was going very fast. Having said this, His Majesty chose to disappear and with him vanished his retinue and his horsemen and the ladies in white, everything, everything, leaving only the strong smell of the incense and the baying of the two hounds as they galloped off into the far reaches of the cold night, fleeing it seemed in terror towards the wild hills. Mordejai was ill for three months after this strange event, living only on water and barley flour without salt. He became so thin that all his bones showed and could be counted one by one. Then, dragging himself along as best he could, he set out to travel the world in search of the woman who, according to the divine Samdai, was to be his.
“And you found her only after years and years of wandering, and her name was Nicolasa,” said Pedra, trying to help the autobiographer.
“What do you know about it? She not Nicolasa.”
“Then it must be this lady,” suggested La Diega, pointing rather impertinently at poor Benina, who was not amused.
“Me? I’m no pixie-woman walking the roads.”
Almudena described how from Fez he went to Algiers; how first he lived by begging in Tlemcen, then in Constantine and Oran; he sailed for Marseilles and wandered throughout France – Lyons, Dijon, Paris (very, very big) with so many parks (which he called olive-groves) and paved streets smooth like the palm of your hand. After going north as far as a town which they call “Lila”, he returned to Marseilles, then on to Cette, from where he sailed for Valencia.
“And in Valencia you met Nicolasa, and travelled on parish charity,” said Pedra, “and from Madrid you went to Portugal and for three years you lived happily together, until that tart went off with another man.”
“You know nothing.”
“Make him tell the story of Nicolasa and how they nicked him in Madrid and took him to San Bernardino, and she went to the hospital. And one night when he was asleep, two women appeared from the other world, two spirits if you like, who told him that Nicolasa was keeping company in the hospital with a man who was going to be hanged.”
“That’s all wrong, all wrong. You keep quiet.”
“He’ll tell us another day,” suggested Benina who, although she enjoyed hearing these entertaining stories, did not wish to remain any longer when she remembered her pressing errands.
“Wait, lady, why are you in such a hurry?” said La Diega, “Where could you be going which is any better than here?”
“I tell you more other day,” said Almudena smiling. “I seen many places.”
“You’re a bit tired, Jai. Treat us to a drink to wet your whistle, for you’re drier than a leather shoe-sole.”
“I not treat them, the drunkards. I got no money with me.”
“Don’t let that stop you,” said La Diega magnanimously.
“I don’t drink,” said Benina, “and moreover I’m in a hurry, so if you don’t mind I’ll be off.”
“You stay minute more,” said Almudena, “it striking eleven.”
“Let her go,” said La Pedra, kindly, “She may have to earn her living for today. We’ve earned ours already.” In reply to Almudena’s question as to how they had done this, they said that since La Diega had collected some debts from two girls in the Calle de la Chopa, they had started to trade, for both of them had great aptitude and ingenuity for commercial dealings. Pedra only regained her self-respect when she was trading, even in small goods like toothpicks, kindling and toasted chick-peas. La Diega was wonderful with scarves and laces. With the money which had arrived so unexpectedly they had bought goods in a clearance sale and straight away had set up shop next to the Arganzuela Fountain, where they were lucky enough to sell a large number of sets of buttons, many yards of lace and a couple of fancy waistcoats. Another time, they meant to sell pottery, images of saints and those cardboard horses given away for publicity by the factory in the Calle de Carnero. They spoke in great detail about their commercial ventures, and each one praised the other’s talents, for if Quarter-Kilo was champion at buying goods wholesale, the other woman was unbeatable in devising ingenious ways of selling them retail. Another proof that they had both been born for trade was that the cash that they got this way stuck in their pockets, arousing vague good intentions of putting something aside, whereas any money that came into their skinny palms by other means slipped through their fingers before they had time to close their fists on it.
Benina listened to all this talk with great interest and felt a new sympathy for the speaker as she did so, drunkard though she was, because she, Benina, also felt that she had commercial leanings. She had often dreamed of how she might have traded in goods of one sort or another. Ah! If only instead of entering domestic service and working like a slave, she had set up a stall, everything would have been different. But now old age and the indissoluble ties that bound her to Doña Paca made any such venture impossible.
The good woman insisted on leaving the party, enjoyable though it was, but when she got up to go the pencil that Don Carlos had given her fell to the ground, and as she bent down to pick it up the account book also fell.
“What a lot of things you’re carrying,” said Pedra, picking up the book and riffling through it, pursing her lips as if she intended to read it (though she could only spell out rather than read). “What’s this? An account book, how lovely. March it says here, and then pesetas and then céntimos. What a good idea to enter all the receipts and outgoings. I can write a bit, but I get bogged down with figures, because the eights get twisted round my fingers, and when I add up I can never remember how much to carry.”
“This book,” said Benina, who immediately saw the chance of a deal, “was given me by a relative of my mistress, with the idea that we should put down all our expenses, but we don’t know how to. So we don’t need it, any more than the Magdalene needs frills, as the saying goes. And I think, ladies, that you being in commerce might have a use for this book. Here, I’ll sell it, if you’ll pay me a good price.”
“How much?”
“As a special price for you, two reales.”
“Too much,” said Quarter-Kilo, looking at the pages of the book which Pedra still held. “And what should we want it for, seeing that we’re no scholars?”
“Look at this,” said Pedra,
giggling foolishly as she turned the pages with a licked finger, “the pages are marked with lines, a line for every entry, making it much clearer. We’ll give you a real, how about that?”
“But don’t you see it’s new? It’s written here, it’s worth two pesetas.”
They bargained. Almudena acted as mediator and the deal was concluded at forty céntimos, with the pencil thrown in. Benina left the café in good heart, thinking that she had not wasted her time, for even if the heaps of precious stones that Mordejai had dangled in front of her were imaginary, the four pennies she had made by selling the useless gift of the monomaniac Trujillo were real, shining like four suns.
15
The long rest in the café allowed Benina to speed like the wind from the Rastro to Miss Obdulia’s in the Calle de la Cabeza. She wished to visit and provide for Obdulia before going home: something like half of one of Don Carlos’s duros was certainly due to her. At a quarter to twelve she entered the main door, which was sinister and damp enough to remind one of a prison. On the ground floor there was a stable for she-asses used for milking, with a sign outside painted with little donkeys, and there they lived, deprived of light and air, the patient beasts which acted as wet-nurses for consumptives, weaklings and those suffering from catarrh. In the porter’s lodge the blind man Pulido was allowed shelter; he was an acquaintance of Benina because he also was a member of the beggars’ fraternity at St Sebastián’s. She chatted a while with him and with the donkey-keeper before going upstairs, and from them she got two items of bad news: bread was going to get dearer and shares in the Stock Exchange had slumped, the former because of drought and the latter an indication that a major revolution was on its way, all because the skilled workers were asking for an eight-hour day and the employers were refusing to grant it. The donkey-keeper gravely prophesied that all coins would soon be withdrawn, even the pesetas, to be replaced by paper money, and that new taxes would be levied, for example, for scratching oneself and for saying Good morning. With these depressing thoughts in mind Benina climbed the stairs, which were dark and gloomy with sagging treads and peeling walls; beside the apartment doors were names scribbled in charcoal or pencil. Squares of matting protruded from underneath them. There were grimy lamps which in the daytime looked like saints’ reliquaries. On the top floor, with cats as her neighbours and splendid views of roofs and skylights, lived Miss Obdulia. Her apartment, with its large, cold, dilapidated rooms would have reminded one of a convent, if the ceilings had not been so low that one could almost touch them. Mats and carpets were as foreign as frock coats and top hats in the Congo; only in what was called the little parlour was there a threadbare felt rug on the floor, patterned in blue and red, about six foot square. The gimcrack furniture, dented and rickety, spoke eloquently of the damage sustained on innumerable trips in removal vans.
Obdulia herself opened the door to Benina, saying that she had heard her coming upstairs, and immediately Benina was rushed at by two beautiful cats, who looked up at her, mewing, their tails in the air, rubbing their backs against her.
“Poor little beasts,” said the girl, sorrier for them than for herself, “they’ve had no breakfast yet.”
Doña Paca’s daughter was wearing a pink flannel dressing-gown, elegantly cut but shabby from much use, the front stained with chocolate and grease. Its sleeves were frayed and its skirts trailed on the ground, proclaiming it to be a second-hand garment too big for the wearer; its deceased owner had clearly been a larger woman.
“Didn’t your husband come home last night?” asked Benina, panting from the long climb.
“No, dear, nor do I want to see him. Let him stay in his café and in his brothels with the lady-friends who have sucked the life out of him.”
“Have they brought you nothing from your in-laws’ house?”
“Today’s not one of the days: you remember, they were going to bring food every other day. Only Juana Rosa has been here today, to do my hair, and my Andrea went off with her. They are going to lunch together at their aunt’s.”
“So you’re all on your own. Never mind, for God punishes, but not too hard, and here am I to see that you don’t starve, heaven’s in sight and well deserved. Aren’t you coughing a little? Is that gentleman here?”
“Yes, he’s been here since ten o’clock. He’s been entertaining me with all sorts of interesting stories. I’d almost forgotten that all we have in the house are two ounces of chocolate, half a dozen dates and a crust or two of bread. If you can bring me something, make sure first of all that you buy some food for these poor unhappy cats who’ve been worrying me to death since early this morning. They seem to be saying, ‘What’s happened to our good Nina, why doesn’t she bring us a treat?’ ”
“I’ll soon bring something for everyone,” said the old woman. “But first I’d like to greet that fine gentleman, who is so courteous to the ladies.” She entered the parlour, where Señor de Ponte y Delgado poured out a flood of elegant and affectionate compliments: “I still miss you, Benina, and I’m inconsolable when you are conspicuous by your absence.”
“So I am conspicuous by my absence? What nonsense are you talking, Señor de Ponte? Or is it just that we working women can’t understand all these fancy expressions? Well, I’m off. I’ll soon be back, to make lunch for the child and for their lordships the cats. Whether Don Francisco wishes to or not, he must stay here and do penance, I invite him: well no, Miss Obdulia here invites him.”
“Oh what an honour! Thank you a thousand times. I had intended to withdraw.”
“Yes, we know that you are always invited to grand houses. But as you are so good-natured, you deign to sit at the poor man’s table.”
“And we’re most grateful for this mark of consideration,” said Obdulia. “We realise what a sacrifice Señor de Ponte is making in accepting our humble fare.”
“Please, Obdulia, please.”
“But your great kindness inspires you to make such sacrifices and even greater ones, is it not so, Ponte?”
“I’ve scolded you before, dear friend, for being so paradoxical. You give the name of sacrifice to what to me is life’s greatest pleasure.”
“Have you any charcoal?” asked Benina abruptly, like someone heaving a rock into a bed of flowers.
“I think there is some,” said Obdulia. “And if not, bring some of that too.”
Nina went into the kitchen and having found some fuel, though not much, began to light the fire and set her pots to boil. During this tedious operation she spoke to the firewood and the charcoal, and using the bellows as a means of communication told them: “Once again I shall have the pleasure of feeding this poor hungry fellow, who doesn’t admit to his hunger because he is ashamed of it. Oh the poverty in this world, good Lord! It’s true what they say, the more of it you see, the more there is to see. And when one thinks one’s reached the bottom oneself, there are always others worse off. After all, I can go out into the street and beg, and get something, half a roll of bread is enough for me to live on. But these people who combine shame with hunger and are too proud and genteel to beg; who had opportunities and education and don’t want to lower themselves: dear God, how unfortunate they are! What they’ll say and do to try and stave off the pangs! If I’ve any money over after giving him lunch, I must see if I can find a way to get him to accept the peseta that he needs to get a lodging for the night. But oh dear, he’ll need two pesetas. I have a feeling that he didn’t pay for last night, and that woman Bernarda never gives credit more than once: I shall have to give him enough to settle the whole bill if he owes for two or three nights. No, even if I had the money, I wouldn’t dare to give it to him. Even if I offered it, he’d rather sleep in the open air than accept it from the hands of a poor woman like me. Lord, what sights one sees in this great world of the poor and needy!”
Meanwhile the languid Frasquito and the frail Obdulia were happily chatting of pleasurable things, far removed from dismal reality. Ever since Providence had intervened in the shap
e of Benina, Obdulia had recovered from her anxieties and fears and the gentleman also breathed again for the same reason: they were both bubbling over inside with the thought that for one day at least the problem of sustenance had been solved. The languishing young woman and the decayed gallant both possessed, in the midst of their utter poverty, one inexhaustible treasure house, so effective for their purposes as to be almost as good as real currency, and this sprang from the resources of their own beings; though they drew upon it lavishly, the more they used it up the more it replenished itself. This wealth consisted in the precious ability to detach themselves from reality whenever they wished and transport themselves to an imaginary world, full of pleasures and joys. Thanks to this magic power, they could often ignore their desperate situation completely, for whenever they possessed nothing whatsoever they brought forth a cornucopia from their imagination and poured out the riches of illusion from it. Oddly enough, Señor Ponte Delgado, who was at least three times Obdulia’s age, had if anything the more powerful imagination of the two, for in his declining years the onset of second childhood had given it new life.
Don Frasquito was what people call a good soul. His age was unknown, and could not anyhow be discovered since the records of the church in Algeciras where he was baptised had been burnt. He had the rare good fortune to be physically preserved rather like an Egyptian mummy, unaffected by any disasters or privations. His hair had remained black and thick; his beard had not, but with the help of a little shoe black they toned in fairly well together. He had flowing locks, not the romantic, tousled, tragic kind, but the shiny sort which were fashionable in about 1850, worn curled out over the ears, with a parting at the side. The gesture with which he curled his two side-locks and settled them in their place had become habitual: second nature and a characteristic of his personality. But with these flowing locks and greasy dyed beard he possessed what is called a baby face with an open, confident expression emphasised by his small nose and his eyes, which had once been bright but were now dimmed. They always had a look of tenderness in them, like a fading sunset peeping through cloud-bars, a look composed of those eyes with their sparse lashes, wrinkled eyelids and large crow’s feet. Two conceits towered above the many which made up the vanity of Ponte Delgado: his curly locks and his small feet. He could face the greatest of disasters and the cruellest of deprivations with resignation, but he could not bear having to wear shoes that were battered or which spoilt the perfect shape and proportions of his tiny feet.
Misericordia (Dedalus European Classics) Page 10