“What a weight you’ve taken off my mind!” exclaimed her mistress, raising her hands, “May God bless you! Now we are in a position to do a charitable act, by taking in this poor fellow. Look how God at the very same moment succours us and requires us to succour others. His help and our obligation come hand in hand.”
“We have to accept things the way He who ‘casts forth lightning’ disposes.”
“And where shall we put the poor scarecrow?” said Doña Paca, putting her hand on Frasquito who, although not unconscious, could hardly move or speak, lying flat on the floor, up against a wall.
Since, after Obdulia and Antoñito had got married, their beds had been sold, a problem of accommodation presented itself, solved by Nina who suggested that her own bed should be moved to the small dining-room, and that the unfortunate invalid should be put in it. She would sleep on a straw mattress on top of the bedside mat, and then she was sure, yes, she was sure that it would be possible to snatch the poor fellow from the jaws of death.
“But Nina, dear girl, have you really thought what a burden we are taking on? As the proverb says: ‘You can’t do it yourself, so carry me as well.’ Do you think that we are in a position to protect anyone? Anyhow, tell me the rest: was it dear Don Romualdo who …?”
“Yes, madam, it was Romualdo,” answered the old woman, who in the confusion had not thought out a story to tell.
“Blessed gentleman, a thousand times blessed!”
“So then she, Teresa Conejo’*…”
“What did you say, woman?”
“I was saying, but don’t you understand me?”
“You were saying that – but surely Don Romualdo doesn’t go hunting?”
“Hunting?”
“Well, you said something about a rabbit.”
“No, he doesn’t hunt, but he gets gifts, oh! all sorts of things, a partridge, a rabbit. Well, this afternoon.”
“Ah, I see. He said, ‘Benina, let’s see how you cook this rabbit that they’ve brought me’.”
“Yes and whether it was to be with a sauce or with rice; and they were arguing about it and I said nothing because I was crying.”
“And he asked you, ‘Benina, what’s wrong? Benina, what’s the matter?”’
“So I told him of the trouble I was in because of the rabbit.”
Doña Paca was convinced and turned her mind to seeing Frasquito was settled in: he himself did not seem to be taking any notice of what was going on. When they finally got him to bed, he recognised the widow Juárez and, showing his gratitude by pressing her hand and sighing affectionately, he said: “Like mother, like daughter. You’re the living portrait of La Montijo.”
“What’s the man saying?”
“He thinks we’re all like somebody or other – French emperors; anyway, let it pass.”
“Am I in the palace in the Plaza del Angel?” asked Ponte, examining the bare room with wild eyes.
“Yes, you are, sir. Now snuggle down and lie quiet so that you can have a sleep. Later we’ll give you some good broth – and then back to life.”
They left him, and Benina returned to the street anxious to silence the uncouth creditors who had been impertinently and shamelessly bullying the two women. She had the great pleasure of putting the duros they owed right in front of their noses. She then bought some more provisions, went to the Calle de la Ruda and, with a full basket of food and a heart full of hope, free of the shame of begging, if only for a couple of days, she returned home. She began to work in the kitchen quickly and methodically, together with her mistress, also cheerful and smiling.
“Do you know what happened to me while you were out?” she said to Benina. “Well, I dozed off in the armchair and I dreamt that two solemn gentlemen came in – both of them countrymen of mine – dressed in black. One was Don Francisco Morquecho and the other was Don José Maria Porcell. They had come to break the news of Don Pedro José’s death, who is one of the richest men of the whole mountain region.”
“Was it a dream or was it true?”
“Wait, woman. These two gentlemen, Don Francisco and Don José María, arrived – one a doctor and the other the secretary of the town council – to tell me that Garcia de los Antrines, my Antonio’s uncle, had appointed executors.”
“Ah!”
“And of course, as he had no direct succession he named as benefactors …”
“Yes, who?”
“Patience, woman. Well, he left half his possessions to Obdulia and Antonito, and the other half to Frasquito Ponte. Now what do you think of that?”
“That they ought to make this blessed gentleman a saint.”
“Don Francisco and Don José Maria told me that they had been looking for me for days to tell me about the legacy and that they found the address of this house at last through asking around – through whom do you think? Through the priest Don Romualdo, whose name has been put forward for a bishopric, and who also told them that I had taken Señor Ponte into my house. ‘And so,’ they said laughing, ‘in coming to offer you our respects, we are killing two birds with one stone.’ ”
“Let’s get this straight, all this is – well, just a dream?”
“Of course: didn’t I say I dozed off in my chair? The two gentlemen who came to visit me died thirty years ago, when I was engaged to Antonio – just fancy – and Garcia de los Antrines was already very old at that time. I’ve not heard of him since. Yes, it was all a dream, but it was so vivid that I can see them still. I tell you, so that you can enjoy the joke. No, it’s not a joke because dreams …”
“Dreams, dreams, whatever anyone says, are sent by God. And who shall say what is truth and what is fantasy?”
“Exactly. How do we know that behind, or under or above the world that we see, there is not another world where the dead live? Maybe dying is just another way of living.”
“Underneath us, it’s all underneath us,” said Benina, musing. “I take dreams seriously, because it’s possible, let’s say, that the inhabitants of the other place could come and solve our problems. There is another world under the earth and the important thing is to know how and when to speak to the subterranean beings. They must know what a plight we’re in up here, and we can see how well they’re getting on in our dreams. I’m not sure if I’m making myself clear, what I mean is that there’s no justice in this world, and for there to be justice, we must dream whatever we fancy and perhaps as we dream we shall be able to bring justice about.”
Doña Paca replied with a string of deep, deep, sighs and Benina felt herself drawn obsessively to the thought of the magic spell. As she worked away unceasingly in the kitchen, in her mind’s eye she saw only the cooking pot with the seven holes, the dressed staff of wood from the bay tree, and the prayer: drat the prayer! That really was difficult.
Note
* Conejo means rabbit in Spanish.
23
The following morning everything was going well: Don Frasquito was improving hourly and his mind was in a state of relative clarity; Doña Paca was cheerful and the house well stocked with victuals; that day and the next were provided for so that poor Benina could rest from her distressful begging at St Sebastián’s. But as she had to keep up the pretence of going to her ecclesiastical master’s house, she went out as usual, her basket on her arm, determined not to waste the morning and to do something useful. Her mistress said to her as she went out: “I think we must give our Don Romualdo a thank you present to show that we are grateful and that we know how to behave. Take him two bottles of good champagne from me, to drink with the rabbit stew you’ll be making today.”
“Are you out of your mind, madam? Do you know what two bottles of champagne cost? We could be in debt for two months. You’re always the same. It’s because you always want to do the right thing that you are now so poor. We’ll send him a thank you present when we win the lottery. All I can do at the moment is try and find someone who’ll let me have a peseta share in a three peseta ticket, which is only one tenth of
a full ticket!”
“All right, all right. Goodbye then.” And she went off to chat with Frasquito, who was cheerful and talkative. Together they revived memories of their native Andalusia, bringing whole families, people and events back to life; and as they chatted on, Doña Francisca remembered her dream, which she took care not to reveal to her fellow countryman. “Tell me, Ponte,” she said, “What happened to Don Pedro José García de los Antrines?” After burrowing painfully in the deep recesses of his memory, Frasquito replied that Don Pedro had died the year of the revolution.
“Well, well, and I thought he was still alive. Do you know who inherited his estate?”
“His son Rafael, who never married, of course. He’s getting on now. He might remember us all in his will – you and your children and me. He has no closer relatives.”
“No doubt about it, he’ll remember us,” said Doña Paca, with great animation in her eyes and voice. “It would be piggish of him not to. As Don Francisco Morquecho and Don José Maria Porcell were saying to me.”
“When was that?”
“Oh, I don’t remember when. It’s true that they have gone to a better world. But I can see them so clearly in my mind’s eye. They were García de los Antrines’ executors, were they not?”
“Yes, indeed. I too knew them well. They were friends of my family and I can recall them very clearly. I can see them in their old fashioned black frock coats.”
“That’s it, that’s it.”
“Their leather bow ties and their top hats.”
The conversation continued in this manner, fluctuating dreamily from the real to the imaginary and back again; meanwhile Benina, trotting up one street and down the next, her mind now clear and calm since she now possessed wealth to the tune of no less than three and a half duros, was thinking that all the abracadabra of Almudena’s magic spell was nothing but a trap for the unwary. A win on the lottery seemed much more likely, for, whatever they say, the lottery is not a matter of blind chance, for may there not be an invisible angel or devil flying around, whose job it is to choose the number that wins the big prize, knowing the identity of the owner? That’s why such strange things happen, she thought. For example, when the prize is divided up among a huge number of poor people, some contributing only one real and others a peseta. At this point she began to wonder who might let her have just such a modest share, because to buy a whole tenth of a ticket seemed to her too great a risk. She would have no luck with Pedra and her friend Quarter-Kilo, who had something at stake in nearly every draw; it would be better to come to some agreement with Pulido, who was a fellow beggar at the church, and who was rumoured to play the lottery with Obdulia’s neighbour, the asses’ milk dealer, and to catch him at home before he went out to beg she hurried to the Calle de la Cabeza and went into the stables, where, amongst those gentle beasts, Pulido was given lodging by the honest, good natured and humble owners of the establishment. One of the wife’s sisters sold tickets on the streets, and an uncle of the husband, who had run the business on the same premises years before, had won the big prize, retired to his village and bought land there. So the taste for the lottery remained attached to the business and became a vicious habit. By now, with what they had spent on tickets in the last fifteen years, they could have tripled the size of their herd.
Benina had the good fortune to find the whole family at home, as the she-asses had all returned from their morning round. While the beasts were munching their bran, the humans were engaged in calculating the odds and reasoning why it was certain that 5,005 (of which they possessed a tenth share) would be the prize-winning ticket on the following day. Pulido, examining the matter with his powerful inner eye, which had developed to such an extent because of his blindness, confirmed his hosts’ opinion and in prophetic tones declared that it was as certain that 5,005 would win a prize as that God was in his heaven and the Devil in hell. Needless to say, Benina’s request was received as a bombshell by that company of addicts, and their first impulse was to refuse her any participation whatsoever, because to do so would be the same as handing over to her vast sums of money.
Benina, in an offended tone, told them that she had the three pesetas to buy a “tenth all for herself’ and this bold assertion – coming from a beggar-woman – had its effect. It was finally agreed that if she bought the “tenth” they would take a half share and would give her a half-peseta share in the magic number, 5,005, a number sure to win, “as sure as we’re standing here.” So this was done: Benina left and returned shortly afterwards with a “tenth” of No. 4,884 which, when the couple saw it and the blind man heard it, disconcerted and confused them all, as if the luck had been transferred from one number to the other. In the end, everything was settled to everyone’s satisfaction and the owner of the establishment made out the share slips, Benina having a peseta and a half in one and half a peseta in the other. Pulido left for church, grumbling and muttering to himself that “that humbug of a church mouse” had ruined their luck. The other two began complaining about Obdulia, who, they said, did not pay for her bread and bought pots of flowers instead; and the landlord was going to evict her.
Benina went up to visit her and found her in the hands of her hairdresser, who was trying to give her a smart hairdo. Her parents-in-law had sent her some rissoles and soused sardines. Luquitas had come home at six that morning and was still sleeping like a dog. Obdulia had a mind to go out walking, for she had a longing to see gardens, trees, carriages and smart people; her hairdresser had told her she should go to the Retiro where she would see all these things, and also all the wild beasts in the world, and swans too (they were, she explained, rather like geese with long necks). On hearing that Frasquito was sick at Doña Paca’s, she was sincerely upset, and wanted to go and see him, but Benina dissuaded her. It would be better to let him rest for a couple of days, avoiding “delirious” conversations that over excited him. Agreeing with these sensible opinions, Obdulia said goodbye, still intent on going for her walk, and Benina left in a hurry in the direction of the Calle de la Ruda, to pay a few small debts. On the way she reflected that she ought to try to make good part of the excessive amount she had spent on the lottery, and to do this decided to seek out Almudena and persuade him to invest a peseta in it. It was a better bet than calling up those underground spirits.
She was thinking along these lines when she ran into Pedra and Diega, who had just been selling their wares and were carrying a basket of cheap haberdashery between them. They stopped, anxious to announce important news that would undoubtedly interest her. “Don’t you know, ma’am, that Almudena is going around looking for you?” they said.
“For me? Well, I want to speak to him, in case he wants to take …”
“He wants to take something all right; he says.”
“What does he say?”
“That he’s furious, mad with rage. He nearly killed me this morning, he was so angry. All hell’s let loose.”
“He’s moving out of Santa Casilda and going to live at Las Cambroneras.”
“He’s hopping mad with you!”
The two little women burst into raucous laughter and Benina did not know how to reply, then said she would go to St Sebastián’s to look for him, to which they replied that he had not gone out to beg, and that if “ma’am” wanted to find him she should look in the direction of Arganzuela or in the Calle del Peñón, because he had been heading in that direction when they saw him a short while ago. Benina set off, and after quickly carrying out her errands in the Calle de la Ruda, went round the fountain and up and down the Calle del Peñón a number of times, until she saw Almudena who was just coming out of a blacksmith’s. She went up to him and caught his arm, but he said, shuddering from head to foot as if he had had an electric shock: “Let me go, let me go, you bad woman, you deceiver, I kill you.” The poor woman became alarmed when she saw the wildness in her friend’s face: his lips worked in and out convulsively, distorting his normal expression; his hands and legs trembled and his
voice had grown hoarse.
“What’s wrong, dear Almudena? What’s bitten you?”
“You bitten me! You bad fly! You come with me, I want talk with you, you bad woman.”
“I’ll come wherever you wish. You seem to have gone off your head.”
They went down to the Ronda, and the Moroccan, who knew the area well, led the way towards the gasworks, leaning on his friend’s arm. Through narrow passageways they reached the Paseo de las Acacias, and still the good woman could get no clear idea of the cause of his strange distemper. “Let’s sit here,” said Benina when they reached the tarworks. “I’m a bit tired.”
“No, not here, further down.” And they sped down a very steep path that was cut into the embankment. They would have rolled down together if Benina had not supported and steadied him, guiding his footsteps. They finally arrived at a spot which was lower than the Paseo, a piece of rough ground covered in slag resembling lava from a volcano. Behind them were houses whose foundations were higher than their heads; down below them were the roofs of poor dwellings. Miserable huts nestled in the hollows of the ravine; in the distance, caught between the massive shapes of the asylum of Santa Cristina and the sawmills, was the slum quarter known as Las Injurias, swarming with poor families.
They sat down. Almudena, panting, wiped off the sweat which was pouring down his forehead. Benina kept her eyes on him, watching his movements, for she felt uneasy alone with the angry Moroccan in such a lonely place. “Now, come on,” she said, “tell me why I’m so bad and so deceitful. Why?”
“Because you unfaithful. I love you, you love other man. Yes, yes. Pretty gentleman, smart gentleman, he love you, fell sick at house of The Weasel, you took him home, he you lover, he rich, he gentleman.”
Misericordia (Dedalus European Classics) Page 15