The Dedalus Book of Spanish Fantasy

by Margaret Jull Costa

  © Joaquim Monzo

  Translated by Annella McDermott

  Quim Monzo (Barcelona, 1952) has been a cartoonist, scriptwriter for radio, films and television, graphic designer and war correspondent. He writes in both Catalan and Castilian and has won several important literary prizes, the most recent being the Premio de la Critica Serra d'Or. Monzo has published several collections of articles, three novels: L'udol del griso al aire de les clavegueres (1976), Benzina (1983) and La magnitud de la tragedia (1989), as well as several collections of short stories: Self Service (1977), Uf, va dir ell (1978), Olivetti, Moulinex, Chaffoteaux et Maury (1980), L'illa de Maians (1985), El perque de tot plegat (1992). These two stories were first published in Catalan in Guadalajara (Quaderns Crema, 1996).

  One day, a preacher belonging to one of the many minor religions that people the earth, too small to be statistically interesting, but whose membership had recently grown considerably (enough to cause alarm amongst the supporters of other sects), started preaching at the top of his voice to a packed audience of keen new adherents, who, hanging on his every prophetic word, felt enlightenment gradually growing within them and finally fell into an ecstatic trance.

  This happened one Sunday morning in a large enclosed space to which only members of the faith had access. The preacher was the most worthy custodian of that faith, quite rightly, since he was both its current leader and its keenest disseminator.

  The formal service provided a break in the ceremony that took place every Sunday at the same time, and the believers gathered there sat down as usual on their respective benches in order to listen attentively, in a relaxed manner, to the words addressed to them.

  The fiery preacher had barely raised his arms and hurled forth the flames of his first words - fire in his very voice - when, doubtless filled by a unanimous fervour, as if impelled by an invisible force, the congregation again fell to their knees and remained there, motionless, their heads bowed, their hands covering their faces, while the mystic apostle continued his sublime sermon as he had begun it, with all the untamed energy of a wild waterfall.

  Drunk on celestial choler, full of an irresistible authority, giving ceaseless vent to the lava of his thoughts, in unequivocal yet parabolic language, he was saying:

  `I exhort you, brothers and sisters, to share in the redemptive action of personal sacrifices. I exhort you to expose yourselves to the pyre of expiatory sacrifice. But take note: our faith requires a sacrifice without tragedy; a simple, silent sacrifice without preambles or rituals. It can be public, if you wish, but uncalculated, without one eye on sainthood, with no mea culpa, no pomp and no pride.'

  He paused to swallow hard and no sooner had the silence absorbed the echoes of his last words and the faithful raised devout eyes to the pulpit, than his voice rang out again in such potent tones that all heads simultaneously bent again, eyes closed, as once more the preacher's voice engulfed the silence.

  `I say unto you: Make haste! Plunge into the real swamps and find peace there, wrapped in the suffocating slime! What we need is a humble sacrifice, a sacrifice that will leave neither trace nor name. One that is entirely unlike Christ's sacrifice. To use a clear, precise image, it should be a subterranean sacrifice, a sacrifice made with downcast eyes. The cross is a sacrifice with its face to the skies, an elevated sacrifice in every sense of the word. It was a vertical sacrifice, worthy of the Son of Man. Was it not a mirror of every sacrifice, into which man looked and chose not to recognise himself? Now, I am not asking you to look in that mirror tarnished by the foul breath of sin. In this day and age of degenerate humanity, we need a sacrifice befitting the lower depths, because we are not worthy of Christ's example. Christ was the roof of humanity and we are merely the lower depths. Let our sacrifice then be worthy of us. Make haste, make haste! Seek out the caves ...!'

  He said all this with his arms raised, but no one could see his arms, for they were still sitting with bowed heads, paralysed by religious devotion. This time, the faithful knew that the preacher had come to the end of his Sunday sermon, but they did not stir, so touched were they by what they had just heard. Did they understand it? More than that. An overwhelming silence weighed upon the meditations of the faithful. Each body was questioning his or her soul about the correct meaning of that parable of the lower depths. A most unexpected sermon!

  In the middle of the chapel, amongst all the bowed heads, one man suddenly rises to his feet. For a short time, he stands there, extraordinarily erect, powerful and hard, as firm as if he were nailed to the floor. Everyone is turned towards him, their heads looking up mechanically as if operated in unison by a spring.

  The man leaves the row of benches. He heads for the door. As if borne along by an imperious impulse, he goes out of the building, leaving the doors half-open. The preacher emerges from his own meditations, hidden from the eyes of the faithful; he gets up from his seat and watches the solitary withdrawal of that one member of the congregation. At last, he descends from the pulpit, but no one takes any notice of him now. They have seen the man walk slowly to the door. They have seen him disappear. The whole congregation shudders. They saw him get to his feet and stand there motionless. They all stood up when the man opened the door to go out. Without leaving their places, they stare out of the door: the man, with deliberate step, is moving off into the distance. Can they still see him or not? He is heading towards the countryside.

  Then, without warning, the faithful leave the rows of benches and follow the man. There he goes. They march silently along behind him. The preacher too. Where he goes, they follow a few steps behind. When the man stops, they stop. Whatever the man does, they do. The preacher too.

  They go across country. They are all walking along now carrying picks and shovels, because the man took up a pick and a shovel. The march continues, silent, ecstatic. The man walks; that is all. He is followed by men and women and by the preacher.

  When he reaches an open plain spreading out before them, the man stops walking. Behind him, the cortege stops too. Above their heads, vast space. Beneath their feet, flat, dry earth. The sky is cloudy, the sun cannot be seen. It is midday.

  Still saying nothing, the man begins to dig with his pick and his shovel. The others dig alongside him with theirs, in the same piece of ground. The preacher does the same. For a brief time, picks and shovels work as if subordinate to the continual rise and fall of arms. When the hole is fairly deep and wide, the man sets down his tools and looks up at the sky. At that moment, everyone does the same; they put their tools down on the ground and look up at the sky. But the man has now lain down in the hole, which is longer than it is broad, made to fit his body. Lying horizontal and rigid on the dug earth, between his pick and his shovel, he has closed his eyes. He says nothing, he merely waits. Everyone gathers round the hole and takes up a shovel. Only one of those present is crying, unseen, some way from the group. It is the preacher.

  All eyes are on the man, down below, apparently asleep. A woman sticks her shovel into the pile of earth and throws the first spadeful onto the man's face. Immediately, the others follow suit. It does not take them long to cover the man, lying there, horizontal, motionless, alive, in answer to that call for a sacrifice of the lower depths. He is no longer alive and the others stamp down the earth to leave it flat again.

  The clouds have cleared now and the sun bathes the plain in light.

  Further off, another hole is dug. This time it is that same woman who is buried alive. They move off and dig elsewhere. Another member of the faithful is laid to rest. Further off another hole is dug, and another and another and, over there, another. And fewer and fewer of the faithful remain. The sun is setting, appearing and disappearing between dense clouds. Before evening comes, a small group of the faithful are filling in a hole with the earth dug from it. The sky is the colour of lead and the violet horizon glows blood-red.

  The sun is setting. Two men walk along carrying picks and shovels. They stop, stick their picks into the earth to loosen it, t
hen use their shovels to dig. They have dug another hole like the others, with some difficulty this time, for they are tired. They watch the sun sinking down below the horizon, where there are now only thin ribbons of cloud. It is beginning to rain when the one remaining man has finished filling in the hole. He walks slowly away. He walks back in the encroaching gloom, a pick and a shovel on his shoulder. It is the preacher.

  © Carlos Edmundo de Ory

  Translated by Margaret Jull Costa

  Carlos Edmundo de Ory (Cadiz, 1923) is the son of the modernist poet Eduardo de Ory and he grew up surrounded by writers and books. In 1942, he moved to Madrid where he was the co-founder of an Iberian branch of Dadaism, called Postism. The first and only number of a magazine they published was promptly banned, and a later manifesto met the same fate. In the end, he left Spain and settled in France, where he became the librarian of the Maison de la Culture in Amiens. He has always written both poetry and prose, but his work remained largely unpublished until the 1960s and 70s when collections of his short fictions came out: Una exhibici6n peligrosa (1964), El alfabeto griego (1970) and Basuras (1975), from which this story is taken. A selection of his poetry was published in 1970.

  Four large candlesticks were burning, oozing large drops of wax. A bat had detached itself from the vaulted ceiling and was beginning to describe ragged circles in the air. A small, dark shape crossed the flagstones and sombrely, cautiously climbed one fold of the pall covering the tomb. At that precise moment, Dorotea de Guevara, lying inside the tomb, opened her eyes.

  She knew perfectly well that she was not dead, but a leaden veil, a bronze padlock had prevented her from seeing and speaking. She could hear, though, and she had been aware, as if in a half-sleep, of what they did to her as they washed her and wrapped her in the shroud. She had heard her husband sobbing, felt her children's tears on her stiff, white cheeks, and now, in the solitude of the locked church, as she gradually regained consciousness, she was overwhelmed by horror. This was no nightmare, this was real. There was the coffin, there were the candles ... and there she was wrapped in the white shroud and, on her breast, the scapular of Our Lady of Mercy.

  Sitting up now, the joy of pure existence overcame all other feelings. She was alive; how good it was to live, to come alive again and not to fall into the dark grave. Instead of being borne down to the crypt at dawn on the shoulders of servants, she would return to her own dear home and hear the joyful clamour of those who loved her and were now weeping inconsolably. The delicious idea of the joy she was about to carry back to that house made her heart - weakened by the deep faint into which she had fallen - beat faster. She swung her legs over the side of the coffin and jumped down onto the floor; then, with the alacrity of thought common in moments of crisis, she drew up her plan of action. It was useless calling out or asking for help at that hour of the night, and yet she could not bear to remain until dawn in the deserted church. She thought she could see the prying faces of ghosts amidst the shadows in the nave and hear the doleful cries of souls in torment. There was another option: she could leave via the Christ chapel.

  It belonged to her; it had been endowed by her family. Dorotea always kept a flame burning, in an exquisite silver lamp, before the holy image of Christ on the cross. Beneath the chapel was the crypt, the burial place of the Guevara family. To her left, she could just make out the ornate railings decorated here and there in mellow, reddish gold. In her heart, Dorotea sent up a fervent prayer to Christ. Lord, let the keys be in the lock! She felt for them. All three were there, hanging in a bunch. The key to the chapel itself, the key to the crypt, reached by a winding staircase inside the wall, and the third key that opened a small concealed door in the carved retable and gave onto a narrow alleyway skirting the noble, lofty facade of the great house of the Guevaras flanked by towers. That was the door through which the Guevaras entered in order to hear mass in their chapel without having to cross the nave. Dorotea unlocked the door and pushed it open ... She was outside the church, she was free.

  Only ten steps and she was home ... The house rose before her, silent, grave, enigmatic. Dorotea placed a trembling hand on the doorknocker, as if she were a beggarwoman come to ask for succour in her hour of need. `This is my house, isn't it?' she thought, as she knocked again. At the third knock, she heard noises inside the mute, solemn house wrapped in its own thoughts as if in mourning weeds. And then she heard Pedralvar, the servant, grumbling:

  `Who's there? Who's knocking at this hour of the morning? A curse on you whoever you are!'

  `Open the door, Pedralvar, please. It's your mistress, Dona Dorotea de Guevara! Quick, open the door!'

  `Go away, you drunkard! If I do come out there, I'll skewer you, I swear I will!'

  `It's me, Dona Dorotea. Open the door. Don't you recognise my voice?'

  Again there came a curse, this time hoarse with fear. Instead of opening the door, Pedralvar went back up the stairs. The woman knocked twice more. Life seemed to be returning to the austere house. The servant's terror ran through it like a shiver down a spine. She knocked again and in the hallway she heard footsteps, whispers, people scurrying about. At last, the two leaves of the heavy, studded door creaked open and the rosy mouth of the maid Luciguela emitted a shrill scream. She dropped the silver candlestick she was carrying. She had come face to face with her mistress, her dead mistress, dragging her shroud behind her and looking her straight in the eye.

  Some time later, Dorotea, clothed now in a dress of Genoese velvet with slashed sleeves, her hair threaded with pearls, was sitting ensconced amongst cushions in an armchair by the window and she remembered that even her husband, Enrique de Guevara, had screamed when he saw her; he had screamed and stepped back. It was not a cry of joy but of horror, yes, horror, there could be no doubt about it. And had not her children, Dona Clara, aged eleven, and Don Felix, aged nine, wept out of pure fright when they saw their mother returned from the tomb? They wept more grievously, more bitterly than they had when they had borne her there. And she had imagined that she would be greeted with exclamations of great happiness! It is true that a few days after her return, they held a solemn mass of thanksgiving; it is true that they gave a lavish party for relatives and friends; it is true, in short, that the Guevaras did all they could to show their contentment at the singular and unexpected event that had restored to them wife and mother. As she leant on the windowsill, though, resting her cheek on one hand, Dona Dorotea was thinking about other things.

  Since her return to the house, however hard they tried to disguise the fact, everyone fled from her. It was as if the chill air of the grave, the icy breath of the crypt still clung to her body. While she was eating, she would catch the servants and her children casting oblique glances at her pale hands, and she noticed that the children shuddered when she raised her wineglass to her parched lips. Did they think it unnatural for people from the other world to eat and drink? For Dona Dorotea came from that mysterious country whose existence children suspect but of which they as yet know nothing. Whenever those pale, maternal hands reached out to tousle Don Felix's blond curls, he would pull away, his face as white as her hands, like someone avoiding a touch that curdles the blood. And if, at the fearful midnight hour, Dorotea happened to meet Dona Clara in the dining room next to the courtyard where the tall figures in the tapestries seem to stir into life, the terrified child would flee as if she had seen a ghastly apparition.

  For his part, her husband, though he treated her with commendable respect and reverence, had not once put his strong arm about her waist. The woman come back from the dead rouged her cheeks, wove ribbons and pearls into her hair and doused her body in perfumes from the Orient, but all in vain. The waxen pallor of her skin shone through the rouge; her face still bore the marks of the funerary wimple they had placed upon her, and no perfumes could disguise the dank smell of the mausoleum. One day, Dorotea gave her husband a wifely caress; she wanted to know if he would reject her. Don Enrique passively allowed himself to be embraced, but his
eyes were dark and dilated with the horror which, despite himself, peeped out of those windows of the soul. In those eyes, once gallant, bold and full of desire, Dorotea read the words buzzing in his brain on which madness was already beginning to encroach.

  `People do not return from the place you have returned from...'

  She took every precaution. Her plan must be carried out in such a way that no one would ever know anything: it would remain for ever a secret. She managed to get hold of the bunch of keys to the chapel and asked a young blacksmith, who was leaving for Flanders the next day with the infantry, to make her another set. One evening, with the keys to her tomb in her possession, Dorotea wrapped a cloak about her and left the house without being seen. She entered the church by the little door, hid in the Christ chapel and, when the sacristan had left the church locking the door behind him, Dorotea descended slowly into the crypt, lighting her way with a candle she had lit from the chapel lamp. She opened the rusty door, closed it from the inside and lay down, first snuffing out the candle with her foot ...

  Translated by Margaret full Costa

  Emilia Pardo Bazan (La Coruna, 1852-Madrid, 1921) was a prolific writer of novels, short stories, essays, literary criticism, history and travel books. In Spain she knew all the famous writers of her time and even exchanged love letters with Perez Galdos, the great nineteenth-century realist novelist. Her books deal unusually boldly with the position of women in Spain and with sexuality. Her most famous novels are Los Pazos de Ulloa (1886; The House of Ulloa, tr. P. O'Prey and L. Graves, Penguin, 1990) and La Madre Naturaleza (1890). She also wrote hundreds of short stories on all kinds of themes: tragic, fantastic, patriotic, historical, religious and allegorical, some of which are available in The White Horse and other stories (tr. R.M. Fedorchek, Bucknell University Press, 1993). This story is taken from the collection Cuentos trdgicos (1912).