Mazurka for Two Dead Men

by Camilo José Cela

  It drizzles down upon families, people, and animals, both wild and tame, upon men and women, parents and children, the healthy and the infirm, the dead and buried, the dead and the unburied, and upon travelers, too. It drizzles the way the blood courses in your veins. It drizzles the way gorse bushes and maize sprout, the way a man runs after a woman until he wears her down or kills her off from tedium, love, or desire. Maybe the drizzle is really God, keeping a close eye on men, but that’s something nobody knows. Plastered Pepiño left the nut-house thanks to the good offices of a doctor, a lawyer, and a judge, it’s a fact that young folks nowadays are greatly given to experiments and theories and that they relate behavior to hormones.

  “And how exactly does that work?”

  “I don’t know: I’m only writing down what I was told.”

  The doctor, the lawyer, and the judge asked Plastered Pepiño if he would allow himself to be castrated (removing the gonads is to remove the danger) and he said yes, well, that he didn’t mind. The doctors, the lawyers, and the judges use the word “sterilize.”

  “But did they not warn him about his metabolism and slow, painful decalcification of the bones?”

  “Maybe they did, I really couldn’t say.”

  Some folks die one way and some another, in war or in peacetime, in sickness, in an accident or slip up, there’s no hard and fast rule nor is it permitted to choose, why, there isn’t even a general rule. There are men who die heroically defending a blockhouse, unfurling a flag, and chanting patriotic slogans but there are also those whose hearts simply stop beating while they are masturbating with their minds full of fantasies; where I’m from there are no prickly pears, an ungodly plant proper to the land of the Moors: kaftans, figs, donkeys, lizards, goats, and dust, clouds of dust, it’s hardly worth coming this far to die. The Moors from the Tafersit tribe are a sissy bunch, well, they really are pansies, it’s all the same to them. Lázaro Codesal had blue eyes and hair as red as chili pepper. Lázaro Codesal was jerking off, letting fly, inside his head, as was his wont, with Ádega in the nip, what a godsend! there’s nothing like being young for having it off with someone just from memory inside your head. It was a great pity that Lázaro Codesal died, some deaths bring more sorrow than others and there are also those that bring delight. The Carroupos have a patch of rough pockmarked skin on their forehead, like cattle scarred from chewing poisonous plants.

  “Can you tell a poisonous plant?”

  “Yes, sirree, from the smell, the color, and some from the sound, well, the sound they make when you flail them through the air.”

  Gorecho Tundas went up the mountain with a coffin on his back, a demijohn of gasoline, and a sackful of wood shavings.

  “Where are you off to, Gorecho?”

  “I’m going up the mountain to bury the Holy Ghost.”

  “Christ, what rubbish you talk!”

  “Well, you’ll soon see when night falls.”

  When night fell Gorecho sought out a snug spot, a bracken-filled cave still bearing the traces of a vixen’s presence, he clambered into the coffin, covered himself up with the wood shavings, sprinkled gasoline over the top until he was well and truly drenched and then set it alight. He died writhing but did not open his mouth for apparently the Holy Ghost gave him strength. Concha the Clam came across him as she roamed the mountain setting rabbit snares.

  “What did he look like?”

  “Well, handsome you might even say, a bit charred but handsome.”

  The Gorecho Tundas incident was much talked about by all and sundry.

  “Folks don’t know what to do to draw attention to themselves!”

  Man is a strange creature who does things back to front, a creature at odds with himself from the moment of birth. Do you fancy that slender woman going down to the river to wash? The one with the plait? You do? Well, marry her and you’ll see what it is to have to put up with a shrew, women turn into shrews the minute they marry, well, soon after they marry, nobody knows why, maybe that’s just the law of nature. Do you fancy that plump woman going to buy chili pepper at the shop, the one with the green scarf? You do? Well, kill her with a shotgun cartridge or flee for your life like a soul spirited off by the devil, or she’ll cling to you like a limpet! Or like a crab louse? Like a crab louse, too, this is a great year for crab lice, was it not spiders? Not at all, woman, are you an idiot or what? How would it be spiders, it was crab lice, of course! Do you fancy that dark-haired woman carrying a pitcher of milk on her head, the one in the flouncy skirt? You do? Well, run for your life for chances are she’s a hotbed of scorpions, man is a strange creature who doesn’t always play above board. Lázaro Codesal was treacherously killed without being given a chance, bumping off a lad who is peacefully jerking off beneath a fig tree is an unspeakable deed, no man should do a thing like that, war is war, indeed as we all know, but hitting a blind target or shooting in the back is a base deed. No corpse ever stank so foul as did Don Jesús Manzanédo, it was a just punishment from God, his children sprinkled him with eau de cologne to no effect.

  “Are you going to Don Jesús’ funeral?”

  “I’m not, I think that it’s best that his soul shouldn’t be saved, he stank to high heaven of death.”

  Celso Varela, the building supervisor, has a vermouth every morning in La Bilbaína Café, sometimes he goes to the Superior Bar too. His relationship with Marujita petered out ages ago, although they say he later went back to her. On the terrace of the Bilbaína Café, a month or two before the outbreak of the civil war, two men were shot dead: at the funeral another two deaths took place and the authorities banned the Corpus Christi processions. Feeling ran high and folks were up in arms, shouting and fighting one another with sticks, even gunshots, too. Maruja Bodelón Alvarez, Marujita the Ponferrada lioness, was the actress who stole Celso Varela from Aunt Emilita, well, she wasn’t really an actress, she just looked like one. Celso wanted to go back to Aunt Emilita but too much water had flowed under the bridge and it wasn’t to be, things grow cold and when they fizzle out it’s very hard to rekindle them.

  “No, no; I’m staying with my sister Jesusa. I’m devoting my life to prayer and charitable deeds now.”

  “Fair enough, as you wish.”

  Baldomero Marvís, Lionheart rather, has a little star on his forehead; not everyone can see it, but it’s there alright! The little star which Lionheart has on his forehead changes color depending: at times it’s as red as rubies; then tawny like topaz; sometimes as green as emeralds, or white like diamonds and so on. When Lionheart’s little star lights up, no matter what color, sometimes one color and then another, nobody knows, the best thing is to cross yourself and get out of his way. Lionheart calls the shots in the Gamuzo family, there’s a whole host of them, and in the Guxinde family (or Moranes some folks call them) and there are even more of them. If it weren’t such a topsy-turvy world, nobody would move through these mountains without Lionheart’s permission, the line of the last mountain was blotted out when Lázaro Codesal was killed, but things run out of kilter and a starveling wretch from a family from outside went to snip the thread of Lionheart’s life. The Devil took advantage of the day when Lionheart’s little star failed to light up to kill him by treachery. In these mountains you cannot kill and get off scot free, hereabouts he who kills, must die, it may take a while but die he will. Loliña Moscoso, Baldomero Lionheart’s wife, fanned the flames and kept the law of the mountain burning: he who does the deed, must pay the price. He didn’t do the deed? Well, let him pay the price all the same! In this neck of the woods we see no need to absolve blood. Loliña Moscoso is a wild, fierce beauty and when she loses her temper she is even more beautiful. Lionheart must have been caught from behind and by night for not a soul would have dared face up to Lionheart for his looks were as fierce as a wolf. Lionheart was killed by a dead man that nobody cares to remember, some folks won’t even utter his name so as, gradually, to forget him; the dead man who killed Lionheart also killed Ádega’s old man and may
be a dozen others to boot, the dead man who killed Lionheart was rounded up by a relation of mine and he met his death like an old nag in the Bouzas do Gago spring. When the wolf attacks, the mares form a circle with their heads facing inwards the better to defend their foals, they lash out at the wolf and if they kick him good and hard they smash him to smithereens. An ousted stallion has no defense, nor does he have the strength to defend himself, the wolves pull him down, first they drag him down, then they devour him, what the wolf doesn’t want goes to the fox and what the fox leaves goes to the crows, creatures resigned to their lot, some crows can whistle scales in tune, some years ago in Allariz, during the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, there lived a Republican who trained crows to whistle the Marseillaise, maybe he only did so to rile the priest, his name was Leoncio Coutelo and he was a brother of Blind Eulalio, tall and thin as a beanpole and spattered with pockmarks, who used to grope women at romerías, since he couldn’t see he let himself be guided by the scent and he never set a foot wrong. Ricardo Vázquez Vilariño died in the war, a bullet pierced his heart (that’s just an expression), that’s what happens in wars. Through these mountains wandered the ripper Manuel Blanco Romasanta, the werewolf who tore a baker’s dozen of people asunder. Felipiño the Stutterer, one-eyed and with six fingers on each hand, knew the story well.

  The ripper used to mooch about with two men from Valencia, Don Jenaro and Don Antonio, who had a touch of the werewolf in their blood when they lost their wits; now this happened many years back, maybe a century ago or more, but hereabouts everybody knows the tale. The ripper savaged thirteen souls: nine men and four women. One night when the moon brought out the wolf in him, he killed Manueliña García, a woman by whom he had had a child, Rosendiño, which he killed too. He was taking Manueliña to Santander, which is miles away, on the Sea of Castile, where he was going to put her into service in the house of a priest, but at the spot known as Malladavella, in the Redondela woods, the urge came over him so he killed and half-devoured the both of them. Afterwards he fell quiet for a while, quiet yet faraway, until he was overcome again and he killed Benitiña García, who was Manueliña’s sister, as well as her son Farruquiño, who was still a suckling babe and tasted of fish. He killed them in Corgo de Boy, beyond Arrúas, just before you come to Transirelos. The ripper wasn’t much of a size, in fact he was smallish and had decaying teeth. The ripper killed others, too: Josefa García, Manueliña and Benitiña’s sister—apparently he couldn’t resist that blood—and she died on the road to Correchouso. Her son little José, too. And Toniña Rúa and her two daughters Peregrina and Marica, who were killed in Rebordechao. The ripper dearly loved Toniña, he was madly in love with her and used to show her what he’d got when their paths crossed up the mountain. He killed another four, too: Xila Millarados, who grazed pigs in Chaguazoso; Chucha Lombao Celmán, whom he attacked just coming in at As de Xarxes; Fuco Naveaus, a lad who hunted birds over by the Alvar meadow, and Benitoña Cardoeiros, a spent old woman.

  Felipiño the Stutterer smiles gratefully every time someone buys him a couple of glasses of aguardiente.

  “May the Good Lord reward you in the next world, Amen!”

  Tanis Gamuzo breeds hunting mastiffs: Kaiser, Sultan, Moor, good, big, strong dogs that you can rely upon ’til the end of the world.

  “With these beasts a man could go to the ends of the earth without a care in the world, when they have their spiked collars on, nothing—not even a lion—would stop these dogs.”

  Tanis Gamuzo’s dogs have coats like silk (fleece is what sheep have) and they’re white in color with brown spots on the face and the back of the neck. Tanis brought his dogs from León, in Galicia there are nice, smart go-getters of dogs—cattle dogs, mountain dogs, farm dogs, hunting dogs—but they’re not such sturdy stock as the dogs from León, where apparently they’re less inbred.

  “How much do you want for a nine-week-old pup?”

  “Nothing. I don’t sell dogs but if you swear you’ll treat it right, I’ll make you a present of one.”

  Tanis Gamuzo is known as Demon because he figures things out so fast, he’s just like a bicycle he moves so fast, doesn’t matter whether it’s good or bad. Rosa Roucón is Tanis Gamuzo’s wife and she’s partial to a drop of anisette, she spends the whole day tippling from a hip flask. Rosa Roucón’s father is called Eleuterio the Britches and he’s the most bloody-minded customs official there ever was in Orense, nobody remembers his like ever before.

  “That man will meet a sticky end, mark my words, one of these days somebody will ram an iron bar through him without a moment’s notice.”

  The country folk fear Britches and try to have as little as possible to do with him.

  “There’s not a decent bone in his body, the best thing is to pay up and get away as fast as possible.”

  Last year in Sprat’s brothel Britches spat in Blind Gaudencio’s face because he wouldn’t play the mazurka Ma Petite Marianne.

  “I play whatever I like, so you can spit at me or beat me, that’s not hard to do for I’m blind, but what you can’t do is make me play a tune if I don’t want to, if I don’t feel like it, I mean. That piece of music isn’t for any Tom, Dick, or Harry and I’m the only one that knows when to play it and what it means.”

  Portuguese Marta refused to go to bed with Britches.

  “I’d sooner starve! Why don’t you spit in the face of your son-in-law, you bastard? Or are you afraid he’d give you a thrashing?”

  Sprat turned Britches out into the street to avoid an unholy row.

  “Go on, get out and cool your heels, you big baby—for that’s all you are—you can come back when you’ve calmed down!”

  Tanis Gamuzo is stronger than anyone, he gets a kick out of his own strength, as a lad he was the terror of romerías. If it weren’t for the anisette he’d be contented with Rosa, his wife, a decent woman and a good sort but the anisette is a dreadful curse. Their children run about filthy and with their boots falling apart, there are five of them all running wild with nobody to look after them. Nor does Tanis the Demon take much notice of them, he’s more wrapped up in messing about with Catuxa Bainte, the half-wit from Martiñá, both of them stark naked, in Lucio Mouro’s millpond when the weather hots up and the flesh seeks wholesome refreshment and delight. The half-wit can’t swim, one of these days she’s going to drown as she let’s herself be laid afloat in the shade of the ferns.

  “That would be a laugh, don’t you think?”

  “Not at all, man! Poor Catuxa! What harm has she ever done you?”

  Tanis Gamuzo, Demon, also likes to swing from the boughs of the oak trees, that’s how he never catches the mange, twirling and brandishing his cudgel in the air, it’s as hard as a rock and has his initials carved in it.

  “Shall I split your nut in two like the pit of a peach?”

  “Don’t be stupid, Demon, don’t play jokes like that!”

  “Alright. Shall I puncture your loins like a car tire?”

  “Shut up, you nitwit!”

  Ádega’s face was pale.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Yes, just let me fetch a drop of aguardiente.”

  Ádega is no spring chicken but she still walks straight as an arrow.

  “Let’s see now. The dead man that killed my old man never found respite again, either in this world or in the next. Blood will choke blood and we’ve no call to absolve blood around here. The family of the dead man that killed my old man wasn’t from hereabouts but, God knows, he had plenty of time to learn the ways of these parts. Hopalong from Marañís, the clerk of the Court in Carballiño, formerly a Civil Guard and later lamed in a fight with Pontevedra smugglers, let my brother Secundino steal the papers—that you already know for I told you plain and clear—showing where the family of the dead man that killed my old man—his father was from Foncebadón over by Astorga—hailed from. You, Don Camilo, are a Guxinde, well, a Morán—it makes no difference—and that has its price to pay, as I know full well, but it’s
also something which you should stand up for to the end. Some day I’ll tell you how I stole the mortal remains of Moucho, God blast him! How the Carroupos were hopping mad! Will you have another glass of aguardiente?”

  The eighth sign of the bastard is a measly, flaccid organ. In Sprat’s brothel the whores used to laugh at Fabián Minguela’s lollipop.

  “Like a little cherub! Just like a little cherub!”

  Moncho Requeixo, or Moncho Lazybones rather, is a dreamer, maybe he has a touch of the poet about him.

  “If you want I’ll draw figures of eight on the ground with my wooden leg, it’s never beneath my dignity to please a lady.”

  Moncho Lazybones is like a nobleman fallen upon hard times, a courtier reduced in circumstance, and—Lord save us!—come down in the world.

  “Before she was widowed by her first husband, the late Adolfito, my cousin Georgina was already having an affair with Carmelo Méndez, whom she later married, as soon as she could, that is. My cousins Georgina and Adela were always predisposed to sin, life is short and you have to live it to the full. The pair of Little Jesus Cured, male and female, died on me crossing the Red Sea, I think it was all for the best for my cousins would have fried and eaten them to annoy me, just to get my goat. My aunt Micaela, the mother of my cousins, you know, was also fond of stroking and very grateful to her I am, too. When I was little she used to let me slip a hand down her bodice and fondle her and also tickle her thighs, but she never took her knickers off, Aunt Micaela never let me take her knickers off, in that respect she was very superstitious. May I have another coffee? Thanks very much. My cousins sometimes dance the tango with Miss Ramona and Rosicler, the one that gives injections and my cousin Georgina, when she gets going, asks if she may undress. May I take this blouse off? Do what you like! May I take my bra off? Do what you like! May I take my drawers off? Do what you like. Do you like me, Mona? Shut up, you slut, and lie down on the bed! Shall I switch off the light? No.”