Mazurka for Two Dead Men

by Camilo José Cela

  “What about toothpaste?”

  “Yes, they have a tube of Colgate between them.”

  One morning Sister Catalina hove in sight wielding a toothbrush in her hand and laid into the whole gang of them.

  “Now let’s get one thing straight, you’re a crowd of filthy beasts, God give me patience! This hygiene business is terribly important, you have to keep yourselves nice and clean so as to kill the germs, d’you understand? and since those two Galicians are the only ones to have their own toothbrushes—two Galicians with their own toothbrushes, for goodness sake!—the rest of you should be downright ashamed of yourselves! I requested a toothbrush for this ward from the Colonel and it has been granted, so here you are!”

  Sister Catalina held up a caramel-colored toothbrush for all to see.

  “Can everyone see?”

  “Yes, Sister.”

  “Well then, from this evening onwards while we are saying the Rosary I’m going to brush everybody’s teeth, starting down at this end and finishing at the other.”

  Hornet the bitch died of a stomach upset, apparently the previous night Uncle Cleto had vomited up some highly indigestible alcohol-soaked foods and the poor creature wasn’t up to it. In contrast, Miss Ramona’s borzoi, Tsarevitch, is sleek, elegant, and a delight to behold.

  “Are you sure I shouldn’t change his name?”

  “I really couldn’t say …, just don’t call him anything.”

  Alifonso Martínez saved his skin by hiding with the priest in San Miguel de Bucifíos, not a soul knew where he was, except, of course, for Dolores, Father Merexildo’s housekeeper, not that Moucho would have dared tackle a priest.

  “Has he shown his face hereabouts?”

  “No; it’s ages since I’ve seen him.”

  The Casandulfe Raimundo and his cousin Camilo the gunner had their beds side by side with only a little bedside table between them, the one chamber pot did for both of them. A fellow called Aguirre died, he took a fit of vomiting blood and died so they seized their chance to ask Sister Catalina for permission to change beds.

  “Who stole Aguirre’s lighter?”

  “Not me, Sister, I swear.”

  It was Isidro Suárez Méndez, who always stole everything from the dead: a few pesetas, lighters, hip flasks, watches, photos but I couldn’t bring myself to accuse him, I wouldn’t have put it past sister Catalina to turf him out into the street.

  “I believe you, though thousands wouldn’t.”

  Sister Catalina was more of a woman than that poor Angustias Zoñán Corvacín, the newlywed whose husband ran off an hour and a half after marrying her so, of course, she took the veil.

  “And what ever became of her?”

  “I don’t know, nothing more was heard of her, maybe she died of anemia.”

  “More than likely.”

  “Or maybe she got stung by a gadfly and went lame.”

  “Maybe.”

  The young ladies from the Fronts and Hospitals Board go round the hospital to boost our spirits, they’re known as Margaritas after the wife of King Charles VII, the Marquis of Bradomin waited on the royal couple at the Estella court, Valle-Inclán tells the story in Winter Sonata; the Margaritas distributed scapulars and packets of cigarettes amongst the wounded troops, as well as woollen stockings, warm shirts, jerseys, and other articles of clothing, little bottles of various types of brandy, which sting your throat like turpentine, truth to tell, they treat us as though we were paupers at a St. Vincent de Paul soup kitchen. The Margaritas wear khaki shirts and red berets for they’re Carlists, of course, more often than not they’re known as Requetés, and their chief, Doña María Rosa Urraca Pastor, or maybe she’s Rosa Maria, I don’t know, is a bit lanky but Camilo the gunner fancies her all the same.

  “She’s a fine figure of a woman, indeed there’s something about her that reminds me of General Silvestre, Don Manuel Fernández Silvestre, general in the disastrous defeat at Annual.”17

  “Is it her moustache?”

  “No, it’s her walk—the strides she takes.”

  Casiano Areal, the manager of the Spanish Biscuit Factory, formerly the English Biscuit Factory, was the only one who could hold Doña Rita back once she got going.

  “Look here, Casiano, may God forgive me but if my husband ever again goes and shoots himself after all the money he has cost me, I swear to you, as sure as there’s a God in heaven, I’ll kill him!”

  “Take it easy, ma’am! Just calm down and make sure to feed Don Rosendo up, the main thing is to get him on his feet again so that he can play ball, make him some eggnog with sherry wine.”

  Three Margaritas visited ward 5, carrying presents in a basket.

  “Soldier, I’m going to present you with a scapular of the Sacred Heart to preserve you from all evil. Just look what it says: Bullet, halt, for the Sacred Heart of Jesus is with me.”

  Camilo the gunner blanched, every drop of color drained from his face.

  “No, no, thank you very much all the same, but give that to someone else, please, I beg you, I was wearing one fastened to my battle dress with a safety pin and barely a month ago they had to remove it from my shoulder, with all due respect, miss, the Sacred Heart is bad luck for me.”

  The Margarita blew her top, it was just like a red rag to a bull.

  “Blasphemer! You dare to scorn the Sacred Heart of Jesus! You filthy Red!”

  Sister Catalina put her spoke in and defended Camilo the gunner. Nobody was going to lay a finger on her troops.

  “Get out of here, you cheeky minx! Out! Nobody interferes with my boys, is that clear? Get out of here this minute! And don’t ever set foot in this ward again without my permission!”

  Sister Catalina was a brave, courageous woman, and not easy to handle, but for her we wounded soldiers were both sacred and her property. This applied only to Spaniards for Sister Catalina would have nothing to do with either Italians or Moors.

  “Nope! Let their own nuns take care of them, if they have any, I’m having no mixum gatherum here.”

  Casimiro Bocamaos, the sacristan in Santiago de Torcela, was scared out of his wits.

  “Do you think we’ll ever get out of this pickle?”

  “I really couldn’t say, mankind can withstand a lot, let’s hope for the best.”

  When their health began to improve and they could move about a bit, the Casandulfe Raimundo and his cousin used to go to the Two Lions Café in General Mola Street in the afternoons. Sister Catalina would give them each a pass for a cup of coffee, a drink, and a cigarette apiece, sometimes they took Chomín Galbarra Larraona with them, a Requeté from the Lacar division, missing both hands and eyes, a Laffitte bomb blew up on him at the wrong moment, mowing off his hands, and scooping out his eyeballs so you had to help him both to drink and to smoke. A Cuban legionnaire, blind and part mulatto, also used to frequent the café, and he would while away the dead hours of the day humming a Son tune, of which the chorus went like this: I come from Vuelta Abajo, so I work like a jerk. Chomín was a good soul and it would break your heart to see him. The Casandulfe Raimundo used to read the New Rioja newspaper aloud to him, but the worst was the afternoon he wanted to go with whores, he used to get randy just thinking about it, the whorehouse is on the other side of the river, between the abattoir and the electricity plant. In Leonor’s whorehouse there are only two tarts: Urbana and Modesta, her daughters, wretched and thin as whippets, their father was shot for belonging to the UGT,18 in Leonor’s place you go straight into the kitchen and there’s only one bedroom crammed with religious prints, it would give you the willies, there’s Our Lady of Perpetual Succor, St. Rita of Cascia, the Immaculate Conception, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Virgin of Pilar, St. Joseph with his budding staff, the Infant of Prague, as well as an iron bedstead, two bedside tables, a chair, a bench, an alarm clock, a chamberpot, a washstand, a portable bidet, they kept the permanganate tablets in a soup tureen. Urbana and Modesta burst into tears and would have nothing to do with Chomin.


  “I can’t, it just makes me feel I don’t know what … The poor thing has no means of holding on.”

  Then Leonor herself said to the Casandulfe Raimundo:

  “They’re still young and haven’t learnt to put up with things yet, but don’t you worry, we won’t send the poor creature away like that, I’ll take care of him myself, he’s blind so he won’t make any sort of a fuss, just give me a minute or two to wash down and sprinkle a drop of scent on myself.”

  Celso Masilde, Chapón, is in Logroño, he’s a soldier in the Bailén 24th Infantry Regiment. Later Chapón was involved in the guerrilla skirmishes, he was involved with Bailarín’s party and later on with Benigno García Andrade, Foucellas, there’s many a one believes he was killed around 1950 or ’51 up the mountain in an ambush laid by the Civil Guard, but there’s not a word of truth in it, for I was with him in Tucupita, the capital city of the Amacuro Delta region, Venezuela in 1953. Chapón had married a very rich, very fat lady called Pearl Blossom Araguapiche, and whiled away his time classifying the fish of the Orinoco river. The Casandulfe Raimundo and his cousin got caught up in the hullaballoo that blew up over the army stores in the hospital when over forty cheeses vanished, the Colonel was fit to be tied.

  “Those blackguards will have to be made an example of, discharge all the ones that can walk, walking will set them on their feet, so let them bugger off!”

  The Casandulfe Raimundo and his cousin found themselves in the street through no fault of their own.

  “This isn’t fair,” they told Sister Catalina. “We had nothing to do with the theft of the blasted cheeses and now they kick us out like thieves before we’re back on our feet again, the worst of it is that the Colonel won’t even listen to us.”

  “Be patient, lads, in the army you’ve got to be patient and learn to put up with things.”

  Don Jesús Manzanedo’s daughter, Clarita, had a sweetheart called Ignacio Araujo Cid who was a clerk in the Pastor Bank, personal credit section, when Don Jesús began making entries in his notebook, it gave Ignacio the creeps and he joined up, shortly after reaching the front he was killed. The Casandulfe Raimundo and his cousin went into the Two Lions Café.

  “We’d better find an inn for the time being, what happens later on is anyone’s guess, I’ve still a little money on me and we can tell Mona to transfer the ready cash, let’s see if it reaches us or not.”

  The Casandulfe Raimundo and his cousin were on the mend, but they weren’t quite themselves yet, that’s for sure, but it might have been worse. Within two or three hours, they were settling into the Estellesa Inn, owned by Doña Paula Ramírez, right next to the Pastrana Funeral Home in Herrerías Street: full board, including laundry, 2.75 pesetas.

  “We’ll be as right as rain here, just you wait and see.”

  Robín Lebozán spends the evenings at Miss Ramona’s house, both of them feel guilty for something which is not their fault, that sometimes happens and only the passing of time can remedy it.

  “I think I was utterly in the wrong, Mona, maybe I spend too much time passing judgement and heaping scorn upon others, and that’s no way to live, life follows other paths, I’m greatly alarmed, Mona, even more alarmed than you are. I think that within fifty years people will still be pondering this madness, for this is complete and utter madness and with all those heroic, religious and political frauds you need to watch your step for they don’t give a hoot … Tonight I really would like you to play a Chopin polonaise on the phonograph, or better still, on the piano …, it’s days since we’ve heard from Raimundo, I wonder how he is? He won’t even imagine that we miss him …, this evening I really would like to pour me a drink … How odd it all is, Mona! Suddenly I feel on top of the world, let’s see how long that lasts …, why don’t you hitch up your skirt a little?”

  Miss Ramona was sitting in the rocking chair and she smiled silently as, little by little, her skirts slipped up her legs.

  “Say when.”

  Doña Paula Ramírez’s husband is called Don Cosme and he is a clerk in the local Treasury office; Don Cosme is a short but dapper little sissy who does his hair with Brylcream and every Sunday, for a bit of entertainment as well as to earn an honest crust, plays the tuba in the municipal band: The Legend of the Kiss, Luis Alonso’s Wedding, The Bolero, and the dance tune Dolores. Doña Paula is a brawny, buxom woman who keeps Don Cosme to run errands for her and then calls him Beethoven with infinite scorn.

  “Run and fetch me some spinach, Beethoven, and don’t take all day about it! Fetch me some charcoal, too, then nip into the funeral home to see who that fancy coffin they took out this morning was for!”

  “I’ll go in a minute, Paulita, just let me finish the paper.”

  “You’ll finish no paper! Duty before pleasure!”

  “Alright, alright.”

  There are five of us boarders at Doña Paula’s: the bronchitic priest, Father Senén Ubis Tejada; a retired asthmatic Infantry Sergeant-Major, Don Domingo Bargasa Arnedillo; the prosthodontist, Don Martín Bezares León, suffering from inflammation of the testicles and us two war wounded.

  “It would be even worse if we were old and decrepit, don’t you think?”

  “Of course, man!”

  Article number 2 of the 1852 public welfare regulations establishes that those who are in most need are the insane, deaf-mutes, the blind, the handicapped, the infirm, and maybe they’re not far wrong. The couple at the inn have an only daughter, Paulita, who is repulsive, the poor thing is just like a sewer rat, with whiskers and sideburns into the bargain, she wears specs, she’s really what you would call revolting, utterly revolting.

  “Why don’t you set your sights on her? I think if you buttered her up a bit they might feed us better. You have a brass neck, so why don’t you have a go?”

  “But why don’t you try?”

  The Casandulfe Raimundo and his cousin Camilo the gunner went to do the rounds and give jabs at the hospital, walking sets you on your feet, as we already know, Sister Catalina still gives them coupons. A few days later they were sitting in the café when the following conversation arose:

  “What were you saying about this business of Lionheart and Cidrán Segade?”

  The Casandulfe Raimundo’s expression grew grave and he lowered his voice.

  “Nothing. What can I say?”

  His cousin Camilo the gunner took a sip of brandy and stared at the floor as he spoke:

  “What do you think we should do?”

  “I don’t know. Be patient for the time being and don’t breathe a word to a soul, we’ll have to wait until all this blows over and the whole family can get together to make a decision. There are a lot of us Moranes and even more of the Guxindes. All those who are alive should be able to have their say. You-and-I-know-who will have to pay the price for his deed, he won’t get away scot-free, don’t you worry, for that’s the law that governs us. Let’s talk about something else, for what will be, will be.”

  Camilo the gunner ordered two more drinks.

  “Have you more coupons left?”

  “No, but just this once.”

  When the brandy was poured, the Casandulfe Raimundo fell silent.

  “Can’t you drink to our good health, at least?”

  Home is four days’ train journey away, which is a killer.

  “If only I could, I’d go home right now.”

  “Me, too, for Chrissake! I’d give my gun to the first person I met in the street.”

  The Casandulfe Raimundo and his cousin Camilo the gunner were on the mend but they were bored stiff and stone broke as well. From the poker games in the Iberia Bar they won just enough to cover their expenses at the inn, nor could they afford to venture too much either upon Paulita, a creature as ugly as sin who turned out to be above temptation, which is not playing above board, and although he spared no effort but screwed his courage to the sticking point, Camilo the gunner failed in his attempt to seduce her in order to prosper.

  “Or even to subsis
t?”

  “Yes, or even to subsist, you’re not too far off the mark there.”

  The wife of Don Atanasio Higueruela Martín, a Segovian from Tabanera la Luenga, conjurer, fortuneteller, hypnotist, he could also read people’s thoughts and predict the future. Are you sure he’s not some sort of a Mason? ran off with a Moor, Don Atanasio was foaming at the mouth.

  “What sort of a trollop is she anyway to run off with a Mohammedan?”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “I don’t, nor could I care less, I’ve already cut her out of my life.”

  “Goodness!”

  Conversations about women bring great consolation to the souls of men.

  Camilo the gunner tried to pour oil on troubled waters.

  “Look, Señor Higueruela, as we all know, there are women that are bitches, others that are lame, others deaf, ones with conjunctivitis, some are governed by their wombs, while others have bad breath, bad backs, some run off with Moors, or Christians—it makes no difference to them—while others want to lead you along the path of righteousness and make an honest man of you, to hell with that! then they preach at you morning, noon, and night, handing out advice and keeping tabs on you as if you couldn’t give them the run around, like exemplary mothers they are, and there’s not a body could stick them, why can’t they just leave well enough alone? maybe they just can’t. Women are good, I know, but not all of them, of course. That Paulita, for one, is a fiasco, an utter mess, but by and large they’re good, so we can’t complain, the worst of it is that they’re a pain in the neck and spend their lives organizing everything … Listen, do you know anybody in the Nancleres de Oca Hospital?”

  “No, why?”

  Robín Lebozán sat up all night writing. He feels almost out of sorts and makes himself a cup of coffee over a spirit lamp, he has only to light the wick, at least the coffee will be hot, between sips Robín reads what he has written and half-closes his eyes to think.

  “Indeed, there’s no doubt I’ve earned myself a cup of coffee. Some things are very far away and others close at hand. Memory churns up the order of events and names of people, memory doesn’t give a damn, the truth of the matter is it’s all very faraway. At that time Benicia was only a little girl and Ádega—recently widowed—still a fine figure of a woman, Mona was always very elegant, stories jostle inside your head though in our family there was never a plausible account, this is no scrutiny of conscience even though it may appear so, Raimundo always liked to venture up the mountain, I never had overly good health, I remember one day he said to me: I go out hunting wolves and wild boars but not rabbits, I leave that to Castilians, who set out in the morning for the country with a gun on their shoulder and shoot at everything that moves just in case it is alive: a pigeon, a rabbit, a child, they don’t give a hoot. Raimundo was over on the Spanish-speaking islands of the Mississippi Delta …, one gentleman said to another, without any apparent point: mark my words, sir, the wise man is the bugger that will die young …”