Mazurka for Two Dead Men

by Camilo José Cela

  “Why don’t you take a cup of lime-blossom tea before going to bed?”

  “Yes, I’ll have to do something, this insomnia is a bad scene.”

  Nobody killed Hornet the bitch, there was no need to, the bitch Hornet died of a severe stomach upset, chances are Uncle Cleto vomited bile the last couple of times, dogs can’t withstand a lot, less than you’d think, on the other hand Tsarevitch the dog is graceful and distinguished, but they don’t call him Tsarevitch or anything at all now, dogs understand the tone of voice better than words.

  “Do you know the stories about Pepa the She-Wolf and Xan Quinto?”

  “Indeed I do, as well as the ones about Truco and Louzao and Ventoselle.”

  “What about the story about Mamed Casanova, who dressed up as a rich Indian that was dead and buried?”

  “Yes, sir, I know them all. When I was a youngster my relative Don Marcelino Andrade made me learn them all off by heart when he took me in out of charity, so I can reel them all off, if you want me to begin I will.”

  “No, there’s no need.”

  When he wakens up during the night Robín Lebozán lights an oil lamp, the electric light is like a feeble, sickly glowworm, it’s no use at all, Robín Lebozán reads over what he has already written and corrects the occasional cacophony, repetition, or vague, imprecise word, he also changes the odd punctuation mark, here a comma would be better than a colon, parenthesis doesn’t go here, etc., Robín Lebozán thinks that everything is on the wane, this business of novels is just like life itself, things grind to a halt, sometimes all of a sudden, your heart is in your mouth and life passes away, escapes through your eyes and mouth, also just through the mouth, stories always end with a full stop, as soon as the son of a bitch is killed off that’s it, remember Poe’s words again: Our thoughts were palsied and sere, our memories treacherous and sere, I would like to have neither thoughts nor memories but I can’t, I would like to be like the rose and the honeysuckle, which only have feelings, maybe small, feeble animals—slugs, dragonflies—have hollow, disconsolate souls like roses and honeysuckle.

  “Are you asleep?”

  “No, I just snatched forty winks.”

  Don Claudio Blanco Respino sat down and ordered Doña Argentina Vidueira, widow of Somoza, to hold her tongue, after that he addressed himself to his brother-in-law Gerardo Vagamian, he didn’t normally trouble to use the title Don, and said:

  “Can you imagine a medieval king murdered by his own jester before the entire court during the glittering celebrations of a military victory? Well that’s just what happened to Dino V, the Duke of Béttega, who wore a hairpiece and had a glass eye, an iron hand, and a wooden leg. After clubbing the jester to death, drawing and quartering him for the convenience of the vultures, his seven sons split their sides laughing and celebrating their blameless orphanhood by covering all the nuns in the convent, leaving each and every one of them with child, the event is recounted in minute detail in the Chronicle of Aristides the Leper with names and all, I couldn’t recount all the adventures of that family from memory.”

  Miss Ramona always doubted Don Claudio Blanco’s word.

  “To my mind he’s a blabbermouth. Half the stories he tells are downright lies.”

  Uncle Cleto goes to pay Miss Ramona a visit, he looks more dishevelled and crankier than ever and walks in zigzags so as not to step upon the cracks in the pavement. Uncle Cleto sings La Madelón and marks the end of each verse by breaking a volley of wind, Uncle Cleto laughs, screws up his nose and half-closes his eyes, he looks like a Chinaman, Uncle Cleto is dirtier yet cleaner than ever before, folks don’t understand this but it’s the truth, and he looks worried, Uncle Cleto is very hygienic and concerned, everyone knows that, very finnicky and protective of his health, he uses a great deal of alcohol for disinfecting himself but at the same time he goes about filthy, he never changes his underwear, he throws it out when finally it falls off old and dirty, Uncle Cleto vomits when he gets bored, he pukes in the chamber pot or behind the dresser, it’s all the same to him to vomit on the wall, sometimes he vomits over himself because he is sitting in a comfortable position and doesn’t want to budge, this visit Uncle Cleto paid to Miss Ramona took place some time back, shortly after the outbreak of the war.

  “Mona dear, these are terrible times we’re in and immense problems that have to be tackled are being heaped upon us, where shall we bury Jesusa? All our family are in the tomb already, each one in their own grave, but there’s hardly room to swing a cat in the vault, just as well I left poor Lourdes in Paris! Can you imagine the how-d’ye-do it would have been if I hadn’t left poor Lourdes in Paris? Problem number two—as I say it’s problems all the way—how are we to take Jesusa’s body out? Emilita will want her to go out the front door, just wait and see, you know what Emilita’s like, she never had anything but cotton wool between her two ears, in that case everything will have to be cleaned up for it’s filthy, the very thought of it would make your flesh creep but for at least fifteen years now nobody has gone in through that door, nor cleaned the ceilings nor the walls, or anything, mice are nesting in the furniture and centipedes and earwigs are making themselves at home behind the paintings, on the mildew behind the paintings, it’s very damp in Albarona.”

  “Can we not get someone in to do it?”

  “Yes, of course we can, I’ll take care of that, when I give the word a man will come and remove everything from the hallway—boxes, papers, all the heaviest stuff, everything—to light a bonfire, then you’ll go in but nobody else.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Death is a habitual stupidity, a custom that’s losing prestige, old races despise death, death is a habit, notice that women have a great time at funerals, dishing out orders and advice, women feel at home at funerals. Father Santisteban, S.J., speaks of death with great assurance, maybe he gets that from his calling, the Bible says that a living dog is better than a dead lion, and it’s surely true, better a living earthworm than a beautiful dead woman, for what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world but suffer the loss of his soul?, put like that you can’t gainsay it, Uncle Cleto plays his jazz band, tapping the table, the glass, the bottle, the chamber pot, the window frame with a little rod, everything yields its own sound, the knack of it is in making each object ring out just at the right time, not too soon nor too late, Aunt Jesusa will never again hear Uncle Cleto’s farts for beyond the pearly gates no ignoble sounds are heard, Aunt Emilita was left all on her own.

  “Nobody ever got down to the very bottom of the Antela lagoon, whoever crosses the Antela lagoon loses their memory and is damned for the whole of eternity, folks with no memories cannot be saved because God and the saints hold memory in high esteem, both suffering and the soul nestle in the memory.”

  Don Claudio Blanco Respino has no time for Doña Argentina Vidueira, widow of Somoza, a woman who says more than her prayers, gossiping is a vice which gives rise to terrible evils within society, hell, what a sentence! gossiping can even cause wars, epidemics, and other catastrophes, Don Claudio, the brother-in-law of one-eyed Vagamian, is silently pensive, you could have heard a pin drop, or the buzzing of a fly, the Antela lagoon is full of flies, mosquitoes, frogs, and water snakes, and the dead of Antioch beg forgiveness by tolling the bells on St. John’s Eve, the bells sound very odd with the water above them.

  “What sort of thoughts are those! My conscience must be troubling me!”

  Don Brégimo Faramiñás, Miss Ramona’s father, played the banjo just as the fancy took him, the worst of it is that he died, Roquiño, the half-wit who was shut up for five years in a brightly colored tin trunk decorated with frets and zigzags, catches many a thrashing from Secundina, his mother, who smokes when nobody is looking, she washes the butts with vinegar and carefully prepares the tobacco, it wasn’t a man who cleared out the hallway in Uncle Cleto’s house, it was Secundina, on the recommendation of Remedios, the owner of Rauco’s Inn.

  “She’s a dolt but a steady worker and the
half-wit is no trouble for she puts him in a corner and he stays nice and quiet the whole time, at times he scarcely breathes.”

  Miss Ramona told Uncle Cleto:

  “Remedios says there isn’t a man but Secundina will make a good job of the cleaning, she can come first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Alright then, tell her to come tomorrow morning at twelve on the dot but not before.”

  Miss Ramona’s mother drowned in the River Asneiros, some folks would drown in a washstand, Miss Ramona’s mother was a distinguished, witty woman, one of those women that are constantly wishing to die.

  “I remember that she was very fond of Bécquer’s poetry.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

  In Uncle Cleto’s house everything is shabby and threadbare, the pump for drawing water up from the well broke down, the windowpanes are smashed, nearly all the windowpanes that is, there are pieces of cardboard and old cans stuck in their place, as well as the seat of a cane chair, there’s no light, the telephone was cut off, and every day the house is more encrusted with cobwebs, Hornet the bitch died howling, Hornet the bitch howled because she scented two deaths, Aunt Jesusa’s and her own, Secundina heaped up boxes and papers, as well as jackets, slippers and a roll of oilcloth at least ten meters long and set fire to it when she was told to do so, but not a moment before, some folks are superstitious and others aren’t, it’s a matter of taste, some folks believe in miracle cures and taking the waters while others don’t, it could also be a question of a person’s upbringing, there are genteel, mannerly gods, bearded Sucellus and Germunno with his little horns and uncouth, loutish gods, it’s bad luck to even utter their names, a tide of ignorance is sweeping over us but there’s nothing we can do about it, nor is there any avoiding it, the other night Robín Lebozán warned Miss Ramona:

  “This tide of ignorance will lead to deeply embittered reactions, Mona, I know of no antidote to this poison.”

  “Nor do I, Robín, let’s hope it passes over without drawing us into the thick of it.”

  The Casandulfe Raimundo hums Sacred Heart when he is shaving, sacred heart, you shall reign, our joy you shall always be.

  “Don’t you know anything else?”

  “What’s that got to do with you?”

  The Casandulfe Raimundo also lilts Cara al sol19 and My Steed, he whistles El Oriamendi20 for he doesn’t know the words, it’s the same with the Himno de Riego,21 though you have to watch your step with it in case you tread on someone’s corns. The Casandulfe Raimundo never forgets the white camellia for Miss Ramona, apparently his memory hasn’t been affected by this bout of despondency.

  “Here you are, Mona, this is a sort of pledge, so you can see that I never forget you.”

  “No, Mundo, I know this is a pledge, as you say, pledges don’t even have to be remembered, they’re just like breathing, for you I’m like the breath you draw, it’s sad but it’s true, indeed maybe it’s not even sad.”

  Baldomero Marvís Casares, Tripe-Butcher, the father of the Gamuzos, always said that winning was every bit as hard as losing, you have to tread firmly in this life, indeed, but yet not causing a stir or throwing your weight about, throwing your weight about can lead to bad results for sometimes blows may rain, and not everybody’s wounds heal easily, some don’t, Nuncie Sabadelle wanted to see the world but she didn’t get beyond las Burgas, a person thinks that they have to swallow everything that comes their way but then they see that it’s not so, and will have none of it and then they have to bow to the inevitable so as to avoid a dressing down, it’s hard to have to fail and swallow the consequences, the frogs in the county of Tipperary are not a whit worse off than those in the Antela lagoon.

  “Did you get a letter from Doña Argentina?”

  “I did, she was the one who told me about the aviators, look what she says here: This is the Vedrines school, named after a famous aviator engaged by the public entertainment board to watch him fly past in his airplane, executing thousands of acrobatic feats in midair, by night he gave a show with his plane silhouetted with colored lights, but I’ve already told you that. What a sight the festivities were! You paid 25 or 50 céntimos to sit upon a folding chair, depending upon the location and the rest of them, especially the youngsters, were gathered around about. Am I boring you?”

  “Not at all. Read on!”

  “Alright. The women got dressed to the nines in wide-brimmed hats trimmed with flowers and birds and dresses down to their ankles. The aviators were called …, well, I won’t read on for you already know that.”

  History gallops onwards like a runaway horse, like a greyhound after a hare, like a centipede, the white and yellowed pages of the calendar were falling like the green and gold leaves of the fig tree, just like the withered leaves of the fig tree, though there’s not one of them left now, and mankind invented this knack of coldly impregnating cows without the bull covering them, as was the way ever since God invented cows and bulls, history rushes past crashing into time, sometimes things happen outside their time through the fault of history, for instance, why did Hannibal’s elephants not come out of Noah’s ark? Noberto Somoza Donfréan, Doña Argentina’s grandson, is an up-to-date vet.

  “Yes, indeed, I know it’s the last word in science, I won’t deny it, but that Noberto is a swine to be involved with this business of artificial insemination. Say what you like, but when I see him assisting at Mass with that holier-than-thou look on his face, what good will it do him, I ask myself, if he earns his crust poking about in the innards of cows?”

  There’s still some time to go before that situation will come to pass, history is not always the witness of an age, the light of truth, the life of memory etc., there’s a lot of nonsense talked about all that.

  “I can do nothing, I’m longing to hear the skyrocket go off, I won’t be able to do anything until I hear the skyrocket go off, not that I feel up to much. Will you pour me a brandy?”

  “I will.”

  Aunt Jesusa and Aunt Emilita always wept buckets, they spent at least half their lives weeping, Uncle Cleto never took a blind bit of notice, nor was it worth the trouble, so they like weeping? well then, let them weep! when they’re weeping they’re not annoying anybody, well, sometimes they do, but it doesn’t matter if they bother somebody, maybe Aunt Jesusa is still weeping in purgatory.

  “Or up in heaven.”

  “No, there’s no weeping up in heaven.”

  When they told Uncle Evelio Wild Boar that Vicente Chabro, the Xilmendreiros fellow, was in Orense Hospital he said: “Kill him off before he recovers!” and went on puffing his clay pipe with a picture of John Bull on it. The following day Vicente Chabro was smothered with a pillow, well, two of them held him down while another sat on top of him until he breathed his last and nobody as much as turned a hair, the truth of the matter is that Vicente Chabro was a poor wretch that wasn’t even worth a tinker’s damn.

  “What do you think a wishy-washy dead man is worth, even though he’s from hereabouts?”

  “I don’t know; he couldn’t be worth much, they may even be dishing them out for free.”

  It rains upon the Arenteiriño crossroads and the Ricobelo stream, the very spot where the vixens plunge in to cool their fever, while the axle of Ugly Thumpity-thump’s oxcart—the brightest bug-hunter in the whole parish—moans and groans up the track to Mosteirón.

  “Do you remember the time of the five hanged children in Mosteirón?”

  The rain lashes down upon saints and sinners, upon the wise, the simple and the run-of-the-mill, upon ourselves, upon the Leonese and the Portuguese, upon men and women, animals, trees, plants, stones, it rains upon pelts and hearts and souls, souls too, it rains upon the three faculties of the soul.

  “Do you remember the time when lightning struck two little girls in Marañís, beyond the Formigueiros hill?”

  Miss Ramona, the Casandulfe Raimundo, and Robín Lebozán, each with their umbrella, stroll slowly in the rain, maybe they enjoy getting soake
d.

  “Could you live in a country where it didn’t rain?”

  “Yes, why not? A person can get used to anything, just look at the English and the Dutch, in countries where it doesn’t rain there’s life and feeling too, it’s an effort to imagine it but that’s how it is, I’m sure that’s how it is.”

  Vicente Chabro, the fellow from Xilmendreiros died an insignificant death, neither small fry nor fools are granted extreme unction, nor is an autopsy even carried out upon them, what would be the point? even though they are smothered to death and thrashing about, it’s not customary, hold your horses there, nor does anyone have time to waste, tossing busybodies into a common grave with an Our Father for every two of them is good enough, Vicente Chabro was a bad egg, even though he didn’t mean it, and that, too, has its price to pay.

  “Were his family notified?”

  “No, they weren’t, not that they would miss him anyway.”

  Robín Lebozán speaks of solitude, Miss Ramona and the Casandulfe Raimundo listen to him, the three of them are soaking wet yet calm, unhurried, and maybe even happy, Robín Lebozán is like a little philosopher who takes his hat off and speaks from time to time.

  “Solitude is no bad thing, God is alone and has no need of company, but mankind is not God, of course, the Holy Scriptures say that solitude is a bad thing but I don’t believe it, solitude airs the soul and company sullies it, often sullies it, the devil makes his abode in the heart of the solitary man but it’s no hard task to scare him off, to drive him out, there’s more room for happiness in silence than in the midst of a spree and tranquility goes hand-in-hand with solitude, might it not be the case that solitude only exists in the face of unwanted company? Mankind escapes from solitude when he fears himself, when he grows bored with himself, the masturbator—if you’ll pardon me, Mona—can have no qualms of conscience nor can he grow bored when he is alone, the masturbator must proudly proclaim his glorious, independent solitude, Machado says that a solitary heart is not a heart, that’s lovely, well, clever, but no more than that, for it’s not true, nowadays you can’t talk about Machado, about Antonio Machado, the secret is to live with your back turned upon everything, it’s a difficult state of affairs to achieve, it must be close to beatitude, there are only two possibilities: that solitude is both desired and sought after, or that solitude is feared and is encountered against our will, in the first case it’s a prize, in the second it’s a price to pay, that of independence, the most prized blessing the gods can bestow upon man is that of independence, but forgive me for being such a bore to you both!”