His Only Son: With Dona Berta

by Leopoldo Alas

  And she did not breathe easy until she saw that the drunken man had reached the safe haven of a policeman’s arms and was being led off who knows where. Clearly, Providence or a guardian angel also watched over the fate and the stumbling steps of Madrid’s drunks!

  That constant preoccupation with noise and traffic and collisions and accidents had become an obsession, a constant, pressing, physical mania, endlessly repeated, and which, much to her regret, distracted her from more important considerations, from her tortured life as supplicant. Yes, she could not deny it, she gave far more thought to the dangers present in those masses of people and those carriages and trams than she did to her main purpose, to her titanic struggle with the fabulously wealthy who were preventing her from fulfilling the desire that had brought her to Madrid. Ever since she had left Posadorio, for reasons she could not pin down, her ideas and her heart had undergone a complete upheaval; she felt and thought more selfishly; she was frequently overcome by feelings of self-pity, and the idea of death filled her with horror. How awful it must be to go to another world entirely, given the torment involved in leaving Susacasa and coming here, which, while occupying the same planet, already seemed to her quite “other” enough! From the moment she had got on the train, she had been gripped by a mad desire to stop and get off, to run back in search of her family, which was Sabelona and the trees, the meadows and the house, to everything she had left so far behind. She lost all sense of distance and fancied she had traveled through infinite space; indeed, it seemed to her that it would take centuries, at the very least, to retrace her steps. And how her head throbbed! And how fleeting other people’s lives seemed, all those strangers with no history, all those indifferent strangers who came and went in the same second-class carriage in which she was traveling, who demanded to see her tickets, who offered to help, who transported her in a small cab to a boardinghouse! She was lost, lost in the big world, in the infinite universe, in a universe peopled with ghosts! With so many people in the world, each individual seemed worthless; the life of this or that person counted for nothing; and that is how other people must think, to judge by the indifference with which they met, spoke, and parted forever. The continual hustle and bustle, the milling crowds, reminded her of the swarms of mosquitoes from which she used to flee in the woods or by the river in summer. She spent her first few days in Madrid unable to move, unable to imagine how she could ever find a way of beginning to make the necessary inquiries to find out what she needed to know, which was, after all, what had brought her there. She must have been mad. For the moment, she was thinking only of herself, about how not to die of boredom sitting at the supper table or of sadness in the interior room that gave on to a drab alleyway they called a courtyard or of cold in her hard, narrow, sordid, miserable bed. She fell ill. A week spent in bed restored her courage a little; she got up feeling better prepared to find her way around an inferno she had never imagined could exist in the world. The landlady became a friend; she had every appearance of being a charitable soul, although poverty prevented her from being entirely so. Doña Berta began to ask and to inquire and to leave the house. And that was when her feverish obsession with the dangers of the street began, a fever that, unlike a physical fever, did not pass. Finally, however, among all her terrors, all her battles, she managed to find out something: The painting she was looking for was kept in a large house closed to the public, where it was being held by the government until a decision was reached as to whether it should remain the property of the state or be sold to a South American magnate to adorn his mansion in Madrid and possibly, later on, his mansion in Havana. She knew all this, but not the price put on the painting, which she had not as yet been able to see. And that was what she was currently engaged in, securing permission to view the picture.

  That cold, snowy morning was set to be a most solemn day for Doña Berta. Thanks to a fellow boarder, she had managed to gain permission to see the famous painting, which was no longer on view to the public but in a house on the outskirts of Madrid, lying on the floor of a cold, deserted room, ready to be packed away. Cruel fate! It was that day or possibly never. She would have to cross a lot of snow. It didn’t matter. She would, most unusually, hail a cab, if any were about. She was going to see her son! In order to be properly prepared, to get the Lord’s blessing for her bold endeavors so that all would be well, she went to church first, to early mass. Snowy, deserted, silent Puerta del Sol was a good omen. “That’s what it will be like at home. A pure white, spotless sheet! No tracks, no grubby icy paths, no footprints. . . . It’s like the snow on Aren where no one ever walks.”

  9

  IN THE cold, dark, deserted church, she occupied a corner she already considered hers. The candles on the altar and the lamps round about filled her soul with a cozy, familiar, homely warmth. The priest’s Latin murmurings—interrupted by occasional bouts of asthmatic wheezing—also sounded wonderfully like home. The images of saints looming vaguely out of the shadows spoke, in their silence, of the solidarity between Heaven and earth, of the constancy of faith, of the unity of the world, which was precisely what Doña Berta missed (without, of course, realizing that she did) in her moments of fear, weakness, and despair. She left the church feeling cheerful and brave and prepared to fight for her cause, that of finding her son and her son’s creditors.

  She breakfasted badly, hurriedly, and without appetite, then it was time for her to set off alone with her letter of recommendation. She hailed a cab, gave the address of that far-flung building, and, when she heard the coachman swear and saw him hesitate as if seeking an excuse not to have to go so far, she said, smiling and persuasive, “I’ll pay you by the hour!,” and slowly, step by step, the sad, scrawny, sallow-skinned horse drew them to their destination. Once there, with the letter still clutched in her hand, Doña Berta deftly overcame the porter’s initial objections and, after walking from room to freezing room and hearing the muffled sound of many hammers banging nails into crates, she came upon a fat, shabbily dressed gentleman who seemed to be in charge of the noise and confusion of packing up all that art. The paintings were being taken away, most had already gone; there were almost none left on the walls. She had to tread carefully so as not to step on any of the canvases carpeting the floor; and what a fortune that carpet would be worth! These were the large paintings, some of them famous. The fat man read Doña Berta’s letter, looked her up and down, and when she indicated to him by smiling and pointing to her ear that she was deaf, he pulled a face, clearly reluctant to make an effort to raise his voice a little just to please this insignificant creature with her letter of recommendation from a nobody, a nobody who obviously considered himself to be a friend, when, in fact, he was merely a passing acquaintance of no importance.

  “So you want to see the Valencia painting, do you? Well, you’ve almost missed your chance, lady. In half an hour, it’ll be on its way to its new home.”

  “Where is it? Where is it? Which one is it?” she asked, trembling.

  “That one.”

  And the fat man pointed down at a large, gray, apparently grubby piece of canvas lying at his feet.

  “That one? But I can’t see anything!”

  The man shrugged.

  “I can’t see anything!” repeated Doña Berta, terrified, her face, gestures, and tremulous voice all pleading for his compassion.

  “Of course not. Paintings aren’t meant to be viewed on the floor, but what do you expect? You should have come earlier.”

  “I had no letter then. The public weren’t allowed in. The building was closed. . . .”

  The rude fat man again shrugged, then he went over to a group of workers to give them their orders and promptly forgot all about the old lady.

  Doña Berta found herself alone, completely alone before that sad, shapeless, confused mass of color lying at her feet.

  “And my son is there! He’s part of this gray, black, white, red, and blue smudge that looks more like a scab!”

  She looked around a
s if asking for help.

  “And, of course, they’re hardly going to hang it on the wall again just for me. It hasn’t even got a frame.”

  Four men in overalls, not even noticing Doña Berta, came over to the canvas and, speaking in tones too low for her to hear, went about finding the best way of picking up the canvas and carrying it to a place where it would be easier to pack.

  She stared at them in horror, trying to guess what it was they were about to do. When two of the men bent down to take hold of the painting, Doña Berta cried out.

  “Please, gentlemen, one moment!” she exclaimed, grabbing the overalls of a fair, cheerful-looking young man. “One moment! I want to see him! Just one moment. Who knows if I will ever see him again!”

  The four men gazed at the old woman in astonishment and burst out laughing.

  “She must be mad,” one of them said.

  Doña Berta did not often cry, although she had more than enough reason to, but now she felt her eyes filling with consoling tears, which slipped, solemn and clear and solitary, down her gaunt cheeks.

  The men saw her tears and stopped laughing.

  She obviously wasn’t mad. It must be something else. The cheerful fair-haired young man explained that they weren’t in charge there, but that she couldn’t view the painting now because it was being taken to the house of its new owner, a very wealthy South American gentleman.

  “Yes, I know, that’s why I have to see the figure in the middle of the painting—”

  “The captain?”

  “Yes, yes, the captain. I left my village and my house purely in order to see the captain, and if you take him away now, how am I ever going to gain entry to that wealthy gentleman’s mansion? And who knows, while I’m trying to find some way to do so, they might take the painting to South America.”

  Like the fat man, who had now left the room, the men simply shrugged.

  “Listen,” said Doña Berta, “please, for pity’s sake, wait just one moment. I could use that stepladder. If you brought it over here . . . I’m not strong enough myself, but if you could bring it over here in front of the painting . . . on this side . . . I could climb up a few rungs, holding on tight of course. . . . Yes, I’m sure I could and from there, I might be able to see the painting—”

  “But you might fall, señora.”

  “No, I won’t fall. I used to climb ladders to pick the fruit in my garden back home or to hang out the sheets. Please, for pity’s sake, help me. From up there, if I look from the right angle, I should be able to see something. Please help me.”

  The fair-haired young man felt sorry for her, although the others did not. They impatiently took hold of the canvas while their colleague hurriedly brought the ladder over and, standing beside it to hold it steady, helped an anxious, trembling Doña Berta, not without difficulty, to climb those worn and slippery rungs. She reached the fifth rung, held on tightly to the ladder frame, and, turning her head, looked down at the famous painting, which was moving now, because the men had begun to pick it up. Like a wavering ghost, like a dream, she saw among the smoke and blood and stones and earth and brightly colored uniforms, a figure who looked at her for a moment with eyes full of sublime horror, heroic fear: It was her captain, the same captain, also stained with blood, whom she had found at the gate of Posadorio. Yes, it was her captain, with just a touch of her and her older brother; he was a Rondaliego grafted onto the husband of her soul: He was her son! But he was gone in a flash, zigzagging away from her, supine, as if being borne away to be buried. . . . He had his arms flung wide, a sword in one hand, as he stood among the crumbling stones and sand, among the fallen bodies and bayonets. She could not fix the image in her mind; she had only managed a glimpse of that pale, tremulous figure, who had suddenly filled her soul, merging in among the other blurs of color, the other figures. But the expression on his face, the magical quality of his gaze, were etched forever on her brain. And as the painting was disappearing, carried away by the workmen, Doña Berta’s vision grew hazy, she lost consciousness and fell, sliding down the ladder into the arms of the kind young man who had helped her in that difficult ascent.

  That was a painting in itself, a kind of Descent from the Cross.

  10

  DOÑA BERTA soon recovered, although she still barely had the strength to walk; however, the same hired cab, which was waiting for her at the door, carried her safely back to her lodgings. She spent another two days in bed. Then she resumed her anxious, feverish search, trying to sniff out information or cajole letters of recommendation from people, letters that might help her to discover where the owner of her captain lived and be allowed into his house, so that she could gaze upon the painting and broach the big question: Could she buy it?

  Doña Berta spoke to no one of her grandiose plans to acquire that masterpiece, not even to those who were helping her obtain letters of recommendation. She did not want the people at the boardinghouse to know she was rich enough to offer thousands of duros for a painting, fearing they might steal her money, which she always carried with her. She had ignored all advice to deposit it in a bank. She did not understand what this meant. The bank might swindle her; no, her own sharp nails were her best defense. The money was safest sewn to her corset.

  For all her chasing around Madrid’s most important streets, she was cut off from the world by her deafness and by her habits, which included a complete lack of interest in what the newspapers had to say—she never read them nor did she believe in them—and thus she knew nothing of a sad event that would have a decisive impact on her own affairs. She did not find out what this was until she managed, at last, to gain entry to the mansion of her rival, the owner of the painting. He was a pleasant, robust gentleman of about her age, who tried to gain forgiveness for his wealth by making charitable donations; he helped those less fortunate than himself but had no real understanding of what misfortune meant; he did not feel other people’s pain, he only relieved it; his desire to heal the wounds of poverty sprang from his intellect, rather than from the urgings of his heart, which was entirely concerned with his own happiness. He found Doña Berta amusing. Like the men packing up the paintings, he thought she was mad, but in a diverting, inoffensive, interesting way.

  “Imagine,” he told the members of his club, who were all high up in the worlds of banking or politics, “she wants to buy Valencia’s last painting!” These words were always greeted with unanimous laughter.

  The eminent gentleman had snatched Valencia’s last painting from the hands of the government itself by dint of money and diplomatic intrigue. He had even obtained recommendations from abroad urging the poor devil at the Ministry of Public Works to give in and acknowledge that money takes precedence. Besides, justice and charity were, in this case, on the side of the rich. Valencia’s heirs—which were, according to his will, the hospitals and poor-houses of Madrid—stood to gain far more if the rich South American bought that artistic gem, because the government had been unable to offer more than the price agreed for the painting while the painter was still alive, whereas this filthy-rich foreigner was offering the proper price for what would now be a posthumous sale, the amount of money to be handed over having tripled following the death of the painter that autumn, in Asturias, in some obscure little village on the coast, from a chill caught after he got drenched to the skin in a rainstorm. Favoring the rich man was not entirely legal, but it was really only fair that the person to get the painting should be the one prepared to pay the highest price.

  Doña Berta knew nothing of this when she first visited the South American’s private museum. It took a while for her to arrange a meeting with the millionaire, who had allowed her into his mansion on the strength of a letter of recommendation, before he knew who she was or what she wanted. The servants would usher in the old lady, who always took great care to wipe her shoes on the mat before treading on the carpets; then, distributing smiles and tips, she would stand, as if at mass, rapt and absorbed, always before the same painting, “the
one caught up in the legal dispute,” as they referred to it there.

  Framed in gold and hanging on one wall of that luxurious room, along with many other artistic treasures, the painting seemed quite different to Doña Berta. She could study it at her leisure now. In the face and attitude of the hero dying on that bloody, glorious heap of earth and corpses, haloed by fire and smoke, she could read everything that the painter had wanted to express, but she did not always recognize him as her son. Depending on the light, depending on her own state of mind, depending on whether she had eaten or drunk, she would or would not see in the captain in the famous painting either her son or her captain. The first time she felt her faith shaken, the first time she doubted, a shudder ran through her, and a cold, deathly sweat trickled down her spine.

  If she lost her deep-seated belief that the captain in the painting was her son, what would become of her? How could she hand over her entire fortune, how could she plunge herself into poverty in order to buy a piece of canvas that might or might not be the shroud bearing the image of her son? How could she devote herself to seeking out the creditor or his family in order to repay the hero’s debt, if the man in the painting was not her son?

  And in order to arrive at this state of doubt and fear of deception she had surrendered her Posadorio, her green Aren to avarice and usury! In order to arrive at this state of doubt and dread she had come to Madrid and hurled herself into the inferno of its streets, the daily battle with carriages and horses and pedestrians!