The Hive

by Camilo José Cela

  Drinking his coffee, Pablo begins to realize that he is getting bored with Laurita’s company. Very pretty, very attractive, very affectionate, even very faithful; but not much variety to her.

  At Doña Rosa’s café, as in all cafés, the public that comes in to have coffee after lunch is by no means the same as the public that comes for refreshments in the early evening. They all are regular customers, they all sit on the same seats, drink from the same cups, take the same dose of bicarbonate, pay in the same currency of pesetas, put up with the same rude remarks from the proprietress. And yet—somebody might find an explanation for it—the public in the café at three o’clock has nothing to do with the public that comes in after half past seven. Perhaps the only thing to link them is the idea they all cherish at the bottom of their hearts, that they are the real Old Guard of the café. For the evening people, the others, the after-lunch people, are no better than intruders who may be tolerated but are not worth a thought, and the afternoon people feel the same about the evening people: not worth a thought. As individuals and as a whole, the two groups are incompatible, and if it occurs to one of the after-lunch customers to linger on and delay his departure for a while, the arriving evening customers give him angry looks, exactly the same sort of looks, neither more nor less angry, which the after-lunch-coffee people give to evening-snack people who drop in before their time. A well-organized café, a café somewhat on the lines of Plato’s Republic, would no doubt establish a quarter of an hour’s truce so that those who come would not have to meet those who are going at the revolving door.

  In the after-lunch hour at Doña Rosa’s café our only acquaintance apart from the proprietress herself and the waiters is Señorita Elvira, who has really come to be something like another piece of furniture.

  “How are you, Elvira dear, did you have a good night’s rest?”

  “Oh, yes, Doña Rosa. And you?”

  “Only so-so, dear, only just so-so. I spent the whole night trotting to the lavatory and back. I must have had something for supper that didn’t agree with me, and my bowels were in a dreadful state.”

  “Oh, dear! And are you better now?”

  “Well, in a way I am, but you know, it left me quite limp.”

  “I’m not surprised, diarrhea’s very weakening.”

  “You’re telling me! I’ve made up my mind, if I don’t get better tomorrow, I’m going to call the doctor. As it is I can’t do any work or anything, and you know what it is, in a business like this, if one isn’t after it all the time. . . .”

  “Of course.”

  Padilla, the cigarette boy, is trying to convince a gentleman that certain tipped cigarettes he has on sale are not filled with tobacco from cigarette butts.

  “You know, sir, you can always recognize tobacco from stubs because it’s got a funny taste even when it’s been thoroughly washed. And then, stub tobacco smells of vinegar a mile off. Now, just take a sniff at these, sir, and you won’t smell anything funny. I wouldn’t like to swear that there’s Gener tobacco in these cigarettes—I don’t want to cheat my customers. But there’s ordinary good tobacco in these butts, well sifted and free of stalks. You can see for yourself how they’re made: nothing machine-made about them, all by hand. Feel them if you like.”

  Alfonsito, the messenger boy, is taking instructions from a gentleman who has left his car in front of the door.

  “Now let’s see if you’ve understood. We mustn’t put our foot in it. You go up to the apartment, ring the bell, and wait. If this young lady—have a good look at the photo, she’s tall and blonde—if this young lady opens the door, you say, ‘Napoleon Bonaparte.’ Now get that into your head. And if she answers, ‘. . . was defeated at Waterloo,’ you give her the letter. Have you got it all?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Write the bit about Napoleon down, and the other bit you’ll get for an answer too, and learn it by heart while you’re on the way. She’ll first read the letter and then she’ll tell you an hour, seven o’clock, or six, or whatever it may be. Don’t forget it, mind. And then you come back, but hurry up, and tell me. D’you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Then go right off. If you do the job well you’ll get five pesetas.”

  “Yes, sir. But please, if somebody else opens the door, and not the young lady?”

  “Yes, you’re right! Well, if somebody else opens the door, you simply say you’ve made a mistake. You ask if Señor Pérez lives there, and when they tell you he doesn’t, you clear out and that’s that. Is everything clear now?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Consorcio López, the manager, gets a telephone call from no other than his old flame Marujita Ranero, the mother of the twins.

  “But what are you doing in Madrid?”

  “My husband’s here for an operation.”

  López is a little taken aback; he is a resourceful man, but this telephone call has really caught him rather unprepared. “And the kids?”

  “They’re quite little men now. This year they take their entrance exam.”

  “How time does fly!”

  “Yes, doesn’t it?”

  There is a faint tremor in Marujita’s voice. “Tell me . . .”

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t you want to see me?”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “Of course, you think I’m a perfect wreck by now.”

  “No, my dear, don’t be so silly. But just at the moment. . . .”

  “I don’t mean at this moment. Tonight when you close up. My husband’s at the nursing home and I’m staying in a boarding house.”

  “Which one?”

  “It’s called La Colladense, in the Calle de la Magdalena.”

  López feels as if little explosions were going off behind his temples. “Say, how could I get in?”

  “Simply through the door. I’ve taken a room for you, number three.”

  “And say, how am I to find you?”

  “Don’t be a silly, I’ll find you—no fear.”

  As López puts back the receiver and turns to the counter, his elbow knocks over a whole stand, the one with all the liqueur bottles: Cointreau, Calisay anis, benedictine, curaçao, crème de café, crème de menthe. And hell breaks loose.

  Petrita, Filo’s maid, goes across to Celestino Ortiz’s bar to fetch a siphon because little Javier has wind. The poor child gets it sometimes, and then the only thing that helps is to give him soda water.

  “Say, Petrita, your lady’s brother has become very rude.”

  “Leave him alone, Señor Celestino, he’s having a very hard time, poor man. Does he owe you something?”

  “Well, yes, he does. Twenty-two pesetas.”

  Petrita walks towards the back room.

  “I’ve come for a siphon. Will you switch on the light for me?”

  “But you know where the switch is.”

  “Yes, but sometimes one gets a shock. Do turn it on for me.”

  When Celestino Ortiz is in the back room to turn on the light, Petrita tackles him.

  “Tell me, am I worth twenty-two pesetas?”

  Celestino Ortiz fails to get her meaning.

  “Eh?”

  “I said, am I worth twenty-two pesetas?”

  The blood rushes to Celestino Ortiz’s head.

  “You’re worth an empire.”

  “And twenty-two pesetas?”

  Celestino Ortiz throws himself at the girl.

  “Cash in for Señorito Martin’s coffees!”

  It is as if an angel were passing through the back room of Celestino Ortiz’s bar, raising a whirlwind with its wings.

  “And you, why are you doing this for Señorito Martin?”

  “Because I want to, and because I love him better than any-think else in the world. If anybody wants to know, I’ll tell him, and first of all my boy friend.”

  With her cheeks deeply flushed, her breast heaving, her voice husky, her hair disheveled, and her eyes shining, Pet
rita has a strange beauty, like that of a newly mated lioness.

  “And does he feel the same as you do?”

  “I don’t let him.”

  At five o’clock the circle of friends at the café in the Calle de San Bernardo dissolves; at half past or even earlier every bird is back in its nest. Don Pablo and Don Roque are each at home, Don Francisco and his son-in-law in their consulting rooms, Don Tesifonte at his studies, and Señor Ramón is watching the opening of the shutters at his bakery, which is his gold mine.

  Two men sit on in the café at a table apart, smoking and saying very little. One of them is called Ventura Aguado and is a law student who wants to become a notary.

  “Let me have a butt.”

  “Here you are.”

  Martin Marco lights his cigarette.

  “Her name’s Purita. She’s an enchanting woman, as gentle as a young girl and as dainty as a princess. What a foul life!”

  At this hour Purita Bartolomé is having a snack in an eating house in the Calle de Cuchilleros together with a rich junk dealer. Martin remembers the last she said to him: “Bye-bye, Martin. You know I’m always at the boarding house in the afternoon, and you’ve only to give me a ring. But don’t ring up this afternoon—I’ve a date with a friend.”

  “Right.”

  “Good-by, and give me a kiss.”

  “But—here?”

  “Yes, silly. People will think we’re man and wife.”

  Martin pulls at his cigarette with a lordly air. Then he takes a deep breath.

  “Anyway . . . say, Ventura, could you let me have ten pesetas? I haven’t had a square meal today.”

  “But my dear boy, that’s no life for you!”

  “Don’t I know it?”

  “And can’t you pick up any job?”

  “Nothing. The two commissioned articles, that’s two hundred pesetas less nine per cent discount.”

  “That won’t make you fat. All right, take this while the going’s good. My father’s drawn his purse strings tighter. Look, take twenty-five. Ten won’t get you anywhere.”

  “Thanks a lot. Now let me stand you a treat with your money.”

  Martin Marco calls the waiter.

  “Two coffees.”

  “Three pesetas.”

  “Give me the change.”

  The waiter puts his hand in his pocket and gives Martin the change for the bank note: twenty-two pesetas.

  Martin Marco and Ventura Aguado are friends, real friends of long standing; they started their studies at the law schools together, before the war.

  “Shall we go?”

  “Just as you like. There’s nothing more for us to do here.”

  “The truth is, my friend, that I’ve got nothing to do anywhere else either. Where are you going?”

  “I don’t really know. I think I’ll go for a little walk to kill time.”

  Martin Marco smiles.

  “Then wait a moment till I’ve taken some bicarbonate. Nothing better for a tricky digestion.”

  Julián Suárez Sobrón, alias the Lady Photographer, aged fifty-three, born at Vegadeo in the province of Oviedo, and José Giménez Figueras, alias the Chip, aged forty-six, born at Puerto de Santa María in the province of Cadiz, hold hands in the basement of the Central Police Headquarters, waiting to be taken to the cells.

  “Oh, Pepe, how I could do with a drop of coffee this moment!”

  “Yes, and with a glass of strong anis. Ask for one—let’s see if you get it.”

  Señor Suárez is more upset than Pepe the Chip; the Giménez Figueras creature is evidently more used to a crisis of this sort.

  “Tell me, why d’you think they’re keeping us here?”

  “I’ve no idea. You haven’t by any chance got some virtuous maiden with child and then left her, have you?”

  “Oh, Pepe, you’re so strong-minded.”

  “Well, we can’t do anything about it, it’s up to them.”

  “That’s true enough. What hurts me most is that I couldn’t let mummy know about it.”

  “At it again?”

  “No, no!”

  The two friends had been detained last night in a bar in the Calle de la Vega. The police who picked them up came into the bar, took a short look round, and then pounced on them straight away. What fellows, and how used to that sort of job!

  “Come along with us.”

  “Oh, what are you arresting me for? I’m a decent taxpayer, I don’t interfere with anyone, and I’ve all my papers in order.”

  “Very good. You’ll explain all that when you’re asked. Take this flower out of your buttonhole.”

  “Oh, why? I’ve no reason to go with you, I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Don’t make trouble, if you please. Look at this.”

  Señor Suárez looked. He saw the nickel-plated hoops of handcuffs sticking out of the policeman’s pocket.

  Pepe the Chip had already risen.

  “Let’s go with these gentlemen, Julian. Everything will be cleared up.”

  “Let’s go, let’s go, all right. But goodness me, what manners!”

  At headquarters there had been no need for their descriptions to be entered in the files; they had them there anyway. All that was added was a date and four or five short words, which they did not manage to read.

  “Why are we detained?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “No, I don’t know anything at all. What should I know?”

  “You’ll hear in due course.”

  “Couldn’t I send a message that I’m detained?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “But, you see, my mamma’s a very old lady and she’ll be so worried, poor dear.”

  “Your mother?”

  “Yes, she’s seventy-six.”

  “I see. Well, I can’t do anything about it, or tell you anything either. Everything will be cleared up tomorrow.”

  In the cell in which they were shut up they couldn’t see anything at first. It was an enormous room with a low ceiling, badly lit by a fifteen-watt lamp in a wire cage. After a little while, when their eyes got used to it, Señor Suárez and Pepe the Chip began to identify a few familiar faces: poor pansies, snatch thieves, pickpockets, professional spongers; people who have been drifting round, lurching like whipping tops and never striking it lucky.

  “Oh, Pepe, how I could do with a drop of coffee right now!”

  It smelled very bad inside the cell, a faint, rancid, insidious smell that tickled the nostrils.

  “Oh, hullo, you’re back early today. Where’ve you been?”

  “The usual place. I’ve had coffee with the boys.”

  Doña Visi gives her husband a kiss on the top of his bald head.

  “If you only noticed how glad I am when you’re back early!”

  “Take it easy, it’s a bit late in the day.”

  Doña Visi smiles. Doña Visi, poor woman, is always smiling.

  “Do you know who’s coming this evening?”

  “Some old tabby, I bet.”

  Doña Visi never gets upset.

  “No, my friend Montserrat.”

  “A good type, that!”

  “That’s what she is, she’s very good.”

  “Hasn’t she told of any new miracle that priest in Bilbao has worked?”

  “Hush, don’t talk heresies. Why must you always say such things when you don’t really feel them?”

  “All right, all right.”

  With every day that passes Don Roque is more convinced that his wife is stupid.

  “Will you stay here with us?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  The doorbell rings, and Doña Visi’s friend enters the apartment just as the parrot on the third floor is screaming blasphemies.

  “Listen, Roque, this is too much. If that parrot doesn’t change its ways, I’m going to report it to the police.”

  “But my dear, do you realize what fun they’d make of you at the police station i
f they heard you reporting a parrot?”

  The maid shows Doña Montserrat into the good parlor. “I’ll go and tell the mistress you’re here. Please sit down.”

  Doña Visi flies to welcome her friend, and Don Roque, after peeping out from behind the net curtains, sits down by the brazier and produces a pack of cards.

  “If the knave of clubs turns up in the first five, it’s a good sign, but if the ace does, it’s too much. I’m no longer a callow boy.”

  Don Roque has his private rules of fortunetelling.

  The knave of clubs turns up third.

  “Poor Lola, what’s in store for you. . . . I’m sorry for you, my girl. However. . . .”

  Lola is the sister of Josefa López, a former maid of the Robles family with whom Don Roque has had a certain amount to do, but who, now that she has run to flesh and advanced in years, has been supplanted by her younger sister. Lola is maid-of-all-work at Doña Matilde’s, the widow with a pension who is the mother of the impersonator.

  Doña Visi and Doña Montserrat are chattering like magpies. Doña Visi is delighted: on the last page of the Missionary Cherub, a fortnightly magazine, appear her name and those of her three daughters.

  “You can see it with your own eyes, it’s not something I’ve imagined, but it’s the truth. Roque, Roque!”

  From the other side of the apartment Don Roque shouts back: “What d’you want?”

  “Give the girl the paper with that bit about the Chinese!”

  “Eh?”

  Doña Visi comments to her friend: “Oh, Lord, these men never hear anything.” She raises her voice and calls out to her husband: “Give the girl . . . can you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then give the girl the paper with the bit about the Chinese.”

  “What paper?”

  “The one about the Chinese, you know, the one about the Chinese children at the missions!”

  “Eh? I don’t get you. What are you saying about the Chinese?”

  Doña Visi smiles at Doña Montserrat: “This husband of mine’s very kind, but he never knows what’s going on. I’ll go and get the paper myself, I won’t be a minute. Excuse me just for a moment.”

  When Doña Visi comes into the room where Don Roque is playing solitaire, with the brazier alight under the table, she asks: “But, man, didn’t you hear me?”