The Hive

by Camilo José Cela

  “Hullo, Doña Ramona.”

  Doña Ramona gives her a honeyed, obsequious smile. “I knew my little girl wouldn’t miss her date.”

  Victorita tries to return the smile. “Yes, one can see you’re used to it.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “My dear, how suspicious you are!”

  Victorita takes off her coat. The neck of her blouse is unbuttoned; her eyes have a strange look that might be imploring, humiliated, or cruel.

  “Do I look all right like this?”

  “But, my dear, what’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing, nothing at all.”

  Looking in the other direction, Doña Ramona tries to marshal her old skill at procuring.

  “Now, come, come, don’t be childish. Go in there and play cards with my nieces.”

  Victorita refuses to budge.

  “No, Doña Ramona, I haven’t got time. My fiancé’s waiting for me. You know, I’m fed up with beating about the bush. I don’t want to go round and round like a donkey at a water wheel. You and I, we aren’t interested in anything but getting to the point. Do you understand me?”

  “No, my girl, I don’t.”

  Victoria’s hair is rather tousled.

  “Well, then I’ll tell you in so many words. Where’s the old billy goat?”

  Doña Ramona is shocked. “What?”

  “I said, where’s the old billy goat? D’you understand me? Where is he?”

  “My goodness, girl, you’re a slut!”

  “All right, I’m whatever you like. I don’t care. I’ve got to throw myself at one man to buy medicine for another. Bring in the old man.”

  “But, my dear, why talk like this?”

  Victorita raises her voice. “Because I don’t feel like talking any other way, you old bawd! Is that clear? Because I don’t want to.”

  On hearing the loud voices, Doña Ramona’s nieces peep in. Behind them Don Mario shows his ugly mug.

  “What’s the matter, aunt?”

  “This wicked hussy, this ungrateful little bitch wanted to hit me.”

  Victorita is perfectly calm. The moment before doing something enormous one is always completely calm. And also the moment before deciding not to do it.

  “Look, Señora, I’ll come back another day when you’ve got fewer lady customers.”

  The girl opens the door and goes out. Before the next street corner Don Mario catches up with her. He raises his hand to his hat brim.

  “Excuse me, Señorita. It seems to me—why should we talk in riddles?—that I am to blame for all this, to a certain extent. I . . .”

  Victorita cuts him short. “Well, I’m certainly glad to meet you. Here I am. Weren’t you looking for me? I give you my word, I haven’t ever slept with anyone except my fiancé. For the last three months, or nearly four, I haven’t had anything to do with a man. I love my fiancé very much. I’ll never love you, but so long as you pay me, I’ll sleep with you. I’m fed up. My fiancé will be saved by a few pesetas. I don’t mind being unfaithful to him. What I do mind about is getting him well. If you can get him well for me, I’ll live with you or sleep with you until you get tired of it.”

  The girl’s voice has begun to quiver. At the end she bursts into tears. “Forgive me . . .”

  Don Mario, who is a troublemaker with a sentimental streak, feels a little knot in his throat. “Calm down, young lady. We’ll have coffee together, that will do you good.”

  In the café, Don Mario says to Victorita: “I would give you money for your fiancé, but whatever we may do or not do, he is going to believe what he wants to. Don’t you think so too?”

  “Yes. Let him think what he likes. Come on, take me to bed.”

  Julita is absent-minded, she seems not to hear, as if she were far away in the clouds.

  “Mamma . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I must confess something to you.”

  “You? Oh, darling, don’t make me laugh.”

  “No, Mamma, I mean it seriously, I’ve got to confess something to you.”

  Her mother’s lips tremble very faintly; one would have to look closely to notice it.

  “Tell me, dear, tell me.”

  “Well . . . I don’t know if I dare to.”

  “Yes, child, do tell me. Don’t be cruel to me. Remember the saying that a mother is her daughter’s best friend.”

  “Well, if it’s like that . . .”

  “Come on, tell me.”

  “Mamma . . .”

  “Yes?”

  Julita suddenly bursts out: “Do you know why I smell of tobacco?”

  “Why?”

  Her mother is gasping, a single hair would be enough to choke her.

  “Because I was very close to a man, and that man was smoking a cigar.”

  Doña Visi breathes again, yet her conscience still exacts seriousness. “You?”

  “Yes, I.”

  “But . . .”

  “Don’t be afraid, Mamma, he’s very nice.”

  The girl strikes a dreamy posture; she might be a poetess. “Very, very nice . . .”

  “But is he a decent person, dear, which is the main thing?”

  “Yes, Mamma, he’s decent as well.”

  That last, drowsy little worm of desire which lives on in the aged changes position in Doña Visi’s heart. “Good, darling, I don’t know what to say. God bless you . . .”

  Julita’s eyelids tremble very faintly, so little that no watch could measure their movement in a fraction of time.

  * * * *

  On the following day, Doña Visi is sewing when somebody rings at the door.

  “Tica, go and open the door.”

  Escolástica, the grubby old maid they all used to call Tica for short, goes down to open the front door.

  “Madam, a registered letter.”

  “What, a registered letter?”

  “Yes.”

  “But how odd!”

  Doña Visi signs for it on the postman’s block of slips.

  “Here, give him a little tip.”

  The envelope of the registered letter says: “Señorita Julita Moisés. Calle de Hartzenbusch 57, Madrid.”

  “What can it be? It feels like cardboard.”

  Doña Visi looks at it against the light and sees nothing.

  “I am so curious! A registered letter for Julita. How very odd!”

  Doña Visi remembers that Julita can’t be long now so that she will soon be relieved of her doubts. Doña Visi goes on sewing.

  “What can it be?”

  Again Doña Visi picks up the envelope, which is pale yellow and rather bigger than the usual size; again she looks at it from every angle, again she feels it.

  “How silly of me! A photo! The girl’s photo. But that’s pretty quick.”

  Doña Visi slits open the envelope, and a gentleman with a mustache drops onto the work table.

  “Goodness, what a face!”

  The more she looks at it, and the more she turns it round in her mind . . .

  The man with the mustache was in his lifetime called Don Obdulio. Doña Visi does not know him. Doña Visi is ignorant of nearly everything that goes on in the world.

  “Who can this man be?”

  When Julita comes home, her mother goes to meet her.

  “Look, Julita, my pet, you’ve had a letter. I’ve opened it because I saw it was a photo and I thought it must be yours. I’m so looking forward to seeing it!”

  Julita makes a face. Julita is at times somewhat high-handed with her mother.

  “Where is it?”

  “Here—I suppose it’s a joke.”

  As Julita sees the photo she goes white.

  “Yes, a joke in very bad taste.”

  With every moment that passes, her mother understands less of what is going on.

  “Do you know him?”

  “No, how should I?”

  Julita puts away Don Obdulio’s photo and
a slip of paper that came with it. It says, in a clumsy servant girl’s hand: “Do you know him, dearie?”

  * * * *

  When Julita meets her young man, she says to him: “Look what I’ve had through the post.”

  “The deceased!”

  “Yes, the deceased.”

  For a moment Ventura stays silent, with a conspiratorial face.

  “Give it to me. I know what to do with it.”

  “Here.”

  Ventura gives Julita’s arm a little squeeze.

  “Do you know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “I think it will be better for us to change our nest and find another hideaway. This whole thing smells bad to me.”

  “And me, too. Yesterday I met my father on the stairs.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “Of course he did.”

  “And what did you say to him?”

  “Oh, nothing. That I was coming from the photographer’s.”

  Ventura thinks it over.

  “Have you noticed anything odd at home?”

  “No, so far I haven’t noticed anything.”

  * * * *

  Shortly before meeting Julita, Ventura came across Doña Celia in the Calle de Luchana.

  “Good afternoon, Doña Celia.”

  “Oh, Señor Aguado, just the man I was looking for. I’m so glad I’ve met you, I wanted to tell you something rather important.”

  “To tell me something?”

  “Something that will interest you. It means that I’ll lose a good client, but it can’t be helped. You know, needs must . . . I must tell it to you, because I don’t want complications. You’ll have to watch out, you and your young lady—her father’s coming to my place.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, it’s quite true.”

  “But . . .”

  “Nothing. I told you, it’s quite true.”

  “Oh, well All right. Thank you so much.”

  People have had their evening meal.

  Ventura has just written a short note; now he is addressing the envelope to: “Sr. Don Roque Moisés, Calle de Hartzenbusch 57, Back Entrance.”

  The note, which is typewritten, reads as follows:

  “Dear Sir,

  Enclosed I send you the photograph which may testify against you in the Valley of Jehoshaphat. Watch your step and do not try any tricks, it might be dangerous. A hundred eyes are watching you, and more than one hand would not hesitate to twist your neck. Take care, we know very well what way you voted in 1936.”

  The letter went unsigned.

  Later, when Don Roque receives it, it will leave him agasp. He will not be able to identify Don Obdulio, but the letter will certainly put the fear of God into him.

  “This must be the work of the Freemasons,” he will think.

  ‘‘It has all the characteristics of their doings, and the photo’s only meant to put me off the track. But who may this wretched man be, who looks as if he’s been dead thirty years?”

  Doña Asunción, Paquita’s fond mother, tells the story of her daughter’s good luck to Doña Juana Entrena de Sisemón, the widow with a pension who is a neighbor of Don Ibrahim’s and of poor Doña Margot’s.

  In return, Doña Juana tells Doña Asunción all sorts of details about the tragic death of the mamma of Señor Suárez, who bears the unpleasant nickname of “Lady Photographer.”

  Doña Asunción and Doña Juana are very nearly old friends; they first met when they were being evacuated to Valencia in the same lorry, at the beginning of the Civil War.

  “Oh, yes, my dear, I’m delighted. When I got the news that the wife of my Paquita’s friends had died, I went nearly mad with joy. God forgive me, I’ve never wished anybody any harm, but that woman was the shadow that hung over my daughter’s happiness.”

  With her eyes fixed on the floor, Doña Juana returns to her subject: the murder of Doña Margot.

  “With a towel! Do you think that’s right? With a towel! such a lack of respect for an old lady! The murderer strangled her with a towel as if she’d been a pullet. He stuck a flower in her hand. The poor dear had her eyes still open, they tell me she looked like an owl. I didn’t have the courage to go and look at her. That sort of thing affects me so. I don’t want to make a mistake, but my nose tells me that her boy must be mixed up in all this. The son of Doña Margot, God rest her soul, is a pansy,—did you know?—and keeps very bad company. My poor husband always used to say: ‘He that lives ill comes to a bad end.’”

  Doña Juana’s late husband, Don Gonzalo Sisemón, had breathed his last in a third-rate bawdy house where he died of heart failure one fine evening. His friends had to take him away by night, in a taxi, to avoid complications. They told Doña Juana that he had died while queueing before the image of the Christ of Medinaceli, and Doña Juana believed them. The corpse arrived without braces, but Doña Juana did not tumble to it.

  “Poor Gonzalo,” she said. “Poor Gonzalo! The only thought that comforts me is that he must have gone straight to Heaven and is now much better off than we down here. Poor Gonzalo!’’

  With no more attention for Doña Juana than for the patter of raindrops, Doña Asunción pursues the subject of her Paquita.

  “Now I pray God that she gets in the family way. That would be a piece of good luck. Her friend is very highly thought of everywhere, he isn’t a Mr. Nobody, he’s a real professor with a chair. I’ve made a vow to walk barefoot to the Cross on the Cerro de los Ángeles if the girl falls pregnant. Don’t you think that’s the right thing to do? In my opinion no sacrifice is too great for one’s daughter’s happiness, don’t you agree? What a joy it must have been to Paquita to hear that her friend was free at last!”

  Between a quarter and half past five Don Francisco comes home for his consulting hours. In his waiting room he always finds a few patients sitting, silent and grave-faced. Don Francisco is accompanied by his son-in-law with whom he shares the practice.

  Don Francisco has set up a popular clinic which brings him a nice income every month. Across its four balcony windows it displays a notice that says: “Pasteur-Koch Institute, Director-Owner, Dr. Francisco Robles. Tuberculosis, Lung and Heart Complaints. X Rays. Skin, Venereal Diseases, Syphilis. Hemorrhoids treated by Electrocoagulation. Consultation Fee: 5 pts.” The poorer patients from the Glorieta de Quevedo, from Bravo Murillo, San Bernardo, and the Calle de Fuencarral, have great faith in Don Francisco.

  “He’s a wizard,” they say, “a regular wizard, a doctor who puts his finger on the right spot and has great experience.”

  Don Francisco usually cuts them short.

  “It takes more than faith to cure you, my dear friend,” he would say gently, in a confidential tone. “Faith without works is a dead faith, a faith that leads to nothing. You will have to do something for yourself as well; you need obedience and perseverance, plenty of perseverance. You mustn’t let yourself go or stop coming here as soon as you notice a slight improvement. . . . It isn’t the same thing to feel well as to be cured, far from it. Unfortunately, the viruses that produce an illness are as cunning as they are treacherous and deceitful.”

  Don Francisco is a bit of a trickster. The man has to shoulder the burden of an extremely large family. If a patient asks to be given sulphonamides, and asks it timidly, full of apologies, Don Francisco talks him out of it almost peevishly. Don Francisco views the progress of pharmaceutical science with a heavy heart.

  “One day,” he thinks, “we doctors won’t be needed any more, and the chemists will put up a list of pills so that the patients will be able to make out their own prescription.”

  If someone speaks to him of, say, sulpha drugs, Don Francisco generally replies: “Do just as you like, but don’t come back to me. I cannot undertake to look after the health of a man who deliberately weakens his own blood.”

  Usually, Don Francisco’s words have a great effect.

  “No, no, it’s for you to say, I won’t do anything except what you t
ell me.”

  In an inner room of the apartment, his wife, Doña Soledad, darns socks and lets her imagination wander. Her imagination is slow, motherly, and limited as a hen’s flight. Doña Soledad is not happy. She invested her whole life in her children, but they neither knew nor cared about making her happy. She bore eleven, and all of them are living, mostly far away, and one or the other has disappeared from her view. The two eldest daughters, Soledad and Piedad, became nuns years ago, at the time of Primo de Rivera’s fall from power; it is only a few months since they dragged one of their younger sisters, María Auxiliadora, in their wake to the convent. The third of the children and the elder of her two sons, Francisco, has always been the apple of her eye; at present he is an army doctor at Carabanchel and comes occasionally to spend a night at home. Amparo and Asunción are the only two married daughters. Amparo has married her father’s assistant, Don Emilio Rodríguez Ronda; Asunción is married to Don Fadrique Méndez who is medical assistant at Guadalajara, a hard-working and skillful man equally capable of giving a small child an injection and a distinguished old lady a clyster, of repairing a radio set and of patching up a rubber bag. Poor Amparo has no children and will never have any; she is always in bad health, always troubled by tantrums and ailments; first she had a miscarriage, then a long series of disorders, and finally they had to remove her ovaries and clean out all that was causing her trouble, which must have been quite a lot. Asunción, on the other hand, is stronger and has three splendid children: Pilarín, Fadrique, and Saturnino, of whom the eldest is five years old and already going to school.

  Next in Don Francisco’s and Doña Soledad’s family comes Trini, unmarried and quite plain, who borrowed money and set up a draper’s shop in the Calle de Apodaca.

  Her shop is tiny, but clean and painstakingly looked after. It has a minute show window which displays skeins of wool, children’s clothes, and silk stockings, and a pale blue shop sign with “Trini” painted on it in angular letters, and underneath, in still smaller letters, the word “Draper.” A young man living nearby, who regards the girl with profound tenderness and is a poet, often tries in vain to explain to his family across the lunch table: “You aren’t aware of it, but those tiny, secluded shops that have the name ‘Trini’ over their door make me feel nostalgic.”