The Hive

by Camilo José Cela

  The usher shows them the way with his torch.

  “Which seats?”

  “These will do. We’ll be all right here.”

  Purita and Señor José sit down in the back row. Señor ]osé puts his arm round the girl’s neck.

  “Well, what news?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  Purita stares at the screen. Señor José takes both her hands.

  “You’re cold.”

  “Yes, it’s very cold.”

  For a few moments they stay silent. Señor José is not comfortable in his seat, he shifts round continually.

  “Listen.”

  “Yes?”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Psh . . .”

  “Don’t rack your brains, I’m going to settle that thing with Paquito for you. I’ve got a friend with a lot of influence in the Social Aid organization—he’s first cousin of the Civil Governor of thingumajig.”

  Señor José lets his hand slide down to the open neck of the girl’s blouse.

  “Ooh, that’s cold!”

  “Never mind, it will get warm.”

  The man puts his hand into Purita’s armpit, outside the blouse.

  “How warm you’re here under the arm!”

  “Yes.”

  Purita’s armpit is hot, as if she were not well.

  “So you think they’ll take on Paquito?”

  “I should say so, my dear. Even if my friend hadn’t so much influence, he’d get him in.”

  “And will your friend do it?”

  Señor José has his other hand on one of Purita’s suspenders. In the winter Purita wears a suspender belt: the round garters don’t keep up her stockings properly because she is rather thin. In the summer she goes without stockings. Though it may not sound like it, it saves quite a lot of money.

  “My friend does what I tell him to; he owes it me for all the favors I’ve done him.”

  “I hope you’re right, God grant it.”

  “You’ll see.”

  The girl is lost in thought, her eyes wistful and far away. Señor José pushes her thighs a little apart and pinches them.

  “With Paquito in the day nursery, things would be different.”

  Paquito is the girl’s youngest brother. There are five brothers and sisters, with Purita herself, six. Ramón, the eldest, is twenty-two—he is doing his military service in Morocco; then comes Maríana, who is eighteen and an invalid, poor thing, tied to her bed; then Julio, an apprentice at a printer’s, who is going on fourteen; Rosita, who is eleven; and Paquito, who is nine. Purita is the second eldest, she is twenty, although she may look a little more than her age.

  The six live on their own. Their father was shot against a wall for one of those things, and the mother died of T.B. and undernourishment in 1941.

  Julio gets four pesetas a day at the printer’s. The rest of the money Purita has to scratch together by walking the streets all day and coming to port after supper at Doña Jesusa’s house.

  The children live in a garret in the Calle de la Ternera, Purita in a lodging house, where she is freer and can get telephone messages. About noon every morning Purita goes to see them. Occasionally, when she has no date, she has lunch with them; at the lodging house they keep her lunch for her so that she can have it instead of supper if she likes.

  Señor José has had his hand down the girl’s low neck for some time.

  “Shall we go now?”

  “If you want to.”

  Señor José helps the girl into her cotton overcoat.

  “Only for a little while, eh? The wife’s smelling a rat as it is.”

  “Just as you like.”

  * * * *

  “Here, that’s for you.”

  Señor José Stows a twenty-five peseta note into Purita’s handbag, which has a blue dye that tends to stain the hands.

  “May God reward you.”

  At the door of the room the pair say good-by.

  “Tell me, what’s your name?”

  “José Sanz Madrid. And yours? Is your name really Purita?”

  “Yes. Why should I tell you a lie? My name’s Pura Bartolomé Alonso.”

  The two stay there for a brief moment, both staring at the umbrella stand.

  “Well, I must go.”

  “ ‘Bye, Pepe. Won’t you give me a kiss?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “And listen, do give me a ring as soon as you’ve news about Paquito.”

  “Of course, don’t fret, I’ll ring you up here.”

  Doña Matilde shouts out to her boarders: “Don Tesi! Don Ventura! Supper’s ready!”

  The moment she sees Don Tesifonte, she tells him: “I’ve ordered liver for tomorrow, let’s see how you like that.”

  The captain does not even look at her, his mind is occupied with other things.

  “Yes, that young fellow may be right. Hanging about here like a big booby isn’t the way to have conquests, and that’s a fact.”

  Doña Montserrat has had her bag stolen during the laying-by of the Holy Host. It’s a disgrace, nowadays there are thieves even in church. There wasn’t more in it than three pesetas and a few coppers, but the bag itself was still quite good, quite serviceable.

  They had already started on the Tantum Ergo—which Doña Montserrat’s irreverent nephew José María used to sing to the tune of the German national anthem—and the only people left in the seats were a few women who stayed behind to perform their acts of private devotion.

  Doña Montserrat was meditating the text she had just read: “This Thursday brings to the soul the fragrance of lilies, and with it the sweet taste of the tears of perfect contrition. In innocence an angel, in penitence rivaling the austerities of the Thebaid . . .”

  Doña Montserrat turned her head, and her bag had gone.

  At first she hardly noticed it; her imagination was too full of transmutations, apparitions and disappearances.

  At home, Julita puts her notebook away again and, like Doña Matilde’s boarders, goes to supper.

  Her mother tenderly pinches her cheek. “Have you been crying? Your eyes look a bit red.”

  Julita answers, with a pout: “No, Mamma, I’ve been thinking.”

  Doña Visi smiles with a roguish air. “Of him?”

  “Yes.”

  The two women link arms.

  “Won’t you tell me his name?”

  “Ventura.”

  “Oh, you sly puss, that’s why you picked the name Ventura for the Chinese baby!”

  The girl averts her eyes.

  “Yes.”

  “Then you must have known him quite some time?”

  “Oh, yes, we’ve seen each other off and on for the last six or eight weeks.”

  Her mother turns almost grave.

  “And how is it you never told me about it?”

  “I didn’t want to say anything to you as long as he hadn’t declared himself.”

  “That’s quite true. I am silly. You were absolutely right, darling, it’s best not to say anything till the moment things are quite clear and settled. Women have to be so careful.”

  Julita feels a cramp in her legs and a slight sensation of heat in her chest.

  “Yes, Mamma, very careful indeed.”

  Again, Doña Visi smiles and asks: “Tell me, what does he do?”

  “He’s preparing for an exam as a notary.”

  “It would be grand if he got an assignment.”

  “Well, we shall see if he’s lucky, Mamma. I’ve made a vow that I’ll light two candles if he gets placed in the first category, and one candle if he only gets into the second.”

  “Quite right of you, darling. Pray to God and wield the sword. I’ll make the same vow myself. But now tell me, what’s his surname?”

  “Aguado.”

  “That’s rather nice: Ventura Aguado.”

  Doña Visi laughs excitedly. “Oh, my dear, what a prospect! Julita Moisés de Aguado—have you thought of that?”


  The girl has a faraway look. “Oh, yes.”

  Rapidly, afraid that it may all be a dream and shatter any moment into as many pieces as a smashed electric bulb, her mother starts to count her chicks before they are hatched.

  “And if your first-born is a boy, Julita, then we’ll call him Roque after his grandfather. Roque Aguado Moisés. What a joy that would be! Oh, when your father hears of this, how pleased he’ll be!”

  Now Julita has reached the other side, has crossed her river, she speaks of herself as of another person; nothing else matters to her but her mother’s simple candor.

  “If it’s a girl, I’ll call her after you, Mamma. Visitación Aguado Moisés doesn’t sound so bad either.”

  “Thank you, darling, oh, thank you. I’m so touched! But let’s pray for a boy; there’s always a great need for men.”

  Again the girl feels her legs trembling. “Yes, Mamma, there’s a great need.”

  With her hands clasped over her stomach, her mother says: “Just think—perhaps God will grant him a vocation.”

  “Who knows?”

  Doña Visi lifts her eyes to the heights above. The ceiling, the room’s smooth sky, shows several damp patches.

  “All my life I have longed to have a son who’s a priest.”

  At this moment, Doña Visi is the happiest woman in Madrid. She takes her daughter by the waist—very much like Ventura does when they are at Doña Celia’s—and sways her to and fro like a small child.

  “Maybe it will be my grandson, pet. Perhaps it will.”

  Both women laugh, locked in a tender embrace.

  “Oh, I do so want to live to see it!”

  Julita means to improve on her handiwork.

  “Yes, Mamma, life’s full of delightful things.”

  She drops her voice, giving it a muted, solemn fall.

  “I do believe my meeting with Ventura”—there is a faint buzzing in the girl’s ears—”has been my good fortune.”

  Her mother chooses to sound the note of common sense.

  “We shall see, darling, we shall see. Pray God you’re right. We must have faith in Him. Yes—why shouldn’t it be so? A little grandson who shall be a priest and edify us all by his example! A great orator in the pulpit. It sounds like a joke now, but one day we may well read an announcement of spiritual exercises conducted by the Reverend Father Roque Aguado Moisés. I would be an old woman by then, but my heart would be bursting with pride!”

  “And mine too, Mamma.”

  Martin quickly recovers and walks on, proud of himself.

  “A good lesson for her. Ha, ha!”

  Martin quickens his step. He is almost running, sometimes he is giving a little hop.

  “I wonder what that wild sow has got to say after this.”

  The wild sow is Doña Rosa.

  On reaching the Glorieta de San Bernardo, Martin remembers the present for Nati.

  Perhaps Rómulo is still in his shop. Rómulo is a secondhand bookseller who sometimes has an interesting print in his cubbyhole.

  Martin makes for Rómulo’s lair, turning down to the right after the university.

  On the door hangs a notice that says: “Closed. Messages to be handed in at the back door.” The light is on in the shop. Rómulo must be tidying up his papers or sorting out an order.

  Martin knocks at the small back door that leads into the courtyard.

  “Hullo there, Rómulo.”

  “Oh, hullo, Martin. How nice to see you.”

  Martin produces his cigarettes and the two men smoke, sitting close to the brazier which Rómulo has brought out from under the table.

  “I was just writing to my sister, the one in Jaén. Nowadays I’m living in this place and don’t go out except for meals. Sometimes I don’t feel like eating and then I don’t stir from here all day long. They bring me coffee from across the street, and that’s all.”

  Martin looks at some books lying on a rush-bottomed chair with its back all to pieces, which is only good to put things on.

  “Not much here.”

  “No, there isn’t. This thing by Romanones, A Lifetime’s Jottings, is quite interesting. It’s very rare.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  Martin puts the books on the floor.

  “Listen, I’d like an engraving, but a nice one.”

  “How much d’you want to spend on it?”

  “Twenty to twenty-five.”

  “For twenty-five I can let you have one that’s quite charming. It isn’t very large, I admit, but it’s genuine. What’s more, it’s framed and all that, just as I bought it. If you want it for a present, it’s the very thing.”

  “Yes, it’s meant to be a present for a girl.”

  “For a girl? Well, if she isn’t a cloistered nun it’s absolutely right, I’ll show it to you. But first let’s smoke our cigarettes in peace, there’s no hurry about it.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “You’ll see it in a minute. It’s a Venus with several small figures underneath, and some verses in Tuscan or Provençal, I don’t know which.”

  Rómulo leaves his cigarette on the table and switches on the light in the passage. He comes back immediately with a frame which he wipes with the sleeve of his overall.

  “Look.”

  The print is attractive and it is tinted.

  “The coloring was done at the same period as the print.”

  “It looks like it.”

  “Oh, yes, there’s no doubt about that.”

  The engraving shows a fair-haired Venus, completely naked and with a wreath on her head. She is standing, surrounded by a gilded ornamental border. Her tresses flow down her back to her knees. On her belly there is a drawing of the four points of the compass; it is all highly symbolic. Her right hand holds a flower, her left hand a book. Her body is outlined against a blue, starry sky. Still within the ornamental border, but lower down, are two small circles, the one underneath the book containing the sign of Taurus, the one underneath the flower, the sign of Libra. The bottom part of the engraving shows a meadow surrounded by trees; two musicians are playing, one the lute and the other the harp, while three couples, two seated and the third sauntering, are deep in conversation. In the upper corners two angels are blowing with puffed cheeks. Right at the bottom are four lines of unintelligible verse.

  “What does it say here?”

  “It’s written on the back. I got Rodríguez Entrena to translate it for me, you know, the professor at the Cardinal Cisneros Institute.”

  The pencil note on the back reads:

  “Venus, passion’s grenade, sets afire

  Gentle hearts that music doth inspire,

  Through the joys of dance and lazy play

  Leading them to love the sweetest way.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I love that sort of thing. The great charm of all such verse is its vagueness, don’t you think?”

  “I entirely agree.”

  Martin takes out his packet of cigarettes again.

  “You’re well off for tobacco.”

  “Today, yes. Some days I haven’t got a shred and have to pick up the stubs my brother-in-law leaves about, as you well know.”

  Rómulo gives no answer, it seems the wiser course to him. He knows that Marco loses his head when he touches the subject of his brother-in-law.

  “For how much will you let me have it?”

  “Well, let’s say twenty. I told you it was twenty-five, but if you give me twenty, it’s yours. I paid fifteen for it and it’s been sitting on the shelf there nearly a year. Is twenty all right for you?”

  “Good, give me five pesetas change.”

  Martin puts his hand in his pocket. For an instant he stays still, frowning as though in thought. He pulls out his handkerchief and spreads it on his knees.

  “I’d swear I had it in here.”

  He gets up.

  “I can’t understand . . .”

  He searches in his trouser pockets and turns out their li
nings.

  “Well, that’s torn it. It’s the last straw.”

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing. I’d rather not think about it.”

  Martin looks through the pockets of his jacket, takes out his old, dilapidated wallet stuffed with his friends’ visiting cards and newspaper cuttings.

  “That’s finished me.”

  “Have you lost something?”

  “The twenty-five pesetas . . .”

  Julita has a queer sensation. At times she feels something like a depression, and at times she has to make an effort not to smile.

  “The human brain,” she thinks, “is by no means a perfect instrument. If one could read the thoughts in people’s minds like a book. . . . No, it’s better as it is, it’s better we can’t read anything and don’t understand one another except for the things we choose to say, even if they’re all damn lies!”

  Occasionally Julita likes to use strong words when she is alone.

  They walk along the street hand in hand, looking like an uncle with his niece whom he takes out for a walk.

  As she goes past the porter’s lodge, the girl turns her head away. She is so absorbed in her thoughts that she fails to see the first step of the staircase.

  “Take care, don’t hurt yourself.”

  “No.”

  Doña Celia comes to open the door.

  “Good evening, Don Francisco.”

  “Hullo, my dear. Let the girl go in, I want a word with you first.”

  “Certainly. Go in there, my child, and sit down where you like.”

  The girl sits down on the edge of an easy chair with green upholstery. She is thirteen years old and her breasts are small and pointed, like tiny roses about to burst the bud. Her name is Merceditas Olivar Vallejo; her girl friends call her Merche. She lost her whole family in the war. Some are dead, others in exile. Merche lives with her grandmother’s sister-in-law, an old lady swathed in lace and painted like a monkey; she wears a wig and her name is Doña Carmen. Among her neighbors Doña Carmen is known by the unpleasant nickname of “Old Corpse hair.” The children in her street prefer to call her the “Grasshopper.”

  Doña Carmen has sold Merceditas for five hundred pesetas, and Don Francisco, the one with the popular clinic, has bought her. She told the man: “First fruits, Don Francisco, first fruits. A carnation in bud.”