The Hive

by Camilo José Cela

  “Whatever you like is all right for me.”

  Purita kisses Martin. Martin jumps out of bed, takes a turn round the room, and goes back into bed.

  “Give me another kiss.”

  “As many as you like, silly.”

  Completely unembarrassed, Martin pulls out the envelope he has crammed with butts, and rolls himself a cigarette. Purita does not dare to make any comment. Martin’s eyes have a glitter, as of triumph.

  In the mortuary, Doña Margot, her eyes open, sleeps the sleep of the just on the cold marble of one of the slabs. The bodies in the mortuary look, not like dead people, they look like murdered dummies, like dolls with their clockwork run down.

  A beheaded puppet is a sadder sight than a dead human being.

  Señorita Elvira wakes early, but does not get up. Señorita Elvira likes to stay in bed, well wrapped up, thinking of her problems or reading The Mysteries of Paris, with one hand just a little outside the blanket to hold the fat, grease-stained, battered tome.

  The morning unfolds slowly; it creeps like a caterpillar over the hearts of the men and women in the city; it beats, almost caressingly, against the newly wakened eyes, eyes which never once discover new horizons, new landscapes, new settings.

  And yet, this morning, this eternally repeated morning, has its little game changing the face of the city, of that tomb, that greased pole, that hive. . . .

  May God have mercy on us all!

  Finale

  IT IS three or four days later. A certain Christmas coloring has begun to tinge the air. Over Madrid, which is like an old plant with soft, green young shoots, there ring at times, through all the bustling noise of the streets, the sweet and kindly peals of a chapel bell. People pass each other in a hurry. Not one thinks of the man next to him who, maybe, walks with his eyes fixed on the ground: with his stomach ruined, or a cyst in his lungs, or a screw loose in his head.

  Don Roberto reads the newspaper while he has breakfast. Then he goes in to say good-by to Filo, his wife, who is staying in bed because she is half sick.

  “I’ve read it now, the thing s quite clear. We’ll have to do something for the lad, you try to think about it. He doesn’t deserve it, but all the same . . .”

  Filo weeps while two of her children stand at the side of the bed and stare, uncomprehendingly; her eyes are full of tears, her look vaguely sad and forlorn, like a heifer’s that still breathes when her blood is already steaming up from the flagstones and passes her tongue in a last, halting movement over the dirt crust on the overall of the slaughterer who has hurt her with the indifference of a judge—a cigarette stuck between his lips, his mind on one of the servant girls, his muddy voice humming a romantic song from a musical comedy.

  Nobody remembers the dead who have been under the ground for a year.

  You may hear in the family circle: “Don’t forget, tomorrow is poor Mamma’s anniversary.”

  It is always a sister, the saddest among the lot, who keeps count. . . .

  Every day Doña Rosa goes to the Calle de la Corredera for her shopping, with her maid in her wake. Doña Rosa goes to the market after having done her chores at the café; she prefers to descend on the stalls when the crowd is thinning out and the morning well advanced.

  Sometimes she meets her sister in the market. Doña Rosa makes a point of asking after her nieces. One day she said to Doña Visi: “And what about Julita?”

  “Nothing special.”

  “That girl needs a young man.”

  Another time—it was two days ago—Doña Visi pounced on Doña Rosa as soon as she saw her, beaming with joy. “D’you know, the girl has found a young man!”

  “Has she?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “A splendid fellow, my dear! I’m absolutely delighted.”

  “That’s fine. I hope you’re right and things won’t take a bad turn.”

  “But why should they take a bad turn?”

  “I couldn’t tell. It’s just the way people are nowadays.”

  “Oh, Rosa, you always have to paint things so black!”

  “No, it’s simply that I like to wait till things have actually happened. You see, if they turn out well, so much the better.”

  “Yes, I see.”

  “And if they don’t . . .”

  “If they don’t this time, there’ll be someone else, I say.”

  “Yes. Provided this one doesn’t get her into trouble.”

  There are still trolley cars left in which people face each other seated in two long rows, looking at one another with thoroughness and even curiosity.

  “The man over there has got the face of a cuckold, his wife must have run off with somebody. Perhaps with a racing cyclist. Or with a clerk at the Food Office.”

  If the journey is long, people grow quite fond of each other. It is odd that it should make any difference, but we always feel a bit sorry when the woman who looked so unhappy gets out at one of the stops, and we realize that we have seen the last of her, possibly for our whole life.

  “She must be badly off. Perhaps her husband’s out of work. No doubt they’ve more children than they can cope with.”

  Each time there is a youngish woman in the trolley who is fat, much made up, and overdressed. She would carry a big handbag of green leather, wear lizard-skin shoes, and have a beauty spot on her cheek.

  “She looks like the wife of a rich pawnbroker. Or perhaps she looks like the mistress of a doctor; doctors always go in for very showy mistresses, just as if they wanted to tell the world: ‘Here’s an eyeful for you, eh? Have you had a good look? First-class stock!’ ”

  Martin has taken the trolley at Atocha. When he comes to Las Ventas he gets out and begins to walk along the Great East Road. He is on his way to the cemetery to visit his mother’s grave. Doña Filomena López de Marco died some time ago, a few days before Christmas Eve.

  Pablo Alonso folds the paper and rings the bell. Laurita slips under the blankets. It still makes her feel somewhat ashamed to let the maid see her in bed. After all, it must be remembered that she has not been more than two days in this house; the boarding house in the Calle de Preciados, where she went after leaving her porter’s lodge in the Calle de Lagasca, had turned out to be too uncomfortable.

  “May I?”

  “Come in. Is Señor Marco here?”

  “No, sir, he went out a little while ago. He asked me to give him one of your old ties, sir, a black one.”

  “Did you give it him?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Right. Now pour me out a bath.”

  The maid leaves the room.

  “I must go out, Laurita. Poor chap! That’s the last straw.”

  “Poor boy! D’you think you’ll find him?”

  “I don’t know, I’ll look in at the Central Post Office and the Bank of Spain, that’s where he usually spends his mornings.”

  Near the Great East Road stand some wretched hovels made of old tin cans and bits of planks. A few children play about, throwing stones into the puddles left by the rain. In summer, before the Abronigal dries out completely, they fish for frogs with sticks and paddle in the dirty, evil-smelling trickle of water. Women are raking through piles of refuse. Here and there an aging man, perhaps an invalid, sits on an upturned bucket at the door of a shanty and spreads a heap of cigarette butts out on a newspaper to dry in the lukewarm morning sun.

  “They’re unconscious of it, they’re unconscious . . .”

  Martin, who had been searching for a rhyme on laurel for a sonnet to his mother he had just begun, thinks of the hackneyed statement that the problem is one of distribution, not of production.

  “Really, these people are worse off than I am. It’s appalling. That such things can exist!”

  Paco arrives at the bar in the Calle de Narváez out of breath, with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. The barkeeper, Celestino Ortiz, is just serving the policeman García with a glass of Cazalla brandy.

 
“Too much alcohol is bad for the molecules of the human body, of which there are three kinds, as I told you before: molecules of the blood, molecules of muscle tissue, and molecules of nerve tissue; it burns them up and ruins them. But a little drop of spirits now and then is good for warming the stomach. . . .”

  “That’s what I say.”

  “. . . and for lightening up the mysterious zones of the human brain.”

  The policeman Julio García is entranced.

  “We are told that when the ancient philosophers of Greece and Rome and Carthage wanted to attain supernatural powers

  The door swings violently open and a great gust of cold air blows across the counter.

  “That door!”

  “Hullo, Señor Celestino!”

  The barkeeper cuts him short. Ortiz is very particular about modes of address. Potentially he is something like a chef de protocol.

  “Friend Celestino, please.”

  “All right, leave it. Has Martin been here?”

  “No, he hasn’t been since the other day, I suppose he got too angry then. I’m not happy about it, believe me.”

  Paco turns his back to the policeman.

  “Look, read this.”

  Paco gives him a folded newspaper.

  “Down there.”

  Celestino reads slowly, with knitted brows.

  “That’s bad.”

  “I should say so.”

  “What do you mean to do?”

  “I don’t know. Have you an idea? I believe the best thing is to have a talk with his sister, don’t you? If we could only pack him off to Barcelona tomorrow!”

  In the Calle de Torrijos, a dog is slowly dying in the irrigation gutter at the foot of a tree. A taxi ran right over his belly. His eyes are pleading, his tongue lolling out. Several small boys are prodding it with their feet; two or three dozen people watch the scene.

  Doña Jesusa runs across Purita Bartolomé.

  “What’s going on here?”

  “Nothing, a mongrel with a broken back.”

  “Poor thing!”

  Doña Jesusa takes Purita by her arm.

  “Have you heard about Martin?”

  “No, what’s the matter with him?”

  “Listen.”

  Doña Jesusa reads out a few lines from a newspaper to Purita.

  “And what will happen now?”

  “I don’t know, dearie. I’m afraid it won’t be anything good. Have you seen him?”

  “Not since the other day.”

  A couple of dustmen come up to the group clustered round the dying dog, pick it up by its hind legs and throw it into their cart. In sailing through the air the poor beast gives a howl of deep, hopeless pain. The group of people stare at the dustmen and then disperse. Each one goes his separate way. Among the crowd there may have been a pale-faced boy who enjoyed—with an impalpable, sinister smile—the spectacle of the dog’s slow, endless dying.

  Ventura Aguado talks to his girl friend Julita over the telephone.

  “Do you mean now, at once?”

  “Yes, my girl, this very moment. In just under half an hour I’ll be at Bilbao underground station. Don’t be late.”

  “No, no, don’t worry. ‘Bye.”

  “Good-by—blow me a kiss.”

  “Here you are, you spoiled boy.”

  Half an hour later Ventura comes to the entrance of Bilbao station and finds Julita waiting for him. The girl has been dying with curiosity, and was a little worried as well. What could be the matter?

  “Have you been here long?”

  “Not more than five minutes. What’s happened?”

  “I’ll tell you in a second. Let’s go in here.”

  The couple go into a beerhouse and sit down at the back, at a table almost in darkness.

  “Read this.”

  Ventura lights a match so that the girl may read.

  “Well, your friend’s in for it.”

  “That’s the whole news. That’s what I called you up for.”

  Julita thinks it over. “What will he do now?”

  “I don’t know, I haven’t even seen him.”

  The girl clutches her lover’s hand and takes a puff at her cigarette.

  “What rotten luck!”

  “Yes, it never rains but it pours. . . . I thought you might call on his sister. She lives in the Calle de Ibiza.”

  “But I don’t know her.”

  “Never mind, tell her you come from me. It would be best if you went there now. Have you got any money?”

  “No.”

  “Here’s ten pesetas. Go both ways by taxi, the quicker we are, the better. We’ll have to hide him, there’s no other way.”

  “Yes, but . . . won’t we get into trouble?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s the only thing to do. If Martin’s left alone, he’s capable of doing something foolish.”

  “All right, all right. Have it your way.”

  “Come on, get going.”

  “What’s the number of the house?”

  “I don’t know. It’s the corner of the second turning on the left as you go up from the Calle de Narváez, I don’t know its name. It’s on the other side of the street, the one with the even numbers, just after the crossing. Her husband’s name is González, Roberto González.”

  “Are you going to wait for me here?”

  “Yes. I’ll first go and see a friend of mine who’s got his fingers in many pies, and I’ll be back here within half an hour.”

  Señor Ramón is talking with Don Roberto, who has not been to his office, after asking his chief by telephone to give him the day off.

  “It’s something extremely urgent, Don José, I assure you; extremely urgent and extremely unpleasant. You know yourself that I would never neglect my work for a trifling reason. It’s a family matter.”

  “It’s perfectly all right. You stay away. I’ll tell Diaz to keep an eye on your section.”

  “Many thanks, Don José, and God reward you. I won’t fail to repay you for your kindness.”

  “Not at all, man, not at all. We’re here to help one another as friends. The important thing is that you settle your problem.”

  “Many thanks, Don José, I’ll do my best. . . .”

  Señor Ramón looks worried. “See here, González, if you ask me to do it I’ll hide him here for a day or two, but after that he’ll have to find another place. It’s no great matter because I’m the boss here. But if Paulina finds out, she’ll be as mad as hell.”

  Martin walks down the long lanes of the cemetery. Sitting at the door of the chapel, the priest is immersed in a Wild West story. The sparrows are chirping in the mild December sun, they hop from one cross to the next and swing on the bare branches of the trees. A very young girl rides a bicycle down a path; in her immature voice she sings a gay song hit. Everything else is gentle silence, welcome silence. Martin has an ineffable sense of well-being.

  Petrita talks to her mistress, to Filo: “What’s the matter with you, Señorita?”

  “Nothing. The baby isn’t well, that’s all.”

  Petrita smiles an affectionate smile. “There’s nothing wrong with the baby, but with you there’s something wrong, Señorita.”

  Filo touches her eyes with her handkerchief. “This life is one long trouble, my dear. But you’re too much of a child to understand that.”

  Rómulo reads the newspaper in his secondhand bookshop.

  “ ‘London: Moscow Radio reports a conference between Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin some days ago.’

  “That fellow Churchill is the very devil. Here and there and everywhere, as if he were a mere chicken, and all that at his age!

  “ ‘The Führer’s Headquarters: In the region of Gomel, in the central sector of the Eastern front, our forces have evacuated the towns of . . .’

  “Oooh, oooh, I’m smelling a rat.

  “ ‘London: President Roosevelt has arrived at Malta in his giant Douglas plane.’

  “What a man
! I bet my dear life that plane’s got everything, including a lavatory.”

  Rómulo turns over the page and runs his eye rather wearily down the columns.

  He stops at a few short, crowded lines. There is a dry lump in his throat and a droning in his ears.

  “That’s the last drop. Some fellows are Jonahs.”

  Martin has reached his mother’s grave. The inscription seems to weather well: “R. I. P. Doña Filomena López Moreno, widow of Don Sebastián Marco Fernández. Died Madrid, 20 December, 1934.”

  Martin does not go every year to pay a visit to his mother’s remains on the anniversary of her death. He goes when he remembers.

  Martin takes off his hat. A slight sensation of repose fills his body with placid calm. Far away, beyond the cemetery walls, stretches the gray-brown plain on which the sun lies broadly, as if it had gone to bed. The air is cold, but not icy. As he stands there, his hat in his hand, Martin senses on his forehead a light caress, almost forgotten, an old caress of his childhood days.

  “It’s very good to be here,” he thinks. “I shall come more often.”

  He is about to start whistling, but stops himself in time.

  Martin looks to both sides of the grave.

  “Josefina de la Peña Ruiz went to Heaven on May 3, 1943, in the twelfth year of her childhood.”

  “Like the little girl on the bicycle. Perhaps they were chums, perhaps this one told the other, a few days before she died, one of those things little girls of eleven are keen about: ‘When I’ll be grown up and married . . .’ ”

  “The Illustrious Señor Don Raúl Soria Bueno. Expired in Madrid . . .”

  “An illustrious man rotting away in a box.”

  Martin realizes that he does not make sense.

  “Stop it, Martin, keep quiet.”

  He raises his eyes once more and concentrates on the memory of his mother. He does not think of her in her last years, but rather sees her as she was at the age of thirty-five. . . .

  “Our Father that art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come, as we forgive them that trespass against us . . . no, I don’t think that can be right.”