Martin starts again and again sets it wrong; at this moment he would give ten years of his life to remember the paternoster.
He shuts his eyes and presses his eyelids tightly together. Suddenly he breaks into speech, in a subdued voice.
“My mother that are in the grave, I carry you in my heart and pray God to receive you into Eternal Glory as you deserve. Amen.”
Martin smiles. He is delighted with the prayer he has just made up.
“ ‘My mother that are in the grave, I pray God . . .’ No, it wasn’t like that.”
Martin frowns. “How did it go?”
Filo is still in tears.
“I don’t know what to do. My husband’s gone out to see a friend. My brother hasn’t done anything, believe me. It must be a mistake, nobody’s infallible. His affairs are in order. . . .”
Julita does not know what to say.
“I quite agree, they simply must have made a mistake. All the same, I do think one ought to do something, or see somebody. . . . That’s only my opinion, of course.”
“Yes, we’ll see what Roberto says when he comes back.”
Suddenly Filo’s tears begin to flow faster. The baby in her arms cries, too.
“All I can think of is to pray to Our Lady of Succours; she’s always helped me out of my troubles.”
Roberto and Señor Ramón have jointly made up their minds. Since Martin’s case could not possibly be anything grave, it will be best for him to report to the police at once, without further ado. Why should he try to run away when there’s nothing serious to conceal? They might wait a couple of days—which Martin could perfectly well spend at Señor Ramón’s place—and after that (why not?) he would report to the police accompanied by Captain Ovejero, that is, Don Tesifonte, who is the last man to say No and who is, after all, a guarantee.
“It seems very reasonable to me, Señor Ramón. Thank you very much. You’re a sound man.”
“No, no, it’s simply that this seems the best way to me.”
“And to me. Believe me, you’ve taken a great weight off my mind. . . .”
Celestino has written three letters and intends to write three more. The case of Martin occupies his mind.
“If he doesn’t pay me, that’s that, but I can’t leave him in the lurch.”
Martin strolls down the gentle slopes of the cemetery with his hands in his pockets.
“I’m going to pull myself together. The best way is to do a spot of work each day. If they’d take me in at some office I really would accept the job. Not at first, of course, but later on I could even do some writing there at odd times, especially if the heating is good. I’ll talk to Pablo about it, he’s sure to know of something. It ought to be a pretty good thing to work for one of the Syndicates, they pay all the extra benefits according to law.”
Martin’s mother has been erased from his mind as if with an India rubber.
“Another good job would be with the National Pensions Institute, but it must be harder to get in there. All these places are better to work in than a bank. Banks exploit their staff; if one’s late for work one day they take it off one’s pay next time. Then there are bound to be some private firms where it’s not too difficult to make good. What would suit me is a publicity job, running a press campaign. ‘Are you suffering from insomnia? If you do, it is because you choose to. So-and-so tablets—Marco tablets, for instance—will make you content without doing the slightest harm to your heart.’ “
Martin waxes enthusiastic about the idea. At the cemetery gate he turns to an attendant.
“Do you happen to have a newspaper on you? If you’re finished with it, I’d like to buy it from you. There’s something I want to see.”
“Yes, I’ve read it. Here you are.”
“Thank you so much.”
Martin rushes out. In the small park outside the cemetery gate he sits down on a garden bench and unfolds his paper.
“The press has sometimes very good hints for people like me who’re looking for a job.”
Martin is aware that he is going too fast, and tries to put on the brakes.
“Now I’m going to read through the news. What’s meant to happen will happen. Anyway, getting up early doesn’t make the sun rise earlier.”
Martin is enchanted with himself.
“Today I’m really in good form and put things well. It must be the country air.”
Martin rolls himself a cigarette and begins to read the paper.
“Wars are sheer barbarism. Every one loses, and no one advances civilization an inch.”
He smiles within himself. He is going from strength to strength. Every now and then he reflects on something he has read, with his eyes fixed on the horizon.
“Oh, well, let’s go on.”
Martin reads every line, everything interests him: foreign reports, the leader, extracts from public speeches, news of theater and film premieres, football. . . . Martin notes that, on going to the outskirts of the town and breathing a purer air, life assumes softer, more delicate shades than while one lives walled up in the city.
Martin folds up the paper, puts it into his coat pocket, and walks away. Today he is more knowledgeable than ever before, he would be capable of holding his own in any conversation about current affairs. He has read the newspaper from top to bottom. He only leaves the advertisement section for later, to be read in peace somewhere in a café where he would be able to note down an address or make a telephone call if necessary. The section containing the advertisements, the public notices and decrees, and the list of rations to be issued in the villages of the “Outer Belt” is the only part of the paper Martin has not read.
In the Plaza de Toros he sees a group of young girls who stare at him.
“Hullo, lovelies!”
“Hullo, Mr. Tourist!”
Martin’s heart leaps in him. He is happy. He walks up the Calle de Alcalá at a lively pace, whistling the “Madelon.”
“Today my people will see I’m a different man.”
His people have been thinking somewhat on the same lines.
Martin has walked a long way. He stops in front of a jeweler’s show window.
“When I’ve got a job and earn good money, I’ll buy a pair of earrings for Filo; and another pair for Purita.”
He taps his newspaper and smiles. “There may be just the thing in here!”
A vague presentiment makes Martin unwilling to hurry. . . . In his pocket he still has the newspaper of which he has not yet read the section containing the advertisements and the public notices. And the ration orders for the villages of the Outer Belt.
“Ha, ha! The villages of the Outer Belt. What a funny expression! The villages of the Outer Belt!”
Madrid, 1945-1950.
* * *
[1] Cipriano Mera was the commander of an anarchist unit in the Republican Army during the Spanish Civil War. (Translator's note.)
[2] Literally “the parsley stalk,” an old-fashioned Spanish household remedy for small children’s constipation. (Translator’s note.)
The Hive Page 27
