«They say he’s a Jew,» the apothecary said indignantly.
«Everyone who’s doing well is. As much as he’s given me, I don’t trust him,» the father responded. And next they drifted happily into politics. The doctor took the reins. And after, having been schooled, the other members of the circle called it a night.
«See you tomorrow,» they said to one another.
«That little boy will have learned his lesson comfortably,» the doctor said to the apothecary once they were outside.
«Me too,» the apothecary, agreeing whole-heartedly, added. «He’s even capable of having read Proust. I wouldn’t risk it, I swear.»
«It is to be feared. My dissertation sufficiently ruined me,» the doctor regretted. «And it would be indecorous at his age.»
«Watch out for the boy, he’s scaring me,» the woman said to her husband, now that they were alone. «Look, he’s very young, and you two have some conversations . . . I don’t follow it, poor me, but I’m telling you . . . And he works so much that it frightens me. It can’t be. He can’t fall sick on us.»
«Nonsense. He’s strong as an oak!» the father optimistically laughed. «May he study, may he study. You’ll see your son, you’ll see: he’s going to end up a tenured professor.»
«In order to earn the salary of a cop, a cap-maker, a hot-air-balloon captain,» the mother lamented, addicted by instinct to the puzzles provided by statistics.
«And for whom have I migrated and pined away?» toyed the obese, rotund, and metaphoric father. «I’ll be diligent in giving him my support.»
Meanwhile, upstairs, the boy dreamed of the normal perils, a bicycle to mess around on, and Emília, who had incredible legs, at his side. And, already lodged in the dream, he felt a pair of eyes staring fixedly at him. Under the orders of those eyes he went through a list of names just as he’d learned them: Mehuman, Bizta, Harbona, Hegai, Bigtan, Teres. Those eyes examined him as though he were already dead and, at the same time, as though they only proposed to save the everlastingness of a moment. Abagta, Atac, Zetar, Carcas. They were a pair of eyes that, through the alembics of subtle reason, respected everyone, without either loving or hating, with a cold sadness, and almost never appreciated anyone, as though they contemplated things from a past cloaked in mist, as though they spied from a remote future. And a pair of long hands removed the puppet, the marionette, from a dark box, and slipped it on like a glove, or moved it around with invisible strings, moved it for a pathetic and superfluous instant, and immediately put it away again with the other dolls, an anonymous mix. Memucan, Carsena, Aman, Sethar, Admata. But the eyes weren’t outside of time, eternal—they were mortal, like the show. Trained, cautious, strange, distanced, tired, without any answer to any question. Mortal. The profound acceptance of an ineluctable law perhaps dignified them, and perhaps they attempted from that law to justify their characters, understanding themselves a little in their characters. Tarsis, Meres, Marsena. Though how would the adolescent Tianet rummage and toil in the chaos? The eyes moved away from him, erasing him, and the bicycle and Emília’s legs again filled all his sleep. Keep in mind, keep in mind, that those imaginings would transitorily weaken the memory, and Tianet had to keep his own paired off and prompt for today’s show in the garden of five trees: Forsandata, Dalfon, Asfata. And Forata, Ahalia, Aridata. And Farmasta, Arisai, Aridai. And Vaizata.
The Conversion and Death of Quim Federal
I
Quim Federal, lying atop a crumpled straw mattress, prophesized that the point of no return had arrived, and told Rossenda, erect and disheveled before him. The conversation, in the disorder of the bedroom, strained into screaming.
«Ai, I’m dying, Rossenda!»
«Your mother!»
«I’m telling you that I’m dying, love, that the same women won’t touch me tomorrow.»
«Don’t scare me; I’m in a delicate state and I can’t take it.»
«I’m kicking the bucket.»
«Murderer!»
«Now this I don’t get.»
«What’s wrong with you, Federal? What’s all this chitter-chatter for?»
«I swear to you, Rossenda, you’re going to see me cooking sardines up there, not even fifty-three.»
«You’re stealing from the faith, non-believer: you’re close to ten times six, big baby; you know as much. And me, a teacher, getting old, dragged through that lack of an experience with Pinxo Arruga; wasted.»
«Now’s not the time to exact revenge. Up there it thunders and nothing changes if there are three more or three less. The point is that my thunderclap has come. Ai, Rossenda, my belly!»
«Hold on tight, Quim. At least until one of the servers makes you a tisane. God forbid they should say that, because I mean nothing to you, you went to perdition without all the details taken care of.»
«Don’t make fun, Rossenda, I’m trying to be brave.»
«Murderer. Here I am alone with you and you’re getting on my nerves. Where does it hurt?»
«Here, Rossenda, in my belly. I already told you. Don’t move me. The ghosts aren’t here to soften the mattress.»
«Ai, Jesus, here comes the gibberish—now I know. Quim, try to breathe easy to the end, remember your good fortune, that this little adventuress has given you years and locks on your doors and skin with but few wrinkles. I’m not going to tell you to make use of it now, but I am going to tell you that you’ve acted like you’re seven. Honestly, Quim, think about the fact that you’re leaving me here in tears, yet not even a widow. What if we fix all the little details regarding our living arrangement? We just have to put it down in writing and everything will be for the better.»
«Ai, I’m dying!»
«Come on now, Quim, give me the pleasure of being able to legitimately dress like a widow in mourning.»
«Rossenda.»
«What?»
«It’s called: “Please.”»
«Please.»
«Shut your mouth and remember that you’re dealing with Quim Federal.»
«Ai, mother, someone is working themselves to the bone, and all to show the shame of your final moments when I’m out on the street! Egotist, thief! Unlucky me!»
«No more of your lip. Do what you want as long as you shut up, witch.»
«That’s better, and from your conscience. I’m going to go notify Father Apagallums.»
Rossenda left, and Federal, as a prologue to his final moments, wallowed in his bed.
II
Upon leaving, Rossenda bumped into Ventura, the sacristan, who made her turn around and, on the way, informed her of the momentary absence of Father Apagallums: when he returned, he’d prepare Federal’s filthy little soul. As the two of them entered the room, this was the sacristan’s greeting:
«Pax tecum!»
«Out, out beetles. I’m a federalist for life.»
«I’m no beetle. Is it possible you don’t recognize me—that I’ve slipped right through your memory? Quimet, you surprise me!»
«Ah, you’re Ventura. Sacristan or not, boy, give me your hand. Good to see you, yes sir, friends are friends.»
Ventura, having re-established their old friendship, indicated Rossenda:
«Is she, shall we say, your concubine?»
«Technically, yes.»
«Uf, so inconsiderate, the two of you. I am a decent woman.»
«Take it down a notch, stop and calm yourself, girl. Don’t you get it? Here: he simply asked me if you’re getting any closer to being my wife.»
«Ah, thinking the worst, pardon me. I think this one never went to sewing school.»
«That’s how I like it. Above all, that you don’t fight. It’s been months since I’ve seen you, Quim, but today my heart told me to come by, and here you have me. And so, how are things with you? Are you still abiding by your credo?»
«Yes, like always. You know how it goes: A dead bug’s a free bug, and that’s all she wrote.»
«You know you need me, blasphemer; I’ve already sniffed that out. I
already see the signs, see you transformed, squashed suddenly flat as a decal, damned from head to toe in the thick sulfur of Hades. Repent. You still have time.»
«Now that’s a Christian sermon,» said Rossenda. «If it didn’t come at such a cost, I’d let out a little scream. Doesn’t it move you, heretic, demon-son? Prepare yourself with the sacristan, so that when Father Apagallums arrives he can execute the blessing of union for us with, I hope, a quick benediction for two and a half pessetes, for when you go stiff, and I don’t want to remove more than half of my black cloth.»
«Wicked, both of you. Coerce your consciences free. Let me go to the ground in peace.»
«Doing so little you’d end up fine, you dummy.»
«I don’t believe in anything, Ventura. You, on the other hand, scoffed at the cause.»
«A feeling touched and softened me. I saved myself. If you prepare yourself now to be purged, I can accomplish the same for you. You’ll hit it in time.»
«Ventura, you’re my friend, but if you get on my nerves I’m going to throw a fistful of mud at you.»
«Give yourself to God, you fool.»
«I’m paying dearly for it, but I don’t believe in anything.»
«This man is not very Spanish. Son, good brother, repent.»
«Genius. I’ve never seen hide nor hair of Andebel:10 how do you expect me to believe in him? I’m standing firm. With a good dose of terror, but firm.»
Federal’s mouth filled with froth. The silhouettes of Rossenda and the sacristan, frightening, lengthening in the half-light, were reflected on the bedroom wall.
III
Bam, bam, bam: a few knocks on the door. Rossenda opened it and Pancraç, the cobbler from the same floor, came in.
«Excuse me. The woman just now told me that we’re maybe not doing too well.»
«Ai, Cobbler Pancraç, we’re in the final moments.»
«In the final moments and condemned by God. The man wishes to fester.»
«Ai, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!»
That pious exclamation birthed an idea in Ventura’s imagination. He asked the cobbler:
«Do you have principles?»
«Come on now!»
«Excellent. I’ve thought up a serious piece of comedy to convert Federal. Would you dress up for me as the delegate Patopí? I invoke you, and you appear in the window. Work for you? For an orchid or two?»
Rossenda helped:
«Oh, yes, compatriot cobbler, let’s have Father Apagallums find you ready when he arrives. And, also do me the favor of sending one of your canalletes to the rectory. If Father Apagallums is there. Hurry.»
Being a good fellow, Pancraç conceded:
«Well, I can’t go to the tavern today anyway, as it’s the first of May. I’ll be right back.»
When he left Federal asked:
«What did Pancraç say?»
«Nothing, that he knows an unguent, and is going to look for it.»
«Ai, ai, I’m dying.»
«Convert, dummy, and cleanse yourself.»
«Don’t come at me with more nonsense, sacristan; enough with the racket.»
«We’re going over this in detail, Federal, which is my duty. Just now you affirmed that you’ve never seen a single sad thread of Andebel. If you were to have a peek at one—were it merely a modest representative—would you believe in Him?»
«Manú, if it were true, really true, you tell me!»
«Then I beg that Patopí consider my honor, and the great peril of this pigeon-shit of a soul. Show this inveterate your power and give me the strength to transmit without dilation your real imminence upon the balcony.»
«Ai, ai, don’t make me laugh: I’m dying!»
Rossenda shrieked:
«Laugh? Look.»
The balcony opened with a din. A blast of light. The effigy of Patopí, silhouetted in the window. The messenger offered a blessing:
«Greetings.»
Scared, Quim Federal screamed:
«I’m trembling, I see, I believe, I want to make peace!»
«Wait for Father Apagallums, you fool; I have no authority.»
«I want the reconciliation to be open and out in public. Ai, sinner, federalist, so much nerve: impenitent, how many offenses! I don’t know if I’ll have time to look deep down inside myself and pour all of them out. And above all, one, Patopí: I’ve been having follow-ups with the wife of the cobbler from downstairs for more than thirty years.»
A huge bustle. Patopí swore:
«Fuck. And I had to dress up like Patopí to hear that?»
The timely, final convulsions of the moribund man in his bed. Everyone ran to him. Ventura checked out Federal, closed his eyes, and afterward said to Rossenda:
«I feel I should tell you, ‘Senda, that God handled this better than we did.»
Rossenda moaned:
«Ai, and Father Apagallums hasn’t come! Ai, what will happen to me, poor me? Alone and in mourning without getting a cent!»
«Calm yourself. You still look fine enough. Do you want to come with me and be a sacristan half the time, and the other half whatever?»
Rossenda calmed herself, suddenly, and accepted the deal:
«Ai, I’m very grateful!»
They hugged, and now the cobbler’s grief burst wide:
«Ai, poor, poor me! Thirty years of being cuckolded by Federal. And I lived so happily, without suspecting a thing!»
The sacristan and Rossenda consoled him:
«The dullards are always the last to figure it out, that’s well known, and on the other hand you’ve performed a work of mercy.»
Pancraç conceded:
«That I have.»
This was Ventura’s profound final commentary:
«A mournful scene. We are no one.»
Pancraç growled:
«Thirty years! This is what I’ll be remembered for, not for my skills as a cobbler, I swear.»
And he was about to cross the threshold. Charitable and snide, Ventura made a final wish on his behalf:
«Make sure you don’t bump scatterbrained into the lintel now and smash your tottering noggin up there.»
The cobbler had already learned how to bellow with pride. And he left the abode with dignity and without any further damage. Already alone, Ventura and Rossenda went about dressing the stiff, and the popular and edifying fable ended there.
* * *
10 A word for God in Caló, commonly referred to as the language of gypsies, a mixed Romani and Romance language. –RrP
English Quasi-Story of Athalia Spinster
To Jaume Vidal Alcover, in homage to his great art as a writer.
I
They talked afterward, it’s true, about Moore, Shelley, Dryden, and thirteen old Italian maestri, but their long conversation, full of interesting things, didn’t blot out from Quildet’s memory Athalia’s first question:
«Have you ever been to England?»
And, martyr to the truth, Nogueres responded amid the most arduous of silences:
«No, never, but I should like to go there.»
It was truly an arduous silence. Until Maggie Brown finished nibbling her umpteenth toast of the afternoon. «I believe you to be quite unhappy, dear,» Athalia said. «This is my most intimate opinion,» Nogueres confessed. «But pretty Thalie, the fault is completely yours,» Pamela assured her. «You ought never to begin a chat about a theme of grammatical character.» «I share that opinion,» Melussina said. «Not all African gentlemen have been to England, although it is appropriately charming that they seem regretful for not having been.» Quildet coughed. Aretusa and Phoebe turned pale on hearing that and fled to wreathe their heads with white oleander. «Pre-Raphaelites!» the refined Pamela praised. «Shocking! Why did you cough?» Athalia, quite bothered, asked. Quildet reddened. «It is that Miss Melussina,» Nogueres said, stammering, «did me the honor of mistaking my place of birth.» «No matter,» Maggie said as she finished swallowing her toast. «On the other hand, she did call you gentleman.
» Quildet, surrendering, lowered his head. And now the conversation drifted toward Bigordi and multiple aspects of English poetry. It finished just at sunset. «How beautiful, the dying sun today!» whispered Athalia. And she cried out to Aretusa and Phoebe to dance the Dance of Farewell. «Delicious!» Melussina said, applauding. «It is a love of rhythm.» «It is a love of rhythm,» sighed Maggie. «They have smashed the ineffability of the moment to pieces,» a regretful Athalia Spinster scolded. «Ah, Maggie!» Meanwhile, night imposed itself all around, and the bumblebees and mosquitoes freely crisscrossed the vast empire. «My dear legs!» Melussina lamented. And yet, despite it all, it was an intense hour of poetry. Aretusa and Phoebe had stopped dancing and now chased fireflies and other gentle extenuating circumstances of the dark. «The moon!» announced the little voices of the two girls. «The moon, the prune—or the gloom?» Athalia repeated suddenly; and questioning, just because. The barn owls began to gasp far off in the oak wood. «If it is permitted that I may say so, I’m scared,» declared the fragile Melussina. «The gasping of the nocturnal birds frightens me. It is, in a certain way, a bankruptcy of civilization.» And she went off toward the bath, attached to Pamela’s hip. Then Maggie, in a very low voice, began to speak at great length about calid and disturbing deviations of feeling. To highlight these, she recited from a letter, in reality a fragment from one of her unpublished novels, which takes place in the most fruitful period of the Italian Renaissance. We would not think of depriving you of a taste of the wasted novelistic talents of Maggie Brown, who died, as the chord of her youth turned sour, not very long ago, of an excess of exquisite hydronium. It seems to us appropriate, we insist, to transcribe, translating with utter care and proper license, the letter that Maggie recited that memorable night to Lady Athalia Spinster and Quildet Nogueres.
II
«Andreu, cardinal of the Santa Església Catòlica Romana, greeted the Lady Juliana, his wife,» Maggie sang. «Deliberate cacophony?» Lady Spinster, a master orthologer, asked. «Historico-onomastic rigor,» Maggie pointed out. «This prologue makes me happy,» Quildet said. «I see the cardinal as one of those painted by Raphael, with eyes set on returning to the born11 of Lavínia and the entertaining hands of a poisoner.» «Silence!» interrupted Athalia. «Continue, Maggie.» «My thought, lady, so inclines itself toward you, that I could not say whether, in fact, it is mine,» Maggie continued. «Memory of and desire for your presence fills all of my scant free time, and you, likewise, lady, soften all the harshness of my time at work.» «I find, in those emotional circumstances, that this highly eminent gentleman has chosen quite a modern lexicon. Would the Lady Juliana understand him?» observed Nogueres. «If you hinder Maggie so often, the sweet roundness of our moon is going to end up spoiled,» Athalia chided. The author continued her talk. «What have you done, lady, since we saw one another? Did you think at some point of our servant? Have you perhaps been ill? Tell me, even if it is but one word, remove me from the agony in which I live. You do not know how cruel this long wait is to me. Ovid expressed in a few elegant words this torment that I suffer: “Res est solliciti plena timoris amor.” Be good, then, lady. Erase my fears and liberate me from this death, returning me to life with news of you.» Maggie ran out of air, and Quildet took advantage of the pause. «I don’t know how the classics manage to transform familiar places into marble,» Quildet said admiringly. «They were stone-cutters,» Lady Spinster responded. «Come,» Maggie continued. «All the joy and all the pain of my life remains compressed in these two words: presence, absence. And I wish you near me. Judge me, then, as your separation from me is detestable to me.» «Daring, Miss Brown,» said Nogueres. «The following is even more so,» the novelist said. «In your last letter,» Maggie toiled again, «you mentioned my ignorance of many aspects of sin and regret. Refuse these ideas, I beg you, because there is no sin in beautiful things, and you are beauty itself. Love is a god, and one of its divine attributes is perfection. I assure you, as a cardinal and as a man devoted to you, that I have nothing sinful to point out to you in your conduct. What are you afraid of, that you separate yourself from me? Or perhaps it is that the friendship of an old man angers your splendorous youth. Come, come at once. I need you, I desire it. I demand it.» «Intense, vigorous, brave. Really,» enthused Athalia. «What do you think of it, Nogueres?» «Yes,» declared Quildet. «And more, Miss Maggie?» «Will you all excuse me, forgive my madness, but I do not care about anything in this world any longer, without you,» obeyed the author. «Live, live and love. The time for regrets is still far off for you, and you do not want to pierce the glory of your life with the sting of remorse. Come, I implore you, and do not forget above all that, with or without shortcomings, you are always lovely. And since, as a man, I am weak and a slave to temptations, it is as a member—although unworthy—of our highly revered Senate that I absolve you of all fault.» «Enough, Maggie, enough!» cried out Athalia, agitated. «Your images weaken me profoundly. You shouldn’t read the Freudians so much, dear.» Without adding even a single word, Maggie freed herself from her synthetic dress and headed, completely nude, toward the nearby stream.
Ariadne in the Grotesque Labyrinth (Catalan Literature) Page 10
