The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington

by Leonora Carrington

  A thing like a great black rag flew past heavily, saying, “Hands up, Infidel.”

  “What was that?” asked the youth, alarmed. The Happy Corpse smiled through the hole in its head. “That was Dick Turpin, once a Highwayman, always a ghost. He is going to the Fantomat.”

  “The Fantomat?”

  “Yes, the Fantomat is an automatic Fantomator. There are a lot of them, chainwise, as we get nearer and nearer to Hell.”

  Terrified by now, the youth became blue around the lips and was too alarmed to reply.

  “As I was saying about my father,” continued the Corpse, “He eventually became an executive for a firm. This meant that he actually executed persons with showers of legal documents proving that they owed him quantities of money which they did not have. ‘Firm’ actually means the manufacture of useless objects which people are foolish enough to buy. The firmer the firm the more senseless talk is needed to prevent anyone noticing the unsafe structure of the business. Sometimes these firms actually sell nothing at all for a lot of money, like ‘Life Insurance,’ a pretense that it is a soothing and useful event to have a violent and painful death.”

  “What happened to your father?” asked the youth, mostly to listen to his own voice for comfort during the increasing horror of the journey. Now the woods kept fluctuating with apparitions: beasts, garbage cans overflowing with decomposed entities, leaves chasing each other chaotically, so that no shape was ever constant; grass behaving like animated spaghetti, and a number of nameless vacuums, causing events that were always unhappy or catastrophic.

  “My father died of a heart attack during a telephone conversation, and then of course he went to Hell. Now he is in Telephone Hell, where everyone has these apparatuses constantly glued to their lips or ears. This causes great anguish. My father will be with his Telephone for nine hundred and ninety-nine billion aeons before he gets rid of it. Afterwards he might even become a saint. Before actually maturing into a real Entity, everybody goes to Hell first, and if they are not too careful, afterwards they must begin all over again.”

  “You mean that your father is actually in Hell?” asked the youth. “And why do you never mention your mother?”

  Here the Corpse almost paused. The trees were scarcer, so that a stretch of desert was visible in the distance.

  “My mother committed suicide from boredom. My father was so busy that she had nobody to talk to. So she ate and ate and then shut herself into the refrigerator and half froze and half suffocated to death. She also went to Hell, but in the refrigerator, eating constantly. I composed a poem to her memory. It goes like this:

  When Father’s Face was hard to bear

  Mother got into the Frigidaire,

  Father, said I, I’m so unhappé

  Mother is completely frappé.

  Tears were now streaming down the face of the young man. “The whole story is quite dreadful. And really much worse, because my own poor mother also committed suicide. She shot herself with a machine gun.”

  The Happy Corpse stopped suddenly, throwing the youth to the ground, saying: “You silly boy, do you suppose I don’t know that? I am your mother. How would I ever have carried you so near to Hell had I been another, a stranger?”

  “Mummy?” said the youth, trembling violently. “Forgive me.”

  “You always used to eat strawberry-jam sandwiches for tea.”

  They were both lost for a moment in memories of the strawberry-jam sandwiches. After a while the Happy Corpse said: “Now you had better return, since you forgot the white girl on the dappled horse, as those on their way to Hell forget.

  “Now you must remember, and in order to remember you must return again, alone.”

  So that the boy should find his way back, she tied his leg to Great Scot, the terrier, with a long black hair. Off they went, and one can only hope they found their way back. The Happy Corpse dissolved into ashes and, laughing heartily, returned to the tree.

  (1971)

  HOW TO START A PHARMACEUTICALS BUSINESS

  I picked the site for the picnic with trepidation. The occasion was a solemn one for me because of the distinguished quality of my guests: the well-known noble of the highest Mexican society, Lord Popocatepetl, and his closest friend, the Viscount Federal District. I had devoted great thought to choosing the most adequate place to enjoy the company of these two gentlemen and, given the high price of even vulgar restaurants, I finally decided to invite them to a beautiful old cemetery close to the ruins of the Latin American Tower.

  Once the monarchy had been well established in Mexico, King Chapultepec von Smith the Second (son of Atzcapotzalco Guggenheim) promulgated the law definitely prohibiting all instruments of speech transmission of a nonanimal nature (whether radios, telephones, televisions, walkie-talkies, microphones, etc. etc.). Our civilization thereupon rapidly advanced toward a Golden Age in which pleasurable silence has made every street a garden and every home a centre for peaceful, if not always intellectual, thought.

  It is now customary for the most distinguished members of society to hold picnics in the very centre of the city. Games like chess, snakes and ladders, and ludo have become peaceful national pastimes. It is said that in the old days the masses killed bulls for pleasure. It is not known how they did this exactly, but it can be assumed that they used firearms or some such artefacts in common use in those dark and barbarous times.

  Ever since the edict issued by the Black King of the North, New York the First, an edict titled the Law of De-Electrification of the Americas, it has been unclear how those powerful electrical forces were once used, forces we now make use of only in our rituals.

  But I see that I am wandering from my story. It was on a hazy day in the month of May that I made my way to the Saint George Light and Power Cemetery in my modest one-mule sled, loaded with my choice foods: not only tins of Norwegian enchiladas from Japan, but six bottles of the rare old Indian drink called cocacola, bottled at the source.

  The cemetery was shrouded in a veil of mystery in the early-morning light: its closely packed tombstones gleamed white on the side the rains washed them, black on their shady side. In the middle of this spiderweb of narrow alleys was a tavern, the Fat Swallow, to which those visiting this city of the dead repaired for the comfort of strong drink. The place had apparently been some sort of church in the old days at the end of the Christian Era: that is, a place where melancholy rites were celebrated and believers gathered to hear discourses from a priest while they contemplated their God (now dead), a poor man nailed in an awful way to a wooden construction and languishing in apparent agony. An interesting example of the psychology of our ancestors, that they should have adored such a sinister image!

  Seeking a site for our picnic, I made my way slowly to a comparatively open space where two men were digging a hole. They told me they were unearthing the remains of the distinguished Lady Haughty Corner, who had only recently died in the course of her studies of the customs of the underground “Home Office,” or Ministry of the Interior. Her widely known thesis, Prayers of the Twentieth Century, deals with the mystifying discoveries made by archaeologists when they opened up the famous Home Office Building.

  “The cemetery is for the exclusive use of ladies,” said the taller of the two diggers. They asked if I would lie down in the hole to help measure its size.

  The humid ground was not as inhospitable as might be supposed. I even felt a certain languor and sleepiness as I made myself comfortable in Lady Haughty Corner’s grave. The men went about taking their measurements with great care. When their work was done they helped me out and, as I was taking my leave of them, I discerned my two guests approaching through the mist: Lord Popocatepetl and the Viscount Federal District.

  I picked up my basket and went to encounter my distinguished friends. We soon found a tranquil spot. Lord Popocatepetl recounted the latest developments of his rheumatism. “Ever since the beginning of the year, on account of the humidity, the lower half of my spine had been prey to s
pasms. I’ve consulted Dr. Major-Magician, who assured me aches and pains are purely psychological, and advised me to wear pants lined with monkey skin, tanned in pulque. So far I’ve felt no relief.”

  “Quack!” responded Federal District. “Rheumatism is caused by disturbances in the equinox. The grey fluids flow with sephilococcus.”

  “There are such things as antirheumatoid collars, you know,” I said. “I’ve been using one only recently, the very best. Of my own manufacture, by the way. They cost only two fermented cheeses. Manufacturer’s price, for you.”

  As we chatted in this manner a man wearing a white suit approached us. He hesitated a moment before addressing me: “Señora Carrington?”

  “Yes,” I answered, somewhat surprised that a stranger should know who I was. The man handed me a packet some ten inches by thirty in size. “It’s the National Lottery prize. You won it with the number XXXccc. I congratulate you, Señora Carrington.”

  After thanking him, I opened the packet carefully. He disappeared into the shadows with a little bird’s laugh, which I did not like.

  We soon discovered that the packet contained an India rubber casket, fit for a very small child.

  “What practical use this prize may serve escapes me,” said Federal District. Popocatepetl, however, examined it carefully through his lorgnette and announced: “It could serve very well as a table for our picnic lunch.” True enough: it would be a good idea to keep our picnic off the humid ground of the cemetery.

  While we ate, however, we became more and more conscious of a disagreeable odour emanating from the diminutive casket. We had scarcely finished eating when my companions tendered their excuses and made off, leaving me with the picnic leftovers and the India rubber casket. On the outskirts of our sad savage town, I was overcome by a feeling of profound melancholy, though I fought it off by stuffing a large amount of jasmine essence up my nose. Fear kept me from opening my prize packet. I simply went on staring at it for a long time. I felt an uncertainty and a degree of anxiety that seemed to emanate from the ancient graves of the cemetery itself. It was as if the anguish was not properly mine, but something from out of that distant twentieth century of dread repute.

  I don’t know how long I was prey to these sensations. But suddenly I heard again the same tiny bird’s laugh and, looking around, I could make out the white silhouette of the person who’d handed me the India rubber casket. His face was so shrouded in haze I couldn’t make out his features, but his voice sounded right beside my ear: “Go ahead and open it. Why hold back?”

  With no will of their own, my hands lifted the rubber cover embellished with lily-of-the-valley designs—only to find another box made of that ancient substance that once used to be called plastic. I would have liked to desist in my task, but continued to obey the voice of the white individual and, with a dexterity of their own, my hands succeeded in opening the rose-coloured box. What I saw caused me to stare with a mixture of wonder and fear. It was a human corpse more or less the size of a toothbrush. The homunculus boasted an enormous mustache. It was marvelously preserved, probably by some method known once to the inhabitants of the Amazon jungle. I realized that this little body had been larger in real life, but still not as large as the average man today. My eyes were drawn to an inscription on the inner side of the cover: “Joseph Stalin. A.D. 1948. Received on the occasion of her birthday by Queen Elizabeth the Second of England, who sent it as a Christmas present to Dwight Eisenhower, USA, who sent it to the National Museum of Mexico in commemoration of Saint Light and Power, canonized in 1958 by the Vatican. Quia Nobis Solis Artem per nos solo investigatam tradimus et non aliis.” Had this doll perhaps been a contemporary of Saint Rasputin, a noble at the court of the Tsar of Russia? With growing excitement I examined the letters of the inscription preceding the name of that Eisenhower. Another Russian perhaps? Doubtless the letters USA had been correctly translated by Haughty Corner in her thesis as “United Self-Annihilation.” Just as USSR stood for (according to the same authority) “United Solo Sepulchre Regression.” Perhaps this is a phrase from the ritual of the Catholic Church or something of that sort? I could not understand the Latin phrase very well, of course, but I surmised that it had something to do with the desiccated mannikin. Who knows but that he might have been a dwarf who served as court fool?

  While these romantic notions were passing through my mind, the man in white approached closer and said: “Nowadays all initiates are aware of the dark ages when the world was empty and could not count on the gods. Divine spirits manifested themselves on earth only after the unmentionable catastrophe filled the entire planet with horror. This relic from those ill-fated times possesses medicinal value too. Ground into a powder with a few drops of marigold oil, and some royal poinciana seeds, it yields a valuable salve for the treatment of Depression No. 20. It is also useful in certain exercises of light levitation. We all know that Western medicine includes a branch of benign poisons, good for curing certain pathological conditions.”

  He proceeded to pluck one of the long hairs from the moustache of the mannikin and place it delicately in my mouth. I noted a sardine taste that made me shiver: twentieth-century druggists promoted odd practises. I suddenly felt invaded as if by a divine light that whispered: “Aspirin was like this.” I fainted.

  When I came to the man in white had disappeared, and I was left with the homunculus of the Tsar in the India rubber casket.

  It’s scarcely necessary to add that the tiny mannikin allowed me to found what today is the leading pharmaceutical establishment in the entire city. Naturally imitations and falsifications abound, but the authentic “Apostalin” is one of the country’s leading exports. It is useful in the treatment of

  Whooping cough

  Syphilis

  Grippe

  Childbearing and other convulsions.

  Though not exactly rich, I enjoy ease and tranquility, everything I need, and whatever is required for an agreeable and distinguished life.

  (early 1960s)

  MY MOTHER IS A COW

  Our family is modest, my mother is a cow. Or rather, my mother is a cow-faced fan. Who is she? And does she also live behind her fan-self? A face before a face before a … who am I to say? We ask, here, who are you? She laughs, but receives offerings of a kind. We call her Holy One if we know her. But we are very few.

  Our small sanctuaries are empty, containing only my Mother’s horned face. Each of us gives what we have to offer. The offerings are returned to human beings as small truths, great truths, medium truths, or quite often as lies and fibs. It all depends on what we do with them. The offerings in the first place are quite devious: tears and honey, shrieks and tobacco, burning resin, chocolate, white nights.

  Red ochre, whitewash, and soot.

  My purpose, however, is to tell how I went to question her and what she replied. This is what happened.

  For years I have been a prisoner of the people of the set now called the Watchers. These great hypnotists have no idols, their magic is powerful and their appetite insatiable. They thrive on misery, but have great delicacy in choosing their victims. They evoke compassion but have none themselves. They possess unlimited knowledge but have no understanding, and this gives them the power of absolute, concentrated hate.

  And so,

  When I was captured they called me Sin. They had forgotten that Sin was the name of a Goddess they had murdered.

  Sometimes I remembered, sometimes I forgot. I suffered intensely.

  This suffering produced a particular sort of food for them, which I mistook for a vitamin. I thought that if I gave enough they would stop picking at my lunar plexus and be satisfied, and perhaps richer?

  This of course was not so. I became progressively sicker.

  I called my Mother’s horned image and asked if she wished my death, and if not, to provide a cure.

  She said her disused sanctuary should be consecrated again, but the doors should be closed, the new entrance spiral. Spiral, she said, like
the umbilical ladder out of the human body; this, she added, is very holy. As long as the doors are closed you will be safe and I shall not leave you, she said.

  I did exactly what I had been told. The Watchers allowed the consecration after I paid six gallons of salted blood.

  A sailor from Ulysses’ ship, who had been a hero, was also a captive of the Watchers. They had made him a chartered accountant, but his memory was unimpaired. He remembered how my aunt had turned him into a pig for a joke, how her daughters the Sirens had wanted to make love to him because the dolphins seemed impotent compared to the beautiful sailor. He was still angry, although wars, at that time, were close enough to nature for enemies to love each other. So we became friends under the hungry observation of the Watchers. This sailor remembered our small, empty sanctuaries from the past. Never, never open the doors, he said, or you will be in danger. He had my welfare in mind.

  His own small sanctuary was hermetically sealed, but the price had very nearly cost him his life; I had paid only six gallons of salted blood.