“We need many things. You must buy things. First, earthenware lamp. But you must buy it without speaking one word.”
“I’ll be dumb.”
“Yes, dumb. You buy it, if you speak, no good.”
“Goodness me! Well then, I buy my earthenware lamp without uttering a word, and then …”
Almudena then instructed her to find an earthenware cooking-pot with seven holes in it, seven and no more, and buy it without speaking a word, for if she spoke it would be no good. But where on earth could one find a cooking-pot with seven holes in it? To this Almudena replied that in his country there were such things, and that one could substitute one of these pots for roasting chestnuts, provided one could be found with seven holes in it, neither more nor less.
“And that also has to be bought without uttering a word?”
“Not one word.”
Next it was necessary to find a staff made of an African wood called carrash, here known as the laurel or bay-tree: a man who sold sticks and cudgels in the first stall in the Calle de las Americas had them. But it had to be bought without saying a word. Well, once these three things had been obtained, the staff must be put in the fire and left there until it was well alight: this must be done on a Friday at exactly five o’clock, if not it wouldn’t work. And the staff would go on burning till Saturday, and on Saturday at five o’clock exactly it must be plunged into water seven times, neither more nor less.
“Without speaking a word?”
“Not a word, not a word.”
“Then the staff must be dressed in women’s clothes, like a doll, and when it’s nicely dressed, lean it upright against the wall like somebody standing. In front of it put the earthenware lamp, burning with olive oil, and cover it with the inverted cooking-pot, so that no more light can be seen than what comes through the seven holes; and near this put another pot with hot embers in it, on which incense must be thrown, and then begin to repeat the prayer over and over again in your head, because if you speak it aloud it will not work. And there you sit, without a thought for other things, watching the smoke from the gum-benzoin incense, watching the light from the seven holes, until at twelve o’clock.”
“At twelve!” repeated Benina with a start. “At twelve o’clock he comes? He appears?”
“The King of the Underworld: you ask him what you want, he gives it to you.”
“Almudena, you believe this? How is it possible that this gentleman, simply because of the ceremonies you’ve just described, should give me everything that now belongs to Don Carlos Trujillo?”
“You see for yourself, if you want.”
“But after all that business, if you’re careless for a moment or make a mistake over one single word in the prayer that you say in your head.”
“You must take much care.”
“And the prayer?”
“I teach you. You say: ‘Sema Israel Adonai Elohino Adonai Ishat…’ ”
“Stop, stop! I’ll never learn to say that without making a mistake. Unless it’s in good, clear Castilian I’ll never get it. And moreover I tell you I’m scared stiff of all such witches’ spells. Get away with you! But, oh, if only it were true, how wonderful it would be to take all Don Carlos’s money, the old fox. Even if it were only half, we could share it out with all those poor creatures dying of hunger! One could try it out, buying the pots and the stick without speaking, and then … Nonsense! As if that King of the Magi would ever appear! Still I will say that extraordinary things do happen from time to time and that spirits go flying about in the air, people’s souls for example, watching what we do and hearing what we say. And another thing: how about dreams? What are they? They must be real things from the other world, come down to this one. Nothing’s impossible, nothing’s impossible. But I can’t help doubting whether they’d give someone like me all that money, just like that. If it were to help the poor, they might take say half a million from the rich, or half of half a million, maybe: but all that money, all of it, just for us: no, it won’t do.”
“All of it, all of it, all that’s in the bank, many million, lottery, all for you, if you do what I say.”
“But if it’s all so easy, why don’t other people do it? Or does no one know the secret but you? Off with you, go and tell it to the marines, you can’t expect me to swallow it. Mind you, I wouldn’t say it wasn’t possible and if I could try it out, I would and willingly. Give me the recipe again and what one has to buy all without uttering a word.”
Almudena repeated the ingredients and rules of the spell, together with such a vivid and picturesque description of King Samdai, his face of exquisite beauty, noble bearing, splendid costume, his retinue of whole regiments of princes and nobles, riding on camels as white as snow, that poor Benina became enraptured as she listened, and though she didn’t really and truly believe him, she let herself be won over and seduced by the simple poetry of the story, thinking that if it were not true, it ought to be. What a comfort it is to the poor to be able to believe in such fairy stories! And if it is true that the Three Kings from the East brought children’s gifts, why should there not be other kings of illusion, bringing help to the aged, to honest folk whose only possession is a change of linen, and to decent souls who dare not sally forth into the street because they owe so much to shopkeepers and moneylenders? What Almudena described belonged to the unknown. But is it possible that someone may know what the rest of us do not? For how many things had been called lies that later turned out to be true? Before the telegraph was invented, who would have believed that one could talk to people in America just as easily as calling across the street from balcony to balcony to one’s opposite neighbour? And before photography was invented, who would have thought one could have one’s portrait taken in an instant simply by posing for it? This then is just such a case. There are mysteries, secrets which are unfathomable, until someone comes along and explains it all. And, Lord bless us, what else? America was there ever since the Creation and no one knew it until along comes that Columbus, and just by standing an egg on its end he discovers it all and says to all the other countries: “Here you are, there’s America and the Americans, and sugar cane, and blessed tobacco, the United States and black men and gold coins worth seventeen duros.” So there!
13
Almudena was still recounting his oriental legend when Benina saw a woman dressed in black coming into the cafe. “Here comes that drunken room mate of yours,” she said.
“Pedra? Curses on her: I gave her a shaking this morning. Diega’s with her, I’ll be bound.”
“Yes, she’s with a little old woman, very short and thin, who looks as tight as an owl. They’ve both gone to the bar and have asked for two red wines.”
“That’s Señá Diega, who taught her to drink.”
“Why do you have that good-for-nothing slut in your house?”
Almudena explained that Pedra was an orphan; her father had worked in the pork slaughterhouse (begging your pardon) and her mother “did business” in the Calle de la Ruda. They both died within days of one another, after eating cat. Now cat is good eating, but when it has rabies, anyone who eats it breaks out in spots all over their face, and after three days inevitably dies of a deadly fever. Well, the parents departed this life and the child was left all alone, sitting on the doorstep. She was a pretty child, everyone said, with a voice like beautiful music. First she tried street trade herself, then sold hot fritters, for she had a talent for commerce; but all her good intentions came to nothing because La Diega got hold of her and in a few days had taught her to drink and other things worse still. Three months later she was unrecognisable. She had become thin, nothing but a bag of bones, and her breath smelt horribly. She swore like a trooper, coughed like a dog and was as hoarse as a crow. She sometimes begged along the Carabanchel road and at night dossed down anywhere. From time to time she washed her face, bought some scented toilet water and sprinkled it over her thin body, borrowed a chemise, a skirt and a kerchief and took up her stand at the Ho
use of the Weazel in the Calle de Mediodía Chica. But she could stick to nothing and no occupation lasted more than a couple of days. The only thing that lasted was her taste for spirits, and when she got drunk, which was every day, she pranced about in the gutter and the children played bull fights with her as the bull. She slept off her drunkenness in the street or wherever she happened to be, and her face got beaten and bruised all over. Her whole body was covered with bruises, and no one as young as she (she was twenty-two although she looked thirty) had ever made more frequent appearances at the Inclusa and Latina police stations. Almudena had known her and tried to help her since she became an orphan, and when he found her in this state gave her a dose of three things: advice, some money and the stick. He came across her one day treating her sores with prickly-pear juice and combing her mop of hair in the sun. He suggested that she should go with him and share his house, each one putting up half the rent, on the condition that she cut out drinking altogether. They argued and parleyed and the pact was solemnly concluded, both swearing (over a sticky poultice and a comb with broken teeth) to observe it faithfully! And that night Pedra slept in his room in the Santa Casilda lodging house. The first days were peaceful and sober, but it wasn’t long before ‘the goat returned to the wilderness’ and once again the girl, like one possessed, was a laughingstock for the children and a headache for the authorities.
“I can do nothing with her: drunk all the time. It’s a shame, a shame. I had her to live with me out of pity.”
Seeing that the two women, after stowing away a couple of red wines each, were casting mocking glances at her and Almudena, Benina became nervous and wanted to leave.
“Don’t you go, my friend, stay with me,” said Almudena, taking her by the arm.
“I’m afraid that those two ruffians will start a row. Here they come now.”
The two women approached and Benina was able to take a long look at Pedra’s face, whose beauty was fading fast. Dark, with regular but pronounced features, magnificent black eyes and eyebrows that arched and met in the middle, a well-shaped but dirty mouth that did not seem made for smiling, a body that was straight and graceful in spite of its thinness and slovenliness, Almudena’s roommate was a tragic figure and Benina felt this, though her first thought was that she would be scared to meet such a person, at night, in a lonely spot.
It was impossible to tell if La Diega was young or approaching old age. By her height she might have been a child but her sunken cheeks and scraggy wrinkled neck were those of a decrepit old woman, while her eyes shone like those of some small animal. She was so extraordinarily thin that Benina couldn’t help thinking of an Andalusian phrase which her mistress sometimes used: “She could take out thorns with her elbows.”
Pedra sat down with a greeting, but the other remained standing, reaching no higher than Almudena’s head, whose shoulders she proceeded to pummel roughly. “Stop it,” he said, raising his stick.
“Be careful,” said the other woman, “he’s a nasty tricky one.”
“Jai,” said Diega, “Are you really a bad man? You beat me?” she added, imitating him.
“I’m good man. You bad drunk.”
“Don’t say such things. You’ll shock this old lady.”
“She not old.”
“How do you know? You can’t see her.”
“She decent.”
“I’m sure she is. But you like old women.”
“Well, I must be going,” said Benina, very flustered, getting up. “Good day to you ladies.”
“No, please stay: it’s only a joke,” said Pedra. La Diega also urged her to stay, adding that they had bought a lottery ticket and offering her a share.
“I don’t gamble,” said Benina, “I’ll give you a peseta.”
“And why doesn’t the lady join in?”
“The draw is tomorrow. We shall be rich, filthy rich,” said La Diega. “If I win, may St Anthony bear witness, I shall set up shop again in the Calle de la Sierpe. That’s where I got to know you, Almudena, do you remember?”
“Don’t remember.”
“You two first met in the Calle de Mediodía Chica, in the house at the back.”
“They call him Muley Abbas.”
“And they call you Quarter-Kilo because you’re so small.”
“It’s rude to give nicknames, isn’t it, Almudena my boy? Decent people are called by the names they were baptised, their Christian names. And the lady here, what would her name be?”
“My name is Benina.”
“Are you from Toledo, by any chance?”
“No ma’am, I’m from a place two leagues from Guadalajara.”
“I’m from Cebolla, near Talavera,” said La Diega. “Tell me one thing, Almudena, why does that young slut Pedrilla call you Jai? What’s your name in your religion and in your swinish country (begging your pardon)?”
“I call him ‘my Jai’ because he little Moor,” said Pedra, mimicking him.
“My name Mordejai,” he declared. “Born in beautiful town called Ullah de Bergel, in land of Sus. Oh heavenly land, beautiful land, many trees, much oil, honey, flowers, palm-trees, all good.” The memory of his native land roused in him such simple-hearted enthusiasm that he was inspired to depict it with quaint exaggerations and poetic colouring which the three women savoured and enjoyed enormously. Urged on by them, he related incidents from his life, full of amazing events, dangerous exploits and fantastic adventures. He first told how he had run away from home when he was fifteen and had begun to wander about the world. Since then he had had no news of his native land or his family. His father had sent him to the house of a merchant friend of his with the message: “Tell Rubén Toledano to give you the two hundred duros I need today.” Toledano must have been a sort of banker, and clearly the two men had the confidence in one another bred of a patriarchal society, for the assignment was carried out without difficulty and Mordejai received the two hundred coins in four heavy rolls of Spanish currency. But instead of taking them to his father’s house he set off towards Fez, eager to see the world, to work on his own account and make a large sum of money for his father, not just two hundred duros but two thousand or hundreds of thousands. He bought two donkeys and began to carry merchandise and passengers between Fez and Mequínez with great success. But one very hot day, how harsh is the punishment of God, he was passing near a river bank and decided to stop for a swim. the carcasses of two horses were floating in the water, a bad omen. When he came out of the water his eyes hurt, and three days later he was blind.
As he still had money, he could live for some time without recourse to charity. But he became depressed not only because of his blindness but also because of the sudden change from an active to a sedentary life. Overnight the strong agile boy became weak and sickly, and his commercial ambitions and love of travel were replaced by a continual meditation on the uncertainty of human possessions and the inevitability with which God the Righteous strikes down the sinner. The poor blind boy did not dare to ask Him to restore his sight, because he knew this would not be granted. It was his punishment, and the Lord does not undo what He has done when He strikes in earnest. He prayed only for enough money to live on and a woman to love him. But none of this was granted to poor Mordejai, who had less money day by day, as spend he must and income had he none. And he could find no woman: some approached him with feigned affection only to come to his hut to rob him. One day he was sitting there in some distress because he was unable to find a flea, an audacious mocking little beast, which was repeatedly biting him, when suddenly – and this was no joke – two angels appeared to him.
14
“Can you see at all, Almudena?” asked Quarter-Kilo.
“I see shapes,” he said and explained how he could distinguish dark objects seen against the light. But in the mysterious worlds that are above, below and all round ours, he could see clearly, “just like you see me.” To continue then: two angels appeared to him, and what’s more they had something to say to him. They
told him that they had come as messengers from the King of the Underworld. Lord Samdai wanted to speak to him; he must go to the slaughterhouse by night and stay there burning incense and praying amongst the remnants of carcasses and pools of blood until exactly midnight, which was invariably the hour that such interviews took place. Needless to say, the angels disappeared in a puff of wind as soon as they had delivered their message to Mordejai, who took his incense burning apparatus, his pipe and a packet of marijuana and set off for the slaughterhouse: smoking would alleviate the tedium of the long wait that he had before him.
There he stayed, squatting on his heels, breathing the perfumed smoke of the incense and smoking pipe after pipe until the hour came. The first thing he saw was a pair of dogs, “bigger than camels” with eyes of fire. Mordejai suffered “much fear”, so that he could hardly breathe. Then came a “regiment of horsemen” with great pomp, accompanied by the sound of singing; then it began to rain down sand and stones, so thickly that he was buried up to the neck, until he began to choke; he was more and more terrified. Over this layer of rubble passed another squadron of galloping horsemen with their white cloaks flying, firing their weapons as they rode. It then began to rain snakes and scorpions that writhed and hissed as they fell. The poor blind boy was dying of fright, feeling himself drowned in the horrible cloud of loathsome creatures. But then he saw men and women approaching, in slow procession, carrying golden baskets and trays and walking on flowers. The serpents and scorpions had miraculously turned into roses and lilies and the hot sand and sharp pebbles that had rained down had become fragrant sprigs of mint and bay.
To cut a long story short, the King finally appeared, endowed with a manly and godlike beauty, with a long black beard and earrings and a gold crown in which the jewels seemed to be the sun, the moon and the stars themselves. His robe was green, of so fine a cloth that it must have been worked by very special spiders which live deep down in the earth and weave thread made of fire. The magnificence of Samdai’s retinue was dazzling. Pedra here asked if Her Majesty the Queen had also been present; the narrator paused for a moment to remember, saying finally that he had indeed seen the King’s wife, but that her face had been veiled, like a moon behind clouds, so that he could not see her clearly. This royal lady was dressed in yellow, the colour of our thoughts when they are between sad and gay. All this Almudena expressed with difficulty, compensating for the clumsiness of his language by his evident sincerity and eloquent gestures and grimaces.
Misericordia (Dedalus European Classics) Page 9
