“Yes, indeed, madam,” replied Benina, “we’ll get him all that, and then we’ll go off to jail to save the shopkeepers the trouble of sending us there. Have you gone quite mad? I’ll make some garlic soup with eggs this evening and that will be that. You can be sure that it will taste like heaven to the gentleman in question, accustomed as he is to eating the most filthy rubbish.”
“All right, woman, anything you say.”
“He can have a head of garlic instead of boar’s head.”
“I’m sure, whatever you say, that he always behaves like a gentleman, even in straitened circumstances. But how much money have we got?”
“That’s none of your business. Leave that to me and I’ll manage. When it runs out, you’re not the one who’ll have to go and find more.”
“Yes, I know that you are the one who’ll go and get more. I’m of no use to anyone.”
“Of course you’re of use – help me peel these few potatoes.”
“Whatever you say. Ah! I forgot: Frasquito likes tea and as he is so delicate, it has to be good tea.”
“The best, of course. I’ll go to China to fetch some.”
“Don’t joke about it. You’ll go to the shop and ask for the sort called ‘Mandarin’. And while you’re there, bring a piece of good cheese for dessert.”
“Yes, indeed, let’s spend every penny we’ve got!”
“You must realise that he’s used to eating in great houses.”
“Yes, like the Boto tavern, in the Calle de Ave Maria; one portion of stew, tuppence; with bread and wine, three pence ha’penny.”
“You’re quite unbearable today. But I’ll agree to anything, Nina. You’re in charge.”
“We’d be in a pretty pickle if I weren’t in charge. We’d have been taken to San Bernardino a long time ago, or even to the Pardo itself.”
And so they chatted and joked, the evening came and they dined frugally, all three cheerfully reconciled to their poverty, a state which can be quite bearable when there’s enough bread to appease one’s hunger. But your narrator must also report that Doña Paca’s good humour went a little awry when the two women retired to their bedroom, the mistress to her bed and the servant to her place on the floor, her bed having been given up to Frasquito. Widow Zapata’s character was so unstable she was capable of changing instantly from peaceful good nature to insane rage, from childish credulity to double tongued suspicion, from reasonableness to the most absurd nonsense for no apparent reason. Her servant knew how her mistress’s mind and will veered about like a weathercock; and so did not take these fits of peevishness and temper very seriously, but waited for the wind to change. And so, all of a sudden, from one moment to the next, the lamb which had become a lion turned back into a lamb again.
Doña Paca’s ill humour on the night in question can be traced, on reliable evidence, to the fact that Frasquito, throughout the afternoon, during and since the evening meal, had shown favour towards Benina which had deeply wounded the unhappy woman’s pride. It was almost exclusively to Benina that he demonstrated his gratitude, merely showing polite respect to her mistress; for Benina alone were all his smiles, his most elaborate phrases and the tender glances of his languid eyes, the eyes, one might say, of a dying sheep; and he capped all these indiscretions by calling her “angel” some two hundred times during the course of the frugal supper. This being said, let us now listen to Doña Paca, tucked up in bed, while her companion lay on the floor:
“Well, my girl, I can’t help thinking that you must have given a love potion to that poor fellow. How he seems to love you. If you were not such a hideous old hag without the slightest charm, I would think that he had fallen for you. It’s true that you are good-natured and charitable, and people like you for the way you look after everything, for your gentleness and that sweet manner of yours – which could easily take in anyone who didn’t know you; but despite all these qualities it is impossible to believe that a man as sophisticated as he could possibly fall in love with you. If you think that he has and are puffed up with pride as a result, my advice is not to give yourself airs, my poor Nina: you will always be what you are. But have no fear, I shall cure Don Frasquito of his illusions, by telling him all about your defects, what a petty thief you have been, and about other little things, other little things that both you and I know about.”
Benina was silent, covering her mouth with her sheet, and this humility and restraint further inflamed the spite of widow Zapata, who continued to torment her companion:
“No one appreciates your good qualities more than I do, for you certainly have some; but you must learn to stand aside and know your place, or you will become a nuisance and a bore to your betters. Remember that I had to sack you for petty thieving twice – you were so brazen about it. Brazen, do I call it? You were completely shameless in your wicked vice. Well, I never kept accounts, I couldn’t bring myself to do so, but I saw my money streaming from my pockets to yours. What, not a word? No reply? Have you been struck dumb?”
“Yes, ma’am, I’ve been struck dumb,” was the good woman’s only reply. “Maybe when madam is tired and keeps her mouth shut again, I may open mine and say – no, I’ll not say anything at all.”
26
“Ha, ha! Say what you like,” Doña Paca went on. “Would you dare say something offensive about me? That I never wrote down the debits and credits, for example? So what? Who told you that ladies should keep accounts? Not to keep accounts and not to note down anything was simply the natural result of my limitless generosity. I let everyone rob me; I was always the same. Was it a sin? The Lord will pardon me. What God does not forgive, Benina, is hypocrisy and underhandedness, and the way people contrive to make what they do seem better than it is. I have always worn my heart on my sleeve and shown myself to all the world as I am, with my defects and my qualities, just as God made me. Have you nothing to say in reply? Or is it just that you can’t think of anything in your own defence?”
“Madam, I say nothing because I am asleep.”
“No, you’re not asleep, that’s a lie. Your conscience won’t let you sleep. You know I’m right, and that you’re a schemer, full of pretence, hiding your wicked deeds. Well, I won’t call them wicked, I won’t go so far as that. I am as generous in that as in everything else, I shall call them frailties: but what frailties! We certainly are frail! You really should say: ‘My name is not Benina, it is Frailty.’ But don’t worry, you know quite well that I’m not one to go and tell tales to Señor Ponte to sully your reputation and shatter his illusions. It’s all so absurd! He can’t possibly see you as an elegant figure, you don’t have fresh, rosy cheeks, nor fine manners, nor are you a lady of education, nor anything else that makes men fall in love, so he must have seen – what, indeed? I really can’t guess what it might be. If you were honest, which you aren’t and never will be… Are you listening to me?”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m listening.”
“If you were honest you would say that Señor de Ponte calls you angel because you make such good garlic soup, so nice and thick, and do you really think that that is enough to call a woman angel, just like that?”
“What’s it got to do with you? Let Señor de Ponte Delgado call me anything he likes.”
“You’re right there. Maybe he’s using the term ironically, because society gentlemen often use irony, and when they seem to be complimenting us, what they are really doing is pulling our legs. But if he really means it, and is genuinely in love with you with honourable intentions (for anything is possible, Benina, very strange things can happen), you should be frank with him and confess your transgressions, so that Frasquito should not think that the purity of the angels in heaven is quite the same as your purity. If you don’t, you’re a bad woman. The truth, Nina, in such cases, the truth. He thinks you’re a sort of prodigy of purity, that you’re a miracle. It would be a miracle, in Madrid and in the domestic servant class, to have kept one’s virginity for sixty years. Well, you can pretend to be fifty-five
if you like – but if you must lie about your age, for it’s a deceit commonly practised by women, you must not deceive him on the moral plane, Nina, no. Look, my girl, I’m very fond of you and as your mistress and friend I advise you to speak up and tell him all your faults and backslidings. Then he won’t be able to say that you’ve deceived him, if one day he discovers what you’ve kept secret. No, Nina, my girl, tell him all, even if you blush to the roots of your hair and that wart on your forehead goes red. Confess that serious sin you committed when you were thirty-five years old and be brave enough to say to him: ‘Señor Don Francisco, I was in love with a Civil Guard called Romero, who kept me spellbound for two whole years and then refused to marry me.’ Come on, now, it’s nothing to blush about. After all, what was it? You loved a man. That is what women are born for, to love men. You were unfortunate enough to come across one who was no good. A question of luck, my girl. But the fact is that you were mad about him, that I remember. You were unbearable; you could do nothing right. You filched money here, there and everywhere, and though you hadn’t a decent dress to wear, he never went short of good cigars. You don’t have to tell me about it: I saw what you went through and how blind you were, for in your distress, day in and day out, instead of avoiding punishment, you would go to him; I saw it all. I know the story, but there are some things I don’t know, for you always kept them from me: and people told me things that may or may not be true: they said that as a result of the affair you had …”
“That’s not true.”
“And sent it to the orphanage.”
“That’s not true,” Benina repeated in a firm, strong voice, sitting up in bed. When Doña Paca heard her, she suddenly fell silent, like a mouse that stops gnawing when it hears footsteps or a human voice. The only sound to be heard for a long moment was a deep sigh from the lady, who then began to groan and complain in low tones. Benina said nothing. The unhappy lady’s mood had changed abruptly, the weathercock had swung round. Anger and spite had suddenly given way to sweetness and flattery. Soon came the main symptom of the new mood, repentance at what she had said and shame at the memory. This is what she meant by groaning and crying. The pains were purely imaginary. When Benina didn’t reply to these demonstrations, Doña Paca called out to her though it was near midnight:
“Nina, Nina, if you only knew how ill I am! What a bad night I’m having! It feels as if someone is holding a hot iron against my side and tugging the bones out of my legs. My head feels as if my brains have been taken out and breadcrumbs and strong parsley put in their place. I don’t want to disturb you so I won’t ask you to make me a little cup of lime-flower tea, massage my back and give me a little dose of salicylate, or bromide or sulphonyl. Oh, this is horrible! You’re sleeping like a log. Oh, well! Take your rest, it will fatten you up a bit. I don’t want to disturb you.”
Without saying anything, Nina had already got up from her palliasse, put on a skirt and was preparing to make a cup of lime-flower tea on a little spirit stove to give the patient her medicine; after this she got into bed with her to rock her mistress like a child until she fell asleep. Wishing to efface memories of her recent bad behaviour, Doña Paca thought the best way was to blot out those malevolent ideas by using terms of endearment, and so as her companion lulled her she said:
“If I didn’t have you, I don’t know what would become of me. I rail against God, and call him names, and even insult him, as if he were just anybody. It’s true that He makes me go without a lot of things, but He has given me you as a companion and that’s better than all the gold and silver and diamonds. Now that I think of it, what do you advise me to do in case Don Frasquito Morquecho and Don José Maria Porcell come back again with news of an inheritance?”
“Madam, you dreamed all that. Those two gentlemen have been tucked up underground these many years.”
“That’s true: but if not those two, others might come one day with the same story.”
“There’s no reason why not. Have you dreamt of empty boxes? Because that is a sure sign of an inheritance.”
“And what did you dream of?”
“What, me? Last night I dreamt that we met a black bull.”
“Now that means that we shall discover a buried treasure. Just think, given that rich merchants used to live here, couldn’t there be a pot full of gold pieces hidden in a wall or partition in this old house?”
“I heard that last century some wealthy cloth merchants came to live here, and that when they died, there was no money to be found. They may well have hidden it in the walls. It’s happened before, many times.”
“I am sure that there is money hidden here, but where the devil can it be, that’s the problem.”
“I wonder, I wonder,” muttered Benina, letting her lively imagination fly away with the oriental spells suggested by Almudena.
“Maybe they hid it under the tiles of the kitchen or larder floor if not in the walls, so that they could enjoy it in the other world.”
“Possibly, but in the walls is more likely, or up in the loft, amongst the rafters.”
“I think you’re right. It could be high up as well as low down. When I tread heavily in the corridor or in the dining-room, the whole great building seems to shake as if it were going to fall down, and I always think I hear a little noise like pieces of metal chinking together. Haven’t you heard it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“If you haven’t, try it out right now. Walk round the bedroom, stamping hard and we can listen.”
Benina did as her mistress told her, no less convinced than she, and sure enough they heard a metallic tinkling sound, which could only have come from the enormous quantities of silver and gold (more gold than silver, of course), embedded in the ancient structure. With this fantasy they both went off to sleep, and in their dreams they went on hearing it go tinkle, tinkle.
The house seemed like a huge body, which sweated, and from each of its infinite number of pores came golden guineas and pieces-of-eight or pennies and farthings.
27
Early the next morning Benina set off towards Las Cambroneras with her basket on her arm, thinking, with some concern, of the excitement to which good Almudena was prone, and which would soon turn into madness if she wasn’t quick enough to keep him on the path of reason. Beyond the Puerta de Toledo she met La Burlada and another woman who was begging next to a child with an over-large head. The former told her that she had moved near the bridge, because the rents were too high in the city itself and the charity too small. She had found a lodging for practically nothing in a hotel by the river, and had the advantage of the fresh air on the walk from the river to her stand at the church and back again to the river as well. When Benina asked her about the blind Moor and his lodging, she said that she had seen him near the small fountain on the other side of the bridge, begging, but did not know where he lived.
“Goodbye, Señora,” said La Burlada. “Aren’t you going to beg at the church today? I’m going, because though there’s not much to be had, it’s become a habit. Every afternoon I get a good helping of food from the banker’s house, directly opposite the church door on the Calle de las Huertas, and I live a good life, enjoying the face that La Caporala pulls when the banker’s servant-maid brings me my big pan of dinner. With that and the odd coin that turns up, we stay alive, Doña Benina, and even count ourselves rich! Goodbye and good luck. I hope you find your Moor in good health. Fare you well.”
Each one went her way, and Benina, when she reached the bridge, took the lane which went downhill on the right hand side towards the suburban area known as Las Cambroneras, down on the left bank of the River Manzanares. She found herself in a sort of small square, bounded on the western side by a ramshackle building, on the south by the parapet of a buttress of the bridge and on the other two sides by uneven slopes and sandy embankments covered in brambles, thistles and rough grass. It was a picturesque spot, airy and almost pleasant, because there was a view over the green banks of the river, the washing
places and the many clothes spread out to dry. To the west was the line of the mountains and on the far bank of the river the cemeteries of San Isidro and San Justo, looking magnificent with the tops of so many grand monuments and the dark green of so many cypresses: the gloom common to all graveyards did not prevent them from improving the view, like a fine backcloth added by man to nature.
As she slowly descended towards the embankment, Benina saw two donkeys – no, not two, eight, ten or more donkeys with brilliant red collars, and near them groups of gypsies sunning themselves, in the sun already bathing the whole neighbourhood in its splendour, adorning animals and people alike with gay, bright colours. These groups of gypsies were so animated, laughing, fooling about and running here and there. The girls leapt and the boys chased them; the ragged children skipped about and only the asses stood solemnly ruminating in the midst of all the gabble and flurry. The old women, some with black weather-beaten faces, were gossiping in a small group, leaning against a medium-sized tenement house. Some girls were washing clothes in the pool formed by the overflow from a nearby fountain. Some had very dark, almost black complexions, which showed off the filigree work of their earrings; others were the colour of earthenware, and all were agile and graceful with the slimmest of waists and the sharpest of tongues. Benina looked in the crowd for someone she knew, and after a search thought she recognised a gypsy whom she had met in the hospital when she had gone to fetch a young female friend of hers. She did not want to approach the group which was quarrelling over a donkey whose sores were the subject of lively dispute, she waited for a favourable moment. It did not take long. Two small boys began to belabour each other: one with his trouser legs split from top to bottom, revealing black shins, and the other with a kind of turban on his head, only wearing a man’s waistcoat: the gypsy came up to separate them, Benina helped him, and then spoke to him: “Tell me, friend, have you seen a blind Moor called Almudena around?”
Misericordia (Dedalus European Classics) Page 17
