Mazurka for Two Dead Men

by Camilo José Cela

  “What you see over there on the far side—is that America?”

  “No, what you see over there is Cangas on the other side of the bay.”

  “For goodness sake!”

  Ádega went to Samil beach but she didn’t bathe, she’s from inland, after all, and not used to bathing. The rules governing bathers are very strict: the bathing costume must be of a nontransparent material and cover up the body without fitting tightly, women’s costumes must reach the knee or be full-length, comprising a blouse and skirt, they shall also wear drawers reaching to the knee, the neckline must be such that upon no occasion shall it separate from the body, the sleeves must be sufficiently tight so that no sudden movement will reveal the armpit, lying upon the sand is strictly forbidden, even when the body is clothed in a robe, sitting will, however, be permitted.

  Crazy Goat also knows how to train birds and beasts, some animals are easier than others, that’s always the way, her mother conceived on horseback during the San Lourenciño thunderstorm, all animals without exception obey girls conceived in that way, though not boys, they turn out run-of-the-mill, it all depends upon the skill involved. Fabián Minguela has a pigskin pockmark on his forehead, it looks as though he’s wearing a patch, and he has lank hair and a jutting forehead, well then, it’s more or less obvious that he’s a bastard. The worst punishment that these characters have to bear is that, however much they try to hide it, you can still see them for what they are, all cobblers work sitting down, but thank God not all of them are Carroupos, there are some decent, respectable sorts among them.

  “Where do they hail from?”

  “That’s something nobody knows.”

  Where Moncho Requeixo Casbolado—Moncho Lazybones, rather—likes better than anywhere else in the whole wide world is Guayaquil.

  “It’s even better than Amsterdam, different but better, believe you me! In Guayaquil I had a sweetheart who used to polish my wooden leg with wax rendered down with turpentine. She was called Marigold Cotocachi López and she was very pretty, on the buxom side but very pretty, I wonder what ever became of her, chances are she’s dead by now, over there everybody kicks the bucket.”

  Once, many years back, the Méndez Cotabad twins, who were still only little girls at the time, didn’t come home until after nine o’clock at night, both had broken their spectacles and both had pinnies stained with blackberry juice and their braids full of thistle prickles, their mother gave them a thorough scolding, bathed them, you’ve even got ants in your belly buttons! and sent them to bed without any supper.

  “That’ll teach you a lesson. Let’s hope your father doesn’t find out for he’d give you both a sound whipping.”

  Beatriz had said to Mercedes:

  “Shall we go gathering blackberries and wild strawberries?”

  And Mercedes replied:

  “Let’s!”

  Then, quite simply, they lost their way and night descended upon them.

  “Did you reprimand the twins?”

  “Of course I did! I told them that you didn’t know and I sent them to bed without any supper.”

  “Ah, at least give them a banana and a glass of milk!”

  According to Moncho Lazybones, on Bastianiño beach he found some very rare clams with caramel-colored rock crystal shells, which cannot be eaten because they’re highly poisonous, but if instead you coax them, they open up and out flies a tiny little witch who’s hard to catch because she flies so fast and so high up, however, folks from the province of Lugo are able to catch them, though we folks from Orense are not so good at it, over in Lugo they dry them in the smokehouse and later on, when they grow to the size of women, put them into service. Ádega and Moncho Lazybones were once sweethearts of a sort but then it fizzled out.

  “God will stop the blood of him who sheds blood, or put him to the sword so that he dies spewing blood. God does not pardon the criminal and although he may hide under the very stones, no matter where he hides he shall always be found, God does not forget, that’s why he invented hell.”

  The Casandulfe Raimundo finds Fabián Minguela very stuck up.

  “Don’t be getting up to any dirty tricks, Fabián, we all know one another well around here and it’s a very small world.”

  “I’ll do what I like and it’s no concern of yours.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Raimundo told our cousin Ramona that he was getting worried for things were not looking good.

  “Baldomero Lionheart won’t go into hiding, to my mind he’s misguided, folks with a weapon in their hand will invariably blunder, the best thing would be to send him over to the Venceáses’ house in Cela, but he won’t go, I’ve reasoned with him but he won’t go, you know that Cela is just on the Portuguese border.”

  Pomeranians have a hard time in their old age, they shed a great deal, Wilde the dog is well on in years. Raimundo gave our cousin Ramona a borzoi which answers to the name of Tsarevitch.

  “Would a change of name not be advisable?”

  “No, I don’t think so, let’s wait and see what happens.”

  King the cat is no youngster either. Since he’s neutered he doesn’t come in for much wear and tear so he’s weathering the years well. Rabecho the macaw spends his day hopping up and down from his perch, there’s no sheen from the colors of his feathers, apparently this light doesn’t do him justice. The parakeet has no name, he used to be called Rocambole but suddenly his name was dropped, that’s what happens! when the parakeet isn’t feeling the cold he squawks: parakeet royal, parakeet royal, up Spain, down with Portugal! He’s the sort of parakeet that repeats the same thing over and over again, he can also recite the Holy Rosary.

  “I think women should have to go to war, that would be one way of putting an end to wars, women have their feet more firmly planted on the ground than men do, they’ve more common sense, they’re smarter and more practical and very soon they’d see that wars are a terrible blunder where everything—reason, health, patience, savings—even life itself—is lost. In wars everybody loses out and nobody gains anything, not even the ones that win the war.”

  “You’re very pessimistic.”

  “No, I’m just worried that’s all.”

  “Shall I turn off the radio?”

  “Yes, play a few records on the gramophone.”

  “Tangos?”

  “No, waltzes.”

  The bat is a crafty, cunning little beast, bats venture where angels fear to tread, bats have one foot in the realm of earth, like devils out hunting for souls, and one foot in the realm of hell, like devils out ministering unto souls. At times bats may even harbor a vampire in their breast.

  “Go on.”

  “Well, I will then. Sick people, prisoners, and even the dead never change. To hell with all your fads, your qualms of conscience, your repentance and remorse, your heart-felt grief! Death dangles in the darkness from the loftiest, mildewy, motheaten beams, it would send shivers down your spine to see death swaying like a hanged man above a grease stain shaped like the Iberian peninsula.”

  “Shall we dance?”

  “Later on.”

  The wan faces roamed about sowing the seeds of death but, as God willed, they also began to die off and the ones who had mourned but were still alive—mankind is a creature that can endure a great deal—sowed a hazel tree for each wan corpse so that the wild boars would always have fresh hazelnuts. Jeremiah the monkey grows more consumptive and pampered by the day, but he’s not entirely to blame, for Miss Ramona is incapable of defending him against Rosicler’s pestering.

  “If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times to quit jacking off that monkey, can’t you see the poor creature is never done coughing?”

  Xaropa the tortoise has been hidden away for months, until the warm weather comes, he won’t appear, and Caruso the horse is wearing well, he’s the only animal in the house that isn’t pining away, Etelvino takes him out every morning to stretch his legs a bit and also currycombs him down. The
moment the sun sets in the evening, Doña Gemma says to her husband:

  “Give me a drop of anisette, Teodosio, for I just can’t breathe. Stick your head in an oilcloth bag and if you can’t breathe, well, so much the worse for you!”

  Doña Gemma is neither nice nor big-hearted, indeed she’s a filthy Holy Joe, the one thing makes up for the other, Doña Gemma had a tumultuous past but now she reads Mothers’ Joy, Meditations for the Christian Woman by the Rev. Father Zaqueo Mantecón, P.P., Huelva, 1920. Doña Gemma suffers from an anal itch which she keeps at bay with sitz baths of camomile.

  “For my part, I don’t think the anisette agrees with you, Gemma, I’m sure it irritates your ass.”

  “Hold your tongue!”

  “Well, do as you wish, you’re the one suffering the itch. What a dreadful way to behave!”

  In the baptismal font, Don Teodosio was christened Casiano but, later on, at the time of his confirmation, he changed his name. Doña Gemma and Don Teodosio live on San Cosme Square in Orense in the apartment where her parents died. The house is infested with cockroaches, it’s like the jungle, and the lavatory has been clogged up for over ten years, what it needs is a good scrubbing down and sluicing out with a couple of bucketfuls of water. The gallery tiles are decorated with stripes, angles, and crosses, each tile has four stripes and four angles, and each angle is formed by two stripes, the continuation of which form three or more angles, one to the north (or south), another to the east, and another to the west. Don Teodosio does his utmost not to tread upon the stripes, angles, or crosses so, of course, he lurches along in a zig-zag pattern. When Don Teodosio goes to Sprat’s brothel he heads straight for the kitchen.

  “Is Visi in?”

  “She’s busy, Don Teodosio, though I don’t think she’ll be long for she’s been with Don Ezekiel from the pawnshop for quite a while now. Shall I call Ferminita? Don Ezekiel can be a pain in the neck.”

  “No, I’d rather wait, thanks all the same.”

  “Certainly, sir, as you wish.”

  Gaudencio plays the accordion wistfully, the notes don’t ring out as sharp as usual. Gaudencio has been downcast and preoccupied for some days now.

  “Have folks gone off their rockers or what?”

  “I don’t know, but they sure don’t seem to be in their right minds.”

  Doña Gemma hails from Villamarín, her parents had a factory, Vilela Soda Waters, that produced siphons and lemonade, and another one, The Sovereign, that manufactured bleach. They were doing well and living in comfort until Don Antonio, the head of the household, created the concentrated beef extract Excavation, and then the health inspectors closed down the factory for dogs and lizards were being used, and that was the ruination of him. Don Teodosio receives extra special treatment in Sprat’s place.

  “Shall I call Portuguese Marta for you so you can be warming up?”

  “That’s very good of you! You’re so kind and thoughtful!”

  “Not at all, Don Teodosio! All Yours Truly wants is to keep old friends happy!”

  Visi is from Penapetada, in Puebla de Trives, but she speaks with a southern accent, she’s not the most accomplished for the time being but she’ll soon get the hang of it. Sprat has three very valuable collections: one of fans, one of stamps, and another of gold coins, bequeathed to her in his will by Don Perpetuo Carnero Llamazares, a storekeeper in the city of León, in the secret dealings of the brothel many a strange deed is let slip, it’s a crying shame that story was never written, Sprat hasn’t made her mind up what to do with her collections when she dies.

  “If only I could come across some decent, trustworthy sort to name as my sole heir! I never had any children and my nephews and nieces will have nothing to do with me! So much the worse for them! I can’t leave it to a gentleman friend, nor to the city fathers either, what a mess! I’ll end up leaving it all to the girls, who will sell up and share out the loot. I’d like to be buried with the fans, the Manila shawl, and the gold coins, though not the stamps, but my grave would only be robbed.”

  “No doubt.”

  Folks are forever requesting Gaudencio to play two-steps, the gentlemen holler ¡Viva España! and request two-steps, no end of two-steps, while the women laugh, some heartily and others half-heartedly.

  “Take off your bra.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  Romulus and Remus, the swans on Miss Ramona’s pond, go as far as the river in the mornings, sometimes they catch the odd fish and swallow it whole and start digesting it before it is even dead. If it stopped raining all of a sudden it would throw us all out of kilter. Don Jesús Manzanedo was also a good customer of Sprat’s, when he started acting the lout in the early mornings Don Teodosio stopped speaking to him, it wasn’t that he cut him off without a reply, no, gradually he just stopped greeting him, there’s quite a difference.

  “Did you get wind of anything, Pura? Have you heard what they’re saying around about?”

  “I’m both deaf and blind, Don Teodosio, I neither know nor want to know. As far as I can see, folks have gone stark crazy, there’s no other explanation. God help us!”

  Gaudencio’s throat was parched.

  “Will you bring me a lemonade?”

  “I will.”

  Don Jesús Manzanedo is extremely meticulous, a bit of order never goes amiss, and he keeps a note of the deaths in a little book: giving the number according to his personal reckoning, as well as date, name and surname, profession, place, and any other details, though there were hardly ever any other details: Number 37, 21 Oct. ’36: Inocencio Solleiros Nande, bank clerk, from Alto do Furriolo, died after receiving absolution. Inocencio Solleiro Nande was Rosicler’s father, what a funny idea to name your child Rosicler!

  “But, Doña Arsenia, do you think that’s a good enough reason to dispatch a body to the next world?”

  “Look. I say neither yea nor nay, it makes no difference to me, just leave me in peace, that’s all I ask.”

  “Alright, alright.”

  Fabián Minguela is a rogue, Fabián Minguela isn’t really small, just smallish, no Carroupo is ever big or strong, there are small ones and smallish ones but there are also some very motley rogues among them. Beside Don Jesús Manzanedo, Fabián Moucho is but a mouse, a mere apprentice. Don Jesús Manzanedo kills people from his high regard for order as well as for pleasure, some folks thrive on the sheer delight of pressing the trigger, whereas Fabián Minguela kills in order to suck up to someone, who we don’t know, but someone is surely smirking, that’s always the way, he kills from fear, too, nor do we know fear of what, but there must be something that frightens him, that’s always the way, fear scuttles like a creepy crawly up the sewage pipe of terror. Benicia has blue eyes and is always willing. Cidrán Segade, Benicia’s father, came from Cazurraque, below the Portelina crags, and he also died in the hullabaloo, as the world spins, men may die at the hands of those pulling the strings, but this won’t happen so long as God remains in charge.

  “Will you fry me a sausage?”

  “I will.”

  The waters of the Miangueiro spring are poisoned, it’s not the flesh they wither but the spirit, whoever drinks from the Miangueiro spring goes crazy and maybe even kills folks as he shits his britches from fear. It’s chilly in the Mercy Church but Gaudencio doesn’t mind. Gaudencio goes to Mass every morning when he finishes playing the accordion, then he sleeps until midday in his little cot under the stairs, there’s no light but what does that matter? what would he need it for anyway? Blind men are easy to please, they have no choice in the matter.

  “Do you know who the countess was who put a price on Benigno’s head?”

  “Indeed I do, but I don’t want to say who it was. Anyway, it was a marchioness, not a countess for your information.”

  St. Andrew the Apostle was jealous of the Apostle St. James because he drew the crowds.

  “Pilgrims come to Santiago de Compostela from all over the world, even from as far afield as Zipangu, Tartary, and Ethiopia
while to Teixido they don’t even come from around about, why they don’t even come from Ferrol, Vivero, or from Ortigueira, just up the road, that’s hardly fair for I’m an apostle too, just as much of an apostle as the rest of them.”

  Our Lord Jesus Christ, who had trodden that very path, said to him:

  “You’re quite right, Andrew, this’ll have to be sorted out. I shall decree that from now on, nobody can enter the Pearly Gates without passing through Teixido first.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  No sooner said than done. Our Lord Jesus Christ ordered that all Christians wishing to save their souls had to have traveled at least once to the sanctuary, whether in life, in death, or even when changed into unthinking animals, that’s why the saying goes that whoever didn’t go to St. Andrew of Teixido in his lifetime makes the pilgrimage in death. Around the area of St. Andrew of Teixido, at the very ends of the earth, facing a sea that no one sails for the waves heap mountains high, you can see hordes of scorpions, lizards, toads, all sorts of weird and wonderful beasts, vipers, and hairy tarantulas among them, bearing within them the souls of those who were not pilgrims in their lifetime, thus may the wise be saved by Our Lord God.

  “What a stroke of luck, don’t you think?”

  Half-wits can brush up against death without even scenting or glimpsing it, the blind see death when they feel it escaping through the backbone and dogs scent it, even though half-wits can’t, half-wits can’t tell the difference between life and death. Roquiño Borrén spent five years shut up in a trunk, not even knowing that he was in a bad way, when they brought him out into the air he was even smiling. Roquiño Borrén bites his nails and nibbles whitewash from the wall, which keeps him amused. Nor can Catuxa Bainte, the half-wit from Martiñá, draw the line between life and death, the half-wit from Martiñá has no idea that death dims the sight so she bares her breasts to dead vixens and weasels, the sacristan sends her packing with a stick and a shower of stones.

  “Clear off, you filthy beast! Beat it before I give you a good hiding!”