Mazurka for Two Dead Men

by Camilo José Cela

  Apacha soon took him down a peg or two.

  “Look here, Don Lesmes, with all due respect, there’s not a Red in the house, is that quite clear? We’re all as staunch nationalists here as the best of them, and myself first among them! I want to make that abundantly clear, do you understand? Let there be no mistake about it! And if you don’t button your lip, I’ll call Don Oscar, who is a good friend of mine, and he’ll soon sort you out. Here in my place folks may let their hair down but there is no question of conspiracies, do you understand?”

  Don Lesmes ate humble pie.

  “Pardon me! It’s just that I thought it was a bomb, you understand.”

  The Casandulfe Raimundo had no idea who Don Oscar was, nor did he enquire, why should he? What difference does it make what goes on in brothels? We Nationalists have taken Toledo. Why do you say “we”? And we have freed the Alcazar. The Casandulfe Raimundo notices that his temples are throbbing, maybe he has a temperature. Franco is appointed Generalísimo of the Army, Air Force, and Navy, and Robín Lebozán declares that he’s not joining up, he’ll soon be drafted, each and everyone goes his own way and at his own pace. Miss Ramona rides her horse, nibbles biscuits and ponders, she’s always pondering events. We Nationalists are at the gates of Madrid. Why do you say “we Nationalists”? When the Casandulfe Raimundo came back to the village he found Miss Ramona rather peculiar.

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing, why?”

  “No, I just thought there was something wrong.”

  Puriña Córrego, the eldest of Miss Ramona’s maids, was found dead one morning with a little pencil-like snake crawling on her forehead.

  “What happened?”

  “She died of old age. The bell tolls for all of us sooner or later, some folks don’t even reach old age.”

  Apart from Antonio Vegadecabo and Sabela Soulecín, Miss Ramona has no mementoes left of her father’s days.

  “There’s the parakeet.”

  “Yes, the parakeet, of course.”

  Fabián Minguela, Moucho, will lure neither Cidrán Segade nor Baldomero Lionheart out of their homes, he wouldn’t dare. Fabián Minguela kept a stone’s throw away, first from Cidrán’s house then from Baldomero Lionheart’s, when he saw them coming, he sent ten men to capture them and bring them bound hand and foot. When they reached Cidrán Segade’s place they were met with a volley of bullets. He handed himself over when his house was burned down. Nobody ventured forth as the shots rang out nor as the flames of the fire lit up the sky. Miss Ramona held the Casandulfe Raimundo and Robín Lebozán back, both of whom were at her house. They struck Ádega across the face with the butt of a gun then left her unconscious and tied to a tree. Baldomero Lionheart also met them with gunshots, his aim was unswerving and he shot one of them dead. Baldomero Lionheart handed himself over when they caught hold of Loliña, his wife, and five children who had to be gagged with a sack for they kicked and bit.

  “Good Lord, what sort of folks were they at all!”

  Fabián Minguela, the dead man who killed Lionheart, who was to kill Lionheart, smirked like a rodent at his prisoners, whose hands were tied behind their backs, their eyeballs crisscrossed with blood vessels and both standing in stony silence.

  “Get moving!”

  Fabián Minguela’s patch of pockmarked skin shone on his forehead. Miss Ramona’s macaw is a creature used to other climates and a different sort of scenery, here it looks bored and miserable. Fabián Minguela has thin hair: by the light of the moon the dead man who killed Lionheart looks like a corpse.

  “Bet you never thought you would be in a jam like this?”

  Neither Cidrán Segade nor Baldomero Lionheart as much as opened their mouths in reply. What difference does it make whether the Bidueiros half-wit was killed by mistake? Fabián Minguela has a forehead like a terrapin’s, maybe worse, since this whole business started you can no longer hear the creaking axles of the carts the moment the sun sets.

  “Do you realize that my big moment has come? And about time, too!”

  The little star that lit up Lionheart’s forehead had gone out—at times it was as red as ruby, then blue as sapphire, purple like amethyst, or white like diamonds—and the Devil seized his chance to kill him by treachery, he had only a couple of hundred steps left to take. Fina from Pontevedra is like a coffee mill, what Fina from Pontevedra likes is jigging about and dancing to the Cuban Son tune Get Moving, Irene, her husband died for want of aptitude, he was crushed by the train for want of aptitude. After removing his wallet and identification papers, Fabián Minguela’s men left their dead comrade in the gutter, the night has a thousand sounds and a thousand silences that press upon the souls of travelers and resound like an echo in their hearts. Fabián Minguela is looking pallid, well, no paler than usual, that’s just the way he is.

  “Are you afraid?”

  Every morning Pepiño Pousada Coires, Plastered Pepiño, goes to Mass to entreat for mercy.

  “It’s true, isn’t it, that one of the deeds of compassion is burying the dead?”

  “Yes, son.”

  Plastered Pepiño was terribly frightened and could only dimly make out a faint little light glowing in answer to his entreaties. Fabián Minguela has a beard like a gooseberry: a few hairs here, a few hairs there.

  “I don’t think you’ll have time to cheat me at dominoes. Won’t you talk?”

  Maybe Ricardo Vazquez Vilariño, Aunt Jesusa’s sweetheart, is at the front firing shots, or keeping accounts in the company office, he wouldn’t have been bumped off yet. Fabián Minguela’s hands look slimy, not even sick people looking like death warmed over would have such cold, clammy, soft hands.

  “Do you want to say a prayer to Christ Our Lord?”

  Fabián Minguela always looks the other way, like the San Modesto toads, there are three of them but there might as well be a hundred.

  “Are you shitting yourself?”

  Fabián Minguela speaks in a falsetto voice like the seven handmaidens of the Holy Scriptures.

  “Ask my forgiveness.”

  “Untie my hands!”

  “No.”

  Fabián Minguela, the dead man who killed Lionheart, strokes his balls, sometimes he spends longer than others fondling them.

  “I told you to ask for my forgiveness.”

  “Untie my hands!”

  “No.”

  Eleuterio the Britches, Tanis the Demon’s father-in-law, has been as meek as a lamb since this brouhaha began, some folks lose their grip whereas others keep their cool. Fabián Minguela, the dead man who also killed Cidrán Segade and maybe another ten or twelve to boot, wouldn’t wear out good shoe leather, he lagged a couple of paces behind and fired a shot at Baldomero Lionheart’s back: when Baldomero fell to the ground, Fabián fired another shot, this time at his head. Baldomero Marvís Ventela, or Fernández, alias Lioneart, rose to the occasion and died without a single whimper, he took a while to die but he died a dignified death without giving respite, comfort, or a moment of joy to the man who killed him. Fabián Minguela told Cidrán Segade:

  “You keep on walking, you’ve still half an hour to go.”

  Baldomero Lionheart’s dead body lay at the bend in the road at Canices, the first to spot it, in the uncertain light of dawn, was a blackbird on the bough of an oak tree, when day breaks, birds twitter like crazy for a few minutes and then a hush falls upon them, apparently as they go about their own business. Baldomero was lying face downwards, with blood on his back and on his head, blood in his mouth, too, blood and earth, and his tattoo covered up, soon the maggots will start to devour the woman and the serpent, the weasel sipping the dead man’s blood scuttled off all of a sudden as if someone had startled it on purpose. The news spread like greased lightning.

  “Like wildfire?”

  “Well, yes, or maybe even faster.”

  In the evening, when the news reached Sprat’s brothel, Blind Gaudencio was playing the mazurka Ma Petite Marianne on the accordion. Ga
udencio didn’t as much as open his mouth but played the same piece over and over again until the early hours of the morning.

  “Why don’t you play something else for a change?”

  “Because I won’t. I’m dedicating this mazurka to a dead man whose blood is not yet cold.”

  Life goes on, but not quite the same as before. Life never goes on the same as before, much less so in the midst of grief.

  “Is it eight o’clock yet?”

  “Not yet. Today is creeping past slower than ever.”

  The mazurka Ma Petite Marianne has some very lovely, very catchy bars, you never tire of listening to it.

  “Why don’t you play something else for a change?”

  “Because I don’t want to. Can’t you see this is a mazurka of mourning?”

  What Jules Wideawake enjoys better than anything is nuzzling the breasts of Pilar, his wife, some married couples are on very good terms, which is just as it should be.

  “Will you really let me kiss your breasts, my love?”

  “You know that I’m all yours. Why do you ask since you know already?”

  “Because I like to hear you talk dirty, my love, it suits you widows very well.”

  Pilar tried a flirtatious gesture.

  “Lord, what a fool of a man!”

  Throughout the area there are lots of sawmills churning out coffins, if things go on like this soon all these pine forests will wind up boxing in dead bodies.

  “Do they offer a discount on bulk orders?”

  “Yes, ma’am, a hefty discount, indeed heftier and heftier until eventually they’re giving them away.”

  When Uncle Rodolfo heard that his cousin Camilo had married an Englishwoman, he ordered notepaper embossed with a letterhead in English, nobody could get the better of him.

  “That Camilo fellow was always very pie-in-the-sky. Imagine going and marrying a foreigner when there are plenty of girls at home!”

  Uncle Cleto spends his day vomiting, next to his rocking chair he keeps a pail to vomit in for greater convenience and cleanliness.

  “Do you know anything about Salvadora?”

  “No, we haven’t heard a thing, the poor creature is still in a Red zone. May God preserve her from harm in the midst of so much crime!”

  Uncle Cleto manages a great array of vomit, sometimes one color and consistency, other days different.

  “Variety is the spice of life, don’t you think?”

  “Don’t you believe a word of it! The other evening Blind Gaudencio got stuck in a mazurka and not a soul could make him change, apparently he just got a taste for it.”

  “Maybe.”

  The remains of the Saintly Fernández and his martyred companions are kept in Damascus in the Spanish convent of Bab Tuma, now it’s known as the Église Latin, rue Bab Touma, in a glass urn where you can see the skulls, tibias, and fibulas all beautifully and tastefully laid out, the Franciscans were always very tasteful in their presentation of relics, in the convent they sell some very seemly French postcards.

  “Do you know that Concha the Clam can sing like the very angels?”

  “Yes, I heard something to that effect.”

  Now they’ve banned advertisements for Oriental Pills, for the development, firming, and building up of breasts, to my mind they did right for Spanish women would do well to content themselves with the tits that God gave them, and make no bones about it. Jules Wideawake likes big breasts but that’s what Pilar has already.

  “Slip your breasts out of your bodice.”

  “No, little Urbanito isn’t asleep yet!”

  Cidrán Segade’s body was found on the outskirts of the village of Derramada, about half an hour’s walk from the bend in the road at Canices. His eyes were open and he had been shot in the back and again in the head, as was usual, of course, and the body was scarcely cold. Ádega was still bleeding from her nose, brow, and mouth from the whack they gave her with the butt of a gun. Ádega closed her late husband’s eyes and washed his face with her saliva and tears, loaded him on to the oxcart and took him to the graveyard. Between them, Benicia and she dug a grave and buried him deep down shrouded in a brand-new linen counterpane, the best she had and had been keeping aside, God knows what for, since Adam was a youngster. Kneeling upon the bare earth, as air bubbles gurgled from the folds in the shroud, Benicia and Ádega prayed an Our Father.

  “That’s your own father lying dead down there, Benicia, and I swear, may God grant me strength to live long enough to see the man who killed him lying six foot under! Do you hear me, Benicia?”

  The distant creaking of the axle of the oxcart was like the voice of God answering that he would indeed grant her the strength to see the man who had killed Cidrán dead and buried. She wouldn’t utter his name, she just wanted to see him dead and his remains sullied.

  “Are you listening, Benicia?”

  “I am, mother.”

  Ceferino Ferret, one of the two brothers of Baldomero Lionheart’s who were priests, said a Mass for Cidrán Segade’s soul.

  “But I can’t say who it is for, Ádega, it’s not allowed in Orense.”

  “That makes no difference. God is no stickler for detail.”

  The Casandulfe Raimundo thinks that we Spaniards have lost our marbles.

  “All of a sudden?”

  “That I really couldn’t say, maybe we were always like that.”

  The Casandulfe Raimundo is dying for his leave to be up, he hasn’t long left now.

  “The front is more civilized, it doesn’t do to say so, but at least they’re not murdering one another there, there’s less malice, there is still malice, of course, but it’s not so blatant. This catastrophe has sprung from the ideas and evil ways of the cities whipping across the countryside, so long as people run about the streets the whole world will continue out of kilter, that’s God’s punishment upon us.”

  Father Santisteban, S.J., delivers some heroic, solemn, disjointed sermons which are well received by the ladies, a risky business; Father Santisteban, S.J., believes in the effectiveness of purifying flames, another risky business. Fortunato Ramón María Rey, the son that the Saintly Fernández left in the foundling hospital, became known as Ramón Iglesias and lost the thousand reales his father left him as an inheritance, you need your wits about you in that sort of business.

  “And where did all the loot wind up?”

  “Where would it wind up?! Chances are whoever could lay their hands upon it shared it out amongst themselves, everybody has to live, they have to eke out a few pesetas wherever they can.”

  This whole business is getting on Uncle Cleto’s nerves, shattered nerves are a symptom of lack of breeding, with Father Santisteban at the head, forgive me, sisters, I’m sorry but that’s how it is. Father Santisteban is a vulgar lout, Father Santisteban is nothing but a scoundrel dressed in a cassock with a headful of dandruff and hot air. If he could, Father Santisteban would hear our confession, grant us absolution, and when we were all in the prime of life he would pack us off to the other world to sit on a cloud strumming the harp. Father Santisteban is nothing but a scoundrel coming here to sip your cascarilla tea.

  “If you don’t want to hear me out, then cover your heads with a pillow.”

  Miss Ramona runs her fingers lightly over the nape of Robín Lebozán’s neck; the two of them are sitting on a stone bench, as evening falls and the stag beetle with its patent leather shell flits about, the goldfinch twitters in the hydrangeas, and the centipede scuttles up the stems of the rambling rose, this is peace in the midst of war.

  “I’m out of sorts, Robín, and very depressed, I’m longing for you to ask me something so as not to reply.”

  Robín smiled wryly.

  “Shall I kiss you?”

  Miss Ramona smiled too. She made no reply but allowed him to kiss her.

  “I’m just as down as you are Mona, and scared, too. This state of affairs is awful but if the Nationalists get the upper hand it could be even worse, don’t ask me why
, I wouldn’t know what to say, well, I mean, I wouldn’t want to tell you.”

  Robín Lebozán and Miss Ramona kissed slowly but without any great outburst of passion. Coolly and with gentle, coy acquiescence, they caressed one another.

  “Go now, I don’t want you to stay here tonight.”

  “As you wish.”

  From this moment onwards nobody shall call him by his real name ever again. That Moucho Carroupo laughs and laughs but it’s not true, Moucho Carroupo’s conscience doesn’t trouble him, maybe his conscience does indeed bother him and he just doesn’t realize, he’s afraid, afraid of three things: sin, solitude, and darkness, that’s why he always carries a gun. Rosalía Trasulfe, the Crazy Goat, sponges his privates down with a potion of sea poppies and she’s fed up with two things, or maybe even more: sleeping with the light on and him coming to bed all done up in his military belts and buckles.

  “Yes, with all his gear on, a pistol in his belt and sometimes, even with his boots on.”

  Moucho is smiling at someone, not even he really knows for sure at whom, and he’s envious of almost everything, that’s no way to live, when a body is scared and shamelessly softsoaping and turns as green as a lizard with envy, it leads to no good, first a body holds their tongue, then resentment spreads like verdigris on a copper cauldron until finally a body takes folks from their homes and scatters the night with dead men, with bullets in the back and in their head, apparently that’s the way. When a whore composes verses to the Virgin Mary, it’s because she would like to have been the Virgin Mary, hardly anyone is who they would like to have been.

  “Sprat, will you give me a night on credit?”

  “I will, son, come on in! But don’t be talking about Baldomero Lionheart, I’ve heard all about it already.”

  Baldomero Marvís, Lionheart, was as brave as the Singapore tiger or the Zacumeiro wolf, they had to shoot him in the back when his hands were tied for face on and with his hands free they wouldn’t have dared; his second brother, Tanis the Demon, is as strong as the bull on the island of San Balandrán, whose balls rumbled in the violent north-westerly wind, and as smart as Queen Lupa’s lizard, which knew the multiplication tables as well as the capital cities of Europe. If he doesn’t screw things up, Tanis the Demon could floor the blessed ox at the Bethlehem gate—and the mule too if he caught it right—with one single blow between the eyes. Tanis the Demon also breeds wolf-hunting mastiffs, Kaiser had to be destroyed for he was left badly injured after a scuffle with a wolf. Tanis Gamuzo is a foot soldier in the 2nd Battalion of the Number 12 Saragossa Infantry Regiment, he has been detailed to the recruiting office.