Mazurka for Two Dead Men

by Camilo José Cela

  Robín Lebozán’s head fell on his chest, when he began to turn ideas over in his mind, he dozed off—a sure sign that sleep had overtaken him, something that happens to all of us.

  “Why didn’t you go to bed?”

  “Well, you see, I was up all night writing, I’m going to snatch forty winks now for if I don’t I’ll be exhausted for the rest of the day.”

  Tanis Gamuzo uproots nettles with his left hand and doesn’t even stop for breath, nettles only sting those who let them, it’s not hard to pick them without getting stung, dogs howl from boredom, also when there’s a full moon in the sky or someone is about to die, and the swans in Miss Ramona’s garden, they must be ancient by now, Romulus and Remus, ancient for swans that is, of course, indifferently glide up and down their pond, for that’s their thing. Tanis Gamuzo chuckles softly when he hears that bit about uprooting weeds.

  “I may be a whore but you are a bastard, which is even worse. And if you like, I’ll say so in front of everybody, the owner too, if you don’t get out now, keeping your eyes on the ground, mind you, I’ll say so in front of the whole bar. Do you understand?”

  Portuguese Marta loathes Eleuterio the Britches. She can’t bear to lay eyes upon him since the day he spat in Blind Gaudencio’s face.

  “Let’s see you spit at me! I wear skirts and you britches but you wouldn’t dare try it on with me for you are nothing but a wretch and a shit, if you as much as try, I swear I’ll kill you.”

  Sprat threw Eleuterio the Britches out into the street and ordered Portuguese Marta into the kitchen.

  “Don’t show your face about here, don’t even let it cross your mind! And you pour yourself a coffee and keep your shirt on, there’ll be a lot of work today for an Italian regiment has arrived.”

  Don Venancio León Martínez, a commercial actuary, genealogist, and collector of coins, is somewhat sickly and something of a swine. In addition, he spends his life sucking coffee lozenges and has evil thoughts, Don Venancio committed suicide in Our Lady of Carmen’s municipal cemetery, that’s what the cemetery in Logroño is called, though hardly anyone knows, the cemetery lies on the road to Mendavia, heading towards the Piedra bridge, you don’t have to cross the Ebro Chiquito, beyond the abattoir, the power station, and Leonor’s place, Don Venancio dropped by Leonor’s place beforehand and screwed Modesta for all he was worth, a sharp bouncing screw, with no great finesse, Modesta thought him a bit absent-minded.

  “Don Venancio was a bit odd. He wouldn’t let me rinse his privates down with permanganate and he started praying to Christ Our Lord. He was also retching and squinting a bit, maybe something was paining him, his head or a tooth, who knows?”

  Don Venancio was devoted to music and played the harp with a steady hand, only he used to write arp without an aitch.

  “Wouldn’t he remind you of King David?”

  “Not really. Who he reminds me of is Mary Pickford.”

  Don Venancio did not kill folks but he used to abduct women, all of them Reds, it was a hoot, he used to abduct women and afterwards he would jerk off.

  “It takes all sorts! And what did he get out of it?”

  “I really couldn’t say, and the worst of it is that now we can’t even ask him.”

  Don Venancio began to go off the rails a bit when Monsignor Múgica, the Bishop of Vitoria, left the Nationalist zone, that must have been about halfway through October, Don Venancio was a very sensitive soul and a devout Catholic and ever after that incident he never fully recovered.

  “Look here, Modesta, give this gold sovereign to your mother at sundown, not beforehand, and tell her that it’s a present from me and to keep it well hidden away and not to show it to anybody.”

  Don Venancio reached the cemetery about six o’clock in the evening, kneeled down before the tombstone on his parents’ grave, Don Miguel and Doña Adoración, and calmly said a Rosary for them, the sorrowful mysteries, nothing about the joyful or glorious mysteries; when dusk began to fall, he got into a niche, took off his trousers and his drawers, fondled his sticky, drooping privates and drank the poison along with a bottle of Franco Española red wine—the vineyard is not far off—after that Don Venancio never opened his eyes again but apparently he did something odd for his false teeth fell out.

  “Why that’s just fancy!”

  “Indeed, but Don Venancio was always a bit touched, that’s the truth.”

  Robín Lebozán woke up feeling sick, his bones aching.

  “Shall I bring you an aspirin or a bowl of soup?”

  “No, coffee would be better, bring me a coffee with milk.”

  Robín Lebozán’s whole body started to shiver and shake. Miss Ramona placed two more blankets on the bed and made up a hot-water bottle for his feet.

  “That’s because the fever is rising in you, just lie still, when you break out in a sweat you’ll feel better … This is all we needed to set tongues wagging!”

  It took Robín Lebozán three days to get well. He ran a very high temperature and was even delirious.

  “Did I talk a lot of baloney?”

  “No more than your usual, you threw a fit of jealousy and called me an unfaithful spouse …”

  Miss Ramona gave a cool, knowing smile.

  “I’ve never thought of marrying you, Robín. I hardly ever think idle thoughts.”

  Robín Lebozán replied with a gallant smile:

  “Pardon me, Mona, apparently I did indeed think of it, what do you expect! I spend my life daydreaming about everything.”

  As a result of the bullet wound he got in the chest, Camilo the gunner was given an honourable discharge and sent home, every cloud has a silver lining and endurance brings its own reward. My God, that was some punishment he took in the neck! But that was when they removed the Sacred Heart from his shoulder! The doctors were none too skilful with the anesthesia, nor swift with the scalpel, nor when it came to the red tape either, there’s no hurrying folks in high places, naturally, apparently they were snowed under, the Military Government gave him a form with two or three mauve stamps on it: By order of the Rt. Hon. Gen. Commanding Officer VI Army Corps, permission to travel is hereby granted to Camilo N. N., Private in the 16th Reg. Light Art. to travel hence to Negreira (Corunna) for the purposes of establishing residence there, having been declared unfit for armed service by the Military Medical Board. The said journey shall be undertaken by rail and the expenses thereof shall be borne by the State. Authorities along the route are hereby requested to allow him travel without let or hindrance and shall undertake to afford assistance and supply whatever rations be necessitated in the circumstances. Logroño, June 21, 1937, 1st Year of Triumph, Military Governor, signature illegible.

  “But why didn’t they pack him off to Padrón?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he was on the run from some sweetheart or other that he didn’t want to marry, how would I know?”

  The sergeant major who handed over the document gave him a nasty smirk and said:

  “To hell with it! All this is over for you now and you still fresh as a lily! Well, much good may it do you! You young scoundrels have all the luck.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Suddenly it was as if we had been talking about the conquest of Mesopotamia. Miss Ramona’s father, Don Brégimo, didn’t want a dreary funeral with wailing and gnashing of teeth. Don Brégimo had a healthy respect for life, he used to play foxtrots and charlestons on the banjo and he ordered fireworks for his funeral. Robín Lebozán told Miss Ramona:

  “You were saved by your father, but well you know that nobody could save me from weariness, and that’s very harrowing, Mona, very harrowing indeed, believe me.”

  My uncle Claudio is getting long in the tooth but nothing ever makes him turn a hair. Nothing that may happen in this base world can throw him off his stride.

  “They’re adventurers each and every one of them, son, adventure may justify the life a man leads, that’s for sure, just take Cecil Rhodes, for instance, or Amundsen, the conqueror
of the South Pole who died at the North Pole, but that’s another matter, the worst thing in this life is to go about scattering death. Spain is not a slaughterhouse, those bloody false heroes have no wish to work but would rather run about in search of adventure, appeasing miracles and defying God and His very plans. For you the most that can happen is that you lose your life, all of us will lose our lives sooner or later, but first they will lose their dignity, you get what I’m driving at, then their decorum, for in the wake of adventure will come starvation, that’s always the way, and then the destitution of souls, the auctioning off of conscience.”

  The Casandulfe Raimundo took a turn for the worse, his leg swelled up and his temperature rose to 38. 5C. They had to readmit him to hospital, this time in Nanclares de Oca.

  “Do you know anybody in the Nanclares de Oca Hospital?”

  “I do, why?, I know somebody nearly everywhere.”

  “For goodness sake! Some people have all the luck!”

  In the Nanclares de Oca Hospital, the Casandulfe Raimundo made friends with the Requeté Corporal Ignacio Aranarache Eulate, Pichichi, for whom he had a letter of introduction from Don Cosme, the tuba-playing innkeeper.

  “How is Doña Paula keeping?”

  “Fine, ruling the roost as usual.”

  “What about Paulita? Christ, but she’s a sight for sore eyes!”

  “She’s fine, too, last month she had the colic.”

  “For goodness sake!”

  Over Orense, many leagues away, the storm is lashing down. Sprat wraps herself in her Manila shawl covered with little Chinamen with ivory faces, three hundred Chinamen at least, maybe even more, and she prays the Litany of Our Lady: turris davidica, ora pro nobis, turris eburnea, ora pro nobis, domus aurea, ora pro nobis. Sprat’s may even be the finest Manila shawl in the entire province, perhaps even in the whole of Nationalist Spain, not even Pepita from Saragossa, nor Lola from Burgos, nor Apacha from Corunna, nor Petra from Salamanca, nor the Chiclana woman from Seville, nor the Turkish woman from Pamplona, nor the Madrilenian woman from Badajoz, nor the Fairy Cake from Granada have anything that could even hold a candle to it, Sprat’s is quite some shawl.

  “How much do you want for it, Doña Pura?”

  “It’s not for sale, sir. However much you offer, sir, the shawl will not leave this house.”

  The wooden St. Camilo that Marcos Albite made for me is the best in the world, it has a stupid looking face but it’s fine, it’s a delight to behold.

  “Don’t take it off to the war with you. You don’t want to lose it or get it all smashed up.”

  “No, I’ll give it to Miss Ramona for safekeeping.”

  “She won’t laugh at us?”

  “I don’t think so, Miss Ramona is a charitable soul and very well-mannered.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  The authorities never found out but the Segovian Don Atanasio Higueruela, a sort of wizard whose wife ran off with a Moor, was a Rosicrucian, he had a heraldic shield and the four roses tattooed on his arm, it’s just that he never used to roll his sleeves up. Don Atanasio believed in the transmigration of souls, in the brotherhood of mankind, and universal gravitation.

  “Look here, Señor Higueruela, the sensible thing is not to shout your opinions from the rooftops; you might get away with universal gravitation, but keep the others under your hat for people have wicked minds and you might be letting yourself in for a nasty shock.”

  “You think so?”

  “Look, if I didn’t think so I wouldn’t be saying this!”

  Blind Gaudencio is his own master.

  “Gaudencio, a peseta for a mazurka!”

  “Depends which one.”

  Rosalía Trasulfe, the Crazy Goat, never breathes a word of complaint.

  “I was patient and God rewarded me with the sight of him dead like a cat flattened by a truck, what you have to do is wait, just bide your time, the Good Lord will eventually strike down the best of them, and that bugger is dead now, not that he was the best of them, of course, but there’s no need to tell you that for it’s something you know only too well.”

  Ignacio Aranarache Eulate, Pichichi, studied for the priesthood at the Tudela seminary but he never got to say Mass, he got out in the nick of time and now he’s studying law in Valladolid, he’s in third year already, the lad is a good sort, a bit on the short side, but he has a heart of gold, a bullet went through both his legs but he’s nearly over it by now.

  “That bloody Don Cosme, is he still tootling on the tuba?”

  “Indeed he is, and very well, too, I believe.”

  “How are things working out for him at the Treasury office?”

  “I don’t know. Swimmingly, I suppose.”

  Pichichi speaks admiringly of a relative of his, a distant uncle, Don José María Iribarren, the author of the book With General Mola: New Scenes and Aspects of the Civil War.

  “Those pages brought my uncle nothing but vexation for the undercover soldiers in Salamanca wanted to rub him up the wrong way and they very nearly succeeded.”

  Nuncie Sabadelle continues to bestow her charitable favors upon Blind Gaudencio.

  “What harm is there in a man and a woman going to bed to mess about? Do you think blind people have no feelings or what?”

  Gaudencio is deeply grateful to Nuncie Sabadelle.

  “Shall I play the Blue Danube?”

  “Do.”

  “Or what about the Yira, yira tango?”

  “Play that too.”

  Gaudencio likes to hear Nuncie’s sweet, melodious voice and to gently fondle her ass.

  Pichichi’s relative had been secretary to General Mola, the latter quite capable of intervening in no uncertain terms, if he doesn’t watch out he’ll miss the boat and find his biographer dead, buried, and already kicking up the daisies. According to Pichichi, his uncle’s persecutor was a certain fellow who used to write articles in the newspaper outlining what you should do so as not to be cheated when buying a used car.

  “So how come he has such influence then?”

  “How would I know?!”

  The Casandulfe Raimundo is terrified of undercover soldiers, those ministries in Burgos and Salamanca, well, in other places, too, are even more dangerous than the front line, undercover soldiers are cowardly sons of bitches, what they’re after is to prosper furtively even though it means selling their own grandmother to do so. What do they care whether they go about spreading calumny, grief, or even death, you offer the dead confession and that’s it over and done with, brimming over with zeal, do you see what I’m saying, what you need is for the boss to notice your patriotism. Long live Spain! there’s no call for things to be all hunky-dory, it’s good enough for things to take their own course, to go their own sweet way without interference, the perilous truth is not as handy and convenient as safe mediocrity, many’s the one doesn’t grasp that but only too well I know what I’m saying, up there in the ministries anything goes: informing, traps, tip-offs, undercover soldiers shitting their britches with fear, a few days back, while he was still in Logroño, the Casandulfe Raimundo said to Camilo the gunner:

  “When all this is over and done with it’ll be the pen pushers that will call the shots, mark my words, the judiciary and the press and propaganda people, the undercover soldiers are well organised and instead of frequenting whorehouses they spend their time mulling over whatever they feel like, they’re forever praying in order to butter up the wives of military personnel and win their backing—from the Colonel upwards—the one thing they have no wish to hear are gunshots, they earn a living and save their skins, while we’ll always be on our uppers and we risk—even lose—our lives at times but that hardly matters.”

  Pichichi also sees a dicey, uncertain future ahead.

  “Even the fiercest fighting bull can be led by the nose, that’s as clear as crystal, nor do I see any way around it. It’s unfair, don’t you think? and God shouldn’t allow such things to happen, but God isn’t even aware of suc
h goings-on, maybe he doesn’t care either. When that bullet hit me I cursed God and I didn’t kick the bucket, nor did God punish me, I haven’t kicked the bucket yet—that’s a sure sign that God doesn’t give a fig about us, and it’s not everybody you can say such things to. Have you ever thought of committing suicide? I haven’t, I don’t think you should ever commit suicide, just in case.”

  The sands of time run out for each and every one and Rosicler grew up, as all women do, alluringly.

  “Today I’m going to be unfaithful to you with you-know-who, Mona.”

  “What a slut you are, Rosicler!”

  The sands of time run out for each and every one, the dead included.

  “But how do they manage to tell the time if they can’t see a clock?”

  “That I really don’t know, I really know hardly anything of what goes on but I’m making the best of a bad job.”

  Robín Lebozán doesn’t suppose he was ever lucky in his whole life.

  “Maybe things would have gone better but I couldn’t get used to the family, Mona, I mean my family, they’re all idiots. I never learnt to live in the city and that, too, has it’s price to pay, my family are boring, cheerless, unaffectionate disciplinarians, my family is united only on the surface and they kill time numbing themselves with the sermons of priests and nuns and creating bad humor, bad blood. My family are like Venice, just like the city of Venice, Mona, living on memories yet slowly but relentlessly sinking unawares. For years now my family haven’t had a clue about what’s going on around them, but maybe that’s all for the best.”