Mazurka for Two Dead Men

by Camilo José Cela

  “Benicia.”

  “Yes, Don Raimundo?”

  “Run down to the store and fetch me some matches and writing paper.”

  “What about stamps?”

  “Yes, bring me two or three stamps as well.”

  “Do you want the ones with Queen Isabella or with the Caudillo?”

  The Casandulfe Raimundo smiled.

  “Whatever they have’ll do, just bring whatever the hell they have.”

  This year not many people are going to the romeriás of Our Lady of Corpiño in Santa Baia, over beyond Lalín, this is a year of the ignorant deceased, astonished prisoners, and nomads with the compass of their heart split in two, this year fewer folks possessed of the Devil are going and more Civil Guards, apparently the old ways are changing, fewer showmen and pipers are going too.

  “Is it alright to play the pipes?”

  “So long as it’s daylight.”

  Beneath a spreading oak tree a rosary seller is thumping an innocent lad with a rosary to make him spew up the Devil.

  “You swine, to want to keep that Devil within you! Spew it up! Satan, you fiendish bugger, come out of the body of that young man!”

  The Casandulfe Raimundo grows bored, he sees everything in a strange almost artificial light, so, of course, he grows bored.

  “Shall we go, Mona? For my part, even witchcraft in Galicia has gone off the rails. Why were we not born a hundred years later?”

  On the homeward journey the Casandulfe Raimundo was gloomy and silent most of the way. They drove in an old Essex which Miss Ramona had bought from a Portuguese, the solemn black Packard and the smart white Isotta-Fraschini had been requisitioned at the outbreak of war never to be seen again, someone must have made good use of them.

  “A penny for your thoughts.”

  “Nothing, I was just turning an idea that I don’t like over in my mind.”

  It rains with courtesy, love, and serenity upon the empty green fields, upon the rye and the maize, maybe it rains without gallant courtesy, devoted love, nor gentle, benevolent serenity, maybe it’s lashing down in sudden outbursts for the rain too has been robbed of its refinement, seated beside Miss Ramona, the Casandulfe Raimundo, somewhat reluctantly, spoke once more.

  “Spain is a corpse, Mona. I don’t even want to think about it but it scares me that it should be a corpse, what I don’t know is how long it will take to bury it. Please God let me be mistaken! Please God it isn’t dead but only fainted and may yet awake! Spain is a beautiful country, Mona, that has turned out all wrong. I know it’s frowned upon to say such things, but, say it I will, Spaniards have hardly the spirit left to live, we Spaniards have to make a tremendous effort and go to great lengths to prevent other Spaniards from killing us.”

  Miss Ramona and the Casandulfe Raimundo reached the village before sunset.

  “Just leave me home, Mona, I’m tired and I’m going to go straight to bed without any supper.”

  “As you wish.”

  Life trots along at the side of death, apparently that’s God’s law, some call it inertia while others don’t even notice either life or death.

  “You’re looking pale, Nuncie, you’re a bad color.”

  “I haven’t been sleeping well for three or four days now. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, maybe it’s the monthlies that have me all screwed up.”

  Gaudencio plays the accordion listlessly, the voices of outsiders cannot rouse enthusiasm in the heart, Portuguese Marta is a respectful, obliging girl, she knows her trade inside out.

  “I do what I know with the best will in the world. I’m paid to give pleasure and I ask no questions.”

  Gaudencio plays the waltz Tales from the Vienna Woods by Strauss, it’s delicate, romantic, and very elegant, Sergeant Clemente Palomares, a sergeant in the Service Corps, likes to give the girls a hard time, he enjoys tanning their hides, the truth of the matter is it’s something we all enjoy, it’s just a matter of paying over the odds or finding a girl who’ll let you.

  “I’m paid to give pleasure, so long as you’re paying, anything goes, alright? but if you draw blood, god damn you! and if you make me cry I’ll kill you, I swear to God I’ll kill you!”

  “I’m going to give you a ruby and a pearl, Marta, the ruby is like a drop of blood and the pearl is a tear, just like a tear.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Pura Sprat reeks of garlic, not because she likes it but from necessity, she has high blood pressure and she takes garlic and olive oil for breakfast to see if it’ll lower it, garlic is good against the plague as well as for warding off vampires and expelling worms, the worst about garlic is the stench it leaves on your breath. Don Ángel Alegría, orthopedics, prosthetics, collects welfare service emblems, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, prince of Spanish genius, Spanish Infantry, eighteenth-century fusilier, Majorca, luminous pearl of the bright archipelago. Don Angel suffers from inflammation of the testicles so that his works are puffed up like a cauliflower and the girls in Sprat’s place avoid him like the plague.

  “No, no, let him go to bed with his wife, and if he doesn’t like that, then let him bugger off and make the best of it, in this life we all have to bugger off and grin and bear it, Don Angel has putrid privates, and I won’t have him tainting me forever, after all, I live on my health.”

  Mamede Pedreira was sentenced to death because he was caught with arms up the mountain, a serious crime, his mother stationed herself at a bend in the road where Franco was to pass by and tossed him a note pleading for clemency, his bodyguards, thinking it was a bomb, shot and killed her, then when he read the note, Franco reprieved Mamede and commuted the sentence of death by garrotting to thirty years’ hard labor, Mamede Pedreira escaped while he was being transported to another prison and now he’s holed up in Xurxo Lameiro’s house, although nobody knows, well, his wife knows, of course, but his wife is aboveboard and a trustworthy sort, Mamede Pedreira lives down at the bottom of a dried-up well, he has a mattress and a blanket, they lower food to him on a rope running over a pulley, every couple of days he comes up at night to stretch his legs and have a wash-down.

  “As far as I’m concerned, you can stay down there as long as you wish, and the same goes for Carmen too, this state of affairs can hardly last forever.”

  “I really don’t know what to say, it may go on longer than any of us would credit.”

  Up and down these mountains, many years back, roamed Lázaro Codesal, the lad with a shock of fiery hair and eyes as clear as water from a spring, Lázaro Codesal was killed by the Riffian Moors and there’s not a soul remembers him now.

  “Not even the odd lass he left in the family way?”

  “Not even that.”

  Folks keep quiet about it but nothing is ever the same as before, much less so now, nothing ever follows the same course twice, there are clients in Sprat’s place who no longer pant for pleasure for they have breathed their last and are dead and buried, Don Teodosio, Doña Gemma’s husband, died of his heart, Visi was the tart that Don Teodosio liked better than any of them, she was always so affectionate and obliging, that lout Don Jesús Manzanedo died stinking to high heaven, the girls in Sprat’s place always gave him the slip, even though he would give them a tip of eight or ten reales, Bienvenido González, Kitty-cat, was a shit, too, but he got two good blows of a fist in the doorway, one on the throat and the other in the chest, Resurrección Penido is known as the Lark because she looks as though she is about to flap her wings and take off, the Lark got a terrible fright when she came across the body, the Lark was the first to see Kitty-cat’s body, nobody in Sprat’s place shed any tears over that death, that man was a bad lot, you could see it on his face, Portuguese Marta can read the souls of men, Portuguese Marta is justly renowned for being a good lay, randy and ripe for the picking, according to those in the know her ass creaks like a watermelon, I was just remarking that she’s not the only one that happens to, it’s said of other girls too, Gaudencio played a merry bullfighter’s paso dobl
e, Marcial, You’re the Greatest, Ricardo Vázquez Vilariño, Aunt Jesusa’s sweetheart—that’s what we all say although there’s no truth in it—also used to frequent Sprat’s place, though not often, it was mere therapy to cool the hots, sometimes they get so bad a body can’t even walk with them, any woman would do Ricardo Vázquez Vilariño, he was a tough nut and all he asked was to be let, on the few occasions he went to Orense, Lucio Mouro would drop in at Sprat’s place, Lucio Mouro had a taste for buxom women, sweet anisette, and tangos.

  “That bugger Gaudencio plays the accordion very well, indeed he plays it better than anyone in the whole wide world!”

  Clarita was left fatherless, that bastard Don Jesús, but without a sweetheart, too, the unfortunate Ignacio Araujo Cid, who couldn’t stomach it and let himself be killed in the war, chances are he let himself be killed, bastards call the shots in the lives of their fellow man and kill him with spiteful joy and the luckless die and dejectedly let themselves be killed with cautious, humbled despondency, at times Don Jesús and his son-in-law that might have been would also go to Sprat’s place, folks need relief and seek it out, that’s for sure, a fellow I don’t think ever went to Sprat’s place was Camilo the gunner, I don’t know why I say this for he’s not dead either, he’s from faraway and hardly ever sets foot in Orense.

  “Does he head more for Pontevedra?”

  “Yes, and for Santiago, especially for Santiago, folks from Padrón might as well be from Santiago.”

  The others mentioned are dead and buried now, God rest their souls! And others who shall remain nameless because everything has its end, anyway, not all the dead have been Sprat’s clients, some weren’t, there are other brothels in Orense, in his hellfire sermons Father Santisteban, S.J., calls them bordellos, bawdyhouses, and houses of ill repute.

  “They have umpteen other names as well, not that that old windbag would know.”

  Most folks harbor a traitor within them, not that it’s of such importance for it’s merely one of the characteristics of mankind, a recognized trait, just so long as you’re aware of it, when Don Casto Borrego Sánchez-Puente’s level of uric acid was lowered, he became less aggressive, before there wasn’t a sinner could stick him, the girls in Sprat’s place were panic-stricken when they saw him coming and even Sprat herself, who would bend over backwards to help, never dared take him on, better to let him leave without paying, one night Don Casto was hit by a motorcar, he wasn’t killed but both his legs were fractured nor did the driver stop to offer assistance, Don Casto says the driver was an Italian, that all the passengers in the car were Italian, goodness knows! the night watchman picked him up and half-dragged him along the street to the first aid post; apparently Don Casto shit in his britches from the shock.

  “Listen, Doña Pura, do you remember that little lieutenant with the moustache from Malaga by the name of Fermín Pendón Paz? Of course you do, the fellow that jacked off in the parlor to save a few pesetas?”

  “Of course I remember! What happened to him?”

  “Nothing, except that he was killed last night by a bottle, he was hit by one of those big soda-water bottles, and the bottle was well and truly drained dry.”

  “Poor soul! Where did that happen?”

  “Right in the middle of the street, just when he was coming out of One-eyed Mackerel’s place, there was a whole commotion and the military authorities intervened.”

  “Did you ever hear the likes of it!”

  The Casandulfe Raimundo told Robín Lebozán Castro de Cela:

  “It’s up to you to summon all the relations in the name of Uncle Camilo, I think the time has come to summon the Moranes, of course, and the Guxindes, too, it makes no difference that we’re such a huge gathering for we have important matters to discuss, everyone should have their say, and until we’re all gathered together, we should hold our counsel, Mona will let us have her house, it’s the most suitable venue.”

  Don Brégimo, Miss Ramona’s father, had been a friend of the famous acrobatic airmen Vedrines, Garnier, Leforestier, and Lacombe, who would turn pirouettes up there in the void and by night silhouetted their planes with colored lights, seats cost 25 or 50 céntimos, depending on where they were, and the ladies used to dress up to the nines in big broad-brimmed hats with veils, but that was years ago, before Miss Ramona was even born.

  All us Moranes are horse-faced with gaps between our teeth, sometimes quite big gaps, as Camilo the gunner once recounted, it is also said that we stink of steers and that we enjoy squabbling at romerías and weddings but that’s not true, it’s less pronounced in the Guxindes because they’re more mixed blood, or maybe that’s just the way they are, I won’t deny it, a race has nothing to lose from crossbreeding, indeed it gains, though at the same time the traits may be lost, the same goes for a blood line, but bear in mind what they say: the first generation makes, the second one takes, and the third one breaks, if you see what I’m driving at. Not all of us Moranes are descended from Marshal Pardo de Cela, although most of us are, at that time marshal didn’t mean captain of troops but stableman. Uncle Evelio is a good-looking Móran, Uncle Evelio is known as Wild Boar because he’s wild and stocky, Wild Boar scarcely ever ventures down from the mountains and wouldn’t even bid an outsider the time of day, during the war Wild Boar had his own problems to contend with but luckily he was well able to ride out the storm.

  “This is a feud among starvelings, real men don’t go about killing one another at the drop of a hat, those fellows are like the French, and what they’re up to is just like teaching goats tricks, it wouldn’t even occur to anyone who wasn’t a gypsy to teach goats tricks.”

  Wild Boar enjoys eating, drinking, smoking, screwing, and going for a stroll, Wild Boar is a gentleman of honorable, traditional ways, in that respect he’s just like your uncle Don Claudio Montenegro.

  “So you want to defend your fads with the gun? Fine, go right ahead, but you fire the shots yourself, don’t order someone else to shoot on your behalf, you brave it up the mountain with a shotgun and we’ll soon see, when it comes to the moment of truth folks get shit scared, folks soon get cold feet and start making excuses and asking what time it is.”

  Wild Boar has lived seventy long years and wears spectacles.

  “It’s a matter of age, when I was young I could see better and farther than anybody else but that wasn’t to last all my life, as I know full well: wearing glasses when you’re old is not the worst of it, even worse is wearing them while you’re still young, young people with glasses are either seminary students or pansies.”

  “Gracious, Uncle Evelio!, surely not all of them?”

  “Well, nearly all of them, I won’t deny the odd exception.”

  Wild Boar’s wife died many years back, over half a century ago, Wild Boar’s wife was a fine looking, witty woman who always wore a pearl necklace and went about dressed to the nines. Wild Boar never remarried, although he had no shortage of opportunities and flitted from one woman to the next like a hummingbird all his life, I love her, I love her not, I’ll give this one a son and pay for him to be trained as a priest, I’ll give that one a daughter and set her up with an inn, and so on, for his late wife’s tombstone Wild Boar ordered a slab of white marble upon which he had the following epitaph engraved: Since you were called María, the name of the Mother of God, I shall always regret not having your photograph taken.

  “But that isn’t even verse.”

  “I know, but Wild Boar was never much of a hand at verse.”

  Wild Boar graded the objects of his scorn and loathing in descending order, as follows: priests, soldiers, Italians, customs officials, gravediggers, short men, and people with stammers.

  “What about the Portuguese?”

  “No, he didn’t include them.”

  As well as having a stammer, Sabiniano Sagramón Roidiz dribbled like an altar boy when he spoke, Sabiniano was a creep who went through this valley of tears spraying everyone with spittle, he would leave them drowning in saliva, his wi
fe, Justinita Cereixal Roibós spent her life being unfaithful to him until one fine day, sick and tired of pretense and gossip, she reached the end of her tether, shut him up in the lunatic asylum and took off with a fellow from the town of Alcalá de Chivert in Castellón by the name of Felipe Albiol Forner who had a workshop where they produced sugared almonds.

  “And sugared hazelnuts, pinenuts, and other types of nuts?”

  “Yes, they produced those too, that fellow Albiol stopped at nothing and would sugar anything that came his way.”

  Justinita never played her lover false although she was even offered all the tea in China to do so, she was never unfaithful to Albiol, apparently all the urge left her with Sabiniano.

  “He’s so spick and span!”

  Justinita was the niece of Wild Boar’s late wife and so related to him through marriage, Justinita used to dress in city style and wore high heeled red shoes fastened at the ankle.

  “Not that it matters, you have to keep your feet on the ground, it makes no difference whether you’re a chink from Ciudad Real or whatever but you have to be something, this business of wearing tartish shoes is the least of it, you have to put your roots down somewhere or other, that’s all that matters.”

  Wild Boar sent for the Casandulfe Raimundo.

  “It seems that tempers are cooling off. What are you thinking of doing with that wretch? you know who I mean.”

  “You can well imagine, Uncle Evelio, everyone will have to have their say, I’ve already told Robín to summon everyone.”

  “Fair enough, there’s no hurry for time is on our side.”

  Marujita Bodelón Alvarez, that’s the Ponferrada woman who walked out with Celso Varela, kept Don Jesús’ death notice: The illustrious Señor Don Jesús Manzanedo Muñiz, Veteran Nocturnal Worshipper, Order of Slave of Merit of Our Father Jesús, Lawyer and court attorney, passed on after receiving extreme unction and the blessing of His Holiness, R.I.P. This notice may be exchanged for a two pound loaf of bread to be collected seven days hence at the San Cosme bakery, distributed as an act of intercession for the soul of the deceased.