Felipe Alfau - Locos - A Comedy of Gestures

“He always closes at six,” prompted a fellow without legs, from the floor. “He has this post during the day and I have it at night.”

Another beggar told him the name and address, explaining how to get there, with his only hand.

“ Una limosnita por amor de Dios ,” said the fellow without legs.

‘‘ Perdone, hermano ,’’ answered Garcia, rushing away. He did not want to part with his only coin.

Garcia walked in the direction he had been given, his heart sinking at every step. He felt surprised after a while at finding himself in a prosperous part of the town, by far more prosperous than the one in which he lived. He found the address in a modern building.

Before the doorman, Garcia hesitated, and if the doorman had not noticed him, Garcia would have turned on his heels.

However, the doorman had seen him and the doorman had asked:

‘‘Que desea, caballero?’’

It was too late. Garcia inquired purely in a formal way, feeling quite sure of the answer:

“El Señor Don Laureano Baez?”

‘‘Principal derecha,’’ was the laconic answer.

Garcia was nonplussed. He ascended two flights of stairs making different conjectures at each step. He rang the bell on the right-hand side door and before he had time to think what he could say if this Laureano Baez was not the Laureano Baez, a girl opened the door.

“El Señor Don Laureano Baez?”

“Si, señor, pase usted.“

Garcia advanced over the carpeted corridor feeling like an intruder, feeling his false position when he should annoy the respectable and important citizen Don Laureano Baez with his stupid inquiry.

“Will you please come into the dining room? He is having his dinner and will see you there.”

Garcia saw an opening:

“Oh, I wouldn’t think of interrupting him now. I will come back some other time. I did not know I was intruding. If I had only known. ”

But the girl would not have him depart. He insisted, but she persisted in almost a diabolical manner, Garcia thought.

And then he was ushered into the dining room and there was his man.

Accustomed as Garcia was to remembering people’s faces, he could not connect the two individuals for the first few seconds, so startling was the difference in appearance. He was facing a respectable and venerable gentleman of advanced age, dressed in quiet good taste, sitting at a copious dinner in which Garcia’s quick eye discovered a bottle of excellent Rioja wine, another bottle of Ojen and part of a chicken roasted just so.

The least that can be said is that Garcia was flabbergasted. He felt sure that he was in the presence of no less a personage than the Minister of Finance.

And the man also recognized him and rose in the best style:

“Well, how are you? Sit down, sit down; won’t you have a bite? A customer,” he explained to the girl.

“Oh, yes?” said she with a solicitous air.

All this should have banished the last doubts in Garcia’s mind but now he felt small, shrinking, like a poor man who has come to ask a favor or recommendation instead of a reimbursement.

He did not know how to begin and fell on the chair which the girl pushed against the back of his legs. Since he gave the coin to that man sitting in front of him, every move he had taken had been forced. He felt in front of a superior character that for the past hour or so had been playing with him.[3] Following a confusion of ideas, very natural in his condition, Garcia attributed the results of mere coincidences to the powerful will which emanated from the strong personality into whose lair he had been trapped. The man was now regarding him without reserve, with a gay smile. But Garcia did not cough or swallow, he just began:

“I trust that you will not consider me impertinent if I. ”

“Of course not!” exclaimed the beggar without waiting to hear what the impertinence might be, and he filled a small glass with Ojen and offered it to Garcia, and he also pushed toward him a golden cigarette case.

Garcia swallowed the Ojen and declined the cigarettes. After the past incidents he needed some restorative and something to give him courage to go on. The Ojen must have been powerful because Garcia hesitated no more and laid his soul bare:

“I am glad to see that you remember me. This afternoon I gave you a coin.”

The beggar nodded his head in an affirmative way. Garcia poured some Ojen in the beggar’s glass and then filled his own.

“I am sorry to have been compelled to take this step, but this afternoon I gave you a twenty-five pesetas gold piece by mistake.”

The beggar raised his brows and opened his mouth, but Garcia did not let him speak.

“Of course, it is not the money. I could never dream of taking back what I give, even through an error.” Garcia emptied his glass and the beggar imitated him, dissolving his action in a gesture which meant that he did not doubt his guest in the least.

“Excellent Ojen!” exclaimed Garcia.

“Ojen Morales,” was the endorsing answer.

“As I was saying, it is not the money; of course, you know that. But that coin is not like all other coins. .”

The beggar rose:

“My dear man, you do not have to explain. An error, that is more than enough. We all make mistakes.” He turned to the girl. “Lunarito, get me my begging suit.” He addressed Garcia. “I have not emptied the pockets yet. Your coin must be there still. ”

Garcia also rose.

“Of course, it is not the money, Don Laureano,”—he felt friendly toward his host—”and I could not dream of taking it back without explaining to you. That coin means a lot to me.”

“I do not doubt that,” said the beggar uncompromisingly, and he filled Garcia’s glass again and then his own.

Lunarito entered carrying with difficulty a bunch of rags of unsuspected weight, undoubtedly the begging suit, and laid it on the beggar’s half-outstretched arms as an acolyte would lay a cassock on his priest’s hands. The beggar cleared part of the table and emptied the pockets one by one.

Soon there was a pile of coins upon the table, a pile of such dimensions that it was difficult to understand how it could come from those rags which now hung limp.

Garcia spotted his coin among the abundant copper but he was too delicate to reach for it. He drank his third glass of Ojen instead, eyeing the coin surreptitiously.

The beggar also saw it.

“Aha, there you are, sir. As you see, we nearly always get copper.” He handed the coin to Garcia. “I am sorry you had to come all the way here, although it is a pleasure to have you with us.”

Such graciousness from his host overcame Garcia. He felt that the coin was decreasing in importance. He felt for the man in front of him the utmost admiration. He was conscious of remarkable changes inside of him, he was aware that there was a revolution going on in his brain and suddenly felt sentimental. He now considered that the most important find that day had not been that of his golden coin, but that of this great character whose existence he did not suspect in the world. The broad, frank figure of the beggar was standing before him, leaning on the table flooded with coins. Garcia had never seen so much money at once. He sank back into his chair and regarded the beggar with open mouth, shaking his head with a seraphic smile.

“Lunarito, take that money and throw it in the drawer.”

“I would have never taken it back from you. but that coin. ”

“We will speak of something else, if you please.” The beggar sat down again.

Garcia turned the coin in his hands and insisted:

“No, I must tell you. Yes, your generosity. ” He felt eloquent, but somehow the thoughts seemed to escape his mind, they seemed to be thoughts that had a will and words of themselves, that threatened to pour out of his mouth, disregarding his critical ability which appeared to be weak. The beggar was looking at him with an indulgent smile. Garcia made an effort. He filled his glass and emptied it.