Felipe Alfau - Locos - A Comedy of Gestures

It seemed that the whole city had conspired to mock him, to make him a laughingstock just at the moment when the foreign police representatives were there to witness his ridicule. He, the omnipotent Prefect of Police! Was the public beginning to doubt his omnipotence?

Had by this time the doubt vanished? That perfumed letter had shaken the last stronghold of his self-confidence. Was he himself beginning to think he was impotent? But then, the incorrigible Spanish tendency to puns graced his subconscious mind and he smiled thinking of his Don Juanesque escapades and rejected the idea.

The thoughts of the Prefect passed from the morning to that afternoon over a lunch which he had not been able to digest.

The meeting of the convention had been more annoying than ever. When he had opened the meeting, the foreign representatives had chuckled and he had overheard remarks conveying that a prefect under whose nose so many robberies were taking place should be hiding under his bed instead of making speeches at a Police Convention. If he only had the courage to tell those faces in front of him a few things, all the beds of the Hotel Palace, where the convention was stopping, would be hiding the ominous personalities of foreign representatives. After this, of course, eloquence had failed him and his speech had fallen flat.

And on top of everything, his nephew, who was now sitting in front of him, had unexpectedly appeared out of this darkness. He had arrived that week from England where he had been expelled from college for God knows what, and had even had the impudence to spend two weeks in Paris, on his way to Spain, in order to celebrate his expulsion and unexpected vacation.

All this the Prefect thought, and having thought, he said something which at first might seem not to follow the trend of his mind, but which would show to any elemental observer an intimate association of ideas and feelings.

Don Benito bounced on his seat and shouted furiously at his nephew:

“Pepe, you are a sinverguenza . “

This remark, after such a long silence, seemingly out of a dark sky, may not surprise the reader who has followed the Prefect’s thoughts, but one must remember that Pepe was not aware of what had been going on in his uncle’s mind and therefore it surprised him prodigiously. It even sounded rather comical and he pulled at his pipe more rapidly. After all, to be insulted by an uncle who has paid for one’s uneducation and still offers the possibility of a generous allowance is not so bad. But as I was saying or rather the Prefect:

“Pepe, you are a sinverguenza . I suppose it runs in the family, I mean, your father’s side. He was a dreamer and a secondhand Quixote, with the result that I always had to come to his financial aid. Some people still think that this is being superior, but I call it plain sinverguenza . “

At this moment, and at the Casino de Madrid (the place is as important as the moment in these cases), any regular Spaniard would have stood up (to stand up was necessary in order to reach across the table) and slapped the plumpish face of the Prefect. According to slapping regulations in Spain as applied to this case, one slaps the face:

First: If it is that of a stranger, in which case a duel usually follows.

Second: When, although a relative, he is not as close to one as the relative he criticizes, in which case a fight always follows.

But Pepe had spent several years in England, and many of his Spanish characteristics had been removed. Therefore let us not blame him for his diplomatic silence.

“Yes,” the Prefect went on. “Since your father died and left my poor sister penniless, I have had to take care of you and your brother Gaston, who was also too proud to work. I tell you it runs in the family. When Gaston returned from that trip of his to Paris he had undergone a decided change. It seems that that city brought out his true colors. He began to say that the allowance I had assigned him of fifty duros a month was not enough to keep a gentleman, that since he had traveled he had learned more about life and acquired good taste and that he had decided to live in the way his name entitled him to live. All this on my money, mind you, on my money! You don’t know all the things that have happened since you went away, things of which I don’t even want to speak. And now here you come, expelled from college, having wasted my money in a deplorable manner. Is that the way to repay me for all I have done for you?” The Prefect was perfectly aware that his speech lacked energy, he did not know to what to attribute this.

“But, uncle, I have already explained. ”

“Yes, yes, I know. When I read your letter, it seemed as if your father had written it. The object of an injustice! Of course, Don Quixote! that’s all. The same stuff as your father.” Don Benito was finding himself again. “Trying to make the whole world believe that all your blunders are but the result of your generous ideals and exaggerated sense of honor. Lack of shame! That is what I call it. Look at your brother. What is he now? A common professional pimp, yes, a pimp and one of the worst or the best whichever way you take it.”

The pipe dropped from Pepe’s mouth, because just for a moment the foreign qualities which supported it had yielded to surprise and his face stood there naked, unmasked, pipeless, suddenly bewildered and unmistakably Spanish:

“What did you say? Gaston a professional pimp?”

The Prefect felt satisfied. His last words had gone home. The effect he had anticipated was produced and now they were both living up to the situation. Since the conversation had begun, Don Benito had felt that they both were utterly uninterested in any words, that they sounded void. He felt, and was sure his nephew felt also, that the darkness of the city which penetrated the Casino hung over everything like a lifeless thing robbing words of their light. He felt that emotion was lacking, that far from what one would suppose, it could not be aroused by this flickering candlelight, surrounded by circumstances that were more mysterious and consequently more emotional.

Pepe, on the other hand, felt something else besides. Having been so long away from his country, he had subconsciously absorbed the foreign belief that Spain is a backward country and that when one crossed the Pyrenees southward one entered eternal night. Naturally, when he arrived at Madrid in this general darkness this subconscious belief found a strong echo in his senses. He felt like one who is dreaming (this, of course, is a feeling shared by most Spaniards who return to Spain after a long absence). Although the existence of his brother, whom he had not seen since he was a boy, was to him something mythical, the startling revelation on the whole had shaken him. The pipe had fallen from his mouth. The last chip of his foreign veneer had dropped from him, the only thing that remained to make him still feel an outsider and spectator, witnessing the phenomena of an extraordinary land without present reality, had abandoned him and his race had come out. He felt again at home. Without the pipe he had been able to register surprise and even exclaim rather convincingly:

“What did you say? Gaston a professional pimp?”

And the Prefect had been satisfied. He knew now that both of them were feeling a common emotion. He felt confidential and friendly toward the young man. His resentment against his nephew was rapidly wearing off. Both of them were victims of the same family disaster. They were both witnessing a great common catastrophe. His nephew had not failed him. (Don Benito felt that night a tremendous necessity for sympathy and moral and emotional support.) The Prefect always hated people to fail in situations. But his nephew had not failed him, his nephew had exclaimed: