Felipe Alfau - Locos - A Comedy of Gestures

She was entirely too human.

And one day she went away.

Although many people said that they expected it, I think it was more or less a surprise to all. To me it was more than a surprise, it was a revelation, which opened my eyes further and left an empty feeling in my soul.

I remember that there was much talk and confusion about it. I remember seeing the boys in circles in the patio of the school and the priests doing their best to break these circles. I remember how the younger students questioned the older ones upon the matter and were left in greater darkness after their complicated explanations. And then I heard my mother discussing it also among some friends who came to the house. She was saying something about a cloud of disgrace hanging over the Bejarano family. I remember hearing the word incest for the first time and hearing it often.

I heard someone say that it was bad enough for a nun to elope, but then with her own brother. And the whole village was aroused and there were contrary opinions about the whole thing. Some say that her elder brother had been seen the day before, roaming about the village although they did not know when or how he had arrived, that he had even gone to the convent and had been seen talking to her but that no one suspected anything but a brotherly call. Some other people said that he had not been seen at all. To me everything was confused. All the priests and nuns were in the habit of calling everyone brother and sister and mother and father and I had lost the sense of family relationship to a high degree. I remember thinking that perhaps they spoke of her brother because she was a Sister. In short, I don’t know what I thought of the whole thing.

I asked everyone I knew well. I asked my friends, but for once there was something about which Cavañitas and Alfau knew no more than myself. And then one day I spoke to my mother:

“Why do they think it so bad for a nun to take a trip with her own brother? I think it is perfectly all right, don’t you?”

My mother looked at me very intently and said slowly:

“Yes, of course. It is not that. It is because some valuables disappeared from the convent chapel and it seems that they took them.”

“And is that what they call incest?”

And my mother looked at me still more intently and took a step forward. I drew back as the scene of her coming on a white horse flashed through my mind and then she said:

“Well. not precisely,” and the tension was released and I feared to ask more.

And then the other thing happened which added so much consternation to the school and the whole village.

Three days after the foregoing incidents, Cavañitas, Alfau and myself were talking in the grounds of the school near the building. We were talking about Sister Carmela and Cavañitas was telling us of something he had heard from some priest. There were other boys and priests about.

Suddenly we heard a thud. I can hear that sound this very moment. It was like a clothesbasket falling on hard pavement, and we turned around and beheld about five yards away something like a dark bundle and a red liquid coming from it.

I still feel the chill I felt that moment. I don’t remember who cried first. I know I did not. I was paralyzed. But I heard voices and then some priests came forward and leaned over. The boys rushed up also and the name Padre Inocencio. Padre Inocencio. Padre Inocencio. filled the air carried by every mouth.

And once more, in my mind, I saw my mother advancing rhythmically, fatally on the white horse in time with the cries: Padre Inocencio, Padre Inocencio, Padre Inocencio.

This thing happening suddenly in the middle of our conversation about Sister Carmela created a fearful association between both things. I felt that there was an intimate connection between this sudden death and her elopement. It was such a shock that for an instant I thought and felt with unique clearness.

I knew for a second that the behavior of Sister Carmela must have affected Padre Inocencio as much as it affected me. For a moment I realized what I had felt all along for that extraordinary woman and what I felt I knew that others could feel also and a man more strongly. Why these thoughts swept my brain is a thing I do not know. And then I thought I had the key to the dramatic mystery. But now I doubt again.

Perhaps it was only my imagination, perhaps the other boys fancied strange things also, as clearly as I thought I did. We had so many shocks in those schooldays, we were so sleepy and tired, we suffered so many hallucinations. I even doubt now what I saw. Perhaps half was reality and half our fancy, perhaps half was a dream and half nightmare. We were pathologic cases, we were mad and insane; in short, we were the students , a bunch of emaciated nervous wrecks.

All this happened toward the end of the term. The next day the school was closed and we were told that Padre Inocencio had been the victim of an accident, that, while leaning out of a window, he had suffered a fainting spell and fallen down. But those words carried no weight. Why did they carry no weight? Why did we all know that it had been suicide? Why did we pick the disconnected happenings and weave them into a complete drama? Perhaps it was our childish intuition sharpened by all that suffering, by that maddening constant vigil, by the morbidity which we could not escape. Indeed, we were the students , but the problems of life which confronted us were just as puzzling and abstruse as the problems in our classes. They were forced upon us and were too much for our youthful hearts and minds. What we saw from life was as confusing as what we saw in books but more intense and puzzling and dramatic. As it was, it left a deeper track in our spirits and in our flesh and by creating a zone of inattention it helped to make the other things still more foggy.

I need not say how I felt, how we all felt after these last experiences. School became more and more unbearable if possible. I remember the Masses that were sung for the soul of Padre Inocencio as something terribly drowsy through which I invariably went to sleep. I remember that I felt incapable of going through with this life. I remember the overwhelming sleepiness and obsession of those two dogs, growing into a constant panic which maddened me and I felt in my senses that everything was coming to an end soon, that it could not last, that the drama was closing.

And then one day Cavañitas suffered a tremendous punishment. Cavañitas, who was very skilled with the sling, had brought the school dog down with a stone in the head and the dog had to be shot.

That was fate and the first sign of protest which started me into action. When Cavañitas came out from his punishment, I embraced him and told him to let me have a sling.

That night as I went home I held the sling in my hand and carried my boina full of stones; of freshly hammered stones, with good sharp edges, just right in size. And I knew that I was almost as good as Cavañitas with the sling, that I seldom missed the mark, and what is more, I knew well that a sling properly used can throw a stone with a terrific force.

That night I was feverish, there was rage in my heart which I have seldom felt afterwards. When I reached the street, I stood at one end and saw it stretch before me, narrow and long. Only a lamp post at the other end. A shadow detached itself from one of the walls and stood in the center. It was the dog and he began to bark.

That had the effect of a lash on me. I remember hearing the sling whiz and a prolonged howl. I was in a paroxysm. I remember the dog receding and I chasing him viciously with one stone after another until I could see the dog no more.

I was possessed of an infernal fury, I felt the blood pounding my temples, and then a window opened and the dog’s master appeared and said something about the dog. I cursed him and used the foulest language I had learned. He tried to threaten me and then I slung a stone against his window and followed it with another and the glass clattered down. I remember telling him that I wanted to kill his dog and him, too. And then he went back inside calling me insane and mad, and I think he was right and I ran home.