Felipe Alfau - Locos - A Comedy of Gestures

Garcia’s voice broke here and he hung his head as if with deep resignation under the fatality of that last statement which sounded cruelly ominous. I could not stand that much longer. I made a last effort to change the course of conversation:

“Calm yourself, Garcia; you are a happy man. You said so yourself. I was just thinking how happy you must be in this beautiful garden. ”

He looked at me as if he did not understand what I was saying, almost as if he did not know who I was. And then he turned and walked away from me. He staggered forth, his arms stretched in front as if drawn by that eternal vision.

I followed. He stopped before a bush that was in full bloom and caressed the flowers and the leaves with trembling hands, with hungry eyes melting in tears. At last he held two branches and pressed them tightly. He was shaking all over and looked at me profoundly as if seeking understanding and sympathy. I approached him, but he held me away with a hand.

“It is this. it is this “

I knew he was trying to find the words that could express his feelings, but I knew that there could be no such words, and I nodded to him my understanding.

There came a grateful look into his eyes and for a long time we remained silent.

Then Garcia said:

“Excuse me,” and he wept.

IV

One day I went to call on Garcia and found his house closed and nobody answered my bell. Dr. José de los Rios was across the street in his garden and I inquired of him. He came over and told me of the sad incident which had taken place during my absence.

It was toward the end of the winter. It seems that during the days previous to this happening, Garcia had remained in his room, the windows and door shut. This Dr. de los Rios had gathered from the explanations of Lunarito, who was the only person who had seen Garcia at the time, when she brought him something to eat.

Then one day Dr. de los Rios, who was as usual in his garden, saw Garcia rush out of his front door; he saw him throw the garden gate open and run down the street yelling:

“Spring is coming.! Spring is coming.!”

Dr. de los Rios followed him and found him farther down the street, surrounded by people who were trying to calm him and children who mocked him. Dr. de los Rios took him home and administered some drug, and it was the doctor who afterwards took Garcia to the insane asylum.

And I thought:

So it was Dr. de los Rios, the man whom Garcia had accused of insanity, the same man whose sanity I had doubted for a moment, who had finally taken my friend to the asylum. And I kept on thinking about the strange irony of life while Dr. José de los Rios explained to me the case of Garcia.

According to him, it was a case of temporary insanity and he did not doubt that with the proper treatment my friend could recover permanently. Dr. de los Rios spoke of nervous disorders, of their causes and effects. He mentioned weakening of the spine and then commented on bad habits. But he spoke without the slightest shade of moralizing.

I received the impression that he had been watching over Garcia for some time and that Garcia had confided in him. I also received a pleasant impression from Dr. de los Rios. His whole personality was very agreeable. He was a man who created the impression of being clear physically and mentally. His eyes were blue, his hair and pointed beard as well as his mustache blond, and his complexion fair. He spoke with a quiet voice and air, and also with precision free from pedantry. I liked Dr. José de los Rios very much and should like to dedicate a chapter or two to him, but will leave that for a better occasion.

Dr. de los Rios was right. Garcia only suffered temporary insanity. He spent only one year at the asylum and was released.

When Garcia returned to his house I called on him. I had lacked the courage to visit him at the asylum. Another sad blow awaited me. I remember that Lunarito led the way upstairs and that I saw Garcia sitting by the balcony in his room, in exactly the same position in which I had seen him the last time. But this time he did not rise to meet me. Lunarito led him by the hand to me and then I discovered that he was blind.

My feelings are easy to imagine. I had already grown so fond of Garcia.! We embraced each other long and tightly and I stroked his white head but made no comments.

And then I noticed another novelty: two huge mastiff dogs who made their entrance silently into the room and stood at both sides of the chair where Garcia sat, after our greetings. I have forgotten to mention that Garcia all his life had experienced a mixture of fear and repugnance toward dogs that was one of the most marked features of his character. I was consequently greatly surprised at the appearance of these two magnificent specimens of the canine family, whom Garcia seemed to treat with decided friendliness.

I remember my friend’s speech and I can still hear his resigned voice:

“That whole year of darkness. like a void in my existence of which I hardly remember a thing. And then to recover my reason only to be more conscious of this new misfortune, of this new darkness from which I shall never emerge. Can you realize it?”

And I did not think I could.

Garcia continued, lowering his voice, pursuing his idea like a man obsessed:

“Yes, that year. that year was only the end of a longer drama, of my whole past life that was fortunately. or unfortunately. torn from me completely. Looking back now, it seems as if my whole existence belonged to some other being, a being whose life was a continuous internal storm and an external farce. Yes, during that year in which my mind went to sleep I feel that my whole being was substituted. I have no recollections in detail but I have vague and great subconscious feelings that terrible things took place, things that no man alive, mentally awake, could bear to see, much less experience. Yes, my whole past life was torn from me. I have been born again, nothing remains from that, nothing except one thing, a thing that is eternal, a thing. ”

I stood up:

“Stop, Garcia. don’t say it. I know what thing that is.”

“Yes. only that thing.”

My friend’s voice was now still lower and concentrated like a coarse whisper. The two dogs were rubbing their heads on his sides.

“I wish I had never recovered my reason, because it is so painful to look back into one’s own life and see it clearly. Since my childhood that love for my mother, that assumed proportions which later frightened me. To live up to her slightest wishes, to live only for her. Do you understand me?. ”

I had slowly receded from Garcia but he had not noticed it and his voice had grown lower, dimmer. The dogs had grown restless and noisy, I could hear no more for a while. When I approached Garcia again he was finishing:

“. which every year came with the spring and never left me, until I came to fear that season that became associated with my whole life. And it was maddening to think I could not check its pace, to know that it was ominously advancing to destroy me, to know that it never fails, that there is no hope, that spring always comes.”

When I left Garcia it was quite dark and as I walked down the street, I heard the two dogs barking for a long time.

V

One day I took Garcia for a walk in El Retiro. It was again the month of May. We were silent, Garcia held my arm and leaned on a cane. He said after a while:

“Let us sit down and then tell me all about the day. You know I cannot see it.”

We sat down on a bench, and I did not know what to say.

*’It is very bright today, Garcia. The sky is blue. you know the sky of Madrid. ”

“Yes, I remember it. I can see it within me. Yes, how blue it is!”

“Yes, very blue, Garcia, and the sun is bright. “