Felipe Alfau - Locos - A Comedy of Gestures

He did not give importance to the matter. He returned to the others, they spoke and no one gave another thought to the incident. Some time passed, they all sat at dinner and through one of those things which are inexplicable in dreams, no one missed her at the table. They had forgotten her. But there was a heavy atmosphere and all seemed worried. All hung their heads over the dishes and no one spoke. I don’t think they even ate, and if one could see better when one dreams, he might have seen tears in their eyes.

After a while, something was heard rubbing a door. The sound was infinitely faint but they all heard it.

El Cogote speaks:

“Someone said, and I remember the very words:

“ ‘Perhaps it is some friend of the children who is shy and does not dare to ring the bell, but as they are afraid of the lonely corridor and the room at the end, they do not dare to open the door.’ “

The corridor was illuminated by such a dim and sad light that they all understood and there was a long silence.

Then he was the one who spoke with words of forced gaiety, which sounded strident:

“If that is the important reason that prevents you from going, I will go.” And he rose calmly and his steps resounded loudly. But when he opened the door he saw nothing but the empty stairway. At that moment, he remembered and walked to the end of the corridor and stood a moment before the door.

El Cogote speaks:

“I placed my hands upon the cold knob and as if someone had been pushing against it, the door flew open and a body brushed past me and leaned on the wall.

“It was she. Don José. It was she. changed, like a corpse. Her hair was white. She did not even look at me.”

Her frosted eyes were fixed in a vision of horror. They protruded out of their sockets, flying from the phantom which hypnotized her, which she bore within.

“You have killed me. You have killed me. ” Such were her only words. Empty mechanical words, as if by a mental repetition she had exhausted all their meaning.

What he felt in that moment is impossible to explain. It was a brutal, tearing sorrow. In a moment he reconstructed all his life linked to hers. She was so good and sweet.! And he had done that horrible thing. All the well-known love he bore for her invaded him, it swept his whole being like a squall and he hated himself as no one has hated anyone in this world.

Then the scene changed. There was nothing but a corridor, long and enclosed, without another door, and there was that sinister dusky light so typical of dreams.

In a moment he was on his knees, caressing her, begging forgiveness. But she did not see him, her eyes were fixed in space and he felt between his arms, her poor body flagellated by panic, shaking in all its fibers in agonizing gasps.

He said:

“My sister. my poor sister. ”

She said:

“You have killed me. You have killed me. ”

And at the end of the corridor, the door was still open.

At the end of his narrative. El Cogote was obviously agitated. There was a glowing flush of exaltation in his face. I don’t know what Dr. de los Rios felt or thought, but I know that the account of the dream impressed me strongly. In fact, I was so impressed that I don’t remember clearly what took place afterwards. The memories of that last and extraordinary scene rush through my mind in disorder. But from that confusion, I retain the intense feeling of a profound realization of truth which dawned in my brain like a blast in a fog, a feeling that I was living a moment of ultrarealism, emanating from Dr. José de los Rios toward me.

I remember Dr. de los Rios looking into space with his deep clear eyes. Then I can hear, without seeing anything, the coarse voice of El Cogote:

“Lunarito, come to me. Even if you were murdered before I even met you. Even if I killed you again in my dream. Do not leave me. Come even if it is a miracle. Come before I die!”

And then the door behind us opened slowly and I heard a voice say:

“Here I am.”

Dr. de los Rios did not move. I stood up and turned around.

In the doorway, with her red kimono, stood Lunarito, his mistress.

And now we come to the second proposition: how El Cogote, or Gaston, the character met Lunarito the real person.

Gaston thinks that he met Lunarito at the street of Alcala on a rainy night, but he is mistaken. Gaston met Lunarito at the house of my friend Don Laureano Baez and he imagined the rest.

It came about in this way:

One day I went to call upon Don Laureano Baez.

Incidentally, Don Laureano Baez was one of those extraordinary persons who happen in Spain now and then. His profession was begging and he lived rather luxuriously on the proceeds. Moreover, he had founded a school for beggary in which he and other teachers appointed by him taught all imaginable tricks for arousing human sympathy, from the art of declamation to that of contortion.

However, Don Laureano was not a common beggar. He was an artist in his profession and loved it. Even after success had piled upon him, he had refused to retire and at the time of these happenings he was still an active member of the begging classes, holding a central corner in the business district of Madrid. Yet this is not the point.

Don Laureano Baez lived with a girl who was everything to him. This girl was one-fourth daughter, one-fourth wife, one-fourth maid and one-fourth secretary to Don Laureano. Her name was Maria Luisa and she really meant a great deal to Señor Baez. He, a past master in the art of speculating on human weakness, had thoroughly educated her in the ways of life and she was a promising pupil.

Being a girl, Don Laureano had impressed upon her that her activities were not to be directed toward begging for alms, as she in her innocent admiration for him had tried to do; but rather toward trading for gifts.

Don Laureano had directed and concentrated her attention upon a tantalizing beauty spot which nature had dropped on a corner of her body. That beauty spot, which, by the way, had gained her the surname of Lunarito, could very well accomplish great deeds, Don Laureano had thought, with his profound wisdom, and he had even made out these rates:

For one peseta, the beauty spot could be shown.

For two pesetas, it could be touched.

And so on. It would be unnecessary to go through the whole list that Don Laureano Baez had planned. It will suffice to say that he had not left unrated a single possible use of that spot and that, in his list, Don Laureano displayed an amazing sense of values and a deep knowledge of human nature.

Don Laureano was right. The beauty spot soon contributed largely to the common capital. Lunarito became one thing more: Don Laureano’s partner, and as such helped him in many of his businesses in and out of his official role of beggar, until one day Don Laureano did something which compelled the law to offer him a choice between death penalty and life imprisonment. Don Laureano, being quite old at the time, chose life imprisonment, and Lunarito was left alone to mourn and honor the memory of her idol and look for some other master.

The day I arrived at the house of Don Laureano Baez he was not at home and I decided to wait for him.

I chatted a while with Lunarito who was pottering around putting the house in order and then, not having anything better to do and not being able to find a single peseta in my pockets, I decided to begin a story I had had in my mind for a few days.

I sat at my friend’s desk, took some paper and pencil, and began to write thus:

“Gaston Bejarano was returning home one night when he met a girl. ”

Lunarito, who had very bad manners, came near and looked over my shoulder. At that moment the doorbell rang; as I suspected it to be my friend, I rose and went to open the door.