Leopoldo Marechal - Adam Buenosayres

— Alms for the poor, Doña Martina declared sententiously. But the rich can pay.

— Doña Carmen! reproached Doña Consuelo. Right under the nose of the deceased!

Doña Carmen smiled, half embarrassed, half gleeful.

— It slipped out when I was asleep, she clarified. What does it matter, anyhow? The departed won’t hear it. Nothing matters to him anymore. I washed him myself with aromatic vinegar and dressed him from head to foot. Heck, it’s just a corpse!

— You did? Doña Consuelo whispered admiringly.

— Habit, affirmed the other woman. I’ve dressed the corpses of the whole neighbourhood. I made a promise to the Virgin of Candlemas.

Doña Carmen got to her feet, rubbed her cramped knees, and took a rosary of black beads from her apron pocket.

— The Rosary, she invited her two neighbours.

— Yes, yes, they assented as they stood up as well.

The three old women approached the head of Juan Robles’s coffin and made the sign of the cross.

— Thou, O Lord, wilt open my lips , Doña Carmen began to recite.

— And my tongue shall announce Thy praise , responded her neighbours.

— Incline unto our aid, O God .

— O Lord, make haste to help us .

The Three Necrophile Sisters-in-Law, who seemed to be snoozing beneath their black mourning shawls, suddenly brought their heads together in unison.

— Just take a look at that and drop dead! whispered Dolores, her eyes darting toward the three old women.

— The very picture of piety! 2said Leonor. I’ll bet their wicked tongues have raised blisters on the hide of the deceased himself!

— I wouldn’t stake my life on it, Dolores asserted.

Wrapped both in her shawl and in the gloom that was turning favourable again, Gertrudis eyed the Three Crones, whose yellowed fingers passed the rosary beads one by one.

— Hmm! she squawked at length. High time they started pushing up daisies!

— Them? laughed Dolores, revealing her ravaged gums. Tough old coots! They’ll see us all dead’n buried.

The three Sisters-in-Law looked at each another, nose to nose, eyeball penetrating eyeball, mutually exhaling fetid breath into one another’s face. And they smiled beatifically as they inhaled that delectable atmosphere of death. Harpies guided by their great olfactory acuity, they were immediately on the spot whenever anyone entered his death throes. Fluttering, still invisible, around the dying person, they would gather his last look, final gesture, and ultimate drop of sweat. Then they would promptly materialize in the afflicted home to savour that tumultuous first moment, the shock in the clenched faces that haven’t yet yielded to weeping. And then — oh joy! — the immense night of the wake, the long vigil in the semidarkness beside the inert thing at once there and no longer there in this world; the thick odours of mortuary flowers and melting wax; and that vast silence of the predawn hours, broken once in a while by the terrible groan of someone who has fallen asleep, reawakened, then remembers.

Priestesses of an inflexible liturgy, the Three Necrophile Sisters-in-Law passed a critical eye over the details of the improvised mortuary chapel — the thickness of the casket, the size of the candelabras, the price of the flowers.

— Four tacky little boards, said Leonor, pointing at the coffin.

— The handles are used, Gertrudis added. You can’t pull the wool over my eyes. I know those thieving undertakers.

— Weeds! complained Dolores as she looked around at the flower bouquets placed here and there.

All at once they stopped talking and pricked up their ears, anxious to catch the slightest sound in the grief-stricken house. By and by, not picking up anything new, they sipped at the dregs of liqueur remaining in their glasses.

— Homemade anisette, Leonor said, not hiding her displeasure.

— Cheap! Gertrudis agreed, licking her lips.

But Dolores beckoned the other two shawled heads and whispered something in their ears.

— What? whistled Gertrudis and Leonor, incredulous.

— Only two horses for the funeral coach, Dolores reaffirmed out loud.

Now that was scandalous. Priestesses of an inflexible liturgy, the Three Necrophile Sisters-in-Law were not about to accept such niggardliness lying down. They had arranged that their dead husbands travel in coaches drawn by six jet-black horses. And they’d lodged them in massive oak caskets, with solid lead covers and finely wrought bronze handles. So what if they’d gone into debt up to their necks? Fine and dandy! After all, you only die once, and the poor fellow couldn’t take anything else to the grave with him. And besides, there were the neighbours to think about! How grand it was when the funeral coach took off, pulled by six foaming horses whose iron-shod hooves struck sparks from the cobblestones! And the coachmen in their fine top hats, rigid as statues as they drove! Next came the line of varnished coupés, the entire spectacle displayed before a multitude slack-jawed in awe and reverence! They could still hear the sweet sounds of the neighbours singing their praises. Each of them had the photographs of the cortège, framed in real English frames, hanging in their bedrooms as souvenirs of those glorious days. Things ought to be done properly, or not at all. But the dearly departed Juan Robles didn’t deserve the disdain shown him by his children. No matter what his faults, at least he’d left them the house mortgage-free.

The Three Necrophile Sisters-in-Law agreed, nodding their heads in unison to underscore their disapproval. Then, recalling illustrious burials they’d attended in the past, they felt a marvellous exaltation carrying them away to the point of inebriation until Gertrudis recalled with nostalgia the Gringo Mastrovicenzo’s funeral.

— My good Lord! Dolores exclaimed. The way the Gringo’s chapel was all lit up, it looked like a church altar! Stained glass, gorgeous candelabras, expensive flowers, and the Gringo layin’ there pleased as punch in his catafalque. The box alone must’ve cost an arm and a leg.

— Remember the drinks? recalled Gertrudis, ecstatic.

— Nothing but the best, said Leonor. And served up in crystal to die for.

— The Gringo must’ve been rolling in it, Gertrudis observed.

— Him? laughed Dolores. He owned half of Villa Urquiza. 3And to think he arrived in Buenos Aires with only the shirt on his back!

— Yes, yes, said Leonor. Some are born under a lucky star, others ’re born star-struck.

But when Gertrudis extolled the supper they served at midnight in the Gringo Mastrovicenzo’s big dining room, Dolores owned up to a certain doubt about whether it was appropriate to celebrate banquets like that right beside a cadaver. Gertrudis set her straight:

— Listen, sister, she said sententiously. Dead folks are beyond all needs, they’re free from the miseries of this world. But, upon my word, those of us left behind in this vale of tears have a duty to keep on living till our time comes.

Gertrudis, abominable harpy! The real truth was that other people’s deaths aroused in you a voracious hunger, a gloating joy that you’re still here and living at full gallop, inhaling stinks and aromas through nostrils quivering with glee, moving triumphant beside the inert and vanquished. Loathsome Erinyes! I’ve followed you through cemeteries; I’ve seen the rhythm of your steps, the mad mercurial lilt of your dance, though you hide it beneath your eighteen skirts of mourning.

— Till our time comes, repeated Dolores plaintively.

— Our time, echoed Leonor.

Hypocritical Dolores, abominable Gertrudis, toothless Leonor! In reality, they didn’t believe in their own deaths — heavens, not that! Instead, they would slip into a sort of stagnant eternity staged in the form of a wake.