Fernando Royuela - A Bad End

The day finally came when the imperturbable powers that be, in a historic concession to the eloquence of democracy, decided that the legalization of communism was an evil it could take on board. As it surely had to, this departure materialized under the cover of the Holy Week holidays, when flounces from the bunker were arrayed across the fatherland swathed in the thick smoke of processional candles, backed by prayers and hallowed bursts of flamenco, and wrapped in the folkloric accoutrements of the National Catholicism that gave them their substance. It’s worth highlighting that at the time, the official creed, among its many diverse mutilations of leisure, forbad the screening in cinemas of films that didn’t exalt the passion and resurrection of Christ. Meanwhile, that other Spain, choked by its exclusion from public ludic zones, embarked on a frenzy of classic petting or feeling-up, or the private consumption of intoxicating resins that had begun to enter the Peninsula from neighboring Moorish lands up the anuses of pushers still rather wet behind the ears, though they did embrace the wayward illusions of youth. In exchange for the legalization of his party, Santiago Carrillo had just pledged to recognize the dynasty of the Bourbons and to adopt as his own the two-colored flag. Released from jail by a government that didn’t know what else to do with such an uncomfortable figure, Carrillo showed off his now acceptable face by hosting Berlinguer and Marchais in the Meliá Castilla hotel on March 2. The end of furtive living was five weeks away. It was on April 9 that Adolfo Suárez took a run and a jump over the generals’ moustaches and declared that the Movement was dissolved and the CP was legal. It was party time, and in the best bourgeois style, bottles were uncorked, flowers tossed, and virgins buttered. Each latent communist cell planned its own celebrations, so as not to pollute the purity of its hammers and sickles with the bastard tools of rival groups. In the locale of Faith Oxen’s party, they improvised an open-house celebration in which neighbors, passersby, fellow travelers, and novices straight from the cradle participated alongside the autumnal staff of activists. The old girl and I showed up; she was choked by the emotions stirred, so she said, by the sight of communism out in the open once more in Spain, and I held her hand, a lapdog scared by the uncharted land the new circumstance had brought into my life. Clearly, Esteruelas had failed, and without his direct interest, I had few excuses to stay on with Faith that wouldn’t betray my lack of enthusiasm for a return to One-Eyed’s flock. By this time I had figured out how to reduce my subservience to the old girl while extracting as much profit as I could from her withered flesh. The truth is the locale was one big fiesta, lubricated by alcohol being poured out with no thought of tomorrow. It was all kisses, toasts, hugs, and bubbly, it was all ill-contained passion until Blond Juana appeared in the doorway and her scowling frown dampened the noisy partying. She was wearing her hair in a bun that was loose on the nape of her neck and threatening to spill down her back like a waterfall. Her pose was even more statuesque than usual — if that’s possible. Her breasts, her braless bosoms, loomed under the white T-shirt she wore, and it was noteworthy how her nipples stood out, and they were wonderful to behold, pert and bulbous like the enameled domes of a Byzantine church. She waltzed past my nose on her way to talk to the old girl and, turning her back on me, was quite unaware that her buttocks were quivering right by my tongue, which acted as a catharsis for my desire. She wasn’t happy. The coming out of the CP, in her view, was no advance for the proletariat, it was yet another victory for a bourgeoisie that assimilated and digested everything. Soon only limp fragments of the party would survive, because, so she argued, acceptance of the rules of the capitalist game would lead irrevocably to sclerosis. Everyone, or at least most people, was now drunk on wine or cuba libres and lightly dismissed Blond Juana’s spoilsport words at this point in their inebriation. It was time, so they believed, to enjoy the blessed resurgence of communism, after thirty-eight years of defeat — and in the middle of Holy Week, to boot. “Drink a bevvy or two, Juana, this Easter Saturday has been painted red!” But she was wiser and not so easy-going, and knew for certain that society isn’t transformed by the sedative of the ballot box but by the impetuous throb of blood. I’d downed a few glasses of wine, wanting to still the anguish the new era was bringing to my steady routines, and felt sodden with contempt for that whole jamboree around me. Only Blondie aroused my interest, that is, my desire, and the mere fact we both breathed the same air was enough to send me into an insane dither. After a good while spent wining and jawing with this crowd, I watched her go up to the floor above. Suddenly, lust jabbed its sharp spur into my heels, compelling me to follow. Nobody was upstairs, and the room normally used for their debates and intrigue was now in darkness. The only physiological activity I glimpsed was in the lavatory; a ray of light under a stall door testified to an occupant. I put an eager ear and flushed cheek to the door. To my delirious delight, I heard a soft spurt splatter the majolica of the pan — Blondie’s private music resounding like a heavenly symphony in my ears. Her melody triggered my lunacy, and, unable to curb my rashness, I seized the handle and eased the door open. The strangest things happen in lavatory stalls. The privacy allowed by these smelly places gains a new dimension when it is suddenly shared. Blond Juana, queen of her own seat, had enthroned her beauty with her jeans down to her feet and her knickers halfway down her calves. She was the Venus of the flesh no Botticelli ever imagined, a crystalline fount of a uric-acid Versailles in full working splendor. That sufficed for the adrenaline I’d suddenly released to have an impact on my organism. Boiling blood coursed rebelliously to my cheeks, and unable to tame the need I felt to touch her, I threw myself at her like a slavering, gasping troglodyte. My hands went after her breasts, and like a hugely clumsy animal, I tried to hop onto her, with no significant outcome. When she saw me suddenly open the door, she’d put the brake on the urine flow from her bladder, and the spurt stopped the moment I started feeling her up. It was a short-lived skirmish; wriggling free, she dug her elbow into my jaw and sent me sprawling. My eyes opened to a galaxy of pubic curls, screwed up toilet paper, dried up, blackened stains whose origins there’s no need to detail. I turned round as best I could. I raised my head. The shock from that blow ran right through me, was deeply insulting to my dignity. My face hurt, but what hurt most, if that’s possible, was the absolute ferocity with which she spat these words at me: “Not only do you enjoy your own deformity, you wallow in it like an animal,” said she, slowly pulling up her knickers. I was dazzled by the glinting liquid still bathing the inside of a thigh I admired from the ground. Perhaps driven by my sudden blinding, I started to cry, desperately and disconsolately, like Mary Magdalene. I’d been hurt by her hostile rejection, though, of course, that wasn’t enough to trigger such a River Jordan of snot and tears. As I blubbered, I started on a string of apologies in a sorrowful tone peppered by a spot of contrition from the toiletry bag of my heart. “I didn’t want to offend you, Blondie, I’m sorry. I lost my head. I was very hot; I don’t know what happened. I’m crazy about you, but I don’t aspire to so very much; the most I wanted was to make love to you at some point. Please forgive me.” Juana finished adjusting her jeans, not taking her eye off me for a second, as if she were afraid of another attack. When she’d finished, she went to walk out of the stall. She strode over my body, easily avoiding touching me, though not before she’d kicked me in the thinnest part of my ribs. “Pig,” she said, “if you come near me again, I’ll kill you.” Without more ado, she disappeared into the crowd. That ingenuous soul didn’t know Providence had preordained a painful moment for her, one that was intimately linked to the effusion of my liquids.