Carlos Rojas - The Ingenious Gentleman and Poet Federico García Lorca Ascends to Hell

“Get dressed, please, and while you’re dressing I’ll tell you everything.”

At this moment, precipitated by the tone and timbre of Miguel’s voice, I understand several truths just as the lightning flash illuminates a crossroads, a bell tower, a fountain with seven spouts, or a flowering apple tree where there were only dark shadows. Above all I realize that I’m still in pajamas and slippers. The house shoes with no back or sides Miguel lent to me, and the white pajamas, heavily starched by the one-eyed maid with a stutter, I brought from Huerta de San Vicente. I’m also aware that Miguel Rosales’s proud, disdainful air in the Oakland, when with folded arms he ignored Ruiz Alonso’s words, does not contradict the evidence that the latter’s will has been imposed on his. Finally, I deduce that Señora Rosales refused to turn me over in the absence of her sons. The others must have been at the front, on those tours of vigilance and propaganda from which they return at night, and Miguel was the only one available in the Convent of San Jerónimo, where, according to what Luis has told me, the Falange has its barracks. In fact, Miguel himself will immediately confirm the accuracy of my assumptions. On the other hand, he is silent, though I guess it in his evasive glance, about the fact that if he had resisted Ruiz Alonso until the arrival of his brother Pepe, who has a great deal of prestige and is more powerful, they wouldn’t have arrested me. In fact, and even though Miguel Rosales doesn’t know it, he is no freer to save me than I was to escape through Motril or to ask Don Manuel de Falla for asylum. Everything is arranged and must be repeated as it has already occurred in this place and in another universe.

“This clown Ruiz Alonso wants you to go to the Civilian Government offices and make a statement, and he has a signed order to that effect,” he says hurriedly, now when the two of us are alone in the bedroom where I’m dressing. “It will be a simple procedure, and I’ll go there with you. I assure you that tomorrow morning you’ll be back in this house.”

“But what are they accusing me of?”

“Nothing concrete. This bastard, and may all the demons in hell shove it up his ass, told me you did more harm with your pen than others did with a pistol. What bullshit! You see, I’m talking to you with absolute sincerity because it’s so absurd it’s funny. Well, you’ll be back tomorrow if not this evening. None of it makes any sense.”

“It’s a mistake … a hateful mistake.”

I repeat this several times, while Miguel averts his eyes. My voice, belonging to another man lost in the depths of my being, is made larger by an echo that is determined to fill my soul. He, this stranger inside me, is still unaware of the destiny that awaits us. I pity him for his anguish and at the same time despise him, fearing that his abject panic, ironically born of a final, mad hope, will affect the serenity that regulates my gestures and dictates my composure.

“Yes, of course it’s a mistake,” Miguel Rosales agrees. “It will be corrected immediately and we won’t stop until we’ve made Ruiz Alonso and his henchmen pay dearly for this.”

“Find your brother Pepe. He’s very influential and could set me free in no time. You will, won’t you?”

“Yes, yes, don’t worry about it, and I’ll find Antonio and Luis too.”

“But especially Pepe.”

“You, stop worrying. I’ll take care of everything.”

“Miguel … ”

“What.”

“They killed my brother-in-law Manolo. My father called this morning to tell me about it.”

It takes him a moment to recover while he shakes his head with lowered eyes, his hands clasped behind his back. I finish dressing and we go out together. Aunt Luisa doesn’t come to say goodbye. She has shut herself in her bedroom and I’m certain she’s praying for me. At the half-closed door to the staircase, Miguel has me go first as if we were going to a masquerade ball and I weren’t heading toward my unavoidable death. For a moment he takes my arm and murmurs very quietly:

“I’m sorry. I assure you I’m really very sorry.”

I believe I responded with a gesture, perhaps a look, as we began the descent to hell. The sun through the window silvers the tiles and glints on the rifles of the police posted on the terraces. The other man inside me, the one who suffers and fears so much, is silent now, shrinking into the depths of my being. Like an echo of the echo of his voice, I keep repeating that it’s only a mistake, a monstrous mistake. In the courtyard we’re surprised by the most unexpected of scenes. Beside the fountain, sitting at a small table covered by a cloth, Ruiz Alonso is having a snack of pastries and café con leche. He has a napkin tied around his neck with a bowknot to protect his blue coverall, and each time he leans forward to dip a piece of pastry, the curly locks of hair on his forehead fall to the rim of the cup. Across from Ruiz Alonso sit Trescastro and one of the unknown police who came with them in the Oakland. They seem somewhat discomfited by the snack, which the deputy himself no doubt demanded. On either side, mute and erect, Doña Esperanza and Esperancita look at him contemptuously.

PREPARE FOR YOUR TRIAL.

Ruiz Alonso stands and drains his café con leche in a sonorous gulp. He has great difficulty removing the napkin because the knot tightens in his fingers when he attempts to undo it. Finally free, thanks to the solicitous assistance of Trescastro, he wipes his mouth and sweaty forehead with a single swipe though the corners of his thick lips remain spotted with white. Only then does he turn toward me and greet me, lowering his forehead as if about to charge. (“The truth is that the gentleman, God rest his soul, always maintained a fortitude worthy of praise. That I swear to with my hand on the Scriptures. I told him he was detained but allowed him to say goodbye to the people who were sheltering him.”)

“I have orders to take you to the Civilian Government,” he says brusquely. “I’d be grateful if we make it fast because a good amount of time has already been wasted here.”

“Miguel Rosales also advises me to go with you, though all of this is a mistake, a dreadful mistake. What does the Civilian Government want with me?”

“I have no idea. I’ve only been asked to guarantee that you arrive safe and sound. For the moment I have no other mission. Will you follow me?”

“I suppose I can’t refuse.”

“Very well. Then let’s go right now.”

Doña Esperanza embraces me and Esperancita kisses me on both cheeks. Secretly she hands me her embroidered handkerchief and in a whisper asks me to bring it back very soon. She would like to give it to me but can’t because it’s a gift from her sister the nun in Rome, she murmurs in a hurried, broken voice. Trescastro has the wheel and Ruiz Alonso sits beside him. Miguel and I ride behind. As the car begins to move away toward Calle de las Tablas, the Assault Guards disperse along the Plaza de los Lobos.

“Miguel, don’t forget to find your brother Pepe right away. Pepe above all.”

“Yes, yes, I promise. This has to be cleared up immediately.”

“It’s all a mistake, a monstrous mistake.”

That man who lives inside me and at times cohabits openly with me to deny or contradict me, the one who desires men I’ll never love or loves women I can’t desire, the same one I hate for his fear and despise for his obstinate rancors, suddenly subjugates me as we cross the Plaza de la Trinidad on our way to the Civilian Government offices. Defeated, I begin to tremble like a jack-in-the-box and my teeth chatter between my jaws. (“At least I had the death I chose. The one I didn’t want for my son. You’ll die the death others impose on you because in this country of depravity and misfortune, those who don’t choose their death are doomed to be killed by imbeciles. Stupidity is our innocence.”) There is a flash of contempt in Miguel’s reddened eyes. No doubt, and in spite of himself, he believes that at the critical moment I’d go to my death singing verses to the Virgin of the Alhambra and insulting the mothers of Ruiz Alonso and Trescastro. He pulls himself together right away and takes one of my hands between his, as if he were going to read the lines on my palm.