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

“What did Pepe Rosales want?”

“He moved the guard aside with a backhand slap when he tried to block his way. He kicked the door open, rushed to this desk, and began to pound it with his fist. ‘May I ask how you’ll put a stop to the murderers’ crimes? How long will you permit this rabble to dirty us all with their crimes?’ ‘Pepe, sit down, be quiet, and listen to me,’ I replied very coldly. ‘No matter how many people are killed by this rabble, as you call it, it’s less of a sacrifice than if I have to shoot someone against my will. Here there’s no time to try anyone. When I hesitate over the name of a prisoner, I consult Sevilla by phone, and Sevilla always orders me to shoot him. On very rare occasions I’ve come across acquaintances, because I never had friends and you’re not one of them. I also called Sevilla then, to tell them that on my own responsibility I was releasing the man, and no one argued with my decision. This is a war without mercy or quarter in which I would have requested any duty except executing Spaniards as if they were rats or Moors. This obligation and no other fell to me because that’s how God wanted it. I probably differ from the men in the Black Squads only in that they enjoy killing, while I can’t sleep when I think about the shootings. Yet some of us continue to meet an unavoidable responsibility, which is safeguarding the civilian population.’ Frowning, his head lowered, his rage subsided, he asked me what position suited him in Granada, realizing he hadn’t been born to be an executioner or a murderer. ‘Pepe,’ I replied, ‘the first thing you should do for the greater glory of the new Spain is to go and sleep off all you’ve had to drink today.”’

“You wouldn’t talk to God the way you talked to Pepe Rosales.”

“No, I told God that same day: ‘Your Excellency must have lost Your mind over the years.’ Just like that, just what you’ve heard: ‘Your Excellency must have lost Your mind over the years.’ I didn’t know then that I was going to die. I knew I was sick because I always had been but couldn’t have imagined the end would come so soon. When the doctor decided to tell me the truth, I came back to this office. I gave orders not to be disturbed until they heard from me again, took all the phones off the hook, and prayed again. ‘With my days numbered, I ought to reaffirm my conviction. Your Excellency has lost Your mind in Your old age and don’t know it yet. I, on the other hand, know I’m going to die and for this reason ought to tell You about it.”’

“Commander Valdés, I’m not God, only an innocent man who’s been persecuted and taken prisoner. I beg you again to tell me only the reason for my presence here and the motive for your confession.”

“I supposed you would have guessed them,” he mumbles without looking up from his hands.

“I can’t because I never imagined anyone like you.”

“Then leave. Tonight I’ll call Sevilla and tell them that tomorrow I’m going to release you. Your fate doesn’t concern me once you’ve left the offices of the Civilian Government, but I hope you know how to survive me.”

He’s telling the truth and his truth means my life. But suddenly the man of flesh understands his double inability to write from now on, and to live without being able to write. A good part of his indifference infects me on this night that resembles a stranger’s delirium, though in a certain sense it seems as distant as my earlier panic. As remote as my brother-in-law’s death as recounted by my father. (“Son, promise me you’ll be careful! Swear it to me, yes, you have to swear!”)

“You won’t release me and won’t dare to kill me either without telling me why you interrogated me personally. Or why you pretended to interrogate me, because in reality you didn’t do that either.”

“I promised Pepe Rosales.”

“That’s not enough and you know it very well.”

“Before you know it I’ll be in the presence of my Maker and I’ll respond to all his charges. The last must be the certainty of His madness in view of this war and my destiny in it, as well as my sincerity in reproving Him for it. With or without morphine, I’m almost indifferent to death, but His punishment if I’m innocent terrifies me. Even though you may not believe it, even more than honor I respect justice … ”

“Yours or someone else’s?”

“Justice! Why do you bring that up now? Don’t interrupt me or soon I won’t know what I’m saying. Look, a man who dared to call God crazy in full and absolute knowledge of his own impending death must be a lunatic. Each day I look into my eyes in the mirror when I shave, and I tell myself: ‘Valdés, you’re crazy, no doubt about it. When the hour of judgment comes, and it’s very soon now, and God looks at you the way you look at yourself in this mirror, you’ll have only one defense … ”’

“Telling him you were insane when you accused Him of madness.”

“Exactly. Then I conclude: ‘Any intelligent person in whom I confided my intention would find himself obliged to prove it.’ Very well, you’re that person. Assure me that I’ve lost my mind and I’ll die at peace with my conscience.”

“I don’t know whether your God is or isn’t deranged, because there’s no doubt we’re talking about different gods.”

“There can be only one because His power is indivisible!”

“In any case, I wonder if yours won’t ask for an explanation from the people you shot and allowed to be murdered instead of condemning you for calling Him crazy. In the final analysis, you’re dying now and men won’t be able to demand liabilities from you for those crimes. For His part God, yours or mine, must put justice above honor just as you do.”

“I’m not responsible for the death of anyone. Is it possible you haven’t understood anything? It was nothing but the will of God that decreed some shootings and permitted so many crimes. Because I didn’t understand such anomalous designs, I called Him crazy and I must be the crazy one for calling Him that. If I contend this at the trial, I’ll merely be stating the truth.”

“No, Commander Valdés, you won’t tell the truth because you agree and all your actions can be explained logically, beginning with an initial resentment: that of a man as dissatisfied with himself as he is with the world around him.”

The creature of flesh speaks wearily now. He seems about to collapse like an empty suit, and one might say he holds himself upright only by leaning his palm against me deep inside. In the center of my soul, his hand is as cold as a dead man’s.

“I thought you’d make an effort to understand me!”

“I understand you very well. Perhaps in a certain sense we’re not as different as your God and mine are. You’re as afraid of dying as I was. Afraid you’ll cease to be without having been more than the executioner of Granada. Let’s end this farce once and for all. Return me to the room that serves as my cell, or do whatever you want with me. But don’t ask me to call you crazy because you’re not, and God, the God of either one of us, knows it as well as we do.”

“Is this your final word?”

“If I thought calling you crazy would save my life, I’d tell you that your God will exempt you from judgment because He believes you’re insane. In any event, lying wouldn’t change my fate.”

“My dear sir, you too have my final word,” he replies, hurt and angry, but not looking up. “I told you I’d talk to Sevilla about releasing you tomorrow, and tomorrow you’ll be free.”

“Valdés, I don’t doubt your word or your sanity. In any case, you made a confession to me and I owe you another. We’re both part of a drama whose reasons and outcome transcend us because it has already happened before, in a time and a world that are very remote yet identical to ours. You’re Castilian, judging by your accent, and perhaps you can’t fathom what I’m trying to tell you, but any Gypsy or Andalusian Civil Guard would understand me perfectly. When I left Madrid for Granada, a friend accompanied me to the South Station. With a certain insistence that was not exaggerated, for he also appeared in the cast of our show, he asked me to stay in Madrid where he could protect or hide me. I felt tempted to do as he asked but was struck immediately by the certainty that there could be no discrepancies with what had previously been foretold and staged. I came to Granada, knowing that here I would be arrested even though I tried to hide.”