Felipe Alfau - Chromos

Why did he not run away if he was free to go where he pleased, if no one seemed to know him or notice him? He had been sentenced and that fact held him in its grip more powerfully than any chains or prison walls could. He knew that there was no hope. The sentence would be carried out.

He walked some more to get away from the smug crowds, the giggling, peering, cooing pharisees, and then reached streets that were empty, gray, forsaken as on a late Sunday afternoon. It was late and it was growing dark when he found himself in a street that was closed at the far end. There were no doors or windows, only a small iron door at the closed end. He walked almost the whole length of the street, feeling more alone than he had ever felt, until the dim rumble far behind made him turn around.

He saw them come toward him, several women all in black, with black veils covering their faces, and they moved down the broad gray alley in a jerky manner, their legs immobile, as if on roller skates. They came zigzagging down at him, careening ominously, their arms extended, their fingers pointing:

“You have killed-our daughter. You have killed our daughter.”

He was trapped, at their mercy. He looked about for some escape and they were closing in, like mechanical dummies, their paths interweaving, converging on him. This was the end. The only way out was the little iron door and he could not go through that.

He woke up again, but it was broad daylight. He jumped from bed and fear catapulted into his brain. He saw the open window, the light that had been burning all through the night for all to see that gruesome, immobile figure propped up against the chair, pouring out his secret, his loathsome shame. Rushing to the window, he pulled it down and then the shade. Then he turned out the light and stood there shivering, endeavoring to gather his thoughts. He avoided looking at her. He must get her out of his sight and he had no place to hide her. He could not let them find her in his room. Must get rid of her. It would be the most damning evidence, and there was a woman who came to clean up and he knew that the landlady also was in the habit of coming in and looking around when he was not there.

His immediate desire was to run away anywhere, far away, but he knew that one could not flee from such things; yet he could not stay there and again, while he was gone, someone would come in and find her. He had to stay and let no one come in, unless his crime had been found and they came to get him. He had to stay there with her in the same room, and if all went well, he could dispose of her that night. But he had to stay there with her all day.

Fighting revulsion, he lifted her from the chair and placed her into his only closet where his hanging clothes shrouded her and then pushed the door closed.

After that it was a question of waiting. He walked the limited space of his room back and forth, and once when passing the mirror, he saw himself and his own reflection terrified him. His face was all ruins, it was an earthquake. He decided to dress and after that he paced again back and forth, his hands going in and out of his pockets, the tenseness increasing, pulling back his scalp. He must do something to pass the time. He could not endure these waves that ran up and down his body any longer. Would God ever have pity on him and bring him peace and quiet, leave him alone?

There was a pot of cold coffee on his small stove. He thought of heating it but he had no patience to do anything inconsequential to the main issue and decided to drink it as it was, right out of the pot. After that he smoked cigarettes and moved about like an animal in a cage, looking for a way out. He did not want to sit on the chair she had occupied all that night but forced himself to do it, and the sensation that spread over his skin made him jump out and stand there wildly. Then he laughed and talked aloud, but his laughter and voice alone in that room was too hideous to bear. He lay back on his bed and tried to make out designs in the cracks in the ceiling, but guilty terror gripped his cranium and literally lifted him up. Thus he stood stock still, and once his eyes darted up and past the ceiling in one final appeal, and then remorse and hopelessness made him crouch and grasp his head as if to ward off the most terrible of all wraths, the wrath of the unknown.

After that he moved about, fear lashing at him, but he kept on moving, knowing that he could no longer defend himself. And at last darkness came. He lit the lamp and this set him into action. He went to the closet and flung the door open.

She came straight at him and into his arms: the same aloof, seductive, demure expression. This was eternal and he must control himself lest he go mad. Must endure anything, everything but go mad. He must save at least his mind.

Avoiding that hateful face, he dragged her to the center of the room and there lay her on the floor. The method was simple. She made too long a bundle to carry without arousing suspicion and he wondered how he had ever taken that risk. She was now heavy and he felt so tired!

His tiredness made him quieter and as such was a blessing. From a drawer he took a cheap saw he kept with other tools for small chores. All these household tools suggested to him a life of lonely masturbatory self-sufficiency culminating in this disaster. He moved with deliberation. He studied her, trying to think of her only as an object that must be disposed of. He considered the neck and discarded that as it would not make the whole much shorter. He decided on the legs, high up, near the hips, and he began.

The saw slipped and it was difficult holding her steady for the operation there on the floor. He looked around endeavoring to discover a better way and then he brought a chair over and, laying her across it, he set one foot upon her and began again carefully endeavoring to keep the saw in line.

After a time which seemed inordinately long, he had made a shallow groove, but in his cramped position, he was perspiring and his arm already tired. He hacked away desperately, his head and face burning, yet the rest of him chill and clammy, but he did not seem to be making any headway. The stuff packed around the teeth of the saw, then gripped it, and the inadequate tool bent.

He stopped and straightened up, gasping for air, and the smell of her dust on the floor, over his shoe, still floating in the air, penetrated and choked him. He decided to try the kitchen knife, and as he walked away, he heard her body fall heavily to the floor. He came back and furiously attacked her with the knife as she lay on the floor, but he soon gave that up and then stabbed away insanely until the blade bent. He cast the knife aside and, sitting astride her, pulled her leg with all his might, trying to break it or bend it, and once again he rose and, in a fit of vesania, jumped on her repeatedly like one possessed.

Finally he stopped and stood in paralyzed indecision, surveying the grisly scene, panting, bathed in perspiration, his lungs bursting, like a beast cornered after a long chase. He could not imagine what was the stuff she was made of — some devilish new invention of incredible permanence, something that would last forever, that would stand long after he had succumbed, something eternal.

She was indestructible, impervious to everything, and her face, her attitude, continued to call him from the floor, relentlessly, bent on pulling him down to her, on destroying him. He looked all around him in an atavistic reflex, and it was then that the fireplace met his intuition flush and burst upon it.

It was a large enough fireplace, and even if it could not accommodate all of her length, he could push her in as she yielded to the flames. Now at last he was her master.

He picked up her clothes and packed them loosely on top of the ashes. Then he laid her on top, head first; only her legs protruded at an angle. That was it: begin at the head and thicker part of the body. And then the same phrase flowed through his mind: The fire of his love — the fire of his love— And this time he laughed and was not frightened, and he was still laughing when he applied the match.