Felipe Alfau - Chromos

Too full of paella and wine, the world could have come tumbling down without arousing me from that comfortable and lethargic position and while Garcia began, the words of Don Pedro ran through my mind: “Ease, ease — the destruction — your undoing — the vanishing paella—”

One day Trini broke into Julieta’s apartment wildly. Her hat was unintentionally on one side, her face congested and her dyed hair in disorder. She was in a frenzy:

“Is that beautiful husband of yours around?” She crossed the room like a tornado and looked into the next.

“No, he has not been home since yesterday.”

“Of course. Just as I thought. I knew I would miss him. The low dog!”

Julieta looked at her sister-in-law blankly. Nothing seemed to surprise her anymore.

“Do you know what? That chulo, that thief, is carrying on with that French girl, the charming Mademoiselle Gerard who called herself your friend. She and her mother are nothing but rampant, lousy peseteras. Monsieur Gerard, the poor fool, has gone back to France because he could not stand the life they led him. He should have knifed them as a Spaniard would do. And your darling Paco has brought that puta and the Celestina of her mother to live right here in the apartment two flights up.”

There came a rhythmic, rumbling noise. Garcia and I looked at Bejarano, who was fast asleep. Garcia regarded him silently, his mouth tight and drooping at the ends, his eyebrows raised, his forehead wrinkled. Then he expelled his breath with heavy resignation and resumed:

Julieta did not answer. She listened to Trini, who vented her fury in indecent language. The children looked on bewildered, and only then Julieta said:

“Don’t use that language, Trini, before the children.”

Trini left as she had come, like a whirlwind. She ran up the stairs and, with a piece of chalk she must have brought for the purpose, wrote on the door of the French women “Zorras” and departed.

That evening Paco came in and did not touch dinner. He changed clothes whistling all the time and went out without a word.

Julieta heard him ascending the stairs. She waited and listened. Then heard him descend accompanied by a woman’s voice and steps.

Julieta listened until the voices and steps faded and then laughed long. Her laugh was the same silvery laugh but somewhat strident, and the children, seeing her laugh, laughed too. Then she sent them to bed.

That night, when Paco returned late, he found Julieta awaiting him. She wore a bright shawl and a high comb. Her face had a very strange expression.

Paco looked at her quizzically: “What is the matter? Going to a verbena?”

“Look, Paco, look!” She cried with a high, shrill voice: “I am as beautiful as they, more beautiful than all of them. Why don’t you love me?” Her eyes stared and darted straight to him and all around him.

Paco was quite drunk and his sense of values deranged, but through his fog, he felt that something was wrong. He moved toward her: “Come on, Julieta, what is this? Don’t talk so loudly.”

But Julieta continued with rising voice: “It was my fault, Paco. I don’t blame you. I was careless about myself. No man likes a shabby woman. Dear Paco.” She caressed his cheek and he averted her touch as if it were an intended blow. “But now I will take care of myself for you, only for you, to win you back. It was all my fault.” She tried to embrace him and he drew away with annoyance.

“Why, Paco? Why don’t you want me? Is a little love so much to give?” Then she staggered to the bed where she fell crying.

Paco laid a hand on her: “Pull yourself together, Julieta. I am tired and want to sleep.”

She slid off the floor and, on her knees, held his coat: “Don’t treat me like this, Paco. You are killing me. I never thought that I would beg, but you have the upper hand. Nature is on your side. It has made me low. Help me— Oh God! Help me!”

“Come on, Julieta. I am tired.” He began to remove his clothes.

“But how can you do this?” She held on to him.

“Let go, Julieta! I am losing my patience.” He wrenched himself free.

Julieta was deathly pale, her hair undone, the comb had fallen down. She pointed at the ceiling: “But with her yes, with that accursed. ”

Paco’s hand crossed her mouth: “Don’t ever say that about a lady,” he said contemptuously.

Kneeling as she was, Julieta drew back livid as a corpse: “Coward, coward!” she repeated with obsession, her voice rising. “Coward, coward!” she howled.

Paco expelled his breath very slowly, then finished undressing and turned the light out, leaving her kneeling in the darkness, her voice subsiding, still repeating: “Coward, coward!”

What thoughts go through the head of a suicide before the critical moment?

What thoughts swarm in that desperate brain while the preparations are being taken for the climax? Are they fully awake? Do they go through it mechanically, like somnambulists?

What terrible moments to live through, when one knows that one is going to die by one’s own hand! In those last moments, how do they see the day? How do they regard life? Will they look in a mirror and recognize the face of the assassin who is going to murder them? Will they think of their past? Will they remember their childhood?

What force compels them to put an end to themselves, to conquer that instinct for self-preservation which has carried them through the most dangerous paths of their lives? How horribly unbearable life must be to the one who is driven to suicide! And yet, how can they go through with it? Or are they always insane?

Suicide — oh saddest of all tragedies! When a being resolves to stop his own existence, when a being puts a check to the torrent of life that flows within. When a being turns against himself in that black moment of despair and in this loneliness becomes his own enemy, to commit the most unnatural act of existence.

Suicide! How many have sought peace and rest, persecuted by life, in the dark clouds of your night? How many have defended their crazed minds by wrapping themselves in the cold armor of your shroud?

The next morning Paco was awakened by the ringing of the doorbell. It did not surprise him to note that Julieta was not in bed because she always rose earlier. He went to the door still dizzy from alcohol.

Two men from the floor below said that the bathroom there was locked and they could not get in. Paco looked for the key but could not find it.

Together they descended the stairs and stopped before the bathroom door. Paco tried the knob.

“It seems to be locked from the inside.” He turned to the men and he was very pale. “I think we will have to break it down.” His voice was insecure.

One of the men applied his shoulder and pushed, but the door held.

“You don’t mind if I break the frame a bit, do you?”

“No, go ahead. Hurry!”

The two men looked at him curiously but did not move.

“Stand clear then. I am going to break it down.”

He hurled himself against the door which gave way. He stopped on his toes holding on to one side of the frame and gasped.

The two men looked over his shoulders. They did not look long and then backed away.

Julieta lay on the middle of the floor, wrapped in the bright shawl as if asleep. Upon one of her hands there was a white glove stained black. The window was closed. In one corner was a stove. The place looked white, bare and cold.

The two men bore her body reluctantly up the stairs to the apartment, and after a short moment of hesitation, they laid it on the floor. Paco walked unsteadily behind, as if still drunk from the night before. Then the men rushed out to call a doctor and Paco remained on the threshold of the apartment, not daring to enter the room. He remained there alone, like a waxen figure, waiting.