Complete Short Stories (43 page)

‘That is the truth,’ the valet agreed. ‘At first, Doña Acebo, who was still only sixteen years old, treated the wedding as another of their wild, scandalous jokes, and one that would give her an enviable social status, so they went off on their honeymoon to San Sebastián in the highest spirits. Then, finding that she was seriously expected to become her uncle’s wife, in fact as well as name, and
to present him with an heir, she felt a certain distaste and even, it may be, moral scruples, though their union had been fully legitimized.’

‘I heard some talk of that,’ said the midwife, keeping a straight face. ‘She rejected his caresses, but in a most affectionate manner.’

“‘Affectionate” is right, Doña María,’ the valet answered, no less gravely. ‘The Count was very ticklish, and whenever
he attempted any more than avuncular endearments, she would tickle him in the ribs until he nearly died from laughter and annoyance.’

The lawyer interrupted again. ‘A tragic tale! The exasperated Count, aware that he had made a serious error, but determined to teach his Countess a lesson, sued for an annulment – which proved as troublesome and costly to obtain as the marriage licence – without
her consent or knowledge. One fine morning, she awoke to find the wedding ring absent from her finger, and when she raised a hue and cry, Margalida the housemaid informed her, as she had been instructed, that she no longer had any need of the trinket.’

‘Doña Acebo resented this joke so bitterly,’ said the valet, nodding his head up and down for emphasis, ‘that the couple never resumed their former
carefree play, and soon she ran off with a young Colombian band leader, whom she had encountered at Tito’s Bar. From every city they visited, to comply with his engagements, she would send the Count picture postcards of lovers – some sentimental, some grossly comic, and all in the lowest popular taste. The Count grew increasingly morose, and took to his bed, seeing nobody. When at last he regained
his health, we found him altered and the prey to a compulsion for strange games. If we attended Mass in Santa Eulalia church, for instance, where patterns of alternate white and dark-red marble squares line the pavement, he would experience great difficulty in approaching the altar steps; there were always holy women kneeling in prayer on the red marble squares he felt he had to tread upon.
“Excuse me, good woman,” he would mutter. “Would you mind moving twenty centimetres to the right?” They would look up in great vexation, but he always got his way. The Mass priest would
blanch when he saw him, because the Count, once he had gained the steps, would wring his hands and utter a low moan of “Oo-oo!” at the slightest mispronunciation or grammatic error in Latin.’

‘I watched him once
for a half an hour at the Palm Sunday Fair,’ put in Catalina’s husband, ‘some three months after Doña Acebo’s departure. He was leaning over the counter of the shooting gallery, and behind him waited a queue of little boys, whom he made stand to attention, like soldiers. Having fired a few preliminary shots to gauge the precise twist in his rifle barrel, he bought an enormous stack of counters
and shot with monotonous insistence at the same iron plate. “Crack!” “Crack!” “Crack!” At each hit, a door would fly open, and out came a doll, dressed as a waitress, with a tray in her hands, and on it a miniature bottle of so-called
vermut.
He would beckon for the bottle, uncork it, pour the contents down the throat of the foremost boy, send him back to the end of the queue, and resume his marksmanship.
The proprietor shouted curses at him, but could do nothing else.’

‘Why did he leave the palace?’ asked the sacristan. ‘Was it to avoid unhappy memories of his marriage?’

‘Perhaps,’ said the valet. ‘But he announced that he had taken refuge from the enemy, here in the mountains. When I inquired what enemy, he answered, “Those who smoke blond tobacco; those who strew our quiet Majorcan beaches
with pink, peeling human flesh; those who roar round the island in foreign cars ten metres long; those who prefer aluminium to earthenware, and plastics to glass; those who demolish the old quarters of Palma and erect travel agencies, souvenir shops, and tall, barrack-like hotels on the ruins; those who keep their radios bawling incessantly along the street at siesta time; those who swill Caca-Loco
and bottled beer!” The last straw came with the closing of the Café Fígaro, which everyone of character in Palma used to frequent, and the conversion of its premises into palatial offices for Messrs Thomas Cook & Son. He had sat there most mornings, at a corner table, playing dominoes with the Cat-stewer –’

‘Who was that?’ I asked.

Both the schoolmaster and Catalina’s husband wanted to tell
me about the Cat-stewer, but the sacristan held the floor. It appears that this well-known figure had been cook to the old Bishop of Palma, who died, and the new Bishop made the mistake of criticizing one of his sauces. Though he kept silent his pride was wounded, and at a banquet to which the new Bishop invited the Captain-General and his staff, he served up a delicious rabbit ragout. When called
into the dining room to receive extravagant compliments, he said, ‘Yes, beyond all doubt I am the best cook in Majorca! I can make stewed alley cat taste like the tenderest rabbit. And now, My Lord Bishop, I have finished, and wish you and your guests a very good night!’ He threw his tall chef’s hat on the floor, and marched out in glory. After that, he drifted around Palma picking up cigarette butts
dropped by tourists, and accepting coffees from Palma folk who admired his spirit. He never cooked another meal. In the severe shortage of cooks caused by the building of too many hotels, the Cat-stewer was wooed with enormous offers – up to a hundred thousand pesetas a year – for his culinary services. He only spat for an answer.

‘What did the Count do about his persecution by the ex-Countess’s
postcards?’ I asked.

It was an embarrassing question. Three of my fellow-mourners stirred uncomfortably in their chairs, but kept silent, warned by the lawyer’s frown.

María, the midwife, took pity on me. ‘The Count had peasant blood, Don Roberto. It is known that, in his chagrin, he consulted a wise woman at Andraitx. Nothing can be said for certain as to the advice she gave him. At all events,
the persecution ended when Doña Acebo died, early last year.’

‘How did she die, Doña María?’

‘By drowning, also. The new liner in which she and her young band leader were travelling from Brazil to the Argentine struck a rock and foundered.’

Don Tomás hastily changed the subject. ‘The Count had the kindest heart,’ he babbled. ‘One day, plagued by his neurotic compulsion, he tried to pass from
one end of San Miguel Street to the other while dodging alternately to the right and left of persons who approached. This made him perform a hazardous dance, because it was a busy Saturday morning, with the farmers, as usual, crowding the streets and the tables outside the Café Suiza. Along roared a Vespa motor scooter; the Count dashed across its path, trying to pass it on his right. The scooter
struck his foot, the rider fell off, and the machine fell, though its engine continued to throb where it lay overturned by the sidewalk. A baker’s boy astride a bicycle, balancing a huge tray of pastries on his head, ran into the Vespa, and all the pastries were spilled. “Young man,” cried the Count to the Vespa rider, who was nursing a bruised elbow, “how dare you take your dangerous machine down
San Miguel Street on a Saturday morning?” A blind woman lottery vendor, seated on the curb, felt her skirts lifted by the wind of the Vespa’s exhaust, and let out a scream. The Count immediately paid the baker’s boy, and then consoled the old creature, kissed her hand, bought five lottery tickets and tore them up – having a soul above money – and guided her into the Suiza, where she rapidly downed
several brandies. The baker’s boy collected the pastries, dusted them on his trousers, restacked them on the tray, and rode on, the richer by a hundred pesetas. The deceased had his faults, as who had not, but will we ever look upon his like again?’

We sat talking and drinking until five o’clock, and then prepared to
depart. We went upstairs for a last farewell, before leaving the Count to the
companionship of his best friend, who was already gilding the mountain-tops. ‘The Spanish taste for black velvet,’ observed the schoolmaster sententiously, eyeing the Count’s court dress, ‘is often thought to reflect the gloomy side of our national character. That is an error. Our ancestors gloried in the indigo plant, which alone afforded them a fast sable dye to contrast with the brilliant white
of their linen cuffs and ruffs. Spanish black velvet never turned rusty or green. Guillermo did well in choosing those lilies and roses to set it off. Our friend’s darkest moods were always enlivened by vivid flashes of the purest white.’

The funeral Masses for the Count took place at ten o’clock, and every noble house in Palma sent representatives. Our village square was crowded with their sleek
American and Italian cars. The visitors kept together in a tight, silent bunch, and made me feel a peasant of peasants. Throughout the service, which the Bishop himself conducted, with the aid of several subsidiary priests, including Don Julián, I was puzzling to myself: ‘She landed yesterday, you see. Not far from here. That is why I must leave you.’
Who
had landed that Thursday? Where? ‘She’
could not have been Doña Acebo, and it was generally agreed that no other woman had figured in the Count’s adult life. María, the midwife, had hinted at a recourse to witchcraft, but since witchcraft is a subject that Majorcans never discuss with foreigners, I concluded that it would be wiser to let the problem lie.

The next day, as it happened, Jack and Gloria Stonegate – Jack is a shrewd North
of England retired businessman, and Gloria is a genius at repairing antique china – had asked my wife and me to lunch with them at Paguera, which is a few miles from Andraitx. Paguera has the sunniest climate in Majorca, which means, of course, insufficient rain, and therefore a perpetual water shortage. But against that you may set a fine, sandy beach, pine forests, and swimming as early as March.

‘Anything new happened here since last time?’ I asked Jack, over drinks.

‘Nothing much, old boy, except two motor-bike accidents, one death by drowning, a kerosene shortage, a fight between some Dutchmen in the grocery store, and a coffin washed up on the islet three days ago.’

‘The coffin sounds the most interesting.’

‘It certainly was! It contained a carved wooden doll, about three feet long
– obviously a portrait of someone real – wearing a bridal robe and veil. What do you make of
that?
Round her shoulders she wore a miniature postbag, striped with the Spanish colours, and in the bag we found an assortment of rather stupid amatory picture postcards from all over the place – Tangier, Honolulu, Blackpool, Atlantic City, Copenhagen. The name and address of the person who had received
them all had been carefully
scraped away with a razor, and there was no message on any of them – only the signature “A”.’

‘How big was the coffin?’

‘Life-size. It must have been a long time in the water. I got a good look at the cards. The latest one came from Rio de Janeiro, postmarked eighteen months ago. A yard or two of frayed rope hung from a handle of the coffin. Evidently it had been
weighted down by stones – the lead lining wasn’t quite heavy enough to keep it on the bottom – but it must have broken loose in the big storm last week. The Guardias and the priest were examining it as I wandered up. The priest seemed shocked to the core, and even the Guardias were upset. What do you make of that story, old boy?’

‘Oh, just a practical joke,’ I reassured Jack. ‘Some Majorcans
will go to any length for a laugh – you’d be surprised!’

‘I call it a damned macabre form of humour,’ Jack grumbled. ‘But then, I’m English.’

Please do not ask whether, in my opinion, Doña Acebo’s death by drowning was just a coincidence. Be content with facts. The coffined doll must be accepted as valid evidence that the Count, with a witch’s assistance, tried to procure Doña Acebo’s death
by magical means. Unofficially, my fellow-villagers do not doubt that he succeeded. They condemn his action as un-Catholic, of course, but the provocation was enormous, and how else could a Count of Deià, with a peasant mother, have been expected to act? Officially, they agree with the priest: it was a sad coincidence. Officially, so do I.

J
AUME
G
ELABERT WAS
a heavily-built, ill-kempt, morose Majorcan lad of seventeen. His father had died in 1936 at the siege of Madrid, but on the losing side, and therefore without glory or a dependant’s pension; his mother a few years later. He lived by himself in a dilapidated cottage near our village of Muleta, where he cultivated a few olive terraces and a lemon grove. On my
way down for a swim from the rocks, three hundred feet below, I would cut through Jaume’s land and, if we happened to meet, always offered him an American cigarette. He would then ask if I were taking a bathe, to which I answered either: ‘You have divined my motive correctly,’ or: ‘Yes, doctors say it benefits the health.’ Once I casually remarked that my blue jeans had grown too tight and, rather
than throw them away, I wondered if they might come in handy for rough work. ‘I could perhaps use them,’ he answered, fingering the solid denim. To say ‘thank you’ would have been to accept charity and endanger our relationship; but next day he gave me a basket of cherries, with the excuse that his tree was loaded and that June cherries were not worth marketing. So we became good neighbours.

This was June 1952 – just before Willie Fedora appeared in Muleta and rented a cottage. The United States Government was paying Willie a modest disability grant, in recognition of ‘an anxiety neurosis aggravated by war service in Korea’, which supported him nicely until the tide of tourism sent prices rocketing. Brandy then cost a mere twelve pesetas a litre, not thirty-six as now; and brandy was
his main expense.

Our small foreign colony, mostly painters, at first accepted Willie. But the tradition here is that instead of drinking, playing bridge, sun-bathing, and discussing one another’s marital hazards, as at expensive resorts with more easily accessible beaches, foreigners
work.
We meet only in the evening around a café table, when our mail has arrived. Occasional parties are thrown,
and sometimes we hire the village bus for a Sunday bullfight; otherwise we keep ourselves to ourselves. Willie disliked this unsociable way of life. He would come calling on trivial pretexts, after breakfast, just when we were about to start work, and always showed his independence by bringing along a four-litre straw-covered flask of cheap brandy – which
he called ‘my samovar’ – slung from his
shoulder. To shut the door in Willie’s face would have been churlish; to encourage him, self-destructive. Usually, we slipped out by the back door and waited until he had gone off again.