Stories in English

Translation by Zsuzsi Stankey de Troya

THE PHANTOM

 (Taken from The basement and other stories)

I am unaware of how long I´ve been living in this old castle. Many nights ago —I can´t say if days or years—, I saw someone there below, at the bridge.  I had the feeling that he was also observing me for quite a while. I understood that it was a phantom who wanted to communicate with me. Overcoming my natural fear, I went down to the bridge, but where I believed to see the phantom I only found a willow branch rustling in the wind.  I took a deep breath, relieved, till something made me look up to my window and then I saw it there observing me. I don´t remember anything else. I must have fainted from the terror, who knows if I fell in the river.  Since then I live in this old castle; sometimes I see myself standing waiting night after night at the bridge; on other occasions I see myself looking out my window.

 

THE WATCHMAN

                

The lighthouse was situated on top of a mountain at the very end of the world. Some said that the watchman was as old as memory, others said he was not of this world, even though no on ever had the courage to look him in the face.         

The watchman was entrusted with the task of turning the light on in the tower, so that all travelers would be aware that they have arrived to the end of the world and beyond was nothing but the valley of no return.

The horseman spurred his horse and reached the tower on the top.

The horseman asked shouting:

—Watchman! Are you still there?

—I am still here and will be till the end of time! —answered the watchman with a strong voice.

—No one has told you that the world is no more? —inquired the horseman in a loud voice?

—The world has not yet ended.  If it were so, I would have been the first to know.  

—The world has come to its end! Maybe the fog has not allowed you to see! I am the only one who escaped the terrible disaster!

—Are you sure? —the voice of the watchman was heard as he started to climb down from the tower.

—No one is left in the world!  Your mission has finally come to its end! —said the horseman.

—My mission has not ended yet —answered the watchman behind the horseman.

The horseman looked over his shoulder and could faintly see the watchman in the fog. He couldn´t see his face covered with a mourning hood.

—I was waiting for you! —said the watchman.

Only then could the horseman see the skinless face and fleshless long arms of the watchman. A very sharp scythe sparkled through the fog and the horseman fell lifeless with the beast he was riding. 

My mission has finally ended —said the watchman—, now no one is left in the world —and he disappeared in the fog.  Little by little the sky and the earth vanished  into the horizon. 

SUBURBAN DRAGONS

 

I have it from very dependable sources, that dragons are the most delicate animals of our ancient universe. In our paranoid world history, told by paranoids, dragons have become diabolic creatures, fire breathing reptiles busy with such useless occupations as looking after kidnapped damsels in distress or fighting noble armored - knights without the slightest benefit. This unfortunate situation, as far as I understand, is due to the recurrent vice of historians and philosophers, who attribute all the evil in the world to just a few beings. The poor dragons are an example of this. The erroneous interpretation of certain illustrations which depict knights attacking defenseless dragons is the clearest example of what we have been saying.

Why do they all assure that they are being attacked? No one has put their minds to think that perhaps those knights are merely frolicking around as with any other domestic animal? Instead of attacking them with their lances who knows, maybe they were throwing them far, so the dragons could bring them back like puppy dogs.

Dragons are the most delicate animals of our old universe I can assure you and so can the old cook at that dark Chinese restaurant in San Sebastian Square.  On each first Monday, he goes to hunt dragons in the profound desert of the suburban world. With such he makes a contaminated stew that some eat happily, for the simple reason that it is made with the most delicate meat in the world.

And what meat is more delicate, in this whole world, than that of a suburban dragon, which is the most delicate animal in our old universe? If someone spits fire, the dragon is not to blame, but the volcanic seasoning. Some assure that the stew leaves an inflamed breath.  I don´t think that ´s true, but it is my duty to clarify that I had nothing to do with the frightful fire that left in ashes that dark Chinese restaurant last night. I was not even close to that place yesterday.

THE WASP IN THE SPIDERWEB

The afternoon I met Irina López Aguerre was full of premonitions in which one is not sure if what is happening has happened before at one point in one’s life and was forgotten and some casual deed reminds us of it again. I say this because when I called at her door (I have not met Irina nor did I suspect her name) an image came to my mind in antique white, or better, an image in yellow white, as the white of a washbasin stained with iodine. It was a memory from my childhood when I was a small boy no more than five years old.

I found myself standing in front of a white wall, dripping a tartarous dye, when I heard a voice. I could never remember what it said and was never sure if it was the voice of a man or that of a boy imitating the voice of an adult. Many times I wanted to think that it was the voice of an archangel confirming the existence of God. What is certain, however, is that for me the world stopped in that moment and it became fixed in my memory as if it were to be the initial point of endless repetition.

To one side of that wall there was a pale spider web and a wasp flew   into it. Immediately the spider appeared and trapped it in its web.  The wasp fought bravely and buried his sting: the spider suddenly contracted and died instantly. To see the wasp trapped and the spider dead by its side was a very disturbing and tragic sight for me to contemplate; I suppose it was my first encounter with the cold reality of death.

Only now, after so many years, I believe to know the reason that this thought crossed my mind the afternoon I stopped, without thinking, in front of Irina’s door.  Irina Lopez Aguerre lived in the western part of the city, in a middle-class neighborhood, was motherless and her father went to live with a wretched woman whom Irina hated with all her soul.  The reason that justified this hate was that this woman didn’t wait for her mother’s corps to get cold before trapping her father.  

How could people like such exist? Irina asked me that afternoon, obviously referring to her father and that tramp. It would have been a normal question between two people who knew each other for some time, but I have just called at her door and without asking her anything she started to talk about her life and a quarter of an hour later we were conversing like old friends and I even smoked three of her cigarettes.

All said up to now, would seem something taken from a surrealist motion picture, but it wasn´t like that at all, because the afternoon I met Irina I was conducting a survey for a very important firm, questions like if you have internet, if you are satisfied with the service they give you and if the house you live in is yours or you rent it ….things of that sort.

It was two or three in the afternoon, I’m not sure, but when I rang the bell I could not have imagined that a girl in pijamas would open the door. Her hair was uncombed but she looked pretty, and it seemed to me that I have seen her before someplace, maybe walking on the street, even though I was not sure if it wasn’t just my imagination.   

The truth is that I was impressed by her white toasted skin, her lazy eyes and straight, chestnut colored hair that shone like gold in the sun. What do you want?, Irina asked, and that’s when I told her that I was doing a survey for an important company. Would you like to come in and take a seat? Irina asked me smiling and I was just about to say no, that it was not necessary, when I realized that it would be foolish on my part and I accepted gladly.   

We sat down and she lit a cigarette, smoking in front of me. It was obvious that she had not eaten anything as she just got out of bed, and I thought to myself, this girl must be brimming with health to be smoking on an empty stomach. She started answering the questions on the survey and we got to the question of whether the house was hers or was simply renting it.  

I am the owner of this house, she said. My mother worked day and night to build this house and she left it to me. That is how our conversation began about her father, and before I realized I already smoked three cigarettes, knew her name, her likes and dislikes and felt I have fallen in love with her.

Here I said to myself You never imagined meeting a girl like this, did you? Irina started to talk of her father. He was selfish, incapable of making himself a cup of coffee, or even to flush the toilet. You should have seen him when my mother died, Irina said. He was pulling his hair, banging on the floor, throwing himself down crying like a baby, his friends worried that he would get a heart attack. But just a week later, he picked up this woman and went to live with her. Actually it was for the better, she said, cause men like that make me sick.   

I agreed with her and told her that on the contrary, I was very much able to take care of all domestic chores and was not inconsiderate like her father.  This seemed simply divine to Irina.  I can’t believe that you cook, iron, do the laundry, she said, you are really enchanting.

I was ready to tell her an endless number of my virtues, but I saw in  a moment that perhaps it was not appropriate because I had the impression  of falling into a mortal trap. Look sweetheart, whispered Irina in my ears, my mother built this house and I’m going to tell you the truth, cause I don’t like to beat around the bush:  I like you and I know you like me, so lets not say anything more; I’m sure you understand what I’m saying.

She said this after at least three hours of conversation, when we have gotten to know each other better, become quite close actually and now our knees were touching.  Look sweety, she whispered in my ear, I don´t think it was an accident that you rang my bell this afternoon, because while I was in bed I was thinking: Ah, if I only had someone to talk to, someone to love and someone I could surrender to body and soul!, and it so happened that the bell rang and there you were.

This was another déjà-vu, and I was not sure if I have lived this before or if it was something I imagined. Something inside was warning me be careful, be smart, go slowly! But another voice was encouraging me not to fear and to go ahead. Surely enough two weeks later I was married to Irina.

She would not even let me get up to make coffee; she would bring it to me in bed. Later she found a job and would get up early, while I stayed at home cooking, ironing and doing the laundry cause I couldn’t find a job. However, I got bored after a while and that is when Irina decided to do everything by herself, so I would have time to see my friends.

Irina smoked too much, worked too hard and did all the chores at home and this was deteriorating her health to the point that she became very thin and one day she couldn’t get out of bed.  I took her to the hospital where they told me that she was not only exhausted but had a fatal illness and it was impossible to save her. Irina faded away and died one afternoon in March, when the sun came through the window and painted the white tile of the living room an iodine yellowish color.

I couldn’t help recalling the image of the black spider receiving the fatal sting and the slight tremor of its posterior before it lay immobilized, dead with its legs contracted. And I couldn’t forget the wasp either in the spider web. I am sure that Irina and I were predestined; we were born for each other.   

Today I am alone in Irina’s house. Each day that goes by I am more paralyzed and I have no will to go out on the street. Irina did everything for me and without her I feel lost.  Each day my space becomes less. After the death of Irina I used to go for a walk at night, but later I was even afraid to turn the corner. Making a heroic effort I managed to walk a few blocks, but later I didn´t have the courage to go near the door.  I am afraid to face the world, feel terrified to confront life, I can’t overcome it, it’s something psychological I think. I have lived these last days between the bathroom and the living room, watching television all day.

With each day that goes by I need less space in the house and today it is limited to the bedroom which I shared with her; I don’t want to leave it, not even to go to the living room. Finally, I don’t have the courage to leave the bed even for a moment; I am afraid to put my feet on the ground.  I don’t know why I am so sure that at last it will be here that they will find my corps, here, in my bed, in Irina’s bed.